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
This is my body Why do not then the people as readily believe that as any other proposition By which we see it is not meerly reading but a more dangerous thing called considering or reasoning which make them embrace some things as they lye in words and interpret others according to the clearest evidence which the nature of the thing the comparing with other places and the common sense of mankind will give But why are we not all of a mind I would fain know the time when men were so This variety of Sects was objected against the Philosophers and thought no argument then it was objected against the primitive Christians and thought of no force then why must it signifie more in England than ever it did in any other age or place But say they It was otherwise in England before the Scriptures came to be read by all it was and is otherwise in all Churches where they are not read therefore these Sects and Fanaticisms are the dire effects of the promiscuous reading the Scriptures This is the common and popular argument All things were well with us when we offered up Cakes to the Queen of Heaven when all joyned in the communion of the Roman Church then there were no Fanaticisms nor New Lights no Sects as there are now in England therefore why should any one make any doubt but he ought to return to the Church of Rome This necessarily leads me into the examination of these two things 1. Whether there be no danger of Fanaticism in the Roman Church 2. Whether the Vnity of that Church be so admirable to tempt all persons who prize the Churches Vnity to return to it § 2. Concerning the danger of Fanaticism in the Roman Church By Fanaticism we understand either an Enthusiastick way of Religion or resisting authority under a pretence of Religion In either sense it shall appear that the Church of Rome is so far from being cleared from it that it hath given great encouragement to it 1. As to an Enthusiastick way of Religion I shall now prove that there have not been greater Enthusiasts among us in England than have been in the Roman Church all the difference is they have been some alwayes others for a time allowed and countenanced and encouraged by those of the Church of Rome but among us they have been decryed and opposed by all the members of the Church of England I shall not insist upon the resolution of faith and the infallibility of the Church which must be carried to Enthusiasm at last but I shall prove it by plain revelations which have been made the grounds among them of believing some doctrines in dispute and the reasons of setting up a more perfect way of life which in the highest strain of their devotion is meer Enthusiasm 1. Revelations have been pleaded by them in matters of doctrine such I mean which depend upon immediate impulses and inspirations since the Canon of Scripture and Apostolical Traditions Of this we have a remarkable instance in a late controversie managed with great heat and interest on both sides viz. of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary about the ending of which a solemn Embassy was sent from the Kings of Spain Philip the third and Philip the fourth to the Popes Paul the fifth and Gregory the thirteenth and an account is given of it by one concerned himself in the management of the Theological part of it which he saith is therefore published that the world may understand upon what grounds the doctrines of faith are established among them One of the chief whereof insisted upon was some private revelations made to some Saints about the immaculate conception which being once received in the Church adds no small strength he saith to any doctrine and gives a solid foundation for a definition i. e. that the matter may be defined to be of faith and necessary to be believed by all Christians Upon this he reckons up several revelations publickly received in the Church one mentioned by Anselm being a divine apparition to an Abbot in a storm a fit time for apparitions whereby he was admonished to keep the Feast of the Conception of the blessed Virgin upon which as Baronius observes that Feast was first kept in England Which revelation Wadding tells us is publickly recited in the office for the day and was not only extant in several Breviaries of England France Spain and Italy but he had divers himself authorized by the Pope wherein it was recommended as true and piously to be believed and accordingly have been publickly sung and used in the Church about an hundred years And what saith he is the consequence of disbelieving this but to say in effect that the Pope and the Roman Church are easily cheated and abused by impostures and forgers of false revelations to institute new Festival Solemnities upon the credit of them Another revelation was made to Norbertus the founder of the Order of the Praemonstratenses in which the Virgin Mary appeared and commended her veneration to him and gave him a white garment in token of her Original Innocency which revelation is believed by all of that Order and taken as the reason of their habit Besides these there are several other revelations to S. Gertrude and others to the same purpose reckoned up by several Catholick Authors which no man ought to reject unless he intends to be as great a Heretick or therein as wise a man as Erasmus was Nay these revelations were so frequent he saith that there hath been no age since the tenth Century wherein there hath not been some made to devout men or women about this matter But above all these most remarkable were those to S. Brigitt who had not one or two but many to this purpose and the latest were of Joanna a Cruce which it seems were at first eagerly opposed but at last came out with the approbation of two Cardinals and several Bishops of the Inquisition in Spain But now who could imagine a thing so often revealed so publickly allowed so many times attested from Heaven should not be generally received but the mischief of it was the contrary doctrine had revelations for it too For Antoninus and Cajetan say S. Catharine of Siena had it revealed to her that she was conceived with Original sin What is to be done now Here we have Saint against Saint Revelation against Revelation S. Catharine against S. Brigitt and all the rest of them Here to speak truth they are somewhat hard put to it for they grant God cannot contradict himself and therefore of one these must be false but which of them is all the question Here they examine which of these doctrines is most consonant to Scripture and Tradition which is most for the benefit of the Church which were persons of the greater sanctity and whose revelations were the most approved For. S. Brigitts they plead stoutly that when they were delivered by her
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
or Heathenish fornication was here only reprehended as Jewish or Heathenish Idolatry But as the one is a foul sin whether it be committed by Jew Pagan or Christian so if such as profess the Name of Christ shall practise that which the Word of God condemneth in Jews or Pagans for Idolatry their profession is so far from diminishing that it augmenteth rather the hainousness of the crime About the same time came forth Bishop Downams Book of Antichrist wherein he doth at large prove That to give divine honour to a creature is Idolatry and that the Papists do give it in the Worship of Saints the Host and Images which is likewise done nearer our own times by Bishop Davenant and Dr. Jackson I shall conclude all although I might produce more with the testimony of Archbishop Laud who in his Conference saith the ancient Church knew not the adoration of Images and the modern Church of Rome is too like to Paganism in the practice of it and driven to scarce intelligible subtleties in her Servants writings that defend it this without any care had of millions of souls unable to understand her subtleties or shun her practice and in his Marginal Notes upon Bellarmin written with his own hand now in my possession where Bellarmin answers the testimony of the Council of Laodicea against the Worship of Angels by saying That it doth not condemn all Worship of Images but only that which is proper to God he replyes That Theodoret who produced that testimony of the Council expresly mentions the praying to Angels therefore saith he the praying to them was that Idolatry which the Council condemns By this we see that the most Eminent and Learned Defenders of our Church of greatest authority in it and zeal for the Cause of it against enemies of all sorts have agreed in the charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome And I cannot see why the authority of some very few persons though of great Learning should bear sway against the constant opinion of our Church ever since the Reformation Since our Church is not now to be formed according to the singular Fancies of some few though Learned men much less to be modelled by the Caprichio's of Superstitious Fanaticks who prefer some odd Opinions and wayes of their own before the received doctrine and practice of the Church they live in Such as these we rather pity their weakness than regard their censures and are only sorry when our Adversaries make such properties of them as by their means to beget in some a disaffection to our Church Which I am so far from whatever malice and peevishness may suggest to the contrary that upon the greatest enquiry I can make I esteem it the best Church of the Christian world and think my time very well imployed what ever thanks I meet with for it in defending its Cause and preserving persons in the communion of it THE Contents CHAP. I. Of the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in the Worship of Images THE introduction concerning the occasion of the debate The Church of Rome makes its members guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry First Of the Worship of God by Images Some propositions for clearing the notion of Divine Worship It is in Gods power to determine the way of his Worship which being determined Gods Law and not our intention is to be the rule of Worship The main question is Whether God hath forbidden the worshipping of himself by an Image under the notion of Idolatry Of the meaning of the second Commandment from the terms therein used the large sense and importance of them which cannot be understood only of Heathen Idols Of the reason of that Law from Gods infinite and invisible nature How far that hath been acknowledged by Heathens The Law against Image Worship no ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews the reason against it made more clear by the Gospel The wiser Heathen did not worship their Images as Gods yet their worship condemned as Idolatry The Christian Church believed the reason of this Law to be immutable Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice the opposition to it in Greece Germany France and England Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment in the Golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel Of the distinctions used to excuse image-worship from being Idolatry The vanity and folly of them The instances supposed to be parallell answered P. 49 CHAP. II. Of their Idolatry in Adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints The Argument proposed concerning the Adoration of the Host the insufficiency of the Answer to it manifested supposing equal revelation for Transubstantiation as for Christs Divinity yet not the same reason for Worshipping the Host as the person of Christ the great disparity between these two at large discovered the Controversie truly stated concerning Adoration of the Host and it is proved that no man on the principles of the Roman Church can be secure he doth not commit Idolatry in it The confession of our Adversaries that the same Principles will justifie the Worship of any Creature No such motives to believe Transubstantiation as the Divinity of Christ. Bishop Taylor 's Testimony answered by himself To Worship Christ in the Sun as lawful as to Worship him in the Host. The grossest Idolatry excusable on the same grounds The argument proposed and vindicated concerning the Invocation of Saints practised in the Church of Rome The Fathers Arguments against the Heathens hold against Invocation of Saints the state of the Controversie about Idolatry as managed by them They make it wholly unlawful to give divine Worship to any Creature how excellent soever The Worship not only of Heathen Gods but of Angels condemned The common evasions answered Prayer more proper to God than Sacrifice No such disparity as is pretended between the manner of Invocating Saints and the Heathens Invocating their Deities In the Church of Rome they do more than pray to Saints to pray for them proved from the present most Authentick Breviaries Supposing that were all it would not excuse them St. Austin no friend to Invocation of Saints Practices condemned by the Church pleaded for it Of Negative points being Articles of faith p. 108. CHAP. III. Of the hindrance of a good Life and Devotion in the Roman Church The doctrines of the Roman Church prejudicial to Piety The Sacrament of Pennance as taught among them destroyes the necessity of a good life The doctrine of Purgatory takes away the care of it as appears by the true stating it and comparing that doctrine with Protestants How easie it is according to them for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Purgatory dreadful to none but poor and friendless Sincerity of devotion hindred by prayers in an unknown Tongue The great absurdity of it manifested The effects of our Ancestors devotion had been as great if they had said their prayers in English
Resurrection 3. He saith that We expose faith to great uncertainty by denying to men the use of their Judgement and Reason as to matters of faith proposed by a Church that is we deny particular mens Iudgement as to matters of faith to be as good if not better than the Churches and to inferre from henâ—e that we make Faith uncertain is just as if on the contrary one should say that Protestants make faith certain by exposing matter of faith determined by the Church to be discussed and reversed by the Iudgement and reason or rather fancy of every private man We have good store of this kind of certainty in England But as for the use of our Iudgement and Reason as to the matters themselves proposed by the Church it is the daily business of Divines and Preachers not only to shew them not to be repugnant to any natural truth but also to illustrate them with Arguments drawn from reason But the use he would have of reason is I suppose to believe nothing but what his reason can comprehend and this is not only irrational in its self but contrary to the Doctrine of St. Paul where he commands us to captivate our understandings to the Obedience of Faith 4. He adds We expose faith to uncertainty by making the Church power extend to making new Articles of Faith And this if it were true were something indeed to his purpose But the Church never yet owned any such power in her General Councils but only to manifest and establish the Doctrine received from her Fore-fathers as is to be seen in the prooems of all the Sessions of the Council of Trent where the Fathers before they declare what is to be believed ever premise that what they declare is the same they have received by Tradition from the Apostles And because it may happen that some particular Doctrine was not so plainly delivered to each part of the Church as it happened in St. Cyprians case concerning the non-rebaptization of Hereticks we acknowledge it is in her power to make that necessary to be believed which was not so before not by inventing new Articles but by declaring more explicitely the Truths contained in Scripture and Tradition Lastly he saith We expose Faith to great uncertainty because the Church pretending to infallibility does not determine Controversies on foot among our selves As if faith could not be certain unless all Controversies among particular men be determined what then becomes of the certainty of Protestants faith who could yet never find out a sufficient means to determine any one Controversie among them for if that means be plain Scripture what one Iudgeth plain another Iudgeth not so and they acknowledge no Iudge between them to decide the Controversie As for the Catholick Church if any Controversies arise concerning the Doctrine delivered as in St. Cyprians case she determines the Controversie by declaring what is of Faith And for other Controversies which belong not to faith she permits as St. Paul saith every one to abound in his own sence And thus much in Answer to his third Argument by which and what hath been said to his former Objections it appears that he hath not at all proved what he asserted in his second Answer to the first Question viz. 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 or continue in it But he hath a third Answer for us in case the former faile and it is § 10. That a Protestant leaving the Communion of the Protestant Church doth incurr a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible ignorance This is the directest answer he gives to the Question and what it imports is this That invincible Ignorance and he doth not know what allowance God will make for that neither is the only Anchor which a Catholick hath to save himself by If by discoursing with Protestants and reading their Books he be not sufficiently convinced whereas he ought in the supposition of the Answerer to be so that the Letter of the Scripture as interpretable by every private mans reason is a most certain Rule of Faith and Life but is still over-ruled by his own Motives the same which held St. Austin in the bosome of the Catholick Church he is guilty of wilful Ignorance and consequently a lost man there is no hope of Salvation for him Much less for a Protestant who shall embrace the Catholick Communion because he is supposed doubtless from the same Rule to have sufficient conviction of the Errors of the Roman Church or is guilty of wilful Ignorance If he have it not which is a damnable sin and unrepented of destroyes salvation So that now the upshot of the Answer to the Question Whether a Protestant embracing Catholick Religion upon the same motives which one bred and well grounded in it hath to remain in it may be equally saved with him comes to this that they shall both be damned though unequally because the converted Catholick more deeply than he that was bred so And now who can but lament the sad condition of that great Doctor and Father of the Church and hitherto reputed St. Austin who rejecting the Manichees pretended rule of Scripture upon the aforesaid grounds left their Communion to embrace the Communion of the Church of Rome And what is become now of their distinction of points fundamental from not fundamental which heretofore they thought sufficient to secure both Catholicks and Protestants Salvation and to charge us with unconscionable uncharitableness in not allowing them to be sharers with us The absurdness of these consequences may serve for a sufficient conviction of the nullity of his third and last answer to the first Question As for what he saith to the second I agree so far with him that every Christian is bound to choose the Communion of the purest Church but which that Church is must be seen by the grounds it brings to prove the Doctrines it teaches to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles That Church is to be judged purest which hath the best grounds and consequently it is of necessity to Salvation to embrace the communion of it What then you are bound to do in reason and conscience is to see which Religion of the two hath the strongest Motives for it and to embrace that as you will answer the contrary to God and your own soul. To help you to do this and that the Answerer may have the less exception against them I will give you a Catalogue of Catholick Motives though not all neither in the words of the forecited Dr. Taylor advertising only for brevity sake I leave out some mentioned by him and that in these I set down you also give allowance for some expressions of his with which he hath mis-represented them Thus then he Liberty of
Proph. Sect. 20. Speaking of Catholicks The beauty and Splendour of their Church their pompous he should have said solemn Service the stateliness and solemnity of the Hierarchy their name of Catholick which they suppose he should have said their very Adversaries give them as their own due and to concern no other Sect of Christians the Antiquity of many of their Doctrines he should have said all the continual succession of their Bishops their immediate derivation from the Apostles their Title to succeed St. Peter the flattering he should have said due expression of Minor Bishops he means acknowledging the Pope head of the Church which by being old records have obtained credibility the multitude and variety of People which are of their perswasion apparent consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected and a pretended and sometimes he should have said alwayes apparent consent with some elder Ages in matters Doctrinal The great consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide of Faith The great differences which are commenced among their Adversaries abusing the liberty of Prophecying into a very great licentiousness Their happiness of being Instruments in converting divers he should rather have said of all Nations The piety and austerity of their Religious Orders of Men and Women The single life of their Priests and Bishops the severity of their Fasts and their exteriour observances the great reputation of their first Bishops for faith and sanctity the known holiness of some of those persons whose institutes the Religious persons pretend to imitate the oblique Arts and indirect proceedings of some of those who departed from them and amongst many other things the names of Heretick and Schismatick which they with infinite pertinacity he should have said upon the same grounds the Fathers did fasten upon all that disagree from them These things saith he and divers others may very easily perswade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Fore-fathers which had actually possession and seizure of mens understandings before the opposite professions to wit of Protestant Presbyterian Anabaptist c. had a name Thus Dr. Taylor an eminent and leading man amongst the Protestants and if he confess that these Motives were sufficient for a Catholick to retain his Religion they must be of like force to perswade a dis-interessed Protestant to embrace it unless the Protestants can produce Motives for their Religion of greater or at least equal force with these which so great a man among them confesseth that Catholicks have for theirs Here therefore you must call upon the Author of the Paper you sent me to produce a Catalogue of grounds or at least some one ground for the Protestant Religion of greater or equal force with all these And as Dr. Taylor saith divers others which he omitted viz. The Scripture interpreted by the consent of Fathers the determination of General Councils the known Maxime of Catholicks that nothing is to be believed of Faith but what was received from their Fore-fathers as handed down from the Apostles The testimonie of the present Church of no less Authority now than in St. Austins time both for the Letter and the sence of the Scripture c. Do this and the Controversie will quickly be at an end Particular disputes are endless and above the understanding of such as are not learned but in grounds and principles 't is not so hard for Reason and common sence to Iudge That you may the better do it in your case I shall desire you to take these two Cautions along with you First That the Subject of the present Controversie are not those Articles in which the Protestants agree with us and for which they may pretend to produce the same Motives we do But in those in which they dissent from us such as are no Transubstantiation no Purgatory no honour due to Images no Invocation to Saints and the like in which the very Essence of Protestant as distinct from Catholick consists What Motives they can or will produce for these I do not foresee The pretence of Scriptures being sufficiently plain hath no place here because then the foresaid Negatives would be necessary to be believed as divine Truths And for their own Reason and Learning it will be found too light when put into the scale against that of the Catholick Church for so many Ages The second Caution is That you be careful to distinguish between Protestants producing grounds for their own Religion and finding fault with ours An Atheist can cavil and find fault with the grounds which learned men bring to prove a Deity such as are the Order of this visible World the general consent of Nations c. In this an Atheist thinks he doth somewhat But can he produce as good or better grounds for his own opinion No you see then 't is one thing to produce grounds for what we hold and another to find fault with those which are produced by the contrary part The latter hath made Controversie so long and the former will make it as short let the Answerer therefore instead of finding fault with our Motives produce his own for the Articles in Controversie and I am confident you will quickly discern which carry the most weight and consequently which are to be preferred A Defence of the foregoing Answer to the Questions CHAP. I. Of the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in the Worship of Images The introduction concerning the occasion of the debate The Church of Rome makes its members guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry First Of the Worship of God by Images Some propositions for clearing the notion of Divine Worship It is in Gods power to determine the way of his Worship which being determined Gods Law and not our intention is to be the rule of Worship The main question is Whether God hath forbidden the worshipping of himself by an Image under the notion of Idolatry Of the meaning of the second Commandment from the terms therein used the large sense and importance of them which cannot be understood only of Heathen Idols Of the reason of that Law from Gods infinite and invisible nature How far that hath been acknowledged by Heathens The Law against Image Worship no ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews the reason against it made more clear by the Gospel The wiser Heathen did not worship their Images as Gods yet their worship condemned as Idolatry The Christian Church believed the reason of this Law to be immutable Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice the opposition to it in Greece Germany France and England Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment in the Golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel Of the distinctions used to excuse image-worship from being Idolatry The vanity and folly of them The instances supposed to be parallel answered Madam § 1. THat
before that For Ludovicus de Paramo saith that several Priests were taken by order of the Inquisition in the Town of Lerena who under pretence of extraordinary illumination from God did gain upon the people and spread dangerous opinions among them And afterwards he particularly describes them under the names of the Illuminati by their pride and disobedience to their Superiours by their obstinate adhering to their Illusions and indulging themselves in their sensual lusts all which fully agree to the Character already given of the Fraticelli and Begardi For the first he saith they chose rather to be broken in pieces than give obedience to their Bishops for the second he proves that as long as they gave way to sensual lusts their illumination could not be from God for they who would sleep in the divine light as he speaks must have their eye-lids shut as to all worldly vanities and pleasures therefore we ought to shun such illuminated or rather blind persons who transform themselves into Angels of light spreading divers doctrines and revelations which they have of whom he interprets the Epistle of St. Iude. By all that hath been said this Sect seems to be nothing else but Gnosticism revived under new shapes and names and with a difference of opinions suitable to the age wherein it appeared Spondanus gives this account of the opinions and practices of the modern Alumbrado's that under a pretence of mental Prayer and divine contemplation and union with God they despised the use of Sacraments Preaching the Word of God and all holy exercises and did extol the other so highly that they said those things would not be sins in them which were so in others and by this means committed all impurities Of this Sect Ignatius Loyola was vehemently suspected to be and upon that account was cast into prison by the Inquisition in Spain Which Maffeius himself doth not deny that it was upon the account of the Illuminati and his Enthusiastical Preaching in the Streets that he was Questioned But Melchior Canus that learned Bishop of the Canaries puts the matter out of dispute for in a discourse of his concerning the foundation of the Society of Iesus preserved entire in the hands of Dominicus Canus Bishop of Cadiz his Nephew and published in part by Schioppius he saith that the General of that Order was one Innico who fled out of Spain lest he should be laid hold on by the Inquisition being suspected for the Heresie of the Illuminati and coming to Rome he desired to be judged by the Pope where no accuser appearing he was absolved He gives him the Character of a vain man for being once in his company at Rome he presently without any occasion began to boast of his righteousness and the unjust persecution he had suffered in Spain and spake many and great things of the revelations he had from God without any necessity upon which account he saith he believed not anything at all concerning them Another day he adds when he went to dine with him he commended one of his Brethren for a great Saint who coming into the room where they were he presently suspected the man to be mad and when he talked with him about matters of Religion he answered heretically not out of design but because he was an Ideot a rude ignorant fellow Ignatius being confounded at this said he was no Heretick but a Fool but he believed he had some lucid intervals and at that time by reason of the conjunction of the Moon he was not a very sound Catholick See from what Man the Iesuits derive the infallibility of their faith But although Canus was a person of more learning and judgement than a thousand Ignatius 's yet the Iesuits decry him as very partial against them for Orlandinus in his history of the Society complains of him as one of the bitterest enemies they had in the beginning of their Society for he every where set them forth as the fore-runners of Antichrist and explained the Prophecy of them concerning the men that should be in the last times Wherein it is said Men shall be lovers of themselves covetous boasters blasphemers c. Traytours heady high-minded lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God having a Form of Godliness but denying the power thereof For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead Captive silly Women laden with sins led away with divers lusts c. The same thing saith Orlandinus and truly was charged upon the Orders of Dominicans and Franciscans as well as them and we shall not quarrel with them which order of them all hath the greatest share in the accomplishment of this Prophecy § 13. That which is our present business is to shew that this Order was instituted as the other were upon the credit of visions and revelations for Ignatius was certainly as Ignorant and Enthusiastical as St. Francis himself and to prove this I shall only make use of those of his own Order who have writ his life Maffeius Orlandinus and Ribadeneira and pursue it no farther than the institution of the Order as I have done with the other The first remarkable thing in him was that he was converted by reading the Legends of the Saints as Don Quixot began his Errantry by reading the old Romances I wonder how Ignatius did to read them for Maffeius describes him as one that had hardly ever learnt his letters but it is possible St. Peter taught him for they all write that St. Peter appeared to him before he was so far recovered as to be able to read But his Country-man was not more moved with the adventures of former Knights than Ignatius was with the stories of St. Dominick and St. Francis for these Maffeius tells us did particularly work upon him in so much that before he took up a firm resolution of Religious Errantry he would put cases to himself of the difficult Adventures of those two illustrious Heroes and found himself to have mettle enough to undertake any of them and therefore in a fit of zeal one night he gets out of his bed and fell down upon his knees before an Image of the B. Virgin and in that posture vowed himself her Knight Which is a circumstance so considerable I admire that Maffeius omits it as he doth likewise the strange noise in the house the trembling of the room and the breaking of the glass windows that time an argument saith Orlandinus that the Devil then took his leave of him although there be some reason to doubt it After this the V. Mary appeared to him with a great deal of glory with her Child in her lap and all this while for the vision continued for some time he thought himself awake by which sight he was hugely animated for all his future adventures The first whereof was to a place of great devotion to the B. Virgin called Montserrat and in the way
by our Church Art 25. he saith they are not absolutely rejected as Sacraments but as Sacraments of the same Nature with Baptism and the Lords Supper which they yield to For Transubstantiation which is utterly denyed by our Church Art 28. he very subtilly interprets it of a carnal presence of Christs Body which he grants to be repugnant to Scripture and to destroy the nature of a Sacrament but they do believe Christs Body to be present after the manner of a Spirit and so our Church doth not condemn theirs As to communion in both kinds asserted by our Church Art 30. he saith it is not condemned by the Council of Trent therein which only Anathematizes those who make it necessary to Salvation which our Church mentions not and however we condemn communion in one kind Canus proves him not to be guilty of Heresie who should say that the Church hath erred therein The 31 Article condemns the Sacrifice of the Masse i.e. saith he independently on the Sacrifice of the Crosse which is propitiatory of it self and the other only by vertue of it The 32. of the lawfulness of Priests Marriage he understands of the Law of God in respect of which it is the most common opinion among them he saith that it is lawful The 34. about Traditions he interprets of those which are not Doctrinal The Book of Homilies approved Art 35. he understands as they do Books approved by their Church not of every sentence contained therein but the substance of the Doctrine and he grants there are many good things contained therein For the 36. of consecration of Bishops and Ministers he proves from Vasquez Conink Arcudius and Innocent 4. that our Church hath all the essentials of Ordination required in Scripture and if the difference of form of words did null our Ordinations it would do those of the Greek Church too The last Article he examins is Art 37. Of the Civil Magistrates power in opposition to the Popes Authority and he grants that the King may be allowed a Supermacy i.e. such as may not be taken away by any one as his Superiour and that by custome a sufficient right accrues to him over all Ecclesiastical causes and that by divine and natural right he hath jurisdiction over all Ecclesiastical persons so far as the publick good is concerned And withall he grants that we yield no spiritual jurisdiction to the King and no more than is contended for by the French and the Parliament of Paris That part which denyes the Popes jurisdiction in England he saith may be understood of the Popes challenging England to be a Fee of the Roman See but if it be otherwise understood he makes use of many Scholastick distinctions of actus signatus exercitus c. the sense of which is that it is in some cases lawful for a temporal Prince to withdraw his obedience from the Pope but leaves it to be discussed whether he had sufficient reason for doing it But there can be no Heresie in matter of fact it remains then according to the sense put upon our Articles by him with the help of his Scholastick subtleties we differ no more from them in points of faith than they do from one another For such kind of distinctions and senses are they forced to use and put upon each others opinions to excuse them from disagreeing in articles of faith and there is no reason that we should not enjoy the benefit of them as well as they so that either they must be guilty of differing in matters of faith or we are not § 16. 3. They plead that their differences are only confined to their Schools and do not disturb the peace of the Church But there is as little truth in this as there is Vnity in their Church as plainly appears by what hath been said already Was the Controversie about the Popes temporal power confined to the Schools did not that make for several Ages as great disturbances in the Church as were ever known in it upon any quarrel of Religion Were the Controversies between the Bishops and the Monks confined to their Schools about the extent of the Episcopal jurisdiction in former times or in the renewing of this Hierarchical Warr as one of the Iansenists calls it in France But these things are at large discovered already I shall only adde one thing more which seems more like a dispute of the Schools between the several Orders among them about the immaculate conception and it will easily appear that whereever that dispute began it did not rest in the Schools if we consider the tumults and disturbances which have been made only on the account of it This Controversie began in the Schools about the beginning of the 14 Century when Scotus set up for a new Sect in opposition to Thomas Aquinas and among other points of Controversie he made choice of this to distinguish his followers by but proposed it himself very timerously as appears by his resolution of it in his Book on the Sentences however his followers boast that in this blessed quarrel he was sent for from Oxford to Paris from Paris to Cologne to overthrow all Adversaries and that he did great wonders every where But however this were there were some not long after him who boldly asserted what he doubtfully proposed of whom Franciscus Mayronis is accounted the first after him Petrus Aureolus Occam and the whole order of Franciscans But the great strength of this opinion lay not in the wit and subtilty of the defenders of it nor in any arguments from Scripture or Antiquity but in that which they called the Piety of it i. e. that it tended to advance the honour of the B. Virgin For after the worship of her came to be so publick and solemn in their Church I do not in the least wonder that they were willing to believe her to be without sin I much rather admire they do not believe all their Canonized Saints to have been so too and I am sure the same reasons will hold for them all But this Opinion by degrees obtaining among the people it grew scandalous for any man to oppose it So Walsingham saith towards the latter end of this Century the Dominicans Preaching the contrary opinion against the command first of the Bishops in France and then of the King and Nobles they were out-lawed by the King and absolutely forbid to go out of their own Convents for fear of seducing the people and not only so but to receive any one more into their Order that so the whole Order might in a little time be extinguished The occasion of this persecution arose from a disturbance which happened in Paris upon this Controversie one Ioh. de Montesono publickly read against the immaculate conception at which so great offence was taken that he was convented before the Faculty of Sorbonne but he declared that he had done nothing but by advice of the chief of his Order
friend or the Letters you receive or the Laws of the Land all which are lyable to be abused by evil persons but not by good people and modest understandings It is now become a part of your Religion to be Ignorant to walk in blindness to believe the man that hears your Confessions to hear none but him not to hear God speaking but by him and so you are lyable to be abused by him as he please without remedy You are gone from us where you are only taught to worship God through Jesus Christ and now you are taught to Worship Saints and Angels with a Worship at least dangerous and in some things proper to God for your Church Worships the V. Mary with burning Incense and Candles to her and you give her presents which by the consent of all Nations used to be esteemed a Worship peculiar to God and it is the same thing which was condemned in the Collyridians who offered a Cake to the V. Mary A Candle and a Cake make no difference in the Worship and your joyning God and the Saints is like the device of them that fought for King and Parliament the latter destroys the former To which he subjoynes that the points of difference between us and the Church of Rome are such as do evidently serve the ends of Covetousness and Ambition in them and that very many of her Doctrines are very ill Friends to a good life and that our Religion is incomparably beyond theirs in point of safety as in point of Praying to God alone and without Images relying on God as infallible which are surely lawful but it is at least hugely disputable and not at all certain that any man or society of men can be infallible that we may put our trust in Saints or Worship Images c. From whence he concludes So that unless you mean to preferr a danger before safety temptation to unholiness before a severe and holy Religion unless you mean to lose the benefit of yours prayers by praying what you perceive not and the benefit of the Sacrament in great degrees by falling from Christs Institution and taking half instead of all unless you desire to provoke God to jealousie by Images and man to jealousie in professing a Religion in which you may in many cases have leave to forfeit your faith and lawful trust unless you will choose a Catechism without the second Commandment and a faith that grows bigger or lesser as men please and a hope that in many degrees relyes on men and vain confidences and a Charity that damns all the world but your selves unless you will do all this that is suffer an abuse in your Prayers in the Sacrament in the commandments in faith in hope in Charity in the Communion of Saints and your duty to your Supream you must return to the bosome of your Mother the Church of England and I doubt not but you will find the comfort of it in all your life and in the day of your death and in the day of Judgement Thus far that excellent person and I leave you now to judge between the Motives on both sides as they are laid down by him whom my Adversary appeals to and I must thank him for the kindness of mentioning him against me without which I had wanted so good a representation of the Motives of either side and so full an Answer to the pretences brought for the Church of Rome The other Motives which he adds of Fathers Councils and Tradition he knows are utterly denyed by us and I wonder he should insist upon them since in the matters of our debate Antiquity is so evidently of our side as against Worship of Images and Saints against Purgatory Transubstantiation Prayers in an unknown tongue and he thinks it no great matter to allow us a thousand years against communion in one kind and yet all this while Scripture Fathers Councils and Tradition are all on their side For the testimony of the present Church we deny that S. Austin speaks of it as of it self sufficient and though he did that concerns not the Roman Church any more than other parts of the Catholick Church and he may assoon prove Tyber to be the Ocean or S. Peters at Rome to have been before the Temple at Hierusalem as prove the Roman Church to be the Catholick Church or the Mother of all others § 17. But I must conclude with the method he prescribes to you for satisfaction from me which is not to meddle with particular disputes which we know very well the reason of but to call upon me for a Catalogue of our grounds and to bring things to Grounds and Principles as they have learnt to Cant of late and then he saith Controversie will soon be at an end I should be glad to see it so notwithstanding his Friend I. S. accounts it so noble a Science unless he hath changed his mind since for so many years now he hath failed in the Defence of his Demonstrations But to satisfie the men of Principles and to let them see we can do more than find fault with their Religion I shall give an account of the faith of Protestants in the way of Principles and of the reason of our rejecting their impositions which is all we can understand by Negative Points and if we can give an account of the Christian faith independently on their Churches Authority and Infallibility it evidently follows that cannot be the foundation of faith and so we may be very good Christians without having any thing to do with the Church of Rome And I know no other Answer necessary not only to this present demand but to a Book called Protestants without Principles the falsity of which will appear by what follows Principles Agreed on both sides 1. THat there is a God from whom man and all other Creatures had their Being 2. That the notion of God doth imply that he is a Being absolutely perfect and therefore Justice Goodness Wisdom and Truth must be in him to the highest degree of perfection 3. That man receiving his Being from God is thereby bound to obey his will and consequently is lyable to punishment in case of disobedience 4. That in order to mans obeying the will of God it is necessary that he know what it is for which some manifestation of the will of God is necessary both that man may know what he hath to do and that God may justly punish him if he do it not 5. Whatever God reveals to man is infallibly true and being intended for the rule of mans obedience may be certainly known to be his Will 6. God cannot act contrary to those essential Attributes of Justice Wisdom Goodness and Truth in any way which he makes choice of to make known his will unto man by These thing being agreed on both sides we are now to inquire into the particular wayes which God hath made choice of for revealing his will to mankind 1. AN entire
different nature from the Worship of Images 3. To the Iewes adoraâ—ion towards the Ark and the Holy of Holies where the Cherubims and Propitiatory were 1. That they only directed their Worship towards the place where God had promised to be signally present among them and signifies no more to the Worship of Images than our lifting our eyes to Heaven doth when we pray because God is more especially present there 2. That though the Cherubims were there yet they were alwayes hid from the sight of the people the High-Priest himself going into the Holy of Holies but once a year that the Cherubims were no representations of God and his Throne was between them upon the mercy seat and were Hieroglyphical figures of Gods own appointing which the Iews know no more than we do which are plain arguments they were never intended for objects of Worship for then they must not have been meerly appendices to another thing they must have been publickly exposed as the Images are in the Roman Churches and their form as well known as any of the B. Virgin 4. To bowing at the name of Iesus that he might as well have instanced in going to Church at the toll of a bell for as the one only tells us the time when we ought to go to Worship God so the mentioning the name of Iesus doth only put us in mind of him we owe all manner of reverence to without dishonouring him as the object of our Worship by any image of him which can only represent that which is neither the object nor reason of our Worship 5. To kneeling at the Eucharist that of all things should not be objected to us who have declared in our Rubrick after Communion That thereby no adoration is intended or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental Bread and Wine there bodily received or any corporal presence of Christs natural Flesh and Blood for the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians To bowing towards the Altar or at entring in and going out of the Church that it is of the same nature with the putting off our Hats while we are there and is only determining a natural act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians did use to direct their Worship CHAP. II. Of their Idolatry in Adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints The Argument proposed concerning the Adoration of the Host the insufficiency of the Answer to it manifested supposing equal revelation for Transubstantiation as for Christs Divinity yet not the same reason for Worshipping the Host as the person of Christ the great disparity between these two at large discovered the Controversie truly stated concerning Adoration of the Host and it is proved that no man on the principles of the Roman Church can be secure he doth not commit Idolatry in it The confession of our Adversaries that the same Principles will justifie the Worship of any Creature No such motives to believe Transubstantiation as the Divinity of Christ. Bishop Taylor 's Testimony answered by himself To Worship Christ in the Sun as lawful as to Worship him in the Host. The grossest Idolatry excusable on the same grounds The argument proposed and vindicated concerning the Invocation of Saints practised in the Church of Rome The Fathers Arguments against the Heathens hold against Invocation of Saints the state of the Controversie about Idolatry as managed by them They make it wholly unlawful to give divine Worship to any Creature how excellent soever The Worship not only of Heathen Gods but of Angels condemned The common evasions answered Prayer more proper to God than Sacrifice No such disparity as is pretended between the manner of Invocating Saints and the Heathens Invocating their Deities In the Church of Rome they do more than pray to Saints to pray for them proved from the present most Authentick Breviaries Supposing that were all it would not excuse them St. Austin no friend to Invocation of Saints Practices condemned by the Church pleaded for it Of Negative points being Articles of faith § 1. I Proceeded to the Adoration of the Host and here the Argument I proposed was to take off the common answer That this could not be Idolatry because they believed the Bread to be God upon the same ground I said they who believe the Sun to be God and Worship him on that account would be excused from Idolatry too nay the grosser their Idolatry was the more excusable it would be as that of those who supposed their Images to be Gods and upon this ground their Worship was more Lawful than of those who supposed them not to be so To this he answers two wayes 1. That they do not barely suppose that the substance of bread is changed into Christs body and that he is really present under the form of Bread but that they know and believe this upon the same grounds and motives upon which they believe that Christ is God and consequently to be adored and further addes that the same argument will hold against the adoration of Christ as God as against the adoration of him in the Eucharist since they have a like Divine Revelation for his real presence under the Sacramental signes as for his being true God and man 2. Supposing they were mistaken yet it would not follow they were Idolaters which he proves from Dr. Taylors words But notwithstanding these appearances of answering that my argument still stands good will be evident by proving these things 1. That supposing there were the same revelation of Christs Divinity and of his presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation yet there could not be the same reason for the Adoration of the Host as for worshipping Christ himself 2. That there are not the same motives and grounds to believe that Doctrine of Transubstantiatim that there are to believe that Christ is God 3. That supposing they are mistaken in the doctrine of Transubstantiation this doth not excuse them from Idolatry 4. That the same reason which would excuse them would excuse the most gross Idolaters in the World § â— That supposing there were the same divine revelation of Transubstantiation and of Christs Divinity yet there could not be the same reason for adoration of the Host as of Christ himself 1. Because there is a plain command in Scripture for one and there is nothing like it for the other All the Angels are commanded to Worship the Son of God Heb. 1. 6. and much more all men who have greater obligation to do it All men are to honour the Son as they honour the Father Joh. 5. 23. and to his name every knee is to bow Phil. 2. 10. But where is there the least intimation given that we are to Worship Christ in the Elements supposing him present there If it be said the general command doth extend to him where-ever he is present It is
easily answered that this argument doth prove no more his Worship in the Elements than in a turfe or any other piece of bread for Christ being God is every where present and if his presence only may be ground of giving adoration to that wherein he is present we may as lawfully Worship the Sun or the Earth or any other thing as they do the Sacrament For he is present in all of them But our Worship is not to be guided by our own Fancies but the will of God and we have a command for Worshipping of the person of Christ and till we see one as to his presence in the Sacrament we ought not to think the one parallel with the other And by this the weakness of his retorting the argument in the Arrians behalf so he calls those who believe Christ to be a pure man against those who Worship the Son of God will appear for our Worship doth not meerly depend upon our belief but upon the divine command and therefore those who have denyed the one have yet contended for the other 2. The one gives us a sufficient reason for our Worship but the other doth not There can be no greater reason for giving his person adoration than that he is the eternal Son of God but what equivalent reason to this is there supposing the bread to be really converted into the body of Christ All that I can believe then present is the body of Christ and what then is that the object of our adoration do we terminate our Worship upon his humane nature and was it ever more properly so than in dying is it not the death of Christ that is set forth in the Eucharist And is his body present any other way than as it is agreeable to the end of the institution But it may be they will say the body of Christ being hypostatically united with the divine nature one cannot be present without the other That indeed is a good argument to prove the body of Christ cannot be there by transubstantiation for if the bread be converted into that body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the divine nature then the conversion is not meerly into the body but into the Person of Christ and then Christ hath as many bodies hypostatically united to him as there are Elements Consecrated and so all the accidents of the bread belong to that body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the divine nature Nay to make the Elements the object of divine worship as they do they must suppose an hypostatical union between them and the divine nature of Christ for if the only reason of joyning the humane nature with the divine in the person of Christ as the object of our Worship be the hypostatical union of those Natures then we can upon no other account make those Elements the object of Worship but by supposing such an union between Christ and them But I suppose they will not venture to say that Christ is hypostatically united with the shape figure and colour of the bread for they will have nothing else to remain after Consecration in spight of all the reason and sense of the world but meerly those accidents and the Council of Trent determines That the same Divine Worship which we give to God himself is in express terms to be given to the most holy Sacrament and pronounces an Anathema against all who deny it And what is the holy Sacrament but the body of Christ according to them under the accidents of the bread and although the body of Christ being believed to be there is the reason of their Worship yet the Worship is given to the Elements upon that account § 3. But this being a matter of so great importance to make it as clear as the nature of the thing will allow I shall yet further prove that upon the principles of the Roman Church no man can be assured that he doth not commit Idolatry every time he gives adoration to the Host and I hope this will abundantly add to the discovering the disparity between the Worship given to the person of Christ and that which is given to the Eucharist upon supposition of Transubstantiation But before I come to this I shall endeavour to give a true account of the State of the Controversie between us which I shall do in these particulars 1. The Question between us is not whether the person of Christ is to be Worshipped with divine worship for that we freely acknowledge And although the humane nature of Christ of it self can yield us no sufficient reason for adoration yet being considered as united to the divine nature that cannot hinder the same divine Worship being given to his person which belongs to his divine nature any more than the Robes of a Prince can take off from the honour due unto him 2. It is not whether the person of Christ visibly appearing to us in any place ought to have divine honour given to him For supposing sufficient evidence of such an appearance we make no more question of this than we do of the former Neither do we say that we need a particular command in such a case to make it lawful any more than the Patriarchs did at every appearance of God among them or those who conversed with our Lord on earth every time they fell down and Worshipped him Where our sense and reason is satisfied as well as St. Thomas his was in a visible appearance of Christ we can give divine Worship as he did when he said My Lord and my God for in this Worship given to the Person of Christ I am sure I give it to nothing but what is either God or hypostatically united to the divine nature But is there not the same reason of believing Christ to be present as seeing him I answer in matters of pure revelation there is where the matter proposed to our faith can be no object of sense as Christs infinite presence in all places as God I firmly believe upon the credit of divine revelation and I give divine Worship to him as God suitable to that infinite presence but our question is concerning the visible presence of Christ where honour is given on the account of the divine nature but he can be known to be present only by his humanity in this case I say the evidence of sense is necessary in order to the true Worshipping the person of Christ. If any should be so impertinent to urge that saying to this purpose blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed I shall only say that doth not at all relate to this matter but to the truth of Christs resurrection 3. It is not concerning the spiritual Worship of Christ in the Celebration of the Eucharist For we declare that in all solemn acts of Religious Worship and particularly in the Eucharist we give divine honour to the Son of God as well as to the Father We affirm that we
ought not only perform the offices of Religion out of obedience to his divine commands but with a due Veneration of his Majesty and power with thankfulness for his infinite goodness and with trust in his promises and subjection of our souls to his supream Authority About these things which are the main parts of divine and spiritual Worship we have no quarrel nor do we find fault with any for giving too much to Christ in this manner but rather for placing too much in the bare external acts of adoration which may be performed with all external pomp and shew where there is no inward reverence nor sincere devotion And yet 4. It is not concerning external Reverence to be shewn in the time of receiving the Eucharist For that our Church not only allowes but enjoynes and that not barely for the avoiding such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion as might otherwise ensue but for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgement of the benefit of Christ therein given to all worthy receivers But it is withall declared that thereby no Adoration is intended or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental Bread and Wine there bodily received or unto any corporal presence of Christs natural flesh and blood as I have already recited it But the Controversie concerning the adoration of the Host lyes in these two things 1. Whether proper divine Worship in the time of receiving the Eucharist may be given to the Elements on the account of a corporal presence of Christ under them 2. Whether out of the time of receiving the same adoration ought to be given to it when it is elevated or carried in procession which we would give to the very person of Christ And that this is the true state of the Controversie I appeal to the doctrine and practice of the Roman Church in this point For it is expresly determined by the Council of Trent That there is no manner of doubt left but that all Christians ought to give the same Worship to this holy Sacrament which they give to God himself For it is not therefore less to be Worshipped because it was instituted by Christ our Lord that it might be taken By which words the true state of the Controversie is made evident which is not about the reverence due only to Christ supposed to be corporally present there but the adoration due to the Sacrament upon that account And by the Sacrament the Council must understand the elements or accidents or whatever name they call them by as the immediate term of that divine Worship or else the latter words signifie nothing at all For what was that which was instituted by our Lord as a Sacrament was it not the external and visible signes or elements why do they urge that the Sacrament ought not the less to be adored because it was to be taken but to take off the common objection that we ought not to give divine Worship to that which we eat And what can this have respect to but the Elements But this is not denyed that I know of by any who understand either the doctrine or practice of that Church although to answer our Arguments they would seem to direct their Worship only to Christ as present under the elements yet yielding that on the account of this corporal presence that which appears ought to have the same Worship given to it with that which is supposed or believed And so they make the accidents of the Sacrament to have the very same honour which the humane nature of Christ hath which they say hath no divine honour for it self but on the account of the conjunction of the divinity with it § 4. The Controversie being thus stated I come to shew that upon the Principles of the Roman Church no man can be assured that he doth not commit Idolatry every time he gives Adoration to the Host. For it is a principle indisputable among them that to give proper divine honour called by them Adoration to a creature is Idolatry but no man upon the principles of their Church can be assured every time he Worships the Host that he doth not give proper divine honour to a creature For there are two things absolutely necessary to secure a mans mind in the performance of an act of divine Worship 1. That either the object be such in it self which deserves and requires such Worship from us as in the divine nature of Christ Or 2. That if of it self it doth not deserve it there be a reason sufficient to give it as is the humane nature of Christ upon its union with the Divine but in this matter of the adoration of the Host no man can be secure of either of these upon their own Principles 1. He cannot be secure that the object is such as doth deserve divine worship If a man should chance to believe his senses or hearken to his reason or at least think the matter disputable whether that which he sees to be bread be not really bread what case is this man in He becomes an Idolater by not being a fool or a mad man But because we are not now to proceed upon the principles of sense or reason but those of the Church of Rome I will suppose the case of one that goes firmly upon the received principles of it and try whether such a one can be satisfied in his mind that when he gives divine worship to the Host he doth not give it to a creature And because we are now supposing unreasonable things I will suppose my self to be that person The Mass-bell now rings and I must give the same divine honour to the Host which I do to Christ himself but hold if it should be but a meer creature all the world cannot excuse me from Idolatry and my own Church condemns me all agreeing that this is gross Idolatry how come I then to be assured that what but a little before was a meer creature is upon the pronouncing a few words turned into my Creator A strange and sudden change And I can hardly say that God becoming man was so great a wonder as a little piece of bread becoming God When God became man he shewed himself to be God by Wonders and Miracles which he wrought for the conviction of the world I will see if I can find any such evidence of so wonderful a transformation from a Wafer to a Deity I see it to be the very same it was I handle it as I did if I taste it it hath the very same agreeableness to the Palat it had Where then lyes this mighty change But O carnal reason what have I to do with thee in these mysteries of faith I remember what Church I am of and how much I am bid to beware of thee but how then shall I be satisfied Must I relye on the bare words of Christ This is my body But I have been told the Scripture is very obscure and
is not God and therefore that honour ought not to be given it and I am further told by them that the Church hath never determined this controversie Let me now apply this to our present case It is certain if the body of Christ be present in the Eucharist as distinct from the divine nature I am not not to adore it It is very uncertain if it be present whether I am to give divine worship to the body of Christ but it is most certain that if I worship Christ in the Sacrament it is upon the account of his corporal presence For although when I worship the person of Christ as out of the Sacrament my worship is terminated upon him as God and man and the reason of my worship is wholly drawn from his divine nature yet when I worship Christ as in the Sacrament I must worship him there upon the account of his bodily presence for I have no other reason to Worship him in the Sacrament but because his body is present in it And this is not barely determining the place of Worship but assigning the cause of it for the primary reason of all adoration in the Sacrament is because Christ hath said this is my body which words if they should be allowed to imply Transubstantiation cannot be understood of any other change than of the bread into the body of Christ. And if such a sense were to be put upon it why may not I imagine much more agreeably to the nature of the institution that the meer humane nature of Christ is there than that his Divinity should be there in a particular manner present to no end and where it makes not the least manifestation of it self But if I should yield all that can be begged in this kind viz. that the body of Christ being present his divinity is there present too yet my mind must unavoidably rest unsatisfied still as to the adoration of the Host. For supposing the divine nature present in any thing gives no ground upon that account to give the same Worship to the thing wherein he is present as I do to Christ himself This the more considerative men of the Roman Church are aware of but the different wayes they have taken to answer it rather increase mens doubts than satisfie them Greg. de Valentiâ denies not that divine honour is given by them to the Eucharist and that the accidents remaining after Consecration are the term of adoration not for themselves but by reason of the admirable conjunction which they have with Christ. Which is the very same which they say of the humane nature of Christ and yet this same person denies that they are hypostatically united to him which if any one can understand I shall not envy him Bellarmin in answer to this argument is forced to grant as great an hypostatical union between Christ and the Sacrament as between the divine and humane nature for when he speaks of that he saith it lyes in this that the humane nature loseth its own proper subsistence and it assumed into the subsistence of the divine nature and in the case of the Sacrament he yields such a losing the proper subsistence of the bread and that what ever remains makes no distinct suppositum from the body of Christ but all belong to him and make one with him and therefore may be Worshipped as he is Is not this an admirable way of easing the minds of dissatisfied persons about giving adoration to the Host to fill them with such unintelligible terms and notions which it is impossible for them to understand themselves or explain to others Vasquez therefore finding well that the force of the argument lay in the presence of Christ and that from thence they must at last derive only the ground of adoration very ingenuously yields the Consequence and grants that God may very lawfully be adored by us in any created being wherein he is intimately present and this he not only grants but contends for in a set disputation wherein he proves very well from the principles of Worship allowed in the Roman Church that God may be adored in inanimate and irrational beings as well as in Images and answers all the arguments the very same way that they defend the other and that we way Worship the Sun as lawfully and with the same kind of Worship that they do an Image and that men may be worshipped with the same worship with which we Worship God himself if our mind do not rest in the Creature but be terminated upon God as in the adoration of the Host. See here the admirable effects of the doctrine of divine worship allowed and required in the Roman Church For upon the very same principles that a Papist Worships Images Saints and the Host he may as lawfully worship the Earth the Stars or Men and be no more guilty of Idolatry in one than in the other of them So that if we have no more reason to Worship the person of Christ than they have to adore the host upon their principles we have no more ground to worship Christ than we have to worship any creature in the World § 5. 2. There are not the same motives and grounds to believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation that there are to believe that Christ is God which he affirms but without any appearance of reason And I would gladly know what excellent motives and reasons those are which so advantageously recommend so absurd a doctrine as Transubstantiation is as to make any man think he hath reason to believe it I am sure it gives the greatest advantage to the enemies of Christs Divinity to see these two put together upon equal terms as though no man could have reason to believe Christ to be the Eternal Son of God that did not at the same time swallow the greatest contradictions to sense and reason imaginable But what doth he mean by these motives and grounds to believe The authority of the Roman Church I utterly deny that to be any ground of believing at all and desire with all my heart to see it proved but this is a proper means to believe Transubstantiation by for the ground of believing is as absurd as the doctrine to be believed by it If he means Catholick Tradition let him prove if he can that Transubstantiation was a Doctrine received in the universal Church from our Saviours time and when he pleases I shall joyne issue with him upon that Subject And if he thinks fit to put the negative upon me I will undertake to instance in an Age since the three first Centuries wherein if the most learned Fathers and Bishops yea of Rome it self be to be credited Transubstantiation was not believed But if at last he means Scripture which we acknowledge for our only rule of faith and shall do in spight of all pretences to infallibility either in Church or Tradition I shall appeal even to Bellarmin himself in this
the Pope I need not produce the particular testimonies in this matter of Bellarmin Suarez Valentia Vasquez with the herd of the Iesuitical order who follow these having been produced by so many already and particularly by the two worthy Authors of the Answer to Philanax and the Papists Apology from the latter of whom we shortly expect a more accurate examination of these things and by the former may appear what influence the Iesuitical party had upon the most barbarous effects of Fanaticism here in the Murther of a most excellent Prince To whose observations I shall only adde this that A. D. 1648. a Book was Printed with this Title Several Speeches delivered at a Conference concerning the Power of Parliament to proceed against their King for misgovernment licensed by Gilb. Mabbot which is word for word taken out of Parsons the Iesuites Book of succession to the Crown of England purposely designed against our Kings title as will appear to any one who will take the pains to compare them By which we may see to whom our Fanaticks owed their principles and their precedents and how much Father Parsons though at that distance contributed to the cutting off the Kings Head But it may be now they have changed their principles and renounced all these Doctrines we should like them so much the better if they once did this freely and sincerely and not with sly tricks and aequivocations which they use in these matters whenever they are pinched with them Let them without mental reservations declare but these two points that the Pope cannot absolve the Kings Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance they make to him and that though the Pope should excommunicate the King as a Heretick and raise War against him they are bound to defend the King against the Pope and by the owning these two Propositions they will gain more upon our belief of their fidelity than the large volumn in vindication of the Irish Remonstrance hath done For there they falter in the very entrance for being charged from Rome that by their Remonstrance they had fallen under the condemnation of the Bull of Paul 5. against the Oath of Allegiance they give these three Answers which ought to be considered by us 1. That in the Oath of Allegiance they swear and testifie in their Consciences before God and the World that King Charles is their lawful King and that the Pope hath no power to depose c. Whereas they only acknowledge it 2. That in the Oath of Allegiance the contrary opinion is condemned which is not in theirs 3. That in the Oath of Allegiance they declare that they believe that the Pope cannot dispense with that Oath or any part of it but this is omitted by them and surely not without reason on their parts but with little satisfaction on ours And it is easie to observe that this Remonstrance was grounded upon this that the Pope owned our King to be lawful King of England a great kindness and this being supposed all the rest follows naturally as they well prove against the Divines of Lovain but suppose it should come into his Holiness's head to be of another opinion we see no assurance but they will be so too And it may make the Pope more cautious for the future how he declares himself when such ill use is made of it and others how they rely upon such Remonstrances which have still a tacit reservation of the Popes power to declare and dispense But will they declare it unlawful to resist Authority when the cause of their Church is concerned and supposing that thereby they can settle the Pope in the full exercise of his spiritual Authority among us No this is their good old Cause that undermines Parliaments that Sanctifies Rebellion and turns Nuptials into Massacres This is that which changes blood into Holy water and dying for Treason into Martyrdome this is that which gives the glory at Rome to Regicides and makes the Pictures of Gueret Guignard and Garnet so much valued there of which we have a sufficient testimony from Mons. S. Amour who tells us that among the several pourtraicts of Jesuits publickly sold there with permission of the Superiour he saw one of Garnet with this Inscription Pater Henricus Garnetus Anglus Londini pro fide Catholicâ suspensus sectus 3 Maii 1606. Father Henry Garnet hanged and quartered at London for the Catholick Faith by which we see that Treason and the Catholick faith are all one at Rome for nothing can be more notorious than that Garnet suffered only on the account of the Gunpowder-treason of which as M. S. Amour observes he acknowledged himself guilty before he dyed The most dangerous Sect among us is of those who under pretence of setting up the Kingdom of Christ think it lawful to overturn the Kingdoms of the World But herein they have mightily the advantage of those of the Church of Rome that what they do for Christ the other do it only for his Vicar and surely if either were lawful it is much fitter to do it for one than for the other We are of opinion that it is somewhat better being under Christs own Government than the Popes whatever they think but we condemn any opposition to Government under any pretence whatsoever and though Venner and his company acted to the height of Fanaticism among our Sectaries yet Guido Faux with his companions in their Church went beyond them 2. That party which hath been most destructive to Civil Government hath had the most countenance and encouragement from Rome Of which I shall give but two instances but sufficient to prove the thing A. D. 1594. 27 of December Iohn Chastel a Citizens Son of Paris and disciple of the Iesuites having been three years in the School watched his opportunity to stabb Henry 4. but by his stooping just at the time of the blow he struck him only into the mouth upon which the Iesuits were banished France and a Pyramid erected in their place of his Fathers house in the Front whereof towards the Palace gate the Arrest of the Court of Parliament against the Traitor was engraven containing his examination and confession of being a Scholler of the Iesuits a Disciple of Guerets and the sentence passed upon him because he believed it lawful to Kill Kings that Henry 4. was not in the Church till he was approved by the Pope c. This Arrest continued without notice taken of it at Rome till October 9. A. D. 1609. and on that day it was condemned by the Order of the Inquisition and put into the Index Expurgatorius as it is at this day to be seen Which was a time wherein many reports were fled abroad in many parts of the Murther of Henry 4. and Letters came to Paris from several places to know the truth of it and the consequence of this was that it being found how careful the Court of Rome was to
they are expressed and that they are not equal to all but it was not fit to express it so because this would hinder peoples esteem of the Indulgence Which in plainer terms is that it is necessary to cheat the people or else there is no good to be done by Indulgences Thence Petrarch called them nets wherein the credulous multitude were caught and in the time of Boniface 9. the people observing what vast summs of money were gathered by them cryed out they were meer cheats and tricks to get money with upon which Paulus Langius a Monk exclaims O God to what are these things come Thou holdest thy peace but thou wilt not alwayes for the day of the Lord will bring the hidden things of darkness to light Conrad Vrspergensis saith that Rome might well rejoyce in the sins of the people because she grew rich by the compensation which was made for them Thou hast saith he to her that which thou hast alwayes thirsted after sing and rejoyce for thou hast conquered the world not by religion but by the wickedness of men Which is that which draws them to thee not their devotion and piety Platina saith the selling Indulgences brought the Ecclesiastical Authority into contempt and gave encouragement to many sins Vrspergensis complains that plenary Indulgences brought more wickedness into the world for he saith men did then say Let me do what wickedness I will by them I shall be free from punishment and deliver the souls of others from Purgatory Gerson saith none can give a pardon for so many years as are contained in the Popes Indulgences but Christ alone therefore what are they but cheats and impostures In Spain Indulgences were condemned by Petrus de Osma a Divine of Salamanca and his followers as appears by the Popes Bull against them A. D. 1478. In Germany by Iâ—hannes de Vesaliâ a famous Preacher of Mentz for Serrarius reckons this among the chief of his opinions that Indulgences were only pious frauds and wayes to deceive the people and that they were fools who went to Rome for them About the same time flourished Wesselus Groningensis incomparably the best Scholar of his Age and therefore called Lux mundi he was not only skilled in School Divinity almost the only learning of that time but in the Greek Hebrew Chaldee and Arabick having travelled into Greece Aegypt and been in most Vniversities of Europe and read the most ancient Authors in all kinds of learning on the account of his learning he was much in favour with Sixtus 4. and was present and admired at the Council of Basil but he was so far from being a friend to Indulgences that in his Epistles he saith that no Popes could grant an Indulgence for an hour and that it is a ridiculous thing to imagine that for the same thing done sometimes an Indulgence should be granted for 7 years sometimes for 700 sometimes for 7000 and sometimes for ever by a plenary remission and that there is not the least foundation in Scripture for the distinction of remitting the fault and the punishment upon which the doctrine of Indulgences is founded That the giving them was a design of covetousness and although the Pope once sware to the King of France's Embassadour that he did not know the corruptions of the sellers of Indulgences yet when he did know them he let them alone and they spread farther That God himself doth not give plenary remission to contrition and confession and therefore the Pope can much less do it But if God doth forgive how comes the Pope to have power to retain and if there be no punishment retained when God forgives what hath the Popeâ— to do to release Against him writes one Iacobus Angularis he confesseth there is nothing in Scripture or Antiquity expresly for Indulgences but that ought to be no argument for there are many other things owned in their Church as necessary points which have as little foundation as this viz. S. Peters being at Rome and Sacramental confession and therefore at last he takes Sanctuary in the Popes and Churches authority To this Wesselus answers that Indulgences were accounted pious frauds before the time of Albertus and Thomas that there was a great number of Divines did still oppose the errours and practices of the Court of Rome in this matter that supposing the Church were for them yet the authority of Scripture is to be preferred before it and no multitude of men whatsoever is to be believed against Scripture that he had not taken up this opinion rashly but had maintained it in Paris thirty three years before and in the Popes poenitentiary Court at Rome and was now ready to change it if he could see better reason for the contrary That the doctrine of Indulgences was delivered very confusedly and uncertainly by which it appeared to be no Catholick doctrine that it is almost impossible to find two men agree in the explication of them that the doctrine of Indulgences was so far from being firmly believed among them that there was not the strictest person of the Carthusian or other orders that should receive a plenary Indulgence at the hour of death that yet would not desire his Brethren to pray for his soul which is a plain argument he did not believe the validity of the Indulgence that many in the Court of Rome did speak more freely against them than he did That the Popes authority is very far from being infallible or being owned as such in the Church as appeared by the Divines at Paris condemning the Bull of Clement 6. about Indulgences wherein he took upon him to command the Angels and gave plenary remissions both from the fault and punishment Which authentick Bulls he saith were then to be seen at Vienne Limoges and Poictou It is notorious to the world what complaints were made in Germany after his time of the fraud of Indulgences before any other point of Religion came into dispute and how necessarily from this the Popes authority came to be questioned that being the only pretence they had to justifie them by and with what success these things were then managed it is no more purpose to write now than to prove that it is day at Noon The Council of Trent could not but confess horrible abuses in the sale of Indulgences yet what amendment hath there been since that time Bellarmin confesseth that it were better if the Church were very sparing in giving Indulgences I wonder why so if my Adversaries experience and observation be true that they prove great helps to devotion and charity Can the Church be too liberal in those things which tend to so good an end § 8. But Bellarmin would not have the people too confident of the effect of Indulgences for though the Church may have power to give them yet they may want their effect in particular persons and therefore saith he all prudent Christians do
Fornication Indeed he saith that this falling from that holy chastity which was vowed to God may in some sense be said to be worse than Adultery but he never imagined such a construction could be made of his words as though the act of Fornication were not a greater falling from it than meer marriage could be So much shall suffice for the Instances produced in the Roman Church of such things which tend to obstruct a good life and devotion § 14. The 3. argument I used to prove the danger a person runs of his salvation in the communion of the Roman Church was because it exposeth the faith of Christians to so great uncertainties which he looks on as a strange charge from the Pen of a Protestant As strange as it is I have at large proved it true in a full examination of the whole Controversie of the Resolution of faith between us and them to which I expect a particular Answer before this charge be renewed again To which I must refer him for the main proof of it and shall here subjoyn only short replyes to his Answers or references to what is fully answered already 1. His distinction of the authority of the Scripture in it self and to us signifies nothing for when we enquire into the proofs of the Authority of Scripture it can be understood no otherwise than in respect to us and if the Scriptures Authority as to us is to be proved by the Church and the Churches Authority as to us to be provved by the Scripture the difficulty is not in the least avoided by that distinction And as little to the purpose is the other that it is only an argument ad hominem to prove the Infallibility of the Church from Scriptures for I would fain know upon what other grounds they build their own belief of the Churches Infallibility than on the Promises of Christ in the Scripture These are miserable evasions and nothing else For the trite saying of S. Austin that he would not believe the Gospel c. I have at large proved that the meaning of it is no more than that the Testimony of the Vniversal Church from the Apostles times is the best way to prove the particular books of Scripture to be authentical and cannot be understood of the Infallibility of the present Church and that the testimony of some few persons as the Manichees were was not to be taken in opposition to the whole Christian Church Which is a thing we as much contend for as they but is far enough from making the Infallibility of our faith to depend on the Authority of the present Church which we say is the way to overthrow all certainty of faith to any considering man 2. To that of overthrowing the certainty of sense in the doctrine of transubstantiation he saith that divine revelation ought to be believed against the evidence of sense To which I answer 1. that divine revelation in matters not capable of being judged by our senses is to be believed notwithstanding any argument can be drawn from sensible experiments against it as in the belief of God the doctrine of the Trinity the future state of the soul c. 2. that in the proper objects of sense to suppose a Revelation contrary to the evidence of sense is to overthrow all certainty of faith where the matters to be believed depend upon matters of fact As for Instance the truth of the whole Christian doctrine depends upon the truth of Christs resurrection from the dead if sense be not here to be believed in a proper object of it what assurance can we have that the Apostles were not deceived when they said they saw Christ after he was risen If it be said there was no revelation against sense in that case that doth not take off the difficulty for the reason why I am to believe revelation at any time against sense must be because sense may be deceived but revelation cannot but if I yield to that principle that sense may be deceived in its most proper object we can have no infallible certainty by sense at all and consequently not in that point that Christ is risen from the dead If it be said that sense cannot be deceived where there is no revelation against it I desire to know how it comes to be deceived supposing a revelation contrary to it Doth God impose upon our senses at that time then he plainly deceives us is it by telling us we ought to believe more than we see that we deny not but we desire only to believe according to our senses in what we doe see as what we see to be bread that is bread that what the Apostles saw to be the body of Christ was the body of Christ really and substantially and not meerly the accidents of a body Besides if revelation is to be believed against sense then either that revelation is conveyed immediately to our minds which is to make every one a Prophet that believes transubstantiation or mediately by our senses as in those words this is my body if so than I am to believe this revelation by my senses and believing this revelation I am not to believe my senses which is an excellent way of making faith certain All this on supposition there were a revelation in this case which is not only false but if it were true would overthrow the certainty of faith 3. To that I objected as to their 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 he answers that this cannot expose faith to any uncertainty because it is only preferring the Churches judgement before our own but he doth not seem to understand the force of my objection which lay in this Every one must use his own judgement and reason in the choice of the Church he is to rely upon is he certain in this or not if he be uncertain all that he receives on the Authority of that Church must be uncertain too if the use of reason be certain then how comes the Authority of a Church to be a necessary means of certainty in matters of faith And they who condemn the use of a mans reason and judgement in Religion must overthrow all certainty on their own grounds since the choice of his Infallible Guide must depend upon it Now he understands my argument better he may know better how to answer it but I assure him I meant no such thing by the use of reason as he supposes I would have which is to believe nothing but what my reason can comprehend for I believe an Infinite Being and all the Doctrines revealed by it in Holy Scriptures although I cannot reconcile all particulars concerning them to those conceptions we call reason But therefore to argue against the use of mens judgements in matters of faith and the grounds of believing is to dispute against that which
some degrees of Consanguinity and Affinity but in nothing contrary to the Law of God His tenth pretended Obstruction of Devotion is that we make disobedience to the Church in Disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage he saith in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication I Answer That whether a Priest may Marry or no supposing the Law of the Church forbidding it is not a disputable matter but 't is out of Question even by the Law of God that Obedience is to be given to the Commands or Prohibitions of the Church The Antithesis therefore between disobedience to the Church in disputable matters and disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things is not only impertinent to the Marriage of Priests which is unquestionably forbidden but supposing the matter to remain disputable after the Churches Prohibition destroys all obedience to the Church But if it suppose them only disputable before then why may not the Church interpose her Iudgement and put them out of dispute But still it seems strange to them who either cannot or will not take the Word of Christ that is his Counsel of Chastitie that Marriage in a Priest should be a greater sin than Fornication But he considers not that though Marriage in it self be honourable yet if it be prohibited to a certain order of persons by the Church to whom Christ himself commands us to give obedience and they oblige themselves by a voluntary vow to live in perpetual Chastity the Law of God commanding us to pay our Vows it loses its honour in such persons and if contracted after such vow made is in the language of the Fathers no better than Adultery In the primitive Church it was the custome of some Younger Widdows to Dedicate themselves to the Service of the Church and in order thereunto to take upon them a peculiar habit and make a vow of continency for the future Now in case they Married after this St. Paul himself 1 Tim. 1. 12. saith That they incurred Damnation because by so doing they made void their first faith that is as the Fathers Expound it the vow they had made And the fourth Council of Carthage in which were 214 Bishops and among them St. Austin gives the Reason in these words If Wives who commit Adultery are guilty to their Husbands how much more shall such Widdows as change their Religious State be noted with the crime of Adultery And if this were so in Widdows much more in Priests if by Marrying they shall make void their first Faith given to God when they were consecrated in a more peculiar manner to his Service Thus much may suffice for Answer to the Argument which with its intricate terms may seem to puzzle an unlearned Reader let us now speak a word to the true state of the Controversie which is whether Marriage or single life in a Priest be more apt to obstruct or further devotion And St. Paul himself hath determined the Question 1 Cor. 7. 32. where he saith He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to our Lord how he may please our Lord But he that is Married careth for the things that are of the World how be may please his Wife This is the difference he putteth between the Married and Single life that this is apt to make us care for the things which belong to God and that to divert our thoughts from him to the things of the World Iudge therefore which of these states is most convenient for Priests whose proper office it is to attend wholly to the things of God Having thus cleared Catholick Doctrines from being any wayes obstructive to good life or devotion I shall proceed to his third Argument by which he will still prove that Catholicks run a great hazard of their souls in adhering to the Communion of the Church of Rome Because it exposeth the Faith of Christians to so great uncertainty This is a strange charge from the pen of a Protestant who hath no other certainty for his faith but every mans interpretation of the Letter of the Scriptures But First he saith it doth this By making the Authority of the Scriptures to depend upon the infallibility of the Church when the Churches infallibility must be proved by the Scriptures To this I Answer that the Authority of the Scripture not in it self for so it hath its Authority from God but in order to us and our belief of it depends upon the infallibility of the Church And therefore St. Austin saith of himself That he would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church did move him And if you ask him what moved him to submit to that Authority he tells you That besides the Wisdom he found in the Tenets of the Church there were many other things which most justly held him in it as the consent of people and Nations an Authority begun by Miracles nourished by hope increased by Charity and established by Antiquity the succession of Priests from the very seat of St. Peter to whom our Lord commended the feeding of his Sheep unto the present Bishoprick Lastly The very name of Catholick which this Church alone among so many Heresies hath not without cause obtained so particularly to her self that whereas all Hereticks would be called Catholicks yet if a stranger demand where the Catholicks go to Church none of these Hereticks dares to shew either his own house or Church These saith St. Austin so many and great most dear bonds of the name of Christian do justly hold a believing man in the Catholick Church These were the grounds which moved that great man to submit to her Authority And when Catholick Authors prove the infallibility of the Church from Scriptures 't is an Argument ad hominem to convince Protestants who will admit nothing but Scripture and yet when they are convinced quarrel at them as illogical disputants because they prove it from Scripture Next he saith we overthrow all foundation of Faith because We will not believe our sences in the plainest objects of them But what if God have interposed his Authority as he hath done in the case of the Eucharist where he tells us that it is his Body must we believe our sences rather than God or must we not believe them in other things because in the particular case of the Eucharist we must believe God rather than our sences Both these consequences you see are absurd Now for the case it self in which he instances Dr. Taylor above cited confesses that they viz. Catholicks have a divine Revelation viz. Christs word This is my Body whose Litteral and Grammatical sence if that sence were intended would warrant them to do violence to all the Sciences in the Circle but I add it would be no precedent to them not to believe their sences in other the plainest objects of them as in the matter of Tradition or Christs body after the