animated by that faith love and no otherwise And I desire to know What supplications they come to pour forth for themselves and others Their private devotions They may do that at home the doing of it in the Church is contrary to the Apostle's Rule Are they the publick prayers of the Church Alas the trumpet to them and of them gives an uncertain found They know not how to prepare themselves to the work Nor can they rightly say Amen when they understand not what is said So that for my part I understand not what is the business of Catholicks at Mass or how they can perform any part of their duty to God in it or at it But what if they understand of it nothing at all He adds 3. There is no need at all for the people to hear or understand the Priest when he speaks or prays and sacrifices to God on their behalf Sermons to the people must be made in the peoples language but prayers that are made to God for them if they be made in a language that God understands it is well enough This reason renders the others useless and especially shuts the first out of doors For certainly it is nothing to the purpose that the people understand somewhat if it be no matter whether they understand any thing at all or no. But I desire to know What prayers of the Priest they are which it mattâ—rs not whether the people hear or understand Are they his private devotions for them in his Closet or Cell which may be made for them as well when they are absent as present and in some respect better too These doubtless are not intended Are they any prayers that concern the Priest alone which he is to repeat though the people be present No nor these neither at least not only these But they are the prayers of the Church wherein the whole assembly ought to cry joyntly unto Almighty God part of that worship wherein all things are to be done to edification which they are in this and the Quakers silent meetings much alike Strange that there is no need that men should know or understand that which is their duty to perform and which if they do it not is not that which it pretends to be the worship of the Church Again if the people neither need hear nor understand what is spoken I wonder what they make there Can our Author find any Tradition for I am sure Scripture he cannot for the setting up of a dumb shew in the Church to edifie men by signs and gestures and words insignificant These are gallant attempts I suppose he doth not think it was so of old for sure I am that all the Sermons which we have of any of the Antients were preached in that very Language wherein they celebrated all divine worship so that if the people understood the Sermons as he sayes they must be made to them in a Language they understand I am sure they both heard and understood the worship of the Church also but Tempora mutantur and if it be enough that God understands the Language used in the Church we full well know there is no need to use any Language in it at all But to evidence the fertility of his invention our Author offers two things to confirm this wilde Assertion 1. That the Jews neither heard nor saw when their Priest went into the Sanctum Sanctorum to offer prayers for them as we may learn from the Gospel where the people stood without whilest Zacharias was praying at the Altar 2. Saint Paul at Corinth desired the prayers of the Romans for him at that distance who also then used a Language that was not used at Corinth These reasons it seems are thought of moment let us a little poize them For the first our Author is still the same in his discovery of skill in the Rites and Customs of the Judaical Church and being so great as I imagine it is I shall desire him in his next to inform us who told him that Zacharias entred into the Sanctum Sanctorum to pray when the people were without but let that pass By the institution and appointment of God himself the Priests in their Courses were to burn incense on the Altar of incense in a place separated from the people it being no part of the worship of the people but a Typical representation of the Intercession of Christ in heaven confined to the performance of the Priests by God himself ergo under the Gospel there is no need that the people should either learn or understand those prayers which God requires by them and amongst them This is civil Logick Besides I suppose our Author had forgot that the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews doth purposely declare how those Mosaical distances are now removed by Christ a free access being granted to Believers with their worship to the Throne of Grace But there is scarce a prettier fancy in his whole Discourse then his application of St. Paul's desiring the Romans to pray for him when he was at Corinth and so consequently the praying of all or any of the people of God for their absent friends or the whole Church to the business in hand especially as it is attended with the enforcement in the Close that they used a Language not understood at Corinth But because I write not to men who care not whether they hear or understand what is their duty in the greatest concernments of their souls I shall not remove it out of the way nor hinder the Reader from partaking in the entertainment it will afford him But our Author foreseeing that even those with whom he intends chiefly to deal might possibly remember that St. Paul had long ago stated this case in 1 Cor. 14. he findes it necessary to cast a Blind before them that if they will but fix their eyes upon it and not be at the pains to turn to their Bibles as it may be some will not he may escape that sword which he knows is in the way ready drawn against him and therefore tells us that if any yet will be obstinate and which after so many good words spent in this business he seems to marvel that they should and object what the Apostle there writes against praying and prophesying in an unknown Tongue he hath three Answers in a readiness for him whereof the first is that doubty one last mentioned namely That the prayers which the Apostle when he was at Corinth requested of the Romans for him was to be in an unknown Tongue to them that lived at Corinth when the only question is whether they were in an unknown Tongue to them that lived at Rome who were desired to joyn in those Supplications Surely this Argument that because we may pray for a man when and where he knows not and in a Tongue which he understands not that therefore the worship of a Church all assembled together in one place all to joyn
first from Superstition and the latter from being highly derogatory to the mediation of Christ both or either to have been known or practised in the first Churches he shall be attended unto To tell us fine Stories and to compare their invocation of Saints to the Psalmists Apostrophe's unto the works of the Creation to set forth the praise of the Lord which they do in what they are without doing more and to deny direct praying unto them is but to abuse himself his Church his Reader and the Truth and to proclaim to all that he is indeed ashamed of the Doctrine which he owns because it is not good or honest as the Orator charged Epicurus In the practice of his Church very many are the things which the Protestants are offended with Their Canonization framed perfectly after the manner of the old Heathen Apotheosis Their exalting men into the Throne of religious Worship some of a dubious existence others of a more dubious Saintship their Dedication of Churches Altars Shrines Dayes to them Their composing multitudes of Prayers for their people to be repeated by them Their divulging faigned ludicrous ridiculous Legends of their lives to the dishonour of God the Gospel the Saints themselves with innumerable other things of the like nature which our Author knoweth full well to be commonly practised and allowed in his Church These are the things that he ought to defend and make good their Station if he would invite others to a fellowship and Communion with him Instead of this he tells us that his Catholicks do not invocate Saints directly when I shall undertake what he knows can be performed to give him a Book bigger then this of his of Prayers allowed by his Church and practised by his Catholicks made unto Saints directly for help assistance yea grace mercy and heaven or desiring those things for their merit and upon their account which as I shewed are the two main parts of their doctrine condemned by Protestants I can quickly send him Bonaventure's Psalter Prayers out of the course of hours of the blessed Virgin our Ladies Antiphonies of her sorrows her seven corporeal joys her seven heavenly joyes out of her Rosary Prayers to St. Paul St. James Thomas Panoratius George Blase Christopher Who not all made directly to them and that for mercies spiritual and temporal and tel him how many years of indulgences yea thousands of years his Popes have granted to the saying of some of the like stamp and all these not out of musty Legends and the devotion of private Monks and Fryers but the Authentick Instruments of his Churches worship and Prayers Let our Author try whether he can justifie any of these opinions or practices from the words of the Lord in Jeremy Though Moses and Samuel should stand before me yet is not my Soul unto this people declaring his determinate counsel for their destruction not to be averted by Moses or Samuel were they alive again who in their dayes had stood in the gap and turned away his wrath that his whole displeasure should not arise or from the words of Moses praying the Lord to rememâ—er Abraham Isaac and Jacob his Servants which he immediately expounds as they are also in a hundred other places by remembring his Covenant made with them and the Oath he sware unto them these are pitiful poor Pillars to support so vast and tottering a Superstruction And yet they are all that our Author can get to give any countenance to him in his work which indeed is none at all Neither do we charge the Romanists with the particular fancies of their Doctors their Speculum Trinitatis and the like no nor yet with the grosser part of the people's practise in constituting their Saints in special presidentships one over Hoggs another over Sheep another over Cows and Cocks like the ruder sort of the antient Heathen which we know our Author would soon disavow but the known doctrine and approved practice of his whole Church he must openly defend or be silent in this cause hereafter This mincing of the matter by praying Saints not praying to them praying to them indirectly not directly praying them as David calls on Sun Moon and Stars to praise the Lord so praying to them as it is to no purpose whether they hear us or no is inconsistent with the doctrine and practise of his own Church to which he seemeth to draw men and not to any private opinion of his own And a wise piece of business it is indeed that our Author would perswade us that we may as well pray to Saints in the Roman-Mode as Paul desired the Saints that were then alive to pray for him We know it is the duty of living Saints to pray for one another we know a certain way to excite them to the performance of that duty in reference unto us we have Rule President and Command in the Scripture to do so the requests we make to them are no elicite acts of Religion we pray to them neither directly nor indirectly but desire them by vertue of our Communion with them to assist us in their prayers as we might ask an Alms or any other good turn at their hands I wonder wise men are not ashamed thus to dally with their own and others eternal concernments After all this at one breath he blows away all the Protestants as childish just as Pyrgopolenices did the Legions of his Enemies they are all childish Let him shew himself a man and take up any one of them as they are managed by any one learned man of the Church of England and answer it if he can If he cannot this boasting will little avail him with considering men I cannot close this Paragraph without marking one passage toward the close of it Laying down three Principles of the Saints Invocation whereof the first it self is true but nothing to his purpose the second is true in the substance of it but false in an addition of merit to the good works of the Saints and not one jot more to his purpose then the other the third is That God cannot dislike the reflexions of his divine Nature diffused in the Saints out of the fulness of his Beloved Son when any makes use of them the easier to find mercy in his sight These are good words and make a very handsome sound Wilt thou Reader know the meaning of them and withall discern how thy pretended Teacher hath colluded with thee in this whole Discourse The plain English of them is this God cannot but approve our pleading the merits of the Saints for our obtaining mercy with him A Proposition as destructive to the whole tenour of the Gospel and mediation of Jesus Christ as in so few words could well be stamped and divulged CHAP. XXI Purgatory SECT 28. WE are at length come to Purgatory which is the Pope's Indies his Subterranean Treasure-house on the Revenues whereof he maintains a hundred thousand fighting men so that it is not probable
brought no other Religion with him then what was taught by Peter and Paul and the rest of the Apostles and Evangelists in other parts of the World What Religion men taught vivâ voce in any age is best known by their Writings if they left any behind them No other way have the Romanists themselves nor other do they use in judging what was the Doctrine of the Fathers in the following ages The writings of the Apostles are still extant by them alone can we judge of the Doctrine that they preached That Doctrine then unquestionably taught Joseph in Brittain and that Doctrine blessed be God is still owned and professed amongst us All and only what is contained in their Writings is received with us as necessary to Salvation This Conversion was wholly ours Quod antiquissimum id verissimum Being the first it was certainly the best Our Author indeed tells us of Crosses Shrines Oratories Altars Monasteries Vigils Emberâ— honouring of Saints you must suppose all in the Roman-mode making Oblations and Orisons for the dead and that this was the Religion in those dayes planted amongst us If this be so I wonder what we do to keep the Bible which speaks not one word of that Religion which the Apostles and Apostolical men preached Strange that in all their writings they should not once mention the main parts and duties of the Doctrines and Worship which they taught and propagated that Paul in none of his Epistles should in the least give the Churches any direction in or concerning the things and ways wherein their Worship principally consisted and their Devotion was chiefly exercised but how comes our Author to know that these things in the Roman-mode were brought into England at the first entrance of Christianity Would he would give us a little Information from what Writings or Monuments of those times he acquired his knowledge I know it is unreasonable to put an Historian to his Oath but yet unless he can plead that he received his acquaintance with things that are so long past by inspiration as Moses wrote the Story of the Creation and Ages before the Floud being destitute of any other Monuments or Testimony that might give evidence to what he says I hope he will not be offended if we suspend our belief Solus enim hoc Ithacus nullo sub teste canebat This first conversion then as was said is wholly ours it neither came from Rome nor knew any thing of that which is the present Religion of Rome wherein they differ from us That which is tearmed our second Conversion is the Preaching of Damianus and Fugatius sent hither by Eleutherius Bishop of Rome in the dayes of King Lucius in the year 190. as our Author saith Beda 156. Nauclerus Baronius 178. Henricus de Erfordia 169. in the dayes of Aurelius or Commodus I have many reasons to question this whole Story And sundry parts of it as those about the Epistles of Lucius and Eleutherius are palpably fictitious But let us grant that about those dayes Fugatius and Damianus came hither from Rome and furthered the Preaching of the Gospel which had taking footing here so long before and was no doubt preserved amongst many We know God in his Providence used many various wayes for the propagating of his Gospel Sometimes he did it by Merchants sometimes by Souldiers sometimes by Captives as a poor Maid gave occasion to the Conversion of a whole Province What will hence ensue to the advantage of the pretensions of the Romanists The Religion they planted here was doubtless that and no other which was then professed at Rome and in most other places in the world with some small differences in outward observances wherein each Church took liberty to follow Traditions or Prudential Reasonings of its own When our Author or any for him can make it appear that any thing material in that which we call Popery was in those days taught believed preached or known among the Churches of Christ they will do somewhat to the purpose But the present flourish about the Catholick Faith planted here which no man ever denyed is to none at all It was the old Catholick Faith we at first received and therefore not the present Romish After those dayes wherein this Propagation of Christianity by the Ministry of Fugatius and Damianus in this Province is supposed to have fallen out a sad decay in faith and holiness of life befel Professors not only in this Nation but for the most part all the world over which especially took place after God had graciously in the Conversion of the Emperours to the Faith intrusted them with outward Peace and Prosperity I desire not to make naked their miscarriages whom I doubt not but in mercy God hath long since pardoned but it cannot be denyed that the Stories of those dayes are full of nothing more then the oppressions luxury and sloth of Rulers the Pride Ambition and unseemly scandalous contests for preheminence of Sees and extent of Jurisdiction among Bishops the sensuality and ignorance of the most of men In this season it was that the Bishop of Rome advantaged by the Prerogative of the City the antient Seat and Spring of the Empire began gradually to attempt a Super-intendency over his Brethren according as any advantages for that end which could not be wanting in the intestine Tumults and Seditions wherewith Christians were turmoyled offered themselves unto him Where-ever an opportunity could be spyed he was still interposing his Umpirage and Authority amongst them and that sometimes not without sinful Arâ—ifices and down-right forgeries wherein he was alwayes accepted or refused according as the Interest of them required with whom he had to do What the lives of Priests and People what their knowledge and profession of the Gospel of the poor Brittains especially in those dayes were our own Countrey-man Gildas doth sufficiently testifie and bewail Salvianus doth the same for other parts of the world And generally all the pious men of those ages whilst the Priests strove for Soveraignty and Power the people perished through ignorance and sensuality Neither can we possibly have a more full conviction of what was the state of Christians and Christianity in those dayes in the world than may be seen and read in the horrible Judgments of God wherewith he punished their wickedness and ingratitude When he could no longer bear the provocations of his people he stirred up those swarms of Northern Nations Goths Vandals Hunnes Franks Longobards Alans Saxons c. Some few of them Arians the most Pagans and poured them out upon the Western Empire to the utter ruine of it and the Division of the Provinces amongst themselves After a while these fierce cruel and barbarous Nations having executed the Judgments of God against the ungodliness of men seating themselves in the warmer Climates of those whom they had in part subdued in part exstirpated as is the manner of all persons in transmigration from one Countrey to another began to
he will ever be easily dispossessed of it This is the only root of Dirge though our Author flourishes as though it would grow on other stocks It is their Prayer for the dead which he so entitles and in the excellency of their Devotion in this particular he is so confident that he deals with us as the Orator told Q. Caecilius Hortensius would with him in the Case of Verres bid him take his option and make his choice of what he pleased and it should all turn to his disadvantage Hortensius by his eloquence would make any thing that he should fixe on turn to his own end He bids us on the matter chuse whether to think the souls they pray for to be in Heaven Hell or Purgatory all is one he will prove praying for them to be good and lawful Suppose they be in Heaven What then What then may we not as well pray for them as for sanctifying the Name of God which will be done whether we pray or no. Suppose they are in Hell yet we know it not and so may shew our Charity towards them but suppose they be in Purgatory It is the only course we can take to help them Of Purgatory we shall speak anon If there be no other receptacle for Saints departed but Heaven and Hell it is but a flourish of our Author to perswade us that Prayers for them in the Roman-mode would be either useful or acceptable to God Suppose them you pray for to be in Hell the best you can make of your Prayers is but a vain babling against the Will and Righteousness of God an unreasonable troubling of the Judge after he hath pronounced his Sentence Yea but you do not know them to be in Hell then neither do you suppose them to be there which yet is the case you undertake to make good Suppose they be in Hell yet it s well done to pray for them and to say they may not be there is to suppose they are not in Hell not to suppose they are unless you will say Suppose they are not in Hell you may pray for them suppose they are in Hell hereunto doth this subtilty bring us But it is not the Will of God that you should pray for any in Hell no not for any in Heaven unless it be the will of God that you should oppose his will in the one and exercise you selves in things needless and unprofitable in the other both which are far enough from his mind and that Word which I believe at last will be found the only true and infallible rule of Worship and Devotion When we pray for the sanctifying of God's Name the coming of his Kingdom the doing of his will we still pray for the continuance of that which is as to outward manifestation in an alterable condition for the Name of God may be more or less sanctified in the world and for that which is future But to pray for them that are in Heaven is to pray for that for them which they are in the unalterable enjoyment of and besides to do and practise that in the Worship of God which we have no precept no precedent no rule no encouragement for in the Scripture nor the approved examples of any Holy men from the foundation of the world Whatever Charity there can be in such prayers I am sure faith there can be none seeing there is neither precept for them nor promise of hearing them But it is Purgatory that must bear the the weight of this duty This saith our Author need not to be so condemned being taught by Pagans and antient Rabbies and so came down from Adam by a popular Tradition through all Nations a great many of whose names are reckoned up by him declaring by the way which of them came from Shem which from Ham which from Japhet to whom the Hebrews are most learnedly assigned For the Pagans Virgil Cicero and Lucretius are quoted as giving testimony to them This testimony is true in the first especially lies the whole Doctrine of Purgatory Some Platonick Philosophers whom he followed have been the inventers of it That some of the Pagans invented a Purgatory and that Roman-Catholicks have borrowed their seat for their own turn is granted What our Author can prove more by this Argument I know not The names of the old Hebrew Rabbins that had taught or did believe it he was pleased to spare and I know his reason well enough though he is not pleased to tell us And it is only this that there are no such old Rabbins nor ever were in the world nor was Purgatory ever in the Creed of the Judaical Church nor of any of the antient Rabbins Indeed here and there one of them seemed to have dreamed with Origen about an end of the pains of Gehenna and some of the latter Masters the Cabbalists especially have espoused the Pythagorean Metempsychosis but for the Purgatory of the Pagans and Papists they know nothing of it On these testimonies he tells us that this opinion of the Soul's immortality and its detention after death in some place citra coelum is not any new thing freshly taught either by our Saviour or his Apostles as any peculiar Doctrin of his own but taken up as granted by the tradition of the Hebrews and supposed and admitted by all sides as true upon which our Lord built much of his Institutions Gallantly ventured however I confess a man shall seldom meet with pretier shuffling Purgatory it seems is the doctrine of the Soul's Immortality and detention in some place citra coelum Who would ever have once dreamed of this had not our Author informed him This it is to be learned in the Roman Mysterie the doctrine of Purgatory is the doctrine of the Soul's Immortality never was doctrine so foully mistaken as that hath been but if it be not yet it is of the detention of the souls in some place citra coelum It is indeed but yet our Author knows that in these words as bad if not a worse fraud than under the other is couched It was the opinion of many of the Antients that the souls of the Saints that departed under the old Testament enjoyed not the blessed presence of God but were kept in a place of rest until the Ascension of Christ. And this our Author would have us to think is the doctrine of Purgatory he himself I hope enjoyes the contentment of believing the contrary But he tells us that our blessed Saviour and his Apostles were not the first that taught this Doctrine that is of Purgatory As though they had taught it at all or had not taught that which is inconsistent with it and destructive of it which is notorious that they have And for the Traditions of the Hebrew Church as that was none of them so I believe our Author knows but little what were But he takes a great deal of pains to prove though very unsuccessfully that the Jews did believe that the