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A41553
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A request to Roman Catholicks to answer the queries upon these their following tenets ... by a moderate son of the Church of England.
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Gordon, James, 1640?-1714.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing G1282; ESTC R9547
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37,191
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48
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Imprimatur Aug. 19th 1687. Guil. Needham A REQUEST TO Roman Catholicks To Answer the Queries upon these their following Tenets § I. Their Divine Service in an Vnknown Tongue II. Their taking away the Cup from the People III. Their witholding the Scriptures from the Laicks IV. The Adoration of Images V. The Invocation of Saints and Angels VI. The Doctrine of Merit VII Purgatory VIII Their Seven Sacraments IX Their Priests Intention in Baptism X. The Limbo of unbaptized Infants XI Transubstantiation XII The Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass. XIII Private Masses XIV The Sacrament of Penance XV. The Sacrament of Marriage with the Clergies Restraint therefrom XVI Their Sacrament of extream Vnction XVII Tradition XVIII That thred-bare Question Where was your Church before Luther XIX The Infallibility of the Pope with his Councils XX. Tho Pope's Supremacy XXI The Pope's Deposing Power XXII Their Vncharitableness to all other Christians By a Moderate Son of the Church of England LONDON Printed for Brab Aylmer at the Three Pigeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil MDCLXXXVII A REQUEST TO Roman Catholicks c. SECTION I. Their Divine Service in an Vnknown Tongue Quest. 1. MAY not the Seventh Commandment be as easily reconciled to Adultery as the Service of the Roman Church in an unknown Tongue to 1 Cor. 14. where the Apostle Five several Times expresly prohibits it and gives so many pregnant Reasons for the Inhibition 2. If the various Gestures and Ceremonies practised by the Priest at Mass be sufficient to excite Devotion in the Spectators may not a dumb Priest be as useful for that effect especially he who babbles with a Stentorian Voice as he who speaks in an unknown Language since one who cannot speak at all may be as mimical as he who can speak more Languages than ever Ioseph Scaliger did or as many as were at the Confusion of Babel 3. Since it 's possible that the Priest may be so Diabolical as to be practising Conjuration in an unknown Language instead of Devotion or may be cursing his Congregation in lieu of blessing them would not Reason without the Apostolick Authority perswade us of the necessity of understanding his Language that we may say Amen to what he says 4. Since the Priest in these publick Offices is the Mouth of the People in offering up their Tribute of Honour and Adoration to God if the Congregation understand him not how can he more justifie himself than if he did celebrate the Service in a Tongue himself knows nothing of and which neither the one nor the other did understand 5. Since it 's given as the principal Reason of the Roman Service in Latin by the Rhemish Annot. that Christians where-ever they travel may find the same Service and Priests officiating in it as at home it may be demanded if for the sake of some few that travel the many that stay at home should be left destitute and for one Man's Convenience a Thousand be exposed to eternal Perdition for there will not be one to a Thousand who understand Latin in the Christian World 6. Since in the Service in an unknown Tongue the People are wholly left to the Ability and Sincerity of their Priest Is not the case of that People very lamentable For if the Priest wants the former he may through Ignorance turn the most Solemn Part of their Service into Ridicule and Nonsense or Blasphemy And if he want the later he may use a Spell for Prayer or the antient Charm of the Valentinians Abracadabra for Ave Maria nay instead of Baptizing in the Name of the Father c. he may do by the Person as a Iew under the Profession of a Priest is said to have done by a certain Man in this last Age who Baptized him in the horrid Name of the Devil there being nothing so absurd or wicked which according to this case may not be practised 7. Since Scripture the Reason of the Thing the Fathers and Practice of the Church for about Seven Hundred Years together are for the Expedience and Necessity of having God's Publick Service in a Tongue understood by the People may it not justly be enquired with what Effrontory the Council of Trent hath Anathematized all those who believe the necessity of having God's Solemn Worship in a known Tongue as if Trent because a City of the Alps were transformed into Mount Ebal whence they might curse that great Doctor of the Gentiles in the first place 8. Is it not evident from 1 Cor. 14. that in St. Paul's Judgment they deserve to be reckoned Mad-men who Pray to God in an Unknown Tongue 9. Is it not probable that the Romanists have borrowed their Service in an Unknown Tongue from some Heathens who as Clemens Alexandrinus reports thought those Prayers most effectual which were uttered in a Barbarous Language or from their Neighbours the old Cusleans of whom Varro testifies that their Priests did scarcely understand their own Sacred Rites 10. Since the English Liturgy is so agreeable to the undoubted parts of the most antient Liturgies it being a Form which hath all those parcels of the Roman Offices that were known and used in the first Three Centuries but wants all the Innovations and Coruptions of the present Mass May we not truly and pertinently challenge all Christendom to produce any publick Platform or Solemn Church-Service so constant to the purest Primitive Devotions 11. Since the Famous Bishop of Condam hath most cunningly endeavoured a palliative Cure by soft and smooth Words as to many Practices in the Roman Church which stand in need of Amputation yet both in his Exposition and Exhortation he still passeth by their Service in an Unknown Tongue Is it not because he had no Tongue of his own to answer for that Practice which is so directly repugnant to Scripture and Antiquity having despaired it seems to find either Butter or Oyl to cicatrise or soften that Wound SECT II. Their taking away the Cup from the People Quest. 1. SInce the Council of Constance Anno 1418. made it an Article of Faith That the Laity ought to receive the Eucharist only in One Kind non obstante of the Institution of Christ as it was then acknowledged and the constant Practice of the Catholick Church above a Thousand Years Wherefore may they not Christen the Laick's Children only in the Name of the Holy Ghost leaving out the Father and the Son by the way of Concomitancy it being as lawful to Baptize as to Communicate by halves and no less certain that since the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity partake of the same individual Nature where one is all the rest must be suppose the Mutilation of the Eucharist could not be disparaged by that Emblem of the Effusion of Christ's Blood which is necessarily required in the Sacrament 2. Since the principal Reason assigned by Gerson for that Canon of the Council of Constance which abstracts the Cup from the People is the Danger of
the Apostrophe of Greg. Nazianz. to his Sister Gorgonia or S. Ierom to his devout Paula and S. Augustin to his Mother Monica than in these Apostrophes frequently found in Sacred Writings to insensate Creatures Hear O ye Mountains the Lord's Controversie Praise the Lord ye Dragons and all Deeps c. And who will infer from hence that the insensate Creatures were hereby invok'd and addressed unto yet we must carefully distinguish betwixt the Speeches of some particular Fathers and the general Doctrine of the Church betwixt what they express in Rhetorical Strains to move Affection and what they lay down in plain terms to inform the Judgment betwixt what results from the heat of their popular Orations and what in cool and deliberate Debates they set down for the Truth of Christ for its generally confest that the Fathers oft-times hyperbolize particularly St. Chrysostom and we must not take their flights of Fancy for the Doctrine of the Church 5. If these words Matth. 4. 10. taken out of Deut. 6. 13. Him only shalt thou serve are to be understood only of the highest degree of Religious Worship as a part of the whole and distinguish'd from a lower kind this superiour degree being Latria and the inferiour degrees Hyperdulia and Dulia as the Romanists term them it may be demanded how could that have been a sufficient Answer to the Devils demand for he might thus have replyed to the Son of God I acknowledge the Soveraign and Almighty Power of God as well as you the same acknowledgment being insinuated by himself St. Luke chap. 4. 6. therefore I desire not thou shouldst Worship me as God with Latria but only with Dulia a lower kind thy Heart the most elevated conceptions of thy mind may be reserved to God it s only the outward act I challenge of thee that thou wouldst only fall down and Worship me or by falling down Worship me which our Saviour simply refused notwithstanding 6. Since the chief argument whereby the Primitive Fathers used to prove the Divinity of the Holy Ghost and of the Son against the Macedonians and Arians was the Catholick practice of the Church in praying to them what force could have been in that argument had they believed that any Creatures tho never so highly exalted in Nature and Condition might have had that Honour payed unto them 7. Since the Catholicks did frequently accuse the Arians of Idolatry for praying unto Christ whom they conceived to be no more than an excellent and good-like Creature had the Catholicks at the same time practised the Invocation of Saints might not the Arians have returned the Charge with greater force upon themselves for if the Catholicks had replyed as the Romanists do now that though they did pray to the blessed Spirits yet they did it not with that Sovereign Direct and final Prayer nor with those sublimest thoughts and intentions of Honour wherewith they did address to God but only with indirect subaltern and relative Prayer and with no higher Intentions of Honour to them than what is proportioned to the excellencies of their finite Nature Since the Arians might have returned upon them with great advantage by saying Sirs With the same due Limitations we Invocate the Man Iesus Christ who as the Scripture assures us is exalted above all Angels Principalities and Powers and every Name which is named in Heaven and Earth so that tho we may not Honour the Son in the same high degree as we do the Father yet the Scripture enjoyns us to do it with that same kind of Honour Which is more than can be said in defence of that Honour and Invocation you offer to Saints and Angels 8. Since the fancy of making the Court of Heaven resemble Princes Courts on Earth hath brought forth that voluntary Humility of Worshiping Saints and Angels at least this excuse of the Romish Supplicants that it s out of an humble sense of their own unworthiness and an awful regard to the infinite Majesty of God that they address not immediately to himself but by the Mediation of Saints and Angels these Courtiers and Favourites of Heaven may it not be pertinently demanded What wise Man on Earth who is abundantly satisfied of the readiness and ability of his Prince to help him and hath free leave given him on any occasion to come immediately unto him and is frequently invited for that effect will choose to wave this freedom of his access and will apply himself to some inferiour Officer or Favourite to make his Address This is our case God hath invited all that are in Trouble to come immediately unto himself and hath frequently promised to grant all their requests who seek him with their whole Hearts and hath appointed his own Son God with himself the Master of Requests from time to time to receive all the Petitions of his Subjects and both the one and the other are infinitely more able and infinitely more willing to Hear and Succour them than the best the wisest and most powerful of all created Beings And shall we now be afraid to take that Liberty which God hath given us Shall we call that Impudence which God hath made our Duty And whilst we pretend Humility shall we forfeit our Allegiance and distrust his Promises and suspect the goodness of his Nature for fear of being found too faucy and too bold with his Person 9. Since Deut. 13. we are expresly forbidden to hearken to any Prophet tho a Worker of Miracles who teacheth the Worship of any other Being beside the one Supreme God may it not pertinently be demanded if Christ and his Apostles had taught the Worship of Saints and Angels had it not been a just Reason for the Unbelief of the Iews notwithstanding of all the Miracles wrought by them 10. If Ten thousand Miracles should convince a Christian of the Lawfulness of Praying to Saints departed whilst he hath such a plain express Law against believing all Miracles upon any such account For if ever real Miracles were wrought at the Tombs of Martyrs it was in Testimony of the Truth of Christianity for which they suffered not to betray any to a Superstitious or Idolatrous Worship of them tho there is most forcible reason to doubt of many of those pretended Miracles if ever they were in rerum natura and to fear that many of them were but Satanical Illusions 11. Can there be a solid Reason assigned why Sacrifice as well as Prayer may not be an Act of inferiour as well as superiour Worship since the Heathens offered Sacrifice to their Inferiour Demons as well as to the Supreme 12. Since the Roman Doctors grant that the difference betwixt Supreme and Subordinate Worship doth not consist in the outward Act and that all the outward Acts may belong to both kinds Sacrifice only excepted by them which the Spirit of God notwithstanding makes inferiour to Prayer now it may be demanded since the Law did forbid the external acts of Worship without any