the dead as is at large asserted in the sixth Session of the Council of Trent wherein ends the whole design of all their impious absurd devices in this Point They make Christ to sacrifice him and they sacrifice him to gain Money by it And how much this derogates from that all-sufficient never to be repeated Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross as St. Paul shews at large in Epist ad Hebr. is sadly apparent But on these things I am not to enlarge This is enough to shew the irreconcilableness of our conscience persuaded as it is with their way of daily Worship SECT III. Of their Worship to Images and Saints WHerein is also very offensive to us that notwithstanding God's express command of not worshipping any Images of any thing in heaven or under heaven they publickly and confessedly render to the Cross and to the Images of the ever Blessed Trinity that highest worship of Latreia which they themselves own to be due to God alone And that to the Images of Saints they give such Religious respects and services as that nothing more of outward Worship can be paid to God himself They carry them about in pomp with Hymns and high Celebrations they burn Candles to them and to them make Offerings they kiss them they burn Incense to them they kneel and prostrate themselves before them and before them make their Vows and Prayers going to visit them in long Pilgrimages and from them and what they represent expecting all sorts of blessings All this is to be seen not only in the practice of vulgar superstitious People But also in their Rubricks and Liturgies and their daily publick Worship performed by their grave and devout Clergy And that the evil of this may not be seen by the common sort of people they keep under a Bushel under severe restraints and prohibitions the light of Gods Word which in many places would shew them how provoking and odious such a Worship is to God who declares Isa xlii 8. I am the Lord that is my name and my glory will I not give to another neither my praise to graven Images And in such Books of instruction and devotion as are used by the People they take out of the Ten Commandments the second wherein God expresly forbids their practice appropriates to himself all Religious Worship and declareth himself highly Jealous of it Further Whereas God who is infinitely exalted in a Throne of Glory and Dominion above the highest creatures is also infinitely good and beneficent and so not only requires but also infinitely deserves all the Religious love and services our hearts are capable of having given us our being and all things that we either enjoy or hope and even given us his own dear Son when no Saint sued for it in behalf of Mankind and made him do all that was to be done for us even die and bear the sorrows and shame of the Cross that we might say with the Apostle Rom. viii 32. He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things When God hath done all this and his blessed Son our dear Redeemer hath merited for us all that we can want and commanded us to bring to him all our Requests and Petitions Telling us that it is by him alone we must have access unto the Father and that he alone can save them to the uttermost that come to God by him being ever living to make Intercession for them When thus God hath done all that could be done that we might be obliged to none but to him and have dependence on none else is it not strangely ungrateful and provoking to see men seek for thousands of Mediators and Friends in the Court of Heaven to speak and plead for them As if either God were averse to hear their Prayers or the Intercession and Merits of our Blessed Saviour were not sufficient to prevail but in conjunction with those of the Saints For so we find in most of their publick Prayers that they offer them in the name of all or of some particular Saints and expect for their sakes to be heard confiding much in their Merits and Mediation And very frequently mentioning them to God as motives why he should grant their Petitions Numberless are the places where these or the like expressions are used Vt ejus sancti cujusdam fulti patrociniis ad coelestia regna mereamur pervenire Vt sanctis tuis intervenientibus digneris c. ut cujus natalitia colimus ejusdem protectione gaudeamus c. Beatorum N. N. nos festa tueantur corum commendet oratio c. Ejus intercedentibus meritis ab omnibus nos absolve peccatis c. The absolution of Penitents on Maundy Thursday may serve for all Precibus meritis Beatae Mariae semper virginis Beati Michaelis Archangeli c. In English thus God Almighty pity pardon and save you by the Prayers and Merits of the blessed Virgin Mary of St. Michael the Archangel of St. John the Baptist of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul and of all the Saints Amen And so according to these great benefits they receive as they think by means of the Saints they make to them suitable returns having invented many ways to requite their obligations and making them sharers with God in all their religious respects of which take these instances In their daily Masses they make their Confession to the Saints as to Almighty God see their Confiteor they frequently mention the merits of the Saints especially of those whose Reliques are under the Altar they profess in the Communion to venerate the memory of all Saints and for their sakes in the Post-Communion desire in several forms that their oblation of Christ may be acceptable to God or salutary to them or the like And whereas they declare that the honour of a sacrifice is peculiar to God alone and is by them reserved for him Yet we find that they cannot forbear to bring in the Saints for a share In the form of Intention before the Mass The Priest professeth to offer that and all other Sacrifices with all the good Works Merits Prayers and Praises in Heaven and Earth in memory of our blessed Saviours Passion and to the honour and exultation of the blessed Virgin and of all heavenly Angels and Saints Ad laudem quoque exultationem Beatissimae Virginis Mariae coelestiumque Angelorum sanctorum atque sanctarum signanter N. N. aliorum sanctorum Nunc semper hoc omnia alia sacrificia officia orationes Sacrificare intendo propono c. And to be as good as his word in the Celebration it self afterwards the Priest hath this Prayer Suscipe sancta Trinitas hanc oblationem quam tibi offerimus in memoriam passionis resurrectionis ascensionis Jesu Christi Domini nostri in honore beatae Mariae semper virginis beati Johannis Baptistae
Christianity seeks only to serve God and save his own soul can break Communion with this Church if he be within its Precincts Or will not rather judge it as much his duty to joyn with it as to separate from Rome A Government and Order and a Liturgy of necessity there must be all Christian all Reformed Churches have and maintain them to prevent Confusions Prophaness and Innovations such as are here amongst us established oblige to nothing that God hath forbid under them we may be vertuous and Religious in the highest degree and ought therefore to be meek and peaceable thankful to God that he hath graciously freed us from those Romish impositions before mentioned They that would break those Rules that are now fix'd and established either have little value for true Christian Religion or are willing to make way for Popish Innovations or will make it appear that some tempers are so ungovernable that nothing can hold them but that Yoke and Tyranny of which I am now to speak CHAP. III. How the Inquisition came to be established and first of the Oaths and Excommunications wherewith they tie the Consciences of men IT is not for denying any Article of the Christian Faith that we like our fore-fathers are bloudily persecuted where-ever the Popes power can reach Neither is it that we worship a False God or are any ways impious against the True one Father Son and Holy Ghost It is for rejecting that Romish Creed and Worship whereof I treated before And it was not to maintain Christianity but those corruptions that Inquisition was invented and used with so much rigour Any one that hath read the Life and Doctrine of our blessed Lord will easily judge that cruelties are destructive of her Religion and cannot be fit Instruments to propagate or maintain it But the maintaining of that formidable Empire and Dominion the Pope and his Clergy have got into their hands requires they should proceed with that inexorable severity they practise against them that dissent from those Doctrines on which is grounded their power therefore they oblige all that have any Jurisdiction among them by a strict Oath of Allegiance to be the Popes Subjects and to endeavour all possible ways to make others be so Thus Ego N. electus Ecclesiae vel Monasterii N. ab hac hora in antea fidelis obediens ero Beato c. I N. elect of such a Church or Monastery from henceforth will be faithful and obedient to blessed Peter the Apostle and to the Holy Roman Church and to our Lord Pope N. and to his lawful Successors I will give no counsel or consent that they should lose Life or Limb or be any way injured upon any account I will never to their detriment reveal to any what counsel they shall trust me with by their Nuncios or themselves I will help them against any man saving my Order to keep and maintain the Roman Papacy and the Regalities of St. Peter I will assist their Legates going and coming and contribute to their necessities I will endeavour to preserve defend and encrease the authority rights honours and priviledges of the Holy Roman Church and of our Lord the Pope and of his Successors And I will no way contribute but rather detect and hinder any thing that should be to their prejudice With all my strength will I observe and cause to be observed by others all the Rules of the Fathers and all Apostolick i. e. Papal Decrees and Commands Provisions and Reservations All Hereticks Schismaticks and Rebels to our said Lord the Pope and to his Successors will I oppose and persecute I will come when called to Synods and once in three years come to Rome And I will give an account to our Lord the Pope of my Pastoral Office and of all things that pertain to the state of my Church and Clergy All Papal Injunctions I will humbly receive and most diligently execute c. So help me God and these holy Evangils Here is a good hold already whereby all Secular and Regular Prelates are enslaved to the Papacy and to the Roman Doctrine and Worship From which if they or any other swerve then are the direful thunderbolts of Excommunication lanc'd against them with extinguishing of Candles and in the name of God and of his Saints shutting them out of the Church in heaven and in earth denouncing them to be cursed and anathematiz'd and adjudging them to be damned in eternal fire with the Devil and his Angels and all Reprobates As is to be seen in their form of Excommunication All we reputed Hereticks and all others that fall under this severe doom are good for nothing afterwards but to be destroyed any way possible as will be seen in what follows But if any by terror or hope or any other inducement are brought into their Church from among Hereticks he must climb over a high and difficult partition-wall and be tied so short that he shall hardly ever think of a return It is not as they represent to deceive the simple only going amongst them and be within the Pale of the Church and do what you will But after they have drawn you so far that you cannot go back then you must in earnest be reconciled to the Church And this is the manner of it as is prescribed in the Pontificale The penitent Schismatick or Heretick must kneel before the Church-door and there make a Confession of his Faith and have the Devil Exorcised out of him And being brought in and kneeling before the High Altar renounce all heretical pravity and promise to live in the unity of the Roman Faith and have some Prayers and Grosses made over him and then swear obedience to the Pope imprecating damnation to himself if ever he departs from the Communion of his Church and if he were a noted Heretick he is thus kneeling to damn all Heresies that especially which he leaves and pronounce all that still hold it worthy of an eternal Curse and upon his Oath profess to believe from his heart that Faith which is taught by the Roman Church and promise if ever he quits it to submit himself to the severity of the Canons This one would think should be judged sufficient by the Church of Rome to keep men in her obedience But she dares not trust to it as indeed experience hath shewn that long agon the exorbitant greatness of the Papacy had been reduced and a general Reformation effected if nothing but ties of Conscience or Excommunications had been used other means therefore have been found more violent but more effectual Inquisition managed with great rigour and great policy hath been as Pope Sixtus Quintus called it in a Bull I shall cite afterwards Firmissimum Fidei Catholicae propugnaculum The best and strongest Supporter of the Catholick Faith A truth which will manifestly appear when we have seen how it was at first established and hath proceeded ever since SECT I. Of the beginning of the
as makes it most clear that they are highly injured as well in their Names as in their Persons What cruelties were exercised against them by the urgent instigation of this Pope Innocent who by Bulls swarms of Preachers of Croisadoes and the bloudy and traiterous Decrees of his Lateran Council excited and forced many Princes to butcher in most parts of Europe those sheep appointed to be slain what faint resistance they made for a while assisted by several great Princes the Counts of Tholosa Foix Beam and others with Peter King of Aragon how many lying Miracles but truly bloudy Executions were acted by Simon Monfort and other Generals of the Popes Gros't-Souldiers All these are to be seen in Petrus Valissarnensis the Monk who then lived and writ the History of those Albigenses whom he terribly hated Spondanus also hath enough of those matters ad an 1200. deinceps I know that he makes Petrus de Castro novo a Cistercian Monk and Arnoldus Abbot of that Order to be the first Founders of the Inquisition and observes that that Peter being killed by Count Raimond blessed and consecrated that holy Tribunal he had erected in his own bloud But A Paramo will have it that Peter acted as the Popes Legate and as such deputed a power to Dominic to proceed against Hereticks many years before he had the Popes Commission There may be some truth of both sides and it matters not how much or how little only I will remark that when Dominic came to Rome to have his Order confirmed Pope Innocent was very averse to it till he saw in a Vision his Lateran Church and Palace ready to fall but that it was born up and supported by Dominic who indeed by his Inquisition hath upheld that Popish Religion which else had failed long agone SECT I. Of the Waldenses and the proceedings against them I Have been favoured with the sight of a Manuscript which was in the hands of the now Reverend Dean of St. Paul It is the Register of the Inquisition of Tholose genuine and authentick containing the proceedings of that Court for about 80 years against many hundred Hereticks Therein I saw that the forms of the several sorts of Sentences against Delinquents were much the same as they are now And that the account it gives of the Crimes or Heresies of the Waldenses agrees very well with what is found in Reinerus and others for the justification of those persecuted good Christians of whom I shall give a short account These be the offences of one that was fled Transcribed ex Fol. 191. Culpa unius Fugitivi Johannes Aimonius oriundus habitator de Alzona c. anno 1320. In English thus John Aimonius of Alzona c. it appears by his Confession taken in due form of Law that some thirty years before his said Confession his Mother Perotta had as it were bewitched him with certain strangers who used to come to his Fathers house in Alzona that he might not reveal them to any they being of that sort of men who were called Waldenses and who in Burgundy were apprehended by the Inquisitors and burned as many as could be found She commended them to him as good men and he promised he would not disclose them Also that much about that time Geraldus Provincial of the Waldenses did often resort to his Fathers house sometimes alone sometimes with a Companion and once with Robert the Valdensis and there lie and eat and drink of what the house afforded and that he heard his words and admonitions and amongst other things that a mortal sin to swear or kill a man in or out of judgment Also that he saw the said Gerardus and others of the same Sect bless the Table when they dined and supt and that he did eat with them and pray with them according to their way of praying kneeling and bowing themselves and saying the Lords Prayer Item That some three years after one John de Cernone sometimes alone sometimes with other Waldenses came many times to his Fathers house and there lay and eat of any thing freely that he heard them say grace at Dinner and at Supper and did eat at the same Table and pray with them kneeling and bowing himself upon a form as their manner is and that three or four times he confessâ—d his sins to the said John de Cernone and from him received Penance and Absolution although he knew that he was not a Priest ordained by a Bishop of the Roman Church Also that some twelve years before his Confession and some three years after he saw many times at his Fathers house one Bartholomeus de Caiarco Valdensis and did eat and drink and pray with him according to their manner and confess his sins to him and from him receive Penance and Absolution although he knew that he was not a Priest ordained by a Bishop of the Church of Rome And that he heard those Waldenses teach that there is no Purgatory and that the Prayers of the Living do not profit the Dead And that he did believe those Waldenses were good men and might be saved in their Religion though he knew that they were persecuted by the Church of Rome For these Crimes and for his running from their Cruelties this man must have been burnt like a Relapse had he been taken Now here is a specimen of their Sentences against such as were to be immured p. 14 In nomine Domini N. Jesu Christi Amen Quum nos c. In English thus In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen Whereas we c. appointed Inquisitors in the Kingdom of France by the Authority of the Pope against heretical pravity have found by an inquisition duly made that you N. N c. have all so many ways and so grievously offended in the crime of damned heresies as it hath been intelligibly read and recited to you in the vulgar tongue you appearing here and at this time personally before us according to our peremptory Command to receive Penance and definitive Sentence and you affirming that you will unfeinedly and heartily return to the unity of the Church and that you do now entirely abjure every Heresie whatsoever and all favour to it and every rite and Doctrine any ways relating to Heretical pravity and that you will hold keep and defend the Catholick Faith and in all things obey according to your Oath the Commands of the Church and our Injunctions We having granted you the benefit of Absolution and released you from those bonds of Excommunication wherewith you were bound for your faults if so be that you return from your heart to the unity of the Church and truly observe what we shall enjoyn you having set before us the most holy Evangils that our Sentence may come from the presence of God and our eyes may look to the thing that is equal and sitting upon this Tribunal do now decree with the advice of good men and learned in the Law Civil