after his Resurrection And yet he had never any command to worship him in those plains either of Damascus or Libanus The particular Revelation of his presence there was a Monitor sufficient of his duty The person of Christ saith he visibly appearing to us in any place may be worshipped but there is not the same reason of believing and seeing All other good Christians before Dr. Stillingfleet judged revelation and believing to be a surer testimony in matters of Faith and Religion than our seeing is Let us hear one of our Christian Doctors speak whose testimony will serve for all the rest We have not declared unto you saith St. Peter the vertue and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in any fabulous mythology but as we have seen with our eyes his own Majesty For he received from God the Father honour and glory by a vâ—yce conveighed unto him from that glorious magnificence saying thus This is my well beloved Son in whom is my sole content And this voyce we our selves heard derived from Heaven when we were together with him in the holy Mount And yet have we more firm Prophetical words unto which while you attend as to a light shining in an obscure place ye shall do well until the dâ—y dawn and the morning Star arise in your hearts Thus speaks St. Peter our Lords great Apostle who though he beheld our Lords Glory in the Mount and heard there a voyce from Heaven unto his honour yet he prefers before both these private testimonies the one general Authority of Divine Revelation as firmer and more authentical than either or yet both of them put together as the sole standing unextinguishable general light set up in the obscurity of this our dark life for the assured guidance of all men As if he had plainly told us that our private sences may be deceived especially in matters of Apparitions and transitory Visions imparted unto some one or other apart But prophetick speech and revelation this is general and the same to all this is unerring and firm this stands for ever Here have we plainly good St. Peters mind in this affair But our Doctor resolves otherwise Divine revelation although we have it will not serve his turn But if he could see Christ appearing to him any where he could worship him then and would perhaps do it There is not the same reason with him in believing and seeing and that is indeed true St. Peter sayes so like wise But St. Peter says that believing is firmer than seeing Dr. Stillingfleet avers that seeing is firmer than believing He would be afraid to act that upon meer Divine Revelation which he will not fear to do upon sight Could he see Christ appear to him he would worship him but he cannot by any means worship him where Gospel testifies his presence and he sees it not Nay he avers a little afterward that he can kneel down and worship Christ any where excepting only in the Eucharist where his corporeal presence is the cause of adoration He can do it where no cause obliges him to it no peculiar cause exacting it But in no wise will he be brought to it where his presence known by Revelation stands to claim it Gospel the custome of Christianity quite spoiles his Devotion and keeps him from doing that homage to our Lord in the Church which he could freely give him in a Market-place And if any should reply quoth he that blessed is he who hath not seen and yet believed he may know that this saying of his is impertinent to this present purpose because it relates only unto the Resurrection This he speaks not considering that the said assertion of our Lord Blessed is he who sees not and yet believes is indefinite and consequently general equally appliable unto all things our Lord ever acted or taught us either to believe or hope for And as our Lord used it to his Disciples in the business of the Resurrection so must it hold good equally in that of his Incarnation Ascention or any thing else he either spoke or acted for us And though it be applyed unto one thing it doth not therefore follow that it relates to nothing else nor is pertinent to any other mystery but that We may well and properly say according to Dr. Stillingfleet Blessed is he who hath not seen and yet believed the Resurrection But we must not say Blessed is he that hath not seen and yet believed the Incarnation Ascention Christs miracles in curing the Deaf Dumb Lame and Blind in raising the dead and preaching eternal happiness to his followers Unto all this that saying is impertinent with him it relates to nothing at all but the Resurrection And have we not here a solemn and peculiar wit and one that may well challenge the whole world to come forth into the open field against him But we must note here that the Doctor does not grant any such Divine Revelation which may either clearly speak our Lords presence in the Eucharist or justifie our worship in it only he permits it to pass for disputation sake and avers that if there were any such Revelation yet would it not suffice to free us from Idolatry and this he does to give us an experiment of his wit And that experiment we have had and must be content with it till more come § 5. It is here granted saith he that in the celebration of the Euchaâ—ist we are to give a spiritual worship unto Christ as well as to the Father performing that religious Act with a due veneration of his Majesty and power with a thankfulness for his goodness a trust in his promises and a subjection to his supreme Authority We grant also that external reverence may be shown in the time of receiving the Eucharist in signification of our humble and thankful acknowledgment for his benefits Here be a great many good things granted us here and I take them thankfully In his first Chapter he was so Zealously hot that he would grant us nothing no not so much as to hang up such pictures in our Chambers as he has himself looking upon him in his own but can we get this grant of his ratified and sealed by all the Protestants in England If it were the Church of England would look the better for it Nay will not be himself what he has granted us to day revoke again to morrow The Doctor should do well to read over now and then his own grants and denyals For he is not so fixed in them that one dare take his word as I could easily specifie both in this and other particulars But I refrain from that work now as needless Sir to you at least we have as much here granted as adoration requires But I cannot perceive he will have any of it relate to ought subsisting in the Eucharist but only to the Author of it who is in Heaven upon a consideration of his benefits which is some part of Catholick truth
the Doctors Countenance quite differing from his heart For the Presses guarded enough before against Catholicks was presently within a month after his Book came forth so stoutly beset so frequently invaded so violently searched night and day especially by the industry of one of them who entring into the Printing-houses cried out aloud And what have ye here any thing against the Doctor Stilling fleet hah that what before was difficil and extreamly dangerous was now become impossible So that I believe no Catholick in England can do him the favour which the Doctor thirsts after so earnestly in his Lips He challenged the Papâ—sts for his Credit and stopt up their way for his Security He would first make the world believe they cannot answer him and then provides that they shall not This seems to be his mind And yet I think Sir there be few Protestant Gentlemen in England who desire not as earnestly as any Catholick to see some Reply to his Book So little do they think themselves concerned in a Scroll which neither defends their Religion nor hurts or touches ours wherein nothing is said but what might as well be spoken by a Mahomet an Jew or Pagan and the most part of that which is put to disable Catholick Religion diminishes Christianity it self Some of them offered themselves to print a Reply for us But they offered but words For they found that the Bishop durst not give a License to any of our Catholick Books onely so far as to secure the Printer from danger although the Doctor be a Foe to their Rank and Order and Catholick Religion a Friend This is truly Sir a very sad case that they can freely give one a License to defame men and yet dare not give others a License to clear themselves Doctor Cousins when he was in Paris spake up and down so freely against Catholick Religion that their Clergy hearing of it came to him and told him plainly That if he had ought to say against their Religion they would both get him a License from the Bishop to print his Book and themselves pay the whole charges and then answer him when they had done for his satisfaction But we poor Creatures can obtain no favour in our own Countrey no leave to speak or justifie our selves no License to print a Book for our defence when we are both scurrilously libelled and falsely slandered and imperiously challenged to answer Nor is there any open field for our poor Men to come forth into that I know of but Tybourn and that is perhaps the Doctor 's meaning It does mightily amaze our Catholicks all over the Land to have their Ears thus beaten with slanders which are both of a high nature and still notoriously false year by year without any end thereby to make us odious to our Neighbours and them to God Our blessed Lord have pity on us and either open if it may be thy will our Magistrates hearts towards us or stop the Ministers mouths against us that our good Name and Peace may return unto thy great Glory We are if we be siâ—ent proclaimed guilty and if we speak insolent What can we do Sir here but still commend our selves unto our heavenly Lord who miraculously preserves us We do either subsist after this life or not Our Protestant Countrey men must needs believe one of these two things Either some Religion is true or it is all a fiction If it be all aâ—fiction and there is no life to come then are they as guilty as we nay something more for they have taken away our Churches from us for themselves to dissemble in If there be a life to come and this everlasting then can there certainly be nothing of greater importance in this world than to know when many ways are pretended to it which of them is the most authentick and truest wherein we may be both happy and safe for ever Why then are we who are the first not permitted to speak while all others are permitted to blaspheme us If we prove to go amiss the danger is our own and if we be in the right it cannot be any danger unto them to know it All the positive things of Religion which any of them do keep they have them all from us we borrow nothing from them And the negative points which separate them from us seem to us as false and impious as they can possibly appear true to them They have as many Articles to believe as we only some of them which made the separation are affirmative to us and negative to them And one Affirmers word is to be taken in Judgment before ten Deniers And yet will they neither read our Books nor suffer us to print any when we are falsified and mis-interpreted and challenged and obliged to do it for fear I think our Religion should prove true All rejoyce when a Book is written against Popery but no man seeks to be informed They will have it by all means to be esteemed false be it in it self what it will or can be And in that strange prejudice men venture to die onely for the pleasure of a Minister and his Wife and Children who must needs have it so The occasion of this his present book intitled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry c. was it seems a question or two propounded unto Mr. Stilling fleet by I know not what Gentlewoman who having heard the Doctor say That Protestants if they turned Roman Catholicks would lose their Salvation told him That if Protestants say so then are they full as uncharitable as Papists themselves who aver the like of Protestants She therefore consults some Catholick Gentleman in the business I do not know whom neither But he it seems put into her hand two questions to show to Doctor Still in her next encounter First was Whether the same motives which secured one born and bred in the Catholick Church to continue in it might not also serve to secure a Protestant who convinced by those motives should embrace it The second was Whether it suffice to be a Christian in genere or it be also necessary to adjoyn to some Church of Christians in particular These be the two questions The second of these two questions the Doctor reâ—â—lves affiâ—matively I affirm saith he that a Christian by vertue of his being â—oâ— is â—ound to joyn â—e the Communion of some Church or Congregation in particular Thus he resolves it and speaks not a word more of that business Yet here we may take notice that the said Resolution of his is quite contrary both to a book of his called Irenicon written in the times of our late Anarchy and also to his first work written more lately against Popery For all the whole scope of both these books is to show that a Christian by vertue of his being so is not bound to joyn in the Communion of any one Church in particular or any Organical Body as he calls it And that because every such
holy Assemblies the great paramount work of Christianity especially at Mass But these men although moved unto that their exception by a Zeal not evil yet were they fain to yield at last unto the prevaling reasons of other Prelates which over bore their lesser ones Some other of our Catholick Doctors and Prelates would have had us to have used no Pictures that Jews and Pagans might not catch at that pretence to cavil against our Christianity as they did But all these submitted at last unto the prevailing part by whom they were made to understand that the inconveniences they urged were but imaginary and small the conveniences great and real There have been not a few who have excepted against much vocal Prayer because it took up too much of the time which would be better employed in the more principal work of prayer in spirit But yet could they not carry it although their reasons were very plausible and good because that high and Angelical prayer in spirit agreed not equally to all men or to any one consisting of flesh and blood equally at all times and places as vocal prayer does Some have disliked even our material Temples built up so sumptuously as they are because God immense and incomprehensible dwells not in buildings made by mans hands Heaven is his Seat and Earth his Footstool Yet could they not obtain that our Churches should be therefore pulled down or not built up Prayer-books were nothing at all in use amongst Christians in primitive times when they prayed almost altogether in spirit and used no other vocal prayer but that our Lord taught us And yet this hinders us not either to make such books or use them in following times Instead of our beads in wood or mettal they used in ancient times a bag of little stones by the emptying whereof they knew that they had said over our Lords prayer a hundred or perhaps three hundred times according as any one in his devotion had prefixed to himself every day of his life to do for Gods glory and service And there might be inconveniences pretended against our present heads especially those of gold and pearl But they will not be thrown away for that Our Church-musick has been more than once opposed and that by Prelates most holy and renowned men who deemed it an unsufferable lettance to the spiritual recollection which Christians ought above all things to a tend unto that they may have our Lords good Spirit and his holy operations in them especially when they meet together at their holy Synaxis But Church-musick is kept up to this day notwithstanding their reason against it which is very good for other reasons no less good and great than it specified and urged by the far greater number of pious Prelates for it And yet if all or the greater part of Catholick Prelates meeting together should take away all these outward helps from us beads and books singing and Church-musick pictures and Churches and all finding the inconveniences to be now greater than they have been and weightier than any convenience we have by them though the thing would seem very strange to us yet ought we I think to obey them resignedly and attend wholly unto our spiritual meditations either alone or in our Eucharistian meetings and to the other good works commanded orcounselled us in Gospel in expectation of our future bliss and eternal happiness in God which can never be taken from us though all things of discipline or helps in government be alterable § 4. And now it is time to turn back and view the subject of this Chapter that we may see if any one period in it be true and pertinent He tells us first that Papists worship God by Images which logically is not true Then that a representation of the invisible Deity cannot be made which is impertinent Then that the worship given to God by an Image does not terminate upon God which is neither pertinent nor true And so he proceeds on to the very end of his Chapter with sounds either empty or false or both neither heeding or caring what he says so he do but mention learned Papists and wiser Heathens which may help to butterress up his reputation I cannot but remember here the shadow or Ghost in Virgil which Juno made of Aeneas to draw her beloved Turnus out of the field It seemed to fight and threaten and press on and give back But nothing at all was done really Tum dea nube cave tenuem sine viribus umbram In faciem Aeneae visu mirabile monstrum Dardaniis ornat telis clypeumque jubasque Divini assimilat capitis dat inania verba Dat sine mente sonum gressusque effingit euntiâ— Morte obita quales fama est volit are figuras Aut quae sopitos deludunt somnia sensus Ac primas laeta ante acres exultat imago Irritatque virum telis ac voce lacessit And such a shadow of controversie is all this present Chapter and his whole book also a foming face and feeble force big but empty words rumbling and yet insignificant sounds quâ—ck profers and no progress a daring shadow or armed Ghost without either body or bones And yet such a thing as defies the whole Catholick Church steps out from the rest of his Camp and defies them all alone defies them both in letters syllables words And this is all For he touches no body Because Catholâ—cks by the advice and allowance of their Prelates do keep amongst them the representation of the divine Founder of their Religion who appeared amongst us by his unspeakable Love in form of a Man and of some of his holy followers in the way he chalked out for us therefore he talks of Moloch and Milcom Osiris and Isis Chemosh and Astaroth Baal Peor and Rimmon golden Bulls and Remphan the Calves of Dan and Bethel And what is all this for Wy to over-run Papists and beat us down How can it do that These Idols were set up by Heathens in opposition to the true God and in the very place of God as darkness in the night time is in the place of light This is true What then and therefore I must not forsooth keep the figure of Jesus Christ or of S. Paul or other domestick of my own religion for my own incouragement therein What likness what consequence is there in all this Which is Remphan and where is Moloch Which is the Calf and where is the Bull Nay and here it is worth our observing too that Protestant Gentlement and Ladies of England Ministers and Bishops too have all pictures in their Chambers as well as Catholicks even those of our holy Apostâ—es and Martyrs as well as others And there they are good and lawful figures but in our Chambers they are Bulls of Basan and Calves of Bethel among us Catholick Pictures are against Moses his Law but theirs are not so Although they be representations both in Heaven above and Earth below and Waters
That there were both in the Council of Frankford and Nice too some Catholick Prelates who propounded difficulties against images cannot be denied For when ever any Council meets together about any affair they dispute pro and con both for and against it that the Prelates having all things set before their Eyes that can be said on both sides might be the better inabled to determine So doubtless it was done by the Apostles themselves in their great Council held in Jerusalem about Circumcision where inquisitio magna facta est great inquisition disputation and examination was made about it All this is certain enough But yet that either in Frankford or any where else were made after this their dispute any final or conclusive declaration against the â—se of images amongst Christians or that Charles the Emperor should either write Books or cause any to be written either against images or the Council of Nice wherein they had been then established or summon that Council of Frankford to withstand that other of Nice unanimously concluded by the Prelates and confirmed by the general Pastour this is a thing so apparently false and fictitious that there needs no more but the knowledge of those very Persons and times to prove it so Charles the Great was one that adored the Roman Church whereof he was himself a member above all Emperours that ever was before or since his time The Council of Frankford wherein were little less then three hundred Catholick Prelates was peaceably concluded and no commotion followed upon it which must needs have risen if they had condemned another Council lately celebrated and confirmed by all pastoral authority Nor was that Frankford Council ever annulled or any way censured either by P. Adrian or any after him Add to this that the said Council was both begun and finished under the same Pope Adrian and his Legates Theophilact and Stephanus who had presided lately in the said Nicen Council where the lawful use of images was established It cannot possibly be imagined that the same Pope and Presidents should conclude in Frankford quite contrary to what they ordered in Nice but seven or eight years before It is also certain that the said Council of Frankford was summoned and assembled not about images only as the Doctor imagines but about the question of our Lord Christ his filiation as all antient histories testifie against Foelix and Elipand two Spanish Bishops and Claudius Taurinensis who teaching that our Lord is rather to be called an adoptive than natural Son of God raised much commotion in Spain and France and this novelty of theirs was first condemned at Ratisbone and afterwards at Frankford For Foelix after his first condemnation repaired to the Emperour Charles his Court who then wintered at Rheginum and there submitting to the Prelates was sent thence to the presence of Pope Adrian where in the Cathedral of St. Peter he revok'd his Errour Elipand hearing of his submission grew more violent and by his books both regained Foelix again and disturbed all Germany as he had France and Spain before And now to prevent the infection the Pope and Charles the Emperour agreed to bring together a conciliar Assembly of Prelates in Frankford wherin presided Theophylact and Stephanus who had lately concluded the second Council of Nice Whence it clearly appears that Doctor Stillingfleet quite mistakes the businesse Now if the same Pope and his very self-same Legates presided first in the Nicen Council and then in Frankford as the Doctor acknowledges we may rationally enough conclude that the Nicen decrees about images lately finished in the East were made known to the West by their acceptation and promulgation at Frankford where the business of filiation was decided For this is indeed very true But no way can we think that the same Presidents would now undo what they had done a little before And that this is indeed the whole truth in this business may be yet confirmed by the authority of the Council of Senon kept not long after which in their 14. decree thus speaks Carolus magnus Francorum Rex Christianissimus in Francorum furdensi conventu ejusdem erroris iconomachorum suppressit insaniam quam infelicissimus quidam Faelix in Gallias Germanias invexerit By this testimony it appears that Felix over and above his capital errour about Christ our Lords adoption was an iconomachus too or adversary of images and suffered at Frankford for both his errours which is not unlikely by the testimony of Platina and Paulus Emilius For Platina in the life of Pope Adrian Bienniâ— post saith he Theophylactus Stephanus Episcopi insignes Adriani nomine Francorum Germanâ—rum Synâ—dum habuerunt in qua Synodus quam septimam Graeci appellabant haeresis Feliciana de tollendis imaginibus abrogata est And P. Emilius in his second book de gestis Francorum speaking of that Council of Frankford Et imaginibus saith he suus honor restitutus est The like may be proved out of Blondus Sabellicus and other historians So that all these things rightly considered and put together will sufficiently convince his relation of the Frankford Council to be fictitious and groundless If the Council were assembled by the agreement of the Pope and Emperour then not of the Emperour against the Pope If to suppress Elipand Claudius and Felix then not the Nicen Prelates If under the same Pope and Presidents which presided lately in Nice then not against any thing determined and concluded in Nice If upon the motive of Elipands errour against our Lord's filiation then was not an image the principal occasion of it If Felix were there condemned for his opposition to images then were not images condemned If Charles the Great one of the devourest to the Roman Church that ever raigned so much swayed in that Council then would he not suffer the Roman Church to be there affronted and censured If an upright Catholick he would not in spiritual affairs gainsay the Prince of Prelates who had so lately set his hand and seal to Nicen definitions In a word if Charles the Great called that Council at Frankford as the Doctor affirms then without all doubt was that ratified there which was established at Nice a little before For Charles was as much a Roman Catholick as either Stephen and Theophilact or the Pope himself and knew as well as any man what obedience is due to the definitions of a Council rightly consummated and confirmed as that of Nice was Binius the great Collector of the Councils proves at large that all this story of the Carolin books and Frankford Synod assembled against that of Nice is a groundless fiction And so do Alanus Surius Vasquez and several other Doctors And they are all amazed whence the rumour should arise and by whom and in what age or time But I cannot wonder much at it since I heard lately of a French Gentleman who affirms and shows in a Book of his that the English
never conquered France nor ever gave them any one overthrow in battle And when he was told by a neighbour of this his notorious falshood O quoth he my book two hundred years hence may pass for an authority as good as any that speak otherwise And so I think there may possibly be such impious men who out of their present malice may furnish out a lie to insect posterity in after times But he must be an unconscionable wicked man who can do such a deed § 12. Primitive Christians never used any Images as the learned of the Church of Rome acknowledge He had done well to let us know who are these learned of the Church of Rome But he will not do us that favour And we must still take his word for the judgment of the learned sort always Nay we must believe too that he is ever on the learned sorts side It is indeed unlikely that figures of those holy Persons who first spread our Christianity in the World and made it good both by their lives and death should be frequent in primitive times First because those same figures although they be honourable memories both of their persons and pieties unto whose zeal and goodness we are so much indebted yet are they not so necessarily requisite unto any such purpose but that the Church can be without them Secondly because primitive Christians had not amongst them any such plenty of Artists as we have now a days to make them Thirdly because Pagans would have mis-interpreted the end and meaning of such figures as this our Doctor does in the midst of day light But that in those primitive times there was never any Christian so ill affected towards those pious representations as is Mr. Still appears sufficiently by the testimony of those ancient Doctors who mention incidentally the customs of those primitive times especially about the figure of the Cross which they made continually on their fore-head and breasts as a preservative against evil and kept it all over their houses particularly in their Bed chambers and closets either framed in wood or stone or painted in colours There be notwithstanding the deluge of time which swallows up all things some monuments yet left among us of the respect which those Christians then bore both to the reliques and figures of their Saints The very Chair of St. James the Apostle and first Bishop of Jerusalem Eusebius in the seventh book of his history attests that it was had in great esteem and veneration in all times even to his own days Accordingly S. Clement in his sixth book of apostolical constitutions gives this general testimony of that kind of piety in those primitive Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The very relicks saith he of Saints now living with God are not without their veneration Some remainds there be also of an apostolical Council at Antioch gathered out of S. Pamphilus and Origen wherein caution is given both against the Jews malice and Gentile idols by opposing the Images of Jesus and his holy Followers against them both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignatius also that worthy apostolical Prelate the third from St. Peter the Apostle in the Chair at Antioch thus signally speaks of the sign of the Cross in his Epistle to Philadelphia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Prince of this World saith he rejoyces when any one denies the Cross for he knows the confession of the Cross to be his own ruin this is the Standard against his power which so often as he either sees or hears it spoken of he shakes and trembles thus speaks that glorious Prelate The above-named Eusebius testifies also in the same book of his history that he saw even in his time the brazen Statue of our Lord Jesus which was set up in Paneada in Palestin unto his honour by the woman cured by him of the bloody flix so notable for miracles that they were spoke of all the World over This Statue of our Lord when Julian the apostate caused it to be thrown down and his own to be set up in place thereof a strange sodain fire from Heaven consumed the Statue of Julian as Zozomenus in his fist book witnesses And of the same brazen Statue of Christ our Lord write also Theophilact Damascenus and several others And here we may take notice by the way that charity and devotion set up statues to our Lord but apostasy malice pulls them down And whether Doctor Stillingfleet who busies himself so much to cast down the Images of Jesus our Lord and his holy followers would refuse to have his own set up for his great pains either in Guildhall or Cheapside he knows best himself Truly if that were done I do not believe that any of his neighbours or Countreymen would take him then for a Calf of Bethel Of the Images of the Virgin Mary made by St. Luke there is much fame amongst the antient writers in particular Theodorus Simeon Metaphrastes and Nicephorus The last of which does also attest in his second book that the said precious Relick was carried up and down the whole habitable World of Christians who looked upon it with a most greedy and unsatisfied devotion The same Nicephorus adds moreover how Constantius the Son of Constantine translated the Relicks of St. Luke from Thebes of St. Andrew from Achaia and of St. Timothy from Ephesus unto Constantinople with a vast concourse and joy of Christian People and there with all honour and reverential respect inshrined them in a Cathedral Church dedicated to the Apostles Of the Image also of Christ our Lord imprinted by himself in a Handkercher applyed to his own face and sent to King Abagarus who requested his Picture write Evagrius Metaphrastes and otâ—ers Of another Image of Jesus Christ made by Nicodemus which being ignominiously crucified by the Jews wrought many wonderous miracles we have a solemn testimony of Athanasius cited in the fourth action of the seventh great Synod And all this testifies that Christians in primitive times were affected towards holy Pictures and Relicks as Catholicks are at this day at least not such haters and vilifiers of them as is Dr. Stillingfleet Nor can I conceive how any of the learned in the Church of Rome should be ignorant of these things Nay the very Church of England which this Doctor pretends to defend hath lately put the Images of the Apostles and Primitive Saints into their Common-prayer-book and Primers printed by authority So that if the Doctor had opened his eyes he might have seen clear enough that all this talk of his is now unseasonable however it might have passed well enough in the beginning of the furioâ—s reformation when they pulled down all sacred figures and suffered none to be set up either sacred or common When Husbands broke their Wives pictures and Wives their Husbands least they should give ill example to St. Peter and Paul or incourage any of the twelve Apostles to creep up again upon their Walls
Lord must needs then have appeared among us on this our Earth in vain For both himself and all the whole truth he delivered us was in his time and all following ages contradicted round about and opposed and rendred thereby doubtful by Jews and Pagans and no less by those people who Apostatized from that Catholick Society than any other their outward and forrein Adversaries And I suppose the Giantly witts of former ages amongst the Rabbies and Philosophers did with somwhat a more stronger shot from sâ—nce and reason invade our Christian assurance than any is here discharged out of his Elder potgun by our doubt-making Doctor This is uncertain Church is slighted Fathers are otherwise interpreted there are now who deny it c. What news in all this can trouble me who could not but foresee if I did but use my common reason that all these things would happen It is not to be expected that all men should believe at once And he that believes not will both conceive doubtâ— and urge them both hare a believer and persecute him too perhaps to death without any doubt at all These doubts and oppositions and 〈◊〉 raised against Faith can have no other effect in a true believer but to strengthen and spread the roots of it more wide and deeper in his heart There was a notable Propheâ—ie of our Lord uttered by St. Siâ—â—â—on a worthy great Personage at his birth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Jesus is set both for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign to be contradicted Both Christ and his whole Faith delivered by him is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Signe and eminent Trophy set up in the eyes of the whole world by all grumbling unbelievers to be enviously glanced at malitiously traduced and all possible ways opposed and persecuted O but what if this Faith of Papists should prove to be false saith he then cannot Papists be excused from Idolatry as their own learned men acknowledg This is even wondrous true whether our own learned men who are still brought in by him for the imbellishment of his own Clarkship do acknowledg it or no. And so if Jesus Christ himself should prove not to be what he is believed by Catholicks then would the Doctor also who is ready to worship him upon the account of that our Faith declared and maintained by the Catholick Councel of Nice be an Idolator too A false consequence may easily flow from a false and impossible supposition But wise men are more apt to consider their own danger than other mens And the Doctor if he were indeed in earnest and heeded rather his own Salvation then vain glory should rather ask his own soul I should think what if this Catholick Faith should be true Catholicks have for it clear Gospel universal tradition all Christian Churches in the world believing it and that in all ages the Doctor has nothing but his own sence and John Calvin who fell from that Church to plead for him Were not the Manichees censured as Idolaters for worshiping the Sun in the Firmament believing it to be God They well deserved to be censured For that was a fancy of their own grounded upon that word he hath set his Tabernacle in the Sun drawn unto a fond sence by their private interpretation contrary to the Authority of the Church and Pastors whom they would not obey when they checked and reproved them for it Even as now our present Protestants do put their various fanciful interpretations of signe and figure upon the words of Gospel This is my Body which the whole Church of God out of which they fell ever loved and reverenced as the most clear evidence of a Heavenly Legacy the truest and reallest that was ever made to man and of highest concernment to him Only the Maâ—â—chees judged by their erring surmise that our Lords Body was really there where the Church taught them it was not Protestants think it not really there where the same Church teaches them it is And thus have we passed through those handful of doubts which the Dr. casts before our eyes to perswade us we are not sure where he knows we are immoveable And we may worship our Lord in the Eucharist still as we did before for Stillingfleet § 10. The residue of this Chapter bewraies our third Catholick Idol Saints namely and their invocation There be but three or four words in it of substance if a falshood may be said indeed to subsist at all dilated so by his pretty rhetorick as if he had a mind to teach young Lawyers how to plead in a false cause The Heathens saith he were not blamed by Christian Doctors for their ill choice of worship Venus for example or Vulcan who were wretches but for giving divine honour to any but the true God as Papists do Here are two untruths and both notorious ones For neither do Catholicks give divine honour to Saints their fellow Servants and Domesticks of Faith neither is it true that antient Christian Doctors did not blame the Heathens for their ill choyce of worship as monuments yet extant various and weighty monuments do witness both in St. Austins Civitate Dei and elsewhere Wise Heathens worshiped one God supreme heeding the rest as inferiour powers under him as Papists do their Saints These be two more falshoods as is already declared in part For neither are Saints any inferiour powers to help us from themselves as the Sun Moon or Mercury but friends of God in Heaven and welwishers to their Brethren on Earth ready as Onias Job Abraham and Daniel and all the good Angels both to desire and rejoyce at their conversion and peace Neither did the wise Heathens worship one God supreme as St. Paul expresly testifies in his Epistle to the Christians at Rome where he tells them that even the Pagan Philosophers whom Dr. Stilling fleet calls the wiser Heathens held the truth in injustice that they did not glorifie nor worship the supreme God that they became as vain in their thoughts and deeds as any even the unwiser sort of them that pretending to be wise or wiser Heathens they became starke Noddies that they transformed Gods truth discerned even by his works of Creation into a lye and that they worshiped and served the Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not the Creator I know well enough that Varro with some others of the Heathens about Rome where all sorts of Idols were brought together for the renown and pomp of that conquering City began to plead thus and excuse their Idolatry as the Doctor has learned by him here to do But did St. Austin admit that plea or was there ever any Christian who opposed it not together with all our holy Prophets and Apostles What subordination was there amongst the Egyptian Cyrian and Chaldean Idols or what Country ever was there among the Heathens who looked not upon their own Idol-God as Supreme Papists build Churches to Saints offer Sacrifice
for their direction and comfort this have Catholicks full and clearly delivered them out of holy writ and all their whole duty both towards God and their neighbour in their own language Nor are they ignorant of any thing that may appertain either to sobriety justice or piety The whole sacred story of our Lords incarnation passion and ascension all his sacraments all the whole counsels and precepts of God which may concern salvation all his promises and threats they have them all made known unto them clear and disintangled from the various tropes and schemes of rhetorick or logick so interwoven in the sacred authors writings that it puzzles the greatest clerk with all his literature and science to understand the connexions transitions of discourse objections ambâ—guous phrases hebraisms and grecisms and such-like obscurities that occur or to find out the drift and purpose and meaning of places which things do and have too too often caused mistakes and heresies in the world And all the sacred truths which it concerns them to practise the people have still been put in mind of by their priests both in private and publick to their daily edification Nor was it ever the fashion in Christianity to throw the bible among people and so leave them to themselves as the Reformers have done Most certain it is that the word and will and counsel of God consists not in letters and syllables much less in the tropes and modes of rhetorick and logick which do variously obscure the sacred writ above all books that have ever been penned by man but in the sence and meaning which is easily and securely conveighed It is no hard matter for example to understand that all men both Jews and Gentiles who have ever come to the knowledge of Christ were beholding to Gods mercy meerly to Gods mercy for that their conversion and the life of grace they had by it which is the scope of S. Pauls epistle to the Romans although to give an account how S. Paul deduces and proves this truth in that his epistle what arguments he doth either establish or refute what modes and figures he uses what tropes and rhetorical schemes be in his expressions how he passes from one thing to another in his discourse and by what art of ratiocination the context of his whole letter is knit together this is neither easie to understand nor necessary to any mans salvation to discern And yet the epistle without all this knowledge cannot be understood or rightly apprehended And if it be conceived falsly mistakes and heresies will rise The will and mind and word of God this all people are to know what he hath commanded what counselled what threatned what promised what our Lord did and suffered for us and what we are to suffer and do for him that we may be partakers of his glory But the humanity and philosophy that lies couched in holy writ vulgar people neither can nor have need to dive into it Nor was the holy scripture ever penned or intended for the people immediately but for the bishops and priests of God who are to watch over them for their good and from their lips they are to receive knowledge Christians were ever fed like pigeons by the mouth until they were so fledg that they could now fly feed themselves Once come to maturity they may read what they please on Gods name and the more they attend to lection of holy scriptures the better it is so they apply all unto action and sanctification of their lives And again in an epistle of mine its written thus I have heard many great protestant divines ingeniously acknowledge that divine comfort and sanctity of life requisite to salvation which religion onely aims at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the customs of the Roman Church which gives the sense life and meaning of Gods word unto people without the husk of the formal letter than by the way of Protestants which exhibits it to people hidden under the hard shell able to break peoples teeth Religion consists not in reading but doing to be had by heart and not in the lips that way is tedious and barren this fruitful and easie Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine duties into two words the great apostle into one and both of them made all to consist in practice If the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all Catholicks the chief particles of divine epistles those I mean which are of general concernment books of sacred instructions and meditations upon the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberless adjoyned to the rites of examination of conscience continual and daily use of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things our Lord hath wrought for us throughout the year which all men by law are tied to observe may not give sufficient acquaintance of what concerns salvation and enough to promote people towards it I am to seek what it is that can Sure I am that the world was first converted without any books at all and many millions of good Christians both lived piously and died happily who never saw the Bible What further good may it do to read the letter of S. Pauls epistle to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein are treated questions and cases that are now quite vanished out of the world and other theological discourses which vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know What more of good can accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to practise or so much as heat of than by the meer substance of Gods will and my own duty once well understood and daily applied unto action answerable good deeds What is there now in England when the said scripture letter is set open unto every eye any more of peace or charity piety or justice than in former Catholick times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those antient Catholick times They flock'd every day to their Churches there to pay meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles day night all over the land they built all our churches which we have remaining at this day amongst us and as many more now razed pulled down they founded and endowed our Universities establish'd our laws set out tithes glebe land for the clergy built hospitals erected corporations and in a word did all the good things which we find done by our forefathers for our good in this our native kingdom But what do we now what have we still been doing since the reformation quid agitur in Angliâ consulitur de religione Continually are we making and unmaking our religious rites
owners excluded by violence do preach Fifthly it set out the glebe land and tyths whereon they live Sixthly it founded our Corporations raised our famous Universities and furnished their Libraries with books Seventhly it has preicribed and delivered us the forms not of the Sacraments onely but of any sort either of ecclesiastical or civil instalments Eighthly it has triumphed over Jews and Pagans notwithstanding their power and furious opposition by Gods blessing and her own innocence prudence and constancie and laid asleep the very heresies that have risen up against her in all ages out of her own bowels All these things that I may speak no more are not the works of fanaticism they are not the properties power or gestures of fanaticks Fanaticism rises up suddenly and dies like a mushrom utters a fond defiance and so vanishes destroys but builds nothing chatters a little like a moon calf and is seen no more § 2. That our Doctor may proceed somewhat doctor-like he tells us in the begining of this his Chapter what he means by fanâ—ticism By it saith he I understand an enthusiastick way of religion or resisting authority under pretence of religion This is his desiartion of it But whether it be one definition or two it is not easie to say Indeed and truth it is no definition at all but onely an obscure dark wording of things so purposely ordered that he may put what he pleases in the circle of fanaticism besides himself It is saith he an enthusiastick way of religion But what is enthusiastick what does way mean in these our affairs and what is a way of religion A definition ought to be plain and familiar without either amphibology or trope and more intelligible than the thing defined This is not so Enthusiasm in Greek is but the same thing as Inspiration Were then the Apostles and Prophets who were inspited and taught that their inspired way of religion the fanaticks here spoken of or no Secondly what is meant by way Is it a way chalked out for a man by his just and legal guids or a way invented by himself This is a main business and perhaps the very essence of fanaticism and yet it is not here exprest Thirdly what is a way of religion Is it religion it self or some certain fanciful gestures in the exercise of it or some odd mode in defending it or some peculiar manner of applying it unto the conduct of our lives A clergy man may either in a pulpit or at an altar have many simple wild gestures and yet be a sound Christian for all that But is such a one to be understood here to have an enthusiastick way of religion He who makes it a part of his religion to defame his innocent neighbours wrongfully persuading people that he does God good service therein is this man a fanatick and yet he practises a very mad way of religion To side first with our English prelacie and when it is overborn by unlawful violence to turn unto them who overthrew it and as soon as it is reestablished to come back again to it is this fanaticism I am sure it is a mad way of religion He that disables his own Protestant Bishops in one book being a Protestant himself and in another inveighs heavily against some Jesuists for resisting their Papist Bishops whom himself also does not approve is this man a fanatick yea or no And yet he follows and treads a very strange mad way of religion So that obscure general and tropical words are so far from keeping him out that they include rather and hem in Dr. Still himself and wholly inclose him in his own circle of faâ—aticism Again his other part or other whole definition of fanaticism A resisting authority under a pretence of religion is obscure enough too For there be many sorts of resisting and many sorts of authority and many sorts of pretences and many religions pretended and yet not all of them fanatick All Protestants in their first reformation resisted all authority of the whole Catholick world both ecclesiastical and civil and that under pretence of religion a new way of religion invented by themselves opposite to the Catholick way wherein they had all been born and bred Are all these and their successors unto this very day fanaticks or no He will say no perhaps because they had good reason to do it But do not Quakers whom Dr Still speaks openly to be fanaticks say also that they have good reason to withstand and desert our Protestant English Church O but no body says so but themselves Neither did any but those first Protestâ—nts say they had any reason at all but the whole Catholick world rose up and condemned them So that we have got but little light by this definition of his left wholly in as much obscurity as ever he was himself after he had been puzling among the Schoolmen Truth is we are neither to seek into logick or into dictionaties for the meaâ—ing and signification of fanaticks or fanaticism For the word as it relates to religion here in England is of voluntary imposition never before applied unto any Sects of Christianity till my Lord General Monk used it in Parliament some few years ago to express those men who under pretence of their new invented doctrines contemned and rose up against all authority and waged war and overthrew both Church and State before them unto the utter impoverishing and desolation of the Land These our great General never to be mentioned in England without honour called Fanaticks that is to say mad foolish blasted men who preferring their own instable conceits for they had now fallen and shivered into many Sects before solid obedience unto Church and State rooted up what ever was fixt for the general good of all men and contenting themselves with the pillage of the Land could settle nothing at all themselves either of religion or government in the end These he called Fanaticks And in his great prudence he made choice of that new word upon hopes that every one of these several sects would lay the epither upon his neighbour as indeed they did And amongst these men yea the very chief and ringleaders of them did Mr. Still our Doctor joyn himself And yet does he here in his own little subtilty lay the whole ignominy now upon the Quakers as a burthen for the younger brothers to carry And yet were they hardly born when the work of fanaticism in England was accomplished By all this we may easily discern what fanaticism means But yet we must notwithstanding content our selves with the definition he has given us so far as it can bear any fixt or certain sense and so proceed § 3. The Church of Rome saith he is both ways fanatical both in an enthusiastick way of religion and resisting authority A man would wonder how this charge should be made good of a Catholick Church whose religion is ever settled and delivered by tradition from generation to generation still