by the terms of communion with that Church be guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry either of which are sins inconsistent with salvation Which I thus prove That Church which requires the giving the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator makes the members of it guilty of hypocrisie or Idolatry for it they do it they are guilty of the latter if they do it not of the former but the Church of Rome in the Worship of God by Images the Adoration of the Bread in the Eucharist and the formal Invocation of Saints doth require the giving to the creature the Worship due only to the Creator therefore it makes the members of it guilty of hypocrisie or Idolatry That the Church of Rome in these particulars doth require the giving the creature the honour due only to God I prove thus concerning each of them 1. Where the Worship of God is terminated upon a creature there by their own confession the Worship due only to God is given to the creature but in the Worship of God by Images the Worship due to God is terminated wholly on the creature which is thus proved the Worship which God himself denyes to receive must be terminated on the creature but God himself in the second Commandment not only denyes to receive it but threatens severely to punish them that give it Therefore it cannot be terminated on God but only on the Image 2. The same argument which would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry lawful cannot excuse any act from Idolatry but the same argument whereby the Papists make the Worship of the Bread in the Eucharist not to be Idolatry would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry not to be so For if it be not therefore Idolatry because they suppose the bread to be God then the Worship of the Sun was not Idolatry by them who supposed the Sun to be God and upon this ground the grosser the Idolatry was the less it was Idolatry for the grossest Idolaters were those who supposed their Statues to be Gods And upon this ground their Worship was more lawful than of those who supposed them not to be so 3. If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be a sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathen Worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for the Heathens still pretended that they did not give to them the Worship proper to the Supream God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papist in justification of the Invocation of Saints To these I expect a direct and punctual answer professing as much Charity towards them as is consistent with Scripture and Reason 2. Because the Church of Rome is guilty of so great corruption of the Christian Religion by such opinions and practices which are very apt to hinder a good life Such are the destroying the necessity of a good life by making the Sacrament of Penance joyned with contrition sufficient for salvation the taking off the care of it by supposing an expiation of sin by the prayers of the living after death and the sincerity of devotion is much obstructed in it by prayers in a language which many understand not by making the efficacy of Sacraments depend upon the bare administration whether our minds be prepared for them or not by discouraging the reading the Scripture which is our most certain rule of faith and life by the multitude of superstitious observations never used in the Primitive Church as we are ready to defend by the gross abuse of people in Pardons and Indulgences by denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn Celebration of the Eucharist for a thousand years after Christ by making it in the power of any person to dispense contrary to the Law of God in Oathes and Marriages by making disobedience to the Church in disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication By all which practices and opinions we assert that there are so many hinderances to a good life that none who have a care of their salvation can venture their souls in the communion of such a Church which either enjoyns or publickly allows them 3. Because it exposeth the faith of Christians to so great uncertainty By making the authority of the Scriptures to depend on the infallibility of the Church when the Churches Infallibility must be proved by the Scripture by making those things necessary to be believed which if they be believed overthrow all foundations of faith viz. That we are not to believe our senses in the plainest objects of them as that bread which we see is not bread upon which it follows that tradition being a continued kind of sensation can be no more certain than sense it self and that the Apostles might have been deceived in the body of Christ after the resurrection and the Church of any Age in what they saw or heard By denying to men the use of their judgement and reason as to the matters of faith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church by making the Churches power extend to make new Articles of faith viz. by making those things necessary to be believed which were not so before By pretending to infallibility in determining Controversies and yet not determining Controversies which are on foot among themselves All which and several other things which my designed brevity will not permit me to mention tend very much to shake the faith of such who have nothing else to rely on but the authority of the Church of Rome 3. I answer That a Protestant leaving the Communion of our Church doth incurr a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible ignorance and therefore cannot equally be saved with such a one For a Protestant is supposed to have sufficient convictions of the Errors of the Roman Church or is guilty of wilful ignorance if he hath not but although we know not what allowances God will make for invincible ignorance we are sure that wilful ignorance or choosing a worse Church before a better is a damnable sin and unrepented of destroyes salvation To the second Question I answer 1. I do not understand what is meant by a Christian in the Abstract or in the whole latitude it being a thing I never heard or read of before and therefore may have some meaning in it which I cannot understand 2. But if the Question be as the last words imply it Whether a Christian by vertue of his being so be bound to joyn in some Church or Congregation of Christians I answer affirmatively and that he is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church and not to leave that for a corrupt one though called never so Catholick The Proposer of the Questions Reply to the Answer Madam I
it or gave any signs of contrition it ought not to be omitted alwayes provided that those who are mad do nothing against the reverence of the Sacrament That being secured their work is done and if any sins have remained upon them they are taken off by vertue of this sacred Vnction and being thus anointed like the Athletae of old they are prepared to wrestle with all the powers of the Air who can then fasten no hold upon them Yet to be just to them the Roman Ritual saith that impenitent persons and those who dye in mortal sin and excommunicate and unbaptized are to be denyed extream Vnction A hard case for those who dye in mortal sin for if they could but express any sign of contrition by the motion of an Eye or a Finger all were well enough And for the impenitent we are not to imagine them so cruel to account any so but such who refuse the Sacrament of Pennance the summ of it then is if a man when he is like to live and therefore to sin no longer doth but probably express some signs of contrition and doth not refuse the Sacrament of Pennance if time and the condition of the Patient permit the using it then he is to have grace conferred on him by this last Sacrament which he is sure to receive although he be no more sensible what they are doing about him than if he were dead already So that upon the whole matter I begin to wonder how any sort of men in the Church of Rome can be afraid of falling so low as Purgatory I had thought so much Grace as is given them by every Sacrament where there are so many and some of them so often used might have served to carry one to Heaven they receive a stock of Grace in Baptism before they could think of it if they lose any in Childhood that is supplyed again by the Sacrament of Chrisme or Confirmation if they fall into actual sins and so lose it it is but confessing to the Priest and receiving absolution and they are set up again with a new stock and it is a hard case if that be not increased by frequent Masses at every one of which he receives more and although Priests want the comfortable Grace that is to be received by the Sacrament of Matrimony yet they may easily make it up by the number of Masses and to make all sure at last the extream Vnction very sweetly conveyes Grace into them whether they be sensible or not But all this while what becomes of Purgatory That is like to be left very desolate if the interest of that opinion were not greater than the evidence for the Sacraments conferring grace ex opere operato Let them seek to reconcile them if they can it is sufficient for our purpose that both of them tend to destroy the sincerity of devotion and the necessity of a good life § 8. 3. I said the sincerity of devotion is much obstructed by discouraging tdiscourahe reading of the Scriptures which is our most certain Rule of faith and life To this he answers two wayes 1. That their Churches prudential dispensing the reading the Scriptures to persons whom she judges fit and disposed for it and not to such whom she judges in a condition to receive or do harm by it is no discouraging the reading of them any more than a Father may be said to discourage his Child because he will not put a Knife or a Sword into his hands when he foresees he will do mischief with it to himself or others and the Scriptures he saith are no other in the hands of one who doth not submit his judgement in the interpretation of it to that of the Church the doing of which he makes the character of a meek and humble soul and the contrary of an arrogant and presumptuous spirit 2. That the ill consequences of permitting the promiscuous reading of Scripture were complained of by Henry the eighth who was the first that gave way to it and if his judgement ought not to be followed in after times let the dire effects of so many Sects and Fanaticisms as have risen in England from the reading of it bear witness For all Heresies arise saith St. Austin from misunderstanding the Scriptures and therefore the Scripture being left as among Protestants to the private interpretation of every fanciful Spirit cannot be a most certain rule of faith and life In which answer are three things to be discussed 1. Whether that prudential dispensing the Scriptures as he calls it be any hinderance to devotion or no 2. Whether the reading of the Scriptures be the cause of the numbers of Sects and Fanaticisms which have been in England 3. Whether our opinion concerning the reading and interpreting Scripture doth hinder it from being a most certain rule of faith and life 1. Whether that prudential dispensing the Scriptures used in the Church of Rome doth hinder devotion or no This prudential dispensing I suppose he means the allowing no persons to read the Scriptures in their own tongue without licence under the hand of the Bishop or Inquisitor by the advice of the Priest or Confessor concerning the persons fitness for it and whosoever presumes to do otherwise is to be denyed absolution For this is the express Command in the fourth Rule of the Index published by order of the Council of Trent and set forth by the authority of Pius the fourth and since by Clement the eighth and now lately inlarged by Alexander the seventh And whether this tends to the promoting or discouraging the sincerity of devotion will appear by considering these things 1. That it is agreed on both sides that the Scriptures do contain in them the unquestionable Will of that God whom we are bound to serve And it being the end of devotion as it ought to be of our lives to serve him what is there the mind of any one who sincerely desires to do it can be more inquisitive after or satisfied in than the rules God himself hath given for his own service Because it is so easie a matter for men to mistake in the wayes they choose to serve him in I see the world divided more scarce about any thing than this Some think God ought to be worshipped by offering up Sacrifices to him of those things we receive from his bounty Others that we ought to offer up none to him now but our selves in a holy life and actions Some that God is pleased by abstaining from flesh or any living creature and others that he is much better pleased with eating Fish than Flesh and that a full meal of one is at some times mortification and fasting and eating temperately of the other is luxury and irreligion Some think no sight more pleasing to God than to see men lash and whip themselves for their sins till the blood comes others that he is as well pleased at least with hearty repentance and sincere
A DISCOURSE Concerning the IDOLATRY Practised in the CHURCH OF ROME AND The danger of Salvation in the Communion of it in answer to some Papers of a Revolted Protestant WHEREIN A particular Account is given of the Fanaticism and Divisions of that Church By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. LONDON Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall 1671. THE PREFACE ALthough I see no great effect of the Courtship commonly used towards the Candid and Ingenuous Reader unless it be in diverting the censure from the Book to the Preface yet in some cases it looks like a breach of the Readers priviledge not to give him an account of the occasion and design of a Book Especially when the matter handled therein hath been thought so often discussed and is of so general concernment that every pretender thinks he knows as much already as is to be known in it But we really find no greater advantage hath been given to our Adversaries than this that the things in dispute between us are generally no better understood by the persons they have their designs upon For assoon as they have baffled their ignorance and mistakes these have been ready to yield up themselves and the Cause imagining nothing more could be said for it than they could say for themselves Whereby our Church hath not only suffered in its reputation as far as that is concerned in the weakness of some of its members but strange boasts and triumphs have been made by those of the Church of Rome when such who understood not their own Religion have embraced theirs While these disputes were fresh in the world every one thought himself concerned to enquire into them but since our Church hath been so long established on the principles of the Reformation and other unhappy controversies have risen up the most have taken this Cause for granted and thought it needless to enquire any farther into the Grounds of it Which our Adversaries perceiving they have found far greater success in their attempts upon particular persons than in publick Writings for these have only provoked others to lay open the palpable weakness of their Cause whereas in the other by their wayes of Address and all the arts of Insinuation they have instilled their principles into the minds of some less judicious persons before they were aware of it Thence it is easie to observe that the greatest mischief they have done hath been like the Pestilence by walking in darkness and spreading their infection by whispers in corners All their hopes and strength lye in the weakness and credulity of the persons they deal with but if they meet with any who truly understand the differences between us they soon give them over as untractable But to such whose employments have not given them leave to enquire or whose capacity hath not been great enough to discern their Sophistry their first work is to make a false representation both of the Doctrines and practices of their Church and if they be of such easie faith to believe them they from thence perswade them into an ill opinion of their Teachers who possessed them with so bad thoughts of such a Church as theirs A Church of so great Holiness as may be seen by the Saint-like lives of their Popes and Converts a Church of so great Antiquity bating only the Primitive times a Church of so admirable Unity saving the divisions in it a Church so free from any Fanatick heats as any one may believe that will If this first assault doth not make them yield but they desire at least time to consider and advise in a matter of so great importance then they tell them there is not a man of our Church dares give any of them a meeting if they offer to puâ— it to a tryal they will appoint a day which they foresee will be most inconvenient for the persons they are to meet with If upon that account it be declined or deferred this is spred abroad for a Victory if it be accepted then one thing or other happens that they cannot come either the person goes out of Town unexpectedly or his Superiours have forbidden him or such conferences are not safe for them they are so sorely persecuted or at last what good can an hours talk do to satisfie any one in matters of Religion But if there be no remedy which they are seldome without and a conference happen which they scarce ever yield to but when they are sure of the person for whose sake it is then whosoever was baffled they are sure to go away with the triumph and as an evidence of it such a person went off from our Church upon it which was made sure of their side before If this way takes not then a sett of Questions is ready to be sent if another be returned to them to be answered at the same time this is declined and complained of as hard dealing as though they had only the priviledge of putting Questions and we the duty of answering them If answers be given to them after a Pass or two they put an end to the tryal of their skill in that place and seek for another to shew it in But if the Papers chance to be slighted or business hinders a present answer or there be a reasonable presumption that the person concerned hath already forsaken our Church this becomes the occasion of a new triumph the Papers are accounted unanswerable as the Spanish Armado was called invincible which we thank God we found to be otherwise and it may be are demanded again as Trophies to be preserved for the glory of the Catholick Cause All these several wayes I have had experience of in the compass of a few years since by command I was publickly engaged in the Defence of so excellent a Cause as that of our Church against the Church of Rome I confess it seemed somewhat hard to me to be put to answer so many several Papers which I have received upon their tampering with particular persons of our Church while my Book it self remained unanswered by them after so many years of trying their strength about it For those two who in some small measure have attempted it have performed it in the way that Ratts answer Books by gnawing some of the leaves of them for the body and design of it remains wholly untouched by them But for the satisfaction of any person who desired it I was not willing to decline any service which tended to so good an end as the preserving any member of our Church in the communion of it Which was the occasion of this present writing For some time since the person concerned after some discourses with her brought me the two Questions mentioned in the beginning of the Book to which I returned a speedy answer in the midst of many other employments not long after I received the
to enquire since their authority depends not on the Writer but the Churches approbation of them but Dr. Jackson not only calls him the worthy and learned Author of the Homilies concerning the peril of Idolatry but saith he takes him to be a Reverend Bishop of our Church and no wonder since the most eminent Bishops in that time of Queen Elizabeth wherein these Homilies were added to the former did all assert and maintain the same thing As Bishop Jewell in his excellent Defence of the Apology of the Church of England and Answer to Harding wherein he proves that to give the honour of God to a creature is manifest Idolatry as the Papists do saith he in adoration of the Host and the Worship of Images And his works ought to be looked on with a higher esteem than any other private person being commanded to be placed in Churches to be read by the people Of all persons of that Age none could be less suspected to be Puritanically inclined than Archbishop Whitgift yet in his Learned Defence of the Church of England against T. C. he makes good the same charge in these words I do as much mislike the distinction of the Papists and the intent of it as any man doth neither do I go about to excuse them from wicked and without repentance and Gods singular mercy damnable Idolatry There are saith he three kinds of Idolatry one is when the true God is worshipped by other means and wayes than he hath prescribed or would be worshipped i. e. against his express command which is certainly his meaning the other is when the true God is worshipped with false Gods the third is when we worship false Gods either in heart mind or in external creatures living or dead and altogether forget the worship of the true God All these three kinds are detestable but the first is the least and the last is the worst The Papists worship God otherwise than his will is and otherwise than he hath prescribed almost in all points of their worship they also give to the creature that which is due to the Creator and sin against the first Table yet are they not for all that I can see or learn in the third kind of Idolatry and therefore if they repent unfeignedly they are not to be cast either out of the Church or out of the Ministry The Papists have little cause to thank me or fee me for any thing I have spoken in their behalf as yet you see that I place them among wicked and damnable Idolaters Thus far that Wise and Learned Bishop After him we may justly reckon Bishop Bilson than whom none did more learnedly in that time defend the perpetual Government of Christs Church by Bishops nor it may be since who in a set discourse at large proves the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry 1. In the Worship of Images the having of which he saith was never Catholick and the worshipping of them was ever wicked by the judgement of Christs Church and that the Worship even of the Image of Christs is Heathenism Idolatry to Worship it makes it an Idol and burning Incense to it is Idolatry which he there proves at large and that the Image of God made with hands is a false God and no likeness of his but a leud imagination of theirs set up to feed their eyes with the contempt of his Sacred Will dishonour of his Holy Name and open injury to his Divine Nature 2. In the adoration of the Host of which he treats at large After these it will be less needful to produce the testimonies of Dr. Fulk Dr. Reynolds Dr. Whitaker who all asserted and proved the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry and I cannot find one person who owned himself to be of the Church of England in all Queen Elizabeths reign who did make any doubt of it Let us now come to the reign of King James and here in the first place we ought to set down the judgement of that Learned Prince himself who so throughly understood the matters in controversie between us and the Church of Rome as appears by his Premonition to all Christian Princes wherein after speaking of other points he comes to that of Reliques of Saints But for the worshipping either of them or Images I must saith he account it damnable Idolatry and after adds that the Scriptures are so directly vehemently and punctually against it as I wonder what brain of man or suggestion of Satan durst offer it to Christians and all must be salved with nice and philosophical distinctions Let them therefore that maintain this doctrine answer it to Christ at the latter day when he shall accuse them of Idolatry and then I doubt if he will be paid with such nice Sophistical distinctions And when Isaac Casaubon was employed by him to deliver his opinion to Cardinal Perron mentioning the practices of the Church of Rome in invocation of Saints he saith that the Church of England did affirm that those practices were joyned with great impiety Bishop Andrews whom no man suspects of want of learning or not understanding the doctrine of our Church was also employed to answer Cardinal Bellarmin who had writ against the King and doth he decline charging the Church of Rome with Idolatry No so far from it that he not only in plain terms charges them with it but saith that Bellarmin runs into Heresie nay into madness to defend it and in his answer to Perron he saith it is most evident by their Breviaries Hours and Rosaries that they pray directly absolutely and finally to Saints and not meerly to the Saints to pray to God for them but to give what they pray for themselves In the same time of King James Bishop Abbot writ his Answer to Bishop in which he saith that the Church of Rome by the Worship of Images hath matched all the Idolatries of the Heathens and brought all their jugling devices into the Church abusing the ignorance and simplicity of the people as grosly and damnably as ever they did Towards the latter end of his Reign came forth Bishop Whites Reply to Fisher he calls the worshipping of Images a Superstitious dotage a palliate Idolatry a remainder of Paganism condemned by Sacred Scripture censured by Primitive Fathers and a Seminary of direful contention and mischief in the Church of Christ. Dr. Field chargeth the Invocation of Saints with such Superstition and Idolatry as cannot be excused We charge the adherents of the Church of Rome with gross Idolatry saith Bishop Usher in his Sermon preached before the Commons A. D. 1620. because that contrary to Gods express Commandment they are sound to be worshippers of Images Neither will it avail them here to say that the Idolatry forbidden in the Scripture is that only which was used by the Jews and Pagans For as well might one plead that Jewish
after the time of Formosus wherein his Ordinations were nulled by his successors the Popes opposition to each other in that Age the miserable state of that Church then described Of the Schisms of latter times by the Italick and Gallick factions the long continuance of them The mischief of those Schisms on their own principles Of the divisions in that Church about the matters of Order and Government The differences between the Bishops and the Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges the history of that Controversie and the bad success the Popes had in attempting to compose it Of the quarrel between the Regulars and Seculars in England The continuance of that Controversie here and in France The Jesuits enmity to the Episcopal Order and jurisdiction the hard case of the Bishop of Angelopolis in America The Popes still favour the Regulars as much as they dare The Jesuits way of converting the Chinese discovered by that Bishop Of the differences in matters of Doctrine in that Church They have no better way to compose them than we The Popes Authority never truly ended one Controversie among them Their wayes to evade the decisions of Popes and Councils Their dissensions are about matters of faith The wayes taken to excuse their own difference will make none between them and us manifested by Sancta Clara's exposition oâ— the 39. Articles Their disputes not confined to their Schools proved by a particular instance about the immaculate conception the infinite scandals confessed by theiâ— own Authors to have been in their Church about it From all which it appears that the Church of Rome can have no advantage in point of Vnity above ours p. 355 CHAP. VI. An Answer to the Remainder of the Reply The mis-interpreting Scripture doth not hinder its being a rule of faith Of the superstitious observations of the Roman Church Of Indulgences the practice of them in what time begun on what occasion and in what terms granted Of the Indulgences in Iubilees in the Churches at Rome and upon saying some Prayers Instances of them produced What opinion hath been had of Indulgences in the Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome p. 476 ERRATA PAg. 25. l. 19. for adjuverit r. adjuvet p. ibid. Marg. r. l. 7. de baptis p. 31. Marg. r. Tract 18. in Ioh. p. 64. l. 13. dele only p. 75. Marg. r. Trigaut p. 101. l. 24. for I am r. am I p. 119. l. 28. for is r. in p. 135. Marg. for 68. r. 6. 8. p. 162. l. 17. after did put not Ch. 3. for pennance r. penance p. 219. l. 10. for him r. them p. 257. l. 21. for or r. and l. 31. for never r. ever p. 350. l. 21. for their r. the p. 414. l. 18. for these r. their p. 416. Marg. for nibaldi r. Sinibaldi p. 417. l. 2. before another insert one p. 499. l. 16. after not insert at p. 526. Marg. for act r. art p. 546. l. 8. after for insert one Two Questions proposed by one of the Church of Rome WHether a Protestant haveing the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in the Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians Answer The first Question being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant yet continuing so doth imply a contradiction viz. That a Protestant continuing so should have the same Motives to become a Catholick takeing that term here only as signifying one of the communion of the Church of Rome which those have who have been born or bred in that communion But supposing the meaning of the Question to be this Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of our Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who are bred in it I answer 1. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the communion of a Church wherein salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them No more than it is for a man to leap from the plain ground into a Ship that is in danger of being wrackt because he may equally hope to be saved with those who are in it Nay supposing an equal capacity of salvation in two several Churches there can be no reason to forsake the communion of the one for the other So that to perswade any one to leave our Church to embrace that of Rome it is by no means sufficient to ask whether such a one may not as well be saved as they that are in it already but it is necessary that they prove that it is of necessity to salvation to leave our Church and become a member of theirs And when they do this I intend to be one of their number 2. We assert that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace it or continue in it And that upon these grounds 1. Because they must
only suppose him to be really present under the form of bread but because we know and believe this upon the same grounds and Motives upon which we believe and those Motives stronger than any Protestant hath if he have no other than the Catholick to believe that Christ is God and consequently to be adored And therefore that you may the better see the inefficaciousness of the Argument suppose it dropt from the Pen of an Arrian against the adoration of Christ as God and it will be of as much force to evince that to be Idolatry as it is from the Objection to prove the adoration of him in the Eucharist to be so see there how an Arrian might argue in the same form The same Argument which would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry lawful cannot excuse any act from Idolatry but the same Argument whereby the Protestants make the Worship of Christ a pure man sayes the Arrian not to be Idolatry would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry not to be so For if it be not therefore Idolatry because they suppose Christ to be God then the Worship of the Sun was not Idolatry by them who supposed the Sun to be God c. Now the same answer which solves the Arrians argument against the adoration of Christ as God serves no less to solve the Objectors Argument against the adoration of him in the Eucharist since we have a like Divine Revelation for his real presence under the Sacramental Signs as we have for his being true God and Man But what if Catholicks should be mistaken in their belief would it then follow that they were Idolaters Dr. Taylor an Eminent and leading man amongst the Protestants denyes the consequence His words are these in the Liberty of Prophecying Sect. 20. Numb 26. Idolatry sayes he is a forsaking the true God and giving Divine Worship to a creature or to an Idol that is to an Imaginary God who hath no foundation in Essence or Existence And this is that kind of superstition which by Divines is called the superstition of an undue object Now it is evident that the object of their that is the Catholicks adoration that which is represented to them in their minds their thoughts and purposes and by which God principally if not solely takes estimate of humane actions in the blessed Sacrament is the only true and eternal God hypostatically joyned with his holy humanity which humanity they believe actually present under the Veil of the Sacramental Signs and if they thought him not present they are so far from worshipping the bread in this case that themselves profess it Idolatry to do so which is a demonstration mark that that their soul hath nothing in it that is Idolatrical If their confidence and fanciful opinion so he terms the faith of Catholicks hath engaged them upon so great a mistake as without doubt he sayes it hath yet the will hath nothing in it but what is a great enemy to Idolatry Et nihil ardet in inferno nisi propria voluntas that is Nothing burns in Hell but proper Will Thus Dr. Taylor and I think it will be a task worthy the Objectors pains to solve his Argument if he will not absolve us from being Idolaters § 7. He proceeds to prove that Catholicks are guilty of Idolatry by their Invocation of Saints And his Argument is this If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be a sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathens Worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for the Heathens still pretended that they did not give to them the Worship proper to the Supream God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papists in justification of the Invocation of Saints To answer this Argument I shall need little more than to explicate the hard words in it which thus I do By persons of a middle excellency we understand persons endowed with supernatural gifts of Grace in this life and Glory in Heaven whose prayers by consequence are acceptable and available with God what he means by formal Invocation I understand not well but what we understand by it is desiring or praying those just persons to pray for us The Supream Deity of the Heathens is known to be Jupiter and their inferiour Deities venus Mars Bacchus Vulcan and the like rabble of Devils as the Scripture calls them The gods of the Heathens are Devils The terms thus explicated 't is easie to see the inconsequence of the Argument that because the Heathens were Idolaters in worshipping Mars and Venus their inferiour Deities or rather Devils though they pretended not to give them the Worship proper to Jupiter their Supream God Therefore the Catholicks must be guilty of Idolatry in desiring the servants of the true God to pray for them to him upon this account we must not desire the prayer of a just man even in this life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an inferiour Deity But if some Sect of Heathens as the Platonists did attain to the knowledge of the true God yet St. Paul says they did not glorifie him as God but changed his glory into an Image made like to corruptible man adoring and offering Sacrifice due to God alone to the Statues themselves or the inferiour Deities they supposed to dwell or assist in them Which inferiour Deities St. Austin upon the ninety sixth Psalm proves to be Devils or evil Angels because they required Sacrifice to be offered to them and would be worshipped as Gods Now what comparison there is between this worship of the Heathens inferiour Deities and Christians worship of Saints and Angels let the same St. Austin declare in his twentieth Book against Faustus the Manichaean chap. 21. Faustus there calumniates the Catholicks the word is St. Austins because they honoured the Memories or Shrines of Martyrs charging them to have turned the Idols into Martyrs whom they worship said he with like Vows The Objection you see is not new that Catholicks make inferiour Deities of their Saints Faustus long ago made it and St. Austins answer will serve as well now as then Christian people sayes he do with religious solemnity celebrate the memory of Martyrs both to excite to the imitation of them and to become partakers of their Merits and be holpen by their prayers but to that we erect Altars not to any of the Martyrs but to the God of Martyrs although in memory of the said Martyrs For what Bishop officiating at the Altar in the places where their holy bodies are deposited does say at any time we offer to thee Peter or Paul or Cyprian but what is offered to God who crown'd the Martyrs at the memories or Shrines of those whom he crowned that being put in mind by the very places a greater affection may be raised in us to quicken our love both to those whom we may imitate and towards him by whose assistance we can do it We worship therefore the
and to the same purpose the Psalmist speaks They made a Calf in Horeb and worshipped the Molten Image thus they changed their glory or rather his into the similitude of an Oxe that eateth grass Psal. 106. 19 20. Which certainly was Idolatry as well as that St. Paul charges the Romans with viz. that they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four footed beasts and creeping things Rom. 1. 23. And we see how highly God was displeased with the Israelites for this sin of the golden Calf Exod. 32. 7 8 9 10. The same may be said of the two Calves of Ieroboam at Dan and Bethel for it was neither agreeable to his end nor so likely to succeed to take the ten Tribes off from the Worship of the true God but only from the place of it at Hierusalem and the occasion of the Kingdomes coming to him was from Solomons falling to Heathen Idolatry 1 King 11. 33. Which would make him more Cautious of falling into it especially at his first entrance And when the Gods of other Nations are mentioned they are particularly described as Ashtoreth of the Zidonians Chemosh of the Moabites and Milcom of the Children of Ammon 1 Kings 11. 33. And in Ahabs Idolatry the occasion and description of it is given 1 Kings 16. 31. But of Ieroboam it is only said that he set up the Calves at Dan and Bethel and said unto the people It is too much for you to go up to Hierusalem behold thy Gods O Israel which brought thee up out of the Land of Aegypt 1 Kings 12. 28 29. How easie had it been to have said that Ieroboam Worshipped the Gods of Aegypt if that had been his intention but how much better had he then argued that they had been hitherto in a great mistake concerning the true God and not meerly as to the place of his Worship which is all he speaks against for he continued the same Feasts and way of Worship which were at Hierusalem 1 King 12. 32. Besides how comes the sin of Ahab to be so much greater than that of Ieroboam if they were both guilty of the same Apostasie to Heathen Idolatry 1 Kings 16. 31. how came the Worship of the true God in the Ten Tribes to be set in opposition to Heathen Idolatry 1 Kings 18. 21 how comes Iehu at the same time to boast his zeal for his Lord when it is said of him that he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam viz. the golden Calves of Dan and Bethel 2 Kings 10. 16 29 Lastly how comes the Worship of the true God to be preserved in the Ten Tribes after their captivity when they still continued their separation in Religion from the Kingdom of Iudah 2 Kings 17. 28 For certainly if the Samaritans had only desired information concerning the Worship of the God of Israel after the way of Hierusalem they would have sent only thither for it but because they sent into the Land of their Captivity for a Priest to be sent to them it is plain the former differences still continued and yet it is said he taught them to fear the Lord. And notwithstanding it be thus evident that Ieroboam did not fall then into Heathen Idolatry yet we see that he is charged with Idolatry in Scripture for it is said that he had done evil above all that were before him and had gone and made him other Gods and Molten Images to provoke God to anger and had cast him behind his back 1 Kings 14. 9. From whence it necessarily follows that if God may be allowed to interpret his own Law the Worshipping of Images though designed for his honour is Idolatry And since the Lawgiver hath thus interpreted his own Law we need not be solicitous about the sense of any others yet herein we have the concurrence of the Iewish and Christian Church the Iews have thought the prohibition to extend to all kinds of Images for Worship and almost all for ornament and the Image Worship of the Church of Rome is one of the great scandals to this day which hinder them from embracing Christianity The primitive Christians were declared enemies to all Worship of God by Images but I need the less to go about to prove it now since it is at last consessed by one of the most learned Iesuites they ever had that for the four first Centuries and further there was little or no use of Images in the Temples or Oratories of Christians but we need not their favour in so plain a cause as this as shall be evidently proved if occasion be farther given And against my Adversaries opinion that the second Command only forbids the Worship of Idols we have the consent of some of the most learned Writers of his own Church against him For Vasquez acknowledgeth that it is plain in Scripture that God did not only forbid that in the second command which was unlawful by the Law of Nature as the Worshipping an Image for God but the Worshipping of the true God by any similitude of him and he reckons up many others of the same opinion with him of great estimation in the Roman Church § 11. But we must now consider what he further produces for his opinion he therefore saith if St. Austins judgement be to be followed the second Commandment is but a part or explication of the first But why doth he not tell us whether St. Austins judgement be to be followed or no if it be of so much consequence to the resolving of this Controversie Nay how is he sure this was St. Austins constant judgement since in his latter Writings he reckons up the Commandments as others of the Fathers had done before him But if St. Austins Judgement were to be followed in this doth it thence follow that this Commandment must be only against Idols no but that all things concerning the Worship of God must be in one command and so they may be and yet be as full against Image Worship as in two so that no relief is to be had from hence And as little from his distinction of an inferiour and relative honour only which is given by them he saith to the Sacred Images of Christ and his B. Mother and Saints and that which they call Latria or Worship due to God the former he saith is only honorary adoration expressed by putting off our Hats kissing them or kneeling before them Which is just as if an unchaste Wife should plead in her excuse to her Husband that the person she was too kind with was extreamly like him and a near friend of his and that it was out of respect to him that she gave him the honour of his bed Can any one think that such an excuse as this would be taken by a jealous Husband How much less will such like pretences avail with that God who hath declared himself particularly jealous of
case whether there are the same motives and grounds from thence to believe Transubstantiation as there are the Divinity of Christ. In the proof of Transubstantiation his only Argument is from those words this is my body which words saith he do necessarily inferre either a real mutation of the Bread as the Catholicks hold or a metaphorical as the Calvinists but by no means do admit the Lutherans sense and so spends the rest of the Chapter against them and concludes it thus although there be some obscurity or ambiguity in the words of our Lord yet that is taken away by Councils and Fathers and so passes to them Which are a plain indication he thought the same which others of his Religion have said that the doctrine of Transubstantiation could not be proved from Scripture alone But when he proves the Divinity of Christ he goes through nine several classes of arguments six of which are wholly out of Scripture the first out of both Testaments the second only out of the Old the third out of the New the fourth from the names of the true God given to Christ the fifth from the Divine Attributes Eternity Immensity Power Wisdome Goodness Majesty the sixth from the proper works of God Creation Conservation Salvation Fore-knowing of secret things and working Miracles All which he largely insists upon with great strength and clearness so that if he may be judge the motives to believe the Divinity of Christ are far from being the same in Scripture that there are to believe Transubstantiation § 6. 3. But supposing they are mistaken in the belief of this doctrine this doth not excuse them from Idolatry To his quotation out of Dr. Taylors Liberty of Prophecying to the contrary I shall return him the opinion of their own Divines The Testimony of Coster is sufficiently known to this purpose who saith the same thing in effect that I had done If the doctrine of Transubstantiation be not true the Idolatry of the Heathens in Worshipping some Golden or Silver Statute or any Images of their Gods or the Laplanders Worshipping a red cloth or the Aegyptians an animal is more excusable than of Christians that Worship a bit of bread And our Country-man Bishop Fisher confesseth That if there be nothing but bread in the Eucharist they are all Idolaters But none is so fit to answer Dr. Taylor as himself after almost twenty years time to consider more throughly of those things and then he confesseth That the Weapons he used for their defence were but wooden daggers though the best he could meet with and if that be the best they have to say for themselves which he hath produced for them their probabilities will be soon out-ballanced by one Scripture-testimony urg'd by Protestants and thou shalt not Worship any graven Images will outweigh all the best and fairest imaginations of their Church and elsewhere That the second Commandment is so plain so easie so peremptory against all the making and Worshipping any Image or likeness of any thing that besides that every man naturally would understand all such to be forbidden it is so expressed that upon supposition that God intend to forbid it wholly it could not more plainly have been expressed By which it is clear he did not think that Idolatry did lye only in forsaking the true God and giving divine Worship to a Creature or an Idol that is to an imaginary God who hath no foundation in essence or existence which is the reason he brings why they are excused from Idolatry in Adoration of the Host because the object of their adoration is the true God for he not only makes the second command to be peremptory and positive against the Worship of the true God by an Image but elsewhere plainly determins this to be Idolatry and saith that an image then becomes an Idol when divine Worship is given to it and that to Worship false Gods or to give divine honour to an image which is not God is all one kind of formal Idolatry If therefore they cannot be excused from Idolatry who Worship the true God by an Image though the object of their adoration be right and they think the manner of it to be lawful neither can they who worship Christ upon the account of Transubstantiation in the Sacrament for not only the superstition of an undue object but of a prohibited manner or way of Worship is Idolatry even according to the opinion of him whom he produces as a testimony of their innocency § 7. 4. That if a mistake in this case will excuse them it would excuse the grossest Idolatry in the world St. Austin speaks of some who said that Christ was the Sun and therefore worshipped the Sun I desire to know whether this were Idolatry in them or no They had Scripture to plead for it as plain as This is my body for he is not only called the Sun of Righteousness but the Vulgar Latin which they contend to be the only authentick version reads that place Psal. 19. 6. in sole posuit tabernaculum suum he hath placed his Tabernacle in the Sun and that this is to be understood of Christ may be proved from the Apostles applying the other words their line is gone out through all the earth to the Apostles Preaching the Gospel Rom. 10. 18. And the Manichees did believe that Christ had his residence partly in the Sun and partly in the Moon and therefore they directed their prayers alwayes to the Sun Let us now consider two persons equally perswaded that the Sun is now the Tabernacle of Christ and that he is really present there and dispenses all the comfortable influences of heat and light to the world he being so often in Scripture called the true light 1 Joh. 8. 9. and another that he is really present by Transubstantiation in the Sacrament I would fain understand why the one should not be as free from Idolatry as the other If it be said that all those places which speak of Christ as the Sun are to be understood metaphorically that is the same thing we say to them concerning those words of Christ this is my body and if notwithstanding that they are excused by believing otherwise so must the other person unavoidably be so too It is to no purpose to alledge Fathers and Councils for the opinion more than for the other for the question is not concerning the probability of one mistake more than of the other although if they be strictly examined the absurdities of Transubstantiation are much greater but we suppose a mistake in both and the question is whether such a mistake doth excuse from Idolatry or no and we are not to enquire into the reasons of the mistake but the influence it hath upon our actions And then we are to understand why a mistake equally involuntary as to the real object of divine adoration may not excuse from Idolatry as well as to the wrong
of Sacraments doth not depend upon the preparation of the receiver but the bare administration or the external work done I need not add much to shew how much this doth obstruct the sincerity of devotion It had been an opinion long received in the Schools although with different wayes of explication that the Sacraments of the new Law differed from those of the old in this that the efficacy of those of the old Law in conferring grace did depend upon what they called opus operantis i. e. the faith and devotion of the receiver of them but that the Sacraments of the new Law did confer grace ex opere operato i. e. by the thing it self without any dependence therein upon the internal motion or preparation of mind in him that did partake of them This doctrine began to be in a particular manner applyed to the Mass because that contained Christ in a more especial way than any other Sacrament thence it was believed and asserted that it did produce saving effects as remission of sins and true grace although we should suppose an impossible thing that no man in the world had any true Grace as Baptism takes away original sin and gives grace to the Infant baptized whatever the sins of men are These are the expressions of one of their profound Doctors And therefore they distinguished the efficacy of the work done not barely from the dignity of the Priest and the merit of the receiver but from the devotion and preparation of mind which the receiver came with Which Bellarmin himself cannot deny only two things he saith to take off the odium of it One is That they do not wholly exclude them but only from the efficacy of Sacraments which he saith is effectually proved by the case of Infants that it doth not depend upon any quality of the receiver the Other that though the Mass as a Sacrament may not profit those who are not duly prepared yet as a Sacrifice it may By which these things are evident 1. That the efficacy of the Sacraments in conferring grace doth not at all depend upon the qualification of the receiver 2. That although upon other accounts some dispositions are required in adult persons to receive the benefit of them as Sacraments yet the effect of the Mass as a Sacrifice is not at all hindered by want of them If it were a thing possible I would willingly understand what they mean by Sacraments conferring grace ex opere operato which are not only the express terms of the Council of Trent but an Anathema is denounced against any one who denyes it For the manner of it is declared by themselves to be unintelligible and no wonder for they suppose Grace to be contained in the Sacrament and it is defined with an Anathema by the Council of Trent and by the Sacrament of it self it is conveyed into the heart of a man but whether it be contained as in an univocal cause as in an instrument or as in a sign Whether it be conferred by the Sacraments as Physical or as Moral Causes whether by a power inherent in the Sacraments themselves or a power assistent concurring with the Sacraments whether it be conveyed as Physick in a Cup or as Heat to Water by a red hot Iron or as healing to the person who touched the hemm of our Saviours Garment whether they produce only a next disposition to grace or not the grace it self but the union of grace with the soul or which is the most common opinion that Physical action whereby grace is produced which doth truly really and physically depend upon the Sacraments meaning thereby the external action of administring them These are looked on as great Riddles among them and so they ought to be but these things say they need not be determined nor the manner of the thing be understood no more than those who were miraculously healed did the manner of the cure a very proper instance if the matter of fact were as evident in one as it is the other But if I should say that the wearing a Cap of a certain figure would certainly convey wit and understanding into a man and the meer putting it on was enough to produce the effect and a person should tell me it was an unintelligible thing were it enough think you as Bellarmin doth in this case to run to other mysteries of faith and nature which are as hard as that By this consequence no man ought to be charged with believing absurd and unreasonable things and the Trinity and resurrection shall serve to justifie the Fables of the Alcoran as well as the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the efficacy of the Sacraments ex opere operato We could easily dispense with the barbarous terms and ungrammaticalness of them if there were any thing under them that were capable of being understood but that is not the greatest quarrel I have with this doctrine for I say still notwithstanding all the tricks and arts which have been used to palliate it it doth obstruct the sincerity of devotion by making the exercise of it by the preparation of our minds for the use of Sacraments to be unnecessary For if Grace be effectually conferred by the force of the bare external action which is acknowledged by them all what need can there be of a due preparation of mind by the exercise of faith prayer repentance c. in order to the receiving the benefit of them Yes say they the internal disposition of the mind is necessary to remove impediments and to make a subject capable of receiving it as driness in Wood to make it burn but what do they mean by this internal disposition of mind the exercise of the graces and duties I mentioned by no means but that there be no mortal sin unconfessed that there be no actual opposition in the Will to the Sacrament as for Instance if a man when he is going to be baptized resolves with himself that he will not be baptized or while he is baptizing that he will not believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost nor renounce the Devil and all his works This indeed they say hinders the efficacy of Sacraments but not the bare want of devotion and if want of devotion doth not hinder Grace being received what arguments can men use to perswade persons to it Who will undergo so strict an examination of himself and endeavour to raise his mind to a due preparation for the participation of Sacraments if he knows before hand that he shall certainly receive Grace by the Sacraments without it And surely they will not say but what doth obstruct the exercise of these things doth very much hinder devotion If men had a mind to banish it out of the world they could never do it under a fairer pretence than that Grace and consequently the effects of it may be obtained without it and I do not question but this doctrine hath been one of the great causes of
the corrupt lives of those who believe it From hence the trade of saying Masses hath proved so gainful and such multitudes of them have been procured for the benefit of particular persons this being a much easier way of procuring Grace and Salvation than fervent prayer constant endeavours after a Holy Life Mortification Watchfulness and other things we make necessary to enjoy the benefit of what Christ hath done and suffered for us And these things have been complained of by persons of their own communion who have had any zeal for devotion and the practice of true Goodness Cassander although he denyes the doctrine of the efficacy of the Sacraments without the devotion of the receiver to be the received doctrine of the Roman Church yet cannot deny but such a Pharisaical opinion as he calls it had possessed the minds of many of those who did celebrate Masses and were present at them and that too just an occasion was given to those who upbraid them with that opinion because of the multitude of Masses which were celebrated by impure and wicked Priests meerly for gain at which those who are present think they depart from them with a great deal of sanctity although they never once resolve to change their lives but return from thence immediately to their former sins Mons. Arnauld in his Book of frequent communion written upon that occasion confesseth that some in the Roman Church by their doctrine and instructions given to persons did destroy all preparations as unnecessary to the partaking the benefits of the Eucharist and that the worst persons might come without fear to it And that the most required as necessary by them is only the Sacrament of Penance to recover Grace by which he saith they reduce to bare confession and that this by them is not made necessary neither by the more probable opinion but only being at that time free from the guilt of mortal sin It is not to be denyed that Mons Arnauld hath proved sufficiently the other opinion to be most consonant to Scripture and Fathers and the rules of a Christian life but when that is granted the other opinion is yet more agreeable to the doctrine of the Roman Church For although Cassander produce some particular testimonies against it of persons in that Church yet we must appeal for the sense of their Church to the decrees of the Council of Trent which are so contrived as not to condemn the grossest doctrine of the opus operatum For when it doth determine That whosoever shall say that the Sacraments do not confer grace ex opere operato shall be Anathema it cannot be interpreted according to the sense of Cassander and those he mentions that the efficacy of Sacraments doth not depend upon the worth of the Priest For the twelfth Canon relates to that Whosoever shall say that the Minister being in mortal sin although he useth all the essentials to a Sacrament yet doth not celebrate a Sacrament let him be Anathema Those reverend Fathers were not sure so prodigal of their Anathema's to bestow two of them upon the same thing Their meaning then in the eighth Canon must be distinct from the twelfth and if it be so the opus operatum cannot have respect to the worth of the Priest but the devotion of the receiver and it is there opposed to the faith of the divine promise This will appear more plain by the account given of it in the History of that Council After they treated of condemning those who deny Sacraments do confer grace to him that putteth not a barr or do not confess that Grace is contained in the Sacraments and conferred not by vertue of faith but ex opere operato but coming to expound how it is contained and their causality every one did agree that grace is gained by all those actions that excite devotion which proceedeth not from the force of the work it self but from the vertue of devotion which is in the worker and these are said in the Schools to cause grace ex opere operantis There are other actions which cause grace not by the devotion of him that worketh or him that receiveth the work but by vertue of the work it self such are the Christian Sacraments by which grace is received so that there be no barr of mortal sin to exclude it though there be not any devotion So by the work of Baptism grace is given to the Infant whose mind is not moved towards it and to one born a Fool because there is no impediment of sin The Sacrament of Chrisme doth the like and that of extream Vnction though the sick man hath lost his memory But he that hath mortal sin and doth persevere actually or habitually cannot receive grace by reason of the contrariety not because the Sacrament hath not vertue to produce it ex opere operato but because the receiver is not capable being possessed with a contrary quality I dare now appeal to the most indifferent Judge Whether what I objected to them concerning the efficacy of Sacraments whether the minds of the receivers of them be prepared or no were not so far from being a calumâ—y that there is not so much as the least mistake in it if the doctrine of the Council of Trent be embraced by them And any one who shall consider their number of Sacraments and the admirable effects of every one of them may very well wonder how any man among them should want Grace or have any Devotion For Grace being conferred by the Sacraments at so many convenient seasons of his life whether he hath any devotion or no he is sure of Grace if he doth but partake of their Sacraments and need need not trouble himself much about devotion since his work may be done without it Never any doctrine was certainly better contrived for the satisfaction of impenitent sinners than theirs is Our Saviour seems very churlish and severe when he calls sinners to repentance that they may be saved but they have found out a much easier and smoother passage like that of a man in a Boat that may sleep all the while and land safe at last Not so much as the use of reason is required for the effect of that blessed Sacrament of extream Vnction by which like a Ship for a long Voyage a person is pitched and calked for eternity Surely it is the hardest thing that may be for any one to want Grace among them if they do but suffer the Vse of Sacraments upon them and they are the gentlest givers of it imaginable for all they desire of their Patients for Grace is only for them to lye still but if they should chance to be unruly and kick away the Priests or their rites of Chrisme I know not then what may become of them Yet the Church of Rome hath been so indulgent in this case that supposing men under a delirium or wholly insensible if before it be but probable they desired
first spread abroad and never so proper a season to give them caution as then But instead of that they advise them to take heed to the sure word of Prophecy and that they did well therein that the Scriptures were written for their instruction and comfort that being divinely inspired they were able to make them wise unto salvation What did the Apostles never imagine all this while the ill use that might be made of them by men of perverse minds yes they knew it as well as any and did foretell Schismes and Heresies that should be in the Church and saw them in their own dayes and yet poor men wanted that exquisite prudence of the Roman Church to prevent them by so happy an expedient as when they had written Epistles to several Churches to forbid the promiscuous reading of them But it may be it was the awe of the Apostles and their infallible Spirit in interpreting Scripture made this prohibition not so necessary in their own time did the Church then find it necessary to restrain the people after their Decease We have an occasion soon after given wherein to see the opinion of the Church at that time the Church of Corinth fell into a grievous Schisme and opposition to their spiritual Governours upon this Clemens writes his Epistle to them wherein he is so far from forbidding the use of Scripture to them to preserve unity that he bidds them look diligently into the Scriptures which are the true Oracles of the Holy Ghost and afterwards take St. Pauls Epistle into your hands and consider what he saith and commends them very much for being skilled in the Scriptures Beloved saith he ye have known and very well known the holy Scriptures and ye have throughly looked into the Oracles of God therefore call them to mind Which language is as far different from that of the Roman Church as the Church of that Age is from theirs Nay the counterfeit Clemens whom they can make use of upon other occasions is as express in this matter as the true For he perswades private Christians to continual meditation in the Scriptures which he calls the Oracles of Christ and that this is the best imployment of their retirements But we need not use his testimony in this matter nor the old Edition of Ignatius wherein Parents are bid to instruct their Children in the Holy Scriptures nor that saying of Polycarp to the Philippians out of the old Latin Edition I am confident you are well studied in the Scriptures for in the Greek yet preserved he exhorts them to the reading of St. Pauls Epistles that they might be built up in the faith So little did these holy men dream of such a prudent dispensing the Scriptures among them for fear of mischief they might do themselves or others by them Clemens Alexandrinus mentions the reading the Scriptures among Christians before their Meales and Psalmes and Hymns at them and Tertullian mentions the same custome Origen in the Greek Commentaries lately published perswades Christians by all means by attending to Reading Prayer Teaching Meditation therein day and night to lay up in their hearts not only the new Oracles of the Gospell Apostles and Apocalypse but the old ones too of the Law and the Prophets And elsewhere tells his hearers they ought not to be discouraged if they met with difficulties in reading the Scriptures for there was great benefit to be had by them But lest it should be thought he speaks here only of publick reading the Scriptures in his Homilies on Leviticus he speaks plainly that he would not only have them hear the Word of God in publick but to be exercised and meditate therein in their houses night and day For Christ is every where present and therefore they are commanded in the Law to meditate therein upon their journeys and when they sit in their houses and when they lye down and rise up But had not the Church yet experience enough of the mischief of permitting the Scriptures to the people Were there ever greater and more notorious heresies than in those first ages of the Church and those arising from perverting the words and designes of the Scriptures But did the Church yet afterwards grow wiser in the sense of the Roman Church In the time of the four General Councils they had tryal enough of the mischief of Heresies but did the Fathers of the Church forbid the reading the Scriptures on that account No but instead of that they commend the Scriptures to all as the best remedy for all passions of the mind so St. Basil and St. Hierome call it and this latter commends nothing more to the Women he instructed in devotion than constant reading the Scriptures and withall they say that infinite evils do arise from ignorance of the Scriptures from hence most part of Heresies have come from hence a negligent and careless life and unfruitful labours Nay so frequent so earnest and vehement is St. Chrysostome in this matter of recommending the reading of Scriptures that those of the Roman Church have no other way to answer him but by saying he speaks hyperbolically which in plain English is he speaks too much of it But how far different were the opinions of the wise men of the Church in those times from what those have thought who understood the interest of the Roman Church best We may see what the opinion of the latter is by the counsel given to Iulius 3. by the Bishops met at Bononia for that end to give the best advice they could for restoring the dignity of the Roman See that which was the greatest and weightiest of all they said they reserved to the last which was that by all means as little of the Gospel as might be especially in the vulgar tongue be read in the Cities under his jurisdiction and that little which was in the Mass ought to be sufficient neither should it be permitted to any mortal to read more For as long as men were contented with that little all things went well with them but quite otherwise since more was commonly read For this in short is that Book say they which above all others hath raised those Tempests and Whirlewinds which we are almost carryed away with And in truth if any one diligently considers it and compares it with what is done in our Churches will find them very contrary to each other and our very doctrine not only to be different from it but repugnant to it A very fair and ingenuos confession and if self-condemned persons be Hereticks there can be none greater than those of the Roman Church especially the prudential men in it such as these certainly were whom the Pope singled out to give advice in these matters But how different is the wisdom of the Children of this world from that of the Children of Light We have already seen what another kind of judgement
with her Picture and a Book of her life and eminent sanctity by a person of great authority which were preserved as precious things by the Vice-roy's Lady But this is nothing to Gregory the thirteenth then Pope who writ a Letter of encouragement to her to go on in the same way of sanctity she had begun She had been examined by the Inquisition and her wounds were allowed by them after diligent search But at last they found what she aimed at which was the Revolt of Portugall from Spain which being once suspected she is brought before the Inquisition and her Sanctity is condemned her wounds declared to be a meer Imposture being artificially made by red Lead and her self sentenced by the Inquisitors to a very severe pennance all her dayes Decemb. 8. A. D. 1588. I suppose my Adversary having been upon the place hath often heard the truth of this but if he doubts it he may find it as I have related it in Ludovicus a Paramo By which it is very easie to ghess what it is which gives and preserves the reputation of these things in the Roman Church for if this Saint had dyed before her design brake forth we might have heard of her wounds in the Roman Breviary as well as those of St. Francis and a Festival might have been kept in commemoration of her sanctity and her self as religiously invocated as the rest of the Popes making But supposing Pope Alexander the fourths authority prevailed so much upon the people to believe that S. Francis had the same wounds which Christ had c. No wonder then it should be written in the Book called The Flowers of S Francis that those only were saved by the blood of Christ who lived before S. Francis but all that followed were redeemed by the blood of S. Francis No wonder this Petrus Iohannis made the Rule of S. Francis to be the very same with the Gospel and that which Christ and his Apostles lived by of which S. Francis was the greatest observer next to Christ and his Mother and that as Christ when he was to reform the world chose twelve Apostles so S. Francis had twelve Brethren by whom the Evangelical Order was founded that those who opposed this Order were the carnal persecuting Clergy in whom the Seat of the Beast is much more than in the people that in the time of this Mystical Antichrist the Carnal Church shall oppose the doctrine life and zeal of the Saints and burn as it were with fire against them but it shall be dryed up from all spiritual Wisdom and Grace and the riches of Christ and be exposed to errors and delusion as it was with the Iews and Greeks Those who will not take the pains to see how faithfully I have translated these words out of Eymericus would imagine I have borrowed some of the canting language of the modern Quakers But he goes on saying That as Vasthi the Queen being cast off from the Kingdom and Marriage of Ahassuerus the humble Esther was chosen to succeed in her place and the King made a great Feast to his Princes and Servants so in this last state of the Church the adulterous Babylon the carnal Church being rejected the spiritual Church must be exalted and a great and spiritual Feast be kept to celebrate these Nuptials with that under the Mystical Antichrist there shall be overturnings and commotions by which the Carnal Church shall be terribly stirred up and moved against the Evangelical Spirit of Christ but that the Whore of Babylon the Carnal Church shall fall in which time the Saints shall preach saying from this time it is no longer the Church of Christ but the Synagogue of Satan and the Habitation of Devils which before said in the pride of her heart I sit as a Queen in great honour and glory I rule over my Kingdom I sit at ease I am no Widow i. e. I have Bishops and Kings on my side that the Roman Church is that great Whore spoken of in the Revelations which hath committed fornication with this world having departed from the worship and sincere love and the delights of Christ her Spouse and embraced the world the riches and pleasures of it and the Devil and Kings and Princes and Prelates and all the lovers of this world That the Teachers of this spiritual State are more properly the Gates to lead men into the wisdom of Christ than the Apostles themselves These things are expresly delivered concerning the doctrine of this Franciscan Fryer by the Inquisitor Eymericus I know Wadding in his Franciscan Annals to preserve the reputation of his Order would clear him from all suspicion of Heresie but I suppose the credit of an Inquisitor having such opportunities to know the truth so near his own time and having the examination of many of his followers is to be relyed on rather than the testimony of one at such a distance and partial for the honour of his order Especially that being considered which Possevin saith of Eymericus that most of his accounts of the times a little before his own were the very same with what was contained in a Manuscript in the Vatican Library both as to order and words which is though to have been brought from Avignon to Rome where he was made Inquisitour General by Gregory 11. A. D. 1358. But it is not denyed by Wadding or others that the Beguini and Fratricelli the Beguardi and others were his followers and we shall find so great an agreement in their opinions that it would be strange they should be accounted the Disciples of any other Eymericus gives this account of them that in the time of Clement 5. there arose in the Province of Narbonne one Petrus Iohannis a Franciscan Fryer who published by Writing and Preaching a great many Errours and Heresies in the same Province and drew many after him who had spread themselves over France Italy Germany and other places and continued in his time being daily searched for condemned by the Inquisitours They all agreed that their doctrine was from God by immediate inspiration and that all the writings of Petrus Johannis were revealed to him from the Lord and that he had declared this to some of his Friends that he was so great a Doctor that from the time of the Apostles and Evangelists there have been none greater than he in Learning and Holiness and that his writings theirs only excepted wherein they fell short of the former Sect were the most useful to the Church § 10. Their doctrines may be reduced to these four heads 1. Evangelical poverty 2. Unlawfulness of Swearing 3. The Doctrine of perfection 4. Opposition to the carnal Church Which being joyned with that greater degree of light which they supposed themselves to have above all the rest of the world makes up a Sect of Quakers after the Order of St. Francis 1. Their Doctrine of Evangelical poverty about which they said That our
Lord Iesus Christ as man and his Apostles had nothing in proper or in common because they were perfectly poor in this world and that this is perfect Evangelical poverty but the enjoying any thing though in common takes off from the perfection of it and that the Apostles themselves could not without sin have any property in any thing and that it is Heresie to say otherwise therefore the rule of St. Francis prescribing this poverty was that which Christ observed and prescribed to his Apostles and was the same with the Gospel of Christ and therefore whosoever addes to it or takes from it be it the Pope himself he is a Heretick in so doing on which account they condemned Iohn 22. and all the Prelates and Fryers for Heresie who opposed this Doctrine For we are not to imagine a Doctrine so contrary to the beloved interests of the Roman Church should escape opposition nay it was so far from it that it immediately caused a breach in their own order For as Papirius Massonus well observes from Petrarch none hate poverty more than they who profess it most and the Franciscan order had gotten into their hands goodly possessions and built magnificent houses and laid up great provisions of Corn and Wine which these followers of Petrus Iohannis declare against as directly contrary to the rule which they professed being the strictest poverty which this was as like as hypocrisie is to sincerity or St. Francis to Christ. Upon this a great division happens in the Order between the Brethren that followed Petrus Iohannis de Oliva who were called the Spiritual men and the Brethren of the community both parties appeal to Clement 5. Alexander de Alexandriâ General of the Order appears in behalf of the Community and Vbertinus de Casali on the other side But the spiritual Brethren fearing hard usage at Rome and from their other superiours choose new ones to themselves and so make an open Schisme In the Council of Vienna A. D. 1311. a Decree was made to declare the rule of St. Francis which is extant in the Canon Law under the title of Clementines but this by no means effected a cure for the people favouring the dissenters in the Province of Narbon they turned out all the Brethren of the community and took upon themselves new habits to be distinguished from the rest During this heat Gonsalvus General of the Order favouring the stricter Fryers dyed at Paris not without suspicion of poison from the looser Brethren Iohn 22. being Pope resolves to take a severer course with the dissenters and A. D. 1318. imployes the Inquisitours for that end the fruit of which was that they brake out into a more open Schisme and chose one Henricus de Ceva or de Sena for their General and kept their Conventicles as Iohn 22. in his constitution Sancta Romana declares and every day added to their Sect. And the more constitutions he published the greater opposition was made in so much that Michael de Caesena Gul. Ockam and others found out Heresies at last in them and plain contradictions to those of his predecessours especially that of Nicolaus 4. which Bellarmin confesseth cannot in all things be reconciled No fewer than eighteen errours Francisc. Pegna confesseth he was charged with in one constitution to which he answered in another decretal not published in which they found 32 Errours but William Ockam went farther and charged him with no fewer than 90. A goodly number for an infallible Head of the Church in which there ought to be some allowance for humane frailty as Benedict 12. his successour pleaded in behalf of Nicolaus 4. when he answered the objections of the Fraticelli against Iohn 22 as may be seen in Eymericus And his answers are thought so insufficient by Pegna that he saith there are some doubtful and some false which ought not to be passed over without animadversion and therefore solemnly invocates God that he may be able to answer them better and yet this Benedict was accounted a notable Divine for a Pope which made the dissenters saith Pegna hate him the more The substance of his answer which Pegna is so much displeased with is that though Nicolaus 4. had determined contrary to John 22. yet the former definition being contrary to Scripture ought not to stand Thus when Popes fall out the Scripture comes by its own which is to be the standing rule of all Controversies 2. They thought it unlawful upon any occasion to swear this Iohn 22. in his decretal Gloriosam Ecclesiam charges them with and that those were guilty of mortal sin and lyable to punishment who were under the obligation of any Oath whatsoever the same is reported by Wadding and others concerning them 3. The Doctrine of perfection was stiffly maintained by them This Spondanus would have to be one of the opinions of the Beguardi whom he distinguishes from the Beguini but not only Eymericus and Pegna make them to be the same but Iohn 22. in the Extravagant Sancta Romana condemns both together as the title is in Eymericus and in the body of it it appears that they went under divers names in several places being sometimes called Fraticelli sometimes Fratres de poenitentia sometimes Fratres de paupere vitâ sometimes Bizochi sometimes Beghini and sometimes Beguardi which latter seems to be the name that they were known in Germany most by Eymericus speaking of Petrus Olerii and Bononatus two of the Begardi in Spain that were burnt for their Heresie by the Inquisitour and Bishop of Barcelona saith that they held the opinion mentioned before concerning Evangelical poverty which Spondanus thinks peculiar to the Beguini About perfection their opinions were these as Alvarus Pelagius Ioh. Turrecremata Bzovius Spondanus and Raynaldus all agree that a man in this life may attain to so great perfection as to live without sin that a man who hath attained to such a degree he is above ordinances i. e. he need not fast and pray as others do that such as are perfect have the spirit of liberty and are not subject to any humane Ordinances either of Church or State That every intellectual Being hath enough within it self to make it happy or a light within so that it doth not need any external light of Glory in order thereto That to live in the exercise of moral vertues is an argument of a State of imperfection and that one truly perfect is above them From hence they accounted all actions which were designed to satisfie natural inclinations to be indifferent and so looked on unclean mixtures as no sins Alvarus saith he saw one of them who was a German and seemed a very spiritual man in a very mean habit and looking sowrely with tears in his eyes and full of raptures and thought himself a Contemplator and a Taster Names not yet taken up by any Fanaticks among us And to let others understand
as he adds to none but God himself and said that they followed the Apostolical rule in a very singular manner This Geraldus saith Paramo and his followers by a shew of extraordinary sanctity drew many to their party but Friar Salimbenus in a Manuscript seen by Pegna in the Library of Cardinal Savelli at Rome being himself a Franciscan gives this account of him whom he calls Gherardinus Segalellus that being desirous to be admitted into their order he was refused by them after which he spent some time in the Franciscans Church where observing the pictures of the Apostles and the habits they were drawn in he put himself as exactly as he could into the very same habit and having sold his house and received the money for it he distributed it all among the people and afterwards got a companion who was a servant to the Franciscans but by degrees their number increased so that in a short time they spread over many Cities in Italy and from thence were dispersed over almost all Europe They went up and down in the Streets saith Eymericus Preaching repentance with a white Mantel a white Coat and long hair barefoot and bareheaded and what they eat was publickly in the Streets and only what was given to them after forty years in which they mightily prevailed Boniface 8. caused Gerald to be taken and burnt upon this Dulcinus with six thousand of his companions retired into the Alps where they increased so much saith Pegna that Clement 5. was forced to send a Croisado against them where they starved a great part of them but Dulcinus and his Wife Margareta as Patreolus calls her were taken and burnt It is not credible saith Bzovius how long they endured upon the Alps all extremities of hunger and cold rather than they would yield to their Adversaries But notwithstanding all the endeavours could be used they could not wholly extinguish that Sect saith Prateolus but the remainders of it were still left in the Mountains about Trent and continued to his time which was about A. D. 1560. These were of the same opinions with the Fratricelli before mentioned as to the Roman Church that by reason of the wickedness of the Clergy and Religious Orders it was a reprobate Church and the Whore of Babylon but being no more content with this than the greatest Fanaticks of our Age they pretended to great things themselves that they were the only spiritual Congregation sent and chosen out by God to bear testimony to his truth in the last ages and that they and only they had the power which St. Peter had that Geraldus Segarelli was a plant of Gods own planting growing up from the root of faith by whom God began the work of Reformation of his Church to the purity perfection life state and poverty of the primitive Church in that state wherein Christ committed his Church to St. Peter That they only are the Church of God and in that perfection wherein the Apostles were and therefore are bound to live in subjection to none because their rule which was immediately from Christ is free and hath the greatest perfection that no one can be saved who is not of their Order that it is a sign any one is in a state of damnation to persecute them that all the Popes from Sylvester downward and all the Prelats were impostours and deceivers excepting only Celestine 5. who renounced his Popedome and gave leave to the spiritual Brotherhood to separate from the rest in the Franciscan Order That the Orders of Clergy and Religion are dangerous to the Church That no lay-men ought to pay any tithes to Priest or Prelat who lives not in the same perfection and poverty which the Apostles did That it was as well to Worship God in Woods or Stables or Barnes as in consecrated Churches That it was unlawful for Christians to swear at all saith Prateolus or never but in case of the Articles of faith or the divine commands say Turrecremata and Eymericus but in all other cases it was lawful to use all aequivocations and mental reservations and to deny their Sect with their mouths as long as they kept true to them in their hearts That nothing was unlawful which was done out of a principle of Love and that all things in the worst sense were to be common among them and therefore they are charged with allowing and practising promiscuous mixtures among themselves if their Adversaries do not charge them as unjustly in this point as the Prmitive Christians were charged by the Heathen This is the summ of their Principles and practices as they are reported by Turrecremata Eymericus Prateolus Spondanus Raynaldus and others But that which is still observable to our purpose is that these were looked on as a sort of Fryers in the Roman Church for when Honorius 4. condemned them by his Bull extant in Eymericus he doth it upon this account that they were a sort of Mendicant Fryers not approved by the Roman See whereas Greg. 10. in the Council of Lyons had absolutely forbid all Orders of Mendicants after the Lateran Council that should not receive express confirmation from the Pope but his Holiness was informed that some who called themselves of the Apostolical Order had since that time assumed to themselves a new habit of Religion without due applications being made to his See and a great number of these went up and down as Mendicants into many parts of the world doing unseemly things to their own peril and the scandal of others especially some among them being guilty of Heresie therefore all Ecclesiastical Officers are required to admonish and compell them to lay down their habits and to enter themselves among some of the approved Religious Orders and in case of refusal they ought to proceed judicially against them and to deliver them over to the secular power By which we understand the true ground of the quarrel against them viz. not yielding subjection enough to the Roman See and how easily all their Blasphemies and Villanies might be forgiven if they entred themselves into any of the approved Religious Orders § 12. As we see all the care used could not root out this Sect wholly but the remainders of them continued in some of the Mountains of Italy so I am very much mistaken if the Alumbrado's in Spain or the Sect of Illuminati were any other than a remainder of the Beguini and Fraticelli whom we observed before to have got footing there Spondanus indeed and some others from him say they were detected in the Diocesses of Sevil and Cadiz A. D. 1623. and were condemned by Andreas Pachecus the general Inquisitour in Spain in twenty six Articles and the seven chief of them were burnt but withall he saith they were not so much a new Sect as a renewal of an old one with some additions Nay we meet with the very same name of the Sect long
Vnity they look after all such who hold opinions contrary to their Interest must be proceeded against and condemned but for others let them quarrel and dispute as long as they will they let them alone if they touch not the Popes Authority nor any of the gainful opinions and practices which are allowed among them And supposing their Interest be kept up which the Inquisition is designed for the Court of Rome is as great a Friend to toleration as may be only what others call different perswasions they call School points and what others call divisions they call disputes the case is the same with their Church and others only they have softer names for the differences among themselves and think none bad enough for those who cast off the Popes Authority and plead for a Reformation Here then lyes the profound mystrey of their Vnity that they are all agreed against us though not among themselves and are not we so against them too May not we plead for the Vnity that they have on the same grounds We are all agreed against Popery as much as they are against Protestants only we have some Scholastick disputes among us about indifferent things and the Episcopal Authority as they have we have some zealous Dominicans and busie and factious men such as the Iesuits among them are but setting aside these disputes we are admirably well agreed just as they are in the Roman Church § 15. 2. They say they doe not differ in matters of faith But this is as true as the other for are they agreed in matters of faith who charge one another with heresie as we have already seen that they doe But if they mean that they doe not differ in matters of faith because those only are matters of faith which they are agreed in they were as good say they are agreed in the things they doe not differ about for the parties which differ doe believe the things in difference to be matters of faith and therefore they think they differ from one another in matter of faith But they are not agreed what it is which makes a thing to be a matter of faith and therefore no one can pronounce that their differences are not about matters of faith for what one may think not to be de fide others may believe that it is we see the Popes personal infallibility is become a Catholick doctrine among the Iesuits and declared to be plain heresie by their Adversaries The deliverance of souls from Purgatory by the prayers of the living is generally accounted a matter of faith in the Roman Church but we know those in it who deny it and say it was a novel opinion introduced by Gregory 1. against the consent of Antiquity It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans and Iansenists to attribute to God alone the praise of converting grace and that grace efficacious by it self was the doctrine of Fathers and Councils and the Catholick Church and is it not then a matter of faith in their opinion wherein the Iesuits and they differ from each other To which purpose it was well said by the author of a Book printed at Paris A. D. 1651. containing essayes and reflections on the state of Religion that because of the Controversies between the Iansenists and the Iesuits it might with more reason be affirmed now than in the time of Arrianism it self that the whole Church seems to become heretical For admitting saith he what is most certain that the Church hath decreed Calvinism Pelagianism and Semipelagianism to be heresies and that the Doctors are those who sit in the Chair to be consulted withall upon points of Religion all Catholicks are reduced to a most strange perplexity For if a man shall address himself to those of the Iansenian party they will tell him that those who are termed Molinists are Pelagians or at least Semi-pelagians and on the other side the Molinists will bear him down that their Adversaries are Calvinists or else Novatians Now all the Doctors of the Catholick Church a very few excepted are either of the one or the other party I leave you then to consider to what prodigious streights mens minds are reduced since this is held as a general Maxime that whosoever fails in one point of faith fails in all It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans that all persons Christ only excepted were born in sin and therefore the contenders for the immaculate conception must in their judgment differ in a point of faith from them But if this distinction should be allowed to preserve the unity of their Church why shall it not as well cure the divisions of ours The most considerable in all respects of the dissenters from the Church of England declare that they agree with us in all the articles of doctrine required by our Church will this be enough in their opinion to make us at unity with each other if not let them not plead the same thing for themselves which they will not allow to us I cannot understand that the controversies about Ceremonies considered in themselves among us are of any greater weight than the disputes among the Fryars concerning their habits have been and yet this controversie only about the size of their hoods lasted in one Order almost an Age together and was managed with as great a heat and animosity as ever these have been among us and was with very much adoe laid asleep for a time by the endeavours of 4. Popes successively But if this signifies nothing to unity to say that the matters are not great about which the Controversies are if the disturbances be great which are caused by them that will reflect more sharply on their Church than on ours which hath so many differences which they account not to be about any matters of faith But if these differences in point of doctrine among them prove to be none in matters of faith it would be no difficult task upon the same grounds to shew that they have no reason to quarrel with us for breaking the unity of their Church because then we may differ from them as little in matters of faith as they doe from one another This I need not take upon me to shew at large because I find it already done to my hand by F. Davenport al. Sancta Clara in his paraphrastical exposition of the 39. articles of our Church about half of them he acknowledges to be Catholick as they are without any further explication The first he meets with difficulty in is that about the number of Canonical books point blank against the Council of Trent but he acknowledges that Cajetan and Franciscus Mirandula fully agree with our Church in it who quote Hierom Ruffinus Antoninus and Lyra of the same opinion as they might have done many others but because our Church doth not cast them wholly out of the Canon he dares not say it is guilty of heresie simply and the rather because Waldensis and Driedo
Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome § 1. HAving thus far Vindicated the Scriptures from being the cause by being read among us of all the Sects and Fanaticisms which have been in England I now return to the consideration of the Remainder of his Reply And one thing still remains to be cleared concerning the Scripture which is whether it can be a most certain rule of faith and life since among Protestants it is left to the private interpretation of every fanciful spirit which is as much as to ask whether any thing can be a rule which may be mis-understood by those who are to be guided by it or whether it be fit the people should know the Laws they are to be governed by because it is a dangerous thing to mis-interpret Laws and none are so apt to do it as the common people I dare say St. Augustin never thought that Heresies arising from mis-understanding Scriptures were a sufficient argument against their being a Rule of faith or being read by the people as appears by his discoursing to them in the place quoted by him For then he must have said to them to this purpose Good people ye perceive from whence Heresies spring therefore as you would preserve your soundness in the faith abstain from reading the Scriptures or looking on them as your rule mind the Traditions of the Church but trust not your selves with the reading what God himself caused to be writ it cannot be denyed that the Scriptures have far greater excellency in them than any other writings in the world but you ought to consider the best and most useful things are the most dangerous when abused What is more necessary to the life of man than eating and drinking yet where lyes intemperance and the danger of surfetting but in the use of these What keeps men more in their wits than sleeping yet when are men so lyable to have their throats cut as in the use of that What more pleasant to the eyes than to see the Sun yet what is there so like to put them out as to stare too long upon him Therefore since the most necessary and useful things are most dangerous when they are abused my advice must be that ye forbear eating sleeping and seeing for fear of being surfetted murdred or losing your sight which you know to be very bad things I cannot deny but that the Scriptures are called the bread of life the food of our souls the light of our eyes the guide of our wayes yet since there may be so much danger in the use of food of light and of a Guide it is best for you to abstain from them Would any man have argued like St. Augustin that should talk at this rate yet this must have been his way of arguing if his meaning had been to have kept the people from reading the Scriptures because Heresies arise from mis-understanding them But all that he inferrs from thence is what became a wise man to say viz. that they should be cautious in affirming what they did not understand and that hanc tenentes regulam sanitatis holding this still as our rule of soundness in the faith with great humility what we are able to understand according to the faith we have received we ought to rejoyce in it as our food what we cannot we ought not presently to doubt of but take time to understand it and though we know it not at present we ought not to question it to be good and true and afterwards saith that was his own case as well as theirs What S. Augustine a Guide and Father of the Church put himself equal with the people in reading and understanding Scriptures In which we not only see his humility but how far he was from thinking that this argument would any more exclude the people from reading the Scriptures than the great Doctors of the Church For I pray were they the common people who first broached Heresies in the Christian Church Were Arius Nestorius Macedonius Eutyches or the great abettors of their Doctrines any of the Vulgar If this argument then holds at all it must hold especially against men of parts and learning that have any place in the Church for they are much more in danger of spreading Heresies by mis-interpreting Scriptures than any others are But among Protestants he saith Scripture is left to the Fanciful interpretation of every private Spirit If he speaks of our Church he knows the contrary and that we profess to follow the unanimous consent of the primitive Fathers as much as they and embrace the doctrine of the four General Councils But if there have been some among us who have followed their own Fancies in interpreting Scripture we can no more help that than they can do in theirs and I dare undertake to make good that there have never been more absurd ridiculous and Fanciful Interpretations of Scripture than not the common people but the Heads of their Church have made and other persons in greatest reputation among them Which though too large a task for this present design may ere long be the subject of another For the authority of Henry 8. in the testimony produced from him when they yield to it in the point of Supremacy we may do it in the six articles or other
points of Popery which he held to the last But we think it an advantage to our cause in the matter of Supremacy that they who were Papists in other points as well as this against reading the Scriptures yet contended so earnestly against the Popes Authority as Henry 8. and Stephen Gardiner Bonner and the rest did Doth he imagine that Henry 8. is owned by us to be Head of our Church as the Pope is with them so as to think him infallible He would be Head of the Popish Church in England in spight of the Pope but he never pretended to be Head of the Reformation any farther than the Supremacy went and if they will not believe him when he was influenced as they think by Cranmer neither are we to be tyed to his opinion when he was guided by Stephen Gardiner or any other who were not greater enemies to Cranmer than to the Reformation § 2. The next thing wherein I said the sincerity of devotion is much obstructed in their Church was by the multitude of superstitious observations never used in the primitive Church as I said I was ready to defend to this his answer is very short 1. That I should have said to prove but so weak was I as to think the Affirmative was to be proved and the Negative defended 2. He denyes any such to be used in their Church I desire then to know his opinion of baptizing bells with God-fathers and God-mothers holding the rope in their hands being buried in a Monks habit Pilgrimages to images of Saints sprinkling holy water spittle and salt in baptisme their rites of exorcism Agnus Dei's the Pageantry of the Passion-week the carrying about of the Host the numbering of Ave Marias and Pater Nosters to make Rosaries and Psalters of the B. Virgin the burning tapers at noon day particularly on Candlemas day with great devotion the incensing of images with many others which might be mention'd and if he can vindicate these from superstition it will be no hard task to vindicate the Heathens in the ceremonies of their devotion and to prove that there can be no such thing as Superstition in the world § 3. I now come to the gross abuse of people in Pardons and Indulgences by which I said the sincerity of devotion was much obstructed among them he tells me as an eye-witness that there is great devotion caused by them in Catholick Countries there being no Indulgence ordinarily granted but enjoyns him that will avail himself of it to confess his sins to receive the Sacraments to pray fast and give alms all which duties are with great devotion he saith performed by Catholick people which without the incitement of an Indulgence had possibly been left undone I will not be so troublesome to enquire what sincerity of devotion that was he was an eye-witness of which was caused by Indulgences nor what sort of persons they were who were thus devout at receiving them I think it will be sufficient for my purpose to prove that no persons in the world who understand what Indulgences mean in the Church of Rome can be excited to any devotion by them but that on the contrary they tend exceedingly to the obstructing of it which I shall doe by shewing that either they are great and notorious cheats if that be not meant by them which is expressed in them or if it be that nothing could be invented that tends more to obstructing their own way of devotion than these doe 1. That they are great and notorious cheats if that be not meant by them which is expressed in them For which we are to understand first what hath been expressed in their Indulgences 2. What opinion those of their own Church have had concerning them § 4. 1. What hath been expressed in their Indulgences the eldest Indulgences we meet with are those which were made by the Popes to such who undertook their quarrels against their enemies and the first of this kind I can meet with is that of Anselm Bishop of Luca Legat of Gregory 7. which he gave to those of his party who would fight against the Emperour Henry 4. which Baronius relates from his Poenitentiary in which was promised remission of all their sins to such who would venture their lives in that Holy War And Gregorius 7. himself in an epistle to the Monks of Marscilles who stuck close to him promised an Indulgence of all their sins The like Indulgence with remission of all their sins was granted to those who would fight against the Saracens in Africa by Victor who succeeded Gregorius 7. after him followed Vrban 2. who granted an Indulgence to all who would goe in the War to the Holy Land of all their sins and as Gul. Tyrius saith expressely mention'd those which the Scripture saith doe exclude from the Kingdom of God as murder theft c. and not only absolved them from all the penances they deserved by their sins but bid them not doubt of an eternal reward after death as Malmsbury saith the like is attested by Ordericus Vitalis in whose younger days this Expedition began upon which he saith all the thieves Pyrats and other Rogues came in great numbers and listed themselves having made confession of their sins and if we believe S. Bernard there were very few but such among them which he rejoyceth very much in and saith there was a double cause of joy in it both that they left the Countries where they were before and now went upon such an enterprise which would carry them to Heaven This way of Indulgences being thus introduced was made use of afterwards upon the like occasions by Callictus 2. A. D. 1122. by Eugenius 3. A. D. 1145. by Clem. 3. A. D. 1195. and others after them who all promised the same Indulgences that Vrban 2. had given And it is well observed by Morinus that these Indulgences cannot be understood of a meer relaxation of Canonical penances because such a remission of all sins is granted upon which eternal life followes and therefore must respect God and not barely the Church and because absolution was to be given upon them which saith he according to the discipline then in the Church ought not to be given but till the Canonical Penance had been gone through or at least the greatest part of it But therein he is very much mistaken when he saith that the Popes never granted these plenary Indulgences but only to encourage an Expedition to the Holy Land For Gelasius 2. A. D. 1118. granted the same to the Christian souldiers at the siege of Saragoza as appears by the Bull it self in Baronius Honorius 2. in the quarrel he had with Roger of Sicily gave the same to all who having confessed their sins should dye in the War against him but if they chanced to escape with their lives but half their sins were pardoned Alexander 3. gave to his Friends at Ancona
who should visit the 12. Churches and their own Cathedral all Lent Fasting as full an Indulgence as if they went to Hierusalem and besides this every first Sunday in the month as great an Indulgence i. e. I suppose for as many days as a man could take up sands in both hands This Baronius thinks a little too much and therefore rejects it as fabulous because the same Pope in an Indulgence given to the Church of Ferrara grants but a year of criminals and a seventh part of venials but he doth not consider that the case of Ancona was peculiar because of the great friendship that city had shewn to the Pope in his distress and this Indulgence was transcribed from a very ancient Manuscript and better attested than many other things which he never disputes But if it be a cheat let it pass for one and it is no great matter to me whether it were a cheat of the Popes or the Church of Ancona But he doth not at all question the Indulgence granted by the same Pope to those who would take up arms against the Albigenses which to those who dye in that cause is not only pardon of all their sins but an eternal reward but such that refused to goe no less than excommunication is denounced against them And Honorius 3. in the same cause granted an Indulgence in the same terms as to those who went to the Holy Land and Gregorius 9. to all who should take his part against the Emperour Frederic 2. which Bzovius confesseth to be usual with the Popes to give to those who would fight against Saracens hereticks or any other enemies of theirs This practice of Indulgences being once taken up was found too beneficial to be ever let fall again and private Bishops began to make great use of it not in such a manner as the Popes but they were unwilling not to have as great a share as they could get in it thence they began to publish Indulgences to those who would give money towards the building or repairing Churches or other publick works for this they promised them a pardon of the 7. or 4. or 3. part of their sins according as their bounty deserved This was first begun by Gelasius 2. for the building of the Church of Saragoza A. D. 1118. and was followed by other Bishops in so much that Morinus is of opinion that Mauricius Bishop of Paris built the great Church of Nostredame there in that manner and he saith he can find no ground for this practice of Indulgences before the 12. century and answers Bellarmins arguments for a greater antiquity of them and proves all his testimonies from Gregories Stations Ludgerus his epistle and Sergius his indulgence in the Church of S. Martin at Rome produced by Baronius to be meer impostures But the Bishops of Rome finding how beneficial these Indulgences were soon resolved to keep the keys of this Treasury of the Church in their own hands and therefore quickly abridged other Bishops of this power and made great complaint that by the indiscreet use of Indulgences by the Bishops the keys of the Church were contemned and discipline lost so Innocent 3. in the Council of Lateran can 62. and therefore decrees that in the dedication of a Church though where there were several Bishops together they should not grant any Indulgence above a year nor any single Bishop above 40. days But we are not to imagine that the Popes ever intended to tye their own hands by these Canons but they were too wise to let others have the managing of so rich a stock as that of the Church was which would bring in so great a harvest from the sins of the people Thence Boniface 8. first instituted the year of Iubilee A. D. 1300 and in his Bull published for that end grants not only a plenary and larger but most plenary remission of sins to them that if Romans for 30 if strangers for 15. days in that year should visit the Churches of the Apostles This was brought afterwards by Clem. 6. to every 50. years and since to 25. or as often as his Holines please but in all of them a most plenary remission of sins is granted It were worth the while to understand the difference between a plenary larger and most plenary indulgence since Bellarmin tells us that a plenary Indulgence takes away all the punishment due to sin But these were the fittest terms to let the people know they should have as much for their money as was to be had and what could they desire more And although Bellarmin abhorres the name of selling Indulgences yet it comes all to one the Popes gives Indulgences and they give money or they doe it not by way of purchase but by way of Alms But commend me to the plain honesty of Boniface 9. who being not satisfied with the oblations at Rome sent abroad his Iubilees to Colen Magdeburg and other Cities but always sent his Collectors to take his share of the money that was gathered and inserted in them that Clause porrigentibus manus Adjutrices which in plain English is to those who would give money for them without which no Indulgence was to be had as Gobelinus Persona saith Who likewise addes this remarkable passage that the preachers of the Indulgences told the people to encourage them to deale for them that they were not only à poená but à culpâ too i.e. not meerely from the temporal punishment of sin but from the fault it self which deserved eternal this made the people look into them and not finding those terms but only a most plenary remission they were unsatisfied because they were told that the fault could be forgiven by God alone but if they could but once find that the Pope would undertake to clear all scores with God for them they did not doubt but they would be worth their money Whereupon he saith those very terms were put into them then the wiser men thought these were counterfeit and made only by the Pardon-mongers but upon further enquiry they found it otherwise How far this trade of Indulgences was improved afterwards in the time of Alexander 6. and Leo 10. the Reformation which began upon occasion of them will be a lasting monument which was the greatest good the world ever received by them § 5. But we are not to think since Indulgences are such great kindnesses to the souls of men that they should be only reserved for years of Iubilee for what a hard case may they be in who should chance to dy but the year before Therefore the Popes those tender Fathers of the Church have granted very comfortable ones to many particular places and for the doing some good actions that no one need be in any great perplexity for want of them Other places it is probable a man may goe to Heaven assoon from as Rome but there is none like that for escaping Purgatory
whence only they derive their infallibility 18. There can be no hazard to any person in mistaking the meaning of any particular place in those books supposing he use the best means for understanding them comparable to that which every one runs who believes any person or society of men to be infallible who are not for in this latter he runs unavoidably into one great errour and by that may be led into a thousand but in the former God hath promised either he shall not erre or he shall not be damned for it 19. The assistance which God hath promised to those who sincerely desire to know his will may give them greater assurance of the truth of what is contained in the bookes of Scripture than it is possible for the greatest infallibility in any other persons to doe supposing they have not such assurance of their infallibility 20. No mans faith can therefore be infallible meerly because the Proponent is said to be infallible because the nature of Assent doth not depend upon the objective infallibility of any thing without us but is agreeable to the evidence we have of it in our minds for assent is not built on the nature of things but their evidence to us 21. It is therefore necessary in order to an infallible assent that every particular person be infallibly assisted in Judging of the matters proposed to him to be believed so that the ground on which a necessity of some external infallible Proponent is asserted must rather make every particular person infallible if no divine faith can be without an infallible assent and so renders any other infallibility useless 22. If no particular person be infallible in the assent he gives to matters proposed by others to him then no man can be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible and so the Churches infallibility can signifie nothing to our infallible assurance without an equal infallibility in our selves in the belief of it 23. The infallibility of every particular person being not asserted by those who plead for the infallibility of a Church and the one rendring the other useless for if every person be infallible what need any representative Church to be so and the infallibility of a Church being of no effect if every person be not infallible in the belief of it we are farther to inquire what certainty men may have in matters of faith supposing no external proponent to be infallible 24. There are different degrees of certainty to be attained according to the different degrees of evidence and measure of divine assistance but every Christian by the use of his reason and common helps of Grace may attain to so great a degree of certainty from the convincing arguments of the Christian Religion and authority of the Scriptures that on the same grounds on which men doubt of the truth of them they may as well doubt of the truth of those things which they Judge to be most evident to sense or reason 25. No man who firmly assents to any thing as true can at the same time entertaine any suspition of the falshood of it for that were to make him certain and uncertain of the same thing it is therefore absurd to say that those who are certain of what they believe may at the same time not know but it may be false which is an apparent contradiction and overthrowes any faculty in us of judging of truth or falshood 26. Whatever necessarily proves a thing to be true doth at the same time prove it impossible to be false because it is impossible the same thing should be true and false at the same time Therefore they who assent firmly to the doctrine of the Gospel as true doe thereby declare their belief of the Impossibility of the falshood of it 27. The nature of certainty doth receive several names either according to the nature of the proof or the degrees of the assent Thus moral certainty may be so called either as it is opposed to Mathematical evidence but implying a firme assent upon the highest evidence that Moral things can receive or as it is opposed to a higher degree of certainty in the same kind so Moral certainty implies only greater probabilities of one side than the other in the former sense we assert the certainty of Christian faith to be moral but not only in the latter 28. A Christian being thus certain to the highest degree of a firme assent that the Scriptures are the word of God his faith is thereby resolved into the Scriptures as into the rule and measure of what he is to believe as it is into the veracity of God as the ground of his believing what is therein contained 29. No Christian can be obliged under any pretence of infallibility to believe any thing as a matter of faith but what was revealed by God himself in that book wherein he believes his will to be contained and consequently is bound to reject whatsoever is offered to be imposed upon his faith which hath no foundation in Scripture or is contrary thereto which rejection is no making Negative Articles of faith but only applying the general grounds of faith to particular instances as because I believe nothing necessary to salvation but what is contained in Scripture therefore no such particular things which neither are there nor can be deduced thence 30. There can be no better way to prevent mens mistakes in the sense of Scripture which men being fallible are subject to than the considering the consequence of mistaking in a matter wherein their salvation is concerned And there can be no sufficient reason given why that may not serve in matters of faith which God himself hath made use of as the means to keep men from sin in their lives unless any imagine that errours in opinion are far more dangerous to mens souls than a vitious life is and therefore God is bound to take more care to prevent the one than the other It followeth that 1. There is no necessity at all or use of an infallible Society of men to assure men of the truth of those things which they may be certain without and cannot have any greater assurance supposing such infallibility to be in them 2. The infallibility of that Society of men who call themselves the Catholick Church must be examined by the same faculties in man the same rules of tryal the same motives by which the infallibility of any divine revelation is 3. The less convincing the miracles the more doubtful the marks the more obscure the sense of either what is called the Catholick Church or declared by it the less reason hath any Christian to believe upon the account of any who call themselves by the name of the Catholick Church 4. The more absurd any opinions are and repugnant to the first principles of sense and reason which any Church obtrudes upon the faith of men the greater reason men still have to reject the pretence of infallibility in that Church as a