his Disciples and from the words of Christ that he drunk the Fruit of the Vine we expound his other words this is my Bloud We expound also these words of Christ This is my Body from St. Pauls words who 1 Cor. 11. saith four times that we eat Bread in the Lords Supper and that we break Bread Certainly that Apostle giveth a clear Exposition of Christ's words This is my Body and this is my Blood saying 1 Cor. 10.16 The Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ We alledge also those Texts that say that Jesus Christ is no more in this World that the Heaven doth contain him that Christ is like unto us in all things sin onely excepted and that by consequent he hath not a Body dispersed in a Million of several places at once and inclosed whole in every Crum of the Host and in every Drop of the Chalice Likewise when Jesus saith Do this in remembrance of me We expound not these words as the Councel of Trent doth which puts this Sense upon them I do constitute you to be Priests to sacrifice my Body really under the species of Bread and Wine but we bring the Interpretation which St. Paul addeth 1 Cor. 11.26 For as often as you eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lords Death Consider also that there is great Difference between a Judgment of Authority and a Judgment of Discretion With this last we judge of Meats by the Taste without giving Laws to any And it is so that not only Pastours but also every one of the People may and doth judge of the true Doctrine And it is so that St. Paul will have the Corinthians to judge of his Doctrine 1 Cor. 10.15 I speak as to wise men judge ye what I say Of that matter and of the Interpretation of Scripture I have written a Book purposely which I have dedicated to your Grace and which was presented to you by Monsieur de Cabrilles from me I asked your Grace at Liege whether you had received it Your Answer was that you knew not what was in it for you have laboured to strengthen your self with Reasons against us but would not take Notice how we answer them and have conversed much with our Adversaries but hid your self from your Servants who might have cleared your Mind about their Objections and armed you with Answers Of the Condemnation of Hereticks Your Grace saith farther that you have desired to see whether the ancient Hereticks were condemned by Persons of our Religion and whether one man be found in all Antiquity that had the same Religion as we in all Points These Condemnations of Hereticks were made by men sound in the Faith that were of the same Religion as we in all points who have condemned many Errours now received in the Roman Church The Councel of Laodicea approved by many Universal Councels which were held since rejecteth the Books of Judith Tobit Maccabees and other Apochryphal Books The Eliberin Councel held about the year of the Lord 305 hath made this Canon It is decreed that there shall be no Picture in the Church that the things that are adored or served be not painted upon Walls The Councels that have commanded the Adoration of Images are later by 4 or 5 hundred years In the first Nicen Councel the Marriage of the Pastors of the Church was approved upon the Remonstrance of Paphnutius Such is the fourth Canon of the Councel of Gangra If any makes a Difference of a married Priest as if he ought not to participate of the Oblation when he doth administer let him be Anathema This is the XXXV Canon of the Councel of Laodicea Christians must not forsake the Church of God and go to serve Angels and gather Congregations If any them be found applying himself to that secret Idolatry let him be Anathema because he hath forsaken the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God About the year of the Lord 399 a Councel was held at Carthage of which this is the 23 Canon When Service is made at the Altar the Prayer must always be address't to the Father The present Roman Church contradicts that Canon for in their Service they have Prayers addrest unto Saints This is the 25 Canon of the same Councel In the Divine Service let nothing be offered but the Body and Blood of the Lord that is Bread and Wine mingled with Water The 16 Canon of the IV Councel of Carthage absolutely forbids swearing by the Creatures To this the Catechism of the Councel of Trent is contrary which approveth swearing by Relicks The 10 Canon of that Councel of Carthage saith Mulier baptizare non presumat Let not a Woman presume to baptize The Practise of the Roman Church is contrary to that The Milenitan Councel where St. Austin was present and of which he hath made the Canons forbids Appeals from Africk to Rome in these Words It is declared That if the Priests or other Clerks in such Causes as they shall have shall complain of the Judgment of their Bishops the Bishops shall hear them But he that will appeal beyond the Seas let him not be admitted to the Communion by any living in Africk In the VI Councel of Carthage there is a long Epstle of the Councel to Celestin Bishop of Rome who by a new Usurpation would draw to himself the Appeals of the Bishops of Africk whereby the Fathers of the Councel beseech him to receive no more Appeals from their Countrey forbidding him to send any more of his Legats or to use any more forged Canons to raise his Dignity and bring Worldly Pride into the Church of Christ Therefore Baronius and Bellarmin and Cotton Jesuits condemn that Councel In the Councel of Chalcedon held in the Year of the Lord 451 the Legats of the Bishop of Rome pretending to the Primacy and bringing forth a forged Canon of Nicea laboured to hinder the Bishop of Constantinople from being equal with the Bishop of Rome against which the Councel made this Canon The Fathers with good reason have given Prerogatives to the See of Antient Rome because she was the Imperial City And the hundred and fifty Bishops of the first Councel of Constantinople moved with the like consideration have attributed to the most holy See of New Rome which is Constantinople equal Priviledges judging with good reason that the City honoured with the Empire and the Senate and which hath the same Prerogatives as the Antient Rome Imperial ought to be magnified as much as Rome it self in Ecclesiastical things The Popes of our time and their Advocates condemn that Council not only because it equalleth the Bishop of Constantinople with that of Rome but chiefly because it groundeth the preeminence of the Bishop of Rome upon the Dignity of the City because Rome is the Capital City of the Empire and not
what Sacraments Many have tryed these ways and are fallen to the Desire of curious Visions and have deserved to be deceived Tertullian in the thirtieth Chapter of his Apologetick speaks thus I cannot ask these things of any but him of whom I know that I shall obtain them For it is he only that grants them and I am he that have a Right to obtain them being his Servant that call upon him alone Likewise Origen against Celsus the eighth Book saith Above all things we must pray to none but God and his only Son Ignatius who lived near the time of the Apostles saith in the Epistle to the Philadelphians You Virgins have none but Jesus Christ and the Father of Jesus Christ in your Prayers Clemens Alexandrinus speaks thus Cl. Alexand l. 11. Strom. There being none but one only that is truly good which is God both we and the Angels pray to him alone And so Athanasius It is manifest saith he that the Patriarch Jacob in his Prayer joyned none with God but him that is his Word Athan. Orat. 4. cont Arian because it is he only that manifesteth the Father unto us By a notorious Falshood among the Works of this Father was foisted a Book of the Mother of God where she is called the Queen of Heaven and Christians are commanded to adore her But Bellarmine in his Book of Ecclesiastical Writers and Banonius in the year 48. § 19 20. acknowledges the Book to be supposititious By the like Forgery in St. Austin's Book of the Spirit and the Soul there is a Prayer to the Saints inserted but in the same Book Boetius is quoted who was not born when Augustine dyed an evident Proof that the book is falsely attributed to him There is a Book of the same Father Of the Care that must be had of the Dead which is truly his but corrupted and falsified in many places For he is made to speak of Prayers to Saints departed as good and laudable yet he saith there that the departed Saints know nothing of all that the Living do and that if it were otherwise his good and holy Mother would not have forsaken him Then he addeth The Spirits of the deceased are in a place where they see nothing of all that is done or that happeneth to men in this Life And a little after It must be acknowledged that the dead know not that which is done here while it is a doing but they know it afterwards by them that dye and come to them Was St. Austin so much overseen as to teach that those must be called upon by us who understand us not nor know what is done here below unless some dye and perhaps afterwards bring them News of it This Advantage we have in this point that our Adversaries acknowledge that there is no Commandment of God for the Invocation of Saints and that the Holy Scripture saith nothing of it And that under the Old Testament that is for the space of four thousand years the Church used no Invocation of them All the Prayers in Scripture are addressed unto God alone and therefore we have no Assurance or Encouragement to call upon the Saints which we can ground upon the Word of God Is it not enough for us to have the Son of God for our Intercessor who tells us None comes to the Father but by me John 14. For how can we pray with Faith and Assurance to those who discern not the Prayers of the Heart For Scripture tells us that God alone knoweth the Hearts of men 2 Chron. 6.30 I might say that in the Roman Church many Saints are prayed to that never were in the World and others whose Holiness is very dubious and whose Lives were very bad Three hundred and seventy years past in the Christian Church without any Invocation of Saints The first that used it was Gregory Nazianzen who yet invocating the Souls of Constantius who was an Arian of Athanasius and of Basil added this Clause If thou understand me and If the Dead have any Sense But the Invocation of Saints was not received till a long time after in the Publick Service All these things considered My Lord I cannot wonder enough that Your Grace chooseth rather to be ruled by one Passage of St. Ambrose which perhaps is forged than by the Word of God and the Church of the first Ages after Christ For would you subscribe to all that St. Ambrose saith In the first book of Virgins he saith that the Angels fell by lying with Women In his Speech upon Gratian and Valentinian and upon the first Psalm he saith that some rise again sooner than others And in his Oration of the Faith of Resurrection he makes three sorts of Resurrection the first of the Patriarchs and Apostles the second of the Gentiles converted to the Faith the third of those that come from the South and the North. In his first Book of Offices chap. 50. he condemneth second Marriages In the first Book of the Holy Ghost he teacheth that the Baptism in the name of the Holy Ghost alone without naming the Father and the Son is valid In the tenth Sermon upon the 118 Psalm he saith that the Damned which are in Hell shall in the end be saved when the time of their Punishment is fulfilled The Roman Church believeth not with Ambrose that all Saints shall be burnt with the material Fire of the day of Judgment as we shall see hereafter Neither doth the Roman Church believe with Ambrose that Melchisedeck was Jesus Christ himself Many Pages might be filled with the like Errours of this Father whose Authority you value more than that of God speaking in the Holy Scriptures Of Prayer for the Dead and of Purgatory Your Grace endeth your Allegations of Fathers with Theodoret and Austin The first of which is alledged to say We believe that there is a Fire of Purgatory in which Souls are purged like Gold in the Furnace The other saith He that will not till his Field shall be chastised in this World and after his Death shall be punisht in the Fire of Hell or in that of Purgatory And addeth that he hath made a whole Book of the Prayers for the Dead and that the whole Antiquity hath so practiced it They that have helped you with these Passages have miserably abused your Grace It is true that all the ancient Church prayed for the Dead but in a manner which the Roman Church condemneth and holds to be ridiculous and erroneous Not one Passage can be found in the genuine Works of any Father by which it can appear that he prayed for the Dead to draw them out of Purgatory Could Your Grace have the Patience to read St. Austins Book of the Care to be taken of the Dead you would find that there is not one Word of Purgatory in the whole Book The Christian Church in the III and IV Ages after Christ prayed for the Saints for the Apostles and Martyrs
The publick Form of those Prayers is found in the eighth Book of the Apostolick Constitutions of Clement in the eighteenth Chapter We offer unto thee for all the Faithful which have been pleasing unto thee from the Beginning of the World Patriarchs Prophets Righteous Apostles Martyrs Confessors The same is to be found in the Book of Ecclesiastick Hierarchy that goes under the name of Dionysius and in Epiphanius where he treateth of the Heresie of Arius All consent that none can imagine that these Prayers for the Saints were to draw them out of Purgatory St. Austin who writ in the Beginning of the fifth Century was the first that said it was doing Injury to a Martyr to pray for him It further appears that the ancient Church had not belief of this Doctrine in that they prayed for the Souls that slept peaceably which Prayer to this day remains in the Roman Mass in which the Priest prayeth for the dead in these Words Remember Lord thy Servants and Handmaids which are gone before us with the Sign of Faith and which are sleeping in a quiet Sleep It is evident That this Prayer was made in a time when the Belief of Purgatory was not yet received for those that are burning perhaps for many Ages in a Fire seven times hotter than Hell do not sleep with a quiet Sleep If you ask me why they pray'd for the dead whom they held not to be in any Torment it will be no hard Matter to give you Satisfaction First they asked that the Dead Person for whom they pray'd might rise again to Salvation in the last day Such was the Prayer of Judas Maccabaeus 2 Mac. 12. v. 43 44. Doing therein saith the Author very well and honestly in that he was mindful of the Resurrection For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the Dead By the Judgment of that Author the Prayer made for the dead in the Roman Church is superfluous and vain since it is not made for their Resurrection That this was in old time the intent of the Roman Church when they pray'd for the Dead it appeareth by the Prayers which are used still in the Mass for the Dead of which these are the Words We beseech thee Lord to absolve the Souls of thy Servants from all Bonds of Sin that in the Glory of the Resurrection being risen again they may breath among the elected Saints Thus Ambrose prayeth for the Soul of Theodosius and yet he saith that he is received into Christ's Tabernacles in the heavenly Jerusalem And St. Austin prayeth for the Soul of his Mother Monica which is among the Saints and whom St. Austin believes to be enjoying heavenly Blessedness Another Opinion was rife among the Antients That some Souls should rise sooner than other Souls and that many Sins were to be expiated by the Delay of the Resurrection Tertullian towards the end of his Book of the Soul makes the Suffering of Souls after Death even for the least Sins to consist in that Delay In the Book of Monogamy chap. 10. he will have a Widow to pray for her deceased Husband and that she may keep him Company in the first Resurrection The like Prayer Ambrose maketh for Gratian and Valentinian I beseech thee O Supreme God that thou wilt raise up again more early these most beloved young men Here is then a second end for which the Ancients prayed for the dead They had one end more It was an Opinion generally held by the Fathers that in the day of Judgment after men are risen again they shall not enter into Paradise before they have been sindged and purged by the Fire of the day of Judgment some more some less as they have more or less sinned This is the Purgatory Fire of the Antients of which their Books are full Through that fire they make all the Saints to pass even the Virgin Mary Lactantius lib. 7. cap. 21. declares thus his Opinion which was then the general When God hath judged the Just he will try them by fire and those whose Sins are very considerable either in Weight or number shall be sindged and lightly burnt by the Fire Thus Hillary upon St. Matthew Hilar. in Mat. Canon 2. To them that are baptized with Holy Ghost it remains yet to be perfected by the fire of Judgment And in the part Gimel upon the 119 Psalm This Purification is reserved for us after the Baptism of Water which must sanctifie us by the coming of the Holy Ghost and refine us by the Fire of Judgment Again Do we wish for the day of Judgment in which we must pass through that unwearied Fire and undergo those grievous Pains to expiate the Soul of her Sins And he makes the Virgin Mary go through that Fire If saith he even that Virgin which hath conceived God must undergo the Severity of that Judgment who will dare to desire to be judged by God St. Ambrose also saith that all the Prophets and Apostles must in that day be purged by that Fire In the 20 Sermon upon the 118 Psal All must pass through the Flames even John the Evangelist whom the Lord loved even Peter And upon the 36 Psal The Sons of Levi shall be purged by Fire Ezekiel Daniel c. Observe that he saith they shall be whence it appears that he speaks of a Fire which is not yet St. Austin is express for it in the 16 Book of the City of God chap. 24. By this Fire is understood the day of Judgment which shall separate the Carnal some to be saved by the Fire some to be condemned to the Fire And in the 25 Chap. of the 20 Book By that which was said it seems to be evident that in that Judgment there will be some Purgatory Pains And the Title of the chapter saith expresly that he speaks of the Fire of the last Judgment After the Purgation by that Fire he holds that the Sentence of the last Judgment shall be pronounced in the 21 Book chap. 16. Of that Purgation by Fire speak Irenaeus Basil Gregory Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen and Hierom. It is of that Fire My Lord that Theodoret and Austin speak in the places which you alledge And it is one of the grounds why the Ancients prayed for the dead For that St. Austin believed that Souls going out of the Body went streight either into Paradise or into Hell and that there is no middle or third place called Purgatory it is clear by these Passages in the 18 Sermon of the words of the Apostle There are two Habitations the one of the eternal Kingdom the other of the eternal Fire And in the 232 Sermon which is against Drunkenness Let none deceive himself my Brethren for there are two places and no third He that hath not merited with Christ shall perish without doubt with the Devil And in the first Book of the merit of Sins and