not Image reinforced Pag. 33. Chap. 4. The Doctor 's Second Proof from the Reason of the Law sophistical All Representations of God not dishonourable to him nor rejected as such by the Church of England The Proper Reason of the Law on God's part is assigned and asserted to be the Supream Excellency of his Nature pag. 57. Chap. 5. Worship unlawful by the light of Nature equally unlawful to Jews and Christians A strange Paradox advanced by Dr. Stillingfleet viz. What can an Image do to the heightning devotion or raising Affections How far his Devotion to the Sun may be allowed in the Judgement of St. Leo. pag. 76. Chap. 6. Of the Notions and practice of the Wiser Heathens in the matter of their Images The Texts of St. Paul Acts 17. 24. and Rom. 1. 21. explained Some of the Doctor 's Testimonies examined in particular the Relation He gives of what the Jesuites did in China Pag. 95. Chap. 7. Of the 2d General Council of Nice call'd most irreverently by Dr. St. that wise Synod His Constantinopolitan Father's Objections answered by Epiphanius and his Answers shown to be goâ—d pag. 118. Chap. 8. The Dr.'s Objection from the Council of Franckford examin'd and shown to be no advantage to his Cause pag. 140. Chap. 9. Of the Doctor 's Third Proof from the Judgment as He pretends of the Law-giver His Speculation concerning the Golden Calves manifestly repugnant to the H. Scripture and Fathers Mr. Thorndike's Judgment of the Meaning and Extent of the second Commandment pag. 153. Chap. 10. What kind of honour the Church gives to Holy Images explained and the Doctor 's mixing School-disputes with matters of Faith shown to be sophistical pag. 176. Chap. 11. Of the Instances brought to explicate the nature of the honour given to Images from the like Reverence given to the Chair of State to the Ground to the Ark to the Name of Jesus c. The weakness of the Doctor 's Evasions laid open and His own Arguments return'd upon Him pag. 193. PART II. Of the Adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament Chap. 1. THe Practice of the Primitive Church in this Point The Doctor 's Argument to prove it to be Idolatry built upon an Injurious Calumny that Catholicks believe the Bread to be God The sense of his first Proposition cleared and the Proofs He brings for it refuted pag. 221. Chap. 2. The true State of the Controversie laid open together with the Doctor 's endeavours to mis-represent it His manner of arguing against the Adoration of Christ in the Eucharist equally destructive to the Adoration of Him as God pag. 243. Chap. 3. Of Dr. St.'s Scruple about the Host's not being consecrated for want of Intention in the Priest and his mistake of the true Reason of giving Adoration to Christ in the Sacrament pag. 256. Chap. 4. His Fundamental Principle of judging of matters proposed to our Belief by Sense and Reason shown to be absurd in it self and destructive to Christianity p. 272. Chap. 5. A Check to the Doctor 's bigg words against the Grounds of Transubstantiation With a New Example of reporting faithfully as he calls it the words and sense of an Author pag. 294. Chap. 6. Dr. Taylor 's Argument in behalf of Catholicks supposing them mistaken in the belief of Transubstantiation not answered by Dr. St. The Parallel of such a supposed mistake with that of Idolaters shown to be a real and very gross mistake in Himself pag. 317. PART III. Of the Invocation of Saints Chap. 1. THe Doctrine of the Church of Rome in this Point supposed by Dr. St. to be Idolatry but not proved The disparity between the Worship given by Catholicks to the Saints and that of the Heathens to their Inferiour Deities laid open pag. 333. Chap. 2. What kind of Honour Catholicks give to the Saints The Testimonies of Origen and St. Ambrose explained Of the practice of making Addresses to Particular Saints pag. 353. Chap. 3. What kind of Worship of Angels was condemned by St. Paul Theodoret c. with a farther display of the disparity between the Heathens Worship of their Inferiour Deities and that given by Catholicks to Holy Angels and Saints pag. 377. Chap. 4. Of the Term Formal Invocation and the different Forms used in the Invocation of Saints Some Instances out of the Fathers to show the like to have been used in their Times pag. 397. Chap. 5. The disparity assigned by Dr. St. between desiring the Saints in Heaven and Holy Men upon Earth to pray for us shown to be Insignificant pag. 414. Chap. 6. Of the practice of Christian People in St. Austin's time in the Invocation of Saints pag. 430. The Two Questions whence Dr. Still took Occasion to raise this Controversy 1. WHether a Protestant having the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in the Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians His Answer to the aforesaid Questions The first Question being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant yet continuing so doth imply a contradiction viz. That a Protestant continuing so should have the same Motives to become a Catholick taking that term here only as signifying one of the communion of the Church of Rome which those have who have been horn or bred in that communion But supposing the meaning of the Question to be this Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of our Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who are bred in it I answer 1. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the communion of a Church wherein salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them No more than it is for a Man to leap from the plain Ground into a Ship that is in danger of being wrackt because he may equally hope to be saved with those who are in it Nay supposing an equal capacity of Salvation in two several Churches there can be no reason to forsake the communion of the one for the other So that to perswade any one to leave our Church to embrace that of Rome it is by no means sufficient to ask whether such a one may not as well be savâ—d as they that are in it already but it is necessary that they prove that it is of necessity to salvation to leave our Church and become a Member of theirs And when they do this I intend to be one of their number 2. We assert that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their Souls ought to embrace it or
here by the Doctor he affirms that that service which is given by servants to their Masters is wont to be called by another Name in Greek that is dulia But this the Reader was not to know for fear he might infer that if some degree of the service called in Greek dulia might be given by Servants to their Masters then surely a higher degree of it may be given to the Holy Angels § 4. But now after all these endeavours used by the Doctor to hide himself in the General terms of such worship Religious worship Prayer Invocation c. and some obscure passages of the Fathers He tells us that he knows very well and I pray God his own knowledge may not rise against him in the Day of Judgment by what Arts all these Testimonies are endeavoured to be evaded or rather by what Light he will be discovered to have said nothing to the purpose Viz. That these sayings of the Fathers were intended against the Heathens Idolatry who worshipped those Spirits as Gods and offered Sacrifices to them But the Church of Rome denieâ— the Angels and Saints to be Gods and asserts that the worship by Sacrifice is proper only to God This Answer is indeed given by St. Austin very often and others of the Fathers And there needed no other to the Testimonies he produces if all who read his Book knew as much as himself But such devices as these for so he calls them though prov'd to be the sense of the Fathers out of the very places cited by him he saith can never satisfy an impartial mind And to return him his own words in a like occasion I must tell him that if ever he speak home to our case he must do it upon this Point And so he does but very little to his comfort as I shall make appear by showing the nullity of the Reasons with which he endeavours to make the aforesaid Answer seem insufficient 1. The First is because The Fathers he saith p. 158. do expresly deny that Invocation or Prayer is to be made to the Angels and Saints But this is but to say the same thing over again or to equivocate as Mr. Thorndike saith in the terms of Prayer and Invocation which are not so proper to God but that in despite of our hearts they may be used in signifying requests made also to Men. 2. His second Reason is because It would be no more unlawful to sacrifice to Saints or Angels than to Invocate them And this Reason clearly destroys it self because it supposes we hold it unlawful to sacrifice to the Saints as the Heathens did to their Inferiour Deities But to let that pass with the rest If he take the word Invocation here to signifie the Prayer we make to God as the Author and Giver of all Good I grant it no less unlawful to sacrifice to Saints and Angels than to Invocate them For what Catholick ever taught or thought that it was lawful to Invocate any Angel or Saint upon that account But if the word Invocation on the one side as in despite of all opposition it may be and by the Custome of the Church it is used be taken to signify the requests we make to Angels and Saints to pray for us and on the other side the offering of sacrifice be not only by the custome of the Church but of all Mankind as St. Austin teacheth appropriated to signify the absolute worship due only to God Who sees not the unlawfulness of offering it to any Saint or Angel may consist with the lawfulness of desiring them to pray for us The case is plain in just Men upon Earth For St. Paul and Barnabas accepted willingly the Prayers which others made to them for their assistance but utterly refused to admit the sacrifice which the Lycaonians Acts 14. would have offered to them and it is as plain of the Saints in Heaven because we pray no otherwise to them than we do to Holy Men upon Earth though more devoutly upon the account of their unchangeable state of Bliss How then could the Doctor parallel these two together and not only parallel them but make it less unlawful to pray to the Saints than to offer sacrifice to them I 'le tell you Catholicks when they write against Inâ—idels or Hereticks make use of the Answers which the Fathers have formerly given to their Objections But Dr. St. being to oppose the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in the Point of Invocation of Saints is forâ—'t to maintain an Argument of the Heathens against St. Austin Nay saith he p. 158. The Heathens in St. Austin argued very well that sacrifices being meer external things might more properly belong to the Inferiour Deities but the more Invisible the Deity was the more Invisible the sacrifices were to be and the greater and better the Deity the sacrifice was to be still proportionable Thus the Doctor to show that in all reason the duty of Prayer ought to be reserved as more proper to God than any External sacrifice or as he vaâ—ies the Phrâ—â—se than a meer outward sacrifice and consequently that Prayer was less communicable to a Saint than Sacrifice But do you not think the Doctor us'd the utmost of his confidence here to own and maintain for good nay very good an Argument of the Heathens confuted by St. Austin in that very place The Heathen saith Dr. St. argued very well I deny it saith St. Austin because in so arguing they manifest that they do not know nesciunt that visible sacrifices are the signs of the Invisible Sacrifices of the mind like as the words we speak are the signs of things For as when we pray or praise we direct the words to him to whom we offer in our hearts the things themselves which we signify by them so when we sacrifice we know that the visible Sacrifice is to be offered to no other but to Him whose Invisible Sacrifice we our selves ought to be in our hearts And upon this account he adds a little below it is and no other that the Devils require sacrifice to be offered to them because they know it to be due to God alone endeavouring by that means to hinder access to the true God that Man may not be his sacrifice whilst sacrifice is offered to any but to him Thus St. Austin in Answer to the Heathens Objection and the Doctor 's By which it appears 1st That in the Judgment of St. Austin external sacrifice being the highest expression of the highest part of Prayer which is the devoting and sacrificing our selves in our hearts to God it ought of all others to be reserv'd as most proper and acceptable to him And that Religion which admits no external visible sacrifice must needs be deficient in the most signal part of the Publick Worship of God 2dly That in the Judgment of the same St. Austin the Doctor if he speak as he thinks knows no more than the Heathens did what the
to make the breach bigger already too wide Thus St. Austin and Bishop Mountague and were they alive they might justly â—ear that for these singular fancies or superstitious Caprichio's as the Doctor calls them they should â—all under his lash of being accounted Men of mere Charity than Judgment CHAP. IV. Of the Term Formal Invocation and the different Formes used in the Invocation of Saints Some Instances out of the Fathers to show the like to have been used in their Times § 1. THe Doctor having made use in his Answer to the two Questions of the equivocal term of Formal Invocation to amuze his Reader I reply'd I understood not well what He meant by Formal Invocation but withall I told him that what Catholicks understand by it in the present matter is desiring or praying those just Persons who are in Glory in Heaven to pray for them To shew the palpable weakness as he calls it of this Answer he says he will prove that those of the Church of Rome do allow and practice another kind of Formal Invocation from what I assert and I think he never betrayed more paâ—pably the weakness of his own cause than in this undertaking Let the Reader judge § 2. First then he says that Never any Person before me imagin'd that to be the sense of Formal Invocation which I do when I say that what we understand by it is desiring or praying the Saints to pray for us And 〈◊〉 Himself in the very next words declarâ—s that he imagins the very same sense of it that I do when he says that the term of Formal Invocation was purposely chosen by Him to distinguish it from Rhetorical Apostrophes Poetical Flourishes and general wishes that the Saints would pray for us and from Assemblies at the Monuments of the Martyrs of all which he grants there are some instances in good Authors Viz. the Chief Fathers both of the Greek and Latin Church For what is this but to tell us that he means by Formal Invocation as I do a real address of our minds to the Saints themselves to help us with their Prayers 'T is true indeed what He would have his Reader to understand by it is what he says is constantly practis'd in the Roman Church to offer up our Prayers to Saints and Angels to help us in our necessities as well as to pray to God for us But what doth he say then to the Forme of Prayer used by us in the Letanies Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us Is it only a Rhetorical Apostrophe Poetical Flourish or general wish that the Saints would pray for us Or is it more If it be no more Why does he impugne what he grants was used by those good Authors If it be more 't is then a part at least of Formal Invocation as defin'd by Himself And if when we pray them to help our necessities the meaning be that they should do it by their Prayers the whole sense of Formal Invocation in this present matter is to desire them to pray for us so that though never any Person before me imagin'd this to be the sense of it yet now I have the Doctor himself concurring with me in it But to pass on to the Proofs of his Assertion § 3. All the difficulty he says p. 163. lies in this whether Catholicks pray to the Saints to help their necessities as well as pray for them that is whether besides the usual form of saying Holy Mary pray for us we do not sometimes vary the Phrase and say Help me or comfort and strengthen me O B. Virgin for as for the meaning of the words I never yet met with any Catholick so Ignorant as not to understand the sense to be to desire them to help us with their Prayers Behold then here the terrible Mystery not to be made known to Proselites saith the Doctor until they be first made safe and fast enough Viz. that sometimes they may use the like form of words to God and the Saints as a Child does to his Father when instead of saying Pray Father Pray to God to bless me he saith sometimes Bless me Father But Catholicks he saith p. 163. do this with all the same external signs of devotion which they use to God Himself And can he excuse a Child from Idolatry when he kneels down with the same external sign of devotion which we use to God and saith Bless me Father because he saith it in a different sense to his Father than he doth to God and will he not upon the same account be as charitable to us when with the like external sign of devotion we say Bless me or help me Mother of God Mr. Thorndike in all his discourses shows his unwillingness to free the Practise of the Church of Rome in this matter from Idolatry yet convinc'd by the Evidence of Truth he confesses that the Church of England having acknowledg'd the Church of Rome a true Church though corrupt ever since the Reformation he is oblig'd so to interpret the Prayers thereof as to acknowledge the corruption so great that the Prayers which it alloweth may be Idolatries if they be made in that sense which they may properly signify but not that they are necessarily Idolatries For if they were necessarily Idolatries then were the Church of Rome necessarily no Church the being of Christianity prâ—supposing the worship of one true God And although to confute the Hereticks the style of Modern devotion he saith leaves nothing to God which is not attributed to and desired of his Saints yet it cannot be denyed they may be the words of them who believe that God alone can give that which they desire And if this cannot be denyed where is the Doctor 's either Charity or Sincerity to interpret these or the like words Help me Mother of God in the same sense they carry when we say Help me GOD § 4. But what do I do expecting Charity from Him who makes it superstitious Fanaticisme or at best but Fanciful singularity in others The excess not of his Judgment but Zeal if we must call it so hath quite eaten up his Charity And every thing he meets with that is not down-right Ora pro nobis must now be Idolatrous or Blasphemous Nay it is enough he hath heard of our Ladies Psalter a Blasphemous Book he saith never yet censured wherein the Psalms in their highest strains of Prayer to God are applyed to the Virgin Mary But what or whose Book soever that be which I first had news of from Himself his only hearing of it argues that it is no publick Devotion of the Church and so not to be charg'd upon Her And did it contain Blasphemy as he saith it doth and were publickly known no doubt it had been censured before this But then again as we are not to take all for Gospel so neither are we to take all for Blasphemy which the Doctor calls so Every one saith Aristotle judgeth
the Pope's Legates who presided and the Vicars of the Oriental Patriarchal Sees who assisted in it O my God! is it come to this that an Inferiour Rector of one Pâ—rochial Church whose name is scarce known but in the Bills of Mortality and was never heard of in the List of any General Council shall dare to condemn as foolish the Sentence of the most August and Venerable Tribunal upon Earth Was he not afraid of that dreadful Sentence of our Lord He that shall say to his Brother how much more to so many Fathers of the Church Fool shall be guilty of Hell-fire What Order and Discipline can be observ'd in the Church if it shall be lawful for any private person upon presumption of his own wit to contemn and deride the Decrees of those whom he is bound under pain of being accounted as a Heathen and Publican to hear Will he plead for his excuse that he follows the Judgment of another Synod held not long before in Constantinople in which boâ—h the making and honouring of sacred Images was condemned Let him shew that to have been a lawful Council and not a Conventicle as in reality it was being called by the Secular Power and wanting both the consent and presence of the Patriarchs of the East and chiefly of the Bishop of Rome by himself or Legates whom the Fathers of the fourth General Council of Chalcedon acknowledge to have presided over them as the Head over the Members and without whose Authority according to the Canon of the Church no Decrees could be valid None of which defects were in the Council of Nice Besides that divers of the Bishops who had voted in and subscribed to the false Synod of Constantinople came and abjur'd its Doctrine in the Council of Nice and among them Gregorius Bishop of Neocaesarea the Ringleader of the Faction Yet Dr. St. takes up and abets the Arguments of that Pseudo-Synod as if they had never been retracted and anathematized as impious by the chief Author of it and scoffs at the Answers of the Synod to them as insufficient I pray God he may one day imitate him in his Repentance as he hath done hitherto in his Passion against the Images of Christ and his Saints Examples we know move much and possibly it may be neither unprofitable to Him nor ungrateful to the Reader to set down the form and manner of that Bishops Recantation and his Reception into the Church § 2. Being brought into the Council by a Person of honour sent from the Emperour Tarasius Patriarch of Constantinople ask'd him If hitherto he had not known the Truth or knowingly had contemn'd it His answer was that he hop'd it was out of ignorance but desir'd to learn And when Tarasius bad him declare what he desir'd to learn he answered Forasmuch as this whole Assembly doth say and think the same thing I know and most certainly believe that the Point now agitated and preached by this Synod is the Truth and therefore I beg pardon for my former evils and desire with all these to be instructed and inlightned For my Errours and Crimes are great beyond measure and as God shall please to move the hearts of this Holy Synod to Compunction towards me so be it Here Tarasius expressing some doubt he had least his submission might not be sincere but that he might speak one thing with his mouth and have another in his heart Gregorius cry'd out God forbid I confess the Truth and lie not neither will I ever go back from my word Whereupon Tarasius told him that he ought long ago to have given ear to what the Holy Apostle St. Paul teaches saying Hold fast the Traditions which ye have received either by our word or by our Epistle And again to Timothy and Titus Avoid profane Novelties of words For what can be a greater Novelty in Christianity and more profane than to say that Christians are Idolaters To this Gregorius return'd that what he and his Partizans had done was evil and we confess saith he that it was evil So it was and so we did by which words it seems he made a particular confession of what evil they had done and therefore we beg pardon of our faults I confess most Holy Father before you and this Holy Synod that we have sinned that we have transgressed that we have done evil and ask pardon for it Upon this it was ordered that he should bring in his Confession the next Session of the Synod which he did of the same tenour with that of Basilius Bishop of Ancyra and others in the first Session viz. that he did receive and salute or give Veneration to the Holy and Venerable Images of Christ and his Saints and anathematize such as were not of the same mind as he expressed himself in the vote he gave after he had by the Sentence of the Popes Legates and the consent of the Synod been restored to his Seat upon his repentance This is recorded of Gregorius Bishop of Neocaesarea in the Acts of the Council of Nice to his immortal Glory May it be imitated with no less Glory by the Rector of St. Andrews May he take to himself what St. Ambrose said to Theodosius Secutus es errantem sequere poenitentem This I heartily pray for and to this end shall take the pains to shew with what little Reason he abets the Arguments of that false Synod and derides the Answers of the Nicen Fathers If in doing this I make his vanity appear here as elsewhere I have done it is but what St. Austin tells us we ought so much the more to endeavour towards those who oppugn the Church by how much the more we desire their salvation And I know not how possibly himself could have laid it more open than in the Ironical Title of That Wise Synod he gives that very Council to which his Leader in the Charge of Idolatry the afore mentioned Gregorius submitted himself as to a most lawful Council confessing that what those Fathers so unanimously taught was the Truth and the Tradition of the Catholick Church Now what they taught was this that the Images of Christ and his Saints were to be placed and retained in Churches that by seeing them the Memory and Affections of the Beholders might be excited towards those who were represented by them as also to salute and give an honourary adoration or respect to the said Images like as is given to the figure of the Holy Cross to Chalices to the Books of the H. Gospels and such like sacred Utensils but not Latria which as true Faith teacheth is due onely to God What he could find in this definition for which the Fathers deserved from him the title of Fools I cannot imagin unless he will have it to be Idolatry to reverence the Books of the Holy Gospels or the sacred Utensils of the Altar But in this the Council is vindicated by Eminent Divines of
in these 〈◊〉 Whether the worshipping false Gods supposing them to be true be not as Venial a fault as worshipping that for the true God which is not so As for Instance suppose the Aegyptians worshipping the Sun for God and the Israelites the Golden Calf believing it was the true God c. Upon what account saith he shall these be charg'd with Idolatry if an Involuntary mistake and firm belief that they worship the true God doth excuse from it And then adds that the most stupid and sensless of all Idolaters who worshipped the very Images for Gods were in truth the most excusable upon this Ground To this I answer that setting aside the new division he runs upon the old false ground that Catholicks believe the Bread to be God as the Worshippers of the Sun believed the Sun to be God the disparity as to the mistakes is still the same because the Aegyptians believed and worshipped the Sun for God and so did the Israelites the Golden Calf but Catholicks though supposed to be mistaken in their belief would not worship the Bread for Christ because their mistake would not be in taking the Bread for God as the Aegyptians did the Sun but in this that they conceived the Bread not to be there at all but in place thereof the only true and Eternal God And so although the Object or rather Subject materially there present would in such a case be Bread yet their act of adoration would not be terminated formally upon that but upon God For as Dr. Taylor saith if they thought Him not present they are so far from worshipping the Bâ—ead in this case that themselves profess it to be Idolatry to do so which is a demonstration that their Soul hath nothing in it which is Idolatrical And if the Doctor see not the force of this demonstration for demonstrations are very dazling Objects to Eyes unus'd to so great Light I shall lay it yet plainer before him in this Syllogism Whatever is taken for an Object of Worship the Understanding must affirm either truly or falsly to be and therefore neither the Aegyptians had worshipped the Sun for God nor the Israelites the Calf if their understanding had not first affirmed them to be But Catholicks whether mistaken or not in the belief of Transubstantiation do not in their minds affirm he Bread to be but not to be because 〈◊〉 both suppositions they believe it to be converted into the Body of Christ Therefore the Object of their worship is not Bread but Christ the only true and Eternal Son of God And therupon the same Dr. Taylor in the place above cited Numb 17. saith That before they venture to pass an Act of Adoration they believe the Bread to be annihilated or turn'd into his substance who may lawfully be worshipped And they who have these thoughts are as much Enemies of Idolatry as they that understand better as he thinks he does to avoid that Inconvenience which is supposed to be the Crime which they formally hate and we saith he materially avoid When therefore Dr. St. upon account that the mistake and firm belief of the Aegyptians and others that what they worshipped was the true God could not excuse them from being guilty of formal Idolatry because what they had in their minds and purposes to adore was that very Creature which they falsly took for God when I say he undertakes to infer from hence that a mistake in Catholicks as to the material object present in the Sacrament whereas what they would have in their minds and purposes to adore would be no other thing but the very true God with Exclusion of the Creature would involve them also in the same crime Or on the contrary because such a mistake were sufficient to excuse Catholicks from the guilt of Idolatry therefore another quite different would excuse those who directed their Intention to the Worship of a Creature which they falsly deemed to be God Both these consequences are so apparently irrational that nothing but Animosity to maintain perfas nefas an angry charge of Idolatry could extort them from a Person who would be held a Master of that Reason as none but Rats can Answer Nevertheless in vertue of them He concludes that what he hath said in behalf of the Heathen Idolaters is the utmost can be said for the Papists adoration of the Host supposing the Doctrine of Transubstantiation were as true as he says it is false and absurd And was this then the Effect of that great Work of the Conversion of this Nation to Christianity above a Thousand Years ago that St. Austin and the other Religious Monks who were sent hither with him by St. Gregory only perswaded the People to leave their old Idolatry for a new One as stupid and sensless as the former Surely no Christian Ear can hear this without horrour And the Judgement Mr. Thorndike would have made of this Conclusion could have been no other but that the Author of it had not Dr. Stillingfleet very luckily put his Name to the Book must have been a Jew or a Turk when after a serious consideration of Catholicks adoration of the Host he concludes in these words In fine Jews and Mahumetans are bound to take the Worship of the Host for Idolatry For they will needs take the Worship of the Holy Trinity for no less But they who know that the God-Head of Christ is the Reason for which his Flesh and Blood is worshipped in the Eucharist cannot take that worship for Idolatry because his Flesh and Blood is not present in the Eucharist as they who worship it there think it is For they know that the Flesh and Blood of Christ is no Idol to Christians wheresoever it is worshipped Wherefore if Dr. St. have no better arguments to prove his Charge of Idolatry with in this matter than his own discerning Faculty of Truth or Falshood in matters proposed to our belief or than what he hath said in excuse of the most stupid and sensless of Heathen Idolaters whose Patronage he seems to have undertaken all along in this Discourse I must conclude his Reasons to be as false and absurd as any Jew or Mahumetan imagins the Doctrine of Transubstantiation to be The End of the Second Part. THE THIRD PART OF THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS CHAP. I. The Doctrine of the Church of Rome in this Point supposed by Dr. St. to be Idolatry but not proved The disparity between the Worship given by Catholicks to the Saints and that of Heathens to their Inferiour Deities laid open § 1. THe Third Point which Dr. St. fix'd upon as a fit Subject to show his wit in proving the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry is the Invocation of Saints And that the Reader may see what a prodigious stock of that Faculty is necessary to make it out I shall first set down the Doctrin of the Church as it stands recorded in the Council of Trent What that
Council teaches is that It is good and profitable for Christians humbly to invocate the Saints and to have recourse to their Prayers aid and assistance wher by to obtain benefits of God by his Son our Lord Jesus Christ who is our only Redeemer and Saviour These are the very words of the Council and any Man but of common Reason would think it were as easy to prove Snow to be black as so Innocent a practice to be Idolatry even Heathen Idolatry What we teach and do in this matter is to desire the Saints in Heaven to pray for us as we desire the prayers of one another upon Earth and must we for this be compared to Heathens Do we not acknowledg that Jesus Christ the Son of God is our only Redeemer and Saviour Do we not confess that what Benefits we obtain of God either by our own or others Prayers must come by the merits of Him our only Redeemer Do we not believe that God needs neither our own Prayers nor the Prayers of others to confer his Benefits upon us but that all the need is on our part and all that we can do either by our own Prayers or humbly begging the Prayers of others is little enough to make us capable of his Favours Do we not profess to all the World that we look upon the Saints not as Gods but as the Friends and Servants of God that is as just Men whose Prayers therefore are available with him And that we worship them only with that worship of Love and Communion with which even in this life also Holy men of God are worshipped whose hearts we judge prepared to lose their Lives for the truth of the Gospel Where then lies the Heathenism Where lies the Idolatry Had the Doctor held himself to the Doctrine of the Church of England which terms the Invocation of Saints a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture there had been some colour for a dispute against the lawfulness of it But to condemn us of Idolatry down-right Idolatry for desiring the Servants of God in Heaven to pray for us was to put the common size of Intelligent Readers quite out of hopes of ever seeing it proved He says indeed in his Preface that He thinks it no great skill to make things appear either ridiculous or dark and here He gives us a very pregnant Example of what himself can do in that kind § 2. The Argument he made choice of to do this Feat that is to prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry in the Invocation of Saints was this If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathens worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for they still pretended they did not give to them the worship proper to the supreme God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papists in Justification of the Invocation of Saints To this I answer'd two ways in my Reply 1. By shewing the disparity of Catholicks worship from that of the Heathens in two things 1. In the Objects where I said that by Persons of a middle excellency we understand Persons endowed with supernatural gifts of grace in this life and glory in Heaven whose Prayers by consequence are acceptable and available with God But the supreme Deity of the Heathens is known to be Jupiter and their inferiour Deuits Venus Mars Bacchus Vulcan and the like rabble of Devils as the Scripture calls thâ—m and therefore there can be no consequence that because the Heathens were Idolaters in the worship of these though they pretended not to give them the worship proper to Jupiter the supreme God therefore Catholicks must be guilty of Idolatry in desiring the servants of the true God to pray for them to him 2. In the manner of worship because I said if any of the Heathens did attain as the Platonists to the knowledge of the true God yet as St. Paul saith they did not glorify him as God but changed his glory into an Image made like to corruptible Man adorâ—â—g and offering sacrifice due to God alone to the Statues themselves or the inferiour Deities they supposed to dwell or assist in them which St. Austin upon the 96. Psalm proves to be Devils or evil Angels because they required sacrifice to be offered to them and would be worshipped as Gods What he meant by formal Invocation I said I did not well understand but Catholicks I told him understand no more by it in this matter but desiring or praying the Saints to pray for them And if this were Idolatry we must not desire the Prayers of a just Man even in this life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an Inferiour Deity 2. I answer'd that the same Calumny was cast upon the Catholicks in St. Austin's time and is answered by him and his Answer will serve as well now as then in his Twentieth Book against Faustus Chap. 21. who himself held such formal Invocation a part of the Worship due to Saints as is evident from the Prayer he made to St. Cyprian after his Martyrdome l. 7. de Bapt. c. Donat. c. 1. And Calvin himself confesseth it was the custome at that time to say Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for Us. This indeed was my Answer and to disprove it he undertakes to show two things 1. That the disparity between Catholicks worship of Saints and the Heathens worship of their inferiour Deities is not so great as to excuse them from Idolatry 2. That the Answer given by St. Austin doth not vindicate them now as well as then § 3. 1. Concerning the disparity 1. As to the Object of Worship he abhors from his heart to parallel the Hâ—ly Angels and Saints with the impure Deities of the Heathens as to their Excellencies No. He hath more honour for them than not to think them more excellent than Devils or wicked Wretches I suppose in case they have the testimony of Scripture for their sanctity otherwise it may go hard with the best of them should he proceed in the same form with all the rest as he doth a little below with St. Ignatius But supposing them at present to be more excellent than the impure Deities of the Heathens yet if the Idolatry of the Heathens saith he lay not only in this that they worshipped Jupiter and Venus and Vulcan who are supposed to have been wicked Wretches but in this that they gave Divine Worship to any besides God then this disparity cannot excuse Catholicks from being Idolaters Behold here the ground upon which he intends to build his Charge of Idolatry Viz. That Catholicks give divine honour to the Holy Angels and Saints This is what the Reader must suppose otherwise his Arguments are at an End and having laid this false and scandalous supposition instead of proving it he undertakes to show out of the Primitive Fathers that it was the
that whether you will or not every Petition to a Prince or Court of Justice is necessarily a Prayer and he that makes it Invocates or Calls upon that Prince or Court for favour or for Justice The Notion then of Prayer may be distinguished as well as that of Worship and Protestants themselves when they pray others to pray for them use it in a quite different sense than when they pray to God for as applyed to God it imports a total dependance upon him as the Author of all good but as apply'd to Just and Holy-men it implies no more than a Communion of Love and Society in the Members of the Church Militant with those of the Triumphant for the assistance of their Prayers to him who only can give what we ask And in this sense the words Prayer Invocation c. are used by Catholicks when they are applyed to the Holy Angels and Saints And that Origen when he denies that our Prayers are to be offered to any but Christ alone speaks of Prayer in the first sense and not in the latter is evident from what he had said before in the beginning of the first Book where he acknowledges that the Angels do offer up the Prayers of Men to God and surely it can never be Idolatry in us to desire them to do what they do and much more from his own practice in his first Homily upon Ezechiel where he Invocates an Angel in these words Come Holy Angel and receive Him who is converted from his former Errour And therfore when he says We are not to pray to them who pray for us He adds as the Doctor cites him p. 149. That we ought not to divide our supplications between God and them By which he explains himself to mean that we ought not to pray to them in the same manner as we do to God for that indeed were to divide our supplications But to desire them to offer up our Prayers or to pray for us is not to divide our supplications between God and them but to unite their Prayers to ours as we do the Prayers of â—ust Men upon Earth whom we desire to pray for us It is evident then and mostly out of the very places cited by the Doctor himself that the Invocation or Honour which Origen denies to be given to Angels is that which is due to God § 4. But now the Doctor weary it seems of being serious so long to no purpose thought fit to entertain his Reader with an other Essay for one Enterlude of this kind we have had already in the 1st Chap. of the peculiar Faculty he hath in exposing the Saints to derision Celsus saith he p. 150 yet further urges that according to the doctrin of the Aegyptians every part of a Man hath a particular Daemon or Ethereal God and every one of these being invocated heals the diseases of the parts proper to themselves why then may they not justly be invocated saith Celsus And if one of the Church of Rome saith Dr. Still had been to answer him he must have told him that the thing was rational which he said only they were out in their Names for instead of Chnumen Chnaachumen Cnat Sicat Biu Eru c. They should have chosen Raphael for travelling and against Diseases Apollonia against the Toothâ—ach Sebastian and Roch against the Plague St. Nicholas against Tempests Michael and St. George against Enemies and others in like cases Thus the Doctor makes sport for himself and others of his humour by deriding a practice used by some Catholick People of addressing themselves to some particular Saints rather than others against particular dangers oâ— diseases as if there were no difference between the Aegyptians daemons or Ethercal Gods and the Saints but in the Names or between the Aegyptians addresses to those Devils and those of Catholicks to the Holy Saints and Angels but in the language and that there needed no more but to correct the Names as you would do faults escaped in Printing viz. for Chnumen to read Raphael for Chnaachumen Apollonia for Cnat Sebastian for Sicat Roch for Biu Michael and I suppose for c. it is so like the Dragon's Tail St. George who otherwise must be left out But the sport is not more pleasing to those who mock at all Religion than I shall make it appear ridiculous to all sober Readers by showing Two things 1. The difference between the Doctrine and Practice of the Aegyptians and that of Catholicks 2. The reasonableness of the practice of making addresses to one particular Saint rather than another First then That Catholicks look upon the Saints with a different regard from what the Aegyptians did their Daemons is evident in that the Aegyptians believed them to be Gods which is far from the hearâ— of any Catholick to believe of the Angels and Saints And it is no less evident that the addresses they make to them are different from those the Aegyptians made to those Gods because as Origen saith the Invocation which Celsus contended for was Votiva illis sacrificia reddere to offer sacrifice to them which is due to God alone and that upon account that they had power to heal the Disâ—ases of the Parts proper to themselves But the Invocation which Catholicks make to the Holy Angels and Saints is but to desire them as we do Holy Men upon Earth to pray for us And therefore when the Doctor saith that If one of the Church of Rome had been to Answer Celsus he must have told him that the thing was Rational which he said I must tell him that what he saith is Irrational and false because both the Conceit they have of the Angels and Saints and the addresses they make to them as I have shewed are point blank opposite to those of the Aegyptians But now on the other side supposing the Aegyptians had the same conceit of their Daemons which Catholicks have of the Holy Angels and Saints and that they did no more but as Catholicks do desire them to pray for them to the supream God would it follow that Catholicks may not desire the Prayers of the Saints and Angels No more than because the Aegyptians erected Temples and offred Sacrifice to their great God Osiris therefore Catholicks may not do the same to the very true God himself or because they made their solemn supplications to a false God therefore Protestants may not offer up their Prayers to the true One 2. The reasonableness of making addresses to one particular Saint rather than another in some particular occasions And this will appear from the Consideration upon which it is usually done which is not a division of Offices among the Saints every one of whom may equally intercede without entrenching upon the Propriety of another and their Intercession may be implored by us in all kinds of necessities whatsoever but it is grounded upon a Reflexion which the suppliant makes either upon some signal Grace which shined in that
true notion of external sacrifice is when he takes it as distinguish'd from Prayer And it would seem as he saith p 159. very strange indeed that sacrifice so taken should be that Latria which is proper to God But it seems as strange to me that He should take it so when himself confesseth that those who did appropriate sacrifice to God by which it seems himself is none of them did comprehend Prayer as the most spiritual and acceptable part of it and that 〈…〉 that sacrifices of old were Solemn 〈◊〉 of supplication unless he meant to make his Reader believe that Catholicks wâ—â—en they speak of sacrifice as proper to Goâ— mean only the external action as distinguish'd from Prayer which as 〈◊〉 is far from the◠〈…〉 minds to think so the Doctor in applauding the Doctrine of the Heathens and siding with them against St. Austin manifestly shows that he judg'd the Argument of the Heathens more rational than St. Austin's Answer 3. His third Reason of dissatisfaction is p. 159. because upon the same account that the Heathen did give divine honour to their Inferiour Deities those of the Roman Church he saith do so to Angels and Saints But this hath been sufficiently refuted already in the First Chapter § 6. And at present there needs no more but to put down the Negatives to the Doctor 's Affiâ—matives viz. that Catholicks do not use Solemn Ceremonies of making any capable of Divine Worship nor set up the Images of the Saints or Angels for that End nor consecrate Temples and erect Altars to them or keep Festivals and burn Incense before them as Gods or offer sacrifice to them as the Heathens did even to their Inferiour Deities These are all such known Truths both from the Doctrine and Practice of Catholicks that nothing but a Prodigious deal of Zeal to fix the black note of Idolatry upon that Church from which the English Nation receiv'd the Faith of Christ could occasion the frequent repetition of so notorious a slander Nor doth the Doctor so much as offer to prove the contrary of any of these Negatives against the Church of Rome but only the last of not offering sacrifice to the Saints and Angels And here he thinks he hath found something to catch at because Bellarmin saith That the sacrifices of the Eucharist and of Lauds and Prayers are publickly offered to God for their honour But is this what the Fathers say of the Heathens worship of their Inferiour Deities that they offered sacrifices to God for their honour No they say expresly that the Heathens offered sacrifices to them and maintained that they ought to do so whereas yet Catholicks profess it ought not to be done even to the Holy Angels and Saints but only to God though as Bellarmin saith it may be offered to God in honorem in or as the Doctor translates it for their honour And this is but what St. Austin professed when he said that what is offered at the Memories of the Martyrs is offered to God who made them both Men and Martyrs and joyned them in Heavenly Honour with his Holy Angels that by this solemnity we may give thanks saith he to the true God for their Victories and be excited to imitate what they did and suffered But the Doctor saith p. 116. that to sacrifice to one for the honour of another is a thing beyond his reach if that sacrifice does not belong to him for whose honour it is offered I have heard that some Beggars have the skill to shrink up their Armes into their Sleeves as if they could not reach above a span from their shoulders And now I perceive there is an Art of shrinking up Understandings as well as Armes For who can believe it beyond Dr. St.'s reach to understand how sacrifice may be offered to God in honour or for the honour of the B. Virgin but that it must be offered to the B. Virgin her self and that so as not to honour God by it as he most uncharitably and unchristianly would make his Reader believe we do A sudden twitch by the hand will serve to pluck out the Beggar 's arm to its full length and because I am perswaâ—ed a home-example may do as much for a shrunkâ— up Understanding I must desire the Doctor to reflect whether it would not be for his honour that his whole Party should keep a Solemn Day of Thanksgiving for the Great Wit and burning Zeal with which the Lord hath endow'd Him to the utter confusion of the Popish Cause If he think this would be much foâ— his honour although the Thanks were given to God and not to him I hope it is not beyond his reach now to Understand that sacrifice also may be offered to God in thanksgiving for the great Vertues and Prerogatives he bestow'd upon the B. Virgin although the sacrifice be offered to God and not to her In◠〈…〉 Honour is nothing but a Testimony oâ— Protestation of some excellency and whether Thanks be given to God by words or by sacrifice for the Gifts and Graces he hath bestowed on such a Person it is an evident Protestation of such excellency in that Person and consequently for his honour though both words and sacrifice be directed to God and not to him His 4th and last Reason that although Catholicks do not call the Saints and Angels Gods yet they give them the Worship of Invocation and the honour of sacrifices which are only due to God This I say is but a Repetition of the Burden of the old Song of Julian the Apostate and Faustus the Manichaean and hath been at large refuted in the precedent discourse I shall only add two Testimonies for a farther confutation of it as sung over anew by the Doctor The first is of S. Austin We do not saith he erect Temples or ordain Priests nor make Dedications nor offer sacrifices to the Martyrs because not They but their God is our God We honour indeed their Memories as of Holy Men of God who fought for the Truth even to the loss of their Lives But we do not worship them with divine honours as the Heathens did their Gods nor do we offer sacrifice to them The second is of Bishop Mountague in his Treatise of Invocation of Saints p. 60. Where he telleth all who are or will be concern'd for Truth that the Doctors of the Church of Rome do teach that the Saints are no Immediate Intercessors for Us with God but whatsoever they obtain for Us at GOD's hands that they do obtain by and through Christ And it is saith he for ought I know the voice of every Romanist Non ipsi sancti sed eorum Deus Dominus nobis est that is Not the Saints themselves but their GOD is our Lord. So it must not be imputed which is not deserved Were they worse than they are it is a sin they say to bely the Devil a shame to charge Men with what they are not guilty of
signification of the words I Answer not meerly from Lilly's Grammar Rules but from the Doctrine of the Church delivered in her Councils and Catechisms and from the common use of such words and expressions among Christians If a Child being taught by his Parents that God alone can give what we ask when he saith to his Father Bless me understands the meaning of the words to be that his Father should pray to God to bless him then surely much more must Catholick People when they pray to the B. Virgin to drive away all evils understand the sense to be that she would pray to God to deliver them from all evil there being besides the common Doctrine of Christianity by which they are taught that God alone is the Giver of all good things so many Sermons Catechisms and Explications both by word and writing daily made in the Catholick Church by Priests to the People and Parents to their Children in this particular Point Well but if this were all saith the Doctor why in all this time that those Prayers have been complained of viz. by those who have revolted from the Church hath not their sense been better expressed Why have they not been expunged all this while after that their Breviaries have been so often reviewed This I fear if done would not be enough to keep them from telling us Once upon a time there was a blasphemous Book or in the Mass-Book Printed at Paris in such a Year there was But why to comply with the humour of a few Opiniators whom no Reason can satisfy must Mankind be debarred the natural manner of expressing their affections And why have not those scrupulous Person◠all this while devised a Dictionary or Phrase-Book to furnish us with words and forms of speaking which may equal our Conceptions and express every little variation of our thoughts and all the different tempers and emotions of the Spirit Do we not do the same action sometimes more quick and smartly than at others Why then must we be tyed to use always the same form of words Why may we not sometimes utter the same affection in a more fervent manner of expression than at others He that sees himself in an imminent danger makes no long Preambles but cries out Help me And St. Gregory Nazianzen records it as an act of great devotion in St. Justina that to free her self from the snares of Satan she call'd upon the Virgin Mary to help and succour her But the Doctor hath now found a Staff to beat Bellarmin with for offering to instance in Scripture that the Apostles are said to save Men Viz. by their Prayers c. Therefore in the like sense we may desire them to save us And he lays on so hard that he hath beat all the brains out of the Cardinal's head at a blow For will any Man saith he in his Wits say the Case is the same in Ordinary Speech and in Prayer Is it all one saith he for a Man to say that his Staff helped him in his going and to fall down upon his Knees and pray to his Staff to help him And now I pray who so proper a Man to confute Bellarmin as Dr. St. Bellarmin speaks of such Instruments as have both Understanding and Will to help us to Heaven by their Prayers and he presently lets drive at Him with his Staff for speaking Non-sense Let the Reader judge whether the Instrument be more Irrational or the Use he makes of it I have long since observ'd that whenever he makes other Men out of their Wits The Reader hath reason to suspect all is not right at home But St. Paul doubtless was a Rational Instrument and What would He have said saith the Doctor to one who should say to him I pray you pardon my sins and assist me with the grace of God I believe he would neither have condemned him of gross Idolatry nor prodigious Folly as the Doctor doth but considering the bitterness of his Soul by the eagerness of his Expression would have given him the assistance of his Prayers to obtain what he aimed to procure by his means of God § 7. Having thus cleared the fense of those Forms of Prayer we sometimes use to the B. Virgin and other Saints to be no other than praying to them to pray to God for us as I asserted in my Reply and answered the little exceptions the Doctor made against it I shall conclude this Point with some Instances of like expressions either used or approved by the Fathers of the Primitive times And first for the usual form of Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us the Instances are so numerous that to transcribe them would make a Volume Many of the Fathers are taxed for this practice by the Magdeburgenses and other Protestant Writers and for this sort of Invocation Mr. Thorndike saith it is confessed that the Lights both of the Greek and Latin Church Basil Nazianzen Nyssen Ambrose Hierome Austin Chrysostom Cyrils both Theodoret Fulgentius St. Gregory the Great Leo more or rather all after that time have spoken to the Saints and desired their Assistance Nay the Doctor himself though diminute in his Confession acknowledges there are some Instances of them in good Authors although he will needs have them to be but Rhetorical Apostrophes and Poetical Flourishes or Wishes that the Saints would pray for us as we Englishmen when we are at play saith Mr. Perkins and I wonder so pat an Example could escape the Doctor call upon the Bowls to rubb or to run as we would have them At this sport he fancies St. Hierome to have been when he cry'd to Paul after her death Help me O Paul in my old Age with thy Prayers And so no doubt was the Emperor Theodosius too when as Ruffinus reporteth Hist Eccl. l. 2. c. 33. He went to visit the Sepulchers of the Martyrs accompanyed with all the Clergy and People it was it seems a General Day of Bowling and prostrate before their Ashes You may imagin to take surer aim implored aid by their Intercession or as St. Chrysost hath it in the same or a like occasion Ho. 26. in 2 Cor. besought the Saints to be his Patrons and Advocates with GOD. And the Doctor Himself brings in Saint Austin as playing at the same Game when he says p. 173. that he wishes rather than praise that St. Cyprian would help him with his prayers Confessing also as I said before that there are some Instances of this pleasant kind of Invocation to be found in good Authors The difficulty then lies in those prayers which we make to Saints to help our Necessities But of these also there want not Instances in the Writings of good Authors of the Primitive times parallel to those which the Doctor objects out of the present Roman Breviary and Office of our Lady Do we say there Hail B. Virgin Thou alone hast destroyed all Heresies in the World Vouchsafe Holy Virgin to
Catholicks NO IDOLATERS Or a Full Refutation Of Doctor STILLINGFLEETS Vnjust Charge of Idolatry Against the CHURCH OF ROME Let not Them who charge the Pope to be Antichrist and the Papists Idolaters lead the People by the Nose to believe that they can prove their Supposition when They cannot Mr. Thorndike Just Weights and Measures Chap. 2. Printed in the Year 1672. TO THE QUEEN MADAM THe Book before which I presume to fix Your Royal Name being the Product of some Hours defalkt from Your Majesties Service and the Subject of it Polemical set me for some time at dispute with my self whether I should let it venture to knock at Your Closet-Door Your Early Preventing the Sun to praise your Creator and Constant Retirements from the Tumults of the World which I could wish were as much imitated as they are admired to Vnite Your Soul by Prayer with Him and establish it in that perfect Peace which can only be enjoyed in becoming One Spirit with Him made me judg some Treatise of Divine Love which might minister matter to the Sacred Fire that burns continually upon the Altar of Your Heart would suit much better with that Better Part which you have chosen with Mary than a Book of Controversy Here then my thoughts were at a stand how to make my Address without Offence And I was ready to complain with Martha that I was left alone when that Admirable Mixture of Clemency and Zeal which disposes Your Heroick Mind not only to forgive Offences of this Nature but to esteem and cherish them as Pious convinc'd me I must be guilty of a greater Trespass should I doubt of obtaining either Your Pardon or Protection Nor was this All. The Glorious Saint whose Name You bear as she encourag'd me with her Example to engage in this Controversy so much more to recommend my endeavours to Your Majesties Patronage It was Her business to convince and reduce Idolaters to the Faith of Christ Mine is to defend the Faith which Christ planted in his Church from the Imputation of Idolatry An Aspersion so foul and Blasphemous that it betrays the Forger of it to be what the Anagram of his Name expresses a second Lucian Blasphemous I say For who-ever will undertake to maintain the Charge must at the same time profess that Christ who commanded us under pain of damnation to hear his Church hath permitted Her to require and enjoin her Children for many hundreds of years together to commit Idolatry as my Adversary contends parallel to that of the Heathens And consequently that Mahomet that grand Impostor whose Followers have been preserved by the Grounds he laid for above a Thousand Years from falling into Idolatry had more Wisdom and Power to contrive and carry on his design than the Son of God and that our Fore-Fathers in this Land had better have been converted to Judaism or Turcism than to Christianity as they were These Madam are the detestable Consequences of charging Idolatry upon the Catholick-Roman Church which as they must needs strike horrour into Your Religious Soul nay even of any who values the name of Christian So I thought it my Duty being singled out by a particular desiance from this new Abettor of it to appear in Vindication of that Faith on which Your MAJESTY grounds Your Hope of Heaven and whose Influence hath enrich'd Your Mind with all the Noblest Vertues from so unjust and scandalous a slander Which nevertheless I have endeavoured to manage with that Moderation and Temper as Circumstances duly weigh'd can neither create just Offence in the dissenting Party nor I hope render it mis-deserving to be presented to Your Majesties View by MADAM Your Majesties Most Humble and Most Obedient Subject and Servant T. G. THE PREFACE Christian Reader THough I never design'd to trouble Thee with any thing in Print especially in a Contentious way from which those who know me think me to be naturally averse yet now I am forc'd to appear publickly in defence of a little Paper which Another hath Printed for me Three Years were almost elapsed and the subject of that Paper quite worn out of my Memory when a Particular Messenger from Dr. Stillingfleet delivers me in Answer to it a large Book intitled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome c. As Civility oblig'd me to return thanks for such a Present to a Person to whom I thought I had been unknown so it had been great dulness not to look upon it with the same regard that Men look upon a Glove when sent by a Person with whom they have happened formerly to have some difference Hereupon my thoughts presently began to incline me to meditate a return both to his Civility and Challenge at least as to the Principal Heads contain'd in his Book but finding in his Preface the performances of those who had as occasion serv'd replied to some Passages of his Rational Account compared by Him to the way that Rats answer Books by gnawing some of the Leaves of them and that He proclaimed a general defiance to All to come into the Open Field from which he saith they had of late so wisely with-drawn themselves I easily conceiv'd he would not want many abler Adversaries who would take themselves to be concern'd to stand up for the Publick cause of GOD's Church and his Saints Nor was I deceived in my expectation as those Learned Treatises witness which have been written against Him upon this occasion Some of them in Vindication of the Devotion of the Roman Church and of the sanctity of those Persons whom he traduces Others against his Principles One to show how he contradicts himself and another compendiously refuting his whole Book All which I supposed would cost him a larger time to answer than he tells us he spent in writing and pointing the Book it self which he saith was but from about Christmas to Midsumer at what time it came forth This made me waver a while after I had applyed my thoughts to the Confutation of what first occurr'd in his Title and Book viz. The Charge of Idolatry which he most unjustly fixes upon the Church of Rome whether I should expose them to publick view or no. But then considering the Foulness of the Charge the particularness of the Challenge and the General Expectation to see him traced step by step which was the design I had undertaken I thought my self oblig'd to commit them to the Press And that the Reader may know what he is to expect from me it is that I have endeavoured to make my self such an Adversary as the Author of the Account 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conceiv'd would be a great pleasure and content of heart to Dr. St. if he could meet with viz. One who viewing his Aiery subtilties should oppose him seriously as if he were serious himself and then distinguish as if he were dealing with some solid Divine and then ply him with Proofs and Testimonies
Divines whether any of the three Points instanced by the Doctor viz. Veneration of Images Adoration of the B. Sacrament and Invocation of Saints be Idolatry or no and those who side least with that Party which are called Non-conformists are for the Negative Viz. that it is not Idolatry whereas if it had been the sense of the Church of England in those Articles that it were Idolatry to do any of those things they had by maintaining the contrary as erroneous incurr'd Excommunication ips facto as appears by the Canons Printed before the 39 Articles set forth by Mr. Rogers Here therefore the Doctor to maintain his charge of Idolatry to be as he calls it the receiv'd Doctrin and practice of the Church of England is forc'd to have recourse to the Book of Homilies and to the Sentiments of Particular Persons of which he cites no less than Seventeen the greatest part of whom I shall show to be incompetent Witnesses in the case and the rest to speak nothing to his Purpose First then for the Book of Homilies which he saith is not barely allow'd but subscribed to as containing godly and wholsome Doctrine and necessary for these times I answer this doth not Evince that every particular Doctrin contained in it is such And therefore Mr. Thorndike speaking of the very Homily against peril of Idolatry here urged by Dr. St. saith that in this particular he must have leave to think it fails as it evidently doth in others And Bish Mountague saith The Book of Homilies contains a general Godly doctrin yet it is not in every part the publick dogmatical doctrin of the Church And Dr. Heylin in his necessary Introduction to Cyprianus Anglicus p. 14. tells us that the vehemence used in those Homilies was not against Images as Intolerable in themselves but as they might be made in those broken and unsetled times an occasion of falling But that People being well instructed in the right use of them Images may be still kept for good uses in Churches and for stirring up of devotion in which respect they were called saith he by Pope Gregory and not unfitly the Lay-men's Books As for the particular Doctors he cites I except against little less than two parts of three of them as Incompetent Witnesses in the Case And in Order to this I shall take the same measure the Doctor himself puts into my hand when to show the Testimony of Arch bishop Whitgift to be valid in his cause he premises that none could be less suspected to be Puritanically inclined than He that is I shall cast out of the List all those who shall be found to have been Puritans or Puritanically inclin'd And first for his two Arch-bishops Whitgift and Abbot the Former though otherwise a stiff Asserter of the Disciplin of the Church of England is known to have consented to the frameing of the Lambeth Articles and to have proposed them to the Divines of Cambridge and the latter was so great a Favourer and Abettor of the Puritan Party that to stop them in their full Carreer Dr. Heylin saith it was found necessary to suspend Him from his Metropolitical Jurisdiction of Dr. White the same Heylin reports p. 135. that for Licensing Bishop Mountague's Appello Caesarem it was said that White was turned Black Jewel Bilson and Davenant were all excepted against by our late Soveraign K. Charles I. in his 3d. Paper to Hinderson Dr. Fulk also in Matth. 28. 46. is noted for abetting Calvin in his blasphemous Opinion that our Saviour Christ suffered in his Soul the very pains of a damned Person upon the Cross Reynolds and Whitaker are notorious for their siding with the Puritans the latter being a great stickler for the Lambeth Articles and the Former appearing publickly the Fore-man or Champion of that Party at the Conference at Hampton-Court against the Church of England Bishop Usher and Bishop Downam cannot be excused The story of the first is to be seen in Cyprianus Anglicus p. 271. where after many Calvinistical Opinions of which the said Primate was the Contriver in Ireland Dr. Heylin saith he refused to receive the whole Body of the Canons made in the year 1603 because he was afraid of bowing at the name of Jesus and some other Reverences which he neither practised nor approved and p. 216. that his Book called Gottescalchus had run the same Fate of being called in with that of Bishop Downam 's about Perseverance but that it seem'd not fit to put a publick disgrace upon the Primate of a Nation By all which it appears that of Seventeen Authors He cites to maintain his unjust charge of Idolatry upon the Church of Rome to be the sense of the Church of England no less than Eleven are shown to have been downright Puritans or Puritanically affected For the Six which remain viz. Dr. Jackson Dr. Field Isaac Casaubon Bishop Andrews Arch bishop Laud and King James whoever compares what the Doctor cites out of them with what they write in other places nay whoever attentively considers but the very places cited by my Adversary shall find that they do not impugn the Doctrin it self of the Church of Rome or the practice conformable to that Doctrin but such things as they conceived to be great abuses in the Practice of it For Dr. Jackson as cited by the Doctor doth not say that to give a honourary Veneration to Images is Idolatry but to give divine honour to them which he saith the Papists do and the Papists themselves deny Bishop Andrews in like manner giveth for the reason of his charge that the Papists do not meerly pray to the Saints to pray for them but to give what they pray for themselves and the Papists profess they do no such things Dr. Field doth not charge the Invocation of Saints with Idolatry and Superstition but speaks only of the Idolatry and Superstition whâ—ch he thought but not truly was committed in it Arch-bishop Laud also as his own words declare speaks of the practice of Adoration of Images in the Modern Church of Rome which he erroneously affirmeth to be too like to Paganism And so K. James in the place cited by the Doctor had He not so soon forgot his promise of reporting faithfully saith expresly that what He condemns is Adoring of Images viz. with Divine Worship praying to them and imagining a kind of sanctity to be in them all which are detested by Catholicks And all that he cites out of Isaac Casaubon when He was employed by the King to deliver His Opinion to Cardinal Perron in the Invocation of Saints was that the Church of England did affirm that some Particular Practices were joyned with great impiety So that it is not the Doctrin of the Church of Rome if rightly practic'd which these Authors condemn of Idolatry but the abuses they conceiv'd to be committed in the practice of it as to give the Worship due to God to an Image to pray to
continue in it And that upon these Grounds 1. Because they must by the terms of communion with that Church be guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry either of which are sins inconsistent with Salvation Which I thus prove That Church which requires the giving the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator makes the Members of it guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry for if they do it they are guilty of the latter if they do it not of the former but the Church of Rome in the Worship of God by Images the Adoration of the Bread in the Eucharist and the formal Invocation of Saints doth require the giving to the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator therefore it makes the Members of it guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry That the Church of Rome in these particulars doth require the giving the Creature the honour due only to God I prove thus concerning each of them 1. Where the Worship of God is terminated upon a Creature there by their own confession the Worship due only to God is given to the Creature but in the Worship of God by Images the Worship due to God is terminated wholly on the Creature which is thus proved The Worship which God himself denies to receive must be terminated on the Creature but God himself in the second Commandment not only denies to receive it but threatens severely to punish them that give it Therefore it cannot be terminated on God but only on the Image 2. The same Argument which would make the grâ—ssest Heathen Idolatry lawful cannot excuse any act from Idolatry but the same argument whereby the Papists make the Worship of the Bread in the Eucharist not to be Idolatry would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry not to be so For if it be not therefore Idolatry because they suppose the bread to be God then the Worship of the Sun was not Idolatry by them who supposed the Sun to be God and upon this ground the grâ—sser the Idolatry was the less it was Idolatry for the grâ—ssâ—st Idolaters were those who supposed their Statues to be Gods And upon this ground their Worship was more lawful than of those who supposed them not to be so 3. If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be a sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathen Worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for the Heathens still pretended that they did not give to them the Worship proper to the Supream God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papist in justification of the Invocation of Saints To these I expect a direct and punctual answer professing as much Charity towards them as is consistent with Scripture and Reason 2. Because the Church of Rome is guilty of so great corruption of the Christian Religion by such opinions and practises which are very apt to hinder a good life Such are the destroying the necessity of a good life by making the Sacrament of Penance joyned with contrition sufficient for salvation the taking off the care of it by supposing an expiation of sin by the prayers of the living after death and the sincerity of devotion is much obstructed in it by prayers in a language which many understand not by making the efficacy of Sacraments depend upon the bare administration whether our minds be prepared for them or not by discouraging the reading the Scripture which is our most certain rule of faith and life by the multitude of superstitious observations never used in the Primitive Church as we are ready to defend by the gross abuse of people in Pardons and Indulgences by denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn Celebration of the Eucharist for a thousand years after Christ by making it in the power of any person to dispense contrary to the Law of God in oaths and Marriages by making disobedience to the Church in disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to the Lawes of Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication By all which practises and opinions we assert that there are so many hinderances to a good life that none who have a care of their salvation can venture their souls in the communion of such a Church which either enjoyns or publickly allows them 3. Because it exposeth the â—aith of Christians to so great uncertainty By making the authority of the Scriptures to depend on the infallibility of the Church when the Churches Infallibility must be proved by the Scripture by making those things necessary to be believed which if they be believed overthrow all foundations of faith viz. That we are not to believe our senses in the plainest objects of them as that bread which we see is not bread upon which it follows that tradition being a continued kind of sensation can be no more certain than sense it self and that the Apostles might have been deceived in the Body of Christ after the Resurrection and the Church of any Age in what they saw or heard By denying to Men the use of their judgment and reason as to the matters of saith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church by making the Churches power extend to make new Articles of faith viz. by making those things necessary to be believed which were not so before By pâ—etending to infallibility in determining Controversies and yet not determining Controversies which are on foot among themselves All which and several other things which my designed brevity will not permit me to mention tend very much to shake the faith of such who have nothing else to rely on but the authority of the Church of Rome 3. I answer That a Protestant leaving the Communion of our Church doth incur a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible ignorance and therefore cannot equally be saved with such a one For a Protestant is supposed to have sufficient convictions of the Errors of the Roman Church or is guilty of wilful ignorance if he hath not but although we know not what allowances God will make for invincible ignorance we are sure that wilful ignorance or choosing a worse Church before a better is a damnable sin and unrepented of destroys salvation To the second Question I answer 1. I do not understand what is meant by a Christian in the Abstract or in the whole Latitude it being a thing I never heard or read of before and therefore may have some meaning in it which I cannot understand 2. But if the Question be as the last words imply it Whether a Christian by vertue of his being so be bound to joyn in some Church or Congregation of Christians I answer affirmatively and that he is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church and not to leave that for a corrupt one though called never so
Catholick The Reply to Dr. Stillingfleet's Answer Madam I Did not expect that two bare Questions could have produced such a super-foetation of Controversies as the Paper you sent me is fraught with But since the Answerer hath been pleas'd to take this Method for what end himself best knows I shall not refuse to give a fair and plain return to the several Points he insists upon and that with as much brevity as the matter and circumstances will bear The Questions proposed were 1. Whether a Protestant having the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it The 2d Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a Member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians The first he saith being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant continuing so implyes a contradiction but where it lyes I cannot see for a Protestant may have the same Motives and yet out of wilfulness or passion not acquiesce to them He saw no doubt this supposition to be impertinent to the Question and therefore in the second part of the 1. § states it thus Whether a Protestant leaving the Communion of the Protestant Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who were bred in it The Question thus stated in its true supposition he answers first § 2. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the Communion of a Church wherein the salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them But before I reply I must do both him and my self right in matter of fact and it is Madam that when you first addressed to me you professed your self much troubled that he had told you a person leaving the Protestant communion and embracing the Catholick could not be saved That we should deny salvation to any out of the Catholick Church you lookt upon as uncharitable and this assertion of his had startled you in the opinion you had before of the Protestant Charity Whereupon you desired to know my opinion in the case and I told you I saw no reason why the same Motives which secured one born and bred and well grounded in Catholick Religion to continue in it were no◠sufficient also to 〈…〉 a Protestant who convinced by them 〈◊〉 embrace it This Madam 〈…〉 was the true occasion of your proposing the Question and not 〈…〉 supposes that I used the meer 〈…〉 self as a sufficient Argument to 〈…〉 you to embrace the Catholick Communion This premised I reply that the Answer he gives is altogether forrain to the matter in hand the Controversie not being between a Bred and a Converted Catholick on the one side and a person supposed to be in a safer Church than either of them on the other nor yet between two several Churches supposed to have in them an equal Capacity of salvation but between a person bred in the Catholick Religion on the one side and another converted to it from Protestantism on the other whether the latter may not be equally saved with the former Nor is it to the purpose of the present Question to prove that it is of necessity to Salvation to leave the Protestant Church and become a Member of the Catholick because the Question is only of the possibility not of the necessity of Salvation I say it is not necessary to the present Question to prove this but rather belongs to the second where I shall speak to it Whether there be a necessity of being a Member of some distinct Church Which being resolved affirmatively by both parts it follows then in order to enquire which this true Church is As for the Example of a Man leaping from the plain ground into a Ship that is in danger of being Wrackt meaning by that Ship as I suppose he does the Catholick Church Some will be apt to think he had come neerer the Mark if he had compared the Protestant to a Ship which by often knocking against the Rock on which the Catholick Church is built had split it self into innumerable Sects and was now in danger of sinking his comparison was grounded only on his own supposition but this is grounded on the truth it self of too sad an experience But to leave words and come to the matter His second Answer is § 3. that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their Souls ought to embrace or continue in it The first answer as I have shewed was nothing pertinent to the present Question nor comes this second any nearer the matter for though it be supposed that none ought to embrace or continue in the Catholick Church by reason of the great hazard he saith they run of their salvation yet if they do embrace or continue in it why may they not be equally saved that is with equal hazard but this assertion however beside the Question he makes it his main business to prove First § 4. Because those who embrace or continue in the Catholick Church are guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry either of which are sins inconsistent with salvation And here he must give me leave to return upon him a more palpable contradiction than that he supposed to have found in the Question viz. to assert only that those of the Catholick Communion run a great hazard of their Salvation and yet affirm at the same time that they are guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry sins inconsistent with Salvation which reduced into plain terms is no other but that they may be saved though hardly and yet cannot be saved But to the Argument The Church of Rome by the Worship of God by Images by the Adoration of Bread in the Eucharist and the formal Invocation of Saints doth require the giving to the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator Therefore it makes the Members of it guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry The charge is great but what are the proofs Concerning the first he saith § 5. that in the Worship of God by Images the Worship due to God is terminated wholly on the Creature And surely this implies another contradiction that it should be the Worship of God by Images and yet be terminated wholly on the Creature Nevertheless he proves it thus The Worship which God himself denies to receive must be terminated upon the Creature but God himself in the second Commandment not only denies to receive it but threatens severely to punish them that give it that is that Worship him by an Image Therefore it cannot be terminated on God but only on the Image To this Argument which to be just to the Author I confess I
the Eucharist is not Idolatry because we only suppose him to be really present under the form of bread but because we know and believe this upon the same grounds and motives upon which we believe and those motives stronger than any Protestant hath if he have no other than the Catholick to believe that Christ is God and consequently to be adored And therefore that you may the better see the inefficaciousness of the Argument suppose it dropt from the Pen of an Arrian against the adoration of Christ as God and it will be of as much force to evince that to be Idolatry as it is from the Objector's to prove the adoration of him in the Eucharist to be so See there how an Arrian might argue in the same form The same Argument which would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry lawful cannot excuse any act from Idolatry but the same Argument whereby the Protestants make the Worship of Christ a pure Man says the Arrian not to be Idolatry would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry not to be so For if it be not therefore Idolatry because they suppose Christ to be God then the Worship of the Sun was not Idolatry by them who supposed the Sun to be God c. Now the same answer which solves the Arrians argument against the adoration of Christ as God serves no less to solve the Objectors Argument against the adoration of him in the Eucharist since we have a like Divine Revelation for his real presence under the Sacramental Signs as we have for his being true God and Man But what if Catholicks should be mistaken in their belief Would it then follow that they were Idolaters Dr. Taylor an eminent and leading Man amongst the Protestants denies the consequence His words are these in the Liberty of Prophecying Sect. 20. Numb 26. Idolatry says he is a forsaking the true God and giving Divine Worship to a Creature or to an Idol that is to an Imaginary God who hath no foundation in Essence or Existence And this is that kind of superstition which by Divines is called the superstition of an undue object Now it is evident that the object of their that is the Catholicks adoration that which is represented to them in their minds their thoughts and purposes and by which God principally if not solely takes estimate of humane actions in the blessed Sacrament is the only true and Eternal God hypostatically joyned with his Holy Humanity which Humanity they believe actually present under the Veil of the Sacramental Signs and if they thought him not present they are so far from worshipping the bread in this case that themselves profess it Idolatry to do so which is a demonstration mark that that their Soul hath nothing in it that is Idolatrical If their confidence and fanciful Opinion so he terms the faith of Catholicks hath engaged them upon so great a mistake as without doubt he says it hath yet the will hath nothing in it but what is a great enemy to Idolatry Et nihil ardet in inferno nisi propria voluntas that is Nothing burns in Hell but proper Will Thus Dr. Taylor and I think it will be a task worthy the Objectors pains to solve his Argument if he will not absolve us from being Idolaters § 7. He proceeds to prove that Catholicks are guilty of Idolatry by their Invocation of Saints And his Argument is this If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be a sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathens Worship of their inferiour Deâ—ities could be no Idolatry for the Heathens still pretended that they did not give to them the Worship proper to the Supream God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papists in justification of the Invocation of Saints To answer this Argument I shall need little more than to explicate the hard words in it which thus I do By persons of a middle excellency we understand persons endowed with supernatural gifts of Grace in this life and Glory in Heaven whose prayers by consequence are acceptable and available with God what at he means by formal Invocation I understand not well but what we understand by it is desiring or praying those just persons to pray for us The supream Deity of the Heathens is known to be Jupiter and their inferiour Deities Venus Mars Bacchus Vulcan and the like rabble of Devils as the Scripture calls them The gods of the Heathens are Devils The terms thus explicated 't is easie to see the inconsequence of the Argument that because the Heathens were Idolaters in worshipping Mars and Venus their inâ—eriour Deities or rather Devils though they pretended not to give them the Worship proper to Jupiter their Supream God Therefore the Catholicks must be guilty of Idolatry in desiring the servants of the true God to pray for them to him Upon this account we must not desire the prayer of a just Man even in this life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an inferiour Deity But if some Sect of Heathens as the Platonists did attain to the knowledge of the true God yet St. Paul says they did not glorifie him as God but changed his glory into an Image made like to corruptible man adoring and offering Sacrifice due to God alone to the Statues themselves or the inferiour Deities they supposed to dwell or assist in them Which inferiour Deities St. Austin upon the Ninety sixth Psalm proves to be Devils or evil Angels because they required Sacrifice to be offered to them and would be worshipped as Gods Now what comparison there is between this worship of the Heathens inferiour Deities and Christians worship of Saints and Angels let the same St. Austin declare in his twentieth Book against Faustus the Manichaean chap. 21. Faâ—stus there calumniates the Catholicks the word is St. Austins because they honoured the Memories or Shrines of Martyrs charging them to have turned the Idols into Martyrs whom they worship said he with like Vows The Objection you see is not new that Catholicks make inferiour Deities of their Saints Faustus long ago made it and St. Austin ' s answer will serve as well now as then Christian People says he do with Religious Solemnity celebrate the Memory of Martyrs both to excite to the imitation of them and to become partakers of their Merits and be holpen by their Prayers but so that we erect Altars not to any of the Martyrs but to the God of Martyrs although in Memory of the said Martyrs For what Bishop efficiating at the Altar in the places where their holy Bodies are deposited does say at any time we offer to thee Peter or Paul or Cyprian but what is offered is offered to God who crown'd the Martyrs at the Memories of those whom he crowned that being put in mind by the very places a greater affection may be raised in us to quicken our love both to those whom we may imitate and towards him by whose
Errours in Faith with him And for the second if he will make the Church of Rome guilty of Schism he must assign some other distinct Church then at least in being from whose Unity she departed which I think was never pretended I am sure can never be performed As for the Charge of Causal Schism that is the Churches having given just cause for Separation the common plea of all Separatists by Imposing as is pretended New Articles of Faith and some of them Idolatrous as it implies an acknowledgment of the Fact of Schism that is of breaking Church-Unity to be on the Protestants side so till the Accusation be made good and judged so by some other more competent Judge than themselves they stand arraigned of the Crime of Schism also for breaking Communion with the Church of Rome § 6. Lastly not to spend too much time in a Digression and yet satisfie his desire and if not his the Readers why the Believing all the Antient Creeds and leading a Good Life may not be sufficient to Salvation unless one be of the Communion of the Church of Rome I argue thus A Christian by virtue of his being so is bound to be of the Communion of that Church which evidently was the true one and the purest until it be as evidently at least if not more evidently proved not to be so for otherwise he wrongs both his Reason and Conscience if he leave a greater evidence and adhere to a lesser But the Roman Church as comprehending all those in Communion with her by the Testimony not only of S. Paul Rom. c. 1. and c. 16. but of the whole Christian World of all Ages was evidently once the onely true Church of Christ and conseqently the Purest and neither hath nor can be as evidently much less more evidently proved not to be so still since the Testimony of those who do or will deny it is incomparably short of the former Therefore a Christian by virtue of his being so is bound to be of the Communion of the Roman Church § 7. Having thus not only given one but more Reasons to his Demand which I heartily pray may do him good because he requested so earnestly to know them I cannot but reflect how speciously soever it hath been hitherto pretended against the Church of Rome that the believing all the Ancient Creeds and leading a Good Life is all that is necessary to Salvation yet now there is more required by him viz. to joyn in some Church or Congregation of Christians by virtue of a mans being a Christian and that he is bound to chuse the Communion of the Purest Church by which I will suppose at present he means the Church of England I hope I may without offence take the same liberty with him which he did with me and desire if not for my own sake at least for the satisfaction of the Presbyterians Anabaptists and other Separated Congregations to know one Reason from him why the believing all the Ancient Creeds and leading a Good Life may not be sufficient to Salvation unless one be of the Communion of the Church of England I confess I may be mistaken to suppose him to mean by the purest Church the Church of England It is not improbable as will appear in the following Discourse that he means that of the Presbyterians but let him mean which he will it comes all to the same pass I leave him to satisfie all other Sectaries why they are bound by virtue of their Christianity to joyn in either of those two Congregations or if not in them in any other which he fancies to be the purest Which done I proceed to his Second Answer to the First Question very fitly called by him the main business because it serves him as a Foundation to raise so many Controversies upon as by his manner of treating them may frighten any one that shall but look toward the Roman Church into despair of ever getting out of so intricate a Labyrinth § 8. His second Answer to the Frst Question was That all those who are in the Communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their Souls ought to embrace it or continue in it because they must be guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry sins inconsistent with Salvation This I said was as little pertinent to the Question as the former for though it be supposed that none ought to embrace or continue in the Catholick Church by reason of the great hazard he saith they run of their Salvation yet if they do embrace it why may they not be equally saved that is with equal hazard To this he returns that he is amazed I should say this Answer of his was not pertinent to the Question if the Question were propounded for any ones satisfaction that doubted which Churches Communion it were best to embrace And who can chuse but be more amazed at this Reply which gives no satisfaction at all to the Question For the Question supposing the same Motives and consequently an equal capacity or hazard as he will have it of Salvation in two persons what answer is it to the Question whether they may not equally be saved though with hazard to say the hazard they run is very great And yet of 573 pages his Book contains no less than 544 of them are spent upon this subject Tant◠〈…〉 I added farther That this Answer of his implied a Contradiction in asserting that all those of the Catholick Communion do run indeed a great hazard of their Salvation and then affirming for proof of this Assertion that they must be guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry sins inconsistent with Salvation Which reduced into plain terms is no other but to say they may be saved though with danger and yet indeed they cannot be saved at all To salve this Contradiction he runs to a pretended supposition of wilful embracing or continuing in Hypocrisie or Idolatry sins if unrepented of inconsistent with Salvation But this Salve is not at all proper for the Sore since if the Motives convince the Understanding and the Persons be sincere as the Question supposes there cannot with any shew of Reason be any thing of wilfulness supposed in the Case The Answer then was nothing to the purpose of the Question but onely that it might serve him for an occasion to bring the whole Body of Controversie into the Field and give a treble Charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome viz. in worshipping of Images Adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints There want not Learned and Eminent men of the Church of England who think the Charge to be over great and there needs no more than his own Principles to make the Metal of his Proofs appear of too inferiour an Alloy to bear it Which thus I shew § 9. In his Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion pag. 54. he lays down the state of the difference
2. How vain and groundless to say no more this Assertion of his is I have already shewed in the foregoing Chapter which may serve for a full and just Refutation of all he brings to justifie his Charge of Idolatry not onely in this matter of Veneration of Images but also of the Adoration of the B. Sacrament and Invocation of Saints In regard none of the contrary Tenets are with him Articles of Faith nay he professes himself not obliged to give any interiour Assent to them so much as to inferiour Truths or Pious Opinions But lest he should take this Compendious way of Refuting by bringing things to Grounds and Principles for none at all as his very-well-assured Friend Dr. Tillotson does with my demonstrating Friend as he calls him Mr. J. S. after two Books set forth by him in answer to his Rule of Faith viz. his Letter of Thanks and Faith vindicated to remove I say the very Temptation of any such-like vapouring pretence from my Adversary I shall take the pains to examine and answer with as much brevity as his prolixity will permit the particular Arguments with which he endeavours to underprop his tottering because groundless Charge of Idolatry § 3. In order hereunto I shall first set down what it is that the Catholick Church teaches concerning the Veneration of Images and thus it stands recorded in the last General Council at Trent Conc. Trident. Sess 25. viz. That the Images of Christ and of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God and of other Saints are to be kept and reserved especially in Churches and due Honour and Veneration to be given to them not for that any Divinity or Virtue is believed to be in them or that any thing is to be asked of them or any confidence to be placed in them as was anciently done by the Heathens who put their trust in Idols but because the honour which is exhibited to the Images is referr'd to the Prototype or thing represented by them So that by the Images which we kiss and before which we kneel or put off our Hats we adore Christ and reverence his Saints whom the said Images represent This is what the Council teaches and the import of it is that we may lawfully and therefore ought upon occasion to put off our Hats or knâ—el before the Images of Christ and his Saints with intent thereby to adore him and reverence them and this is what the Council calls most conformably to the Light of Nature and Relâ—gion the giving of due Honour and Veneration to Images but Dr. Still most repugnantly to both Idolatry § 4 To maintain this Charge he lays down a Pâ—oposition which I said imply'd a Contradiction viz. that in the worship of God by Images the worship due to God is terminated wholly on the Creature For what greater Contradiction than that it should be the worship of God and yet be terminated wholly on the Creature What he brings in his Excuse p. 57. is a pretence that God hath forbidden it under the Notion of Idolatry and that the Worship which God calls by the name of Idolatry and its being terminated wholly on the Creature are but the sâ—me thing in other words And what is this in effect but to tell us first that it is Idolatry because it is wholly terminated on the Creature and then again that it is wholly terminated on the Creature because it is Idolatry A very proper deâ—ence for such a Cause And from hence Dâ— Tillotson may note that the use of Identical Propositions is not so despicable and ridiculous as he would make it but rather the most expedite way for Dr. St. to reconcile the Terms of the greatest Contradiction But to the matter it self I shall speak more anon Let us now see how he proves this main Proposition viz. In the worship of God by Images the worship aue to God is terminated wholly on the Creature The worship sath he p. 4. which God himself denies to receive must be terminated on the Creature But God himself in the second Commandment not onely denies to receive it but threatens severely to punish them that give it Therefore it cannot be terminated on God but onely on the Image § 5. This is the terrible Argument by virtue of which he passes the Sentence of Eternal Damnation upon all those who are of the Communion of the Church of Rome if they repent not of their â—doring Christ by putting off their hats or kneeling before his Image And that the Reader may see with what Justice and Charity he does it before I proceed to examine particulars I shall convene his own Conscience to declare to the World what kind of Argument he judges this to be If onely Topical or Probable what answer will he give to the Great Judge at the dreadful day of Judgment for positively condemning his Spouse the Church for an Adulteress upon an account which himself acknowledges to be inevident and uncertain I believe himself would condemn that person for unjust and uncharitable who should positively charge the meanest mans Wife of Adultery upon the like account If he judge it a Demonstration which I cannot easily believe he seems to have taken such a Pique against the Demonstrating Way then the Premisses must be evidently and certainly true and the Conclusion in virtue of them Impossible to be false and consequently he must have greater certainty that the Church of Rome is Idolatrous than he hath if he be of the same mind with his Friend Dr. Tillotson of the Scripture's being the Word of God or of the Sence of any Text of it for example that Christ is God for the said Doctor lays this down for his Fundamental Position in his Rule of Faith p. 118. and affirms it expresly of the Books of Scripture in the Preface to his Sermons that we are not infallibly certain either that any Book is so ancient as it pretends to be or that it was written by him whose name it bears or that this is the sence of such and such passages in it It is possible all this may be otherwise From whence I infer yet farther that if we are not sure of the Sence of any Text of Scripture but possibly it may be false Himself is not sure that God hath forbidden the worshipping himself by Images in the second Commandment and therefore cannot judge his own Argument to be a Demonstration nor consequently evidence sufficient to make out his Charge of Idolatry But to come now to particulars § 5. The worship saith he which God himself denies to receive must be terminated on the Creature and that wholly and onely on the Creature as he expresses it in the Context of his Discourse This is the Major Proposition of his Syllogism and if this fail the Charge he builds upon it must needs fall I asserted it in my Reply to be absolutely false as built upon a mistake of the nature of humane Acts which though they ought to be
who had the power of limiting what is lawful and what is not by the Law should declare to be unlawful But to think that their declarations ought to bind Christians were to imagine that Christians ought to be Jews And then a little after he goes on For Christianity saith he having put Idolatry to flight which the Law never pretended to do it is not to be imagined that the having of Images can make a man take those for God which they represent so long as the belief of Christianity is alive at the heart For neither was it Idolatry though it were a breach of this Commandment for a Jew to have such Images as were forbidden by their Elders not taking that for God which they represented But what honour of Saints departed or what signs of that honour Christianity may require what Furniture or Ceremonies the Churches of Christians and the Publick Worship of God in them may require now all the world professes Christianity and must honour the Religion which they profess this the Church is at freedom to determine by the Word of God expounded according to the best agreement of Christians This is Mr. Thorndike's Discourse in which the Reader may observe 1. That to think the Declarations of the Jews ought to bind Christians were to imagine that Christians ought to be Jews 2. That all things forbidden to the Jews by this Commandment were Not Idolatry 3. That the Images which the Precept supposeth were the Representations of other that is false Gods which his People were wont to worship for God 4. That what Furniture viz. of Images the matter he there treats of or Ceremonies the Publick Worship of God may require is left to the Judgment of the Church to determine 5. and lastly That the Opposition in this Point between Dr. St. and Mr. Thorndike is not onely concerning the obligation of the Jews as between Catholick Divines but of Christians also in order to this Commandment So that some are of opinion however Dr. St. â—eem to direct his arrows against the Church of Rome yet he meant at least by rebound to shoot them at Mr. Thorndike And had he made it any part of his business to answer his Arguments I might easily have been induc'd to have embrac'd their Opinion But those remaining untouch'd I cannot but look upon this Discourse of that Learned Person as a kind of Prophetical Confutation in the year 1662. when he printed that Book of all which Dr. Stillingfleet brings in 1671. for the proof of his Charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome in the matter of Images As for his new way of answering the Testimony I alledged of St. Austin's Judgment of the sense of this Commandment by asking me how I am sure that it was his constant Judgment I have at large refuted it in the Third Chapter to which I remit the Reader CHAP. X. What kind of Honour the Church gives to Holy Images explained and the Doctors mixing School Disputes with matters of Faith shewn to be sophistical § 1. TO clear the Doctrine and Practise of the Catholick Church from his most Unjust Charge of Idolatry I told the Reader That the Honour we give to the Sacred Images of Christ and his Saints was an inferiour or Relative Honour onely not Latria the Worship due to God but a certain Honourary Worship expressed by kissing them or putting off our Hats or kneeling before them much like the Worship which is given to the Chair of State or the Reverence which Moses and Joshua gave to the Ground by putting off their Shoes c. That this was the meaning of the Council of Nice is confessed by Dr. Field and Mr. Thorndike as I have shewed p. 124. And that the Council of Trent means no more is manifest from the words of the Council related above Chap. 2. as also for that Sess 25. it refers us expresly to the Council of Nice Yet because the Doctor is resolved to quarrel the distinction of Absolute and Relative Worship that the Reader may see what is meant by it I shall desire him to take notice first That Adoration or Worship being an Act of the Will as the Will can love one thing for it self because of the Perfection it is endow'd with and another thing not for it self but purely for that others sake to whom 〈◊〉 belongs So likewise it may adore or worship a thing either for it self that is for some intrinsecal Excellency in the thing for which it deserves Worship and then it is said to worship the thing absolutely because for it self Or it may worship it for another's sake that is for some Excellency in the Person to whom the said thing hath a Relation or Union and then it is said to worship such a thing with a Relative or Inferiour Worship because purely for that Persons sake And because Intellectual Beings are capable of having some Excellency in themselves for which they deserve to be worshipped as Virtue Sanctity Wisdom Power c. and Inanimate Beings are capable of bearing a Relation to a Person endowed with such Excellencies it follows that as Intellectual Beings may have Absolute Worship given to them so Inanimate Things relating to them may for their sakes have a Relative Respect or Honourary Adoration given to them and that so far from being injurious to the Person to whom they belong that it would be look'd upon as a disrespect and affront if in due circumstances it were not done Such a kind of Relative Worship it is we affirm to be due and to be given to the Images of Christ and his Saints when we kiss them or put off our Hats before them Secondly I must desire him to observe as Mr. Thorndike doth very well that the words Adoration Worship Respect Reverence or howsoever you translate the Latine word Cultus are or may be in despite of our hearts equivocal that is sometimes they may signifie one kind of honour and sometimes another Sometimes that which belongs to God and sometimes that which belongs to the Creature And the cause of this equivocation he saith is the want of words vulgar use not having provided words properly to signifie conceptions which came not from common sense And from this equivocation in the Words Adoration Worship c. the greatest part of the Difficulties which occur in this take their rise Now when the Doctor should set himself seriously to confute the aforesaid Explication he puts his Reader into a fit of laughing with a Drollish Parallel p. 100. that to give this Inferiour and Relative kind of Worship to the Image of Christ that is to honour and reverence it for his sake is just as if an unchaste Wife should plead in her excuse to her Husband that the person she was too kind with was extreamly like him and a near friend of his and that it was out of respect to him that she gave him the honour of his Bed But to lay open the
sobriety But it is no less than insolency and madness and that in the highest degree saith St. Austin to dispute whether that be to be done or no which is practised by the whole Church through the World as this Custom of giving an Honourary Respect to the Images of Christ and his Saints hath been confessedly for many hundreds of years § 3. But before the Doctor can or will become a perfect Proselyte of the Church of Rome he desires seriously it seems he was but as I guess'd in a fit of Drolling before to know of me whether any Worship doth at all belong to the Image or no Because saith he if there be any Worship due as the Council of Trent saith there is to the Image either it is the same that is given to the Prototype or distinct from it If it be the same then proper Divine Worship is given to the Image If distinct then the Image is worshipped with Divine Worship for it self and not relatively as I would have it And was it not subtilly done to tell us that if the Worship given to an Image be distinct from that which is given to the Prototype God then the Image is worshipped with Divine Worship for it self The words had been more express but the sense had been the same had he said If an Image be not worshipped with Divine Worship then it is worshipped with Divine Worship for the Worship due to God is Divine Worship and that which is distinct from it is not Divine Worship So hard a thing it is for one who intends mischief to meddle with such edge-tools as School-distinctions are and not cut his own fingers And this is 〈◊〉 first time my Adversary hath done so However he will not lay them down yet 〈◊〉 if it be the former i. e. the 〈◊〉 Worship that saith he is condemned of Idolatry by Bellarmine because the Creature is equally worshipped with God and if the latter i.e. distinct this is oppugned by Vasquez a man of great Reputation too and of as sâ—arching a Wit as Bellarmine as a certain kind of Superstition or Idolatry because Man expresseth submission to an Inanimate Thing From whence he concludes that it is in mens choice what sort of Idolatry they will commit who worship Images but in neither way can they avoid it And here it is he thinks he hath pinch'd us sore and yet will not give us leave to cry out upon himself and his Partizans for their insincere and sophistical mixing the Disputes and Niceties of the Schools with the Doctrine of the Church But how little the Faith and Practise of the Church is concerned in them I shall let the Reader see by a Parallel example in a passage relating to Civil Worship A Gentleman at Court passing through the Guard-Chamber saw a Countrey-man there engaged in a Dispute with three or four of the Yeomen The Clown it seems would have gone into the Presence cover'd They pull'd him back and told him when he went into that Room he must pull off his Haâ— He asked them very pertly To whom or to what for he saw nothing but a Chair and a Canopy They told him It was the Kings Chair of State and he must do it to the Chair out of respect to the King The Countrey-man here perhaps he had read Dr. St.'s Argument or heard him preach it for such kind of preaching hath been the ground of that part of Quakerism began with a serious countenance to demand of them whether any Worship at all were due to the Chair or no For his part he was a Loyal Subject of His Majesties and had really a scruple in the case For if any Worship were due to it it was either the same which is given to the King or distinct from it If the same then proper Regal Worship would be given to something beside the King which were Treason to do If distinct then the Chair would be worshipped with Regal Honour for it self and not relatively which were for a man to submit himself to a piece of Wood And he had so much esteem for his Manhood that he would not debase it so far for all their Halbards Here the Yeomen of the Guard bid him leave his quibbling and do his duty which he refusing to do unless they would satisfie his scruple they took him by the shoulders and thrust him out of doors The passage no doubt was pleasant but withal so parallel to the Doctors proceeding in this matter that I cannot but seriously desire to know of him whether he judge it a sufficient excuse for the Clown not to put off his Hat because he did not or would not understand what kind of Worship was due to the Chair Or to put the example in a thing relating to the Worship of God of which I shall speak more in the next Chapter whether Moses and Josue might have refused to have put off their Shoes in reverence to the Ground where they stood till they had first been satisfied whether it were the same Worship they gave to God or distinct from it That they did lawfully testifie their Reverence towards the Ground is affirmed by himself p. 105. and if they were not retarded from doing it by the Doctors Dilâ—mma no more ought Christians from testifying their Reverence to the Images of Christ and his Saints Let Plato and Aristotle with their followers wrangle as much as they will about the manner how we come to see the former contending that it cannot be done by the Object 's uniting it self with the Eye the latter asserting as strongly that it cannot be done by the Eye 's sending forth Rays to the Object Must we therefore stand still with our Eyes shut till it be agreed between them by which of the two ways we are to see At this rate we must neither see nor hear nor feel nor move till it be accorded between Philosophers how these Operations are performed which will be never Let the Schoolmen then dispute as much as they please about the manner how Honour is given to an Image yet honest Nature will teach us to do it for his sake who is represented by it with as much security and as little danger of erring as any of the aforesaid Operations What the Councils declare in this matter and to them it is the Doctor himself confesses p. 209. that we must appeal for the Churches sense is that we are not to give Latria the Worship due onely to God but a honourary Respect or Adoration to Holy Images as to the Books of Holy Scriptures and other things belonging to God § 4. This is what the Church requireth of her Children to believe and this is all that a Catholick Controvertist is bound to speak to Nor do the Arguments the Doctor brings in reality deserve to be answered otherwise than Zeno's Arguments against Motion were answered by Diogenes For Zeno proves every jot as subtilly that a man cannot move an inch
by it to the Bread and Wine or any corporal presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Blood Will the Doctor be so unkind as to make her say that no Reverence at all is due to that Holy Sacrament that this of all things in the World ought not to have been objected against them What! will he make them fall below Calvin in their respect to that Sacrament who saith it is to be received with reverence as the Pledge of our Holy Union with Christ Is it not time now to remind him as I promised above p. 138. how his Beloved Constantinopolitan Fathers call it an Honourable Image of Christ's quickning Body And thereupon invite all those and among them the Doctor unless he will leave himself out as he did these words all those I say to rejoyce and exult with confidence who desire worship and offer it for the Salvation both of Soul and Body Though He stile me very ineptly a Revolted Protestant yet I have so much respect for those learned Persons who made that Rubrick as to think they meant by Adoration what the word now signifieth by use in English that is Divine Worship proper to God alone and not that no more Reverence should be used towards the Bread and Wine in the Church than there is to the Remainder of it at home by some seemingly Revolted Presbyterians I cannot believe them to be truly Sons of the Church of England Now what the sense of that Church was and still is unless the Doctor will have us suppose these Modern Divines to have prevaricated from their Fathers Bishop Jewel tells us in these words We only adore Christ saith he as very God but we Worship also and Reverence the Sacrament we Worship the Word of God we worship all other like things in such Religious wise to Christ belonging The same is witnessed by Bishop Morton Under the degree of Divine Worship we our selvs yield as much to the Eucharist as St. Austin did to Baptisme where he said Epist 164. We reverence Baptisme wheresoever it is Nor is this delivered by them as their private Opinion but as the sense of the Church of England as appears by their words And if you ask how they can excuse themselves from Idolatry you have the Answer of Bishop Jewel that the Sacraments be adored but the whole honour resteth not in them but is passed over from them to the things signified So that it seems I was not much miâ—â—â—ken when to paralel the Reverence given by Catholicks to Images I instanced in that which is given by Protestants to the Sacramental signs by kneeling at the Eucharist for they do not only allow a like Reverence but maintain it also with the same distinction Nor will the Doctor ever be able to perswade his Parishioners out of it till he can make them leave their usual Expression when they speak of this Sacrament that they do not receive it as Bread but as the Body of Christ § 6. The 6th and last Instance was of Reverence given to the Altar by bowing to it a practise of great Antiquity as Dr. Heylin shows in his defence of the Modern Practise of it in the Church of England against Burton p. 25. This Dr. Still saith is of the same nature with the putting off our Hats while we are in the Church And what is this to say Himself admits a Reverence to Holy Places p. 105. and surely the Church the House of God is one of them Here then we find him incline to admit a Reverence due to the Altar and if it be of the same nature with putting off our Hats while we are in the Church as he doth the one so he may lawfully do the other But then as if he had granted too much he presently draws back and tells us This is only determining a natural act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians did use to direct their Worship which as far as I can understand the words is not of the same nature with putting off our Hats when we are in the Church but with going to Church when the Bell tolls which is to give no more Reverence to the Altar than to the Bell. But who can unfold the Riddle and tell me what he means by a natural Act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians did use to direct their Worship If he mean by that way the local situation of the Altar in the East which was the way the ancient Christians used to direct their Worship and that Nature teacheth us to direct our Worship that way although the Altar for example in St. Andrew's may serve for such a determination because it is placed in the East yet he must give another reason why those in the Savoy bow towards the Altar where it is seated in the North because it doth not there determin a Natural Act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians used to direct their Worship which was towards the East But if he mean by that way a like manner of Reverence to the Altar as was used to be given by the Ancient Christians he will find in the aforecited place out of Dr. Heylin that they acknowledged an honour and veneration due to the Holy Altar and testified that honour by bowing and kneeling to it In fine whatever the meaning of the words be to speak to the practise it self either he condemns those of the Churcâ— of England who profess and testify their reverence to the Altar by bowing to it for Idolatry or no. If he do they are at age to answer for themselves If he do not an Inferiour or Relative honour may be given to it for his sake whose Throne it is under the degree of Divine Worship due to God alone and as the allowing this will render him a true Son of the Church of England so the allowing the like to the sacred Images of Christ will make him in this point a perfect Proselyte of the Church of Rome whose Councils have decreed that we are not to give to the Images of Christ and his Saints Latria or the worship due to God but a honourary respect and veneration as to the Books of H. Scripture and other Holy things But what himself may justly fear should success crown his endeavours in putting scruples into poor simple Mens minds to with draw them from the Reverence they owe to the Sacraments of Christ his Saints his Name his Image his Altars and such like Holy things relating to his Worship is that the Event whatever the design be of his labours will be no other as those Pious and Learned Doctors of Rhemes long since observed and we see at this Day in a great measure fulfilled than to inure Men by degrees to lose all honour and respect to Christ himself to abolish all true Religion out of the World and to make them plain Atheists The Chair of State is not more an Ornament to the King's Palace than the
the case is the same as to the Point of Reason Men must be allowed the use of their Judgment and Reason in the search of both And therefore he must either acknowledge his Charge to have been groundless when he taxed Catholicks for exposing Faith to uncertainty or he must grant to Men though it be with contradicting himself which is much easier to do than to swallow the least seeming Contradiction in a matter of Faith that they may and ought to make use of their discerning Faculty as to the truth or falshood of matters proposed to our belief which I confess I take to be the same as to believe no more than their Reason can comprehend and so if Reason chance to meet with some seeming Contradiction with which it is not able or willing to grapple the Article ought and must be exploded for such a monstrous Prodigy of hood wink'd and abused Faith as no Man can imagine God would e're obtrude upon the Faith of Reasonable Men. But here again perhaps he will say that although God may impose upon us an Obligation of believing against the Conceptions of our Reason yet he cannot do it against the suggestion of our sense because as he asserts p. 540. This would be to overthrow all certainty of Faith where the matters to be believed depend upon mattâ—r of Fact But here I would desire to know what Angel from Heaven reveal'd this Doctrin to him Suppose in the case of the two Disciples at Emmaus that our Saviour had vanished out of their sight before he brake bread might he not hâ—ve told them afterwards that it was He who had appeared to them in a disguise without overthrowing all the certainty of Faith where matters to be believed depend upon matter of Fact St. Chrysostome above cited I am sure was of another mind in the very point of Christ's real presence in the Sacrament when he bids us obey God in that mystery though what he say seem to contradict our thoughts and eyes And so was St. Cyril too when he exhorts Christians not to consider it as naked Bread and Wine for it 〈…〉 Blood of Christ according to the words of Christ himself And although sense do suggest this to theâ— viz. that it is Bread yet let Faith confirm thee Do not judge of the thing by thy tast but know and hold for most certain that this Bread which is seen of us is not Bread though the tast judge it to be Bread but the Body of Christ and that the Wine which is seen by us although it seem Wine to the sense of tasting notwithstanding is not Wine but the Blood of Christ This is what these Holy Fathers teach in this matter and with great reason for as God is not only God of the Hills but also of the Valleys So is he God not onâ—y of our Reason but of our Senses also And if the Antidote his Goodness hath prâ—scrib'd to Cure our Corrupt Nature be prepared in such a manner as requires the captivating of our Sense as well as of our Understanding who shall question either his Wisdome or Power He hath said This is my Body though it appear to us to be bread And this being but one Exception from the General Rule of Sensation why that should overthrow all certainty of Faith more than so many exceptions as the Trinity and other Mysteries lay upon the General Rules of our Reasoning I leave to all Men of sense and Reason to judge O but this is the strangest of Miracles and Miracles ought to be the objects of sense I grant it of such Miracles as are done for the Conversion of Unbelievers but this is not done upon such an account but for the Sanctification of those who believe already And for these it is enough that Christ hath said It is his Body They know very well the danger of not believing him more than their senses And that others may know it also I shall set it before them in the words of St. Epiphanius no less than 1300. Years ago We see saith he speaking of the Blessed Sacrament that It is neither equal nor like in proportion or Image to his Flesh to the Invisible Deity to the lineaments of a Body for this is of a round forme and insensible according to power And yet because he was pleased to say through Grace This is my Body every one believeth his saying For who believeth not that it is his very true Body falleth from Grace and Salvation Thus much to the Doctors Principles of Sense and Reason Let us now see what he says against the Grounds and Motives of Transubstantiation CHAP. V. A Check to the Doctor 's bigg words against the Grounds of Transubstantiation with a new Example of reporting faithfully as he calls it the Words and Sense of an Author § 1. TO show there are not the same Grounds and Motives for Christs presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation as for his Divinity my Adversary instances in Three 1. The Authority of the Roman Church 2. Catholick Tradition 3. Scripture And for the first of these Viz. The Authority of the Roman Church if it have any at all it stands against the Doctor for Transubstantiation and that so evidently that he is forced to take the confidence p. 130. utterly to deny that to be any ground of believing at all For my part I believe every sober Person of his own Party will judge he had much better have said nothing at all And I cannot but think how St. Austin who calls the Chair of Peter that Rock which the proud Gates of Hell do not overcome and professes that the Principality of the Apostolick Chair did always conserve its vigour in the Roman Church would have startled to hear one single Doctor so pertly deny it to be any Ground at all of believing How St. Hierome who writing to Pope Damasus saith I know that upon this Rock the Church is built and whosoever eateth the Lamb out of this House is Prophane c. would have whetted his stile more against him for denying her Authority to be any Ground of believing at all than ever he did against Vigilantius for deriding Invocation of Saints Veneration of Relicks or Lighting Candles at Noon-Day in the Church c. And how St. Irenaeus would have excluded him out of the Society of Christians for this peremptory behaviour when he affirms it necessary for all other Churches convenire to have recourse and agree with the Roman by reason of its more eminent Principality That this was the Dignity and Prerogative of the Roman Church in the time of these Holy Fathers the Doctor himself cannot deny and if he pretend she is fallen from the Purity she then enjoyed it is but what the Donatists his Predecessors in this point said above twelve hundred years ago when as St. Austin tells us they call'd the Apostolick Chair the Chair of Pestilence because it oppos'd their Novelities
Property of the Christian Religion to give divine worship to none but God himself and his Son Christ Jesus To this purpose he cites Justin Martyr and Theophilus Bishop of Antioch to whom he says he might add if it were requisite in so Evident a matter the testimonies of Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Cyprian Origen Athenagoras Lactantius Arnobius and who not that ever pretended to the Name of Christian who all agree that Religious by which he means divine worship is proper to the true God and that no created Being is capable of it and in this strain he runs on for no less than Ten Leaves together and at length without ever proving that Catholicks do give divine worship to the Holy Angels and Saints he most triumphantly concluded them to be Idolaters This is the summe of his performance and by it I understand that it had been no great skill in the Pharisees to have made any of those Persons who honoured St. Peter or St. Paul when they were upon Earth or desired their Prayers to be Idolaters They needed not any other proof but only to suppose confidently that they gave to them the worship proper to God alone and the work was done especially if they had but cited that Text of Scripture Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve I confess when I said that I thought it would be as easy to prove Snow to be black as the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this matter to be Idolatry I did not reflect that Dr. St. might suppose Catholicks to give divine worship to the Saints and so conclude them to be Idolaters But this as I now remember is a Peculiar Topick of which all those who oppose the Faith of the Church are forced to make use Viz. to suppose her Doctrine not to be what she affirms but what they would have her to affirm and from thence to make her guilty of what Crimes and Enormities they pâ—ease themselves § 4. Now although the Testimonies of the Fathers he alledges are so impertinent to the present Question as I have shewed yet because some of them as they are imperfectly reported or advantageously translated by him may give occasion to an unwary Reader to suspect that they meant to deny that any worship at all was to be given to any besides God I shal take the pains to unfold their meaning and free him from any such Jealousy by showing that when they deny in general terms worship to be given to a Creature they mean divine worship which is due to God alone and not that worship which is given to Men upon account either of their Natural or Supernatural Endowments or for the Place or Office they hold in the Church or Common-Wealth For as there is a worship due to Men for the former so also doubtless for the latter And we have an Example of it in Dr. St. himself in his Irenicum p. 413. Printed at London An. 1662. Where speaking of Mr. Baxter he calls him Our Reverend and Learned Mr. Baxter Learned I suppose for his knowledge but Reverend for his Piety and Place in the Presbytery and so worthy of double if not of treble honour Thus much premised of the different degrees there are of worship as also that it is a thing notoriously known that many of the Heathen Emperors exacted to be worshipped as Gods that is with divine worship The Testimony out of Justin Martyr p. 141. answers it self because where he tells the Emperours that Christ did perswade Men to worship God alone c. He presently adds that the same Christ commanded Christians to give unto Caesar the things which are Caesars of which Honour is One in the Judgment of St. Peter And the like had been manifest of Theophilus Antiochenus if the Doctor had fairly set down his words for he expresly affirmeth that although the King was not ordained to be adored yet He was to be honour'd with that lawful worship which belongs to Him And this is insinuated in the very words cited by the Doctor himself viz. as the King suffers none under him to be called by his Name nor is it lawful to give it to any but himself so neither is it to worship any but God alone for although the King will suffer none under him to be called by his Name yet he requires that respect be given to those whom he constitutes Judges and Magistrates under Him according to their degree and quality And God himself although he forbid to give his own Name or Honour to any but Himself yet he commands us to give honour to whom honour is due Rom. 13. 7. And that this was the meaning both of Theophilus and Justin we need no better Expositor than Tertullian who was neer upon contemporary with them and tells us that the King is then to be honoured when he keeps â—imself within his own Sphere and abstains from divine honours Quum a divinis honoribus longe est So that I cannot but wonder what the Doctor meant by alledging these Testimonies of those two ancient Fathers unless he intend to deny any worship at all to be due to any besides God or that he think it not possible to worship a good Man for his vertue and sanctity but we must give him divine honour If he produc'd them for no other End but to show that we ought not to give divine worship to any created Being whatsoever it is evident they are not at all to the purpose it being far from the minds and hearts of Catholicks to give that honour to the Saints § 5. But then the old scruple returns again Why he may not as well honour God by giving worship to the Sun as to Ignatius Loyola or St. Francis or any other late Canoniz'd Saint He might have added if he had pleas'd or to one not yet Canonized his Reverend Mr. Baxter For he is sure the Sun and why not the most Reverend Sun is a certain Monument of God's Goodness Wisdome and Power and he cannot be mistaken therein but he can never be certain of the Holiness of those Persons he is to give divine Worship to Thus Dr. St. And certainly he must believe his Readers to be all stark blind who cannot distinguish the Reverence due to a Person for his Holiness from Divine Worship or that a Saint is not a greater Monument of GOD's Goodness Wisdome and Power than the Sun But by his particularizing the late Canonized Saints it seems he is satisfied that St. Peter and St. Paul were greater Monuments of the Divine Goodness Wisdome and Power than the Sun that more were raised to love God by seeing the light of their example than by gazing upon that bright Planet and consequently that we may much better honour God by giving worship to them at least than to the Sun and perhaps to St. Francis too because he is so kind as to honour him here with the title of Saint
Jupiter and Sabaoth to be the same neither indeed to be any God at all but a Devil who is delighted with the name of Jupiter an Enemy to Men and God 2dly For the Intermediate Beings it is asserted by the same Origen that they were Devils also and according to the differently formed statues in which they assisted one was esteemed to be Bacchus another Hercules c. The like is affirmed also by Theophilus Antiochenus above cited and St. Austin upon the 96. Psalm But then because the supreme God was conceived to be of so high a Nature that he knew not what passed in this sublunary World Therefore 3dly The Office of these Inferiour Deities or Devils was to carry up the Prayers of Men to God as the Doctor himself cites out of St. Austin but very insincerely for St. Austin saith not to God but ad Deos to the Gods that is to Devils out of a supposition that they cannot know the necessities and prayers of Men but by Intervention of these Spirits and so to bring down to Men the blessings they prayed for And 4thly To oblige them to perform this Office of Nuncii or Messengers as St. Austin calls them they exacted of Men to give them Divine Worship by the Oblation of Victims and Sacrifices as the Fathers every where testify This then is the Scheme of the Heathens Divinity and Devotion The Doctor 's Father of Gods and Men was according to the Fathers an Arch-Devil The Inferiour Deities were Inferiour Devils Their Office was to inform the Superiour Gods of what passed here below and the reward they required for this service was no less than the Offering of Sacrifice to their Devil-ships And now was this the very same case altering only the Names of Things which he saith is in debate between Him and the Church of Rome concerning the Invocation of Saints Surely a more Injurious Calumny scarce ever dropt from the Pen of the greatest Enemy of Christianity except that of Julian the Apostate who charged the Christians of his time for their worshipping the Martyrs that for the one true God they worshipped many Men who were not Gods A most Injurious Calumny I say For r. The God whom we adore is not that wise Father of Gods and Men who was so high as not to know what was done here below but the true and Immortal God Maker of Heaven and Earth who sees the secrets of our hearts and knows our necessities before we utter them 2dly The Persons to whom we address our selves for their Prayers are not Devils or wicked Wretches but the Friends and Servants of God whom the Doctor himself as little respect as he hath for them acknowledges to exceed those other in excellency 3dly Their Office is not to inform the Supream God of what he knows not but to be Joynt Petitioners with us and for us to his divine Majesty as other Holymen are upon Earth 4thly and Lastly We do not procure or buy this favour of them by offering Sacrifice to them for as St. Austin saith What Bishop officiating at the Altar doth say at any time We offer to Thee Peter or Paul or Cyprian But as the same Holy Doctor there saith We celebrate their Memory with Religious Solemnity both to excite us to their imitation and to become partakers of their Merits and Prayers but so that we erect Altars not to any of the Martyrs but to the God of Martyrs although in Memory of them And now having spoken thus home to the Case I leave it to the Reader 's Judgment whether the Practice of Catholicks in honouring and Invocating the Saints be the same with that of the Heathens in the worship of their Inferiour Deities To make the Case run Parallel on all four the Doctor must prove either that the God we worship is not the very true God but an Arch-Devil or that the Holy Angels and Saints are not his friends and servants but inferiour Devils Or that we believe him to be so ignorant that he stands in need of them to inform him or that we offer sacrifice and erect Altars to them And when he can do all or any of these he will speak something to the Point But I believe these are none of those things which he threatens largely to prove if further occasion be given And I have good reason to believe so by his present undertaking which is not to prove any of these things in which the Parallel must consist if there be any but to cast a mist before his Readers eyes and make him lose both his labour and the Question as I shall show in the following Chapter CHAP. II. What kind of Honour Catholicks give to the Saints The Testimonies of Origen and St. Ambrose explained Of the Practice of making Addresses to particular Saints § 1. THe Question at present between Dr. St. and the Church of Rome is not whether divine worship be to be given to the Saints for this is abhor'd of all faithful Christians but whether an Inferiour Worship of like kind with that which is given to Holy Men upon Earth for their Holiness and neer Relation to God may not be lawfully given to them now they are in Heaven This is the true state of the Question between us which the Doctor afraid to grapple with turns aside and will he saith insist upon these two things 1. That the Fathers did condemn all such kind of worshâ—p supposing their Principle true that is as far as I can understand it supposing what they said was true 2. That they did not only condemn it in those spirits which the Heathens worshipped but in good Angels themselves And before I engage with Him upon the Testimonies of the Fathers I must disperse the Mist he raises by his Egregious equivocating in the words All such kind of worship What kind of worship is it the Fathers deny may be given to the most excellent created Beings He tells us p. 145. any Religious Worship And what doth he mean by Religious Worship To dispute saith Mr. Thorndike whether we are bound to honour the Saints or not were to dispute whether we are to be Christians and to believe this or not Whether this be Religious or Civil nothing but equivocation of words makes disputable and the cause of that equivocation the want of words vulgar use not having provided words properly to signify conceptions which came not from Common sense Plainly their excellence and the Relation we have to them being Intelligible only by Christianity must borrow a Name from that which vulgar language attributes to God or to Men our Superiours And then a little after he saith That the Relation which God hath settled between the Church Militant and Triumphant may be reasonably called Religious provided that the distance be not confounded between the Religious honour of God and that Honour of the Creature which the Religious honour of God enjoins being neither Civil nor
his Adversary will be so rude as to remember him of what he told us out of Celsus p. 150. that the Aegyptian Deities at least I mean Chnumen Chnaachumen Cnat Sicat Biu Eru c. Every one of them healed the diseases of the parts proper to themselves and therefore might justly be invocated nor yet of what he told us so lately out of St. Austin p. 155. that the Heathens supposed that the Gods could not know the Necessities and Prayers of Men but by the Intervention of those Spirits and that the giving them divine worship proceeded upon that supposition Viz. that it was their Office to inform the Superiour Gods of what they could not know otherwise For if these things be true it is manifestly false what the Doctor affirms at present Viz. that ALL that the Heathens attributed to their Inferiour Deities was only Intercession and consequently he not only contradicts the Truth but what perhaps to him is worse Himself also So dear doth it cost him to make the Church of Rome appear guilty of Idolatry for desiring the prayers of the Holy Angels and Saints not to inform God of what he knows not nor for them to give what they ask as the Heathens believed of their Deities but only to recommend us to his favour as we begg the prayers of one another But his Zeal is not all spent There follows a second Part of it to the same doleful Tune And we must dance step by step after it if we will not be counted Rats CHAP. III. What kind of Worship of Angels was Condemned by St. Paul Theodoret c. with a farther display of the disparity between the Heathens Worship of their Inferiour Deities and that given by Catholicks to Holy Angels and Saints § 1. THe Second Thing the Doctor proposed to show out of the Fathers p. 154. was that they did not only condemn giving this worship to the Spirits which the Heathen worshipped but to good Angels too And here again he deludes his Reader with that general term of this Worship as if the honour which Catholicks give to the good Angels by desiring their Prayers to the only true God were the same with that worship which the Heathen gave to those spirits whom they worshipped with sacrifice as Gods But we must give him leave to cry whoop all hid in Generals and find him out if we can The first place he seeks to hide himself in and he was so afraid to be discover'd that he would not set down the words is that Text of St. Paul Col. 2. 18. Let no Man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels c. and not holding the Head Christ Here he saith that St. Paul doth in the general condemn the worship of Angels that is all kind of worship of any kind of Angels whether good or bad But if so why did St. Paul say in a voluntary humility and not holding the Head Christ These Clauses sufficiently intimate a particularity in the Worship which St. Paul condemn'd and this was saith St. Chrysostome that some among the Colossians said that we ought to be recociled and have access to the Father not by Christ but by the Angels And this saith he is that which is said i. e. condemned by the Apostle that they so admitted and worshipped the Angels for Mediators as to exclude Christ And the reason why they did so is given by Theophylact because they esteemed it a thing unworthy the Majesty of the only begotten Son on the one side to make the Reconciliation and far transcending Man's Poverty or lowness on the other This supposed the Doctor 's petty Objections of St. Paul's not distinguishing good Angels from evil ones and our setting up other Mediatours besides Christ vanish into Air because good Angels themselves are not to be worshipped but in subordination to Christ the Head nor their Prayers to be desired as efficacious for us but through his merits And when we have recourse to them upon this account it is no more to set up other Mediators besides Christ than when we desire the Prayers of Holy Men upon Earth § 2. But Theodoret upon this Place of the Apostle saith that those who defended the Law perswaded Men to worship Angels because the Law was delivered by Angels which practice he saith continued a long time in Phrygia and Pisidia and therefore the Synod of Laodicea doth forbid praying to Angels And to this day the Oratories of St. Michael are among them This they perswaded Men to as a piece of humility affirming that God the Creator of all things could not be seen nor comprehended nor approached by us and therefore we ought to obtain his favour by the Angels This is what Theodoret saith and the Import of it amounting only to this that St. Paul and the Council of Laodicea in his Judgment forbad the worshipping or praying to Angels upon account that the Law was deliver'd by them and therefore as Theophylact saith they brought us salvation or that God by reason that he is Invisible and Incomprehensible cannot be approached but by the Angels The Reader sees how unjustly this Place is urged against Catholicks who have recourse to the Holy Angels for their Prayers not upon account that they brought us salvation without Christ by delivering the Law or that God is so high we cannot have access to Him but by them but that they as true Friends of GOD would intercede for us through the Merits of Christ our only Saviour and Redeemer as the Council of Trent declareth But if Theodoret will not do the Doctor 's work Baronius shall No wonder saith he p. 155. Baronius is so much displeas'd with Theodoret for this Interpretation for he very fairly tells us what he condemns and St. Paul too was the practice of the Church of Rome and those Oratories were set up by Catholicks and not by Hereticks And I shall wonder more if he find any one who will believe him that so great a Champion of the Church of Rome as Baronius should be so stupid as to maintain in the face of the World the lawfulness of praying to Angels as it is practised in that Church and yet confess that as so practised it is condemned by Theodoret and St. Paul too Either Baronius was a very great Dolt or the Doctor does not deal very fairly by him And this is but too too evident 1. Because the words as put by him for the words of Baronius Viz. what Theodoret condemns and St. Paul too was the practise of the Roman Church are not Baronius his words but the Doctor 's for Baronius saith there expresly that Theodoret as to the Doctrine of the Veneration of Angels recta sensit that is held the same which the Roman Church holds at this day 2dly Because the Point in which Baronius differs from Theodoret is not that those were not condemn'd by him and St. Paul too who worshipped Angels
let me praise Thee St. Cyril saith By Thee Holy Mother and Virgin every Creature that worshipped Idols hath been converted to the knowledge of the Truth Praise and Glory be to Thee O Sacred Trinity Praise also be to Thee O Holy Mother of God Who can sufficiently set forth thy Praises Do we entreat the B. Virgin to help the miserable to strengthen the weak c. St. Gregory Nazianzen above-cited commends St. Justina for beseeching the B. Virgin to help and succour her Do we desire her to protect us from our Enemies and shew her self to be a Mother St. Gregory Nissen calls upon St. Theodorus to fight for his Country as a Souldier and to use that liberty of speech for his Fellow-servants which besits a Martyr Do we supplicate the Angels to come to our help and defend Us St. Ambrose saith that they are to be supplicated for us who are given us for our Protectors Lastly Do we desire the Apostles Jubere the word signifies to wish or desire as well as to command but the Doctor will have it here to command the guilty to be loosed And He might as well have translated Jubeo te valere I command you to farewell It is not so much as what that devout Woman in St. Austin said to St. Stephen when upon the death of her Child before Baptism she brought the dead Body to the shrine of the B. Martyr and there exacted ofhim saith St. Austin to restore her Son to Life with these words Redde filium meum c. Give me my Son that I may behold him in the presence of him who crowned thee A thing both commended by St. Austin as a Testimony of her great Faith and confirmed for such by God in restoring her Son to Life at the Intercession of the Saint Thus much may suffice to show that whil'st the Doctor casts so much Dirt upon the Doctrine and Practice of the present Roman Church He makes it fly in the Faces of those great Fathers and Lights of the Primitive Times And much less might have sufficed for an Objection which taken in all its parts is as like the seeking for a knot in a Bul-rush as ever yet I met with any but that as the Apostle saith We are Debtors both to the Wise and to the Unwise Let us see whether the next be any better CHAP. V. The disparity assigned by Dr. St. between desiring the Saints in Heaven and Holy Men upon Earth to pray for Us shown to be Insignificant § 1. TO manifest farther the weakness of the Doctor 's Argument I added in my Reply that if Catholicks must be guilty of Idolatry for desiring just Persons in Heaven to pray for them upon the same account we must not desire the Prayers of a just Man even in this Life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an Inferiour Deity And the Doctor rejoins p. 168. that supposing this were all yet this would not excuse them But from what He was loath to name it the consequence is so absurd yet he would have his Reader believe that it would not excuse them from Idolatry And the Reason he gives is For their practice is very different in their Invocation of Saints from desiring our Brethren on Earth to pray for us And he cannot but wonder how any Men of common sense can suffer themselves to be imposed upon so easily in this matter But if he suppose that what we doâ— Invocating the Saints is no more than to desire them to pray for us as we do other Holy Men upon Earth How comes the one to be Idolatry and not the other The difference as far as I can gather from his words consists in this that amidst the Solemn Devotions of the Church after we have prayed to the Persons of the Holy Trinity to have mercy on us remaining upon our Knees we address to the Saints and require the assistance of their prayers saying Holy Peter and Paul pray for us and this without being sure that they hear us This together with a hint of our setting up their Images in some higher place in the Church and burning Incense before them is the whole summe of his Argument These circumstances he says make the desiring the Saints in Heaven to pray for us to be of a very different nature from desiring the same from our Brethren on Earth And I wonder how any Men of common sense can suffer themselves to be so far imposed upon as to believe that any thing of this or all of it together can amount to Idolatry Why we do not the same in all respects to Holy Men upon Earth St. Austin gives the Reason when he says that we worship the Saints in Heaven so much more devouâ—ly than when they were upon Earth because more securely after they have overcome all the dangers and uncertainties of this World as also we praise them more confidently now reigning Conquerours inâ—a more happy Life than whilst they were fighting in this So that what we do more to them in Heaven than whilst they were upon Earth in praying to and praising of them is an expression of a greater devotion to them now than then upon the account of their secure injoyment of a state of Bliss which they can never lose But for that Worship which is call'd Latria for as much as it is a certain service proper to the Divinity we neither worship them saith St. Austin and all Catholicks with him nor teach them to be worshipped but God alone But to return to the Doctor § 2. The first thing he cavils at is our turning to the Apostles with the same postures and expression of devotion to desire them to pray for us after we have invoked the Persons of the Holy Trinity And where lies the Idolatry here if we desire them only as he supposes to pray for us Is the desiring a just Man to pray for us to give him the honour due to God Why then were Job's Friends sent to him for his Intercession Or is it the doing it upon our Knees Why then do Parents permit their Children to ask them blessing in that posture Or is it the using that posture in the Church Are all the People then Idolaters for desiring upon their Knees the Priest nay one another to pray unto God for them These are such pitiful trifles that they were not worth the reciting much less refuting if as St. Hierom saith of the like to recite them were not to refute them Well but St. Peter he saith who would not permit Cornelius to fall down before him and St. Paul who rent his Garments and cryed out to the Men of Lystra Why do you these things would no doubt have been less pleased with this And why so if Cornelius as St. Hierome thinks intended through Error to worship him with divine honour and the Men of Lystra as St. Luke relates to offer sacrifice to St. Paul as to
a God But then again supposing the honour which Cornelius there intended to have been only an Inferiour respect as to a Holy Man and that St. Peter as St. Chrysostome thinketh refused it out of Humility or as the Doctor terms it Modesty Does that hinder but that upon another occasion he might have admitted it without danger to his Modesty and much more securely now that He is in Heaven For my part I believe that the Prophet Elizeus lost nothing of his Modesty or Humility when the Sunamitess fell down and held Him by the Feet and He forbad his Servant to thrust Her away To accept or refuse due honour is a matter belonging to Prudence and as sometimes it may be refused with vain glory so at an other it may be admitted with Humility What a Caprichio then was it to say that if we impute it only to St. Peter 's Modesty we will not allow him to carry it to Heaven with him as if St. Peter could not without forfeit forsooth of his Modesty have seen Christians do to him what they every Day do to one another in the Church § 3. The Second thing he hints at is that we can never be sure that the Saints do hear us therefore it must be unlawful or as he would make it Idolatrous to desire them to pray for us To this I answer first that this can be no excuse for him not to desire the Angels to pray for him for it is certain by many Texts of Holy Scripture that they know our necessities and prayers as Dan. 12. 1. At that time shall Michael stand up that great Prince which standeth for the Children of thy People Zach. 1. 12. The Angel of the Lord said O Lord of Hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the Cities of Juda against which thou hast had Indigration these threescore and ten Years Psal 137. 2. I will sing unto thee in the sight or presence of the Angels Luc. 15. 7. There shall be Joy in Heaven and V. 10. There shall be Joy before the Angels of God upon one Sinner that doth Penance Apoc. 8. 4. The smoke of the Incenses of the Prayers of the Saints ascended from the hand of the Angel before God All these places and divers others do manifestly show that our Prayers and Actions are not unknown to the Angels And whereas our Saviour himself saith that the Just in the Resurrection shall be as the Angels in Heaven Matth. 22. 30. the equality as to knowledge not depending upon the Body it follows by the Analogy of Faith that our prayers and concerns are known also to the Saints now enjoying the same Blissful Vision with the Angels and they no doubt rejoice as much at the Conversion of a Sinner as the Angels do and of them it is recorded also Apoc. 5. 8. as well as of the Angels that they had golden Vials full of Odours which are the prayers of Saints that is of the Faithful upon Earth who are here called Saints as they are often in other places of Holy Scripture also To this I might add the Incomparable perfection of the knowledge which the Blessed enjoy in Heaven with many other arguments both from Authority and Reason brought by Catholick Divines to prove this Tenet But because the Doctor brings nothing to prove the contrary viz. that the Saints do not hear us besides his own Ipse dixit I shall not inlarge further upon this Point but give him all the fair play he can desire which is to suppose with him at present that the Saints do not hear our prayers But will it follow from thence that it is unlawful or Idolatrical to desire their Intercession I answer 2dly with Bellarmine and deny the Consequence 1. Because although Protestant Writers do cite some of the Fathers as expressing themselves doubtfully whether the Saints hear our prayers or no yet supposing this to be as those Protestants would have it this was no Argument to those very Fathers not to call upon the Saints in particular to pray for them as is manifest from their own doctrin and practise by what hath been said above and from the Confession of Protestants themselves 2. Because it is certain by many and great Miracles wrought by God upon Addresses made to the Saints that those who call upon them are heard and obtain what they desire And for the Protestant Reader 's satisfaction in this Point I shall set down some of them as they stand recorded in the Works of St. Basil Theodoret and St. Austin witnesses of too great Authority and Integrity to be question'd much less rejected as Writers of Fables or Romances 1. St. Basil in his Hâ—mily upon the 40. Martyrs after he had told his Auditors that there was Help prepared for Christians Viz. The Church of the Martyrs and that those who had taken pains to find one to pray for them had here no less than Forty and that it was the practise of Christians at that time for those who were in Tribulation or Joy to fly and have recourse to the Forty Martyrs those for deliverance from their Troubles and these for the Conservation of their Prosperity he adds Here a Pious Mother praying for her Children is accepted or heard as also asking a safâ— return for her Husband when in a Journey or health for him in sickness Let us therefore pour forth our Prayers with these Holy Martyrs The Doctor will be apt to catch at these last words as if St. Basil meant that Christians were only to join their prayers with the Prayers of the Martyrs and not to desire them to pray for them But this exception is excluded by what he said before that those who are in Affliction fly and have recourse to the Martyrs themselves which practise of the People saith Dr. Forbes the first Bishop of Edinburgh had not St. Basil approved he would never have proposed as an Example to be imitated and with him agrees Vossius there cited by him 2dly Theodoret is yet more express in this matter Li. 8. de Graec. Affect The Temples of the Martyrs saith he are conspicuous and Illustrious both for their Greatness and Beauty Nor do we frequent them only once or twice or five times in a year but we celebrate frequent Assemblies in them and often sing praises every Day to the Lord of those Martyrs Those who are in good health begg of the Martyrs the conservation of it and such as are afflicted with any disease beg health Those who are barren pray that they may have Children and those who have Children that they may be preserved to them In like manner those who travel desire the Martyrs to be the companions or rather Guides of their Journey and those who return safe return also to give thanks for the benefit they have received Not that they imagin they go to Gods but they beseech and pray the Martyrs of God as Heavenly Men to
be Intercessours to Him for them Now that such as piously and faithfully pray to them obtain their desires The Donaries when they pay their Vows do witness as evident Testimonies of their recovered health For some hang up the resemblances of Eyes others of Hands others of Feet made of Gold or Silver which their Lord how small and vile soever the gifts be disdains not most gratefully to accept measuring the gift by the ability of the Giver These therefore being exposed to the eyes of all Men and brought by those who have obtained health are most certain signs of the Cure of the Diseases These I say shew the vertues of the Martyrs who lye buried there and the vertue of the Martyrs declares the God whom they worshipped to be the true God 3dly St. Austin is so copious in this subject that he writes a Treatise rather than a Chapter of the Miracles which were done in his time at the Shrines of several Martyrs particularly of St. Stephen which those who desire to be informed of the Truth may read at their leisure I have instanced already in that of the devout Mother who exacted of St. Stephen to restore her Son to life and had her Petition granted God saith St. Austin doing it per Martyrem by his Martyr I shall only add at present what he relates of a poor but pious Man called Florentius who having lost his Cloak and not having wherewith to buy another went to the twenty Martyrs whose memory saith he with us is very famous and pray'd with a loud voice to be cloathed Certain young Men whom St. Austin calls Irrisores i. e. scoffers hearing him pray derided him as no doubt Dr. St. would have done had he been there as if he had begg'd so much money of the Martyrs as would buy him a Cloak But he departing from thence towards the Sea-side found a great Fish upon the shore in whose Belly when open'd there was found a Gold Ring which the Cook a good Christian to whom he had sold the Fish and knew what had passed gave him with these words Behold how the Twenty Martyrs have cloathed Thee Thus St. Austin little thinking then or now if he know nothing of what passes here below what sport this story will make for the Doctor and his Partizans though he good Mâ—n judg'd it worthy to be recounted that God might be glorified in his Saints And upon the same account I shall not omit though it may add matter of new Merriment to the scoffing humour of the Age to set down what I find related by John Patriarch of JERUSALEM to have passed in this kind with Saint John Damascen about the Year 728. He is known to have been a stout Asserter of the Veneration of Holy Images and when the Emperour Leo Isauricus raised a Persecution for that cause he wrote divers learned Epistles to confirm the Faithful in the Tradition of the Church He was then at Damascus where the Prince of the Saracens kept his Court and highly in the favour of that Prince for his Wisdom and Learning And the Emperor Leo not knowing otherwise how to execute his Fury against him causes a Letter to be forged as from Damascen to Him and to be transcribed by One who could exactly imitate his hand the Contents whereof were to invite him to pass that way with his Army with promise to deliver the City into his hands This Letter the Emperor as out of friendship to an Ally and detestation of the Treachery sent to the Prince of the Saracens who no sooner saw and read it but in a brutish Passion commanded the right hand of Damascen which he supposed had writ it to be cut off Dictum Factum A word and a blow His hand was struck off and hung up in the Market-place till Evening when upon Petition that he might have leave to bury it it was commanded to be delivered to him He takes the hand and instead of laying it in the Ground joins it to his Arm and prostrating himself before an Image of our B. Lady which he kept in his Oratory humbly besought her Intercession for the restoring of his hand that he might employ it in setting forth her Son's praises and Hers This done sleep seiz'd on him and he beheld the Image of the B. Virgin looking upon him with a pleasant aspect and telling Him that his Hand was restored which when he awaked he found to be true and a small Circle or mark only remaining in the place where it had been cut off to testify the truth of the Miracle This is recorded by John Patriarch of Jerusalem in the Life of St. John Damascen and to this I might add many more of the like kind But these may suffice to satisfy an Impartial mind that whether the Saints themselves hear us or no yet those who implore their Intercession are most certainly heard and as St. Austin saith helped by them And it can never be unlawful much less Idolatrous to use that means for the obtaining our just desires which God himself hath attested by so many Miracles to be acceptable to him All that the Doctor brings to uphold his slippery consequence is that it would be a sensless thing to desire some excellent Person in the Indies when we are at our solemn devotion to pray for us And so no doubt he would have derided those three Tribunes who being unjustly condemn'd by the Emperor Constantine commended themselves to the Prayers of St. Nicholas at that time far from the Court for double Innocents But God who is every where present and to whom the Wisdom of the World is Foolishness both could and did reward the simplicity of their Devotion by causing the Holy Man to appear to the Emperour in his sleep and divert him from executing the Sentence In fine if the Doctor will needs have it to be a sensless thing to call upon the Saints in Heaven for the Assistance of their Prayers he must either condemn the Lights both of the Greek and Latin Church as Mr. Thorndike calls them to have been sensless Men and they may thank God they escape so or he must grant this practise of theirs to be a convincing Argument that they believed the Saints did hear them § 4. The last thing he quarrels at is the setting up the Images of Saints in some higher place of the Church and burning Incense before them And what he says to show this to be very Evil is that which proves it to be very Good viz. That the Persons for whose sake this is done are as we suppose them truly such as for their assured sanctity would deserve to have it done to themselves though perhaps Humility or other Moral Considerations might weigh both with them and the Church not to permit it to be done Yet we know that Elias sate upon the top of a Hill and call'd Fire from Heaven upon those two Captains who came to seize him but
condescended to go with the third who fell on his Knees before Him And I would gladly be inform'd what Evil at all it would be to set a Saint were he present in some higher Place in the Church as we do a Bishop for the People to see Him and desire his Prayers Perhaps it is the smoke of the Incense which troubles his Eyes that he cannot distinguish between the use of it as applyed to God and as applyed to his Servants or other things relating to him But this being of its own nature an indifferent Ceremony as bowing and kneeling also are and not appropriated at least in the new Law to the worship of God it is in the freedome of the Church to determine how and when it shall be used And as when we kneel to God that posture is a sign of the soveraign honour we give to him as the Lord of all things but when we do it to a Holy Man or our Parents it is but a sign of an Inferiour respect due to them So likewise the Ceremony of Incense when directed to God signifies the worship we owe to him but to Holy Persons or things an Inferiour respect or veneration to them for his sake The use of it is very ancient as Bellarmin shows and the significations many and very fitly adapted to the Publick Service of God as well for the Reverence of the Place as to mind us of the Inaccessible Glory of God who appeared in a Cloud and the sweet Odour our Prayers are to him if sent up from a heart inflamed with the love of God This then being the Intention of Catholick People in the use of these and the like Ceremonies viz. to give only a Honourary respect or Veneration to the Saints and to desire them only to pray for us it is evident that neither in the place nor the time nor the manner any incroachment at all is made upon the worship and service due to God alone and all the Dr. hath done in this Paragraff was to endeavour to tye a knot in a Bull-rush when he could find none and the matter was so brittle that it would not hold the tying CHAP. VI. Of the Practise of Christian People in St. Austin's time in the Invocation of Saints § 1. THe second Answer I gave to the Dr.'s Injurious Parallel of the Heathens Worship of their Inferiour Deities and the worship given by Catholicks to the Saints was that the same Calumny as St. Austin calls it was cast upon the Catholicks in his time and is answered by him and his Answer will serve now as well as then That Himself held such Formal Invocation a part of the Worship due to Saints as is evident from the Prayer he made to St. Cyprian after his Martyrdome Let B. Cyprian therefore help us with his Prayers c. And for a farther Confirmation of it I added that Calvin himself acknowledgeth it was the custome at that time to say Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us The Dr. comes now as he saith p. 170. to consider the Answer of St. Austin whether it will serve to vindicate us now as well as then And I must desire the Reader to take the pains to peruse attentively the words of St. Austin as they stand cited in the Reply and the Doctor 's Considerations upon them for himself thought not fit to call them an Answer that by his Performance in this Point he may see to what miserable shifts and disengenuous Arts they are put who will shut their Eyes and fight against the light of a Noon-day Truth § 2. His first Consideration is that Sr. Austin utterly denies that any Religious worship was performed to the Martyrs And how could he affirm this if he had not shut his Eyes when St. Austin says expresly in the place cited that it was the custom of the Christian People in his time to celebrate with Religious Solemnity the Memories of the Martyrs That the Reader might not see this Contradiction he corrupts the words of St. Austin by translating them after his mode Viz. It was the Custome of the Christians in his time to have their Religious Assemblies at the Sepulchres or Memories of the Martyrs As if their Meetings were only to honour God in Himself and not his Martyrs for his sake But this is both expresly opposite to the words themselves and is refuted by St. Austin himself when having admitted in Answer to Faustus his Objection that Christians did celebrate the Memories of the Martyrs with Religious Solemnity he declares himself not to speak of that Religious Worship which is due only to God but such a kind of worship with which even Holy Men in this life are worshipped We worship therefore saith he the Martyrs with that worship of Love and Society c. But we worship them so much more devoutly than we do Holy Men upon Earth because more securely after they have overcome all the Dangers and Incertainties of this Life He that hath but half an Eye open must see that St. Austin speaks here of the Worship which the Christians of his time gave to the Martyrs themselves And that the Dr. doth but Equivocate in the term Religious worship which may reasonably be applyed to the honour due to the Saints as I shewed above in the 2d Chap. And whereas he saith that I conveniently left out what St. Austin adds that not only Sacrifice was refused by Saints and Angels but any other Religious honour which is due to God himself as the Angel forbad St. John to fall down and Worship Him had He not conveniently put those words any other Religious honour into the Text for they are not in St. Austin he had had nothing to blind his Reader with and yet as himself cites the words it is evident that St. Austin speaks of such Religious honour as is due to God himself Whoever looks into the Text which I omitted only for brevities sake will judge he had done much more conveniently for his cause had he left it out § 3. His second Consideration is p. 171 that Invocation is expresly excluded by St. Austin as no part of the Worship due to Saints And how again without shutting his Eyes could he affirm this when St. Austin expresly says that Christians did celebrate the Memories of the Martyrs with Religious Solemnity not only to excite to the Imitation of their Vertues but also to be partakers of their Merits and to obtain help by their Prayers This he conveniently avoids the repeating of and slies for refuge to another place of St. Austin where he saith We raise no Altars on which to sacrifice to Martyrs but to One God the God of Martyrs as well as ours at which as Men of God who have overcome the World by Confession of Him they are named in their place and order but are not invocated by the Priest who sacrifices And here he thinks he hath done our work for
Forb as this could pass for current in the World Is it possible he could have courage enough to cite the place where those words are to be found and not fear a Rat Observe I pray What St. Austin condemns in that place is this that some who brought Wine and Meat to the Sepulchers of the Martyrs took so plentifully of them that they made themselves drunk His words are these As for those who make themselves drunk at the Sepulchers of the Martyrs how can they be approved by us whom sound Doctrine condemns even when they do it in their own private Houses This was the custome of which St. Austin saith that the Governours of the Church did not teach it but bore with till it could be amended And the Doctor had the Conscience by a subtil Insinuation to make his Reader believe that what St. Austin condemned was the desiring or as he calls it wishing the Martyrs to pray for them I shall leave him to make satisfaction to God and the World and proceed to that which he calls the Question between us § 5. The Question between us saith he is not how far such wishes rather than prayers being uttered occasionally as St. Austin doth this to St. Cyprian but whether solemn Invocation of Saints in the duties of Religious Worship as it is now practised in the Roman Church were ever practised in St. Austin's time This he utterly denies and here saith he p. 174. we stand and fix our Foot against all opposition whatsoever Thus expiring Candle gathers up its spirits and forces it self into a blaze before it dies Alas that so many learned Men should all this while have been mistaken in the Question that they should have spent so much oyl and sweat to no purpose The great Question hitherto controverted between Catholicks and Protestants was held to be Whether it be lawful to Invocate the Saints to pray for Us and whether this were agreeable to the practise of the Primitive times But now like a mischievous Card that will spoil the hand this is dropt under the Table and all the show above-board is whether it may be done in the duties as he calls them of Religious Worship He saw how often his Foot had slipt whilst he endeavoured to stand upon the denial of its being the custome of the Fathers to desire the Saints to pray for them and therefore he catches hold of this Twigg to save himself but in vain for Bishop Forbes confesses that it was their custome to do so both in publick and private prayers although he be loath to give it any other name but that of wishing But Chemnitius That great Light of the German Church as our Doctor calls him in his Irenicum p. 396. where he sets him in the Van for asserting the mutability of Church-Government and of whom he saith Brightman had so high an Opinion as to make Him to be one of the Angels in the Churches of the Revelation this great Man without mincing the matter acknowledges freely that Invocation of Saints began to be brought into the publick Assemblies of the Church by Basil Nissen and Nazianzen who lived in the Century before St. Austin and could little doubt of the Continuance of it in St. Austin's time when he witnesseth that Christian People did then celebrate the Memories of the Martyrs with Religious Solemnity to obtain the Assistance of their Prayers But who can tell us what the Doctor means by the duties of Religious Worship If he mean hearing of Sermons which is so much cry'd up by those of his Party as if it were the Pro and Poop of Religion though the Author of the Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety Ch. 18. call it the most lazie of all Religious Offices he knows the Invocation of Saints was both commended and practised in their Sermons by St. Basil Hom. in 40. Mart. S. Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 20. 21. S. Greg. Nissen Orat. des Theodoro and others If he mean the Letanies although the use of them began to be more solemn in the time of Gregory the Great yet Strabo affirms that that form of Invocating the Saints was believed to be much more Ancient Viz. from the time that St. Hierom translated the Epitome of Eusebius his Martyrologe into Latin or as others explicate his meaning before that time but not in so great a number But then again if he speak of that Part of the Mass which was anciently called the Mass of the Catechumeni and serves as a Preparatory devotion both to Priest and People the Priest indeed before he ascends to the Altar desires the B. Virgin and the rest of the Saints as also the People to pray to our Lord God for him and in the Versicles between the Epistle and Gospel there are some Instances though very rare of Holy Mary or Holy Paul pray for us but as these are not excluded by St. Austin who speaks only of the Priest's directing his Invocation to God alone in the offering of the sacrifice so neither can the Doctor give any satisfactory Reason why the Priest may not lawfully use it then especially being appointed by the Church as in his private Oratory But if he mean that Part of the Mass which begins from the Offertory and was anciently call'd the Mass of the Faithful in which the Priest addresses himself expresly to Offer up the sacrifice of the New Testament which Christ hath Instituted in his own Body and Blood Let him if he can for he saith he hath look'd into our Missals produce any one Instance of Formal Invocation to any Saint or Angel There they are named at this day as they were in St. Austin's time in their place and Order but are not Invocated by the Priest that Sacrifices So that in this which is the most proper and peculiar duty of Religious Worship as I have shown in the 3d. Chap. it was accounted by St. Austin there is a most perfect Conformity between the Primitive and Modern Church and the difference in other less solemn parts of Devotion not at all material as hath been shewed § 6. In the last place p. 174. the Doctor saith He is sent from S. Austin to Calvin whose Authority though never owned as Infallible by Him he need not as he saith fear in this point and therefore the Errand if he will have it so could not be ungrateful I may well think his heart leap'd for joy to hear Calvin alledged for a witness that it was the custome in St. Austin's time to say Holy Peter pray for Us and thereupon as if the day were his own he says He cannot but wonder that if I saw the words in Calvin or Bellarmin that I would produce them But hold Have not I more Reason to wonder at his wonder if it be true what Himself makes Calvin to say Viz. That the Council of Carthage did forbid praying to Saints lest the publick prayers should be corrupted by such kind
of Addresses Holy Peter pray for us For why I pray was such a Decree made and why did the Fathers of that Council fear lest the publick prayers should be corrupted with such kind of addresses if there were no such custome at that time Either the Dr. corrupts the words of his dear Master Calvin or it is manifest they imply it was the custome at that time to say Holy Peter pray for Us. And to make this clearer I shall set down 1. What Calvin really saith 2. What Bellarmin answers to him And from both it will appear that Calvin supposes there was such a custome and withall that Calvin hath corrupted the words and meaning of the Council and D. St. misrepresented those of Calvin 1. What Calvin really saith is this viz. That it was anciently forbidden in the Council of Carthage that direct prayer or Invocation be made to the Saints at the Altar And it is probable the reason was for that those Holy Men when they could not totally Repress the force of an evil Custome they thought good at least to put this restraint upon it lest the publick prayers might be corrupted with this Forme Holy Peter pray for Us. This is what Calvin saith And who sees not that the custome no wonder if He call it an ill one whose force he supposeth the Council would but could not totally Repress was this form of address Holy Peter pray for Us And He that sees this must shut his Eyes if he sees not that in Calvin's Opinion it was the Custome of that time however reprovable he would make it to say Holy Peter pray for Us. For how could he make the restraining that Custome to be the reason of the Law if he did not suppose there was such a custome and that a forcible one too But then again who sees not that for fear the Reader should see this the Dr. most conveniently left out of his citation those words of Calvin which were most material to the present purpose viz. that the Decree was made to forbid direct praying to Saints at the Altar and the Reason in his Opinion why those Fathers made that Decree was to restrain the force of an evil custome which they could not totally Repress For had these words been put down the thing had been too clear to be denied viz. that Calvin acknowledged there was such a custome at that time As in a like case if the Elders should make a Sanction that hereafter it shall not be lawful for Dr. St. to misâ—report the words and sense of their Patriarch Calvin and I should say that in my Opinion the Reason would be to restrain the force of an evil custom which they could not totally repress in him of doing it in most of the Authors he cites I dare confidently aver he would not stick to charge me that I said he had such a custom which if he think good to do the many instances I have brought of his insincere dealing in this kind wil more than sufficiently acquit me 2. What Bellarmin de sanct beat li. 1. c. 16. answers to this Objection of Calvin is that Calvin corrupted the words and sense of the Council when he said that what it forbad was to make direct Prayer or Invocation to Saints at the Altar because the Council speaks not at all of praying to Saints but only ordains that the prayer of him that sacrifices be directed to the Father and not to the Son He says indeed that Calvin by his Logick deduces that because prayer is to be directed to the Father therfore the Saints may not be Invocated and then farther that the Council decreed that that form of Invocation Holy Peter pray for us should not be used And this I can easily believe was Calvins ultimate design in corrupting the Canon of the Council But where doth Bellarmin say that there was no such custome in St. Austin's time or that Calvin said there was no such custome at that time Why then is it made a wonder that if I saw the words in Calvin or Bellarmin I would produce them The Reason was to make the Reader believe that himself could not possibly be guilty at that very time of a crime which he imputed to his Adversary But whoever considers the nature of the cause he hath undertaken will see no cause to wonder at this procedure because it is the natural effect of such a cause to put the maintainer upon the desperate shift of mis-representing the words and sense of Authors and no Man wonders at a natural effect especially if it be frequent as this of the Doctor 's is § 7. But now the blaze is spent and there only remains a little smoke viz. that I may as well the next time bring St. Austin's Testimony for worshipping of Martyrs Images and Angels because he saith he knew many who adored Sepulchers and Pictures and had tryed to go to God by praying to Angels What this as well relates to I cannot tell but I am sure he uses the same Art here in bringing these Testimonies against us which he did before in alledging the custom of those who made themselves drunk at the Sepulchers of the Martyrs For either S. Austin speaks here of the Errours of such as were professed Hereticks or if any who professed themselves Catholicks fell into them they were the Errors of particular Persons though many and justly reproved by him Whereas the Custom of Invocating the Saints to pray for us was the Universal practice of Christians at that time not reproved but owned practised and abetted by the most Religious Bishops and Fathers of the Primitive Church and by St. Austin himself as hath been shown and by more or all after their time as Mr. Thorndike confesses Wherefore if the Doctor be still resolved to keep his standing against so great a strength of Authority and give no more satisfactory account hereafter than he hath already done of charging the Roman Church with Idolatry It is manifest that his Foot sticks fast as the Psalmist saith in the deep Mire where no ground is or to speak in Mr. Thorndike's language in the depth of Schism From whence that he may be drawn out before the Flood run over him is the hearty wish of Him who honours his Person and Parts whilst he detects his Sophistry and refutes his Calumnies FINIS * S. Catharine ‖ Calvin Anagr. Lucian Pag. 14. Just Weights c. 1. Art 35. Epil 3. part p. 363. Appeal c. 23. Confer at Hampton-Court pag. 20. 40. Cyprian Angl. p. 242. Ep. 17. ad Marcellam Li. 7. de Bapt. cont Donat. c. 1. Tract 18. in To. Sozomen li. 8. Hist c. 5. Niceph. li. 13. c. 11. S. Leo Ser. 4. de Quad. Li. contr Epist. fund * Liberty of Propâ—â—cy Sect. 20. P. 550. * I suppose he means â—o less Lib. 3. de adorat c. 1. S. Chrysost Hom. 3. in Ep. ad Rom. Arnob. Contra. Gent. li. 6. S. Aug. in Psal
refell him by shorter Enthymems and longer Syllogisms search in what Mood and Figure he speaks and then tell him how his Consequence flaggs or Antecedent is Ambiguous till he have consumed a hundred Pages in refutation of a Trifle This I confess is a Character of my present Undertaking though not to the full because in the Prosecution of it I shall be forced over and above to lay open frequent Contradictions Calumnies and Mis-representations of the words and sense of Authors which can be no great pleasure nor content of heart to my Adversary to see discover'd I was in good hope to have been freed from this ungrateful task of laying open faults of this nature which cannot be treated of without being named nor named without offence by the fair promise he makes to represent the matters in difference between us truly report faithfully and argue closely And this Hope made me for a good while not exact that severity of quoting Authors which is required and expected in the managing of Controversy But since the necessity he hath drawn upon himself by defending so Extravagant a Charge as that of Idolatry upon the Roman Church hath made him too often forget so good a purpose I must begg his pardon if at length I take the freedome to make the Reader a little sensible of it with that Plainness which the Merits of the Cause will not only bear but require Of which the Reader must be Judge Whether the Laurels he fancies he hath acquired from his Adversaries by their declining as he saith Personal Conferences look as green and fresh to others as to himself I very much question For Meetings of this nature being hardly to be undertaken by Catholicks without exposing themselves to the Danger of being accounted Bold and Insolent and so of irritating His Majesty and the Government against them All sober and impartial Men will easily judge that they may be more prudently declined without prejudice to their cause than Arguments in writing which is a much more peaceable and satisfactory way of proceeding be by their Adversaries who run no such hazard slighted either as Inconsiderable or upon account of business or upon a reasonable Presumption that the Person concerned had already forsaken their Church These and such like may be Prudential Motives to them to slight answering a Paper and also for declining Personal Conferences as sometimes they have been Yet they must not be allowed at any time for such to Catholicks Nay even their modest compâ—rtment towards Authority must go for no other than a Pretence only of hazard though we see a Private Paper as this was from which the Doctor hath taken occasion to make all this noise published in Print with such Characteristical Notes of the Author as might easily discover his Person and in termes so Invidious as were apt to create the greatest Prejudice against him Why else was he stiled and that upon every post corner a Revolted Protestant when Roman-Catholick might have sufficed And why was He made the Proposer of the Questions when the Party concerned proposed them indifferently to both As for the Paper it self which is now become the Subject of Debate what others may have thought or said of its not being answered I know not but from my Adversary's own Relation nor doth the Person taxed in particular remember any such thing Besides I am certain I never communicated any Copy of it but to the Party for whose satisfaction it was written Yet since my Adversary hath thought good to publish it together with his own Answer to the two Questions at the beginning of his Book I have judg'd â—it to do the same before mine not that I except against any thing as mis-represented in it besides some little Errors of the Press but that I conceive it may be some Satisfaction to the Reader in the perusing of this Rejoinder to recur sometimes to the first Papers at least that he may clearly see that the Charge of Idolatry was no way necessary to the Resolution of the Questions as I shall shew more at large in the First Chapter but meerly brought in by Him upon some other Account which I am now to consider The Account Himself gives of reviving a Charge which for many Years had lain buried under the ruins of its own Infamy was as he pretends to Justify more clearly the Separation of the Church of England from the Guilt of Schism For this he saith lies open to the Conscience of every Man if the Church of Rome 〈◊〉 guilty of Idolatry our separation can be no Schism either before God or Man because our Communion would be a Sin This is what he pretends And this Cause indeed as Mr. Thorndike well observes would be more than sufficient to Justify the separation did it appear to be true but then on the other side saith he it charges the mischiefs of the Schism upon those who proceed upon it before it be as Evident as the Mischiefs are which they run into upon it So that should the Church of England declare that the change which we call Reformation is grounded upon this supposition I must then acknowledg saith he that we are Schismaticks For the cause not appearing to me as hitherto it hath not and I think will never be made to appear to me the separation and the mischief of it must be imputed to them that make the change In plain terms We of the Church of England make our selves Schismaticks by grounding our Reformation upon this pretence Thus Mr. Thorndike whose Judgment abetted by divers of the most learned and most Judicious Persons of the Church of England and this is thought to be the reason why the Doctor 's Book came forth without the publick stamp of an Imprimatur from any of its Bishops will stand as a convincing Prejudice against him till he can make it as evident that the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry as the mischiefs are that have ensu'd upon it This He saw was not possible to be done and therefore laying those Divines aside for Men of more charity than Judgment least he should be thought in so severe a Censure to contradict the sense of his Church which he saith he hath so great a regard to he undertakes to show that this charge of Idolatry hath been managed against the Church of Rome by the greatest and most learned Defenders of it ever since the Reformation But if he have such a regard as he saith for the Church of England Why did he not appeal to her 39. Articles For as himself saith p. 209. of the sense of the Church of Rome that we are to appeal for it not to the Writings of particular Doctors but to the Decrees of her Councils so in like manner for the sense of the Church of England He ought to have appealed to Her Publickly-Authorized Articles But in them the Church of England declares no such thing For we see it hotly disputed between her