will always teach with these Pastours i.e. they must be Infallible I intreat you my Brethren to attend to what I shall say concerning these three Consequences 1. These Gentlemen suppose that the Church cannot be perpetual and perpetually visible without being pure and without continuing pure and exempt from corruption in the Faith. The Church is always visible therefore pure preaching must always remain there Can a man argue more pitifully 't is just as if I should say Whilst Man hath a Soul in his Body he must be always sound and hail as if Health were inseparable from Life Where have they found that Purity with respect to Faith is in separable from Visibility And because the Church is always visible doth it follow that she is always sound if the nature of the Church consisted in an indivisible point and in that certain state of purity of Faith in which there was no kind of Errors t is true the Church would perish cease to be and by consequence to be visible as soon as the Christian Doctrine should come to be mingled with any Doctrine that is strange and forreign thereto And indeed 't is the supposition of your Converters But 't is the most foolish Dream that ever entered into the mind of Man the most contrary to the Word of God and Experience that ever was asserted The most contrary to the Scripture for the Scripture says That there shall be in the Church thorns and thistles mingled with the good grain Wolves will creep in and destroy the flock That there must be heresies That men will build upon the foundation wood bay stubble And that even the Son of perdition will sit in the Church and Temple of God. The most contrary to Experience for for the space of 1300 or 1400 years which way soever we cast our Eyes we behold Christianity every-where spoiled by false and strange Doctrines Lay down this therefore as a thing indisputable that the Church must be always visible that she must always subsist but not that she must always subsist pure and underfiled The Church began to be corrupt considerably in the fourth Age and in two Ages the Corruption became such that Antichristianity which is the highest degree of the corruption of Christianity proceeded and came out from thence But in the midst of this great Corruption Christianity nevertheless preserved it self it remained very visible and by consequence the Church also continued visible for yet once more the Church remains every-where where Christianity remains and the Church remains visible every-where where Christianity remains yisible Remember-therefore that Popery is a very high and extream Corruption of Christianity but 't is not the Annihilation of it for we must well distinguish betwixt Annihilation and extream Corruption of it If the Church of Rome had rejected the Foundations as the Turks and the Socinians have done she would have been no more visible than as a dead Body is visible But because she hath only added an infinite number of false Doctrines superstitious and idolatrous whilst she hath retained Fundamentals she hath only corrupted Christianity But Christianity in the midst of these Corruptions hath not failed to remain visible to those which search after it with diligence and attention Imagine you an Egg not broken which swims in dirty and stinking water 't is the perfect Emblem of the Roman Religion The Egg whole and not broken is the Christian Creed preserved in its integrity in the sense of the Church The filthy and stinking Water where this Egg swims is the heap of Superstitions Errors and Idolatries of Popery The Egg remains visible in the midst of this filthy Water and even the opposition of the blackness of the Mire to the whiteness of the Egg make it in some sort more visible The Body of Christianity is also visible in the heap of Popish Errors and to him that will give attention thereunto it may be said that the true Christianity which doth continue in the Roman Religion serves to discover and make the ugliness of Popery more horrible The Mud and the stinking Water which encompasseth this Egg is visible as well as the Egg. 'T is the light of the day which manifests the one and the other The Corruption introduced by Popery in the Roman Religion is visible as well as Christianity 'T is the light of the day i.e. the light of the Word of God which manifests both for the Word of God manifests Christianity in the Romish Religion by the fair conformity of the three Creeds that of the Apostles that of Nice and of Athanasius with the Revelation This same word manifests Antichristianity the Mud and the Dirt of Popery by the frightful dissimilitude and unlikeness which is between Popery and Revelation It seems to me that he must be very blockish not to perceive all this and not to see that the Church may always endure and always be even visible although it be not necessary that she always continue in perfect Purity But nevertheless there is in the first consequence of your Converters some truth which serves for a foundation to that gross Illusion which they would put upon you They say The Church is always visible therefore pure Preaching must always continue there If the meaning be 't is of necessity that something of pure Preaching do always remain there yea and that the essential parts of true Preaching remain there 't is true for if the Fundamentals and essential parts of Christianity were not there there were no Church there Moreover 't is true that in Popery in the Religion of the Greeks in the Oriental Communions the Cophtis the Nestorians and the Armenians pure Preaching doth continue as to the Fundamentals of the Creed which make the Essence of Christianity But it doth not follow at all that Preaching must necessarily remain there wholly pure and incorrupt Not being able to proceed at this time to the examination of the two last consequences which your Converters draw from the perpetual visibility of the Church I will conclude by answering a Question which they put unto you and which it may be you put unto your selves Can a man be saved in Communions which you compare to a great Bason full of Dirt and stinking Water in which swims a good Egg clean and in its integrity This respects those who desire to save themselves in the Roman Church because she retains the Egg the Creed of Christians in its perfection You may well think that we should have a great many things to say to them if we would say all and were willing to repeat what we have said concerning it in our Seventeenth Letter But in this place I shall only answer to them That it does not follow that a man may be saved in a Communion which retains the Egg of Christianity whilst he swims in the Dung which compasses the Egg and nourishes himself with it a man plunged in a hideous Mire which receives the stinking dirt by his
up and formed neither have nor can have this priviledge of being always necessarily visible For Experience makes us see that God permits that they perish wholly For Example the great Churches of Africa of Carthage and Numidia c. where were the Cyprians the Augustines the Saintes Fulgentii that is to say the prime Lights of the Church These Churches say I are not at all therefore they are not visible and perpetual Visibility was not affixed unto them At present consider you that the defect of Visibility may be found in a particular Church for one of these two reasons either because she is no longer or because she is not yet the Churches of Africa are invisible because they are no more and the Protestant Churches were invisible two hundred years ago because they were not yet Understand I intreat you the folly of the Objection which they make unto you by this The true Church is always visible the Church of St. Austine and St. Cyprian is no longer visible therefore the Church of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine was not the true Church Can any thing be more foolish and ridiculous than this You very well understand what you ought to answer when the Church of St. Austine was in the World it was visible and it was then the true Church but after it was extinct and abolished by the Invasions of the Saracens and the Moors how can you wish or desire it should be visible So when they tell you The true Church is always visible now the Church of Luther and Calvin was not visible two hundred years ago therefore it is not the true Church You can answer that a man can say nothing more absurd and that a Church is far enough from being visible when as yet it is not Ah on that occasion they will say to you the novelty of your Church is a proof of the falseness thereof For a new Church cannot be a true Church Another Absurdity The Church of China erected by the Roman Missions is about a hundred years since I reason against that as they reason against us A new Church which was not visible a hundred years since cannot be a true Church for the Church is ancient and always visible now the Church of China is new and was not existent a hundred years ago therefore it is not a true Church I desire that they would tell me the difference unless it be that the Church of China newly came out of the bosom of Paganism and that ours is newly come out of the bosom of Antichristianism He must be a little cracked in the crown not to perceive by this example that the new erection of a particular Church ought to be no prejudice unto it Nothing can prejudice it but new Doctrine If a new Society which teaches a new Doctrine doth arise then in a new Church and in that case is worth nothing But they will say Behold exactly your own state and case you are a new Church that teach new things That 's the question that 's it which we deny and which must be examined to know whether we teach new things We must therefore come to the Foundation to see if we teach the ancient Religion of Christ and his Apostles and not ridiculously amuse our selves in wrangling about circumstances concerning a new Church of new Establishment of perpetual Visibility c. for if we teach the true and ancient Religion of Jesus Christ all that they say of these things are Illusions And if on the contrary our Doctrine be not that of Jesus Christ and his Apostles though we were as old as the World and had been always as visible as the Sun we should be nevertheless a false Church This is that therefore which I will stand to that we are not to search the character of perpetual Visibility in any particular Church forasmuch as it agrees only to Christianity in general and the Church Universal Before our Reformation the Church was not visible in our Society which did not yet exist but it was visible in the Greek Church in the Armâ—nian Cophti Abyssin and Aethiopian Churches because all these preserved Christianity intire in the three Creeds When we came into the World the Church became visible in our Society as it was before in others with this difference that the Church and Christianity were visible before our Reformation as the Egg whereof we have spoken was visible in the midst of that dirty unclean and filthy water in which it swam and that in our Church Christianity and the Church are there visible as the Sun dis-engaged from dark clouds and fogs My Brethren if you take pains to read and meditate deeply and more than once upon what I have said unto you I tell you frankly I shall no more fear on your behalf the Sophism concerning perpetual Visibility WHatsoever desire we have to give you the News of our Martyrs for this time they must give place to certain Prodigies more significant than any ever happened before The first shall be that which is come from St. Malo attested by a Letter from the Vicar-General of that Bishoprick The Copy of a Letter from Monsieur Simon Doctor of the Sorborn Arch-deacon of Rinan Channon Penitentiary and Vicar-General of the Bishoprick of St. Malo the sixth of July 1687. I Wrote to you the last Post my dear Monsieur but how can I forbear to tell you of a late Accident which you will hear of by the publique Relations Behold a small Extract of it which I draw in haste Upon Thursday last being the third of this Month the Thunder after a very small noise in the borders of this City fell upon our Church by the Steeple killed a young Man which toll'd the Bell in the Belfery fell into the Seat of the Quire or Singing-men broke all the lower part of the Crucifix in divers pieces and left the Image hanging by its hands it fell among the Musicians which sung and answered at a Mass in Musick that Monsieur de Sales celebrated at the Altar of St. Julien it smote down the said Sieur de Sales with the Deacons and Sub-deacons who were some time without knowledge overturned the consecrated Calice which stood upon the Altar on the Ground and on the Garments of the Priests The same thing happened at the Altar of St. Peter at the entrance of the Quire A Priest being at the Post-communion saw in an instant in a Chalice which fell not one part of the Blood of our Lord consumed the rest sprinkled upon the Ornaments of the Priests and upon the Linnen of the Altar Monsieur Lagons being at the Credo of the Mass at the Altar of St. Malo was thrown upon his back and there the Sacrifice ceased The Thunder broke many parts of the Vestrie burnt the Altar-cloaths and left a mark upon the Pattin as if it had been shot with a Pistol it left many other marks upon the edge of the Chalice In the Quire one named
because that he well saw that his only Son would be forced to follow that Religion in which he began to be engaged he prayed God to take his Son out of the World and that he might see him die before he died himself Two days after the Son fell sick and in two days he died in the presence of his Father and the Father himself died the day after rendring a thousand Thanks to God that he had heard his Prayer and that he had taken them both out of this World to give them a better Life I learnt this Story from St. Maixent the 10th of August 1684. from two persons worthy of credit viz. the Husband and Wife who had a Child nursed by the Wife of the said Bardon he which made me the Report of this Matter is called Mr. Lavergnac Master of the Grange of the Village of Luzignan in Poitou a person of good credit and full of zeal for Religion his Wife also being present In the Year 1685. the 20th of January a Woman of Jonzac in Saintonge called Susan de Lisle the Wife of Boynard a Glover being with Child as she was in her House sitting upon a Settle by the Window rising up she felt that her Child stretcht it self in her Womb and at the same time she heard it utter a very extraordinary cry and a little after this Infant having again moved it self cried out about a quarter of an Hour with the true Voice of an Infant whereupon the Mother was much frighted and called some persons to help her she having then no body with her but her own Daughter about nine Years old who having plainly heard this cry said to her Mother my little Brothâ—r crys in in your belly this Child was born three Months and nineteen Days after this it was baptized at Linieres by Mr. Couyer Pastor of the said place and was a very vigorous Child and grew in six Months time twice as much as it ought to do We have learnt this story from Liniers from the mouth of the Mother of this Woman and from the Daughter which was present and from the Husband of the God-mother of the Child From Martinique the 24th of May 1687. MOnsieur Poysonnel who commanded a Frigate from Marseille which had taken two hundred Maids and Women and almost as many Gally slaves to bring hither was lost three days since as he was coming into this Town The whole number of persons which were on board the Vessel were 320 and were all drowned as 't is said excepting 30 of the Soldiers and Mariners This was by the imprudence of the Pilots God hath given rest to these poor miserable Creatures This Note teacheth us the sad and glorious end of the Confessors which we spake of to you Others write that this Shipwreck was by command because the Wind was very fair to bring them into the Haven of the Isle and that all the Soldiers and Mariners were saved As for me I will not prejudice the Spirits of men concerning this Fact it being an Action so enormous This is certain that God was pleased to deliver these blessed Confessors and snatch them from the cruel slavery which they had prepared for them August 1. 1687. The Twenty fourth PASTORAL LETTER That the Church of Rome is not visible and that she has no mark which makes her visible A confutation of those Means whereof Mr. Nicholas pretends to serve himself to make his Church visible Dear Brethren in our Lord Grace and Peace be given to you from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ BEfore we pass to another part of the Controversie about the Church and leave the Question concerning its perpetual visibility and after examination of the visibility of the Church in general 't is needful that we take cognizance of the visibility of the Roman Church in particular 'T is needful that you say to your Converters since 't is so that the Church is always visible and that you are the Church help us to see her in and by what is the Roman Church visible If they shew you great Churches full of Men that pray and adore which hear Vespers and Mattins who prostrate themselves before Wafers and Images you will answer this is not to shew me the Church For if I were at Constantinople a Turk would shew me his Mosques all full of Worshippers which cry there is but one God and Mahomet is his Prophet Tell them If you please to go to London I will shew you the Church in England as you shew it me in France I will shew you great Churches full of men which pray and adore which prostrate themselves before God who pray and understand what they pray for 'T is unavoidable therefore that you shew me not Men and heaps of Stones which are called Churches but sensible and visible marks that Popery is the true Religion of Jesus Christ and that the Church of Rome is the true Church Add to this that the marks which they give you ought to be suitable to your capacity i. e. the capacity of plain persons and without learning For the space of twelve or fifteen Years the Popish Doctors of France have changed the Controversie this way The business is not to instruct the learned 't is acknowledged on both sides that the multitude and greater part of the Church is composed of men without learning and of plain people which must be saved as well as the more able From henceforth therefore it is necessary to furnish a means to the common people to inform them of the truth in matters of controversie and a means altogether suitable to their weakness Particularly in this Controversie Whether the Church of Rome hath certain and evident marks of her truth which make her visible For 't is an important Affair and which the weakest ought to understand It is certain that a Church cannot be visible in quality of a Church by any other means than what they call her marks of this we are at an agreement We must therefore see whether the Church of Rome hath those marks which may make the weakest perceive she is a true Church I will not here ingage you in that Labyrinth of Disputes which the Doctors of the Church of Rome have formed about the marks of that Church 'T is their manner to bury the truth under a prodigious heap of useless words and obscure questions I will not examine the sixteen marks which Bellarmine has given nor the forty which others have produced You cannot read those Books nor are they those which they put into your hands and since that time they are become more able in Sophistry Mr. Nicholas who is the last that hath laboured on this Subject has employed three Chapters to prove that the Church of Rome is very visible even to the most weak and plain In the first of these three Chapters he says * Chap. 17 18 19 of the 1st Book The Reformed convinced of Schism That a man may
't is that for which we ought to pour out tears of bloud that Christians should fall into so prodigious a Stupidity and into so great a want of Reason that if the Mahometans should fall into one like it and would prove their Religion after this manner by their Alcoran we should take them for mad men They ought not to tell you I dissemble their principal proofs drawn from Scripture for those points whereof we speak unto you for they have no other and the case is the same in all other Articles of Popery without excepting their Faith concerning the Eucharist For these words this is my Body although they should signifie a real Presence do not signifie Transubstantiation by any means in the World. 'T is a truth so evident that Cajetan and many other Doctors after him have confessed it Is it not a shame that on an Article so important as is the Adoration of the Sacrament when they should produce proofs from Scripture they cannot produce so much as one but these words this is my Body which do not speak one word concerning Adoration When they ought to prove the Power which is given to the Church to take away the Cup again they quote this is my Body This is in propriety of speech to mock men being not willing to confess plainly that which is truth i. e. our Religion hath no conformity to the Holy Scripture My Brethren that I may compleatly possess you of this truth that Popery hath no kind of Bond Union or Conformity with the Scripture observe these two things First That Popery treats the Scripture as a declared Enemy It disputes against its perfection its clearness its sufficiency and its authority It makes vast Volumes to prove it is obscure that 't is a Nose of Wax that 't is a Sword with two edges that it hath been an occasion by its obscurity of all Heresies that it contains not half the things that are necessary for salvation that it hath no authority without the testimony of the Church that it must be interpreted according to the Voice of the Church and her Practices that she contains a hundred things capable of raising scruple and giving scandal You have heard of the famous Cardinal Perron who collected together all that seems ridiculous to the profane in the Scripture as the Jaw-bone of Sampson's Ass and other like things to make it lose its authority They add that the Scripture is maimed and half lost corrupted by the Jews or Hereticks and as the top of all the Popes the Councils the Doctors the Inquisitors and the Parliaments have even forbidden the reading of it to the People as a dangerous Book Is not this to declare themselves and to act as enemies to the Scripture The other Reflection which I wish you would make is that the Church of Rome looks on the Scripture as her Enemy Popery is always on its guard against the Holy Scripture always prepared to give a Push always drawing back and recoiling always answering always distinguishing sometimes distinguishing Sacrifice into bloudy and unbloudy sometimes Adoration into Dulia and Latria sometimes the Head of the Church into Principal and Ministerial sometimes the Essence of the Body of Jesus Christ into natural and sacramental sometimes Mediators into Mediators of Intercession and of Redemption always to repel the Scripture and always to serve themselves of it Is it not therefore very clear that Popery is at a perfect opposition with the Scripture It attacks it as an Enemy by a hundred false Accusations it defends it self against it as against an Enemy by a hundred and a hundred imaginary distinctions to ward off the blows the Scripture gives it To attack and defend is all that Enemies do to one another Observe well my Brethren in the Instructions which your Converters give you in these late times the Scripture doth not enter among them They are ashamed of the proof which their Doctors have heretofore drawn from the Scripture to support their Doctrines At this day they beat and press upon you by nothing but the pretended Authority of the Church and Passages of the Fathers which you never read From all this I conclude that Popery in the quality of true Religion and the Church of Rome in quality of the true Church are by no means visible seeing they are destitute of that Light which alone can make the true Church visible viz. Conformity with the Holy Scripture An INDEX for the first Year OF THE PASTORAL LETTERS 1 LEtter A Refutation of what M. de Meaux says in his Pastoral Letter concerning the Manner of Conversions A Letter of M. de Meaux to M. D. V. 2 Letter Concerning the Right of Persecutors A Letter of Queen Christiana about Persecution The Use of the Sword of Princes extends not itself over the Conscience They do all that is necessary to assure themselves of the Damnation of the New Converts A Letter of M. P. M. a Confessour condemned to the Gallies 3 Letter Against the Necessity of a living and speaking Authority Against Successions of Seats Assemblies in Gevennes 4 Letter Advice to those which frequent the Sermons of Papists A History of many Assemblies in Cevennes The Martyrdom of the Blessed Teyssier of Burfort and Fulcran Rey in Languedoc 5 Letter The Form of Christianity in the first Age. A Letter to M. de M. a Confessour and his Answer 6. Letter What was the Form of Christianity in the second Age. 7 Letter Concerning Singing and Voices heard in divers places 8 Letter The Christianity of the third Age. M. de Monceaux Doctor in Physick of La Ferte Au-Coll his Confession M. de Juigne of Villiers a Confessour his Death in Prison M. Palmentier of Ville Dieu l'Aunay his Martyrdom Mademoiselle Carquett Vicountess of Novion and M. Chenevix drawn to the Dung-hill 9 Letter The Christianity of the third Age. M. de Voutron with two Damsels of Laon their Confession The Massacre of the Christians in Cevennes M. de Toumeyrol his Martyrdom M. le Feure a Confessor of Niuernois Mademoiselle de Chalmot indured the burning of her hand her Confession 10 Letter The Christianity of the third Age. Concerning the Unity of the Church we are not gone out of that Unity 11 Letter The Christianity of the third Age. A Continuation of the matter concerning Unity 12 Letter Concerning the Original of Monks Advice to persons which are in Convents Concerning the Unity of the Ministry A Letter from Geneva concerning the Christians of Piedmont 13 Letter Concerning the Original of Oecumenical Councils Seven Reasons against their Infallibility The true Idea of Schism 14 Letter Concerning the Original of the Tyranny of the Popes and the Hierarchy Concerning Schism Although the Corruption of the Church of Rome were not extream it would not be allowed us to return thither 15 Letter Concerning the Original of the Invocation of Saints in the fourth Age Three Proofs of its Novelty An Answer to a New Convert about Schism The
that though even the Church should fall into Idolatry we cannot be saved if we separate from it And I say although even the Church of Rome should have Reason at the bottom and were not Idolatrous and that we were out in our Separation we should not hazard our Salvation by continuing as we are Men are every where well where they have Christianity and the marrow and substance of it and 't is a folly to imagine that the Salvation of men depends upon the humor of their Guides It may be therefore that Luther and Calvin were mistaken i. e. That the corruption of the Church of Rome was not great enough to oblige the Faithful to go out of her let us suppose they had done better to leave things as they were I do nevertheless maintain that at this day you do not in any wise hazard your Salvation by continuing where they have placed you because however it be you have Christianity in its integrity you have it wholly pure and uncorrupt In every Society where that is found a man may be saved after whatsoever manner it be formed The Idea which men have formed of Schism for many Ages past is the most false that can be imagined but besides the falshood of it 't is the most dangerous and cruel Chimera that could be found Every Society would be Catholick Church to the exclusion of all others The Church of Rome pretends thus far for her self The Greek Church makes no less pretence thereto He that goes out of this Church breaks the Unity and he that breaks it is no longer in the Church Now he who is no longer in the Church is no longer in a state and way of Salvation whatever he say and whatever he do Behold what they say behold the Chimera We must therefore rectifie this Idea of Schism according to the Unity which we have given you The Unity of the Universal Church does not subsist within the bounds of one certain Communion nor in adherence to certain Pastors to the exclusion of all others but in the Unity of Spirit Doctrine Sacraments and Evangelical Ministry in general i. e. of Pastors declaring the Truth of the Gospel What must be done then to make a Schism with respect to the Church Universal He must renounce the Christian Doctrine the Sacraments of the Church and the Gospel Ministry that is to say He must be an Apostate or an Heretick But every Society that goes out of another and greater Society of which it was a part makes no Schism with respect to the Church Universal whilst it retains the Doctrine the Sacraments and the Ministry of the Gospel it goes not out of the Church because it carries the Church with it and it carries the Church with it because it carries Christianity with it It carries say I the Church with it in such a manner nevertheless that it leaves it in the Society which it leaves for leaving true Christianity there it leaves the true Church there also And the advantage of being the Church and of having Christianity is a Privilege which may be possessed intire and without prejudice to other Christian Societies We must therefore know that there is an Vniversal and Particular Schism Particular Schism is a Separation from a particular Church a Universal Schism is a Separation from the Universal Church Universal Schism consists in the Renunciation of the Universal Church by renouncing her Doctrine Sacraments and Ministry For example If the one half of Christians should separate from the other and set up a new Gospel according to which Moses should be set side by side with Jesus Christ the legal Ceremonies re-established the Evangelical Ministry should be changed into the Ministry of Priests after the Order of Aaron the Sacraments of the Church should be joyned to the Sacraments of the Old Testament it were certain that this would be a true Schism for these Men would renounce the Doctrine the Sacraments and the Ministry of the Gospel The Mahometans without renouncing Jesus Christ and calling him false Prophet have set up a Prophet superior to him and receive the Impostures of Mahomet admit Circumcision and reject Baptism have made a Religion truly and essentially different from that of Christ's 'T is therefore a true universal Schism The Socinians who have renounced almost all the Fundamentals of the Christian Religion who despise and neglect the Sacraments by going out of the Church are become Schismaticks and true Schismaticks with respect to the Church Universal for they have not carried the Church with them because they have not carried Christianity with them According to this Idea Universal Schism or Schism with respect to the Universal Church doth not essentially differ from Heresie and Apostacy Particular Schism is when a Man separates from a particular Church be it for some Point of Doctrine be it for some quarrel about Discipline be it for some personal Differences of the Guides among themselves Of this sort of Schisms there is an infinite number of Examples In the Second Age there was a Schism between the Church of Rome and the Church of Asia about a controversie of Ceremonies about the day on which Easter ought to be observed The Churches of Asia maintained that the Christian Passover ought to be observed on the same day that the Jews observed theirs and they said they held it as a Tradition from St. John. The Church of Rome on the contrary said that Christians ought to observe Easter on the Lord's-day following the Jewish Passover And for the sake of this goodly Controversie Victor Bishop of Rome was so rash as to separate the Churches of Asia from his Communion This Schism continued not only until the Council of Nice but a very long time after for mention is made of the Quartodecimani in the General Council of Ephesus against Nestorius in the year 431. So they called those who celebrated Easter with the Jews on the 14th day of the Month of March. In the Third Age Novatian formed a considerable Schism about a Point of Discipline viz. Whether we ought to receive those who fell in times of Persecution to the Peace of the Church This Schism continued a long time We find this Schism continuing amidst all the great troubles that were betwixt the Arrians and the Orthodox the union of Opinions that was between the Novatians and the Catholicks with respect to the Doctrine of Arrius did not put a period unto it In the same Age the Donatists made another Schism in Africa about the choice of a Bishop of Carthage Two Parties being formed about it a Division was made it spread through all Africa and continued many Ages There happened another in the beginning of the Fifth Age by one named Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople who taught there were two Persons as well as two Natures in Christ Another was made a little while after by Eutyches Abbot of a Monastery in Constantinople who desiring to oppose Nestorius who distinguished two Persons
by the Deed of Epiphanius which we reported touching the Image which he found in Anablata and by another passage of the same St. Epiphanius cited by the Council of Constantinople against Images in the Reign of Constantine Copronimus and reported by that Image-worshipping Council of Nice †Evag. l. 4 c. 26. Take heed to yourselves says Epiphanius retain the Traditions which you have received turn not from them to the right hand nor to the left Remember also that you put no Images in Churches nor in the Dormitories of the Saints c. nay put them not even in your own Houses St. Chrysostome saith in a passage alledged by the same Council * Synod 7. Act. 6. We have the presence of Saints by the Scriptures and not by Images Amphilochius †Synod ib. Bishop of Iconium Contemporary of St. Basil also saith We take no care to paint the fleshly Countenance of Saints with Colours upon Tables but we immitate their Life and Conversation by Piety and Vertue St. Austin upon the 123 Psalm doth expresly deny That among the Movables and Ornaments of the Church there were any Images that had Mouths and spake not and Eyes that saw not This appears also by the Fact of Serenus Bishop of Marseilles and of Gregory the First Bishop of Rome which was not till the end of the sixth Age Serenus had broken the Images of his Church because the People adored and fell down before them as those of which St. Austine speaks Gregory blames him for breaking the Images and praises him that he hindered men from worshipping them which makes it evident it was not then believed generally that they might be adored 'T is true nevertheless that in the fifth Age the brutish and superstitious People in some places began to believe that the Images of the Saints had some Vertue in them For Theodoret in the Life of Simeon Stylites reports That it was said that at Rome men set the Images of Simeon Stylites at the entrance of all their Shops to obtain some Protection and Security from them But besides that this was but a report apparently false 't was a popular Superstition in which the Church was not concerned An Article of Controversie A continuation of the matter of Schism that the great Corruption of the Roman Church forced us to a Separation HItherunto in speaking of Schism we have reason'd upon one or other of these two suppositions either that our separation was not established upon good Reasons or at least that the corruption of the Church of Rome was not at the highest degree and therefore it was in some sort tolerable We have proved in our thirteenth Pastoral Letter that although our Fathers had done ill in their Separation nevertheless you do not hazard your Salvation by continuing in the Protestant Communion Afterwards we made it appear that supposing the Church of Rome very corrupt although the Corruption were not wholly intollerable you cannot return thither at this day without destroying yourselves because the Providence of God hath drawn you thence by a Miracle in the persons of your Fathers And we have dispersed the Illusions which you put upon yourselves therein and which some amongst you have communicated to those which are fled for Protection into these Countries But at present let us no longer suppose any thing which is false let us consider things as they are i. e. let us consider the Corruption of the Church of Rome in its utmost extent and reason upon it It is the third Supposition according to which I will shew you that you cannot with a good Conscience return to Popery If the Corruption of the Church of Rome be extream if she be Idolatrous if she be Impure if she be Antichristian if she have introduced true Paganism into the Church we must necessarily Separate from her as soon as we can and the Separation being made to re-unite ourselves unto her is a Crime for which we can expect no Mercy There can be nothing of doubt in this kind of reasoning but the Supposition viz. That the Corruption of the Church of Rome is extream and wholly unsufferable So that this is the only thing which remains to do about the matter of Schism to justifie our Separation and prove to you that you cannot return to Popery without Damnation this we shall do in this and the following Letter To give you a true and natural Idea of the Corruption of Popery by a short Discription 't is necessary at first That you discharge yourselves of those vain Charms and false Appearances wherewithal they dress and present it to your Eyes First you may not consider Popery by the Christianity upon which 't is built for 't is thither that you turn your Eyes immediately 'T is a Religion say you where the true God is worshipped and the true Jesus where the Holy Trinity is believed the Incarnation of the Son of God Redemption by the Death of Christ Jesus the last Judgment the Resurrection of the Flesh everlasting Life and everlasting Death How can such a Christianity be ill Distinguish my Brethren in the Popish Church Christianity from Popery That which I would have you consider and which I have told you is Christianity But that which I will describe unto you the ugliness whereof I will set before you in an abridgement is quite another thing 't is that which hath been added to Christianity 't is Popery Say not it sufficeth us that Christianity doth continue in the Roman Church that is false it is not sufficient 'T is not enough that the Substance doth continue in poysoned Wine to make it safe and wholsom Do not you imagine that this is only a plain Comparison 't is an example that doth demonstrate and prove Wine as good and excellent as it is is not more spoiled by the Mortal Poyson mingled with it then Christianity in the Church of Rome is spoiled by the Popery added thereto Have you never read any where that the Roman Church is like a great double Temple whereof the lower part is consecrated to God and the superior part to an Idol This is a Comparison which hath all the force of Examples to prove and demonstrate Do you believe that a man after he had worshipped in the Church below consecrated to the true God should ascend into the Church above and adore Idols Do you believe say I that such a man were in a good and safe way 'T is true Christianity remains in the Roman Religion 't is the Church below but they have built upon it the Idol Church and that is Popery Do not you imagine therefore that you can Worship only in the Church below or live in the Christianity of the Roman Church without partaking in Popery This cannot be these two parts of the Roman Church are not built together as two Churches whereof the one is below and the other above By an unhappy Art of the Devil you cannot enter into the
some times keeping Whores sometimes a Sodomite some times a Sorcerer sometimes a Murderer and a Paracide sometimes an Adulterer and Corrupter of Wives and Women sometimes like a Bloud-sucker devouring Provinces swallowing up Kingdoms exhausting their Substance and drawing Tributes from all the Earth He hath been seen Cheating Deceiving making false Oaths violating Treaties stirring up Seditions moving to Wars He has been seen to make an horrible Traffick of Sins selling Pardon for Sodomies for having lain with Sister and Mother and even with a Beast for having killed his Father his Benefactor and even his King He himself hath been seen killing poysoning robbing exercising rage ambition and dreadful robberies I do profess that he must be fallen to a reprobate sense to call such a man the Vicar of Jesus Christ and to imagine that such a See is the seat of the Church After you have lookt upon the Head if you consider the Members of Popery you will see great Lords Lovers of the World who call themselves the Princes of the Church who being oftentimes nothing but the dregs of the People dispute place with Soveraigns They keep Houses and the Train of Princes they have magnificent Equipage stately Lodgings sumptuous Furniture and delicate Tables They are the Councils and the Senate of the Pope they are the Cardinals which call themselves the Pillars of the whole World upon which the Church stands These are the Ministers of Jesus Christ who said to his Disciples That he who will be greatest among you let him be your servant Verily verily I say unto you That if you humble not yourselves as a little child you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven Below these Prince-ministers of the Antichristian Empire we see Bishops another sort of secular Princes Governours of Diocesses i. e. the Provinces of the Pope who call themselves Bishops Archbishops c. by the Grace and Favour of the Holy See after the same manner that the Govournours of the Provinces of a Kingdom take the Title of their Dignity by the Favour of their King These men possess a great Revenue which was appointed by the Donors to nourish the Poor but serves nevertheless to maintain the best Table in the Province a great number of debaucht and unruly Servants Cooks that are most expert in the Art of making curious Meats and Sawces Coaches with six Horses paeks of Hounds and oftentimes a race of prostituted Whores These men cause themselves to be called my Lord in the World and treat their Inferiours like Pages and Foot-boys These have not the least grain of that which is called the Spirit of the Gospel but are animated by the Spirit of the World that of Disorder Debauchery Ambition and Avarice They watch not over their Flocks but after some Benefice greater than their own after which they gape always like Wolves after their Prey Below these Superiours are seen an inferiour Clergy composed either of Cannons appointed to sing Vespers and Mattins in Cathedral Churches whose repose ease good chear long sleep drunkenness sloth fat and plumpness have always served and do serve still for matter of Satyrs and Jests or they are Curates who are not only for the most part the dregs of the Clergy but dregs of the People excepting those of great Cities who put themselves to the labour of instructing themselves at the least in the way to live like the World the rest are ignorant brutish drunken Whore-masters given to the basest most shameful Vices And besides this the Clergy is made up of an infinite number of little Priests which are above all in Italy and Spain as they were heretofore every-where Ministers of the filthiest pleasures and of the most criminal attempts Are these the Guides of Jerusalem or the Builders of Babel My Brethren look not upon the Clergy of Paris who are better governed consider that during the space of seven or eight hundred years the Popish Clergy were of this make in all the Roman Church look upon Spain and Italy where it is publickly known that the Clergy are yet thus formed and fashioned Consult those which have seen Rome a little near at hand Learn from them that Religion there is an Interlude and that all the Ecclesiasticks are Comedians which do not believe in God. An honest man came a little while since from Italy and told us from his own observation That when they are at their Devotions they commit Indecencies and make such noise there that honest men in France would not do at play Judge whether it be likely that God hath permitted so horrible a Corruption of Manners in a Church pure and infallible From the Clergy i. e. from the Priests pass to the Monks which are the holy part of Popery where are found the Reverent Fathers the seraphical and angelical Doctors Draw the Curtain from their Hypocrisie and you will see an Abyss of Impurities men who under pretence of long Prayers devour Widdows Houses Wolves gaping after a prey which compass about the Beds of the sick and dying to obtain great gifts and presents men who think Gain to be Godliness who dress Religion like a Play that they may draw Spectators who in their Houses perform Paganish Devotions and such as are ridiculous and worthy of the Theatre to draw the crowd of people and to obtain Offerings who by this means obtain those Alms which belong to the Poor who by these Alms maintain themselves in a criminal sloth and idleness without being of any use to Church or State who behind their own Walls and Curtains abandon themselves to the utmost Extreamities of Wickedness who eat and drink and sleep like Hogs who go not without the Walls of their Cloisters but to run after strange Flesh who corrupt Wives and Daughters and to that end serve themselves 〈◊〉 all the most hideous and diabolical â—â—rts The pretence of Religion Sacraments arâ— the most holâ— things are employed therein You will see Houses of sacred Virgins so they call them which are the Lodgings of Impurity the Houses of â—rostitutes the places of those that are Debauched Behold those who are the principal and the most illustrious Members of Popery during the space of seven or eight hundred years by the confession of all the World and what they are yet to this day in an infinite number of places unto which the Reformation has not come 'T is by this that you ought to look upon the Members of Popery and not by some Reformed Societies which are in France whereof they let you see nothing but the out-side Judge whether the true Church and the true Religion could permit and suffer such horrible Disorders Are these the Pastors of Jesus Christ or the false Pastors of him who in the last times was to teach a Doctrine of Devils by men whose Consciences were seared with a hot Iron forbidding to Marry and abstaining from Meats which God hath created to be received by Believers IN our seventeenth Letter you may
Church be he Priest Bishop or Guide thereof Make Reflections in this place on the monstrous Doctrines of your Converters of whom the most part will tell you that to be a true Member of the Church it suffices to make profession of the Faith and to adhere to lawful Pastors So that Priests that are Sorcerers and Sodomites which you have oftentimes seen burnt at Paris were the true Members of Jesus Christ This is capable of making a man tremble with horrour They will say to you thereon if they were not true Members of the Church and of the Body of Jesus Christ they could not be the Guides thereof Such a one is an evil Man he is nevertheless a true Bishop he must therefore be a true Member of Jesus Christ and of his Body Answer to this that which one of the Writers of Port Royal says somewhere That oftentimes those which Build Jerusalem and Guide it are the Citizens of Babylon Tell them that to be a lawful Pastor and Guide of the Church to be able to administer the Word and Sacraments with Authority it s enough to be a Member of the external and visible Society it is not necessary to be a Member of the true Church to be in the hand of God an Instrument of his Work. A King may administer Justice and administer it very well by a wicked man who hath inwardly all sorts of inclinations to Injustice It will be said a man cannot be the Head and Guide of a Body without being a Member thereof for the Head is one of its principal Members It must be answered That false Pastors are true Members of the visible Society of the Church and that they are also true Heads of that Society whereof they are true Members but they are neither Heads nor Members of the principal and invisible part of the Church who are true Believers and truly righteous persons They are not therefore true Heads but of that part whereof they are true Members and that sufficeth them for the external Administration of the Word and Sacraments for the truely Righteous receive the Word and Sacraments in quality of the Members of the external Society They will press you further and tell you You do confess the Church is visible because she hath a Body which is an external Society But is it always visible Although you should answer That it is not necessary that the Church be always visible they would not be able to convince you of the contrary by reason For a man who is visible by his body may be sometimes hidden and by that means be invisible May not the external Society of the Church which is visible have been at sometimes and in some seasons hidden through the Persecution of Pagans or Hereticks But confess to them that the Church hath been always visible and will be to the end of the World. 'T is true that the Persecutions under the Pagan-Emperours were very great but they never proceeded so far as utterly to destroy all Assemblies of the Church to that degree that there were no visible Society of Christians the Christians were well known under the Persecutions seeing they knew where to find them to make Martyrs of them the Church was visible in the midst of the flames She remained visible in the Heretical Assemblies of the Arrians for those that held the Truth in those Assemblies themselves were more numerous than those that erred concerning it If there were any place where the Church were become invisible it was in the Papism for never was there a Church so corrupt and drowned in Superstitions as that Nevertheless the Church continued there visible because that Christianity and the Fundamentals of the Christian Religion did abide there I do not say that they did remain there in their Integrity but the contrary nevertheless it sufficeth that they did continue there 't is necessary therefore that you know that where-ever Christianity fore that you know that where-ever Christianity remains sensible and visible the Church remains visible for it is Christianity that makes the Church If a Sect become so corrupt that Christianity is no longer visible in it such are the Mahumetans and the Socinians who have rejected the Foundations the Church is no longer visible among them unless it be as a dead man remains visible but it is also visible that he is dead without life and without soul so in the Sects which have rejected the Foundations the Church remains visible but it 's also visible that such Churches are without life without soul without salvation In the Sects which preserve Christianity although they have added very many things thereunto and even such things as overturns the Foundations thereof the Church doth not fail to remain visible because Christianity both is there and is seen there If therefore they do inquire of you Where was your Church before Luther and Calvin Answer them She was in the Christian Societies that were in Aethiopia in those which were in Aegypt and in Africa in those which are and were in Asia in the Greek Church that was at Constantinople and Antioch in Muscovy and the Churches of Russia and she was even in the Church of Rome itself If they ask of you Was the Church visible in these Societies or were the Members thereof hidden Answer them That the Church was visible in these Societies forasmuch as Christianity and the Creed of the Apostles in the true sence thereof explained in the first six General Councils were visibly preserved there Add you that the true Members of Jesus Christ and of the Church were hidden and not visible because those that sincerely and truly adhered to this true Christianity contained in the Creeds of the Christian Church were not known by name but that these Believers were hidden was not at all peculiar to these corrupt Churches because of their Corruption for the case is the same in the purest Churches the true Members of Jesus Christ and of his body are hidden because we do not certainly know those which adhere to the Christian Faith in sincerity and with the heart Behold a pure and native Explication of the true Visibility of the Church and of the Perpetuity of that Visibility The Bishop of Meaux and your other Converters will seem to you very well pleased in this that you confess the Church is visible and always visible Behold they will say one point gained For if the Church be always visible 't is of necessity that there be a Succession in the Ministry a train of legitimate Pastours There will always be Teachers with whom Jesus Christ will teach and the true Teaching will never cease in the Church These are Monsieur de Meaux that great Converter's own words That is to say from the perpetual Visibility of the Church he draws these three conclusions 1. That pure and true Teaching hath never ceased in the Church 2. That there will always be a series and train of legitimate Pastours 3. That Jesus Christ
Sollicitations of those who have the conduct of his Conscience See a new Systeme on the Apocalypse p. 224 225. They are the Priests and Clergy which have raised this Holy War against the Reformed 't is they that have blown the fire and sounded the Alarm to this Persecution and 't were a wonder that there should be a Persecution and superstitious Priests and Clergy have no hand therein One of the sharpest Persecutions that was ever raised against the Primitive Christians was promoted and encouraged by the Pagan Priests as Sozomen I think relates The best things corrupted are the worst profane Priests and Clergy-men without Conscience perpetrate and encourage the greatest Villanies in the World. 9. Though this Persecution be mostly if not wholly owing to the Clergy of France yet I do not think them all equally guilty therein Mr. Arnold in his Preface to the Defence of the Perpetuity of the Faith of the Church against Mr. Claude speaks more humanely concerning those of the Reformed Religion in France Vid. Preface in the beginning and professes a great unwillingness to disturb their outward Tranquillity and Peace or to diminish any thing of their temporal Enjoyments and Advantages He desires which all his heart he says that they might be won over to the Church by all sorts of Charity Softness and Goodness but abhors all violent means and endeavours for their Conversion And I am willing to hope that there may be others of the same spirit and temper of this learned Man. 10. But Mens Sentiments alter and what is sound Doctrine at one time is hardly so at another The same learned Man since the Persecution grew high in France hath written sundry piqued Books with bitterness and gall enough against the Reformed and thereby hath sufficiently countenanced and encouraged their Enemies against them The Bishop of Meaux late of Condum is a gentile Man a florid Orator and usually smooth in his Discourses and Conversation Vid. Serm. but has been a great Zealot though more secretly than others in promoting the ruine of what he calls Heresie and no man needs farther proof thereof than to read that fulsome Sermon of his preach'd at the Funeral of the late Queen of France insomuch that I am sometimes under a temptation to say of them all in the words of the Prophet The best of them is as a briar Mich. 7.4 the most upright is sharper than a thorn-hedge 11. I speak not these things with desire to exasperate the Government against the Roman Catholicks in England Let us but be secured that we may enjoy our own Religion in Peace and I am content that they have the private Liberty of their own If they will hear what the Learned Men of our Church have to say for the Doctrine of the Reformation and against the Doctrines which are properly and peculiarly Popish and can be argued out of the one into a belief of the other I should very much rejoyce therein 12. Those Doctrines which are peculiar to the Church of Rome are evidently Novel and by degrees introduced upon primitive and simple Christianity This hath been irrefragably proved by the Divines of our own Church against the late Pamphlets and Pretences of the Romanists See the Council of Trent examined by Catholic Tradition by D. Stilling fleet as well as by the Famous and Learned Monsieur Jurieu in his Pastoral Letters Christianity is invariable what it was in the days of the Apostles and Primitive Churches it is at this day all Additions that have been made thereunto are either needless or false and such are all the Novelties of the ROMAN Church 13. But if those of the Church of Rome cannot be argued out of their Religion and become Proselytes to the Protestant Doctrine and Discipline they must remain where they are The Churches of the Reformation have not learned from their great Master to Dragoon Men into their Communion and it seems to them to be utterly contrary to the Gentleness Softness and Kindness of Christianity It accords well enough with Mahometanism and the Alcoran to proselyte Men by drawn Swords and Pistols for there is but little Argument See Memoirs of P. Mornay vol. 1. pag. 25 26. Reason or Demonstration can be produced to persuade a Faith therein and where Men cannot be converted by Arguments they must make use of Clubs if they will gain any Proselytes Christianity is furnished with so many of the one that it has no need of the other 14. Whatever Provocations those of the Church of Rome may have given to the Church of England to treat them with Severity and Rigor I would by no means that they should use them They are Men and partake with us in the same common Nature and I would not have them treated like Beasts If care be taken that they do us no hurt I should never desire that any Violence be offered unto them let them sit under their Vines and their Fig-trees and let no man make them afraâ—d 15. I should be sorry that the Church of England should repay the measure to the Roman Catholicks that the Reformed have suffered in France The great Author of our Religion has learn'd us other Doctrine and I hope we shall never depart from the Faith and Practice thereof He hath taught us to do good for evil to pray for them that curse us Matth. 5.44 and bless them that persecute and despitefully use us We are willing to live peaceably with all men as much as in us lies Roman 12.18 19 20. we will not avenge our selves we will leave that to God to whom Vengeance belongs If they hunger we will feed them if they thirst we will give them drink and by doing thus heap coals of fire upon their heads 16. I am as jealous and suspicious of the Gentlemen of the Roman Persuasion as any Man and hope that all care will be taken that it shall not be in their power to do us hurt and when that is secure I wish they may be treated with all the kindness that Christianity requires of us I am sure the Christian Religion is most full of Love Sweetness and Obligations and there is nothing in the World that commends it more to the Acceptation of Men and none do it more Honor and more advance its Reputation than those that delight in Kindness and scatter their Obligations upon all sorts of Men herein they do like the Majesty of Heaven Matth. 5.45 who causes his Sun to rise upon the good and the bad and his rain to descend upon the just and unjust 'T is a thing of no great difficulty to treat those with Kindness that oblige us but to shew Love to our Enemies and an Affection for those that hate and destroy us is a more difficult Lesson and worthy of the Christian Religion which teaches Men those heights of Perfection which cannot be learn'd any where else 17. The Author of these following Letters
flames before they gave up the ghost they were made to live by skill and art in the most cruel torments sometimes many days and sometimes many weeks together and never did one word of murmuring or impatience escape from them they prayed for their Hangmen they gave Thanks to God they sung his Praises and to their last breath called upon his Name When they tell you at this day If your Religion were true you would adhere more closely unto it answer them If our Religion had been false they had never had so invincible an Adherence to it and so strong a Passion for it nor had they ever suffered death for the defence of it or if there have been some heady persons that have maintained their Opinions with obstinacy even to punishment and death their pains and death hath not been accompanied with an humility so profound a patience so exemplary a love and sweetness so perfect a zeal so ardent a piety so pure and undefiled a submission so entire a joy so firm solid bright and shining The Spirit of Lies and Delusions doth not produce such effects These are the Characters of the Spirit of God they are the effects of Grace and of that Grace that is not given to Reprobates and Martyrs of falshood and imposture My Brethren these Objects are at a distance they are behind you and you will find some difficulty in reflecting on them but you will find none in considering those that are before your eyes they are sufficient to defend you against the scandal of that Facility wherewith they reproach you and wherewith they affirm that your Brethren have forsaken their Religion Oppose thereunto above one hundred thousand persons that have left the Realm within the space of one year last past without counting almost as many more that have forsaken it within twenty years that this Persecution hath continued tho not in its height and rage There are among them those that have forsaken all those things which are called Goods Honours Ease and the convenient Accommodations of Life certainly they did not find it a thing so easie to enter with a satisfied mind into the bosom of the Roman Church Oppose thereunto more than forty thousand Prisoners that are in the Goals and Cloisters of the Realm which chuse to suffer all sorts of miseries and calamities there rather than to embrace the Popish Religion Oppose thereunto Persons of Quality such are the Marquess of Bordage condemned to the Galleys and afterwards to perpetual Imprisonment the Marquess of Musse who every day expects the same condemnation the Marquess of Rochegade and the Gentlemen his Sons the Marquess of Cagni Monsieur Beringhen and all his Family the Marquess of Lunge the Marquess of the Isle of Gast who is in the Citadel of Anger 's and an infinite number of other Gentlemen who prefer the Galleys or a Prison before the pleasure to which the Bishop of Meaux invites them that is of rejoining themselves to that Church in which their Fathers served God. Oppose thereunto a considerable number of Martyrs and Confessors whereof some are in Dungeons that are really the Images of Hell they being deep obscure dark and a hundred feet under ground such are the Reformed of Diepe Haure and other places which are in the Prisons of Aumale of whom we shall be able to tell you particular stories at some other time Add to these more than six hundred persons that are now actually in the Galleys for their Religion This is no hyperbolical Computation but one made by a Roman Catholick a maritime Officer now living at Marseilles we have his Letter and without naming him we shall be able to produce it at a convenient season behold a line or two thereof at present Here are six hundred Gally-slaves of the Religion called Protestant who by their patience move compassion from the most hard-hearted and unpitiful of their Officers The number of them must needs be augmented since that time for the Letter was dated from Marseilles the 27th of June 1686. that is to say more than two months since and without doubt there are more arrived there 'T is newly reported that at this time there are to the number of two thousand some say four thousand in that miserable state and case The famous Monsieur Lewis of Marolles Advocate of Stemenehaud was not then arrived there for he parted not from Paris with the other Prisoners under the same condemnation with himself till the 20th of July and came not to Dijon till the 30th of the same Month from whence at last he arrived at Marseilles laden with a Chain of fifty pound weight about his neck and a violent Fever which never left him during the time of that sad Journey He is a Confessor of Jesus Christ which all Paris beheld at the ‖ Tournello loaden with Chains of an extraordinary weight A Court of Judicature in Paris and also a Prison and preaching in the midst of his Irons All France have their eyes turned upon him as on the greatest example of Courage Piety and tenderness of Conscience that this Age hath seen We shall one day give you the History of his Confession and make you to understand his Sentiments by his own Letters where you will see the Spirit and Character of the ancient Martyrs He is one of our most illustrious Confessors but he is not alone God raises up others every day as you shall learn hereafter The same Sea-Officer that wrote from Marseilles that there were already six hundred Gally-slaves of the Reformed Religion there adds 'T is fifteen days since that Monsieur de Lezan a Gentleman of Quality was condemned to the Gallies being accused and convicted of having been at a Meeting The day after many persons were put to the Rack to oblige them to accuse some men of Name These unhappy Wretches endured both the ordinary and extraordinary Rack with such a constancy as affrighted the Judges and softned the Spirit of the Hangman to that degree that the chief Magistrate was forced to stand over him with a Cane to oblige him to turn the Wheel Behold here truth in matters of fact which can never be doubted seeing they are attested by a person of a contrary Religion who is upon the place and in the Country where these cruelties are committed Behold Confessors which make it apparent that the Church of Rome does not find it a thing so facile as the Bishop of Meaux reports it to cause the Reformed to enter into their Communion Behold Examples of Constancy that are worthy of your most attentive Consideration Death is more easie to be endured than the ordinary and extraordinary Rack and those illustrious Confessors do well deserve the Title of Martyrs But will you oppose to that Facility which your Converters find and whereof they make an Argument to draw you into the Roman Religion will you I say oppose to your Seducers Martyrs in all forms Oppose to them Monsieur Teissier
opinion concerning the Sense of Scripture will not acknowledge a living speaking Authority to which they must submit the Christian Church is assuredly the weakest of all Societies that are in the World the most exposed to remediless Divisions the most abandoned to Innovators and factious persons This is that to which your Ministers with all their subtleties have never been able to find an Answer and they content themselves with bringing Examples where they pretend that Councils have not always determined well All these Examples are false or ill alledged In one quarter of an hours time you which are a Man of Sense will be convinced thereof and you do receive things with too much credulity without ever putting your self on the labor to examine them But without putting you upon these Disquisitions consider only whether it be likely that God who hath permitted so many depths in the Scripture and from thence have arisen so many Schisms amongst those that profess to receive it hath not left some means to his Church to quiet and pacifie them in such manner that there is no remedy for Divisions but to let every one believe according to his fancy and thence insensibly to carry Men to an indifferency in Religion which is the greatest of all Evils Think Master think of it hear your own reason and not the subtleties of your Ministers who at what rate soever will defend their Prejudices and not pass for Teachers of Lies Think of these things excuse those Expressions which may seem a little dark and disordered it is much better that you attend to the simplicity of a Brother that endeavours to gain a Brother than a polite and studied Discourse Come and assure your self that I will do all for you whom I esteem and who are dear to me and that I am cordially Yours c. Thus Signed J. Benigne E. de Meaux Forasmuch as we have imposed a necessity upon our selves not to go beyond a Sheet we pass by our Reflections on this Letter till another Letter which we shall give you in a few days for this serves only as a Preface In the mean time we recommend you to the Grace and Mercy of God. Amen Sept. 1 1687. The SECOND PASTORAL LETTER IN WHICH What Monsieur de Meaux says concerning the right of Persecutors for submission to Councils is confuted A considerable error of the same Gentleman about a matter of Fact in Antiquity Dear Brethren in our Lord Grace and Peace be given to you from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ THE necessity of concluding hindered us in our former Letter from adding our reflections upon that which the Bishop of Meaux wrote to one of his Diocess that was escaped by flight At present we entreat both you my Brethren and all reasonable Men in the World to compare these two Letters together the Pastoral Letter that is publick and this which is private and particular Will any one find the Bishop of Meaux here Are they two persons or is it but one Himself in publick and the same person in private According to Monsieur de Meaux's Writing and Printing for the new Converts of his Diocess neither he nor the other Bishops have ever heard any speech of Dragoons and Torments According to himself writing in his Closet to a particular person the Case is not the same It is true there is a Persecution for the sake of Religion but it is just it is allowed it is authorised by our example by that of the Ancients and by Divine and Human Laws Good God! How do these Men govern themselves And what do they think Could the Bishop of Meaux ever hope that his Printed Letter should never fall into the hands of him to whom this written Letter was addressed I would fain know what will be answered thereunto If Monsieur de Meaux hath right and reason on his side in his Letter to Monsieur Dev. why doth he say that himself and other Bishops have not heard any speech of Persecution It is a pleasure and an advantage to us to see these Gentlemen deny this Persecution and thereby against publick knowledge and notoriety charge themselves with falshood It is an homage that they pay to Truth It is a confession intelligible enough that violence and the means that they employ are contrary to the spirit of Humanity and that of the Gospel But what a shame is it for them to contradict themselves to confess in private what they deny in publick and acknowledge themselves false Witnesses by their own peoples declarations However it be behold us carried from matter of Fact to that of Right It is no longer debated whether there be a Persecution but whether they have right to Persecute for the sake of Religion It is a question on which so much hath been lately written that nothing new can be said concerning it Nevertheless having Printed the Letter of the Bishop of Meaux and because there is somthing that is dazling and apt to deceive in his manner of writing we think our selves obliged to Print also a refutation thereof we will therefore repeat his words and examine them one after another I have seen in the Letter that you wrote to Mademoiselle de V. that the true Church doth not Persecute what understand you by that Monsieur Do you understand that the Church by it self never makes use of force That is true since the Church hath no other Arms but those that are Spiritual What means this little Paragraph of Gibberish which is formed and contrived on purpose to impose upon the simple They are willing that it should mean that it is not the Church of Rome that raises the present Persecution nor is it according to the Principles thereof For it is that which they persuade the new Converts It is by this means that they take away the scandal that the new Papists take at the Conduct of their Church It is the King say they that doth it it is not the Church for it serves it self only of Spiritual Weapons if what is done be disapproved it ought not to be imputed they say to their Religion which neither appoints nor advises it That which was written to us not long since by one of their most illustrious and best satisfied Converts comes to this I do not answer says she to all that which you have said concerning the ways that are made use of to gain Converts I believe that nothing is to be imputed to any Religion but what it appoints to be believed and practised This answer is very Gentile and worthy of a Lady that thinks herself obliged to answer to nothing But it ought to be rememembred that there is a Tribunal where answers must be made one day without any regard to the difference of Sexes where no evasions will be permitted us and that we shall be punished there for having been unwilling to attend to those things which might have made us understand the nature of that Religion that we had newly
entertained However it be these Gentlemen persuade their Disciples that it is not the Spirit of the Roman Church that doth cause this Persecution Nothing must be imputed to any Religion but what it appoints to be believed The Church never serves it self of force for it hath no other Arms but such as are Spiritual There is among the Doctors of the Roman Church on the one hand an impudence and hardness of Face which is inconceivable and on the other hand there is in their Disciples an abyss of credulity that is incomprehensible Can hardiness and shamelesness be greater than to say that Persecution is not of the spirit of the Roman Church One of our * See the Letter of Doctor Sonstelle Brethre hath written concerning it a little while since with so much brevity that every one may read it and with so much strength as to convince them of the falshood thereof We prove that the Persecution is of the spirit of the Church of Rome by its Principles its Doctrine and its Practice I do not know whether there can be any other source or fountain of proofs when we treat of matters of Fact. The Principles of the Roman Church are that all those that are separate from their Church are damned eternally It s Doctrine is that the Secular Power with Fire and Sword may be employed for the extirpation of those that she calls Hereticks The Council of Constance which France esteems as the most Authentick that hath been these thousand years hath so determined and so it practised For it caused John Lous and Jerome Osprague to be burned The Albigenses Waldenses Bohemians and many others were not Massacred but by order of Councils and Popes who published Crusadoes against them and gave Indulgences and promised Pardon of sin to those that should destroy them The Tribunal of the Inquisition which burns all those that are either suspected or Convicted of Heresie is a Tribunal of the Church established and maintained thereby and it is looked on by the Popes as the great Rampart and Defence thereof Never were there any Massacres committed which were not either Commanded or Approved by Popes They are matters of Fact notoriously known and no body dares to dissent unto them Rome hath sung Te Deum that is We praise thee O God c. and given thanks to him for the Persecution of France Nothing is more proper to make known what is the Spirit of the Roman Church than the Conduct of the Court of Rome We have said that the Pope publickly commends what hath been done in France and hath caused Te Deum to be sung for it In the mean time it is certain that all Men of good sense in the Court of Rome do both detest and scoff at the Conduct of France Whence comes it then that this Court seems to approve in publick that which it condemns in private It is not to flatter the King for they have no respect or regard for him in that Country and every one knows the indignation that they have against him But it is because that Rome dares not declare against the Principles of their Religion If the Pope should condemn ways of violence against pretended Hereticks he would mutiny his whole Church against himself and make himself worthy of deposition He would condemn his Councils he would reproach the memory of his Predecessors he would overturn his own Principles from top to bottom So that the publick approbation which he gives to Persecution is the Sacrifice which he makes of his Conscience to his duty in quality of a Pope But like a Man of good sense he reserves the right of condemning in private all that which he publickly approves The Letter of the Queen of Sueden which hath been made publick in the News of the Republick of Learning hath conjectured discreetly concerning it For it is not to be believed that Queen Christina would dare so openly to declare her self against the Sentiments of the Court of Rome if that Court had approved of this manner of Conversions Behold a second Letter of the same Queen which tells us something more exact concerning the Sentiments which prevail in the Country where she is A Letter of Queen Christina to M 'T IS with astonishment that I have seen my Letter made publick in your Parts I do not understand how it is come to pass and I do assure you that it is not I my self that have published it Nor do I believe that he to whom it was written would so far disoblige his Master as to be willing to do me that pleasure However it be I do not repent that I wrote it for I do not fear any man. I pray God with all my heart that this false Joy and Triumph of the Church do not one day cost her true tears and sorrows In the mean time it must be known for the honour of Rome that all those that are men of merit and understanding here and animated with true Zeal do no more lick up the Spittle of the French Court in this case than I do They behold as I also do with pity all those things which pass in the World where there is given so much reason both of grief and laughter to those that are the Spectators thereof Our only consolation is that God will not abandon his Church but give a glorious issue to all its Calamities which are far greater than are imagined but it behoves us to adore God and the incomprehensible dispositions of his holy providence in every thing that betides us I heartily wish you prosperity From Rome May 18. 1686. Christina Alexandra It behoves us to speak as the case is the Court of Rome disapproves the conduct of the King because it is his Enemy The Persecution is of no value because 't is he that doth it However it be we are in no condition in France to make use of the moderate Sentiments of Italy For the Galican Church hath renounced this moderation She pays Men of Learning to prove that ways of Violence are permitted At this day all the Realm is full of Writers which labour to justifie compel them to come in They quote S. Augustin they report his opinions concerning the Persecution that was raised against the Donatists 'T is notorious that the Clergy of France have been the Authors of the Persecution They cannot deny that they have drawn up all the Edicts and that they have sollicited the execution of them so that we cannot comprehend how the Converters can endure that their Disciples should say That we ought not to impute any thing to a Religion but that which it appoints to be believed and practised and that the Roman Church doth not appoint any Violence to be practised against Hereticks But the Bishop of Meaux finds a very pleasant means to justifie her the Church never serves it self with force by it self says he that is to say it calls to her succour the secular Power to cut
be only a power granted to punish them not to endeavour their Conversion by Torments 'T is an abominable means of Conversion which only makes Hypocrites 'T is sufficiently known that reason cannot be gained thereby The purging of Societies is the end of the Sword but Persecution at the rate that it is at this day managed will corrupt and ruine Societies by filling them with secret Hereticks who will disperse their Venom in a manner by so much the more dangerous by how much it is more private and secret What is there therefore of likeness between their treatment of us Is the lawful use of the Sword against Malefactors Do not lightly pass over what I have now said but give attention thereunto If that which Monsieur de Meaux hath said to prove that Heretiques are not excepted out of the number of those Malefactors that Princes are appointed to punish seem a little to startle you tell him that is not the question it is not debated whether obstinate Hereticks may not be punished with Death his Catholick Authors do affirm it But we would learn whether they ought to extort Subscriptions Confessions Communions profane and sacrilegious because joyned with Hypocrisie and Incredulity by Force Plunder Violence and all kind of Torments Now that is it which all the World with one accord condemn and is abominable according to the Principles of the rigid Inquisition as well as our own 'T is that which the Clergy of France have lately invented and practised and 't is that which will render their present conduct the horror of all future Ages 2. The use of the Sword that God hath put into the hands of Princes hath Justice and Righteousness for the reason and foundation of it for it is for the exercise of it and secondly Fidelity and Faithfulness for it is to preserve and maintain it But that which is perpetrated upon us at this day is an uninterrupted course of Iniquities Acts of injustice violence fraud falshood breach of Promises contradiction of Edicts violation of Oaths and of all things that can be imagined most horrid and affrightning Doth not this well resemble the Sword of good Princes armed against Sins and Crimes 3. To conclude the use of the Sword for the preserving and avenging the rights of God preserves also the rights of Men. It hath for its end the honour of God and the salvation of Souls For Justice is exercised for the salvation of the Souls of the wicked by the punishment of their Bodies But in the present Persecution they neither respect or regard the rights of God or the salvation of the Soul but only the Honour of the King. They labour plainly not for the salvation but damnation of Souls and they take all imaginable care to make it sure There is no man that is not ignorant of what is done to whom what I have said will seem an extravagance and excess of discourse But behold the proof thereof The Dragoons come into a Town or Village and without any antecedent instruction demand in the Name of the King from all the Inhabitants thereof Subscription and Abjuration on penalty of wasting their Goods beating imprisoning and torturing their Bodies with all other evils except Death All the People faint and fall they own the Romish Religion without believing it they sign the Condemnation of their own they anathematize and damn Luther Calvin and all the Reformers He goes to Confession he goes to Mass he communicates he adores the Bread he assists at the invocation of Saints and outwardly consents to that Worship that they give to Images He believes none of all this but abhors it at his Heart In the mean time they are content they have all that they desire and they demand no more Now what have they made They have made Hypocrites that say one thing and think another prophane persons that hate what they adore Idolaters that worship what they account Creatures and the workmanship of mens hands Behold what they have done and what they have desired to do For to say that by the Dragoons they desired the Calvinists to renounce their Heresie is the most foolish of all extravagances 't is well enough known that they are no proper Arguments to perswade Therefore they intended and desired to make Hypocrites profane sacrilegious persons abuses of Sacraments and Idolaters Now if these men be not in the high way to Damnation I know not who are So therefore plainly the end of these Persecutions 't is to damn men But behold farther I do maintain that they take all kinds of security to be certain of the damnation of the new Converts when they die This appears by the Declaration of the nineteenth of April 1686 by which it is appointed That if any of our Subjects of either Sex which have abjured the pretended Reformed Religion happening to be sick do refuse to receive the Sacrament of the Church from the Curates Vicars and other Priests I do declare that they will persist and die in the pretended Reformed Religion In case the said sick persons do recover their health Process being made against them by our Judges they shall be condemned if they be Men to make honorable satisfaction and to the Gallies for ever with confiscation of their Goods and if they be Women or Daughters to make honorable satisfaction and be imprisoned with confiscation of their Goods This is the Declaration that the Priests make to a person that thinks himself on his Death-bed when he refuses to communicate There is no Man so sick but he may recover He that at first according to his own conscience refuses to communicate after the manner of the Romish Church at length begins to think that if he recovers he must away to the Gallies these thoughts affright him and as the Disease of the Body increases the weakness of his mind he falls under the fear of that hideous punishment that must last as long as life He communicates again he abjures the Truths which are in his heart he adores that which he believes to be but Bread he is profane in hating an holy thing he is sacrilegious in usurping the Sacraments he is an Idolater in worshiping a Creature The Priest which hath seen him in these Conflicts in these long Oppositions in his Refusals to communicate in Acts of Incredulity and Aversion for these Miseries constrains him by fear and the Declaration of the King. Thereby he gains an assurance of the damnation of this wretch and makes him dye in the most fearful dispositions in which a person can die These are no far fetched consequences to discern them their needs neither Natural nor Artificial Logick This is to cause him to renounce God before Death hath stabbed him at the Heart All the World were struck with horror by the Declaration of the twelfth of July last which condemned all those that should make any use of the Reformed Religion to death They cryed out that at this stroke the
overwhelm it Herein is the strength of the Church and 't is a Miracle and on the occasion thereof we ought to say 'T is the Finger of God. Without putting you upon Inquiries and Disquisitions consider whether it be likely that God who hath permitted so many depths in the Scriptures and that from thence have arrived so many Schisms among those that profess to receive and believe them hath not left some means in his Church to quiet and determine them Is it likely that there should be no remedy for Divisions but that every one may believe according to his own fancy and the minds of Men be thence led insensibly to an indifference in Religions which is the greatest of all Evils Is not this what I said but even now To discourse in the air against known matters of Fact and against such Truths as all the World confess and avow Let us say with Monsieur de Meaux it is not probable that God should leave so many depths in the Holy Scriptures from which so many Divisions might arise and not leave to his Church some means to put a period to them Behold the Principle And who can deny so plausible a Maxim But behold my Conclusion Therefore there have been never any Divisions about the sense of Scripture which the Church hath not found means to determine Therefore it hath well and easily determined the Divisions which continued well nigh the space of four hundred years about the Sense of those Words The Father is greater than I. Therefore it quieted the Difference about the Sense of those other Words The word was made flesh And 't is not true that there are millions of Christians in the East Nestorians and Eutychians that have not agreed with the Church of Rome about the meaning of them for 1200 years passed Therefore it hath raised the Divisions about the Sense of those Words of Jesus Christ to S. Peter Feed my Sheep And it is not true-that all the Greek Church is at a Schism with the Latin Church thereon and are not of the mind that they mean that the Bishop of Rome ought to be universal Pastor of all Churches They say and 't is believed that the Latin Church hath been divided almost two hundred years about the Sense of those Words This is my body The Lutherans give one sense the Calvinists another and the Romanists a third sense concerning them But that is not true 't is a popular Error and an illusion It is not probable that God should not leave any means to his Church to quiet the Differences that should arise about the Sense of Scripture A Man would think these Gentlemen had a design to scoff and deride Mankind they form an Eutopia a world made at pleasure out of their own imaginations and tell us that the present world is so made and that we are in it and very well and safe there 'T is in vain that we deny it and say 't is not so we see the contrary the world is not made as you report it They answer us you deceive your selves you are blind Buzzards and see nothing you seem indeed to see the contrary but nevertheless it can be no otherwise than we say and we will demonstrate it by reason My Brethren you may there perceive the falseness and illusion of the method of your Converters Learn from hence in three words what is the proper method of confuting them have recourse to experience and tell them you will prove that it ought to be so and I see with my eyes the contrary to what you say ought to be It is not therefore true that God hath given a sure and easie means to quiet the Differences which may arise about the Sense of Scripture God will save his select but he will abandon his Enemies to blindness T is his pleasure that there be Difficulties in the way of Faith and Salvation but he hath filled the Holy Scriptures with Light to dissipate these Darknesses with respect to his Elect. And as for the Reprobates he permit this spiritual darkness which hinders them from seeing the sparkling and lightsome Truths which are in the Scripture to remain upon their Hearts God hath not left certain means to prevent and pacifie Divisions we are convinced of that by experience For Divisions do continue among Christians and have done so for fifteen Centuries what means soever have been used to heal them But he hath left means sufficiently certain for the conduct of his Children to eternal Life by the way and path of Truth 'T is his Holy Word together with the direction of his Spirit which conducts infallibly not whole Societies but all that are his in particular in all the Truths that are necessary to Salvation and preserves them from all those Errors that are mortal to their Souls Think think of that Mr. hearken to your own reason and not to the subtleties of your Ministers Think think of that my Brethren consult both your reason and your sense attend to that which your eyes report and don 't hearken to the vain reasonings of Men who discourse not upon that which is but upon that which ought to be according to their imaginations Behold that which we have to say at present about this important matter which Monsieur de Meaux touches in his private Letter We must now return to his Pastoral Letter and see how he proves the Title of his second Article The second Article has for its Title in the Margin That the Pastors of the Catholick Church are the only true Pastors He proves it by two Mediums The first is That the Pastors of the Church of Rome alone have the advantage of mutual succession in place and feat one to another Monsieur de Meaux maintains that he is in the place af those that planted the Gospel in hit Diocess And all other Bishops he says have the same Glory The second proof is that they have also a succession of Doctrine 'T is well when these two things go together for otherwise to glory of a Succession of Seats without a Succession of Doctrine is in my opinion the most pitiful glory that any one can ascribe to himself The Patriarch of Constantinople who according to Monsieur de Meaux is a Schismatick he and all his Predecessors for above 800 years is also in the place of those who planted the Gospel in those Countries Nevertheless the Bishop of Rome hath anathematized him an 100 times and doth anathematize him every year on Good Friday in the Bull De Coena Domini The Arrian Bishops did hold the place of the Apostles in the East and at this day the Bishops of Denmark Sueden and England are also in the place of them which planted Christianity in those Countries Monsieur de Meaux perceives well that the Glory of Succession can do him no great good without Doctrine and therefore does very fairly renounce it To separate sound Doctrine from the Chair of Succession is to
Novelty and by consequence the Authors thereof of boldness and temerity seeing it is an opinion that hath always prevailed that it is a Criminal enterprise to Innovate in Religion And so the Superstitions of the fifth Age were well content to suffer posterity to believe that the Invocation of Saints and the Adoration of Relicks were more ancient than the preceding Age. To conclude about insensible changes whereof the possibility is denied I beseech you my Brethren observe the spirit and temper of your Converters and tell me what name ought to be given to them We prove to them the changes that are happened in the Church by proofs more clear and evident than the light of the Sun. For example we shew them that in such an Age there was no Invocation of Saints or Angels We shew it them I say not only by negative proofs as we use to speak that is to say by the silence of the Writers of such an Age but by positive proofs and because the opinions of the Writers and the practice of the Church then were wholly opposite thereunto Afterwards we shew them the first beginnings the original and the progress of Error Superstition and Idolatry In one Age we see plainly that such worship was not practised in the Age following it is as plain that it was practised I do maintain that a Man must have renounced all shame to say as these Gentlemen that from such an Age to the following there was no change and the foundation of this impudence is because no single person is found whose name is known that did arise and laboured to introduce such or such an Error or Superstition which met with great opposition but at length surmounted them all They that please to make use of their understandings and consult with History may find that this affirmation hath no truth nor place but in changes that happen at a push and all together the Novelty whereof doth affright and stir up opposition but in Customs and Opinions that prevail gradually and by little and little it is not so The Invocation of Saints and the Worship of Images were not established by one single person nor at one single heat A whole people by a false Devotion permitted themselves insensibly to fall into certain practices that seemed very Innocent and it may be they were not very Criminal They which came after thrust forward this Superstition and in fine it came to Idolatry I will say yet once more I know not how a Mans mind and spirit must be made to say that such manner of changes are impossible These Gentlemen cannot deny that the Worship of the Church of Rome at this day is very much different from that of the Apostolick Church Take it for granted my Brethren that there is no Roman Catholick Doctor who will not acknowledge that the Liturgy of the Mass at this day is more compounded and less simple than it was in the days of St. Paul. Were these additions made in a sensible manner Were not these changes introduced by little and little The more sincere of these Gentlemen as Monsieur Baluzius and the Author of the Dialogues against the Iconoclasts of the Sr Maimbourg do acknowledge that in the first three Ages of the Church there were no Images and we do affirm that in the fifth and sixth Age there were many We cannot name the first Author of this attempt and of the introduction of Images into Churches Will Monsieur Baluzius therefore affirm that from the time of the Apostles there were Images in Churches But What It is to small purpose to speak these Gentlemen persevere to maintain that no change hath been made in the Doctrine and Worship of the Church and that none can be made and we do maintain it can be made because it hath been made We have precisely the same thing to say which we said concerning the infallibility of the Church the Papists say it hath not erred for it is infallible and we say it is not infallible for it hath erred Also they say there has been no change made in the Doctrine of the Church for it was impossible any should be made there and we say it is very possible changes should happen there for so it is come to pass Who is it that reasons best That depends only on the question in matter of Fact. We must see whether changes have actually happened in the Doctrine and Worship of the Church Now it is my design to make it apparent that changes have arrived there this is necessary for the dissipation of an unhappy illusion wherewith they serve themselves to blind you It is Antiquity Tradition Conformity with the Religion of St. Augustin St. Chrysostom and St. Ambrose I shall therefore undertake to give you a short History of the changes which have happened in the Church at least for the first five Ages thereof It is the surest method to shew you how false the impossibility of insensible changes is and this will be the surest remedy to lessen the charm of false Antiquity by which they endeavour to deceive you This shall be the matter of our following Letters where we will set before your Eyes the State of Christianity and the changes which are arrived there during the space of five hundred years ☜ To finish this Letter my dear Brethren I will set before your Eyes an example which ought to shame the most of you If you confess God it is in secret if you sigh it is in your own Bosom the most part of you dare not give any publick mark though never so little bright and shining of the Sentiments that are in the bottom of your Soul. Learn the Conduct of our poor Brethren the Inhabitants of Cevennes The Edict of Nantes was made void the year past on the month of October the Pastors were chased away and all exercise of Religion forbidden upon great penalties expressed by the Declaration But these Inhabitants of the Mountains began their private Assemblies from the month of November following And God raised up from among them persons that without Study and without Learning put themselves at the head of these Assemblies for their Edification I will not tell your their names lest I should put them in hazard and danger There was a private person of the place called V. to whose word God gave so much efficacy that after some Assemblies where there were but a few persons one night he had the pleasure of comforting many hundreds And these Assemblies continuing almost every day one day a little before night there were found more than eight hundred persons upon the Mountain of Brion near to Caderles They had there the consolation of hearing two excellent Prayers and one Sermon after all those that had the courage to resist temptation did partake in the Sacrament of the Supper of our Lord. Many of those which had fallen with a great many fears desired the Communion among others a Woman of Quality was
the Opinions and Worship of the Roman Church in open light Are you assured you shall be able to resist these deceitful Charms these curious Devices these false Appearances these gilded Sophisms this studied Eloquence this Logick full of artifice wherewith they serve themselves to cover the ugliness of Falshood and to obscure the Beauty of Truth 'T is visibly to expose your selves to a Temptation against which God hath made no promise to protect you So that my Brethren if you do not give over frequenting Popish Churches I do foretel that God will permit the bud of Truth which is yet in you to die and that he will abandon you to a Spirit of Error But you will say what shall we do then Must we live without all Exercise of Religion Must we be deprived of the Word of God No but you must enquire after the Word of God in your Houses and amongst your Brethren You must assemble amongst your selves as often as you can read the Scripture together and good Books of Christian Morality and you must recal what you can remember of former Sermons You must mutually comfort one another by good Prayers and good Conversations and good Discourses which without being studied are oftentimes of greater edification than Sermons on which the fancy of a Preacher hath toiled and labored many days To conclude you must imitate the zeal of our Brethren of Languedoc of whom I have spoken something already and will now go on to pursue their History ☜ We left their Assemblies in the midst of Winter And we have seen that in despite to the rigor of the season the Precipices wherewith the ways are bordered and the darkness of the night these believing Christians did not fail to be found in those places in which they agreed to meet together and pray to God. The last of the Assemblies whereof we spake in the precedent Letter was that which was made in a place called Bebe We have seen that the Priest and Officers of Justice having removed themselves thither found no Body but the Wife of him that dwelt in the Farm with her Child They carried her Prisoner with many other persons of the neighbouring places which had not signed their Abjuration They put them in the Castle of S John where they were for the space of a Month to oblige them either to change or to confess those who were found at these Assemblies They made them a Fire with Leaves and Straw and all that which might make a dark and thick sinoak to choke them They endured this kind of Torment At the end of a Month they separated them to the end they might cause them to fall the more easily They said to one that his companion had subscribed to another that he had confessed those that were found at these Assemblies All this signifying nothing they carried these poor People to Montpellier where after three Months Imprisonment they were condemned and sent to the Gallies except one old Man named Mauris who was imprisoned with some Women in the Tower of Constance There happened at that time a thing considerable A Man without Learning of the Village of Colignac being one night in Bed with his Father believed he had a Vision and heard a Voice saying Go comfort my People I know not whether it were the force of his zeal and imagination which produced this effect or whether it were actually a Voice from Heaven however it were all the reasonings and warnings of his Father who turned both his Vision and Design into Ridicule could not hinder him from following this Call which he esteemed as coming from Heaven he gathered Assemblies he spake there with so much success and with so much order and method for a person of his quality that every one was surprised at it and all that heard him edified by it Under his Direction Assemblies were made of three thousand persons amongst others one in a place called Cabanis near S. Hypolite and another in a Farm of the Parsonage of S. Roman situate upon the Mountain Gezas there were full five and twenty hundred persons in that Assembly After the Sermon they named many Elders for the several parts of Cevennes and charged them with giving notice of the places and hours of Assemblies Of these many have been since taken and sent to the Gallies as Monsieur Arnaud of S. Hypolite and Monsieur Nadal of the Village de la Salle There is no danger in naming of them and 't is an Honor we owe them seeing they are at this day among the Confessors of Jesus Christ in the Gallies of Marseilles or Thoulon Many others which we will not name because they are not taken were hanged in effigie In the same Assembly they agreed to give to him that should preach to them power to administer the Sacraments In which we may not imagine that they committed any Irregularity For the true Call depends on the People and on the choice of Assemblies The Mission of one Pastor by another is but a form which ought to be observed in peaceful times of the Church but may be neglected in cases of necessity Before they departed they caused all those that were present to enter into new obligations not to go to Mass and resolved to make another Assembly the Wednesday following between S. Felix and Durfort The Curate of S. Roman or the Incumbent whereof the Farm depended where this Assembly was made caused a Vessel of Holy Water to be carried thither and sprinkled it about every where to expiate the place as if the Devil had kept a Sabbath there The Assembly was made the Wednesday following according to the project and there met near four thousand persons which was the cause they left the Farm which at first they had chosen and assembled in a Field and hung up Lamps on a Pear-Tree that was found there This Assembly was discovered they sent thither some Dragoons under the Conduct of one called Villeneufeu an Apostate of the Town de la Salle but the Dragoons durst not draw near because they believed themselves too weak to attack so great a people therefore they kept themselves in Ambuscade and when the people began to depart they took of them such as they could Among others one named Pouget of the Town of Valestalieres They Arrested also some days after in his own House Monsieur Teissier of the Town of Durfort who freely confessed that he was at the Assembly of St. Felix Among many Prisoners they chose Pouget of Valestalieres and Monsieur Teissier of Durfort to make examples as they speak that is to say to make Victims of their fury They were condemned to dye in the Village de la Salle by the Intendant and President of Nismes Monsieur Teissier publickly confessed the Crime for which he dyed and declared that if he had escaped their hands he had continued it and would yet continue it if it were possible for him Upon the Ladder he sung these words
the beginning of this Letter i.e. that you ought not to procure to your selves consolation by hearing the Word of God in Popish Churches where you will find it seasoned and tempered in a way mortal to your Souls It is necessary that you search it after the manner that our Brethren of which I have been speaking have done I know well that your Flesh hath many things to say to me concerning it Some will say they are a great People in that Country and we are here but a handful of Men. The more easily mâ—y you communicate together the fewer you are in number the less are your motions perceived Others will say these People are favoured by the situation of their Country we are in Cities where they watch us night and day Hath the situation of their Country hindered them from the danger of being discovered hanged and sent to the Gallies Have they been discouraged by having been discovered once yea twenty times I do declare to you on the behalf of God if you don't renounce this Spirit of Fear and put on the Spirit of Martyrs God will forsake vou you will not find a Man that will be able to comfort you yea you will not receive Letters to support you You are afraid of the shadow of danger God will be very much beholden to you you will love him and you will enquire after him when there shall be no danger therein But 't is at present that you ought to make it appear whether you yet love God in exposing your selves to all dangers and often as you search consolation for your Souls and edification for your Faith. I pray God to have pity on your state and that he will give you such sentiments as you ought to have The Grace of our Lord be given to you again Amen Octob. 15. 1686. The FIFTH PASTORAL LETTER THE Christian Purity of the Apostolick Church opposed to that of Popery Letters of some Confessors My well beloved Brethren in our Lord Jesus Christ Grace and Peace be given to you from our God. IN our third Letter we promised to give you a brief History of the changes that have happened in Christianity in the first five hundred years of the Church that from thence you may understand the-unfaithfulness of Monsieur de Meaux and your Converters which tell you with so much impudence that Christianity is come down from the Apostles to them without alteration We have been obliged to delay the performance of that promise that we might make some reflections upon an information that hath been given us concerning the Conduct of the new Converts This was the subject matter of our fourth Letter We will return again at this time to the matter which we have discontinued and give a short pourtraiture and description of the Christianity of the first Age that you may see the changes that have happened in the Ages following The first Age of the Church WE cannot know the opinions and practices of an Age with any certainty but by the Authors of that Age. We have no Authors of the first Age of the Church but the Apostles and Evangelists And though others should be found that may be referred to that first Age we shall leave them to the second to which also they do belong because it is certain that those i. e. the Apostles and Evangelists do suffice to teach us what was the Religion of the Apostolick Church It is above all things just that we see what was the Religion of that first Age and by consequence we must consult the Writers of it This is the more certain because they were Divinely inspired and are the only infallible Doctors that we have In so much that if the Romish Religion be founded in these infallible Writers we are content that you abandon and give up your selves to your Converters But on the contrary if nothing thereof be found there it is just that you believe that all that we reject hath been added to the Christian Religion It is a prodigy that surpasses all belief that Popery should be the Christian Religion and that the Founders thereof should not speak one word concerning it It is true the Evangelists and Apostles learn us to believe one God in three Persons and one Son of God made Man who dyed for the sins of Mankind Rose again Ascended into Heaven and will come again to judge the quick and the dead and to send one part of them into everlasting Torments and to give the other Rewards infinite for extent and duration But this is not Popery this is Christianity Popery is a Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of our Lord every day offered to God for the sins of the living and the dead It is a new Jesus made of Bread descending at all hours between the Hands of the Priest which they adore as the great God. It is the Worship and Invocation of a second sort of Mediator and Intercessor to whom they build Temples erect Images and Altars to whose honor they Sacrifice Jesus Christ by whose name they swear to whom they make Vows and in one word to whom they give all those divine Honors that are given to God himself It is an intermediate state betwixt Heaven and Hell called Purgatory in which for a time Souls endure the pains of fire and the torments of the damned Purgatory which is the foundation of a thousand other Worships Penances Prayers for the dead Masses indulgences Stations Jubilees Mortifications and human satisfactions To conclude for I will nor say all Popery is an institution of a new Head and Spouse for the Church into whole hands the Lord Jesus hath committed all his Authority and Rights to pluck up and to plant to build and to destroy to bind and to loose to make and unmake Kings and to keep the Keys of Heaven and Hell. Behold what Popery is and once more I will say it is a prodigy that God should give us Scripture to instruct us in his Religion and that he should not say one word of the greatest and most considerable parts of it there In the Name of God my Brethren be not taken in this unhappy snare into which I perceive that some of you are fallen The Scripture could not say all say they it hath left Commission to the Church to say the rest Now is it possible that persons can permit themselves to be taken by so gross an illusion If the thing under debate were small peradventure it might be conceded but it is about Adoration of the Sacrament that is to say a piece of Bread and giving religious Worship to Creatures and Images The thing debated is about Celebration of a Sacrifice the most important thing in the World in Religion yea about the Sacrificing of Christ himself the greatest Sacrifice that can be imagined And can it be believed that God will send us to Tradition concerning it It is to have renounced all honesty to advance such a proposition and to be
we first heard any speech concerning it and they told us that these Singings had been heard in Bearne the first Province whither the Dragoons were sent Behold our Witnesses every one will judge of what worth they are Monsieur Magendie Pastor of the Church of Orthez having been questioned concerning this Affair hath interrogated divers persons according as it appears by his Certificate I do declare that Monsieur de Bazin a younger Brother and an Inhabitant of Orthez in Bearne hath told me that walking with some of his Friends after mid-day near the City of Orthez he heard Voices which sung Psalms and as he imagined that it might be some Women that washed Linnen in a certain River which passed through Orthez he ran to them to demand of them whether it were they that sung they told him that it was not they and that they themselves for a long time had heard the same singing of Psalms This happened some months before the Interdiction of our Church The said Monsieur Bazin is a very honest Man very judicious and of great integrity 2. I add that Mademoiselle de Casenaue of Orthez said to persons worthy of credit that being not able to believe that which was said concerning this singing of Psalms a Woman said to her that if she had the curiosity to hear them sing she would come and take her at her own House at a time convenient which she did for this Woman being at eleven of the clock at night in the uttermost part of the City with multitudes of other persons to hear these Voices which sung in the Air the Praises of God having heard this singing of Psalms she ran to Mademoiselle de Casenaue who immediately gets out of her Bed causes one of her Neigbours to rise and they ran to that quarter of the City which was far removed from her House where they found multitudes of persons who were ravished with that pleasant Melody which they heard in the Air they themselves returned to their Houses with this great consolation to have heard those Psalms sung in the Air which they could no more sing in their Church which had been interdicted for some months past and they added that it seemed to them that they heard them sing after the same manner which they used to sing in their Church and that after the singing had ceased there was a Voice which spake but after a manner inarticulate and confused so that they could not distinguish what was said This Gentlewoman is very well worthy of Credit 3. I say moreover that an infinite number of the persons of Orthez do say that they have heard the singing of Psalms which they call the singing of Angels and that they exhorted each other on the day to be present in the night in certain places of the City to satisfie this holy Curiosity which was the reason that the Magistrates of Orthez published an Ordinance whereby they forbad all persons from going out of their Houses or assembling themselves by night for hearing these Voices which filled this poor afflicted people with joy and extraordinary consolation This is it which has been told me concerning this singing of Psalms to which In find no difficulty to give a full consent because the persons that have reported it are of great sincerity Given at Amsterdam Novemb. 23 1686. Signed Magendie heretofore Minister of Orthez in Bearne M. Garsin another Minister of the said Church of Orthez declares this which follows concerning the singing of Psalms which had been heard at Orthez for a long time I whose Name is underwritten heretofore Pastor of the Reformed Church of Orthez in Bearne do certifie to all those whom it may concern that my Brother-in-law De Roux a Lawyer told me that between the hours of eleven and twelve at night being on the back side of his House in the City of Orthez he heard a singing of Psalms above him and that a little after he heard the same singing come from a place at a greater distance After that he was fully convinced of the truth of this singing of Psalms so much discoursed of all the World over Moreover he thought that sometimes during the whole night when his Gout hindered him from sleeping that he heard the same singing after a manner less distinct and intelligible I am informed by Monsieur Clavier a Lawyer of the same City of Orthez that the Curate of the place and a certain Priest called Dufau and Monsieur Lichigarai another Lawyer as also a Brother of the Curate called Monsieur De la Roque sent to search out a certain Popish Damosel of Moncade to know of her if it were true that she had said that she had heard this singing of Psalms and that she told them yea And having demanded of her how she knew it was the singing of Psalms she told them it was because she had heard the same thing at such time as they sung in the Church of those of the Reformed Religion And having further asked her how she had heard the singing of Psalms in the Church she answered them she had been once there at a Baptism but that going to a certain Fountain she had often heard this singing as she passed by the Church at the hours of Preaching and Prayer After this Monsieur Clavier told me that the Curate and others strictly forbad her to say any more that she had heard the said singing of Psalms Given at Amsterdam September 23. 1686. Signed Garsin Minister I whose Name is underwritten certifie to all whom it may concern that in the year 1685 about the Month of August or September I heard in the Air the singing of Psalms with different Voices and very melodious and this at two several times the first time before the House of Poey where I was lying upon a Bank half asleep I was awakened by this singing of Psalms which continued almost half an hour Afterwards I went into the House of Monsieur du Poey a Merchant Draper with whom I wrought at that Employment Having told this to Mademoiselle du Poey and her Daughters they were much offended at me that I had not given them notice of it at the time I heard the said singing The second time I and many others about an hour after midnight having gone on purpose to a place most high and raised in the City near to Moncade named the Posterle I heard many Voices in the Air sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other withdrawing my self a little I found Mademoiselle des Pagnou Daughter of Monsieur Dombideau Merchant of Oleron Wife to Monsieur des Pagnou Merchant-Tanner accompanied with many other Women of the Neighborhood I asked them from whence they came They told me they came from the Bank of a River called Le Gaur which passes by the City near a Mill which they call the New Mill. I asked them if they had heard the singing of Psalms They answered me Yea. I asked them from what side they
admonishing us of our duty by these heavenly Voices who melodiously sung those holy Hymns which we were wont to sound forth in our Church which was then laid wast and destroyed I protest before God that these things are so as I have reported them and I am very glad to make known these truths for the Edification of all those that fear the Lord. In Testimony whereof I subscribe my self at Amsterdam September 4. 1686. V. Deformalagues I do maintain that a Testimony such as this though it were alone is capable of putting the spirit of incredulity to distress for what that is reasonable can be said against it It will be said this is the Testimony of a Woman but by being a Woman hath she renounced all Honor Shame and Conscience in the matter of Testimony She must have renounced all those things to attest with an Oath a matter of Fact with so many circumstances She is but a Woman but she is not a Woman that reports some Visions of the night or particular Revelations she is a Woman that reports things that happened in publick and whereof she hath for witnesses with her self many hundreds of persons Though she be a Woman it does not follow but she may be endued with good understanding now she must have lost all sense to advance such a falsity and to expose her self to be overwhelmed with shame as a maker of Fables to conclude she is a Woman but she speaks of a thing happened not above seven days ago if I may so say To conclude behold a Memorial of Monsieur de Brassalay a Gentleman of Honor and acknowledged such by all that know him Some days before the Interdiction of the Churches of Bearn there were many persons that heard the singing of Psalms in the Air in the City of Orthez The first that heard it was Lichigaray Brunier a Lawyer revolted some years since the most malignant of the Persecutors and who continually stirred up troubles to those of the Reformed Religion He rose from his Bed to go tell the Curate that there was an Assembly of people that sung Psalms without the City he also went to a Serjeant named Gowlan to conduct him to the place where he thought to surprize them but this Popish Serjeant having laid his Ear to the Window answered him there was nothing to be done for he well perceived the singing was in the Air. Afterward it was heard from time to time more than a month by divers persons sometimes at night and sometimes by day among others Lichagaray Canneille an Elder of the Church of Orthez protested and told me that sitting upon the bank of the River a thousand Paces from the City reading in a Book he heard a great singing of Psalms on that side the Church stands which is in the midst of the City and not doubting at all that is was an ordinary Assembly that were met together at Evening Prayers which was then very numerous because of the hazardous conjuncture and consisted at the least of two or three thousand souls he hasted to go thither and always heard a great singing of Psalms till he was entered into the City but having found the doors of the Church shut the Neighbours told him that it was not yet the hour of Prayer It is to no purpose to say they sung in some Cavern or Cave for there is nothing but Houses and the parts adjacent to Orthez are Vineyards Meadows and Fields it has been a long time since forbidden to sing Psalms in Houses and no body has dared to venture thereon and least of all would they think thereon in a time when they every hour feared the Interdiction of their Church and when they advised by all sorts of methods to defend themselves from it Moreover this Elder hath assured me that he never heard more lofty singing in the Church This he told me being in Bearne about sixteen months since in the presence of very many honest Men. After the Church of Orthez was razed to the ground this singing of Psalms was heard no more for some time but about the months of September and October last it was heard by most part of the people of Orthez and many others of the Country which tarried till night before they went home on Market-days those of the Suburbs as well as those of the City heard it every one in his Quarter ordinarily at the same hour viz. between eight and nine at night some heard the words others heard the Tune of the Psalms and there is not it may be a House in Orthez of which some one of the Family hath not heard it The said Lichiguray Bruneir went one night he and two others to that part where they heard this singing without the City and they all three heard the singing for a long time over their Heads the Tune of the 138. Psalm whereof they could not hear distinctly but these words Toward thy holy Temple I will look and worship thee and praised in my thankful mouth thy holy name shall be even for thy loving kindness sake and for thy truth withal for thou thy name hast by thy word advanced over all Du Faur a Physician and Magistrate of the City another Papist heard it divers times but their malice made them say they were Sorcerers and Devils A young Damosel of the Suburbs of Moncade which is near the Castle the ancient Habitation of the Lords of Bearn heard this singing being in her Bed she rose and caused more than fifty persons to go out who having heard it fell on their Knees and wept through the joy they conceived to hear so incomparable a Melody in the Air which continued more than half an hour And it must be known that it was in a place much raised above the City even as a very high Mountain and the people heard this singing over their Heads as if it had been in the Clouds I have heard an honest Man who was one of the Spectators make this relation who poured out Tears then when he spake of it the same thing I have heard from other places To conclude it is impossible to doubt of a truth which the far greatest part of the Inhabitants of Orthez are able to certifie The Parliament of Pau and the Intendent of Bearn have also given their Testimony thereto by a Decree which forbids Men to go hear these Psalms and to say they have heard it on the forfeiture of five hundred Crowns and by another Ordinance which forbids the same thing under the forfeiture of two thousand Crowns The Consuls of Orthez did publish these Ordinances in their City I do not as yet very well understand what can be opposed to the Testimony of Monsieur Brassalny Those that know him as we do know that he is not of a temper to impose upon any one nor to suffer himself to be imposed upon by any one whoever he be Those things which he reports are not hear-says at a great distance for
who make a very great noise in Italy They reproach the Pastors excessively and under an appearance of Zeal there is nothing which they do not say to make odious and contemptible both the publick Ministry and those that exercise it in the one and other Religion This may be seen in the Writings of their Foundrâ—ss Anthoniette de Bourignon They perform no private Exercises of Devotion in their houses at least which are visible for Mr. P. himself hath made known to the Publick that Madam Meiselle de Bourignon had no Prayers in her Family unless it were at Table and yet he observes that that also was done with a low Voice not that they do not permit the use of Prayers to such as will as they permit them to go to Sermons or to Mass indifferently but those which are perfect among them do not concern themselves about it And one of the Principles of Mr. P. is That Desires Prayers Elevations of Heart towards God and Meditation are perfectly contrary to the Spirit of perfect Christianity and hinder the descent of the holy Spirit and the coming of his Grace According to him the only estate proper to draw down the holy Spirit is that which he calls a state of Inaction by which in a privation of Prayers Desires and Motions a man lets himself fall into nothing And this annihilation of all the Faculties is that acceptable Sacrifice to God which causes a descent of the Holy Spirit They have perpetually those Words in their mouth Let all Creatures keep silence and let God speak by which they signifie not only that we ought to impose silence on our Passions that we may hear God which is very true but also that we ought to shut the doors to all external Objects and to lay all our internal Faculties asleep to procure a kind of Extasie which whilst it continues God speaks to the Heart immediately and by himself Behold one of the Dreams of this Sect whereof you will see some footsteps scattered here and there throughout the whole Letter for this is the meaning of those Humiliations Annihilations and internal acts of Adherence to God which you are there exhorted to make Behold another Dream of these diseased Minds which is read also in this Writing in the fourth Page thereof and the second Column Moreover says he it must be remembred that 't is said in the Gospel That all things are possible to him that believes That Faith can remove Mountains and that Jesus Christ always said to Men Be it unto you according to your Faith. So that if those which officiate and assist at the Celebration of the Eucharist do believe that Jesus Christ is present there this Faith is ratified by God and it engages him beyond his Word and his Promises to make himself present as it is believed and this is a Conception so clear that I do not doubt but you will comprehend the force thereof Must not he have a besotted mind to call this a clear Conception I will explain it to you One of the Opinions of this mysterious Cabala is that originally God created Man master of all things in the literal signification of the Words so that he was able to stop the Sun in his course to remove the Globe of the Earth to remove Mountains c. and the Instrument by which he doth this or could do it is his Faith for all things are possible to him that believes without any Figure or Exceptions The state of Perfection to which Christ calls us is that of Faith which makes all things possible to us so that at this day to overturn the order of the World you have no more to do but to believe that you can do it and it shall be done for 't is precisely in the literal sense that they would have us understand the words of Christ If you had Faith but as a grain of Mustard-seed you should say to this Mountain be thou removed and cast into the Sea and it would be done And that it was not a Priviledge of the Apostles but for all Believers Behold that admirable Conception which he tells you is so clear that it is impossible you should not understand the force thereof If you don't understand its strength at least you will understand the convenience of it for when it shall please you to believe that Christ is corporeally present in your Andiron and in the Mantle-tree of your Chimney it will be so and by that means without going out of your Chimney-corner you will go to Mass and every one of you by his Faith will consecrate and transubstantiate all the Utensils of his House In the same Writing you will find another Dream which to me seems yet more ridiculous 'T is in the sixth Page and the second Column on the Subject of Purgatory Then when it happens that a Soul departs this Life in the love of God having nevertheless some impurities and evil habits in it self the Blood of Jesus Christ or the purifying Grace of Jesus Christ which comes after death into this Soul to purifie it or to finish its purification from all sin finding there as yet more or less of the remainders of Evil and of evil Habits and Inclinations fights with them that he may expell them this Combat of the purifying Grace of Jesus Christ against the evil which is in a Soul very sensible which he would cleanse from all the remainders of Sin is not done nor can be without great and sensible sorrows Is not this very singular That when a Soul is separated from his Body the blood of Jesus Christ should thrust it self in there like Sand to scour to cleanse this Soul which is an occasion of quick and pungent Sorrows Surely Mr P. could not have done better to excite the curiosity of the Publick than to give us this little spark of his Mysteries This also will be worth something to his Printer for I am assured that the Curious of France would at any rate whatsoever see a compleat Systeme of this admirable Theology However it be it is not without a particular Providence that it happens that in a Writing otherwise apt enough to flatter the minds of our Nicodemites the Author hath sufficiently discovered himself and made known what he is After this my Brethren judge what credit you ought to give a man who gives you an Idea of Piety according to which the Israelites might worship the Golden Calf without fault because they believed it to be God according to which a Man may be a Turk and adore even Cabages provided he makes use of them as a means of uniting him to God and to excite his Love. These Gentlemen desire of us to leave them in peace let them leave us so then and let them not intermeddle to give Advice to our Congregations being not called thereto With all my heart I am willing to leave them at rest for I take no pleasure to trouble any body
and I will leave them in their Retirement very peaceably provided they put themselves into a state of Inaction as well in respect to us as to God but if they continue to trouble us the Dispute may have an Issue which will not turn to their honor This Digression which hath been longer than I could have wished will be the cause that we cannot proceed far in the Article of Controversie We are on the true Idea of Unity The last part of our preceding Letter was employed in refuting the false Idea of Unity We have made it appear that 't is a foolish and cruel Opinion to shut up Salvation in any single Communion and that of all the Sects of Christianity that of Rome has the least right to pretend to it The Bishop of Meaux brags much of four or five Passages of St. Cyprian to prove this cruel Paradox This ancient Doctor goes so far as to say * Lib. de Vnitate That there can be no Martyr but in the Church that when a man is separated from its Vnity 't is in vain that he sheds his blood for the Confession of Christ Jesus This Maxim in a large signification may be endured for indeed there may be Hereticks who confessing the Name of Jesus Christ but on the other side ruining the Foundations of the Christian Religion may dye for the Religion of Jesus Christ to no advantage but the Application which S. Cyprian makes thereof is one of those faults over which wise men ought to draw a Curtain He proceeds so far as to apply it to the Novatians Now it must be known these Novatians were good Christians a thousand times better than are the Papists seeing they did not ruine any of the Foundations but retained and believed all the Christian Verities only they were something severe in Discipline and would not receive those that fell in times of Persecution to the Peace of the Church Was not this a great crime Was not this a fine occasion to say as Cyprian did That a Novation was no Christian Was not this a very fine Foundation for that terrible and cruel Sentence That a Novation dying a Martyr for Jesus Christ was nevertheless damned Of what make and constitution are the Doctors of the Roman Church that make use of these Excesses which ought to be hid out of Honor to those great men which fell into them These are Scars remaining in their Flesh to the end that we should not exalt them too much by reason of their great Virtues Behold my Brethren the eye wherewith Mr. de Meaux looks on you he for your sakes makes use of the eyes which St. Cyprian had for the Novatians concerning whom he said A Novatian is out of the Church he is no Christian So says Mr. de Meaux concerning you The Calvinists are out of the Church and are no Christians And why then Gentlemen do you address to us Pastoral Letters Why do you call us your wandring Brethren Will you dare to say that we are no Christians Let these Writers of Pastoral Letters says Mr. de Meaux who shrowd themselves with some shreds of S. Cyprian take all his Doctrine entire Go to Mr. you may say unto him If you find the Doctrine of S. Cyprian so good why don't you take it whole and entire Why don't you say that all the Greeks and all the Christians of the East are not Christians Dare you say that all the Greeks which have been martyred by the Turks and Saracens since the Tenth Age are damned and that they did not suffer Martyrdom although they suffered for Jesus Christ For my part I am persuaded that if you press your Converters on this Subject with their Passages of St. Cyprian they will blush on both Cheeks Remember therefore with respect to St. Cyprian that the love which he had for the Peace of the Church and the horror that he had for Schism ran him into that excess to believe or say That out of that I know not what exterior Unity of the Church a man could not be saved 'T was in this Age that men began to corrupt the Idea of the Church as I have already observed To what will all this come and what profit will you draw thence my Brethren 'T is that thereby you will prove to your Converters the falseness of this Doctrine That the Unity of the Church is included in the Roman Church that out of this Church or in any other private Communion there is no Salvation and thereby you will convince them that they are not infallible for if this Article be false That the Roman Church alone possesses that Vnity she hath erred and that in an important and capital Affair You will also thereby convince them That the Roman Religion is the most cruel and the most damnable of all the Sects of Christianity forasmuch as it condemns the most men For by defming that she alone possesses saving Vnity and by condemning all those that are not in this Vnity she damns three fourth parts of the Christian World. And to conclude you will establish your selves in a holy confidence that by being or having been out of the Roman Communion you have not bâ—en out of the Vnity and you have not shut the door of Salvation upon your selves since Salvation is not included precisely in the Roman Communion and that saving Vnity is not shut up within the circle of any certain Communion On the Subject of this Vnity you will desire me without doubt that I will furnish you wherewithal to answer the Question which your Converters will put to you In what then does the Vnity of the Church consist if it does not consist in adherence to such and such Pastors Answer them my Brethren That this Vnity consists 1. In the Vnity of Spirit forasmuch as God and the Spirit are the Soul of all Christian Communions which do retain the fundamental Truths 2. In the Vnity of Doctrine which is one through all the World where Jesus Christ is purely taught 3. In the Vnity of Sacraments which are the same every where where they have been preserved and not corrupted Let Churches be separated and set at a distance one from another as far as the Antipodes are from us let them have no knowledge one of another They will not cease to be one by this triple Vnity of Spirit Doctrine and Sacraments If there were a pure Church in the farthest part of Ethiopia or in the utmost part of China we should be one Church with them though we had never heard any thing said one of another It is not therefore the Unity of Ceremonies of Worship Discipline and Pastors which makes the Essential Vnity that 's an accidental Unity which a man may break without going out of the true Unity So the Novatians which were separated from the Church for a little unhappy point of Discipline were in the wrong no doubt and greatly in the wrong and Novatian above all who was the
first Author of that Separation But 't is a ridiculous Chimera to imagine that they were out of the Essential Unity seeing that when they went away they carried with them the true Jesus the true Doctrine and the true Sacraments They were yet the Church they were Christians whatever St. Cyprian says of them and not only their Martyrs obtained the Crown of Martyrdom but their penitent Christians obtained Salvation although they died in Schism There are particular Unities and a general Unity Particular Unity consists in certain Bonds such as are common Ecclesiastick Government common Discipline and certain common Ceremonies You are not in particular Unity with the Episcopal Church of England with respect to Government But this Unity signifies nothing to Salvation he must be a mad man to damn Christians because they either have or have not Bishops The general Unity which consists in the three things which I have said is the only essential necessary and saving Unity If you agree with the Church in Government Discipline and Ceremonies and don 't agree with it in Opinions in Sacraments and Spirit you have no Communion with it if you differ in Government and Discipline and agree in Truths Sacraments and the same Jesus you are at Unity with it and with God. This Vnity of the Church whereof we have now discoursed makes me think of that unity of Souls which ought to prevail among the true Members of the Body of Christ It is the Character under which the Apostolick Church is described unto us They were all of one heart and one mind 'T is this holy Unity which draws down the holy Spirit for when the firy Tongues fell upon the Apostles they were all with one accord assembled in one place 'T is the absence of this holy Unity which in part hath drawn down those unhappy Effects of the Wrath of God under which we now groan Call to mind the Divisions the immortal Hatreds Jealousies Quarrels and Strifes which have been seen in the midst of you even on occasions and in things for which Peace and the Spirit of Charity were particularly requited One was of Paul another of Peter but not one for Jesus Christ Men made their own Passions and Interests to triumph and trampled under foot the Glory of God and the publick Edification The strictest friendships were always ready to break on the first transport of Passion The Spirit of Vengeance had no rest till it had revenged the Injuries it thought it had received and we knew not what it was to sacrifice a resentment to the Love of God and his Christ God has made these civil Wars to cease by a cruel and strange War. You have a common tye more than you have had you have had the same Faith the same Sacraments the same Churches and the same Holy Table besides you have at this day your common Affliction and your common Misfortunes 'T is certain that even in the World this makes a tye among Souls and it should do with far greater reason when men suffer the same grief for the same cause and for the same God. You ought mutually to love each other because you are afflicted for God and by consequence you ought to love those also who suffer for you they are your Confessors who have the glory to maintain in the Prisons those Truths with you have been so weak only to keep close in your Hearts having not the courage to shew them openly Among those which are in divers Prisons of the Realm for the Cause of God there are an infinite number that want all things these are Voices that cry against you to Heaven in a terrible manner and say What a shame is it that Jesus Christ is in Prison that he is Sick Hungry and Thirsty that he freezes with cold during the rigor of the Winter and that these Peters who grew pale at the word of a Servant don't go to visit him to give him Bread and Cloaths You know what will be the Sentence that the Lord will give to such think of it and partake-in the Bonds of your Brethren though they be at the utmost ends of the Kingdom Feb. 1. 1687. The TWELFTH PASTORAL LETTER AN Article of Antiquity The beginning of the History of Christianity of the Fourth and Fifth Ages Of the Original of Monks An Article of Controversie Of the Unity of the Ministry HAving finished the History of the Christianity of the Third Age we enter upon the Fourth We shall not distinguish that of the Fourth and Fifth they are so interwoven that they cannot be separated All the Superstitions false Worship and Corruptions of Discipline which are found established in the Fifth Age took their beginning in the Fourth We enter upon Ages in which the Church had entirely changed its Face it is no longer a persecuted Church it triumphs it reigns it ascends the Throne The Emperors becoming Christians drew along with them by their Authority and Examples an infinite number of Pagans who had that Complaisance and Civility for their Masters as to become Christians But the Church also on her part had the Complaisance to burthen Religion with vain Worship and Ceremonies borrowed from Paganism All that which she thought might be innocently taken from thence she took to draw them over to her The Bishops inrich'd by the Liberality of Constantine and his Successors became proud they would have a distinct Jurisdiction from the Civil they established for themselves Tribunals It appears by the Book of Constitutions falsely ascribed to the Apostles that the Bishops had Flatterers which said of them or rather they said of themselves many incredible proud and impertinent things * Vit. Const lib. 2. cap. 37 38. They set themselves above Kings they said that they must pay them Tributes and Tenths and that Men owed them greater Honors than Kings and that they had power to condemn to everlasting Fire Above all the Pomp and Pride of the Bishops of Rome that ruling City became such that they gave jealousie to the Chief Magistrates of the Empire They added to the Sacraments new Ceremonies an Unction before Baptism beside that which followed after it the Prayers and Ceremonies of the Liturgy of the Eucharist which they call at this day the Mass were much increased and augmented they made use of Holy Waters they consecrated Oyls and Chrism their Funerals were enriched with Ceremonies borrowed from Judaism or Paganism they had their Ninth day their Fortieth day and their yearly Obits or Prayers for the Dead they affixed Prayers to certain hours which at this day they call Canonical the Cock crowing Nine of the Clock Mid-day Three of the Clock and Vespers In these Ages they did essentially alter Divine Service by intermingling therewith the Service of Creatures A kind of Furie for Relicks seized on the Spirits of Men nothing was heard to be spoken of but Visions by which they had been discovered and Miracles which had been done by them they carried
them in pomp they kissed them and built Churches to them They prayed unto Saints they relyed upon their Intercession they put themselves under their protection To conclude as the time of the manifestation of the Man of Sin drew near and Christianity to be established all things moved to wards it with prodigious speed There was nevertheless a profound divine Providence which appeared then and deserves to be admired and to which we can never give sufficient attention Antichristianity which then advanced it self was not to ruine Christianity nor overturn the Foundations thereof It was to be built upon those Foundations which were to remain entire from Age to Age. To set these Foundations of Christian Religion in security God permitted that they should be violently assaulted by Hereticks and zealously defended by the Orthodox The Arrians denied the Eternal God-head of the Son the Macedonians that of the Holy Spirit the Nestorians gave him two Persons as well as two Natures that is to say they renewed the Heresie of Paulus Samosatenus and Photinus who made a simple or mere Man of Christ Jesus This is a thing which some Persons at this time have not well considered who excuse Nestorius and his Heresie It seems to me that 't is easie to comprehend that he which places a human Person in Christ makes of him a mere Man For if the joyning the Divine Nature be not made in a personal Union it can be no more than a Union of Grace and Assistance such as is that of inspired Men. The Eutychians by an opposite Error confound the two Natures All these Heresies gave opportunity for the clearing these matters and setting the Foundations of the Christian Religion in great light and in lovely order and fortifying them with the consent of all Christians This is it which produced divers Creeds besides that of the Apostles which is too general If Providence had not taken this care and precaution Antichristianity which came a great pace had entirely ruined the Christian Religion for besides these Fundamentals whereof God had taken care and set them in safety in three or four Ages their remained nothing else sound in the Church We will not therefore busie our selves in reckoning all the Changes which happened in Religion during these Ages that would carry us too far and would not be peradventure very profitable for you we will stay our selves only on the most considerable Innovations For example we ought not to forget that it was in the Fourth and Fifth Age that Monastick Life had its Original Those among the Doctors of the Roman Church which will grant us nothing make it descend from Elijab the Rechabites John the Baptist and the Apostles but this Opinion is so difficult to be maintained that I do not know whether at this day any Men of Learning which make any pretence to sincerity will deny that this kind of Life had Paul and Anthony for its first Authors who during the Persecutions of Dioclesian in the beginning of the Fourth Age or about the end of the Third withdrew themselves into the Desart of Thebais and were followed thither by many Men and there began that which they call the Eremetick Life It must be that this truth is plain in History since many Doctors of the Roman Religion notwithstanding the Interest they have to maintain the antiquity of this Institution do confess that it is but of the Third and Fourth Age. 'T is a long while since that * Polid. Virg. lib. Invent. 7. cap. 1. Polidore Virgil Bishop of Vrbin proved it and in our days Mr. d' Auteserre Professor of Law at Tholouse not only confesses it but proves it by the Testimonies of S. Hierome †Ascet lib. 1. cap. 7. Athanasius Chrysostome Cassian and Sozomon and indeed he must be ignorant in Antiquity or very knavish that will not own it and you may reckon this as a thing certain since 't is confessed by Popish Authors â—t this day and by S. Hierome who lived in the Age when Monkery had its original and who was one of the most zealous Lovers of Monastick Life that ever was 'T is true that in the preceding Ages the Fathers tell us of Virgins consecrated to God yea and of Men who preserved their Virginity and lived in a chaste Celibate to the end they might serve God with greater freedom but this hath nothing common with the Life of the Monks and Nuns of the present Age. These young Damosels were not cloystered it appears by S. Cyprian * Cyprian Epist 72. that they might marry when they pleased that they lived with their Friends or in their own Houses And even in the time of S. Jerome the most part of them were so little restrained that they made and received Visits they went to Weddings they were found at Feasts they went to the Baths they adorned themselves with the same Pride and the same Excess as did the Daughters of the World. Paul and Anthony having been driven by Persecutions into the Desarts did there first establish the Hermetick Life Afterwards they formed there some kind of Convents and Societies So they instituted in the Desart a kind of Cenobitick Life but this kind of Life received its most perfect Figure about the end of the Fourth Age by three Bishops whereof two were Hereticks and the third Orthodox one of these Hereticks was Marathon * Socr. lib. 2. cap. 3. Bishops of Nicomedia an Arrian and a Macedonian The other Heretick was Eustachius of Sebaste in Armenia a semi-Arrian deposed by the Arrians the eldest of all those who made Rules for the Cenobitick Life †Sozom. lib. 3. cap. 14. The Orthodox was S. Basil Bishop of Cesaria in Capadocia This last drew the Monks from the Desart under pretence of confuting the Arrians he formed Societies of them near Cities and gave them Rules 'T is he which the Greek Monks at this day acknowledg for their Author and there are no Monks of any other Order in the East but of that of S. Basil whereas in the West there is an infinity of Orders We doubt not many of those and these who in the beginning engaged themselves in this kind of Life did do it with a good intention yea and there led a Life eminently Holy But as God does not bless Institutions which respect Religion which are but humane we may observe that the Spirit of Darkness and we may say a Spirit of Malediction fell upon this Institution even from its beginning It was not above a hundred years after there had been discourse of Monks and Nuns but the Spirit of Fables and Legends had seized on their Societies S. Jerome hath left us the Life of Paul and Hilarion two Founders of the Monastick Life These Lives are written in good Latin but with so little judgment and truth that we may be ashamed thereof for the sake of so great a man. There is the Life of S. Anthony attributed to Athanasius which
the Title Attributes Privileges Powers and Homages which appertain to the Deity That the Worship of Images by which we prostrate our selves before Wood and Stone against an express Prohibition of the Law by which we adore that which is but Bread That the setting up a new real and true Sacrifice unknown to Jesus Christ and the Apostles That the taking the half of one Sacrament and the addition of five whole ones That to cover a superstitious Worship and bury it in a barbarous Language do you believe say I that all this is called Wood Hay and Stubble Doth not sound Sense tell you that Wood Hay and Stubble are light are trifling things but that they are not filthy and wicked and by consequence that it doth not represent any thing but light and trifling Doctrines but such as have nothing in them that is filthy or evil such as are besides the Word of God but not against it There is no Man which does not perceive this and he must be blinded by Interest not to see a thing so obvious and visible You have not therefore any reason to put the pernicious Doctrines of Popery amongst Wood and Hay and Stubble nor have you any Authority for it I do not know any Text of Scripture which may make you suspect that God is not jealous of seeing you give that Worship to Creatures which is due only to the Creator He hates Idolatry and defines it by giving his Honor to another As I live saith the Lord I will not give my glory to another Now are not Temples Sacrifices Prayers Vows Oaths and Altars the Honors due to God and by consequence they not of the number of those things of which he says I will not give my Glory to another Nevertheless in Popery they are given to the Saints and above all to the Blessed Virgin. You may fairly pluck out your eyes you cannot hinder your selves from seeing it and in what follows we shall have an opportunity to prove it Jesus Christ alone you add will make Separation of this Wood and this Gold the good and the fair Grain shall be separated at the last day but we must let them grew together till then I fear my Brethren that if you go on to blind your selves God will abandon you to your darkness You are strange Commentators on the Gospel Text you ought first to read the Interpretation which the Lord gives of the Parable before you give your own Behold it proceeding out of the Mouth of Jesus Christ He which sowed the good seed is the Son of Man the field is the World the good seed are the children of the Kingdom the Tares are the children of the wicked one The field is the World then 't is not the Church 't is therefore in the World that we ought to tolerate Hereticks and Idolaters and not in the Church But besides know two things 1. That Parables are good Proofs when we don't abuse them but 't is very easie to abuse them when Piety and Religion doth not guide us I compare you to your Converters who at this day press those Words of the Parable of the Marriage Supper so hard Constrain them to come in Behold their Text Let them grow together till the Harvest and then I will separate them behold yours The one and the other is unhappily wrested and turned to another sense because Men will not enter into the Spirit of the Parable which is the only thing essential and to which we must give attention to make a good use of Similitudes It is therefore necessary in the second place that you learn the design and inward meaning of those Words Let them grow together till the Harvest c. 'T is to shew the Patience of God towards the Wicked and not the Patience that we ought to have towards them God represents himself as a Master which hath Right to destroy the World and ruine both good and bad because that the Wicked are infinitely the greater number in the World than the Good. But he will not do it He stays to display his greatest Judgments upon the World till the last day when he will make a Separation of the Good from the Bad therefore he has no design to teach us that we must peaceably suffer Heresies and Idolatries to grow together with the Truth and I can prove it by a hundred Reasons but I will content my self to shew you that these Words Let them grow together c. cannot signifie Let Heresies grow together suffer them and live peaceably in a corrupt Church since the intention of God on the contrary is that with all our Strength we pluck up the Tares out of the Field of the Lord That he hath appointed us to say Anathema to him who shall preach any other thing to us than what hath been preached in the Gospel that we should avoid an Heretick that we should cast the Wicked out from among us that we should go out from Babylon and that we should not drink of the Cup of her Enchantments If the end of the Parable Let them grow together till the Harvest were that which you give to it we should have no right to drive from our Society neither the Vicious nor the Troublers of the Church nor any sort of Criminals A Magistrate might not hang a Murderer nor burn a Sodomite It might be always said unto him Let them grow together till the Harvest I may add to this that by the Tares which grew up with the good Grain we must understand Hypocrites and false Christians Now 't is true that we must have this kind of men and give them up to the judgment of God for he only perfectly knows them and hath the only right to punish them We will answer to the rest of your difficulties in the following Letter The Uniformity of the Persecution is the cause that we have less of History to furnish you withal 'T is always and every where the same Persons are imprisoned others are sent to the Gallies Women are shut up in Cloysters Bodies are drawn on Hurdles and thrown to the Dunghil so that it will be always the same thing there will be nothing but differing Names which may increase the horror which you have for the Persecution as you see the rage of your Persecutors increase for example in that kind of Executions which are made upon the Bodies of those which will not communicate in their last Sickness Was there not something singular in the Cruelty which was exercised on the Body of a Woman about 60 years of Age who died at Soubize the 16th of November in the Year past This Woman was called La Jarnat Widow of one named Rame fell sick about the end of the Month during her Sickness the Curate and the Officers of Justice employed Exhortations Threatnings Kindness and Terrors to obtain of her to communicate against her Conscience i. e. that she would damn her self with all possible care This poor
St. Chrysostom and St. Austin Sermons or Works that are none of theirs and a man needs but indifferent Learning and little Sincerity to be convinced thereof But Father Crasset who has neither the one nor the other neither Skill nor Science takes and gives all for good In the Fifth Age he quotes Cyril of Alexandria who is surely one of the first which gave occasion to the Religious Worship of the Virgin. For by opposing Nestorius who would not suffer Mary to be called the Mother of God he passed unto the other extreme and advanced as far and as high as he could the praises of the Virgin Mary Nevertheless this might be reduced to Apostrophes Figures of Oratory and great Elogies but there is nothing of Invocation therein No Author of the Fifth Age speaks more expresly nor vehemently of the Invocation of Martyrs and of the Worship which is given to the Reliques than Theodoret. Nevertheless in the passage which Father Crasset quotes from him in his Commentary on the words of Solomon's Song My beloved is one there is nothing that favours the Worship of the Virgin in the least He applies these words My Dove my only one to the Virgin and that were the place to speak of the honour which ought to be given to her if ever there were any But all that he says concerning her is that she is the Mother of God a pure Virgin that all Nations call her blessed that she is the Dove and the only one which brought Christ Jesus into the World that in Charity she surpasses the Cherubims and Seraphims That were the place to have said that we ought to commend ourselves to her Charity and invoke her as our Mediatrix To conclude let these Gentlemen find us in the Fourth and Fifth Ages Chappels and Oratories consecrated to the Virgin as they find them consecrated to the Martyrs unless it be about the end of the Fifth age Now this being supposed I dare say that a man must have renounced all honour all modesty all sincerity and all judgment not to confess that here is an indubitable evidence that Invocation of Saints was a Novelty in the Fourth and Fifth Ages For these men had been fools not to have invoked the Virgin in those times when they invoked St. Protais and St. Gervais if they established Invocation upon the merit the dignity and the reputation that these Saints might have with God. I would fain know if those two Giants which suffered Martyrdom under Decius were in condition to intercede with God with so much efficacy as this Virgin-Mother to the Saviour of the World This false Worship had its birth from that foolish love which men had for Reliques And as they had no Reliques of the blessed Virgin so they consecrated no Churches or Chappels to her and in consequence thereof they did not call upon her We shall bring you yet in what follows new Proofs of the Novelty of this Worship An Article of Controversie A Continuation of the Answer to the Illusions of the New Converts LEt us take up again at present what follows of the Illusions which the New Converts make for themselves who endeavour to lay their Consciences asleep They conclude two things 1. That all the fundamental Truths of Christianity being Confessed by the Church of Rome they are obliged to remain with her so you go on These fundamental Truths which Popery hath preserved are the Articles of the Three Creeds that of the Apostles that of Niece or Constantinople and that which is call'd by the name of St. Athanasius 'T is true that the Church of Rome hath retained these but to conceive how you cheat yourselves I intreat you to suppose Christians which receive these three Creeds and who nevertheless Adore the Sun the Moon the Earth and almost all the Idols of Paganism you will say that these things are inconsistent But you deceive yourselves for there is nothing more possible than that that a man should believe God is the Creatour of Heaven and Earth that Jesus Christ is his eternal Son and the Creatour of the World that he was Born that he Died that he was Crucified that he will come to Raise and Judge the Living and the Dead and nevertheless that he should believe that we may Adore the Earth the Trees the Sun and Moon because God does animate and fill them The Greed says not that we must Worship none but God yea it says not that we must Worship him So that a Religion may receive the Creed in good earnest in the sence of the Universal Church and adore every thing but God Why may not men be capable of Adoring the Stars because God fills them since they Adore Bread under a supposition that Jesus Christ is there after a manner invisible precisely as God is in the Stars and Elements It is therefore a particular Providence that Christians who Adore the Eucharist are not fallen so far as to Adore the Sun Moon and Stars for I do maintain that the Papists may be carried to Adore a Stone as naturally as they are carried to Adore the Bread in the Eucharist on supposition that Jesus Christ is included under it Suppose you that they were come so far would you yet say Since all the fundamental Truths are Confessed by this Communion which Adore the Sun and Moon yea Stones we are obliged to continue with it Learn you therefore that we may retain the fundamental Truths of Christianity and build thereon Dung Poison and all sorts of Impurities The spirit of Man is capable of reconciling those things that are molt irreconcileable Behold another thing whereof you ought to be advertised that you ought to distinguish fundamental Truths from fundamental Errours You imagine that to retain all the fundamental Truths and to have no fundamental Errours is the same thing and because we do confess the Roman Church retains all the fundamental Truths you think that we confess to you that she has no fundamental Errours In this you are much mistaken a person may retain the fundamental Truths of Christianity and add thereunto fundamental Errours I gave you an Example in men who might believe the Creed in good earnest in the sence of the Church and which might add under a hundred false pretences of Devotion Pagan Idolatries I do maintain that a man may adopt into the Religion of Christians almost all the Abominations of the Bonzes of Japan and the Brachmns of India without any formal Renunciation of the Doctrine of the Christian Faith. I demand if whilst men retain the fundamental Truths they do not add fundamental Errours by espousing these Pagan Worship 'T is exactly that which the Church of Rome has done upon the Foundations of Christianity she hath built a thousand Superstitions which are purely Pagan Popery is Paganism renewed and built upon Christianity 't is an Idol Temple raised upon the Temple of Jesus Christ. A fundamental Errour is therefore an Errour or Practice which
in itself is inconsistent with the Foundation I say in itself and by itself for men find ways of reconciling all things Impiety and Religion Piety and Superstition But we may not conclude That all that which men do joyn together is in itself reconcileable and compatible The Roman Church hath a hundred Errours and Practices of this sort her Worship of Saints Images Reliques and of the Sacrament is not by any means reconcileable with the Worship of the true God and with true Faith in Christ Jesus There is yet a third Advice which I have to give you on this subject 't is that to be able to say as you do That the Church of Rome confesses all fundamental Truths 'T is necessary not only that she hold the fundamental Truths of the Christian Religion but also those of Natural Religion 'T is a Fundamental of Natural Religion that we ought to Worship God the Church of Rome retains this Fundamental 'T is another Fundamental of Natural Religion that there is but one God and that we must Worship none but him Popery has ruined and rejected this Fundamental for it Adores a many other things beside God So that to speak properly we cannot say that the Church of Rome retains all Fundamentals We might yet observe other Fundamentals which flue receives not Don't flatter yourselves therefore my Brethren any more by this wicked Illusion The Roman Church confesses all fundamental Truths therefore we may continue there in safety For that reasoning is no better than this This Wine retains all the substance the strength the tast and the spirits of Wine therefore we may drink of it with safety though it be mingled with Poison Idolatry Errours and Superstition take away from the Doctrines of Christianity all that which is saving in them We are obliged to continue in Union with the Roman Church rather than make a positive Separation which is contrary to all the Duties of Charity and which instead of bringing back those which Err produces nothing but an eternal Distance and Animosity This is that which your Apologist says concerning which you ought to know That Christian Truths are Friends and do not desire that we should sacrifice one for the other We must not sacrifice Faith and Truth for Charity 'T is a false Charity which makes those that are re-united to the Church speak thus 't is indeed self-love and the love of ease If they could find means to cast off the Popish Superstitions which are uneasie to them from Religion without prejudice to their own Advantages it is sure that they would do it without having any regard to Charity and without concerning themselves about the scandal of Separation and the trouble of their Country-men For which reason while the King permitted every one to live peaceably without offering Violence to his Conscience Separation did not appear scandalous unto them I intreat you my Brethren to know and examine yourselves thereon do not suffer the Devil and Self-love to illude you and disguise himself into Charity and an Angel of Light. Charity demands Toleration I confess it but it hath its bounds For it is not expedient that you imagine that we ought to suffer all things under pretence of Charity Popery is Anti-christianity you can't doubt it without blinding yourselves Popery hath fundamental Errours to conclude Popery hath spoiled the Efficacy of those fundamental Truths which it hath preserved and by consequence is in no condition to require or expect Toleration Instead of bringing back those that Err Schism produces nothing but an eternal Distance and Animosity say you Do you think that this lead Complaisance which you are willing to have for those that Err is capable of reducing them Will you not confirm them in their Errours by living with them communicating with them and by partaking in their false Mysteries But let us hear what you have farther to say to us In the second place you say we do maintain That persons do not necessarily partake in the Errours of a Communion in which they are This is that you told us in the beginning of this Writing Abuses introduced by Governours cannot be imputed to the Faithful You add The common Confession of Faith ought to be esteemed as an Agreement to live together under the same Ministery but we are not therefore accountable for all the Abuses which may be or can be introduced into this Mnistery My Brethren this second thing which you tell yourselves and one another is no better than the former Where have you found that Abuses introduced by Governours may not be imputed to the Faithful Do you not very well know That there are no Abuses in the Church which have not been introduced either by the Malice or by the Ignorance of Governours They are the Doctors and Teachers which frame Heresies Were not those private persons seduced by Arrianism culpable because that Heresie was introduced by the Bishops Are you obliged to follow your Governours without examination Have you not a reasonable Mind as well as we And ought you not to make a good use of it And if you fail therein do you think that God will fail to take an account of you for it If we mull give no account of the Abuses introduced by Governours when the People of Israel suffered themselves to be seduced by a false Pastor to commit Idolatry were they not therefore culpable Nevertheless you see how God on such occasions thunders against both People and Governours When the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch saith our Lord. He did very ill to speak so according to your Principles there was no body but the first blind man that lead the way who ought to fall into the Ditch Jesus Christ said to the Jewish Doctors You compass sea and land to make a Proselite and when you have gained him you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourself And why so why doth this poor Proselite become a-Child of Hell since he follows his Governours yea Governours which had a lawful Call and were Pastors of the Church If Truth be the only way to Heaven it concerns you much how you go out of it be it of your own inclination or by the instigation of another you will always fill short of Heaven Whether you go to Hell or whether another leads you thither what difference will it make will you not be certainly there Discharge yourselves therefore of this pernicious Chimera That you are not at all accountable for Abuses introduced by your Guides But you say Me do not partake necessarily in the Errours of a Communion where we are How do you understand that whilst you subscribe these Errours and practise these Idolatries There are Errours of Speculation and Errours of Practice the means of not partaking in Errours of Speculation is openly to disavow them without Scruple or Hesitation The means of not partaking in Errours of Practise which are Superstitions and Idolatries is to
Saints are said to appear 't is not they which return 't is the Angels which appear and speak for them Behold I pray you how unformed and floating this Theology is But there is more than this in these same ages when they prayed to Martyrs at one time they prayed for them at another They prayed say I for the Martyrs and for the Apostles yea for the blessed Virgin and this is a new Proof of the Novelty of this Superstition This appears by the Liturgies of that time In that of St. Chrysostom we read We offer to thee this reasonable Service for those which rest in the Faith of our Ancestors our Fathers the Patriarchs the Prophets the Apostles the Preachers the Evangelists the Martyrs the Confessors the Continents and for all the Spirits which were initiated in the Faith principally for the most holy immaculate and blessed above all Women our Lady Mary Mother of God and always a Virgin. And in that which is attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem O God have mercy on our Fathers on our Brethren which are at rest whose Souls are acceptable unto thee give them repose and remember also all the holy Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors Evangelists and all the Spirits of the Just which are dead in the Faith and principally the holy and the glorious Mary Mother of God always a Virgin. It would be at this day the greatest of all absurdities to pray for a dead man and pray to him at the same time Indeed if he be in a condition of doing us good if he see God if he be with him he hath no need of our Prayers The inconsistency of these two Worships which nevertheless were both used at the same time is a demonstrative proof that the Invocations of Saints was a Novelty Prayers for the Martyrs were found in the ancient Liturgies out of respect to Antiquity they were left there but the torrent of Novelty added unto them Prayers unto the Martyrs without taking notice that these latter were inconsistent with the former To conclude I do maintain that those who will not give attention to these Demonstrations which prove the Novelty of the Invocation of Saints in the 4th Age have an insensible and seared Conscience and so I think it unprofitable to dispute any more against them I well understand that the New Converts who are willing to be content with their change will yet find two Fortifications for their security They will say that this Worship of Saints was then new but that it was not evil and that therefore the Church might introduce it as a pious Custom and proper to incline the minds of men towards Devotion But let these Gentlemen have a little patience Monsieur de Meaux in that which follows will give us occasion to make it plain to you that this Worship and this Invocation is Paganism renewed and that it is in nothing better than the Invocation of Angels and Hero's which the Pagans practised in their Devotions we will make them see that 't is a true Idolatry The other Fortification is the Antiquity of this Worship However it be say they you do confess that the Invocation of Saints hath more than one thousand two hundred Years on its head Does this put you to no troubles Have you no respect for so goodly a piece of Antiquity and how can you believe that God hath left his Church under Idolatry for so many Ages We answer That we cannot have respect for Antiquity without Truth and in this we are of the Religion of St. Cyprian We add That we are not astonisht to see an Idolatry so aged in the Church because it hath been expresly predicted to us The Prophet St. John calls Idolatrous Christians Pagans and the Spirit saith to him * Revel 11. cap. 12. I have given up the outward Court of the Church to the Pagans that they may tread it under foot for forty two Months These are the thousand two hundred and sixty Days in which the Woman i. e. the Church ought to be hidden as in a Wilderness for the space of these thousand two hundred and sixty Days And the two Prophets which prophesied in Sack-cloth i. e. the Truth published by a small number of Witnesses and those under the Cross ought to continue under the oppression of Idolatry the same number of Days i. e. a thousand two hundred and sixty Now these thousand two hundred and sixty Days are so many Years according to the stile of the Prophets who denominate Years by Days We shall have it may be in what follows an opportunity to prove it to you It must be therefore that Idolatry Rule in the Christian Church one thousand two hundred and sixty Years It hath done so almost for that space of time it is therefore near its end But we ought not to be amazed that it hath continued so long An Article of Controversie A Continuation of the Answer to the Illusions that the New Converts put upon themselves WE take up again the Continuation of the Controversie at the place where we left the Illusions of the New Converts The common Faith say you is a kind of Agreement to live under the same Ministery without being accountable for all the Abuses that have slipt into the Church By this fine reasoning we may live in safety among the Turks we believe as they do that there is one GOD one Paradise one Hell and that Jesus Christ is the greatest Prophet which ever came into the World. This common Confession of Faith will be an Agreement to live together safely under the same Ministery And we will leave to the Turks their prophane Abuses and their absurd and impious Doctrines Believe me such an Agreement resembles that of Pilate and Herod who agreed to despise and put to death Christ Jesus When the Ministery introduces small Corruptions this may be granted but when Corruption goes to the heart of Religion the Agreement signifies nothing and lays no obligation all is deadly either by itself or by its neighbourhood or contagion Provided that we Adore the same God and Profess the same Fundamentals of Christianity all the rest is not imputable to private persons Above all then when there is a necessity of joyning ourselves to this first Christian Society and when we cannot find any publick Worship more pure and edifying This is the Continuation of your Apology There are two words therein Provided and above all which destroy you Provided that we profess the same Fundamentals I have made it appear already that this provided is insufficient You must add Provided that fundamental Errours be not added to the Foundations Now Popery hath added to the Foundations of Christianity Tyranny Superstition and in one word Antichristianism So behold yourselves thrown out of your Fortification Provided that The Above all is no better Above all when there is a necessity of joyning ourselves There is no necessity of joyning ourselves to a Communion which we acknowledge
corrupt and defiled in its most noble Parts Do you believe that those Illustrious Confessours which fill the Prisons and the Gallies and whom you yourselves admire do you believe I say according to them there is a necessity of joyning yourselves to Popery They have found ways of dispensing with this necessity But your necessity of joyning yourselves unto it comes from the love and adherence that you have for your Estates your Ease and your Lives An unhappy Necessity which has not its original in Charity but in Covetuousness in the Name of God take heed of it But you say we cannot find any publick Worship more pure and more holy I answer It is not always necessary to adhere to publick Worship whatever it be The Martyrs and Confessours of Jesus Christ served him after a more grateful manner although their Worship were not only private but hidden but covered in the darkness of a deep Prison although you cannot assemble your selves to pray unto God with your Brethren you have your Closets of which you may make Churches and your Hearts of which you may make Sanctuaries and Altars This necessity of Adherence to publick Worship is another Illusion made by your love of the World 'T is better saith one that hath written to us to adhere to a corrupt Worship than to live without Religion What lewd Morality it this Those seven thousand men which were so hidden that Elijah knew nothing of them had they therefore no Religion because they did not adhere to the publick Worship of Baal which was intermixed with that of the true God To refuse to participate in an Idolatrous Worship is to be truely Religious to adhere to a Worship which is known to be full of Superstition and Impurities is to have no Religion at all In conclusion you come to the example of our Fathers The example of our Fathers say you before the Reformation proves clearly that we may secure our Salvation in the Roman Communion though we adhere even to the publick Worship Whatever men say 't is inconceivable that men born and bred up in a Religion and which never heard any thing said of any other Doctrine and who lived and died without protesting against the Doctrines of their Church should never partake in the Worship thereof Would to God you would stay yourselves on the examples of your Fathers and Grand-fathers without ascending so high as your Ancestours When you have done all that you can you will not save them all you will find among them by ascending a great number which worshipped Devils and the Idols of the Pagans you must necessarily leave them to the sad Judgments of God. This example of your Fathers which were saved in the Church of Rome is a subject which comes to us often and from all parts 't is the universal Illusion 't is the Pillow on which you all lay yourselves to sleep Many of your Ancient Pastors have endeavoured to dispute this unhappy Illusion this would be a large Chapter if we should say all that may be said concerning it but I do not think it necessary therefore I will say but two or three important things about it First The first is That we do willingly confess That before the Reformation there were persons saved in the Roman Communion About two hundred Years agone there were no Communions in the World which were not corrupt at least no considerable Communions or Societies It must needs be that God had his Elect there for he never leaves the World without them Do not fear least we should send you to find these Elect among the Waldenses Abbigenses Wicklefists and Hussites these were Fore-runners and like Mornings which went before the Sun of Reformation but these Societies did not continue nor did they make a Figure great enough in the World to include all the Elect there Secondly But on the subject of those men which were saved in corrupt Communions before our Reformation know first That we must not almost at all seek them among the Adult Of a thousand Children that are born there is not the tenth part of them that attain to the Age of Reason now all Children born in the Popish Communion are saved dying before the Age of Reason because they have part in the advantage of the general Covenant of Christianity which is preserved in Popery and they have no part in the Corruptions which have been added thereto for persons have no part in the Errours which corrupt the Covenant but when they know receive or tollerate them Behold therefore nine hundred of a thousand which were saved in the most corrupt times Now when God has nine hundred Elect among a thousand men we cannot say he has left the World without Elect persons and that Christianity remained uprofitable there were therefore always a great number of Elect persons in the Roman Communion Thirdly But after all it must be known That among the Adult the number of those of whose Salvation we might well presume in the times preceeding our Reformation is so small that we may well be amazed to think of it for Histories do represent the Corruption not only of Worship but also of Manners so horrible and universal that a man knows not where to fix his eyes to find a person that might be saved The Clergy were overflown with Debauchery the Monks were Assemblies of profligate Persons and Hypocrites the Houses of Nuns were filthy Bawdy-houses The People suffered themselves to be born away by the torrent and examples of their Guides the devout People scarcely knew the difference between the Creator and the Creature and their Piety spent itself in Superstitions which are even a horrour to the wiser Doctors of the Roman Church at this day Fourthly Nevertheless let us suppose that among all these there were some Elect and some saved I do maintain that it was absolutely by Miracle I say by Miracle in the litteral sence of the word and without figure As a man which lives in a hideous Mire sunk over head and ears lives there by a Miracle For the Roman Communion is damnable that is a certain point Men are saved there 't is because the Promise of God cannot be in vain and he cannot be without Children but the time of Miracles doth not continue always and we do not find ourselves obliged to explicate unto you the manner of Miracles for we do not know by that alone that these are Miracles And 't is to you my Brethren a prodigious rashness to re-plung yourselves in a Communion where your Fathers did not live but by Miracle in hopes that naturally you shall live there 'T is just as if the Jews at this day should run head-long into the Red-sea in hopes to pass well through it because their Ancestours did heretofore go through it without danger God hath ways of withdrawing those that are his from a Spirit of Lyes and Superstition whilst they live or at least at their death which we do
given a Copy to the said Monsieur Ricottier that to maintain us in our Priviledges and prevent the Dissipation of our Flocks they offer not only to Interceed for us but also in case of Refusal to bear Arms into this Province if we promise them and give them assurance to put into their hands all the Cities and places whereof we can dispose The Society approving the care of the said Messieurs Ricottier and Vignier After having all promised by Oath made to GOD not to reveal a Secret of this importance return Thanks to the said Monsieur Durel for what be had already done to make it successful and do intreat him to go a soon as he can and know what Assurances they desire and promise on our part that we shall give all those that are possible and as a Pledge thereof they have drawn up the present Act which shall be dispatcht to him to this end and purpose and the Original put into the hands of the said Vignier to be secretly and faithfully kept there until the business can be executed to the Glory of GOD and the Comfort of our poor afflicted Congregations c. Signed Ricottier Moderator E. Durel Assistant J. Asimont Chosen to Collect the Acts. J. Meysonnet Secretary There are no attempts imaginable which the Priest Soulier doth not make to defend this false Piece But we see that God doth strike these Impostors with a Spirit of Blindness so that they stumble in places where it were easie for them to be upon their guard The Work hath appeared in publick a long time since and we were advertised from France that this part thereof was envenomed leud and worthy that we should make the Injury and Reproach thereof fall upon its Author But the Calvinists of Holland of whom Monsieur Soulier speaks with so much contempt have so little esteem for his Works that they did not put themselves to the trouble of obtaining this And the Printers of Holland who print all things at are saleable did not think that the Sale of the History of Calvinism would pay the charge of the Press The reason therefore why we Anwer to it so late is because we could not recover any Copy thereof at last we resolved to obtain it by an Express otherwise it had never passed our Frontiers We have therefore seen and read it and have judged that the Conspiracy of Montpazier did indeed deserve that we should reply to it But before we defend our Arguments for the Falshood thereof and produce new ones 't is necessary once more that you know who the Priest Soulier is that you may also know of what weight his Authority is but I choose rather that you know it from the mouth of one of his Brethren than from ours for which reason we shall here produce a Letter which Monsieur Le Feure a Doctor of the Sorbonne did write to one of his Friends concerning this Gentleman and this since the History of the Birth Progress Decay and Ruine of Calvinism appeared in the World. A Letter of Monsieur Le Ferre Doctor of the Sorbonne to Monsieur de M. concerning Monsieur Soulier the Priest. I Must confess faithfully Monsieur that I have always believed that a politick Dissimulation of those Resentments which a man cannot discover without prejudice to his interest was not the Vice of our Nation and that it ought to be the horrour of men of the Character which we bear I speak of Resentments which are believed just and whose end is the Defence of Truth and not a Chimera of Reputation or false worldly Honour I have been hitherto and am yet perswaded that 't is to be an Enemy to Truth to suffer it to be oppressed then when there is reason to fear that a man shall draw upon himself the Persecution of those which oppose it for I have made to myself a Rule of that ancient Maxim of the Fathers of the Church Let us be Banished so the Truth be Preached Behold Monsieur the only reason why I have had so few Contests with persons of eminent Merit so that the Priest Soulier had passed in silence if he had not observed a quite opposite conduct Judge thereof Monsieur by the following History in the Year 1681 the learned Jesuit Father Mesnier being chosen by the Clergy for their Agent-General and Counsel to the Syndicks of the Diocess of this Kingdom prosecuting the Destruction of the Temples of those of the Reformed Religion built contrary to the Edicts published a Collection about those matters printed at Paris by Monsieur Leonard Bookseller to the Clergy In the time of this Impression Monsieur Soulier published a little Work where by way of Essary he accuses the Syndecks of Ignorance as having suffered the Preservation of many Churches which ought to have been destroyed The Father Mesnier seeing that this blow would fall directly upon him thought himself obliged to refute this Dream of Monsieur Soulier he therefore employs about twenty of the last Pages of his Book to convince this Monsieur of Ignorance He concludes them by accusing him of Falshood of Calumnie and of being a person that at most knew no more than to Read and Write and sending him to the exercise of his first Trade and Employment Monsieur Soulier saw and dissembled the thing from 1681 until the end of this Year 1686 that is to say near six Years Why did he keep silence so long and why speaks he now after he had been so long dumb Think of it what you please Monsieur but behold that which I think most reasonable concerning it The Father Mesnier was alive and is now dead Soulier owed to him what he knew in the matter of Edicts against those of the Reformed Protestant Religion which he hath dressed over again to give a tast of them to the World. The Father Mesnier made use of him to be a Servant and a Scribe and he is not the first who from the Servant of an Author is become an Author himself The Servants of Physitians do every day steal the Secrets of their Masters The Father Mesnier is therefore dead and Monsieur Soulier hath filled up his place in a very short space of time The Revocation of the Edict of Nants followed by the Destruction of the Churches of those of the Reformed Protestant Religion having rendered his pretended Employment much more unprofitable than the Work which he reproaches me for sending into the World a little too late nevertheless being puffed up with his new Place and Preferment he was not able to endure any longer to be accused of Ignorance But why does he fall upon me 'T is because I being necessarily engaged to take part in the business contested by Father Mesnier and him I put myself on the side of the Master against the Servant and to save myself the labour of confuting Soulier I said that it had been done by Father Mesnier Yea I had the Charity not to name Soulier when I said as
the Poet said Furor arma ministrat Fury finds Arms and when they have no Cities they will take them There is some probability that Mr. Soulier knows how to read Latin for he hath transcribed three words thereof and this makes much to his honour against the Accusation of his Master Mesnier and Mr. Le Feure We answer to Mr. Soulier that we cannot warrant all the thoughts of other men but though it should be true that there were yet some reason to fear the Reformed as much abased and subjected as they are because Fury furnishes Arms yet there was no reason to fear them in the time of the Synod of Montpazier because then there was nothing which might move their Rage Lambs become Lions when they are run against the Walls The despair into which they thrust the Reformed might indeed have furnished them with Arms if God had not prevented those unhappy Commotions But it was impossible that the condition in which they were in 1659. should put them into that despair which puts them upon any thing and makes them sometimes successful therein An tighth Argument of Falshood and its Defence against the Wrangles of Soulier We drew an invincible Argument of Falshood against this wicked Piece from the Silence of the Court The King knew many Years since by the means of Joly Bishop of Agen and the Cardinal of Bouillion That they had formed a horrid Conspiracy in Guyenne against his State he knew the Authors thereof they were yet alive but he said nothing of it he did not chastise those who had made this bold Attempt He complained not of it any where and from whence comes this Spirit of Patience Have they forgiven the least fault to the Reformed for the space of twenty Years Have they not laid to their charge a thousand false Crimes Have they not had an open Ear for all their Accusors Have they not punished them severely for Faults falsely imputed and ill proved And would they neglect the punishment of Treason in him that was Principal therein who will believe it and whom can Soulier perswade of the truth of it Besides at what time was this Observe it was at a time in which they had sworn the Ruine of the Protestants in which they earnestly wished to find them culpable in which they did even all that can be imagined to make them so Was there any thing so much desired by the Clergy and the Court as to have a small occasion to say Seeing that our said Subjects have always persevered in a Spirit of Faction and Rebellion even in the times when they intirely enjoyed our Favour under the benefits of our Edicts as appears by the Conspiracy of Montpazier This would have been conveniently inserted in the Edict which revokes that of Nantes but there is nothing like it seen there they give no other reason there But that the greatest and the best part of our Subjects of the said Reformed Protestant Religion had embraced the Catholick so that the Edict of Nantes and all that had been granted in favour of the said Reformed Protestant Religion continues to no purpose It is very much worthy of Observation that only two Years before in the time when the utter Destruction of the Reformed was resolved the King gives a publick Testimony to their-Fidelity 't is in the Act of Oblivion granted to the pretended Rebels of Dauphine that is to say to those poor Men who were willing to pray to GOD upon the Ruine of their Churches without doing injury to any one but also without desires of being troubled there The King say I in the Oblivion which he granted to these men says The immoveable Fidelity of all our other Subjects of the said Religion hath inclined us rather to entertain thoughts of Clemency than of Rigour towards the Guilty How could it be that the Court should have such apprehensions of the Fidelity of the Protestants of the Kingdom if it had in its hand an Act capable of convincing them of desiring to expose the Kingdom as a prey to Strangers And if it had them not but knew well the Conspiracy of Montpazier and gave credit to it what could oblige it to insert a Clause so false in this Act of Oblivion I know very well that Kings in these fort of Acts pretend themselves satisfied oftentimes with persons which they do commend at that very season when they are least satisfied with them But it is when there is something to fear 't is when they would oblige men to lay down their Arms who are in a condition to make themselves feared and when actually and indeed they are afraid of them But I intreat you what is it that the King with 200000 Men in Arms without any foreign Wars hath to fear of a thousand or twelve hundred Peasants of Dauphine Vivarets and Cevennes of whom they had already massacred more than two thirds If Soulier can reconcile this with a pretended perswasion that the Court hath of the truth of the Conspiracy of Montpazier he will do us a kindness to do it But saith he the conclusion which they draw from the silence of the Court is no proof that it doubts the truth of this Act the liberty which the King hath given me of defending my self and maintaining it is an indisputable proof that his Majesty doth not doubt thereof A very fine proof The King hath permitted Soulier to defend this Piece therefore it is true and he believes 't is so First the King it may be knows not who this Soulier is and 't is known that these kind of Permissions pass by the means of a Father Confessour or some other Ecclesiastick who says concerning it what he pleases being much assured that he shall never be reprehended for it Besides behold a great Wonder that they suffer such a man as Soulier is to hazard his Reputation If he succeed to perswade this pretended Conspiracy of Montpazier with good luck the Court will always gain thereby and 't will be a reason and pretence to justifie its Conduct If he does not succeed therein the shame will remain upon him alone no name or person of Quality appears therein the hurt will not be great 'T is thus that men reason naturally in the World So that the Permission which the Court gives him to defend the truth of this Conspiracy is so far from being a mark of the value they have for him that 't is a proof they look on him as a Wretch which they abandon and leave as forlorn Let him shew us any man of Reputation which joyns with him in this Cause There is nothing more pleasant than to see the Value and Reputation which this Priest Soulier puts upon himself He demanded leave from the Court says he to defend himself and the King was pleased to permit it And speaking of an Author which goes for a person a little more able than he If this Writer expects I should do him the Honour
of the Hospital where they said Mass every day they would have obliged our Martyr to have assisted at the Mass by this entry but they could never effect it All these evil treatments not being able to vanquish this illustrious Confessor Rapine comes to his last Remedies he caused Monsieur Menurett to descend into the Court where there was a Mulberry-tree and fastned his arms on high thereto his feet scarce touching the ground he rent off his Cloaths to his very Shirt and caused him to receive an infinite number of blows with a Bull 's pisle this treatment was continued for the space of fifteen days with so much violence that our Martyr voided blood by his Urine and by all the parts of his body In the midst of these horrible Torments without ceasing he beg'd mercy and grace from God for himself and for his Persecutors and implored the compassion of his Hangmen in so moving a manner that two Capuchines who heard his cries exhorted Rapine to cease his cruel punishment he did so and was content to employ our Martyr to carry stones for a building which they were making at the Hospital The first day of April last the Bishop of Valence went to visit him in this stinking Sink but gained no more upon him at this time than at others In conclusion Rapine inraged with his long opposition entred like a Devil into the Prison of this holy man accompanied with two Lacques or Serjeants and gave him so many blows with a Bull 's pisle and for so long a time that the cries of the Martyr did even rend the Air all round about This Monster about two hours after after he had been wearied with the pains that he had taken to martarize this Saint return'd with his Searjeants to repeat the punishment but he found our Martyr expired in the midst of these cruel torments He was put into the hands of Rapine in the month of June 1686 and died in the beginning of April 1687. I cannot tell whether after this they will have the impudence to maintain that all these Cruelties which have been exercised have not been authorized by the Ministers of his Majesty and the Judges nor by the commandment of the Dragoons but that they are the Violences of the Souldiery which have been condemned and punished when they have been known Rapine is neither Souldier nor Dragoon he has no Commission to exercise these Cruelties but such as he receives every day He is Guardian of the Hospital of Valence The Parliament of Greenoble have sent him twenty five or twenty six persons at a time as I said but just now to be converted by these cruel Methods The Bishop and the Jesuites put into his hands all those upon whom they cannot prevail But to the end that they may not say any more that Authority does not interpose in these Cruelties they ought to be informed of a memorable story happening at Uzes and which I think has been attested by twenty Letters of different persons all which agree in the thing There is at Uzes a House of Propagation governed by four Creatures called the Daughters of the Propagation in this House are many Gentlewomen of the Reformed Religion imprisoned who have resisted preceeding Violences and Temptations One of these four Daughters of the Propagation went to complain to the Intendant of the rough answers which these poor persecuted Gentlewomen gave and of the small disposition they had to be converted The Intendant Monsieur d' Bauille whose name for his conduct in Languedock deserves to live to all future Ages this Intendant I say immediately appointed Scourging against ten of the most intractable In the execution of this command four Souldiers were set at the Gate with Musquets charged and lighted Matches ready to give fire Two Priests went in with the Major of Viuon and the Judge Larnac Sub-delegate to the Intendant in their presence these Creatures of the Propagation stript these Gentlewomen from the Girdle upward and doing the Office of Hangman scourged them after the most cruel manner with straps made of Coards at the end of which hung Bullets of Lead afterwards they were thrown into a dark Prison During the time of this punishment they uttered cries which were heard into the street but they encouraged each other to suffer these Tryals for the Name of Jesus Christ. I will at this time tell you no more sad News but on the contrary I will comfort you by giving you to understand that in this general Misfortune wherein the Reformed Church of France sees so many persons in some sort fall under the Temptation we have the joy to know that scarce one falls in love with this wicked Religion We have taken care to enquire concerning it of those which came from all parts and we have caused enquiries to be made upon the places as much as is possible for us but we can assure you my Brethren as a thing certain that the hatred of the Roman Religion increases every day insomuch that the Persecutors are farther every day from accomplishing their designs than ever We may say without fear of lying or hyperbole of expression that this Persecution has not gained to the Church of Rome two hundred hearty Converts and although I know a vast number of persons have been prevailed withal to make their Subscriptions yet the number of those which have with a satisfied Judgment embraced their Religion is so small that it does not deserve to be computed But on the contrary by a surprizing marvel of Divine Providence this Persecution has opened the eyes of a great number of ancient Catholicks as they are called That which we tell you is no Conjecture or Fiction 't is that which we know upon good Testimony So that it is certain that the Church of GOD has gained more Souls than it has lost These Seeds will bring forth in their time Every day we see persons arrive here who Abjure the Roman Religion and amongst them there are such as are eminent by their Merit by their Birth by their Parts and by their Learning When we know that they will not take it ill if we name them we will do it for 't is necessary that all the World know it that the depths of Divine Providence and His Judgments may be admired thereby June 15. 1687. The Twenty first PASTORAL LETTER An Article of Antiquity The Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Ages said that the Sacrament of the Eucharist is the Figure and Image of the Body of Jesus Christ. An Article of Controversie An Answer to the Prejudices that have been drawn against our Separation from the Authors of it Dear Brethren in our Lord Grace and Peace be given to you from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ WE have already seen one essential thing in which the Fourth and Fifth Ages had introduced no alteration 't is the Opinion concerning the Nature of the Sacrifice of the Eucharist We shall now see that the Faith
many passages to prove Transubstantiation says that (d) Mistagog 4. under the Figure of Bread is given to us the Body and under the Figure of Wine is given to us the Blood. And St. Gregory Nazianzen saith (e) Orat. 42. that we are made partakers of the Passover but always figuratively altho' our Passover be much more clear than that of the ancients for the legal Passover I dare say was a dark Figure of another Figure i.e. of the Eucharist St. Jerome saith (f) In Jerem. cap. 3. lib. 2. advers Jovin that the Figure of the Blood of Jesus Christ is made with Wine and elsewhere that Jesus Christ hath offered not Water but Wine for the Figure of his Blood. Theodoret saith (g) Dialog 3. 1. that the Eucharist is the Figure of the Passion and that the Sacred Nourishment is the Figure of his Body and his Blood. In these Passages the Ancients make use of the word Type which exactly signifies Figure They have also expressed the Nature of the Sacrament by the word Antitype which signifies an opposite Figure or a Figure that has respect unto the thing signified as one Pillar answers to another which is placed just over against it So the Author of the Constitutions attributed to the Apostles saith (a) Lib. 5. cap. 13. that our Lord gave to his Disciples the Mysteries which are the Figures answering to his precious Body and Blood and that we celebrate the Figures answering to the Body and Blood of our Lord. In the Liturgy ascribed to St. Basil 't is said (b) Lib. 6 29. we beseech thee by offering the Figures of the Body and Blood of thy Christ St. Cyril of Jerusalem saith (c) Mystag 5. that we taste the Figures answering to the Body and Blood of our Lord. Theodoret saith (d) Dialog 2. that the Divine Mysteries are the Figures answering to the true Body Can any thing be more express than all this unless it be what we see with our eyes In proper terms they tell us that the Sacrament in nothing but an Image Eusebius Bishops of Cesarea saith (e) Demonst lib. 8. That Jesus Christ commanded his Disciples to make the Image of his own Body Procopius upon Genesis saith (f) Cap. 49. that Jesus Christ gave to his Disciples the Image of his Body And Pope Gelasius or some Author of the same Age saith (g) Gelas de duabus nat certainly the Image or the Similitude of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is celebrated in the Mystery This therefore shews us plain enough what we ought to believe concerning Jesus Christ our Lord even that which we profess that which we celebrate and that which we receive in his Image I do not think that Zuinglius and Calvin have spoken more plainly and significantly To conclude they call the Bread and the Wine Symbols a word which every one knows signifies as much as the word Figure Eusebius saith * Demonst lib. 1. cap. 10. We have learnt to make a Memorial of this Sacrifice upon the Table with the Symbols of his Body and Bloud And St. Chrysostom ‖ Hom. 83. in Matth. If Jesus Christ be not dead of what are the consecrated things the Symbols And Theodoret * 1 Cor. c. 11. When we shall have the presence of our Lord we shall have no more need of the Symbols of his Body Nothing is so common in the Fathers as these Expressions To partake in the Symbols of our Lord to take the Symbols to burn the Symbols c. These same Fathers do give us the same Reasons of the Names Body and Bloud which are give to the Bread and Wine that we our selves give of them 'T is because they are the effectual Representations of the Flesh and Bloud of Jesus Christ If the Sacraments saith St. Austin †Epist 23. ad Bonifac. had no resemblance of those things whereof they are Sacraments they would be no Sacraments and 't is because of this Resemblance that they take the name of the things themselves as in the Sacrament of the Body of Jesus Christ the Sacrament of his Body and of his Bloud are in some sort his Body and Bloud It seems to me that a person must be prodigiously blind to believe that he which speaks thus does not think as we do The same St. Austin saith elsewhere * Serm. ad Infantes apud Bertram How is the Bread his Body and that which is in the Cup his Bloud My Brethren these things are called Sacraments because 't is one thing that is there seen and another thing which is understood that which is seen is a corporeal Species and that which is understood is a spiritual Benefit and Advantage To what end does he take this compass of discourse and why does he not answer without scruple 'T is because the Body of Christ Jesus is really there after the words of Consecration An Article of Controversie An Answer to the Prejudices which some persons have raised against our Separation from the Actions the Conduct and the Personal Qualities of the Authors thereof WE have finished our Answer to the Sophisms which they propose unto you on the subject of our Separation by making it evident to you that it does not hazard your salvation that it was necessary and that it was just But before we pass to other Questions which respect the Church we must say something concerning those who made this Separation for 't is the most fruitful Source and Fountain of Illusions and a Subject of perpetual Harangues and Declamations And this we owe especially to a Woman of Quality among those which are called new Converts who places the little Edification that our Reformers have given to the World or rather the Scandal which they have given to it by their Conduct and Divisions as one of the Reasons which hath most affected her and prevailed on her to embrace the Roman Religion 'T is a subject on which an infinite number of Books have been made to which I might send you were it not that Books are taken from you for the most part besides my designe being to spare you the labour of reading great Books I am to abridge and reduce what our Authors have said thereon to the compass and extent of a Letter Behold then the Accusations which they form against the Authors of the Separation which I have justified in my preceding Letters 1. That these pretended Reformers did no Miracles to support their extraordinary Mission and their new Gospel 2. That they led a scandalous life and such as had no conformity with the Spirit of a Reformed Gospel which they boasted to bring into the World. 3. That there appears in their Expressions a dark Malignity and an implacable Hatred against the Roman Church and that their Books are full of cruel Injuries both against the Roman Religion and against its Doctors a thing absolutely contrary to the Spirit of Charity 4.
That they are divided into three Sects of which Zuinglius Calvin and Luther made themselves the Heads That if the Spirit of God had sent them to Reform the Church he would also have united them in this great design and have inspired them with the same thoughts and the same apprehensions 5. To conclude they say that they have rent and torn each other by transports of Passion which are the true Characters of false Pastors and false Christians As to the first Objection I cannot avoid baptizing it by its own name and calling it an Impertinence Why should our Reformers work Miracles and why were they obliged thereunto When Jehu reformed the Church of Israel pull'd down the Temples of Baal broke in pieces his Statues rooted out his Prophets and abolished his Worship did he work Miracles or had he any need thereof Was it any spot to that Holy Reformation that Josiah made when he re-established the Service of God which was almost wholly under a heap of forreign Idolatries that he wrought no Miracles When Theodosius the Great reformed the Christian Church and drove away Arianism which was become the reigning Religion did he do Miracles or had he any need thereof There is no need to work Miracles but when men bring a new Religion and a new Revelation For that reason the Apostles wrought Miracles because they had a new Revelation to propose to the World. They brought a Gospel unknown to Jews and Gentiles and opposite to the prejudices of the one and the other We brought no new Gospel into the World we propounded the Old and the New Testament the one and the other were received without contradiction by all those Christians which we desired to reform When it shall please God to convert the Jews to Christianity according to his promises there is much probability that he will send them some Prophets which will work Miracles and that will be necessary For although the Gospel-Revelation be already manifested and we have the Books of the Evangelists and the Apostles nevertheless this is nothing with respect to the Jews because they do not esteem our Books Canonical but believe the Apostles to be Cheats and Impostors There is therefore need of new Miracles to recover them from their prejudices and oblige them to give attention to the truth But as for us it was in no wise necessary to work Miracles to establish that Book whereof we served our selves Otherwise as often as the Kings of Judah produced the Law of Moses to make Reformation in their Church they had been obliged to work Miracles They had nothing else to do but to produce the Book and make it evident that the Abominations which had been introduced into Religion were either forbidden or not commanded there Behold all that they had to do behold all that we have to do and 't is to misunderstand the Conduct of God and the Spirit of the Gospel to imagine that the truth cannot be commended to Unbelievers but by Miracles How many millions of men have been converted to Christianity since the days of the Apostles and the cessation of the gift of Miracles Miracles are designed to deliver men from their evil prejudices and to endue them with such as are good that they may hearken to the truth Men that believe not the Christian Religion but only for the sake of its Miracles are very ill-Christians And among those which became Converts by the preaching of the Apostles those who had no other reason to embrace this New Religion but the Miracles which they saw done by those which preacht it were very miserable Converts such persons are the seed of Apostacy and adhere to the Church but by a very feeble root We ought to adhere to it for the love of truth now 't is the knowledge of the truth and not the sight of Miracles which gives birth to the love thereof If Miracles be not necessary for the Conversion of Unbelievers with far greater reason they cannot be of necessity for the bringing back of wandring Christians to the right way For there needs no more but to shew them the holy Scripture which so exactly marks out the path in which they ought to walk As to what they say that those who will establish a new Ministry must have Miracles for the support of it 't is an Affair to be treated on elsewhere We have already said something concerning it and we shall have yet farther occasion to speak of it and shew that we have no more established a new Ministry than we have introduced a new Gospel Where there is no new Revelation there is no new Ministry our Ministry is that of the Apostles because our Doctrine is theirs The second Accusation which they make against the Authors of our Seperation is their Scandalous Life There is no probability say your Converts that God should suffer so strange an Alliance as that would be of a great abundance of the Spirit of Light on the one part and of so great disorders of Manners on the other And thereon they publish a hundred ugly stories to cry down the Memory of Luther Zuinglius Calvin Martyr Beza c. First we say that truth is truth without any dependance on those who declare it Your Converters have said somewhere That the Citizens of Babel may sometimes build Jerusalem 'T is a truth so certain that to deny it a man must be ignorant and false For in all Ages there have been very Evil men who have defended the part of truth and who have even maintained it against Hereticks whose Conduct and Manners have been very regular and oftentimes more edifying than that of the Orthodox We must not form a prejudice against the Doctrine upon the ill Conduct of those which preach it we must judge of Truth by it self So that although it should be true that our Reformers were such as they report them nevertheless it would behove us to see whether these Citizens of Babel were not the Builders of Zion But God forbid that we should have no other fortification to defend our selves We have made to appear the innocence of the Lives of the Authors of our Separation by Apologies of so much strength that their Calumniators have been covered with Confusion and the most part of our most resolved Enemies have been obliged to renounce them The Bolsacs the Bertheliers the Florimond de Raymonds and other like Calumniators ought to be the Horror and Execration of all Honest men The Author of the Legitimate Prejudices against the Calvanists and other like Authors who are willing to preserve themselves in the Esteem of Honest men fortifie and establish themselves upon notorious matters of fact such is for example Marriage of Priests Persons who have made a Vow of Chastity say they and who were obliged to celibate by so many Oaths have violated their Vows in the face of the Sun they have opened Cloysters to take Wives from thence and so have committed a
double Adultery against Christ Jesus These are pitiful Declamations according to my apprehension To judge of the nature of these Actions we must know what were the Principles of those who did them Why should they observe Celibacy since they lookt upon it as a Yoak of which they desired to deliver the Clergy because it had produced a world of Impurities and Abominations so that a Deluge was not capable of purging them They have broken their Vows They were unlawful Vows made under a tyrannical Empire conceived in a false Religion unacceptable to God because they served as a Vail to an infinite number of Corruptions and at the same time to a debaucht and hypocritical life They forsook Babylon and it behoved them to forsake all the Badges thereof This kind of life which under an appearance of Piety hides such great Disorders is the true Character of the Beast These Monks are those Hypocrites whose Consciences are seared as with a hot Iron forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from Meats which God hath permitted which teach a Doctrine of Devils and serve as a Support to the Throne of the Beast So that these Reformers being delivered from the tyrannical Yoak of this unhappy Empire ought to return to the enjoyment of all their Rights and of all their Liberty and being put in the possession of it they may and ought to use it There needs but one thing to confound all these Calumniators who are willing to stain and blacken the Lives of the Authors of our Reformation What have these Reformers gained what have they gotten to do the work of Impostors Have they gained Riches Honours or great Dignities Have they left great Houses have they left Heirs and Children that were great Lords Never did persons despise their own Interests more than they did they never got wherewithal to be buried decently and scarcely got wherewith to live Their Zeal Firmness Constancy and Perseverance joyned with a contempt of their own Interest make up a Character very opposite to that of dishonest men If they had been debauched effeminate Lovers of Pleasure why did they go out of the Body of the Roman Clergy who enjoyed all the pleasures of the flesh even those which were most infamous with so much convenience and advantage These Gentlemen say that the principal reason which gave such success to the New Gospel was the licentiousness of the Church-men and the Monks of that Age. This is it which that same Lady does confess who makes the ill Conversation of the Authors of our Separation one cause of her return to the Church of Rome But this Confession and this Truth which is publickly known doth it not utterly ruine the Accusation which the Papists make against our Reformers Is there any probability that the great number of people which forsook the Roman Church being scandalized by the wicked Lives of its Guides should list themselves under the Ensigns of other wicked persons which were no better than those they had forsaken If they were not vicious and debaucht at least say they they were fierce proud Lovers of themselves passionate ambitious vain and violent These are stroaks striken in the Air and Accusations which make it evident they have nothing to say Concerning Ambition there doth not appear any footstep thereof in their Conversation And that which they call Pride and Fierceness is according to us Zeal and Vigour in the maintenance of Truth as we shall make it appear in examining the third Accusation The third Accusation is that it 's evident the Authors of our Separation were inspired with a dark Malignity against the Roman Church they vomited out against her say they flouds of Injuries and every-where is to be seen a Character of black Gholer which discharges it self both upon their Persons and Religion They support and strengthen this Accusation by the Confession of some Protestants who were of another frame and temper of mind and did not approve those methods of proceedure that were so full of flame and fire I answer That Grace which changes mens Manners does not change their Temper and Constitution but governs and serves it self thereof Although it should be true that there appeared a great deal of fire in the Authors of our Reformation that would be no sufficient cause to condemn them it being the temper of all Great men And this temper is of so great necessity for the execution of great things that without it 't is very difficult to carry on and prosecute great Designs and Enterprizes This is a thing unto which those men have too little regard which at this day do so highly commend and advance the Elogies of sweetness and moderation in Controversies and who perswade us to imitate other Great men who are of a quite contrary Character and temper of Mind If these honest men of this last Order that is to say these soft and moderate men had been born in the past Age and had been engaged in that great Work they had neither maintained nor carried it so far as did those men the heat of whose Temper they would fain make a Crime If Luther had not had a heart fearless and of inconceivable courage he had never been able to bear up against the Torrent of Contradictions and Oppositions that he met withal and repelled Father Paul the famous Venetian Divine who became famous on occasion of the Affair of the Interdict of that Republick knew assuredly the Corruption of the Roman Church at least as well as Luther He made no secret of it no eminent Protestant passed by Venice to whom he did not discover himself concerning it They often represented to him that he was obliged in Conscience to break with a Church the Impurity and Idolatry whereof he so well understood He had a thousand Reasons to offer on his own behalf sometimes that he separated the good from the bad sometimes that he was of use to a thousand persons that lay hid and had good sentiments at last when he was pressed hard he would say that God had not given to him the Heart and Spirit of Luther It is certain that if Father Paul had been of the Temper and Spirit of Luther Venice had been at this day what Geneva is And it is also certain that if Luther Zuinglius and Calvin had been of the Temper and Spirit of Father Paul all Europe had been yet what Venice is at this day It behoves us therefore to admire the great and profound Wisdom of God who chose for so great a Work men whose Temper was fit to maintain improve and exercise Zeal effectually To this Consideration add another the Authors of our Reformation have indeed spoken ill of the Church of Rome of its Priests of its High-Priest of its Monks and its Guides And why might they not speak ill of them I do maintain that they said nothing but what was true they could scarcely speak too much ill of Popery They said that the Church
to have been done by the Reliques of St. Stephen in Africa those of St. Martyn in France and those of the Anacorites in Egypt and Syria Not to enter into a long dispute on the subject of this pretended mark of the Church of Rome I answer three or four things briefly to which I pray give attention 1. That this pretended fountain of light fit and proper to make the Church of Rome visible is not for the simple and unlearned For to see the bottom and solidity thereof they must examine the History of the pretended Miracles which were done in the fourth and fifth Ages They must see what we have said in opposition to it they must examine circumstances and see if there be not reason to believe that all these stories of Miracles are either frauds or fictions They must also examine by History whether these pretended Prodigies of Sanctity be not either Fables or the disorders of sick and melancholick minds They must therefore be able to understand Latin and Greek and to read great and large Volumes To offer this as a light sutable to the capacity of the weak and unlearned is to scoff and deride them 2. I say that the Miracles of the Apostles which are certain and the Prodigies of the Sanctity of the three first Ages does not appertain by right of succession to the Church of the fourth and fifth Age but as far as she inherits the Doctrine of the Apostles These Miracles were good to prove the Divinity of the Christian Religion to Pagans But they are worth nothing to prove Novelties as are the Invocation of Saints and the Worship of Reliques which are purely Pagan Practices With far greater reason the Church of Rome hath no right by succession to the Miracles of the Apostles to prove her Worship her Idolatries and Superstitions We have as much right as she to these Miracles They are truly and properly our Miracles They are good for us all in common against the ungodly and against Infidels to prove that there is one God in three Persons that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and the true Redeemer of the World. But they are nothing to prove our Additions our Corruptions and our Alterations if it be so that either the one or the other of the Christian Sects whether Popery or Calvinism have introduced them into the Church This is clear the Miracles of the Apostles appertain not to us but as far as we have and do inherit their Doctrine 3. As to the Miracles of the fourth and fifth Age which were done in the times when they prayed to Saints and worshipped Reliques we say that they were false Miracles It is to be observed that from the death of the Apostles until the end of the fourth Age nothing was spoken of Miracles in the Church or so little and in so doubtful a manner that it doth not deserve to be reckoned for any thing but when the Devil desired to set up the Worship of Creatures he poured out a Spirit of Lying and a Spirit of Credulity which began to entertain discourses of Miracles 'T is a thing of importance press your Converters thereon Why did these Miracles cease for the space of well nigh two hundred Years or at least why were they so rare And why did they begin again exactly at the time when the Worship of Reliques grew famous Do we not see clearly that 't is a Wile of the Devil Hath God any interest to serve by Bones and Ashes was it necessary that he should begin again to do Miracles at that time And if it were of use to perswade the truth of the Religion which the Martyrs declared to the Pagans why did not God work Miracles by the Bones of the Martyrs for the first three Ages This had been much more profitable than when Paganism was rampant and the Church persecuted and oppressed Wherefore did not the Bones of Polycarpus of whom the believers of Smyrna speak with so much love work miracles Why did not so many Martyrs whose Reliques they had and whose Anniversaries they observed in the time of St. Cyprian work signs and wonders your Converters will never be able to answer this be you therefore perswaded that these pretended Miracles done by the Reliques of St. Stephen St. Gervais St. Protais St. Martyn c. were Illusions of the Devil whom God permitted to work false Miracles or the Cheats of Villains and lewd Superstitionists or to conclude Stories of the Vulgar and Fables which honest men received as Truths upon hear-say And as to the Miracles which are ascribed to the Anacorites of Aegypt and Syria I know not how Mr. Nicholas is not ashamed to draw from them a Light to make his Church visible They are Fables for the most part so gross that the Falseness of them stares in the face of the most Ignorant The Lives of St. Paul the Hermite of Hilarion and others written by St. Jerome that of St. Antony composed as they say by Athanasius are written with so little modesty and judgment that a man ought to be ashamed of them The judicious Readers that would preserve respect for the Authors of those Lives say that the Fathers composed them not as Histories but as pious Romances to divert Christians from reading the Pagan Fables We see in the Lives of those solitary persons of the Desart such as found Centaurs in the Woods Satyrs Men half Horses and half Goats who spake to them and prayed them to intreat the common Saviour to have pitty on them and to give them part in the common Salvation with them We see Hermites-which were in perpetual contests with the Devil always tempted and often beaten by him We see them which herded among the Beasts We there read in one word almost all the Impertinencies of our new Legends This makes it evident that the Fabulous Spirit entred into Christian Religion as soon as the Spirit of Superstition and Idolatry 4ly I say that although it should be true that these Miracles wrought in the Age of the establishment of the Worship of Saints and Reliques should be true Miracles it would not be a Light for the Roman Church any more than for the Greek who also worship Saints and Reliques 'T is therefore needful that we have Miracles from the Church of Rome since she was separate from the Greek Church and that it appear this Gift of Miracles is departed from all other Churches to affix itself to the Church of Rome Now the Greek Schismaticks have their Saints their Legends and their Miracles as well as the Latine Church Besides we do maintain that all the Miracles of the Church of Rome those of St. Bernard as well as others are Legendaries Tales or Illusions of the Evil Spirit 5ly To conclude I do maintain that every person who hath no other support of his Faith but Miracles is a false Believer I have said it elsewhere Miracles are not designed principally to prove Truth they are appointed above
of the Roman Doctors They oppress you with Sophisms to convince you that there ought to be a Judge an infallible Interpreter of Scripture a Church that cannot err Answer them in one word Although all this which you say should be true it would be no advantage to you we must seek this Church and this infallible Interpreter elsewhere for 't is certain you have erred I come to the second sence viz. That the Scripture makes a Light which renders the Church visible because it shews with the Finger the Roman Church as the true Church to the exclusion of all others Now this is a Falshood sensible to all the World the Holy Scripture speaks not one word of the Church of Rome or of her Infallibility 'T is true there is an Epistle addressed to the Church of Rome but St. Paul so little thought of her as infallible that he speaks to her as a Church that would fall or at least as one that might be cut off from the true Olive and from the root of Jesus Christ There remains only the third sence in which your Converters can say that the Scripture forms a Light which makes the Church of Rome visible 'T is that the Doctrine of the Scripture is found perfectly conformable to that of the Church of Rome That is it which they must say if they will say any thing that is solid for the truth is that there is not any mark of the Church but this viz. Her conformity to the Holy Scripture Let alone therefore all this pretended heap of Marks of the Church which are either false or equivocal and keep you close to this alone Tell your Converters if you will make your Church visible to me let me see it conformable to the Scripture and 't is there you will reduce them to Extremities 'T is here that we have an evident proof that Popery is an Antichristian Religion Behold a proof to which all the subtilty of Hell can never oppose any thing we say then every Society and every Religion which hath nothing conformable with the Law of Jesus Christ is not the true Religion now Popery hath nothing conformable to the Law of Jesus Christ therefore it hath nothing of Christianity I intreat you to give attention to this If a Sect of the Turks calling themselves Mahometans had nothing among them like to the Alcoran which is the Law of Mahomet would you not tell them that they lie If the Jews calling themselves Jews should re-establish a Worship which hath nothing like the Worship prescribed by Moses would any one endure that they should say they were of the Religion of Moses Every Religion hath its Books and every Sect to shew that 't is of such a Religion ought to prove its conformity with those Books Common sence say thus If therefore Popery have nothing at all like the Writings of Christians 't is clear that 't is not Christianity Now this is it which we take for granted and which we are ready to prove before all sorts of Judges even Jews and Pagans viz. That Popery hath no conformity with the Scripture which is the common Law of Christians To be convinced of this my Brethren first separate Christianity from Popery in the Roman Church and don 't suffer yourselves to be blinded by what your Converters say unto you Are not we Christians Do we not believe one God in three Persons one Jesus crucified for the sins of men one Resurrection one Paradise and one Hell Does not the Scripture teach all this Is not our Religion therefore conformable to Revelation Answer them thereon Yea you are Christians in all that you believe with us but you are Antichristians in that wherein you believe without us These points whereof you speak are in the Scripture 't is true but 't is my Religion rather than yours 't is Christianity whereof 't is true I acknowledge you have preserved the Fundamentals But this makes nothing for your Religion which is Popery it makes nothing for Purgatory Invocation of Saints Adoration of Images and Reliques the Sacrifice of the Mass the Adoration of the Sacrament the Latine Tongue in the Worship of God a Communion without the Cup a Head of the Church besides Jesus Christ Behold Popery and 't is that which we maintain hath no conformity with the Scripture Indeed when your Converters will prove their Doctrines by the Scripture it seems they have renounced common Sence as well as Faith and Honesty To understand this there is no need to examine any Books of Controversie as they would fain perswade you there needs no more but eyes to open and read them For Example When they endeavour to prove the Pope is the Soveraign Head of the Church the Center of Unity the Mouth that utters Oracles and him to whom we must adhere if we will be saved and they produce to us for the whole proof these words Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not feed my sheep When say I they produce this and produce nothing else to prove the most important point of Popery which is the Authority of the Pope I do maintain that he must be stricken with a Spirit of Blockishness to regard it as proof He must I dare say be abandoned to a Spirit of Reprobation to suppose that the Scripture that tells us of Pastors and Teachers as Guides of the Church should not speak one word of this great Office of Pope and Soveraign Pastor When for the Sacrifice of the Mass propitiatory for the living and the dead they produce to us as proof from the holy Scriptures these Texts Melchizedeck offered bread and wine they shall offer to my Name a pure sacrifice from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same Soveraign wisdom hath prepared her victuals and mingled her wine We have an Altar of which they have no right to partake which serve the Tabernacle Do this in remembrance of me When say I they produce these passages for the intire proof of the Sacrifice of the Mass are you not tempted to believe they do not speak in good earnest for nothing seems more opposite to sound sense To prove that we must invocate Saints they refer us to those words of Jacob The Angel which delivered me from all evil keep the lads and those of Eliphaz to Job And to which of the Saints wilt thou turn thy self that is to say of the Saints which are upon Earth and those of Daniel Have mercy upon Israel for the sake of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. To prove that we must prostrate our selves before Images and worship Reliques they produce those words of God to Moses Pluck off thy shoes for the place where thou standest is holy ground and those of David Worship before his footstool and those of St. Paul to Timothy From thy childhood thou hast learnt the holy Scriptures Here is nothing to be laught at
Martyrdom of M. Charpentier of Rufac in Angoulmois 16 Letter Concerning the Invocation of the Blessed Virgin It s Original and in what Age. An Answer to the New Converts about Schism The Martyrdom of M. Barbut at Nismes Confessours sent to the Western Isles A Letter of M. Guirant Confessor of Nismes The Martyrdom of M. Mollieres A false Alarm about a Massacre at Nismes 17 Letter Three Proofs of the Novelty of the Invocation of Saints An Answer to the New Converts about Schism The Martyrdom of M. du Cross Other Confessours M. Chantguion and Chemer Martyrs and Confessors of Vassey A Letter of Madam de V. The Confession of Jane Balle in the County of Charollois 18 Letter An Answer to Soulier the Priest about a pretended Conspiracy at Montpazier 19 Letter Concerning the Original of the Worship of Images The Corruption of the Head and Members in Popery did force and constrain our Separation M. Matthew de Durass a Confessor M. the Baron of Verliac and Madam his Wife sent to America and drowned A Letter from Cadez concerning the Confessours sent to the Islands 20 Letter Concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass in the fourth and fifth Ages A Description of the Corruption of Popery A Confession of M. de Cross his Doughters The famous Martyrdom of M. Menuret The Cruelties of Rapine The young Women Whipt 21 Letter The Faith of the fourth and fifth Ages about the Eucharist An Apology for our Reformers Father Paul the Venetian his Reasons why he did not break with the Church of Rome 22 Letter The Faith of the fourth and fifth Ages about the Eucharist Concerning the perpetual Visibility of the Church M. de Lalo M. de la Pierre M. de Saint Cross M. de Beauregard M. de Bardonnanche Confessors of Dauphine M. de Lis a Martyr of Dauphine 23 Letter The Sacrament was not Adored in the fourth and fifth Ages An Answer to the Confequences of the perpetual Visibility of the Church A Letter of the Vicar-General of St. Malo concerning the Effects of the Thunder which fell into the Church An Accident happening to the Host on Corpus Christi Day at Paris The Burning of the great Church at Rochel Thunder falling on divers Churches Confessours drowned at Martinique 24 Letter The Church of Rome hath neither Tradition nor Conformity with the Scripture which make it visible to the Vulgar Aug. 15th 1687. AN APPENDIX Containing A NARRATION OF THE WARS and SLAUGHTERS Occasioned by the Jesuits and Missionaries in Aethiopia FOR THE Promoting and Establishing their Religion there AND Some brief ACCOUNT OF THE Late Persecution in Hungary IN the beginning of the precedent Age James Alvarez a Priest of Portugal brought Letters from David the King of Aethiopia to Pope Clement the Seventh He found him at Bolonia with the Emperour Charles the Fifth and gave him those Letters which promised Obedience to him on the part of the King of Aethiopia This Promise of Homage coming from the South was very acceptably received by Clement the Seventh who saw all the West ready to revolt and shake off the Yoak of the Roman Church The Letters of King David to the Pope which are certainly very submissive are yet to be seen but at present the Aethiopians pretend that James Alvarez was an Impostor and a Cheat who falsified the Civilities of the Emperour and interpreted his Letters wholly otherwise than they signified in the Original because Obedience to the Pope and the Terms wherein they are expressed were utterly unknown in Aethiopia at that time John Bermudes came to Rome at the same time to desire assistance from the Pope against the Inhabitants of the Kingdom of Adel. The Pope received and treated him with great kindness and furnish'd the Abyssines which were at Rome with what was necessary for their entertainment and to imprint Bibles and Littanies in their own Language All these Civilities were so many Snares to make them fall by an intire submission to the Bishop of Rome and oblige them to embrace the Romish Religion Ignatius Loyola the Founder of the Order of Jesuits earnestly sollicited a Commission to go and labour in what they call the Conversion of this Great Empire He could not obtain it but it was given to John Barrett a Jesuit with the title of Patriarch of the Abyssines This Barrett took or received for a Companion Andrew Oviedo with the title of Bishop They both embarqued in Portugal for the Indies to the end that they might pass from thence into Aethiopia King Claudius had succeeded to David his Father The Patriarch and his Suffragan Bishop would not venture themselves with this new King without knowing of what spirit and humour he was They sent three Jesuits James Dias Goncal Rodrighes and Friar Fulgentius Freyra to get intelligence concerning him they came and were received with sufficient kindness by the King of Aethiopia But he learnt that the King of Portugal sent him these men and prepared others to instruct him and his people in the Roman Religion this affrighted him He stood in doubt a long time betwixt the fear that he had that these new Evangelists and Converters should trouble both Church and State and that of offending the King of Portugal of whose friendship he thought he had need He had divers Conferences with them the sum whereof on the part of the Portugese was That if the Abyssines would be saved they must acknowledge the Pope for the Vicar of Jesus Christ and submit to him under that Character and Title But the Abyssines answered That it was an Affair which could not be concluded without consulting the other Patriarchs At last King Claudius permitted that the other Priests of Portugal should come and promised to receive them kindly The Patriarch John Barrett nevertheless durst not hazard his Patriarchal Dignity upon the Word of the King. He continued in the Indies and sent the Bishop Andrew Oviedo accompanied with five Priests of that Society The King of Aethiopia received them very civilly and permitted them to perform Divine Offices according to the Roman Church yea it was permitted to all to joyn themselves to the Communion of the Church of Rome But Oviedo not content with that was very importunate with the King to oblige him to submit himself to the Pope He answered That his Ancestors had never acknowledged other Superiour in holy things than the Successors of St. Mark that is to say the Patriarch of Alexandria This is worthy of observation and makes it apparent that Alvarez exceeded his Commission when he came to yield obedience and submission to the Pope in the name of David the Father of Claudius For the Son could not have said that his Ancestors had never acknowledged any other than the Successors of St. Mark if very lately his Father had designed to submit to the Bishop of Rome and did actually do it Oviedo presses the business Claudias obstinately refuses At last he consented to Conferences in which the Jesuits had great
advantage upon the Abyssines because they were very ignorant But King Claudias interposing therein had almost as much advantage on the Missionaries of Portugal as they had on the Ecclesiasticks of Aethiopia because he was without comparison the most able man of his Kingdom as well in Divinity as in the Art of Government Oviedo seeing that he got nothing by these ways resolved to employ those which were more violent He left the Court to testifie his displeasure and published a Writing injurious to the Abyssine Church in which he accused it of many Heresies and forbad the Portugese to have any Communion with it The King was angry also on his part but a little while after he was slain in a Battel and left his Brother Adamus Saghed Successor to his Realm This Prince used more rigour against Oviedo and his Companions he revoked all those Acts of Grace which his Predecessors had granted to them He forbad them upon pain of death to trouble his Estates by their new Gospel The Bishop withdrew to Fremone upon the Frontiers of the Kingdom and there abode thirty years with the Portugese under the Title of the Patriarch of the Abyssines which he took after the death of John Barrett Adam Saghed died and his Son Malec Saghed succeeded him He treated the Portugese more kindly and they being reformed by the correction they had received acted more wisely and with greater moderation Nevertheless this Mission was extinct because they had no way of sending Successors the Turks having possessed the Ports of the Red-Sea which gave admission into Aethiopia And the Portugese which would have converted all the Nation were found without Priests to give them the Communion But in the beginning of this Age in the year 1604. a Jesuit named Peter Pais was more happy than all those who had preceded them He entered into Aethiopia and made himself admired by an Ability which although it were but very indifferent seemed extraordinary among people which knew nothing He came to the Court of Zadengel who was then King of Aethiopia and managed him so well that he obtained an express Promise from him that he would submit to the Pope and the Religion of the Romans This Prince began with an Ordinance which forbad the observation of Saturday or the Sabbath which the Abyssines venerate as the Lord's Day The Great Men of the Realm being provoked by this Enterprize conspired against him and slew him after a Battel in which he was not successful Behold already the death of one King which Papery caused in Aethiopia This death cost the Jesuit Converters nothing on the contrary they found in Susneus the Successor of Zadengel a Protector much more proper to make the Minister of their Violence Susneus permitted himself to be managed by these Missionaries of Portugal in such a manner that they prevailed with him to declare openly that he would change the Religion of the Country and submit the Abyssine Church to the Pope He wrote concerning it to Clement the Eighth and to Philip King of Spain who was then also King of Portugal Many Great Lords of the Court and Officers of the Army out of complaisance to their King embraced the Religion of the Romans and communicated with them Susneus having received many kind Letters from Paul the Fifth writ to him again another Letter dated the 31th of January 1613. by which he acknowledges him for Pastor of the Universal Church and desires his assistance to confirm his Religion This Prince guided by the Jesuits to the end that they might do things a little in form caused many Conferences to be held upon the Question of the two Natures in Christ Jesus For the Aethiopians following the Schism of Eutyches acknowledge in him but one But the truth is there is at this day nothing but a dispute of words thereon for the Eutychians acknowledge the Divinity and Humanity in Christ Jesus but it pleases them to say this Union makes but one Nature compounded of two as the Body and Soul in Man make but one Compound so that 't is certain that we may very well give our selves indulgence therein but 't is not of the Spirit of Popery to tollerate any thing The King at the sollicitations of the Jesuits made an Edict by which he ordained That henceforward they should believe two Natures in Christ Jesus The Abyssine Monks which fell in the Dispute sustained themselves in their ignorance with obstinacy in their Opinion but one of them having spoken a little too freely was brought before the King and was beaten with a stirrup-leather Behold the Spirit of Popery which began to discover it self without disguise This first Violence awakened their sleeping Spirits Simeon the Metropolitan of the Abyssines came to Court he complains That without consulting him they had done such things upon Religion The King answered That for his satisfaction there should yet be a Conference on that subject The consequence was that after the Conference the Jesuits obtained an Edict by which it was forbidden on pain of death to say there was but one Nature in Christ Jesus This frightful Decree was a clap of Thunder which seemed to reduce the whole Empire of the Abyssines into powder and Aethiopia knew then by experience what Evils the Spirit of Popery drew along with it all the Realm was alarmed and the most moderate lost their moderation and considered that in truth the Controversie about two Natures in Christ in the estate in which now it was was of no importance but that such a severity was unheard of in Aethiopia since the times of the Apostles and that it was wholly opposite to the nature of the Christian Religion for which Religion they concluded they must not suffer such Violence Jamanaxus Brother by the Mothers side of the Emperour puts himself at the head of a very powerful Confederation into which many great Lords entered with all the Church-men and a great part of the People The Metropolitan Simeon who strove less against the two Natures in Jesus Christ than for his Dignity which they would have taken from him in favour of him whom it should please the Pope to name excommunicated all those which followed the Religion of the Franks for so they call the Religion of the Romans This boldness caused some fear to the Emperour he grew a little moderate and made another Edict in which he gave Liberty of Conscience to all his Subjects and in all appearance he had continued so to do if he had followed his own Inclinations But at the instigation of the Jesuits he returned to more violent Counsels The Queen-Mother the Metropolitan the Church-men and the Monks threw themselves at his feet in favour of the ancient Religion but he rejected them all with violence so that there was no more hopes of Peace Jamanaxus the King's Brother Elias his Son-in-Law Governour of the Province of Tygris with a great Party resolved to oppose the Violence by force The Metropolitan
renews his Excommunications the Sword-men take Arms Aelius commands all the Portugese to go out of the Province whereof he was Governour they came to blows The Party of the King and the Jesuits was the stronger Aelius was slain Simeon the Metropolitan was taken whom they beheaded they made a great Butchery among the People but Jamanaxus was pardoned Behold already how much Bloud hath been shed by Popery But things will not continue there The Jesuits and their King puft up with the success of their Victory proceed to a new Reformation The Prince forbad them the observation of the Saturday-Sabbath and commanded that they should labour on that day upon the penalty of confiscating their Goods for the second Offence 'T is indeed an affair sufficiently small about which it were very possible to have given a tolleration but Popery understands not the meaning of that word they severely chastised for an Example one named Buc a person very eminent in the Kingdom for his Military Employments This new severity gave occasion of a revolt to one named Jonael Vice-Roy of Bageindra All the Court the women and the Favourites interposed in this affair a little to soften and bend the Spirit of the King but the Jesuits prevailed upon him He would not comply with their Perswasions So they came a second time to war Jonael was beaten many times and withdrew from the Kingdom This did not affright others Those of the Province of Damos took Arms for the ancient Religion The Hermites which are there in great abundance were willing to signalize themselves in this Holy War. Nevertheless their Party was beaten but there was great effusion of Bloud on both sides Behold the ordinary Methods by which Popery arrives at Empire After these repeated Victories which cost the King of Aethiopia great part of his Subjects he accomplished his design The Jesuites by his Authority intirely overturned the Religion and Church of the Abyssines all gave way either to seduction or violence They swore Fidelity and Obedience to Urban the Eighth the Pope sent there a Roman Patriarch all those who would not obey were severely chastised The new Patriarch passed through the Kingdom baptizing and confirming an infinite number of persons They established Seminaries of the Children of the Abyssines and Portuguese In one word Popery by its ordinary ways which are violence and the sword became master of all Abyssinia One named Tecla Georgius another Son-in-law of the King put himself at the head of the Malecontents which were in great number but the fortune of the Jesuites did yet accompany the King in this Affair Tecla Georgius was slain and his Sister hanged on a Tree because she had spoken a little too freely against the Rites of the Latine Church The Patriarch Alphonsus Mendez a Jesuit knew not how to use his good Fortune but believing that henceforward he might abandon himself without constraint to that spirit of Tyranny which hath its seat at Rome ill intreated all the great Men of the Court excommunicated the prime Officers of the Kingdom for things which were not Ecclesiastical he domineer'd over all with so much insolence that at length the King himself and all the Courtiers opened their eyes upon the conduct of these new Tyrants Rebellions were renewed in most part of the Provinces Battels were fought and blood spilt under the Authority of the King who was still abused by Popery But a certain person called Ras Seelax a great Favourite of the King 's and a great Protecter of Popery having lost his Reputation the Affairs of the Jesuites and Popery sunk and fell into decay thereby The King being tired by the Troubles which these new Evangelists brought to him every day by their Rigours and seeing that the Hydra of Rebellion after it lost one head found a hundred began very much to abate of his rigour and granted liberty to whosoever would use it to preserve and observe the ancient Religion This goodness of the Prince which agreed very well with natural Equity displeased these imperious Masters they made violent opposition thereunto but favour continued no longer on their side the same Prince which had abolished the ancient Religion doth re-establish it or rather permits that it should be re-established after ten or twelve years interruption Susneus dies a little while after This Protector of the Religion newly established being dead Popery tumbled with haste and violence towards ruine They repaid to the Jesuites the cruelty they had used they took away their Churches and Goods and drove them out of the Kingdom They tried all ways they set their Friends and Creatures on work they intreated they desired the help of Arms and Souldiers from Goa for their Defence but all to no purpose The Patriarch Alphonsus Mendez was put into the hands of the Turks from whence he was redeemed with Money but his Companions the Jesuites Almeyda Father Hyacynthus Lewis Cardyra and many others were hanged as Disturbers of the publick Peace The Congregation for the Propagation of Faith were willing to attempt the Recovery of this brave Kingdom which they had lost they send six Capuchines to try if they could pass once again into Aethiopia but two of them died by the hand of the Cafres two were stoned in Aethiopia the other two returned without doing any thing In conclusion three other Capuchines were willing to make another attempt they came ashore at Suaquene a Port of the Red-sea possessed by the Turks from thence they wrote to the King of Aethiopia as if it had been a thing grateful to him that they were there ready to pass into his Country as soon as he should furnish them with necessary Accommodations For answer Basilides who was then King of Aethiopia after his Father Susneus writ to the Turkish Bassa who commanded the place that he would do him the kindness to send him the Heads of those three Franks This was done they cut off their heads they flead off their skins which they filled with Hay and sent them to Basilides So these poor miserable Wretches bore the punishment of all the Blood which the Jesuites and Popery had shed in the Kingdom of the Abyssines This History as it seems to me is very proper to shew that in all places as well as in all Ages the spirit of Popery is the occasion of Trouble Confusion Tyranny and Persecution and God did permit that Popery should prosecute its usual methods in Aethiopia as elsewhere to hinder the Abyssine Church from continuing under the Papal Tyranny For if these Emissaries of the Court of Rome had proceeded with more Moderation and spared Blood and offered no Violence to the Consciences of men without doubt Popery had this day been regnant among the Abyssines The Liberty of the Reformed Churches of Hungary was established upon very good Foundations the Kings of that Country had granted to the Protestants divers Declarations by which the exercise of the Reformed Religion was permitted in all places On
the year 1606 was made the Treaty called the Pacification between Rodolphus Emperour and King of Hungary and Stephen Bothskey Kis-ma-ria The first Article whereof grants That the Reformed Hungarians should not in any thing be troubled in the exercise of their Religion and that all the Churches taken from them during the Troubles should be restored to them All the Kings of Hungary which have been since Matthias Ferdinand the Second and Ferdinand the Third have confirmed these Priviledges by their Declarations To conclude the present Emperour in the year 1655 when he was crowned King of Hungary confirmed by an express Declaration all that his Predecessours had done The eleventh Article of that Declaration concedes That for the Conservation of Peace amongst all the Orders and States of Hungary the business of Religion shall remain free without receiving any Disturbance according to the Constitution of Vienna and the Articles published before the Coronation in such sort that the exercise of Religion shall be entirely free for the Barons Lords Nobles free Citizens and generally for all Estates and Orders of Hungary as also for the Towns and Villages which will embrace it so that no person of what estate or condition soever may be hindered by his Majesty or other Temporal Lords in any manner or under any pretence whatsoever from the free use and exercise of the said Religion Things were in this estate in the year 1671 when a Jesuite named George Barze Titular Bishop of Warradine calling himself Counsellour to his Imperial Majesty published a Book with this Title Truth declared to all the World which makes it appear by three Arguments that his Imperial Majesty is not obliged to Tollerate the Lutheran and Calvinist Sect in Hungary It is easie to understand what a Work of this Title that has a Jesuite for its Author doth contain The design thereof was to justifie the Persecutions which had been already made against the Protestants of Hungary as well as those they were preparing to make For already a long time before the publication of this Writing some particular Lords had set up for cruel Persecutors Among others Francis Nadasti Paul Esthersiazy and many others at the instigation of the Priests and Jesuites had employed both fire and sword they had massacred the Reformed in their Churches hanged them up on the bars of their Church-doors and many others they had thrown head-long from Turrets The Arch-bishops Bishops and Popish Gentlemen had thus used them and also pulled down the Churches in the Countries which held and depended on them The free Cities and those who depended only on the Emperour were exempt from this storm but they shall have their turn on the occasion following Many great Hungarian Lords of the Popish Religion as the Nadasties the Serinies the Frangipanes joyn themselves to Francis Rakotsqui and took Arms against the Emperour for private Quarrels The Troops of Austria on this occasion entred into Hungary on the year 1670 and defeated these Rebels The Arch-bishops Bishops and Jesuites of Hungary thought they must not let slip the opportunities they now had to persecute the Protestants They served themselves of these insolent victorious Troops in all the free Cities to do the same Violences which had been done by particular Lords against the Reformed Without form of Process they took away their Churches they banished the Ministers they put them in Prison they massacred a great number they charged the People and even the Nobility with Taxes Souldiers and Garisons they offered a thousand and a thousand Violences to oblige people to change their Religion All the Ecclesiasticks every one by himself acted like unbridled Furies The Prisons were filled with these miserable Wretches the Churches were razed every-where in the most places there were horrible Massacres and even whole Villages burnt because they were wholly inhabited by Protestants they hung the Ministers at the Doors of their Churches There was one named John Baki a Minister of the Church of Comana who was burnt At Cassovia and Posonium they put to death a great number of persons of all Sexes of all Ages and all Qualities They banished all those whom they dare not kill In one word all Hungary became a place like Hell for the Reformed where death punishments and torments presented themselves every-where before their eyes To give some colour of Justice to these Violences they established a Chamber at Posonium made up of all such as were found most cruel Enemies to the Protestants They summon'd the people before they summon'd their Pastors hoping that they would fall the more easily by the Temptation and that fear would cause them to change their Religion those which appeared and supported themselves on their innocency were cast into Prisons oppressed with Fines persecuted after a hundred manners and constrained at last to change their Religion To those which had courage enough not to renounce the Truth they presented a Writing to be subscribed by which they made them promise they would forsake their Pastors that they would not protect them and that they would not oppose the Priests in taking possession of their Churches On which Condition they promised to let them live in peace in hope and expectation that the Spirit would enlighten and Convert them Some fell and made their subscriptions others perished through misery famine and torments in the prisons When they had thus subdued and abused the people they turn themselves to their Pastors they established three Chambers of Justice the one at Tinew and two at Posonium before whom they summoned at first a small number of Pastors of the Confession of Ausburgh They appeared to the number of thirty two or thirty three the 25th of September 1673 they presented them a Writing to be subscribed importing That it was their will and pleasure that they should say that to escape the sentence which might be pronounced against them for their Rebellion they did consent to one of these three things Either to Renounce all exercise of their Office for ever and to live as good Subjects privately in the Realm or to go voluntarily into Exile with promise never to return again into the Estates of the Emperour or to embrace the Catholick Religion in which case they might remain in the Kingdom and enjoy all sorts of Advantages there The providence of God permitted this unjust and altogether unrighteous procedure to the end that these poor accused persons might have an opportunity to justifie themselves from the Crime of Rebellion whereof they were accused Is it so that men used to proceed against those that are Traytors And has it been usual to punish them with a voluntary Exile or by a simple Renunciation of their Offices and Charges They did all that they could to oblige the Pastors to subscribe this Writing and the most part of them fearing death did subscribe confessing themselves culpable though they were innocent and went voluntarily into Banishment Section This attempt having succeed sufficiently well
being made by men Behold an admirable Divine which believes that a man can make a God and do a Miracle if I may so say that exhausts all the Divine Power To conclude to these three or four words of St. Austin That none eats the flesh of Jesus Christ before he hath adored it we ought to oppose what he says in the third Book concerning the Christian Doctrine †De Doctr. Christ lib. 3. cap. 9. That every one knows the Sacrament of Baptism and the celebration of the Body and Bloud of our Lord that 't is well known whereunto they have respect and that they are reverenced not by a servitude i.e. after a carnal manner but by a spiritual liberty Here St. Austin desires that we give to Baptism the same honour as to the Sacrament of the Eucharist We must confess if St. Austin did adore the Sacrament we ought to make no scruple therein we owe him this complaisance for that he hath spoken as absolutely concerning it as our selves For during the space of two hundred years past there hath not been either Zuinglian or Calvinist which hath spoken more boldly or more clearly against the Real Presence and Transubstantiation If this suffice not to know what kind of Worship was given to the Eucharist we must learn it from the History of matters of fact We learn from Mr. de Valois in his Notes upon Eusebius ‖ Euseb lib. 7. cap. 9. Hist Eccles That the Believers which were to communicate approached the Altar and there received the Body of Jesus Christ from the hand of the Priest standing upright and not on their knees as at this day The Author has passed for a good Roman Catholick he is learned and he is a Modern Writer so that he wants nothing to give him an authority in the hearts of the New Converts who refer themselves much more concerning Religion to what their new Authors speak of it then to what is said thereof by those that are more ancient And indeed how could they communicate otherwise than standing since they prayed standing on the Lords day and the fifty days which are from Easter to Whitsontide in memory of the Resurrection When they were ready to consecrate they put out the Catechumens i.e. well nigh half the Christians is it probable that they would deprive them of the comfort of adoring their Saviour if it had been then the custom of adoring him in the Sacrament In those Ages they did communicate Infants and how could they exact Adoration before the Manducation since Infants are not capable of performing an Act of Adoration I may also reckon amongst those Articles concerning which there was no change in the fourth and fifth Ages that of Purgatory For the opinion of a separate place where Souls were to be kept till the day of Judgment without seeing the face of God but without suffering any thing there was the Opinion of the greatest men of those Ages of St. Ambrose St. Chrysostom St. Hillary St. Jerome and under names so great it may not be doubted but it was the prevailing Opinion 'T was the third place of the Christians that then were but as yet there were but few footsteps of a fourth place seen 'T is true that in these Ages a man may shew you some passages of Gregory Nyssen and even some of St. Jerome which speak of a Purgation of Sins which ought to be made after death by the means of a Penal Fire But this is not the Purgatory of Popery 't is that of Origen according to whom we have seen that all intelligent Creatures without excepting Devils and wicked men who die impenitently ought to be recovered and re-established Originism did not die with Origen and many famous Fathers of the fourth Age were infatuated with it Those which know the History of the Quarrels between St. Chrysostom and Epiphanius are not ignorant thereof I think indeed that few men did then dare to maintain the Opinion of Origen crude as he left it touching the future salvation of the Devils and the damned But many endeavoured to soften and smooth it and said at least Christians who died in the profession of the Faith but without Holiness and Repentance would one day be recovered 'T is without doubt that this Opinion mitigated and softned was one step which made the Church fall into the Error of Purgatory For after they had restrained those that were to be purged by a Penal Fire to such as died without Holiness and Repentance by little and little they restrained them to such who dying without Repentance had not satisfied the Canonical Penances of the Church St. Austin was not of the opinion of those who believed that ill Christians dying without repentance were to be purged by fire nevertheless he thought it probable * Enchir. cap. 67 that those who had too much affection for temporal good things during the space of this Life after death would be afflicted with grief for the loss of them and that this would serve them for a Castigation Nevertheless he proposes this but as a doubtful conjecture It is not incredible says he †Enchir. cap. 69. but that something of like nature happens after death and it may be disputed whether it be so that some Believers shall be saved sooner or later by a purging fire according as they have more or less loved these perishing good things By this Purgative Fire or Purgatory he understands nothing but the grief of being deprived of these perishing things And this is that which he means in the same Book ‖ Enchir. cap. 109. That during the whole space of time between a mans death and the last Resurrection Souls are in hidden Receptacles according as they are worthy of repose or misery with respect to what they have been during this life A man cannot deny but this is Purgatory in its birth but it was not as yet believed and received of all the Church nor hath it been received nor perfected any where but in the Latin Church Behold that which I have to tell you concerning the changes happening in Doctrines and Worship I will not pass on to the following Ages because 't is not my design to give you a compleat History of all the changes which have happened in the Church for 1700 years I only desire to confound the boldness of Monsieur de Meaux and such-like which dare to affirm that Christianity in their hands is in the same estate in which it was when it passed from the Apostles to their immediate Successors and that time hath changed nothing that is essential in the Doctrine and Worship of the Church that insensible changes whereof some men speak to you are but Dreams Behold say I enough to ruine these rash affirmations of your Converters for from this short History which I have given you of the Doctrine and Worship of the Church for the space of 500 years it appears 1. That during these five Ages
there has happened very considerable and essential alterations since that in this time men have overwhelmed Religion by an infinite multitude of vain Ceremonies which have degenerated into Superstitions that they have introduced the criminal Worship of Creatures that they have established the distinctions of Powers and Tribunals which at last have destroyed the true Authority of the Holy Scripture 2. It appears by that which we have shewn to you that far greater changes have yet happened since the fifth Age than had happened before for seeing that in these Ages men knew neither Transubstantiation nor the Real Presence nor the Adoration of the Sacrament nor the Worship of Images nor Purgatory nor the Sacrifice of the Mass nor the Communion under One Kind nor the Soveraign Authority of the Pope all these points being at this day fundamental Articles of Popery 't is unavoidable that since that time there have happened great changes and alterations And to prove the truth thereof against the illusion of the impossibility of insensible changes you have nothing to do my Brethren but to serve your selves of the Proofs which we have put into your hands and say In the fifth Age the Real Presence was not believed 't is believed at this day they did not adore the Sacrament they adore it now they did not worship Images they do worship them at present therefore a change is happened To convince your Converters of the possibility of changes in things that are essential serve your selves only of the Example of Masses without Communicants They will not dare to deny that this is not a thing wholly unknown to all Antiquity And I dare tell you that if they had seen a Priest communicate alone in the Mysteries they would have believed the Spirit of Reprobation were fallen upon the whole Assembly * Canon 10. of Apost decret de Gratian de consecrat Dist 2. Canon per acta distinct 1. Canon Episcopus It was not so much as permitted to assist when they did not communicate and the Regulations thereof are yet found in their Canon-Law nevertheless 't is an important affair if there be any such in Popery For 't is a frightful difference that a Feast instituted to be eaten in common by all the Believers should be changed into a Spectacle where all the Devotion of the People consists in seeing without eating and without understanding Besides thereon depends the question concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass for if it be a true Sacrifice they have some reason to say that 't is not always necessary that the Faithful eat thereof But that the Ancients did never permit any to assist at the Mysteries without participation in them is an evident proof that they did not then look on them as a Sacrifice the efficacy whereof depends upon the Oblation but as a Sacrament the whole efficacy whereof depends upon the reception An Article of Controversie An Examination of the two last false Consequences which the Papists draw from the perpetual Visibility of the Church IN our preceding Letter we have explained how the Church is Visible and always Visible and we have refuted one of the Consequences which the Converters draw from thence behold another of them unto which it behoves us to answer The Church say they is always Visible therefore 't is necessary that she should always have had a Succession of lawful Pastours This is designed to make you confess 1. That the Pastours of the Church of Rome are lawful Pastours and always have been so 2. And by consequence that we are separated from lawful Pastours and a lawful Ministery To this answer That from this that the Church is always Visible it doth indeed follow that there hath always been true Preaching in some points i. e. in fundamental Articles in like manner that it doth follow that there hath been always true Pastors in some things and in some respect but it doth not follow that the Ministery which is legitimate in some things is so in every thing for you must know that the Ministery depends only upon the Doctrine If the Christian Doctrine be wholly corrupt and annihilated in a Society the Ministery is null'd nor is there any thing lawful there If the Doctrine be pure and Christian in all its parts the Ministery is intirely legitimate in all respects To conclude if the Doctrine be partly Christian and partly Antichristian the Ministery is partly lawful and partly unlawful This is the condition of the Ministery of the Church of Rome in that Church there is Christianity and Antichristianity Christianity in the Creeds and Antichristianity in the superstitions and Idolatrous Additions The Pastors of that Church receive Commission to preach both Christianity and Antichristianity the Ministery is legitimate in that they receive Commission to preach Christianity their Ministery and their Mission is wholly illegitimate in that they receive Commission to preach Antichristianity 'T is null for we can do nothing against the Truth If you well understand this you will easily answer the question proposed unto you Why do you Separate from a true and lawful Ministery Answer we do not separate from the Ministery of the Roman Church in that which it teaches of Truth in the preaching of the three Creeds nor in that which it hath of Lawful In this respect we are united for we are in the same Doctrine and by consequence in the same Ministery We are not separate from the Ministery of the Church of Rome but with respect to the Commission she gives her Pastors to make the Body of Jesus Christ and teach Idolatry now this part of her Ministery is null vain criminal and illegitimate The third false consequence which your Converters draw from the perpetual Visibility of the Church is That Jesus Christ will always teach with these visible Pastors If Monsieur de Meaux and those like him understand thereby that Jesus Christ ought to guide them by a Spirit of Infallibility the supposition is false and there is no necessity of adding any thing to make the Falseness thereof appear For I have proved that perpetual Visibility doth not signifie that the Church by remaining always visible must necessarily be always pure and infallible This is true in its Pastors as well as in its other Members for the Pastors have no priviledge of being infallible any more than the other parts of the Church If you desire that I should add something thereon it shall be only this 'T is that the Church is as a Man who after he hath been young and sound becomes old and diseased This Man is visible with his gray Hairs and his rotten Teeth and Wrinkles just as he was when he had his complexion fresh his colour lively the air of his countenance brisk vigorous In like manner the Church hath been young sound and pure in the Ages next to the Apostles by little and little she is grown old and at last is become deformed through corruption but