Vials full of Odours which are the Prayers of Saints By the prayers of Saints they mean of those Saints that arâ— living upon the Earth and by the Four Beasts and Twenty Four Elders the Saints that are in Heaven and from thence draw their Argument that Saints in Heaven do offer up the Prayers of Holy Men living upon the Earth But now if they are mistaken in the â—ense of this Text and by the Four Beasts and Twenty four Elders are not mean'd the Memberâ— of the Church triumphant but the Bishops and Elders of the Church Miliâ—ant Whose Office it is to represent the Prayers and Praises of the Church to God then this cannot afford them the least shew of a reason for their Invocation Dr. Hamonâ— and many other Learned Expositors are of opinion that either this whole Text is nothing but a representation of the Church below offering up prayers by their Pastors who are the Mouths of the Congregation to God through the Lamb and it 's said veâ—se 10. That they shall Reâ—gn upon the Earth or else a representation of the whole Church of Christ boâ—h in Heaven and Earth joyning together in their Doxâ—logies and Praises to God for the Victâ—ries of the Lamb and the Redemption of the World by his blood and for this sense the next veâ—sâ— seems to give it where they are said to Sing a new Song saying Thou art worthy to take the Book and for thou wast sâ—ain and redeemed us to God by thy Blood out of every Kindred and Tongue and People and Nation Another place to be explained which they sometimes mention as on their side is Revel â— 10. Where the Souls of the Martyrs under the Altar are said to cry How long Oh Lord Holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our Blood on them that dwell on the Earth Now say they if the Souls of Martyrs pray for Vengance upon their Persecutors and Murderers much more may we suppose them to pray for Mercy and Deliverances for their Fellow-Members and Sufferers To this may be replied That these words cannot signify a formal Prayer of the Martyrs to God for Revenge on their Persecutors they who after their Lord's example Prayed God to forgive their Murderers when they were on Earth cannot be supposed now they are in a more perfect State to Pray for Vengeance upon them but the words are only an Emblem and representation of the certainty of Dr. Ham. God's judgments and Vengeance overtaking them by the Souls of them that were stain and cry under the Altar is mean'd their blood and the Sin of Murthering them and as we are wont to say Murther is a crying Sin and as it 's said that Abel's blood cryed for Vengance so the Sin of shedding their blood cryed ' that is would certainly awake and provoke the justice of God to take Vengeance on them for it This is well explained Esdr 2. 15. by a passage in the book of Esdras Behold the Innocent and Righteous blood cryeth unto me and the Souls of the just complain continually and therefore saith the Lord I will surely Avenge them c. But Let their inference be granted that the Souls of Martyrs in the future State do Pray for their Fellow Sufferes that are left behind it does not follow that their Fellow-Sufferers Pray to them or that they offer up their Prayers made to them unto God Lastly they cite Gen. 48. 16. When Jacob blessing the two Sons of Joseph thus prayes The Angel that redeemed me from all Evil bless the Lads this will require no long answer God being pleased often to make use of the Ministry of Angels in sending succour and relief to good Men Jacob Prayed not unto the Angel but to God that he would appoint the same bessed Angel that administred unto him in all his streights to be the instrument of his good providence to those two Sons of Joseph whom he had now made his own and caused them to be called after his name Or else If the Patriarch must be thought here to have Prayed to the Angel we must suppose with Athanasius and others of the Fathers that Angel to be Christ the Son of God And the same answer is to be given to Revel 8 4. Where it 's said That the smoke of the Incense which came with the Prayers of the Saints ascended up before God out of the Angels hand that is Christ's the Angel of the Covenant and therefore this Angel that offered up the Prayers of the Saints is called verse 3. Another Angel intimating that it was a special Angel one different both in Nature and Office from the other seven mentioned verse 2. and described there as Ministring Spirits And I saw the seven Angels which stood before God c. verse 2. and then â— 3. And another Angel came c. IV. That there is no proof for it from the Fathers of the first three hundred years and more THe Trent Fathers and the Catechism put out by Concili Trident. sess 25. Catech. Rom. par 3. c. 2. their Authority having declared invocation of Saints to be a custom received and continued in the Church ever since the Apostles time the Romish Authors have not been wanting to turn every Stone to search every Author to produce and strain every sentence and expression that looks that way to the height in order to the making it good but how short their proofs fall of it will be made evident by these following particulars 1. Those that have taken the most pains to seek for Testimonies have not been able to produce any tolerable one out of the Genuin Writings of the Fathers within the first three hundred years after Christ they cite indeed the Hierarchy of Dionisius Areopagita Origeâ—s comments on the second Chapter of Job and the twenty first of Numbers the works of St. Ephroem and Athanasius's of the most Holy Mother of God but these have been sufficiently proved by many of our Learned Men and acknowledged by some of no obscure fame amongst them to be spurious Mons Dal. Coc. Censur Patr. in D. Areâ—p Rivet in Crit Sac. Bellar. de Scrip. Eccl. and falsly father'd on them and then for their proofs out of Irenaeus Eusebius and St. Ambrose it 's easy to shew that the first is grosly misunderstood the second corrupted and third retracted by that Father Irenoeus indeed is an Ancient Father and of sufficient Authority but his words are little to their Irenoeus Adver Haer. l. 15. c. 10. purpose they are these Sicut Eva seducta est ut effugeret Deum sic Maria suasa est obedire Deo ut Virginis Evoe Virgo Maria fieret Advocata Wherein the blessed Virgin Mary is termed the Advocate of Eve Now to make this a pat proof for their Invocation they must put this sense upon it that the blessed Virgin being a Glorified Saint in Heaven did at the request and desires of Eve living upon Earth represent her
Imprimatur February 15th 1686. Jo. Edinburgh A COLLECTION OF DISCOURSES Lately Written by some DIVINES of the CHURCH OF ENGLAND AGAINST THE ERROURS and CORRUPTIONS OF THE Church OF Rome To which is prefix'd a Catalogue of the several Discourses EDINBVRGH Re-Printed by John Reid for Thomas Brown Gideon Schaw Alexander Ogston and George Mosman Stationers to be sold at their Shops Anno DOM. 1687 THE CATALOGUE Of the DISCOURSES contained in this Book I. A Discourse concerning the Guide in Matters of Faith with Respect especially to the Romish pretence of the necessity of such an One as is infallible Page 1 II. The Protestants Resolution of Faith being an Answer to three Questions First How far we must depend on the Authority of the Church for the true sense of the Scripture Secondly Whither a visible Succession from Christ to this day makes a Church which has this Succession an Infallible Interpreter of Scripture And whither no Church which has not this Succession can teach the true sense of Scripture Thirdly Whither the Church of England can make out such a Visible Succession Page 31 III. A Discourse about the Charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking of us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther Page 57 IV. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is mean'd by it and what Tradition is to be Received and what Tradition is to be rejected Page 82 V. A Discourse concerning the Vnity of the Catholick Church maintained in the Church of England Page 117 VI. A Discourse concerning the Object of Religious Worship or a Scripture proof of the unlawfulness of givng any Religious Worship to any other Beeing besides the One supreme GOD. Page 158 VII A Discourse concerning the Celebration of Divine Service in an unknown Tongue Page 212 VIII A Discourse concerning the Devotions of the Church of Rome especially as compared with those of the Church of England in which is shewn that what ever the Romanists pretend there is not so true Devotion amongst them nor such a Rational Provision for it nor encouragement to it as in the Church established by Law among Vs Page 250 IX A Discourse concerning Invocation of Saints Page 295 X. A Discourse against Transubstantiation Page 345 XI A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host as it is taught and practised in the Church of Rome wherein an Answer is given to T. G. on that subject and to Monsuer Boileau's late Book de Adoratione Eucharistiae Paris 1685. Page 375 XII A Discourse against Purgatory Page 421 XIII A Discourse concerning Auricular Confession as it is prescribed by the Council of Trent and practised in the Church of Rome With a Postscript on occasion of a Book lately Printed in France called Historia Confessionis Auricularis Page 447. FINIS A DISCOURSE CONCERNING A GUIDE IN MATTERS OF FAITH THE design of this Discourse is the Resolution of the following Query Whither a Man who liveth where Christianity is The Question professed and refuseth to submit his judgment to the Infallibility of any Guide on Earth and particularly to the Church or Bishop of Rome hath notwithstanding that refusal sufficient means still left him whereby he may arrive at certainty in those Doctrines which are generally necessary to the Salvation of a Christian Man Satisfaction in this Inquiry is of great Moment For The moment of this Question it relateth to our great end and to the way which leads to it And it nearly concerneth both the Romanists and the Reformed If there be not such a Guide the Estate of the Romanists is extreamly dangerous For then the Blind take the Blind for their unerring Leaders and being once misled they wander on without correcting their Error having taken up this first as their fixed Principle that their Guide cannot mistake the way On the other hand If God hath set up in his Church a Light so very clear and steddy as is pretended the Reformed are guilty of great presumption and expose themselves to great uncertainty by shutting their Eyes against it Now there lyes before Men a double Temptation to a belief The Temptations to believe the Affirmative part of this Question of the being of such a Guide in the Christian Church Sloth and Vitious Humility of mind Sloth inclineth Men rather to take up in an Implicit Faith then to give themselves the trouble of a strict Examination of things For there is less Pain in Credâ—lity then in bending of the Head by long and strict Attention and severe Study Also there is a Shew of Humility in the deference which our understandings pay unto Authority especially to that which pretends to be under Christ Supreme on Earth Although in the paying of it without good reason fiâ—st understood Men are not Humble but Slavish But these Temptations prevail not upon honest and considerate Minds which inquire without prejudice The true Resolution of the Query after Truth and submit to the Powerful Evidence of it Such will resolve the Question in the Affirmative and they may reasonably so do by considering these propositions which I shall treat of in their order First The Christian Church never yet wanted nor shall it ever want either the Doctrines of necessary Faith or the Belief and Profession of them Secondly Wheresoever GOD requireth the Belief of them he giveth means sufficient for Information and unerring Assâ—nt Thirdly Whatsoever thâ—se means are every Man 's Personal reason giveth to the Mind that last Weigh which turneth Deliberation into Faith Fourthly The means which God hath given us towards necessary Faith and the ceâ—â—ainâ—y of it is nâ—t the Authority of any infallible Guide on Earth Yet Fifthly All 〈…〉 is not to be rejected in our pursuance of the 〈…〉 in the finding out or â—â—ating of which it is a very 〈…〉 Sixthly By the 〈…〉 to us the Holy Scriptures in the 〈…〉 â—â—ans sufficient to lead us to certainty 〈…〉 to â—iâ—e Eternal First 〈…〉 and Profession of the nâ—â—essâ—r 〈…〉 Faith are annexed Prop. I 〈…〉 the Chriâ—â—â—â—â— Church There â—â— but 〈…〉 and accâ—â—â—ing â—â— he saying of Leo the great * Nisi 〈…〉 Fides non est â— M Ser. 2â— If 〈…〉 at all For it cannot be contrary â—â— it seâ—â— And though it be 〈◊〉 â—et Men oâ— diâ—â—ering Creeds â—ret 〈…〉 it as the Merchants of Reliâ—â—s in the Church of 〈◊〉 shew in several places the one â—â—amless Coat of Christ †â—ee Ferrand l. 1. c. 1. Sect 4. disquis Relig. This one Faith never did nor ever shall in all places fail The Apostles were themselves without error both in their own assent to the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith and in the delivery of them They heard the Oracles of Christ from his own mouth and they were Witnesses of his Resurrection And they spake * Act. 4. 19 20. what they had seen and heard And they gave to the World Assurance of the Truth by the
the Authority of the Catholick Church in her general Councils Authority may be owned where there is no infallibility for it is not in Parents Natural or Civil Yet both teach and govern us If others reject Church-Authority let them who are guilty of such disorderly irreverence see to it The Christians of the Church of England are of another Spirit Of that Church this is one of the Articles The Church hath power Art 20. to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in controversies of Faith There is a Question saith Mr. Selden * Mr. Selden in his colloquies a Ms. in the Word Church Sect. 5 about that Article concerning the power of the Church whither these words of having power in controversies of Faith were not stolen in But it 's most certain they were in the Book of Articles that was confirmed though in some Editions they have been left out They were so in Dr. Mocket's †Doctr. Polit. Eccl. Angl. A. 1617. p. 129. but he is to be considered in that Edition as a private Man Now this Article does not make the Church an infallible Guide in the Articles of Faith but a Moderator in the controversies about Faith The Church doth not assume that Authority to it self in this Article which in the foregoing * Artic 19. is denied to the Churches of Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch and Rome When perverse Men will raise such controversies who is so fit for Peace sake to interpose as that Church where the Flame is kindled There can be no Church without a creed and each particular Church ought to believe her creed to be true and by consequence must exercise her Authority in the defence of presumed Truth Otherwise she is not true to her own constitution But still she acts under the caution given by St. Augustine a S. Aug. de verb. Dom. super Mat. Ser. 16. You bind a Man on Earth Take heed they be just bâ—nds in which you retain him For Justice will break such as are unjust in sunder And whilest the Church of England challengeth this Authority she doth not pretend to it from any supernatural gift of infallibility but so far only as she believes she hath sincerely followed an infallible Rule For of this importance are the next words of the Article before remembred It is not Lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to Gods word written And besides the same it ought not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation b Art 20. After this manner the Church of England asserteth her own Authority and she runs not into any extream about the Authority of Councils or the Catholick Church We make confession of the Ancient Faith expressed in the Apostolical Nicene or Constantinopolitan and Athanasian Creeds The canons of forty reject the Heresie of Socinus as contrary to the first four General Councils c can 5. Our very Statute-Book hath respect to them in the adjudging of Heresie d 1 Eliz. 1. Sect 36. Yet our Church still teacheth concerning them e Art 21. that things by them ordained have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture When controversies arise especially when the doubts concern not so much the Article of Faith it self as the Modes of it we grant to such venerable Assemblies a Potiority of Judgement Or if we Assent not yet for Peace sake we are humbly silent We do not altogether refuse their Umpirage We think their Definitions good Arguments against unquiet Men who are chiefly moved by Authority We believe them very useful in the Controversies betwixt us and the Church of Rome and as often as they appeal to Primitive Fathers and Councils to Fathers and Councils we are willing to go with them and to be tryed by those who were nigher to the Apostles in the Quality of Witnesses rather then Judges We believe that in matters of Truth of which we are already well perswaded there may be added by the Suffrages of Councils and Fathers a degree of corroboration to our Assent In some we say with St. Augustine * Ep. 118. concil in Eccl. Dei saluberimam esse Authoritatem that there is of councils in the church of God a most wholesome though not an infallible Authority And if S. Gregory Nazianzen never saw as he saith a happy effect of any Synod a Greg. Naz. Ep. 42 ad Procopium this came not to pass from the Nature of the means as not conducive to that end but from the looseness of Government and the depraved manners of the Age in which he lived For such were the times of Valens the Emperour It is true there are some among us though not of us who with disdainful insolence contemn all Authority even that of the Sacred Scripture it self These pretend to an infallible Light of immediate and personal Revelation It hath happened according to the Proverb every Man of them hath a Pope within him Henry Nicholas puffed up many vain ignorant People with this proud Imagination Hetherington a Mechanick about the end of the Reign oâ— King James advanced this notion of Personal Infallibility His followers believed they could not erre in giving deliberate Sentence in Religion a See D. Dennisons white wolf And this was the principle of Wynstanley and the first Quakers though the Leaders since they were embodied have in part forsaken it But these Enthusiasts have intituled the Holy Spirit of God to their own Dreams They have pretended to Revelations which are contrary to one another They can be Guides to themselves only because they cannot by any supernatural sign prove to others that they are inspired And such Enthusiasm is not otherwise favoured in the Church of England then by Christian pity in consideration of the infirmity of Humane Nature but in the Church of Rome it hath been favoured to that Degree that it hath founded many orders and Religious Houses and given Reputation to some Doctrines and canonized not a few Saints amongst them The Inspiration of S. Hildegardis S. Catharine of Siena S. Teresa and and many others seemeth to have been vapour making impression on a devout fancy Yet the Church of Rome in a Council under Leo the Tenth hath too much encouraged such a distemper as prophesie * conc Lat. sess 11. A. 1516. inter Labb conc Max. p 291. Caeterum si quibusdam eorum Dominus futur a quaedaÌ„ in Dei Ecclesia inspiratione quapium revelaverit ut per Amos prophetam ipse permittit Paulus Ap. PraedicatoruÌ„ princeps SpirituÌ„ inquit nolite extinguere prophetas nolite spernere hos aliorum fabulosorum mendacium gregi coâ—â—umerari vel aliter impediri minime volumus For private Reason it is the handmaid of Faith we use it and not separately from the Authority of the Church but as a help in distinguishing true from false Authority And in so
excepting the Dispute between the Latin and Greek Church about the Filioque or the Holy Spirits proceeding from the Father and the Son received by all catholick churches to this day which is as compleat and perfect Succession as any Doctrine can have therefore when the Church of Rome asks us Where was our Religion before Luther we tell them it was all the World over all Catholick churches believed what we do though we do not believe all that they do they themselves did and do to this Day own our creeds and Articles of Faith excepting such of them as are directly opposed to their Innovations So that we are on a â—ure Foundation our Faith has been received in the catholick church in all Ages But now the church of Rome cannot shew such a Succession for her new Doctrines and Articles of Faith which were unknown to the Primitive church for many Ages which were rejected by many flourishing churches since the first appearance of them which never had a quiet possession in her own communion and were never formed into Articles of Faith till the packt conventicle of Trent This I think is a sufficient Answer to this Paper and it pities me to see so many well-meaning Persons abused with such transparent Sophistry FINIS A DISCOURSE About the Charge of NOVELTY Upon the Reformed CHURCH OF ENGLAND Made by the PAPISTS Asking of us the Question Where was our Religion before LVTHER LONDON Printed and Edinburgh Re-printed by J. Reid for T. Brown and G. Schaw and A. Ogston and G. Mosman Stationers in the Parliament Closs 1686. A DISCOURSE About the Charge of NOVELTY Upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists c. THe Christian Doctrine was once by the way of trust delivered by Christ and his Apostles unto the Saints Men of Care and Honesty and who should preserve it in its first purity and Spiritual intention only to prescribe methods unto Men by Faith and an Honest conversation how they might arrive at Heaven that this Religion might make a deeper impression upon their minds and memories and be more faithfully kept it was set down in plain and significant Terms and reduced into 2 Tim. 1. 13 14. Rom. 6. 17. 1. Tim. 6. 20. short summaries called a form of sound words that good thing that Form of Doctrine a depositum or trust and by the Church afterwards a creed That it might be believed and valued it was in its own Nature of the greatest importance confirmed with variety of the best of Arguments Miracles Prophecies innocent carriage and Death of its numerous Disciples and severe curses denounc'd against any that should add to or take from it till Gal. 1. 8. 9 Rev. 22. 18. their great Master And its Author Jesus should come from Heaven again Yet notwithstanding all this by the Malice and Subtility of the Devil the Designs and Passions of Men the Ignorance and Negligence of some the Cunning and Industry of others this plain and simple Religion began by degrees to be corrupted by the mixtures of Philosophy and niceness by the Rules of Stat Craft and Policy by idle Traditions and Inventions by the Melancholy of some and the gayety of others and the natural Face of it was so strangely changed that it seem'd another Gospel and you might seek Christianity in the Christian World and yet scarce find it Many Kingdoms and People were to blame in this being Teacherous to their Master and false to their trust suffering so Pure and chast a Religion to be corrupted 2. Cor. 11. 2 or Stolen away but the Church of Rome seems the most Guilty of them all especially upon her own grounds her Bishop being the Infallible Vicar of Jesus to whom are committed the Oracles of GOD once indeed renowned Cyp. Epist Ox. Edit p. 5. 6. Rom 18. Platina vitâ— Bon 7. p. 159. vide quaeso quantum degeneraverint c. for her Faith and Pious Governours but now as famous for their Degeneracy as well in Religion as in their Lives Whose Ambition or Interest prostituted the Faith to those Designs and made it Earthly and Sensual or their Negligence and Stupidity suffered the Enemy in the night of Ignorance to sow the tares which so grew up and choakt the Wheat that Faith was turn'd into Fables and Lyes Foppery and Superstition were Nick-nam'd Devotion Ridiculous Gestures and Habits past for Repentance and Mortification the Bible was shut up and contemned and the Legends open'd and praised Honest and Good Men were butchered and unknown Persons and Malefactors canonized Saints with their Pictures and Reliques were made Rivals to Christ in Mediation and Intercession Good Works were spoiled by Merit and Arrogance or done by way of composition for vices the fear of Hell was abated by the invention of Purgatory Christ was fetch from Glory by the Magick of a Priest and put into a Wafer or into a more sordid place riddles and quirks of their Schools were made Articles of Faith in short old truths were rooted up and new errors grafted on them Power and Profit were Stiled the church the court of Rome was brought into the Temple and called the Holy of Holies Such errours as these in the christian Faith came from Rome and infected our Ancient British church not at first planted by the Labours of the Romish Bishops of old but corrupted by their later Emissaries and lasted a long time among us being supported by Power twisted with Interest sutable to the pleasures and vices of Men incorporated into the Government having put out Mens reason to try and discern between Truth and Error and at length became Fashionable Legal Terrible with Fires and censures which made us Sick unto death absolute almost and beyond recovery Such was our condition here of Slavery and Ignorance but it pleased him that dwells between the Golden Candlesticks to dispel our Darkness and restore the Ancient light of Primitive Christianity His Wisdom and Goodness improving the passions and inclinations of some in temporal changes and concerns to Spiritual purposes encouraging the secret groans and desires of others putting many more upon search and enquiry after Truth and infusing courage for it at length came to a resolution of Arguing and Debating the Errors of the Romish Faith and manners of reforming the abuses in Discipline and Devotion and to call back True Christianity again and being dispossest of the Spirit of Rome which oft tore them and rent them till they foamed again are now cloath'd and in their Wits once more upon this account the Friends of Rome call us Hereticks Schismaticks and Innovators Discharge Censures and Excommunications and Eternal Damnation against us are full of Wrath and indignation and to shew a little Wit in their Anger And pretended reason pertly ask the Question where was our Religion before Luther This is the common and trite objection against our Religion very frequent not only in the Mouths of their Bellarmine Campian Smith more Ordinary
Disciples but also of their more Learned Writers who whatever strength they really fancy may be in the Argument it self think it a very proper Weapon to attempt the Vulgar and the Weak withall to amuse and dazle the less discerning eve at least when backâ— and set off with the stately Names of Infallibility Succession Anâ—iquity and the like and they tell us roundly our Faith was but yesterday our Religion is new and upstart as only Henry the Eights and â—romwels contrivance they may truly say as much as their Treason was Cecils Plot That our Faith began only in the year 1517 in Saxony by one Martin Luther an Apostate Fryar who for the sake of a fair Nun and other designs renounc'd the Ancient Faith and set up his new Device of Protestantism at Spires which did not quietly last much above seven years for in the year Bellar. Tom. lib. 4. p. 287 1. 25. starts up Zuinglius after two years more he Anabaptists who change and correct Luther's Religion and draw great numbers of his disciples from him and himself for his reward dyed a strange Death great Noises and Crackings were heard in his Tomb which being opened neither Body nor Bones were found and the smell of Brimstone was ready to stifle the standers by And therefore they say we ought to look from whence we are faln to repent of our Heresie and returne to our first Love and not stick so close to our Religion the new invention of so ill a Man That we may therefore keep those firme that are members of our Religion and bring those back that have revolted from us into the Romish Communion we have endeavour'd to give a satisfactory Answer to this their Question Where was your Religion before the times of Luther Not to trouble our selves with such Legends as these and Uncharitableness along with them the Answer is thus 1. Telling them plainly where our Religion was before Luthers time 2. By shewing what Errors and Mistakes are included in the Question 3. To turn the Question upon themselves and ask them some others of the like nature 1. The plain Answer to the Question is this That our Religion was long before the times of Luther and believed and setled in many Kingdoms and Nations of the World and hath neither Novelty nor Singularity in it 'T is an old Religion I am sure 't is of Age and can speak for it self It hath lasted now these 1600 years and more founded at first by Christ and his Apostles handed down to us through many Sufferings and Persecutions and here it is preserved It contracted indeed in the coming down a great deal of rust by the Falseness and Carelesness of its keepers particularly by the Church of Rome we scowr'd off the rust and kept the mettal that 's the Romish Religon this is the English They added False Doctrines to the Christian Faith we left the one and kept to the other this is Ancient those are New Our Religion is the same with that of the Early Christians Martyrs and Confessors believed in the first 300 years and defended by all Councils truely General Our Religion in those first Ages was in Palestine and Greece in Egypt in Antioch where the Discâ—â—les Acts 11. 26. were fiâ—st called Christians and in Rome it self and wherever the great labours of her first Apostles carry'd her to the different and reâ—ote Countries of the World Then and there our Religion lâ—v'd where Peter Linus and Cletus and all the first and Pious Bishops of Rome did It suffered indeed great variety of changes and conditions by the interest and wickedness of men sometimes more Adulterated and sometimes more Pure it flitted from Country to Country sometimes greater and sometimes smaller in its number sometimes in a dejected and sometimes in a more flourishing state but somewhere or other it was intire and without mixture as it was at first given unto the world and such an old Religion as this we are of holding fast neither more nor less neither adding to nor diminishing what Christ and his Apostles taught and iâ— Antiquity must evidence the Truth of our Religion we are safe and secure that we have right on our side And this will appear if we consider these following things 1. What Conformity our Religion carries to that of Christ and his Apostles Let any impartial eye compare them both together and he will find the features and complexion the whole body of Religion the same in both Whatever they delivered out at first as Fundamental to Salvation whatever they instituted as parts of Devotion Discipline and Order we still faithfully retain in our Church and if any Truth of moment hitherto by Fraud or Negligence be concealed from her she is ready to receive it when ever it is made plain not having stopt up the way of Truth by a pretence of Infallibility or want of Modesty to confess an error She hath the same sense of the Nature Offices the Design and whole Undertakings of Christ that the truly Ancient Church had She receives the Creed and Bible and any Traditions that can be made out to be truly Divine in the same meaning and understanding that Christ and his Apostles gave to the first Christians and they to us What their thoughts of Saints and holy Souls departed were ours are thoughts of respect remembrance and imitation not divine Worship Christ instituted proper Figures and Symbols of Bread Wine to represent and confirm to conveigh and commemorate his bloudy Passion and Benefits to Mankind in this sense She preserves the Institution sacred and doth not really Sacrifice or Crucifie the LORD of Life again Christ commanded good works under the penalty of eternal Damnation She doth the same and in our Masters language bids the doers of them call themselves unprofitable Servants beating down Pride and Merit Christ and his Apostles told the World what departing Souls must expect Her sense is the same that there are no second Ventures and Trials to be made neither can a kind Friend with a good Estate left for Masses or Monks compound for a Life ill spent Run through the whole constitution of our Church in Articles of Faith and Rules of Manners you may trace them to Christ and his Apostles time and all other parts of her Government and Order are truly Primitive And it must needs be so if She sincerely folloâ—s her rule of Faith the holy Scriptures so Ancient so Divine and whatever is declared there essential to Salvation She brings into her Creed and resolves to keep it like a mighty Treasure faithfully unto death And indeed the Church of Rome confesses that what we do retain is ancient and Apostolical but pretends that we are defective in many things and want some necessaries which they have to make an entire Faith But we challenge them to prove that those opinions wherein we differ from them were delivered by Christ or any men divinely inspired in those times
now such a force to induce belief as it had then The reason of which is given by the same Vicentius who so highly commends that way which was then taken of reproving Heresie but adds this most wise Caution in the last Chapter but one of the first part of his commonitorium But you must not think that all Heresies and all wayes are thus to be opposed but only new and fresh Heresies when they first rise up that is before they have falsified the Rules of the ancient Faith c. As for inveterate Heresies which have spred themselves they are in no wise to be assaulted this way because in a long tract of time many opportunities may have presented themselves to Hereticks of stealing Truth out of the ancient Records and of corrupting the Volumes of our Ancestors Which if it be applied to the present state of things it is evident the Roman Church hath had such opportunities of falsifying Antiquity ever since the first acknowledgment of the Papal Supremacy that we cannot rely merely upon any written Testimonies or unwritten Traditions which never so great a number of their Bishops met together shall produce which amount not to so much as one legal Testimony but they are to be look'd upon or suspected as a multitude of false Witnesses conspiring together in their own cause How then may some say can Heresies of long standing be confuted The same Vincentius resolves us in this in the very next words We may convince them if need be by the sole authority of the Scriptures or eschew them as already convicted and condemned in ancient times by the general Councils of Catholick Priests The Tradition which is found there must direct all future councils not the Opinions of their present churches IV. I will adde but one thing more which is That the Tradition called Oral because it comes by word of mouth from one Age to another without any written Record is the most uncertain and can be least relied upon of all other This hath been demonstrated so fully by the Writers of our Church and there are such pregnant instances of the errours into which men have been led by it that it needs no long discourse Two instances of it are very common and I shall adde a third 1. The first is that which Papias who lived presently after the Apostles times and conversed with those who had seen them set on foot His way was as Eusebius relates out of his Works not so much to read as to enquire of the Elders what Saint Andrew or Saint Peter said what was the Saying of Saint Thomas Saint James and the rest of the Disciples of our LORD And he pretended that some of them told him among other things that after the resurrection of our Bodies we shall reign a thousand years here upon Earth which he gathered saith Eusebius from some Saying of the Apostles wrong understood But this Fancy was embraced very greedily and was taught for two whole Ages as an Apostolical Tradition no body opposing it and yet having nothing to say for it but only the antiquitie of the man as Eusebius his words are L. 3. cap. ult who delivered it to them yet this Tradition hath been generally since taken for an imposture and teaches us no more then this That if one man could set a going such a Doctrine and make it pass so current for so long a time upon no other pretence then that an Apostle said so in private discourse we have great reason to think that other Traditions have had no better beginning or not so good especially since they never so universally prevailed as that did 2. A second instance is that famous contention about the observation of Easter which miserably afflicted the Church in the dayes of Victòr Bishop of Ròme by dividing the Eastern Christians from the Western One pretending Tradition from Saint Jòhn and Saint Philip the other from Saint Peter and Saint Paul Concerning which I will not say as Rigaltius doth in his sharp note upon the words of Firmilian who pretended Tradition for the rebaptizing of Hereticks That under the Names and Persons of great men there were sottish and sophistical things delivered for Apostolical Traditions by Fools and Sophisters But this I affirm that there are many more instances of mens forwardness and they neither Fools nor Sophisters but onely wedded to the Opinions of their own Churches to obtrude things as Apostolical for which they had no proof at all For when they knew not how to defend themselves presently they flew to Tradition Apostolical 3. A third instance of whose uncertainty we have in Irenaeus L. 2. c. 39. concerning the age of our blessed Saviour when he died which he confidently affirms to have been forty if not fifty years and saith the Elders which knew St. John and were his Scholar◠received this relation from him And yet all agree that he beginning to preach at thirtie years of age was crucified about three years and an half after The like relation Clement makes of his preaching but one year which he calls a secret Tradition from the Apostles but hath no more truth in it then the other Now if in the first Ages when they were so near the fountain and beginning of Tradition men were deceived nay such great men as these were deceived and led others into errours in these matters we cannot with any safety trust to Traditions that have passed men pretend from one to another until now but we can find no mention of in any Writer till some Ages after the Apostles and then were by some body or other who had authority in those dayes called Apostolical Traditions merely to gain them the more credit Thus Andreas Caesariensis in his commentaries upon the Book of Revelation p. 743. Saith that the coming of Enoch and Elias before the second coming of Christ though it be not found in Scripture was a constant report received by Tradition without any variation from the Teachers of the Church Which is sufficient to shew how ready they were to father their own private Opinions upon ancient universal Tradition and how little reason we have to trust to that which was so uncertain even in the first Ages and therefore must needs be more dubious now Thus I have endeavoured to lay before the eyes of those who will be pleased to look over this short Treatise what they are to think and speak about Tradition It is a calumny to affirm that the Church of England rejects all Tradition and I hope none of her true Children are so ignorant as when they hear that word to imagine they must rise up and oppose it No the Scripture it self is a Tradition and we admit all other Traditions which are subordinate and agreeable unto that together with all those things which can be proved to be Apostolical by the general Testimony of the Church in all Ages nay if any thing not contained in Scripture which the Roman Church now
between us the chief design of this attempt Now that we may not charge them nor they us falsly or rashly I. It may be convenient first to lay down some Principles concerning this Church in which they and we seem mostly agreed though all our Writers express not themselves alike clearly herein II. To propound the chief Bands of Unity within this Church III. To mark out the most obvious Defections from them by the Romanists IV. To shew the Reformation in the Church of England proceeded and was framed with all due regard to the preservation of them V. To clear it of the most common Objections VI. To consider the strong obligations from hence upon all sorts of Dissenters among us to embrace and continue in its ommunion I. The former will soon be dispatcht which I reduce to the following particulars 1. That our Blessed Saviour alwayes had and alwayes will have a Church in the World in which his Doctrine hath been and shall be so far profest and his Sacraments so effectually administred that they who rightly improve them may not want necessary supplies for their present spiritual life or future hopes of Salvation though the extent of the Church as to its boundaries and the perfection of it in degrees may be vastly different at one time and in one place from another This many Prophesies in the Old Testament and Promises from our Saviour in the New give abundant ground for our Faith to rely upon and the experience of all Ages hitherto hath confirmed 2. That this Church is a distinct Society within it self furnished with sufficient Authority in some to Govern and Obligation in others to be subject necessary to every Society which the power of the Keyes given by our Lord to received in or shut out and the exercise of Discipline from Divine Precept and Scripture Example evince beyond all exception But then this Ecclesiastical Power in whomsoever placed or strained to what height soever can never extend to vacate or change the express Institution of Christ or take away our Obligation to his revealed Truth and direct Commands In case of any competition the Apostles defence may be ours We must obey God rather then man And St. Pauls profession We can do nothing against the Truth but for the Truth And again If we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel c. let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. 3. This Church must be visible as every Society is more or less whose parts are so and whose Profession must be so Our entrance into it is in a visible manner by Baptismal Initiation Our oblidged Communion with it is in diverse outward sensible Acts which the representation of it by a Body or Building might prove More clearly is it likened to a city on a Hill which cannot be hid Mat. 5. 14. Set up as the Light of the World an Ensign to the Gentiles which all Nations should flee unto or else it would witness against them wherein its Followers should take Sanctuary and find a Refuge 4. Within these Boundaries we have the only hopes of safety here and happiness hereafter What GOD may do by his supereminent unaccountable power in an extraordinary case is presumption for us but to inquire into Out of this Atk there is no prospect given to us of any escape from the Universal Deluge a S. Cyprian Ep. 60 p. 143. Ed. Ox. Si aliquis ex talibus fuerit apprehensus non est quod sibi quasi in confessione Nominis blandiatur cum constet si occisi ejusmodi extra Ecclesiam fuerint Fidei coronam non esse sed poenam potius esse perfidiae Nec in Domo Dei inter unanimes habitaturos esse quos videmus de pacifica Divina Domo furore discordiae recessisse S. August Caeteri in Conc. Cirtensi adv Donatistas Ep. 152. T. 2. p. 696. Edit Frob. 556. Quisquis ergo ab hac Ecclesia Catholica fuerit separatus quantumlibet laudabiliter se vivere existimet hoc solo scelere quod a Christi unitate disjunctus est non habebit vitam Sed ira Dei manet super eum Quisquis autem in hac Ecclesia bene vixerit nihil ei praejudicant aliena peccata Idem Ep. 204. ad Donatum Presbyterum Donatist T. 2. p. 834. Foris autem ab Ecclesia constitutus separatus a compage unitatis vinculo Charitatis aeterno supplicio punireris etiamsi pro Christi nomine vivus incendereris All the spiritual Promises concerning this life or a better are made to this Church the Members of this Body who is the Head Therefore the Apostles preach to Jews and Gentiles the necessity of receiving this Character Seeing there is no other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved as St Peter attests Acts 4. 12. 5. This church is but one It is an Article of our Faith exprest in our Creed to believe it so For there be many members yet but one Body One Spirit quickning all One LORD and Head over all One GOD and Father of all one Faith one Baptism one Hope of our Calling in all as the Apostle argues Eph. 4. 4. 5. 6. 7 c. II. Now we are to enquire what are the chief Bands of Unity in the Church which make keep and evidence it to be one How we may secure our selves within this Garden enclosed this Spring shut up this Fountain sealed as the Ancients usually apply that Cant 4. 12. to this one Enclosure of the Church 1. This appears in the Vnity of Belief not only inwardly but in the outward profession of the same Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and hath been generally preserved and continued down throughout all Ages of the Church In testimony whereof the most eminent Bishops upon their first Consecration sent to their Brethren confessions of their Faith 2. In the Vnity of a Tertullian de praescript Haeret. c. 20. p. 209. Sic omnes primae Apostolicae dum una omnes probant unitatem Dum est communicatio Pacis appellatio Fraternitatis contesseratio Hospitalitatis quae jura non alia ratio regit quam ejusdem Sacramenti una traditio S. August adv literas â—eâ—iliani T. 7. p. 132. Charitas Christiana nisi in unitate Ecclesiae non potest custodiri Ibid. p. 473. de bapt adv Donatist l. 6. Etiamsi Christi Baptismum usque and Sacramenti celebrationem perceperunt tamen vitam aeternam nisi per Charitatis unitatem non consequuntur Et Ibid de unitate Ecclesiae c. 2 p. 510. Ecclesia corpus Christi est unde utique manisesâ—um est eum qui non est in membris Christi â—hristianam salutem habere non posse membra autem Christi per unitatis charitatem sibi copulantur per eandem capiti suo cohaerent quod est christus Charity and Affection as Fellow-members one of another as well as of the same Head that if one suffer
condition of those who lived in that Communion before the Reformation many of them groaned under those Oppressions from which we are happily freed nay whatever charitable allowance may still be made for them who now live within those Boundaries where they have little opportunity of knowing better and are under vaâ—â— prejudices by contrary Education and the severest awe over them Now far I say these cases may be pleadable must be left to GOD and their own Consciences As for those born and bred among us who have been treacherously deluded into Apostacy from us or will persist in their hereditary obstinate averseness to us against the Clearest conviction which they may receive and in opposition to the express Laws of GOD and of the Land to the perpetual disturbance of the State and confusion of the Church there appears no room for any excuse to lessen their Crime or alleviate their doom which will be mightly encreased when all manner of hidden and crafty Artifices or open violence against the common Rights of Humane Society and moral Honesty as well as the Faith and Charity of Christs Church are imployed and consecrated into a religious but blind Zeal for the destruction of both No marvel if the Nation awakened with the effects hereof which it hath sometimes felt and oftner had reason to fear have provided some severe Laws for an aw over them and to stop the first beginnings of such exorbitant attempts ready to break through all ordinary inclosures and which will hardly be restrained by the usual methods of Government No temper is more difficulty mastered or more mischievous if let loose then such a false fiery zeal which neglected burns all before it But whatever may have been their Treatment of us formerly or we may justly apprehend would be still had they any opportunity which GOD pervent we ought not and hope shall not ever desist from wishing and endeavouring as much as is in our power their real welfaâ—e and so of all our implacable Enemies and therein their hearty Union with us in the holy Offices of Religion and Fellowship of GODs Church where they live with the sincere renounciation of those dangerous Errours and Practices that hitherto keep them at a distance from us In Conclusion instead of querulous expostulations or catching occasions to find fault we have great reason to admire and adore that gracious Providence which amidst so many Confusions Disorders and Corruptions that prevail too much in most places â—ound about hath placed our Lot in so happy a soil and provided for us so goodly a Heritage and safe Retreat in the Bosom of that Church whose Charity is as eminent as its Faith and its Order as signal as its Purity whose Arms are alwayes open to receive its returning Enemies with the most tender Compassions as well as to cherish its faithful Friends with the wholsom and indulgent provisions where nothing is wanting to ensure our safety and encourage our proficiency in every thing that is good and excellent Which upon former tâ—al of both the opposit extremes the whole Kingdom hath seen necessary to fâ—ee back into to repair the Confusions and Devastions they had brought and in its most dangerous Convulsions here hath found the readiest Cure and under whose name her very Enemies desire to shelter themselves which finally engages us to express our gratitude for so peculiar Priviledges by â— ready and impartial Obedience to the holy Doctrine we are taught and a fruitful improvement of all those happy Advantages which we enjoy therein That our Lives may be answerable to our Profession and our pious vertuous peaceable and charitable Conversation may be in some proportion as defensible and remarkable as the Principles we proceed upon or the benefitâ— we lay claim to This would most effectually silence the captious Cavils of our Enemies on every side and more powerfully invite them to our communion then all other the most demonstrative Arguments When their very senses would bear witness that GOD is in us of a truth I hope we are not distitute of some such eminent Examples of unfeigned Piety true Holiness and universal Probity GOD Almighty increase their number more and more Yet whatsoever may be the effect thereof upon other men this method would unquestionably ensure our own firmest Peace here and everlasting Salvation hereafter Here we keep certainly within our own bounds and may most safely and profitably spend all our Zeal while other men please themselves in diverting it aâ—road to what they have no power over It seems horribly â—â—useous to hear men quarrel fiercely about the best church who live in the most open defiance to all Religion and I doubt there are too many of all denominations chargeable herewith Yet whatever the case of others prove it will be most safe and pious to bring it home and close to our selves Be our Church or our Profession never so much better then any other if we be not also suitably better then other men they will rise up in judgment against us at the last But by a careful and diligent observance of its sacred Prescriptions we shall justifie our Reformation throughout put a stop to the Reproaches and shame the calumnies of our Adversaries and which is the Summary of all good intentions and endeavours bring honour to our great LORD and Master the Author and Finisher of our Faith FINIS A DISCOURSE Concerning the Object of RELIGIOUS WORSHIP OR A SCRIPTURE PROOF OF THE UNLAWFULNESS of giving any Religious Worship to any other Beeing BESIDES THE ONE SUPREME GOD EDINBVRGH Re-Printed by J. Reid MDC LXXXVI A DISCOURSE Concerning the Object of Religious Worship The INTRODVCTION OF all the Disputes between â—s and the Church of Rome there is none of greater concernment then that about the Object of Religious Worship We affirm as the Scripture has taught us that we must worship the LORD our GOD and serve him only the Church Mat. 4. 10. of Rome teaches that there is a degree of Religious Worship which we may give to some excellent Creatures to Angels and Saints and Images and the Host and to the Reliques of Saints and Martyrs If they are in the right we may be thought very rude and uncivil at least in denying to pay that Worship which is due to such excellent Creatures and very injurious to our selves in it by losing the benefit of their Prayers and Patronage If we be in the right the Church of Rome is guilty of giving worship to Creatures which is due to GOD alone which is acknowledged on all hands to be the greatest of sins and therefore this is a dispue which can never be compromised though we were never so desirous of an union and reconciliation with the Church of Rome for the Incommunicable glory of GOD and the salvation of our Souls are too dear things to be given away in complement to any Church And should it appear in the next world for I believe it will never
appear to be so in this that we were mistaken that we were over-nice and curious in refusing to worship Saints and Angels yet ours is a much more innocent and pardonable mistake then that which the church of Rome is guilty of if they should prove to be mistaken We are only wanting in some Religious courtship which we might innocently have given to Saints and Angels but which we were not bound to give as the Church of Rome will not say that we are by any express Divine Law and therefore it is no sin against GOD not to do it and when this neglect is not owing to any designed contempt and dis-regard of those excellent Spirits but to a great reverence for GOD and jealousie for his incommunicable glory if it were a fault we need not doubt but that GOD would pardon it and that all good spirits who have such profound veneration for GOD will easily excuse the neglect of some ceremonies to themselves upon so great a reason But if the Church of Rome be mistaken and gives that worship to creatures which is due only to the Supreme God they have nothing to pretend in excuse of it neither any positive Law of God which expresly forbids all Creature-worship as I doubt not to prove to the satisfaction of all impartial Readers nor the principles of Natural Reason which whatever Apologies it may make for the worship of Saints and Angels can never prove the necessity of it and it highly concerns the Church of Rome and all of her communion to consider whither if their distinctions and little appearances of reason cannot justifie their worship of creatures they will be able to excuse them from the guilt of so great a sin But not to insist on these things now I shall divide this discourse into three parts 1. I shall prove from the plain evidence of Scripture That God alone is to be worshipped 2. I shall examine what that worship is which is proper and particular to the Supreme God 3. I shall consider those distinctions whereby the Church of Rome justifies her worship of Saints and Angels and Images c. SECTION I. That GOD alone must be Worshipped TO make good the first point that we must worship Sect. 1. no other being but only GOD I shall principally confine my self to Scripture evidence which is the most certain authority to determine this matter For though I confess it seems to me a self evident and fundamental principle in natural Religion that we must worship none but that Supreme Beeing who made and who governs the World yet I find men reason very differently about these matters The Heathen Philosophers who generally acknowledge one Supreme and Soveraign Deity did not think it incongruous nor any affront or dimimition to the Supreme God to ascribe an inferiour kind of Divinity nor to pay an inferiour degree of Religious Worship to those excellent Spirits which are so much above us and have so great a share in the government of this lower world no more then it is an affront to a Soveraign Monarch to honour and reverence his great Ministers of State or peculiar Favourites And the Church of Rome as she has corrupted Christianity with the worship of Angels and Saints departed so she defends her self with the same Arguments and reasons which were long since alledged by Celsus and Porphyrie and other Heathen Philosophers in defence of their Pagan Idolatry And it must be confest that these Arguments are very popular and have something so agreeable in them to the natural notions of Civil Honour and respect which admits of great variety of degrees that I do not wonder that such vast numbers of men both wise and unwise have been imposed on by them For there is certainly a proportionable reverence and respect due even to created excellencies and every degree of power challenges and commands a just regard and we are bound to be very thankful not only to GOD who is the first cause and the supreme giver of all good things but to our immediate Benefactors also And therefore if there be a sort of middle Beeings as the Heathens believed and as the Church of Rome asserts between us and the Supreme God who take particular care of us and either by their power and interest in the government of the world or by their Intercessions with the Supreme GOD can and do bestow a great many Blessings on us it eems as natural and necessary to fear and reverence to honour and worship them and to give them thanks for their care and patronage of us as it is to court a powerful Favourite who by his interest and authority can obtain any request we make to our Prince and the first seems to be no greater injury to God then the second 2. Col. 18. to a Prince Thus St. Paul observes that there is a shew of humility in worshipping Angels that men dare not immediately approach so glorious a Majesty as God is but make their addresses to those excellent spirits which attend the Throne of God and are the Ministers of his Providence But then every one who believes that there is one Supreme God who made all other Beeings though never so perfect and excellent must acknowledge that as there is nothing common to God and Creatures so there must be a particular Worship due to God which no Creatures can challenge any share in It is no affront to a Prince to pay some inferiour degrees of civil honour and respect to his Ministers and Favourites because as the difference between a Prince and his subjects is not founded in nature but in civil order so there are different degrees of civil respect proportioned to the different ranks and degrees of men in the Common-wealth There is a degree of preheminency which is sacred and peculiar to the Person of the Prince and no Prince will suffer his greatest Favourite to usurp the Prerogative honours which belong to the Crown but while they are contented with such respects as are due to their rank and station this is no injury to the Prince for all civil honour is not peculiar to the Prince but only a supereminent degree of it and therefore inferiour degrees of honour may be given to other persons But though there are different degrees of civil honour proper to different ranks and degrees of men who all partake in the same nature and are distinguisht only by their different places in the Common-wealth yet in this sense there are no different degrees of Religious Worship All Religious Worship is peculiar to the Divine Nature which is but one and common only to three Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost one God blessed for ever Amen Civil honor and Religious Worship differ in the whole kind and species of actions and have as different objects as God and Creatures and we may as well argue from those different degrees of civil honour among men to prove that there is an inferiour degree
of civil honour due to beasts as that there is an inferiour degree of Religious Worship due to some men For all degrees of Religious Worship are as peculiar and appropriate to God as civil respects are to men and as the highest degree of civil honour is to a Soveraign Prince However should we grant that some excellent Creatures might be capable of some inferiour degrees of Religious Worship yet as the Prince is the fountain of civil honour which no subject must presume to usurp without a grant from his Prince so no creature how excellent soever has any natural and inherent right to any degree of Religious Worship and therefore we must not presume to worship any Creature without Gods command nor to pay any other degree of worship to them but what God hath prescribed and instituted and the only way to know this is to examine the Scriptures which is the only external revelation we have of the will of God Let us then inquire what the sense of Scripture is in this controversie and I shall distinctly examine the testimonies both of the Old and New Testament concerning the object of Religious Worship SECT II. The Testimonies of the Mosaical Law considered TO begin with the Old Testament and nothing is Sect 3. 1. more plain in all the Scripture then that the Laws of Moses confine â— Religious worship to that one Supreme God the Lord Jehovah who Created the Heavens and the Earth For 1. The Israelites were expresly commanded to worship the Lord Jehovah and to worship no other Beeing as our Saviour himself assures us who I suppose will be allowed for a very good Expositor of the Laws of Moses It is written Matth. 4. 10. Deut. 6. 13. Deutr 10. 10. thou shalt worship the Lord they God and him only shalt thou serve In the Hebrew Text from whence our Saviour cites this Law it is only said Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and serve him without that addition of him only And yet both the Septuagint and the vulgar Latine read the words as our Saviour doth him only shalt thou serve and the authority of our Saviour is sufficient to justifie this Interpretation and withal gives us a general rule which puts an end to this controversie that as often as we are commanded in Scripture to worship God we are commanded also to worship none besides him For indeed the first Commandment is very express in this matter and all other Laws which concern the obiect of Worship must in all reason be expounded by that Thou shalt have none other Gods before me The Septuagint 20 Exod. 3. renders it plen emu besides me so does the Chaldee Syriack and Arabick to the same sense And it is universally concluded by all Expositors that I have seen that the true interpretation of this Commandment is that we must worship no other God but the Lord Jehovah To pay Religious Worship to any Beeing does in the Scriptures notion make that Beeing our God which is the only reason why they are commanded not to have any other Gods For there is but one true God and therefore in a strict sense they can have no other GODS because there are no other Gods to be had but whatever Beeings they worship they make that their God by worshiping it and so the Heathens had a great many Gods but the Jews are commanded to have but one GOD that is to worship none else besides him In other places GOD expresly forbids them to worship any strange Gods or the Gods of the people or those Nations Deut. 6. 14 that were round about them And least we should suspect that they were forbid to worship the Gods of the people only because those Heathen Idolaters worship Devils and wicked Spirits the Prophet Jeremiah gives us a general notion who are to be reputed false GODS and not to be worshipped Thus shall ye say unto them the Gods that have not made the Heavens and the Jer. 10. 11. Earth even they shall perish from the Earth and from under these Heavens So that whatever Beeing is worshipped whither it be a good or a bad Spirit which did not make the Heavens and the Earth is a false GOD to such Worshippers and I suppose the Church of Rome will not say that Saints or Angels or the Virgin Mary as much as they magnifie her made the Heavens and the Earth And then according to this rule they ought not to be worshipped But to put this past doubt that the true meaning of these Laws is to forbid the worship of any other Beeing besides the Supreme GOD I shall observe two or three things in our Saviours answer to the Devils temptation which will give great light and strength to it 1. That our Saviour absolutely rejects the worship of any other Beeing together with the Supreme GOD. The thing our Saviour condemns is not the renouncing the worship of God for the worship of Creatures for the Devil never tempted him to his but the worship of any other being besides GOD though we still continue to worship the Supreme GOD. It is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Which is a plain demonstration that men may believe and worship the Supreme God and yet be Idolaters if they worship any thing else besides him The Devil did not desire our Saviour to renounce the worship of the supreme God but was contented that he should worship God still so he would but worship him also And therefore it is no reason to excuse the Church of Rome from Idolatry because they worship the supreme God as well as Saints and Angels this they may do and be Idolaters still for Idolatry does not consist meerly in renouncing the worship of the supreme God but in worshipping any thing else though we continue to worship him When the Jews worship'd their Baalims and false gods they did not wholly renounce the worship of the God of Israel and the Heathens themselves especially the wisest men amongst them did acknowledge one supreme God though they worshiped a great many inferiour Deities with him 2. Our Saviour in his answer to the Devils temptation does not urge his being a wicked and Apostate Spirit an enemy and a rebel against God but gives such a reason why he could not worship him as equally excludes all Creatures whither good or bad Spirits from any right to Divine Worship Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Him and none else whither they be good or bad spirits for our Saviour does not confine his answer to either and therefore includes them both When we charge the church of Rome with too plain an imitation of the Pagan Idolatry in that worship they paid to their inferiour Daemons which was nothing more then what the Church of Rome now gives to Saints and Angels they think it a sufficient answer that the Heathens worshiped Devils and Apostate Spirits
but they worship only the Friends and Favourites of God blessed Saints and Angels Now I shall not at present examine the truth of this pretence but shal refer my Reader to a more Learned Stillingfleet's Defence of the discourse of Idolatry person for satisfaction in this matter but if it were true yet it is nothing to the purpose if our Saviours answer to the Devil be good For let us suppose that the Pope of Rome who calls himself Christs Vicar had at this time been in Christ's stead to have answered the Devils temptations and let us be so charitable for once as to suppose that saving alwayes his indirect power over the Kingdoms of this world in ordine ad spiritualia he would not worship the Devil to gain all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory of them Consider then how the Pope of Rome could answer this Temptation All this I will give the if thou wilt fall down and worship me could he answer as our Saviour does It is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve How easily might the Devil reply Is this indeed your infallible Opinion and the judgment and practice of your Church to serve God only do you not also serve and worship St. Paul and St. Peter and the Virgin Mary besides a great many other obscure and doubtfull Saints This is down right Heresie to confine all Religious Worship to God Here now is matter of fact against the Pope that he does worship other Beeings beside God and if he will shew any reason for his not worshipping the Devil he must quite alter our Saviours answer and not plead for himself that he is bound to worship God and him only but that he is bound to worship only God and good Spirits and therefore the Devil being a wicked and Apostat Spirit it is not lawful to worship him So that if our Savior gave a sufficient answer to the Devils temptation it must be equally unlawful to worship good and bad spirits there may be some peculiar aggravations in having communion with Devils but the Idolatry of worshipping good and bad spirits is the same 3. Our Saviours answer to the Devil appropriates all kinds and degrees of Religious Worship to God alone The Devil was not then so good a School-man as nicely to distinguish and dispute the degrees of Religious Worship with our Saviour but would have been contented with any degree of Religious Worship He did not pretend to be the Supreme God nor to have the disposal of all the Kingdoms of the World in his own right Luk. 4. 6. but acknowledges that it was delivered to him and now by vertue of that grant he gives it to whom he will Now it is impossible in the nature of the thing to worship any Beeing as Supreme whom at the same time we acknowledge not to be Supreme And therefore the Devil asks no more of our Saviours then that he would fall down and worship him which is such an inferiour degree of Worship as Papists every day pay to Images and Saints and yet this our Saviour refuses to do and that for this reason that we must worship God only which must signifie that we must not give the least degree of divine Worship to any Creatures or else it is not a satisfactory answer to the Devils Temptation who did not require any certain and determinate degree of worship but leâ—t him at liberty to use what distinctions he pleased and to pay what degree of worship he saw fit whither absolute or relative supreme or subordinate terminative or transient so he would but fall down and worship him any way or in any degree he left him to be his own Schoolman and Casuist but of this more presently 11. As the Laws of Moses in general appropriate all Religious Worship to God commands us to worship God and him only so the whole Jewish Religion was fitted only for the worship of the Lord Jehovah I suppose our Adversaries will not deny that the Tabernacle and Temple at Jerusalem was peculiarly consecrated to the honour and worship of the Lord Jehovah this was the house where he dwelt where he plac'd his Name and the Symbols of his presence It was a great profanation of that holy place to have the worship of any strange Gods set up in it and yet this was the only place of Worship appointed by the Law of Moses and they had but one Temple to worship in and this one Temple consecrated to the particular worship of one God which is a plain demonstration that they were not allowed to worship any other God because they had no place to worship him in And this I think is a plain proof that all that worship which was confined to their Temple or related to it was peculiar to the Lord Jehovah because that was his house and then all the Jewish worship was so which was either to be performed at the Temple or had a relation and dependance on the Temple worship Sacrifice was the principle part of the Jewish worship and this we know was confined to the Temple Moses expresly commands Israel take head to thy self that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou Deut. 12. 13. 14. seest But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy Tribes there shalt thou offer thy burnt offerings and there shalt thou do all that I command thee The Prophets indeed especially before the building of the Temple did erect Altars at other places for occasional Sacrifices for as God reserved a liberty to himself to dispense with his own Law in extraordinary cases so it was presumed that what was done by Prophets was done by a Divine command but there was to be no ordinary or standing Altar for Sacrifice but at the Tabernacle or Temple this we may see in that dispute which had like to have hapned between the Children of Israel and the Tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half Tribe of Manasseh about the Altar of Testimony which these two Joshua 22. Tribes and a half built on the other side of Jordan It was agreed on all hands that it had been intended for an Altar for Sacrifice it had been Rebellion against the Lord to have built any Altar beside the Altar of the v. 16 19. 22 23. Lord though they had offered no Sacrifice but to the Lord Jehovah The same is evident from Gods dislike of their offering Sacrifices in their high places though they sacrificed only to the God of Israel So that all Sacrifices were to be offered at the Temple on the Altar of God and therefore were offered only to that God whose Altar and Temple it was And indeed this is expresly provided for in the Law He that sacrificeth to any God but to the Lord only shall be utterly destroyed Exod. 22. 20. And as their Sacrifices were appropriated to the Temple so in some sense
Land was a Holy Land Gods peculiar Inheritance which he gave by promise to their Fathers and the Temple was his House where he dwelt among them it cannot be expected that any other Gods might be worship'd by such a people in such a Land and in such a house as God had appropriated to himself 3. It is very considerable that we have no approved example under the Law of any worship pay'd to Saints or Angels or any other Beeing but God alone We have too many sad examples of the Idolatry of the Jews both in worshipping the Molten Calf which Aaron made and Jeroboams Calves and Baalim's and other Heathen gods but had it been allowed by their Law to have pay'd any inferiour degree of Religious Worship to Saints and Angels which is now asserted by the Church of Rome to be a matter of such great benefit and advantage to mankind it is a very strange that we should not have one example of it throughout the Scripture nor any authentick Records among the Jewish Writers All the Psalms of David are directed to God alone and yet we cannot think but such a devout man would have bestowed some Hymns upon his Patron and tutelar Saints had he worship'd any such as well as the Papâ—sts do now This the Church of Rome sees and acknowledges and thinksshe answers too when she gives us the reason why it could not be so under the Law because those Old testament-Testament-Saints were not then admitted into Heaven to the immediate vision and fruition of God Heaven-gates were not opened till the resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour and therefore those blessed Spirits were not in a condition to be our Intercessors and Mediators till they were received into Heaven but now Saints and Martyrs ascend directly into Heaven and reign with Christ in Glorie and it seems share with him in his peculiar Worship and Glorie too Now 1. Whither this be so or not the Scriptures assign no such reason for it and therfore it is likely there might be other reasons and I think I have made it very plain that there was We are not inquiring for what reasons the Jewish Church did not worship Saints and Angels but whither they did worship them or not and it appears that they never did so that we have neither precept nor example for this during all the time of the Jewish Church which is all we intend to prove by this argument 2. But yet it is evident that this is not a good reason why the Jews did not worship Angels under the Law For certainly Angels were as much in Heaven then as they are now whatever Saints were They are represented in the Old Testament as the constant Attendants and Râ—tinue of God and the great Ministers of his Providence and therefore they were as capable of Divine Worship in the time of the Law as they are now nay I think a little more For the Law it self was given by the Ministry of Angels and their appearances were more frequent and familiar and the world seemed to be more under the Government of Angels then then it is now since Christ is made the Head of the Church and exalted above all principalities and powers And therefore sometimes the Advocates of the Church of Rome make some little offers to prove the worship of Angels in those days to this purpose they alledge that form of benediction which Jacob used in blessing the Sons of Josheph The Gen. 44. 16. Angel which redemed me from all evil bless the Lads But 1. This is not a direct prayer to the Angel but onely his committing of them to the care and patronage of that Angel with a prayer to God for that purpose And if he by experience had found that God had appointed his Angel to defend and protect him it was but reasonable to pray to God that the same Angel might protect his posterity 2. But yet according to the sense of the Antient Fathers this was no created Angel and Spirit but the Son and Word of God the Angel of the presence who is so often in Scripture stiled Jehovah a name which can belong to no created Spirit And it is no hard matter to make it highly probable that this is that Angel who redeemed Jacob out of all his troubles But it is strange if Angels were worshipped under the Old Testament we should have no clearer and plainer evidence of it then such a single Text which was never expounded either by any Jewish or Christian Writers to this sense till of late dayes and here the Priests of the Church of Rome are to be put in mind of their Oath to expound Scripture according to the unanimous consent of the Ancient Fathers SECT III. The Testimonies of the Gospel considered whither Chrâ—â—â— and his Apostles have made any alteration in the object â—f our Worship LEt us now proceed in the second place to consider Sect. 3. the writings of the New Testament and examine what they teach us concerning the object of our Worship And that Christ and his Apostles have made no change in the object of our worship will appear from these considerations 1. That they could not do it Had they ever attempted to set up the worship of any other Beeings besides the One Supreme God the Lord Jehovah the Jews were expresly commanded by their Law not to believe them nor hearken to them whatever signs and wonders and miracles they had wrought If there arise among you a Prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a Deut. 13. 1 2 3 4 5. sign or wonder and the sign or wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying let us go after other Gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of the Prophet or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your GOD proveth you to know whither you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your Soul Ye shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his Commandments and obey his voice and you shall serve him and cleave unto him And that Prophet or dreamer of dreams shall be put to death c. in which Law there are some things very matterial to be obsered in this present dispuâ—e 1. When they are forbidden to hearken to any Prophet who seduces them to the worship of any other Gods this must be extended to all those instances of Idolatrous worship which are forbid by the Law of Moses whatever is opposed to the worship of one Supreme and Soveraign Beeing the Lord Jehovah And therefore whither these Prophets seduced them from the worship of the Lord Jehovah to the worship of other Gods or perswaded them to worship other Gods besides the Lord Jehovah whither they were any of those Gods which were at that time worship'd by other Nations or any other Gods whom the ignorance and superstition of the people should create in after
an Image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four footed beasts creeping things And thus changed the the truth of God into a lie But this was not the only fault but they also gave his incommunicable worship to Creatures and worshipped and served the Creature more then the Creator who is blessed for ever Amen Which words do vers 25. plainly suppose that they did worship the Creator of all things but besides the Creator for so para may signifie they worshipped the creature also which proves that the worship of the Supreme God will not excuse those from Idolatry who worship any thing else besides him For the opposition lies between the Creator and the creature be it good or a bad creature it matters not as to Religious Worship which must be given to neither Or if we render the words as our Translators do more then the Creator for para is often used comparatively yet so it supposes that they did worship the Creator when they are said to worship the Creature more that cannot signifie a higher degree of worship but more frequent addresses and thus the Church of Rome worships the Virgin Mary more then the Creator for they say ten prayers if they be prayers to the Virgin Mary for one to God ten Ave Maries for one Pater noster The same Apostle determines this matter in as plain words as can be For though there can be that are called 1 Cor. 8. 5 6 Gods whither in Heaven or Earth as there be Gods many and Lords many but to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him Where in opposition to the Pagan Idolatry who worship'd a great many Gods not as Supreme Independent Deities for they acknowledged but one Supreme God who made all the other Gods but either as sharers in the Government of the World or Mediators and Intercessors for them with the Supreme GOD the Apostle plainly asserts That to us Christians there is but one GOD the maker of all Things and one LORD JESUS CHRIST our great Mediator and Advocate with GOD the Father that is that we must worship none else And that none of the distinctions which are used by the Church of Rome to justifie that Worship which they pay to Saints and Angels can have any place here is evident from this consideration For either these distinctions were known or they were not known when the Apostle wrote this and in both cases silence is an argument against them If they were known he rejects them and determines against them for he affirms absolutely without the salvo of any distinctions that we have but one GOD and one Mediator that is that we must worship no more If they were not known as it is likely they were not because the Apostles takes no notice of them it is a plain argument that these distinctions are of no use unless they will say that St. Paul who was guided by an Infallible Spirit was ignorant of some very useful and material notions about the object of Worship If the Apostle did not know these distinctions it is evident they are of a late date and therefore can have no authority against an Apostolical determination If he did not know them he could have no regard to them and therefore made no allowance for such exceptions Nay the same Apostle does not only give us such general rules as necessarily exclude the worship of Saints and Angels but does expresly condemn it and warns the Christians against it He fortels of the Apostasie of the latter days wherein some shall depart from the Faith 1 Tim. 4. 1. giving heed to seduâ—ing Spirits and the doctrine of Devils didaskaliais daimonion the doctrine of Daemons the doctrine of worshipping Daemons or some new inferiour Deity Saints or Angels or whatever they are as Mediators and Intercessors between GOD and men This is the true notion of the doctrine of Daemons amongst See Mr. Joseph Medes Apostasie of the latter times the Heathens and the Apostle tells us the time shall come when some Christians for it is evident he speaks here of the Apostasie of Christians shall fall into the same Idolatry which is an exact prophecy of what we now see done in the Church of Rome who have the same notion of their Saints and Angels and pay the same worship to them which the Heathens formerly did to their Daemons or inferiour Gods 3. And as a farther confirmation of this I observe that the Gospel of our Savour forbids Idolatry without giving us any new notion of Idolatry and therefore it has made no alteration at all in this Doctrine of the worship of one God which Moses so expresly commanded the Jews to observe For the Gospel was preached to the Jews as well as to the Gentiles nay the Jews had the first most undoubted right to it as being the posterity of Abraham to whom the promise of the Messias was made and therefore as the Law was at first given them by Moses so it did still oblidge them in all such cases wherein the Gospel did not in express terms make a change alteration of the Law and therefore since there was no such alteration made and yet the Law against Idolatry renewed and confirmed by the authority of the Gospel what could the Jews understand else by Idolatry but what was accounted Idolatry by the Law of Moses that is the worship of any other Beeing besides the Supreme GOD the Lord Jehovah And since it is evident that there are not two Gospels one for the Jews and another for the Gentiles all Christians whither Jews or Gentiles must be under the obligation of the same Law to worship only one God The notion of Idolatry must alter as the object of Religious Worship does If we must worship one God and none besides him then it is Idolatry to worship any other Beeing but the Supreme God for Idolatry consists in giving Religious worship to such Beeings as we ought not to worship and by the Law of Moses they were to worship none but God and therefore the worship of any other Beeing was Idolatry But if the object of our worship be enlarged and the Gospel has made it lawful to Worship Saints and Angels then we must seek out some other notion of Idolatry that it consists in worshipping wicked Spirits or in giving Supreme and Soveraign worship to inferiour Deities which the Church of Rome thinks impossible in the nature of the thing for any man to do who knows them to be inferiour Spirits But if Idolatry be the same under the New Testament that it was under the Old the object of our worship must be the same too and we have reason to believe that it is the same when we are commanded to keep our selves from Idols and to flie from Idolatry but are no where in the New
The sum is this If it be more for the glory of God to have all Religious Worship appropriated to himself then to have only a part of it and it may be the least share and part too then the worship of Saints and Angels cannot be for Gods glory But besides this the worship of Saints and Angels together with God does mightily obsâ—ure and lessen the Divine perfections and therefore it cannot be for his glory It represents him indeed like a great Temporal Monarch but it does not represent him like a God That which we ignorantly think a piece of state and greatness in earthly Monarchs to administer the great affairs of their Kingdoms to receive Petitions and Addresses to bestow Favours to administer justice by other hands to have some great Ministers and Favourites to interpose between them and their Subject is nothing else but want of power to do otherwise He would be a much greater Prince more beloved and reverenced who could do all this himself but no Prince can be present in all parts of his Kingdom nor know every particular subject much less their particular cases and conditions deserts and merits and therefore is forc'd to divide this care into many hands and in so doing shares his power and honour with his Subjects But whoever imagines any such thing of God denies his omnipresence his omnipotence his omniscience and his particular care and providence over his Creatures God indeed does not alwayes govern the world by an immediate power but makes use both of the Ministry of Angels and Men but he governs all things by his immediate direction or at least by his immediate inspection He overlooks every thing himself while all Creatures either obey his commands or submit to his power If this be the true notion of Gods governing the world that he has the concernments of the whole Creation under his eye and keeps the disposal of all things in his own hands so that nothing can be done but either by his order or permission then the most perfect and glorious Angels the greatest Ministers of the Divine Providence can challenge no share in Religious Worship cannot be the objects of our trust or hope because they are only Ministers of the Divine Will can do nothing from themselves as civil Ministers of State and Officers of great trust can in Temporal Kingdoms but are alwayes under the eye and alwayes move at the command of God In such a state of things all the peculiar rights of Soveraign Power and Dominion God reserves wholly to himself as any wise Prince would among which the receiving the Prayers and Petitions of his Creatures is none of the least to hear Prayers is made the peculiar attribute of God in Scripture Thou art a God that hearest prayers therefore unto thee shall all flesh come And reason tells us that it is the most eminent part of Soveraignity and Majesty and the reason why Temporal Princes do not reserve this wholly to themselves is because they cannot do it but God can and he challenges it to himself and will not allow any Creature to do it and there is no temptation to pray to any creature when we know that they cannot help us that they must receive their orders and commands from God and do not act by their own will and inclinations Thus Princes have their Favourites to whom they express a very partial fondness and respect to whom they will deny nothing that they ask nor hardly shew any grace or favour to their Subjects without them and this forces Subjects to address themselves to their Prince by them but it is a reproach to the Divine goodness and universal Providence to conceive any such thing of God which yet is the foundation of the worship of Patron Saints and Angels as persons so dear to God that he cannot deny their requests will not grant our Petitions without them or at least that is the most certain and effectual way to obtain what we desire to offer up our Prayers and Petitions to God by their hands No doubt but all good men on earth much more Blessed Saints and Angels in Heaven as being more perfect and excellent Creatures are very dear to God but yet God is not fond and partial in his kindness as earthly Princes are but has an equal regard to all his Creatures and delights in doing good to them and needs not to be importuned by any powerful Favourites to hear their cryes and prayers he will as soon attend to the Prayers of an humble penitent sinner as of the most glorious saint and is more ready to grant then they are to ask A Mediator of Redemption is very consistent with the perfections of the Divine Nature and does mightily recommend both the goodness and wisdom of God to the world When Mankind had transgressed the Laws of their creation they forfeited their natural â—ight and interest in the care and goodness of their Maker The Divine Justice and the wisdom of God in the government of the world required an atonement and expiation for sin and it was an amazing demonstration of the Divine goodness to sinners that he found one himself that he gave his Son to be a propitiation for our sins When men by sin had forfeit their original innocence and happiness together they could expect nothing from God but by way of convenant and promise and every covenant between contending parties must be transacted in the hands of a Mediator and none so fit to be our Mediator as he who is our ransome too And a Mediator must be invested with power and authority to see the terms of this covenant performed and this is his Mediatory Intercession He interceeds not meerly as a powerful Favourite but as the Author and Surety of the covenant not meerly by intreaties and prayers but in vertue of his blood which sealed the covenant and made atonement and expiation for sin Thus Christ is our Mediator of redemption who hath redeemed us by his blood and we must offer up all our prayers to God in his name and powerful intercession because we can expect no blessings from God but by vertue of that covenant which he purchast and sealed with his blood But now a Mediator of pure intercession without regard to any atonement made for sin or any covenant of redemption such as Saints and Angels and the blessed Virgin are made by the church of Rome is a mighty reproach to the Divine Nature and perfections It cloaths God with the passions and infirmities of earthly Princes represents him as extreamly fond of some of his Creatures and very regardless of others as if his kindness to some favourite Saint were a more powerful motive to him to do good then his own love to goodness as if he knew not when nor to whom to shew mercy with out their direction or counsel or would not do it without their importunity as if some of his Creatures had as much the ascendant
over him as some favourites have over their Princes who can with a words speaking have any thing of them and extort favours from them even against their wills and inclinations No man can think there is any need of such Intercessours and Mediators with God who believes him to be infinitely wise and to be infinitely good to know when it is fit to hear and to answer and to be alwayes ready to do what his own wisdom judges fit to be done There can be no place for such intercessions and intreaties to an infinitely perfect Beeing For they alwayes suppose some great weakness or defect in him who want them for even a wise and a good man wants no Mediators to perswade him to do that good which is fit to be done The Objection against this is very obvious and the Answer I think is as easie The Objection is this If God be so good that he needs not such Prayers and Intercessions to move him to do good Why do we pray for our selves Why do we pray for one another Why do we desire the Prayers of good men here on earth Why is it a greater reproach to the Divine Perfections to beg the Prayers of St. Paul or St. Peter now they are in Heaven then to have begged their Prayers while they had been on Earth To this I answer When we pray for our selves I suppose we do noâ— pray as Mediators but as Supplicants and nothing can be more reasonable then that those who want mercy or any other blessing should ask for it It is certainly no reproach to the Divine goodness that God makes Prayer the condition of our receiving which is a very easie condition and very necessary to maintain a constant sense and reverence of God and a constant dependance on him And when we pray for one another on earth we are as meer supplicants as when we pray for our selves and to pray as supplicants is a very different thing from praying as Advocates as Mediators as Patrons The vertue of the first consists only in the power and efficacy of Prayer the second in the favour and interest of the person This the Church of Rome her self owns when she allows no Mediators and Advocats but Saints in Heaven which is a sign she makes a vast difference between the prayers of Saints on earth and Saints in Heaven There are great and wise reasons why God should command and encourage our mutual prayers for each other while we are on earth for this is the noblest exercise of universal love and charity which is a necessary qualification to render our prayers acceptable to God this preserves the unity of the body of Christ which requires a sympathy and fellow-feeling of each others sufferings this is the foundation of publick worship when we meet together to pray with and for each other to our common Father and it gives a great reputation to vertue and Religion in this world when God hears the prayers of good men for the wicked and removes or diverts those judgments which they were afraid of this becomes the wisdom of God and is no blemishâ—to his goodness to dispence his mercies and favours in such a manner as may best serve the great ends of Religion in this world God does not command us to pray for our selves or others because he wants our importunities and solicitations to do good but because it serves the publick ends of Religion and Government and is that natural homage and worship which Creatures owe to their great Creator and Beneâ—actor and Soveraign Lord. But to imagine that God needs Advocats and Mediators to solicite our cause for us in the Court of Heaven where none of these ends can be served by it this is a plain impeachment of his wisdom and goodness as if he wanted great importunities to do good and were more moved by a partial kindness and respect to some powerful Favourites then by the care of his Creatures or his love to goodness From hence it evidently appears how inconsequent that reasoning is from our begging the prayers of good men on earth to prove the lawfulness of our praying to the Saints in Heaven to pray and interceed for us the first makes them our fellow supplicants the second makes them our Mediators and Intercessors and how little the Church of Rome gains by that distinction between a Mediator of Redemption and Mediators of pure Intercession for though they pray to Saints and Angels only as Mediators of Intercession yet this is a real reproach to the nature and government of God a Mediator of Redemption is very consistent with the Divine glory and perfections a Mediator of pure intercession is not And the sum of all is this That it is so far from advancing the Divine glory to worship Saints and Angels together with God that it is a real reproach and dishonour to him and therefore this can be no Law nor Institution of our Saviour who came not to abrogate the Divine Laws but to fulfil and perfect them Some think there is no danger of dishonouring God by that honour they give to Saints and Angels because they honour them as Gods Friends and Favourites as those whom God has honoured and advanced to great glory and therefore whatever honour they do to them rebounds back again on God and this may be true while we give no honour to Saints and Angels but what is consistent with the Divine glory but when the very nature of that honour and worship we pay to them is a diminution of Gods glory and a reproach to his infinite perfections as I have made it appear the worship of Saints and Angels is surely it cannot be for Gods glory to advance his Creatures by lessening himself SECT VII 2. LEt us now consider whither the worship of Saints and Angels together with God be a more perfect state of Religion then the worship of God alone with respect to our selves whither it puts us into a more perfect and excellent state It does indeed mightily gratifie the superstition of mankind to have a multitude of Advocats and Mediators to address to but there are three considerations which may satisfie any man how far this is from a perfect state of Religion 1. That it argues very mean and low conceits of God for did men believe God to be so wise so good and so powerful as really he is they would be contented with one infinite God instead of ten thousand meaner Advocats The worship of Saints and Angels as I have already proved is a great reproach to the Divine perfections and therefore such worshippers must have very imperfect and childish apprehensions of the Supreme Beeing which is a plain proof what an imperfect state of Religion this is for the perfection of Religion is alwayes proportioned to that knowledge we have of God who is the object of it 2. This worship of Saints and Angels is a very servile state it subjects us to our fellow-creatures who are by
nature but our equals however are not our Gods It is a state of liberty freedom and honour to be subject to God who is our natural Lord and Soveraign But to fall down to our fellow creatures and to worship them with Divine honours with all humility of address and sacred and awful regards is to debase our selves as much below the dignity of our natures as we advance them above it The excellency and perfection of reasonable Creatures principally consists in their Religion and that is the most perfect Religion which does most advance adorn and perfect our Natures but it is an argument of an abject mind to be contented to worship the most excellent creatures which is a greater dishonour then to own the vilest Slave for our Prince Mean objects of worship do more debase the Soul then any other the vilest submissions and the more our dependencies are and the meaner they are the more imperfect our â—tate and Religion is 3. The greatest perfection of Religion consists in the nearest and most immediate approach to God which I think these men cannot pretend to who fly to the patronage and intercession of Saints and Angels to obtain their Petitions of him Though we should allow it lawful to pray to Saints and Angels to meditate for us with God yet we cannot but own it a more perfect state to do as the Saints and Angels themselves do go to God without any other Advocat but Christ himself It is a great happiness to have a friend at Court to commend us to our Prince when we have no interest of our own but it is a greater priviledge to go immediately to our Prince when we please without any Favourite to introduce us This is the perfect state of the Gospel that we have received The adoption of Sons and because Gal. 4. 5. 6. we are Sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying Abba Father This is this Holy Spirit which dwells in us teaches us to call God Father and to pray to him with the humble assurance and confidence of Children This is the effect of Christs intercession for us That we may now come boldly unto the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy Heb. 4. 16. and find grace to help in a time of need The throne of Grace certainly is not the shrine of any Saints but the immediate throne and presence of God whither we may immediately direct our prayers through the merits and intercession of Christ Upon the same account the whole body of the Christians are called a Spiritual house that is the Temple of God where he is peculiarly present to hear these Prayers that are made to him An holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to GOD through Jesus 1 Pet. 2. 5. 6. Christ And a chosen generation a royal priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people This is a priviledge above what the Jews enjoyed they had a Priesthood to minister in holy things and to offer their Sacrifices to them but the whole Nation was not a Priesthood nor had such immediate access to God but now every Christian has as near an access to God as the Priests themselves under the Law had can offer up his Prayers and Spiritual Sacrifices immediately to GOD and that very acceptably too through Jesus Christ our great High Priest and Mediator and if our Prayers be acceptable to God by Jesus Christ we need no other Mediators or Advocats This is the only direction our Saviour gave his Disciples a little before his death to ask in his name with this promise If ye ask any thing in my name I will do it Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name ask and ye shall Joh. 14. 13 15. Joh. 16. 24. receive that your joy may be full and to give them the greater assurance of acceptance he acquaints them with Gods great and tender affection for them such as a Father has for his Children At that day ye shall ask in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father ver 26 27. for you for the Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from God a reason which equally extends to all those who shall believe in Christ to the end of the world And can we now imagine that when our Saviour has purchast for us this liberty of access to God he should send us round about by the shrines and Altars of numerous unknown Saints to the Throne of Grace When he will not assert the necessity of his own prayers for us while we pray in his name because our heavenly Father hath such a tender affection for all the Disciples of Christ can we think it necessary to pray to St. Paul and St. Peter and the Virgin Mary to pray for us This is none of our Saviours institution nor can it be because Christ by his death and sufferings and intercessions brings us nearer to God as the Heb. 10. 19 20 21 22. Apostle to the Hebrews speaks Having therefore Brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh and having an high Priest over the house of God let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of Faith But the worship of Saints and Angels removes us at a great distance from God as not daring to approach his presence without the mediation of some Favourite Saint And though the Church of Rome does sometimes pray directly to God only in the Name and Mediation of Christ as the Pagans themselves sometime did to their Supreme Deity yet it seems this is what they dare not trust to and therefore joyn the Meditation of Saints with their prayers to God and never pray to God without it SECT VIII 5. THat the Gospel of our Saviour has made no alteration in the object of our worship appears from that Analogy which there is and ought to be between the Jewish and Christian Worship The Jewish and Christian Church are but one Church and their worship the same worship only with this difference that the Jewish worship was in Type and Figure and Ceremony the Christian worship in Truth and Substance And therefore if this Evangelical worship be the same it must have the same object for the object is the most essential part of worship So that if it appear not only from the express letter of the Law of Moses but from all the Types and Figures of the Law that God only was to be worshiped by the Jewish Church if Christ was to fulfil all these Types and Figures in his own person and in the Evangelical worship then it is certain that the object of our worship must be the same still for if the Type was confined in its nature and signification to the worship of one God
then the whole Christian worship which was signified and prefigured by these Types must be peculiar and appropriate to the one Supreme GOD. As for instance I have already proved at large that the Jews were to worship but one God because they had but one Temple to worship in and all their worship had some relation or other to this one Temple and therefore all their worship was appropriated to that one God whose Temple it was now we know Gods dwelling in the Temple at Jerusalem was only a Type and Figure of Gods dwelling in Humane Nature upon which account Christ calls his body the Temple and St. John tells us That the word was made flesh and dwelt among us es kenosen en hemin tabernacled 2 Joh. 19. 21. 1 Joh. 14. 2 Coloss 3. among us as God formerly dwelt in the Jewish Tabernacle or Temple and St. Paul adds That the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily somatikos realy substantially as an accomplishment of Gods dwelling by Types and Figures and shadows in the Jewish Temple Now if all the Jewish worship was confined to the Temple or had a necessary relation to it as I have already proved and this Temple was but a figure of the Incarnation of Christ who should dwell among us in humane nature then all the Christian worship must be offered up to God through Jesus Christ as all the Jewish worship was offered to God at the Temple for Christ is the only Temple in a strict and proper sense of the Christian Church and therefore he alone can render all our services acceptable to God So that God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only object of our worship and Christ considered as God Incarnate as God dwelling in humane nature is the only Temple where all our worship must be offered to GOD that is we shall find acceptance with God only in his name and mediation we must worship no other Beeing but only the Supreme God and that only through Jesus Christ Thus under the Law the Priests were to interceed for the people but not without Sacrifice their Intercession was founded in making atonement and expiation for sin which plainly signified that under the Gospel we can have no other Mediator but only him who expiates our sins and interceeds in the merits of his Sacrifice who is our Priest and our Sacrifice and therefore our Mediator as St. John observes If any man sin we have 1 Joh. 2. 1 2. an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins The Law knew no such thing as a Mediator of pure intercession a Mediator who is no Priest and offers no Sacrifice for us and therefore the Gospel allows of no such Mediators neither who mediate only by their prayers without a Sacrifice such Mediators as the Church of Rome makes of Saints and Angels and the Virgin Mary but we have onely one Mediator a Mediator of redemption who has purchased us with his Blood of whom the Priests under the Law were Types and Figures Thus under the Law none but the High Priest was to enter into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the Sacrifice now the Holy of Holies was a Type of Heaven Heb. 1. 12. and therefore this plainly signified that under the Gospel there should be but one High Priest and Mediator to offer up our Prayers and Supplications in Heaven He and He only who enters into Heaven with his own Blood as the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the Sacrifice There may be a great many Priests and Advocates on Earth to interceed for us as there were under the Law great numbers of Priests the Sons of Aaron to attend the Service and Ministry of the Temple but we have and can have but one Priest and Mediator in Heaven Whoever acknowledges that the Priesthood and Ministry of the Law was Typical of the Evangelical Priesthood and Worship cannot avoid the force of this argument and whoever will not acknowledge this must reject most of St. Paul's Epistles especially the Epistle to the Hebrews which proceeds wholly upon this way of reasoning Now this manifestly justifies the worship of the Church of England as true Christian worship for we worship One God through one Mediator who offered himself a sacrifice for us when he was on Earth and interceeds for us as our High Priest in Heaven which answers to the One Temple and the One High Priest under the Law But though the Church of Rome does what we do worship the Supreme GOD through Jesus Christ yet she spoils the Analogie between the Type and the Antitype the legal and Evangelical worship by doing more when she sends us to the Shrines and Altars of so many several Saints surely this cannot answer to that one Temple at Jerusalem where God alone was to be worshipped there are many Temples and Mercy-seats now as there are Shrines and Altars of Saints and Angels by whose Intercession we may obtain our requests of God When she advances Saints and Angels to the Office of Mediators and Intercessors in Heaven this contradicts the Type of One High Preist who alone might enter into the Holy of Holies which was a type of Heaven for there is some difference between having one Mediator in Heaven and there can be no more under the Gospel to answer to the Typical High Priest under the Law and having a hundred Mediators in Heaven together with our Typical High Priest To have a Mediator of pure Intercession in Heaven who never offered any Sacrifice for us cannot answer to the High Priest under the Law who could not enter into the Holy of Holies without the blood of sacrifice The High Priests entering but once a year into the Holy of Holies which was typical of Christs entering once into Heaven to interceed for us cannot be reconciled with a new succession of Mediators as often as the Pope of Rome pleases to canonize them So that either the Law was not typical of the state of the Gospel or the Worship of Saints and Angels which is so contrary to all the types and figures of the Law cannot be true Christian Worship Sixthly I shall add but one thing more that Christ and his Apostles have made no alteration in the object of the worship appears from hence that de facto there is no such Law in the Gospel for the worship of any other Beeing besides the One supreme God There is a great deal against it as I have already shewn but if there had been nothing against it it had been argument enough against any such alteration that there is no express positive Law for it The force of which argument does not consist meerly in the silence of the Gospel that there is nothing said for it which the most Learned Advocates of the Church of Rome readily grant and give their reasons such as they are why
this was not done why we are not directed to pray to Saints and Angels and Images c. but the argument lies in this that there can be no alteration made in the object of worship without an express Law and therefore there is no alteration made because there is no such Law in the Gospel The Jews were expresly commanded to worship no other Beeing but the Lord Jehovah as I have already proved which Law appropriates all the acts of Religious worship to one God and therefore all those who were under the obligation of this Law as to be sure all natural Jews were could not without the guilt of Idolatry give any Religious worship to any other Beeing till this Law were expresly repeated and express leave given to worship some other Divine Beeings besides the Supreme God so that at least our Saviour himself while he was on Earth and subject to the Law and his Apostles and all believing Jews were oblidged by this Law to worship none but God unless we can shew where Christ by his Legislative Authority or his Apostles by Commission from him have expresly repealed this Law nay indeed unless we can shew that Christ himself repealed this Law and taught the worship of Saints and Angels Mat. 28. 20 the Apostles themselves could have no authority to do it for their Commission was only to teach what Christ had commanded them which though it does not extend to matters of order and discipline and the external circumstances of worship yet it does as to all essentials of Faith and worship and I think the right object of Worship is the most essential thing in Religious Worship From hence it appears that at least all the Jewish Christians in the Apostles dayes and all succeeding Ages to this day cannot worship Saints and Angels without Idolatry because the Law which was given to them and never yet repealed commands them to worship none but God and if Gentile Converts were received into the Jewish Christian Church and Christ has but one Church of Jews and Gentiles they must also be oblidged by all those Laws which were then and are still obligatory to all believing Jews and therefore Gentile as well as Jewish Christians are still bound to worship none but God Now I think I need not prove that an express Law can be repealed onely by an express Law That Law which commands us to worship God and him only must continue in full force till GOD do as expresly declare that he allows us to pay some degree of Religious Worship to other Beeings besides himself When a Law-giver has declared his will and pleasure by a Law it is not fit that Subjects should be allowed to guess at his mind and dispute away an express Law by some surmises and consequences how probable soever they may appear for at this rate a Law signifies nothing if we may guess at the will of our Law-giver without and against an express Law And yet none of the Advocates of the Church of Rome though they are not usually guilty of too much modesty ever had the confidence to pretend an express Law for the worship of Saints and Angels and Images c. and though they sometimes alledge Scripture to prove this by yet they do not pretend that they are direct proofs but only attempt to prove some other Doctrines from Scripture from which they think they may prove by some probable consequences that which the Scripture no where plainly teaches nay the contrary to which is expresly taught in the Scripture And if this may be allow'd I know no law of God so plain and express but a witty man may find wayes to escape the obligation of it This is a consideration of great moment and therefore I shall discourse more particularly of it The Law of Moses expresly commands us to worship GOD and him only Our Saviour Christ owns and confirms the authority of this Law in the Gospel the Church of Rome notwithstanding this Law gives Religious Worship to Creatures the question then is how she avoids the force of this Law since it is no where expresly repealed and she does not pretend that it is Now the Patrons of Creature-worship thinks to justifie themselves from the breach of this Law these three ways 1. By consequences drawn as they pretend from other Scripture-Doctrines 2. By distinctions And 3. By authority Let us then examine whither all this have any force against an express Law which was never expresly repealed 1. By consequences drawn as they pretend from other Scripture-Doctrines and I shall discourse this with a particular reference to the Invocation of Saints For when they would prove the lawfulness of praying to Saints they alledge no direct proof of this from Scriptureâ— but because they must make a shew of saying something from Scripture when they are to deal with such Hereticks as will be satisfied with no less authority they endeavour to prove something else from Scripture from whence they think by an easie consequence they can prove the lawfulness of praying to Saints Thus they very easily prove that we may and ought to pray for one another and to desire each others prayers while we are on Earth and from hence they presently conclude that we may as lawfully pray to Saints in Heaven to pray for us as beg and desire their prayers while they are one Earth And to confirm this they endeavour to prove that some extraordinary Saints whose merits are very great do directly ascend up into Heaven unto the immediate presence of God and a participation of his Glory and hence they conclude that they have authority and power to help us and to intercede for us and that they are so far advanced above us in this mortal state that they deserve some kind of Religious Honour and Worship from us as being Dii per participationem Gods by participation that is by partaking in the Divine Nature and Glory by their advancement to Heaven And if after all this they can prove that the Saints in Heaven do pray and intercede for us on Earth they think the demonstration is complete and perfect that therefore * Bonum atque utile esse suppliciter Sanctos invocare ad beneficia impetranda a Deo per filium ej us Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum qui solus noster Redemptor Salvator est ad eorum orationes opem auxlium que confugere Conc. Trin. 16. 25. de Invocat It is good and profitable as the Council of Trent words it huâ—bly to invock the Saints after the manner of Suplicants and to â—â—y to their prayers and help and aid to obtain blessings of God by his Son Jesus Christ our Lord who is our only not Intercessor and Advocate but Redeemer and Saviour Now how they prove all this is not my business at present to enquire but my inquiry is whither such arguments as these be sufficient to oppose against the authority of an express Law and if
they be truly I think it a very vain thing either for God or men to make any Laws For 1. I desire to know what these Gentlemen would prove by such kiâ—â— of arguments as these Suppose we should grant them that the Saints are received into Heaven before the Resurrection and are actually possest of all that Glory and Hapiness which they say they are suppose we should grant them that by some means unknown to us Saints and Angels are acquainted with all that we do and suffer in this world heaâ— all oâ—r vocal or mental prayers which we offer to GOD or to themselves and that they do actually pray and interceed for us what follows from hence Therefore we may pray to Saints not I hope if there can be an express Law against it These arguments aâ— most can onely prove that in the nature of the thing it might be fitting and reasonable to pray to Saints if God thought fit to allow it noâ— that we must pray to Saints though God has forbid it For those are powerful reasons indeed which can justifie Saint-worship against the express Law and declared Will of God Could they first prove one of these three things Either 1. that there is no such Law against the worship of any other Beeing besides God Or 2. that this is not the sense of the Law that they must not pray to Saints or Angels that the Law which forbids us to worship any Beeing but God does not forbid the worship of Saints Or 3. that though there was such a Law and this were the sense of it and this Law were never formally repealed by God yet it disappears of it self and oblidges no longer since the discovery such reasons as these for the worship of Saints and Angels I say could they prove any thing of this in the first place then there would be as much reason for the worship of Saints as there is strength and validity in their Arguments but no reason can take place against an express Law till it be as expresly repealed For 2. If an express Law may be disobeyed as often as men fancy they see reason to do what the Law forbids this overthrows the whole authority of making Laws and makes every Subject a Judge whither the Laws of a Soveraign Prince shall be obeyed or not At this rate he has the greatest authority who has the best reason and since every man believes his own reason to be best every man is the Soveraign Lord of his own actions It is to be presumed that no Prince makes a Law but what he apprehends some reason for and to oppose any mans private reason against a Law is to set up a private mans reason against the publick reason of government and yet it is much worse to oppose our reason against a Divine Law which is to oppose the reason of Creatures against the reason of God unless we will say that GOD makes Laws without reason and those who can believe that may as easily imagine that God will expect that those Laws he makes without reason should be obeyed without reason also and then to be sure all their reasons cannot repeal a Law nor justifie them in the breach of it It becomes every Creature to believe the will of God to be the â—ighest reason and therefore when God has declared his will by an express Law while this Law continues in force as it must do till it be as expresly repealed it is an impudent thing to urge our reasons against the obligations of it So that since God has expresly forbid us to worship any Beeing besides himself unless we can prove that God has repealed this Law it will never justifie the worship of Saints and Angels though we could by the plainest and easiest arguments prove to the conviction of all Mankind that Saints and Angels are very fit objects of our Religious Worship and that it is no diminution to the glory of God to pay some degree of Religious worship to them 3. Especially when the matter of the Law is such that whatever reasons may be pretended on one side or the other it most still be acknowledged to be wholly at the will and pleasure of the Law-giver whâ—ch fide he will choose As for instance suppose there were no natural and necessary reason against the worship of Saints and Angels yet there is no natural and necessary reason for it neither and therefore God may either allow or forbid it as he himself pleases without assigning any reason why he does either And when it appears that God might forbid it if he pleases and that he has actually forbid it by an express Law it is time to leave off reasoning about it natural reason can give us no assurance of any thing which it cannot prove to be necessary whatever in the nature and reason of things may be or may not be can never be proved either to be or not to be by meer reason for it is a contradiction to say that there is no necessary reason why such a thing should be and yet that I can prove by reason that it must be which supposes that there is a necessary reason why it should be for I cannot prove that it must be unless I can prove that it most necessarily be that is that there is a necessary reason why it should be To apply this then to our present Case The Law expresly forbids us to worship any other Beeing besides the supreme God the Church of Rome prays to Saints and Angels and Images which is an essential part of Divine Worship and without ever attempting to prove this Law to be repealed she justifies her worship by such reasons and consequences as I have now cited from their most celebrated Doctors and some of which are the principles whereon the Council of Trent founds their praying to Saints and Angels I ask then whither these arguments whereby they endeavour to justifie the worship of Saints and Angels prove that we must worship them that such worship is their natural right and our duty No this the Church of Rome will not own the most the Council of Trent sayes is that it is bonum utile good profitable to do it but say I if they do not prove it to be necessary they prove nothing for if Saints and Angels have not a natural right to our worship though we should suppose them to be very fit objects of some degrees of worship yet it is at Gods choice whither he will allow it or not and they can challenge no worship and we must give none if God forbids it and therefore since God has forbid the worship of any Beeing but himself and therefore of the most excellent Saints and Angels by an express Law and it no where appears where or when or in what manner this Law was repealed a hundred such arguments as these cannot prove it lawful to worship Saints and Angels against an express Law not to do it
Though we should grant that God if he pleased might allow us to worship Saints and Angels as the Church of Rome does without any diminution of his own Glory which is the most that all their arguments can pretend to prove yet it does not hence follow that we may worship them when God by an express Law has declared that he will not allow it No arguments nor consequences can prove that God allows us to do that which by an express Law he has forbid us to do No reason can prove that to be Gods will which he has publickly declared in his Law to be against his will 4. That no reason or arguments can absolve us from our obedience to any express Law till it be as expresly repealed appears from this that our obligation to obedience does not depend meerly upon the reason of the Law but upon the authority of the Law-giver and therefore though the reason of the Law should cease yet while it is inforced by the same authority it oblidges still Thus I am sure it is in humane Laws and it is very fiting it should be so meer reason cannot make a Law for then every thing which is reasonable would be a necessary duty that which is reasonable may be fit matter for a Law but it is the authority of the Law-giver which makes the Law and the same authority which at first made it a Law continues it to be a Law while the authority lasts though the particular reason for which it was enacted into a Law may cease So that though the Church of Rome could prove that there is no reason now against the worship of Saints and Angels that all those reasons for which God forbad the Jews to worship any one but himself were now ceased yet till the Law be repealed too it is utterly unlawful to worship any Beeing besides the Supreme God and yet this is the most that all their reasonings come to that there is not the same reason for this Law under the State of the Gospel that there was under the Jewish Oeconomy They suppose that God forbad the Jews to worship any one but himself because they were in great danger of falling into Pagan Idolatries and worshipping the Gods of the Aegyptians and other Neighbour-Nations and that this was the case also of the Christian Church at the first planting of the Gospel but now there is no danger of worshipping false Gods we may very securely worship the Friends and Favourites of God They suppose that all the ancient Patriarchs who lived before the Resurrection of Christ were not received into Heaven and therefore not being in a state of Bliss and Glory themselves were not yet capable of Divine Honours could neither know our Prayers nor intercede for us But now at last some eminent Saints and Martyrs ascend directly into Heaven and are the Beati advanced to such a state of Happiness and Glory that they are fit objects of Religious Worship and are so powerful in the Court of Heaven that God denies them nothing which they ask and so tender and eompassionate to us that they readily undertake our Cause and intercede for us and therefore it is very good and profitable now to invoke their aid and assistance by solemn and devout Prayers And though the learndest men among them are put to miserable shifts to prove the least part of all this yet let us for argument-sake suppose all this to be true that things are mightily changed since the making of this Law and that there is not the same reason now to confine all Religious Worship to God alone that there was in the time of Moses what follows from hence that therefore we may now worship Saints and Angels notwithstanding this Law which forbids it by no means unless they can prove that the Law is repealed too as well as the reason ceased Here is the authority of the Law-giver still though we should supose that we had lost the reason of the Law till the Law is as expresly repealed as it was given it is God Will still and that is reason enough to bind the Law upon us though other reasons fail The reason if we speak of such reasons as these which the Church of Rome assigns for it is a different case if we speak of eternal and necessary reason which is nothing else but the eternal and immutable nature and will of God which is an eternal Law did not make the Law and the change of the reason cannot repeal it And since we see that God has not repealed this Law we rather ought to conclude that we are mistaken in the reasons for which God made this Law or that there are other reasons which we know not of for which he continues it we may indeed reasonably suppose that God will repeal a Law when the reasons for which it was given ceases though earthly Princes may not alwayes do so but still the Law binds till it be repealed and it is more reasonable to conclude that the reason of the Law continues while we see God does not repeal it then first to perswade our selves that the reason of Law is changed and thence infer the repeal and abrogation of the Law when we see no such thing done 5 That these arguments which the Roman Doctors urge to justifie their worship of Saints and Angels are of no force to repeal that Law which forbids the worship of any other Beeing besides the Supreme God appears from this that they had no force in them to prevent the making of this Law and therefore much less can they repeal it now it is made The reasons which they use had the same force then which they have now and if notwithstanding all the reasons God thoughâ— fit to forbid the worship of all Created Beings it is ridiculous to imagine that these reasons should supersede the obligation of that Law which is made in contradiction to all such reasonings as to shew this briefly They prove that we may pray to Saints and Angels to pray for us because we may desire good men on earth to pray for us Now suppose we could not assign the difference between praying to Saints in Heaven and desiring the prayers of Saints on earth yet I would desire to know whither good men did not pray for one another and desire each others prayers before and after God gave this Law on Mount Sinai which forbids the Religious worship and invocation of any other Beeing but himself if good men did in all ages pray for one another and desire one anothers prayers and God allowed and approved of this then it seems God did not think this a good reason for praying to Saints and Angels in Heaven because good men might beg each others prayers on earth for if he had he would not have made that Law which forbids such a Religious Invocation of any Creature And if notwithstanding this reason which had as much force then as it has now God made
and promulged this Law this reason can never repeal it nor dissolve the obligation of it Thus if the Saints and Angels being in Heaven be a good reason why they should be worshipped this was as good a reason at the giving of of the Law as it is now for thö we should suppose with the Church of Rome that Saints departed were not in Heaven then yet certainly the Angels were and if their being in Heaven made them fit objects of our worship why did God so expresly forbid it and if he forbad it then when there was as much reason to allow the worship of of those heavenly Inhabitants as there is now this argument cannot prove but that God forbids it still The same may be said of the Intercession of Saints and Angels The Papists suppose that the Saints and Angels pray and intercede for us in Heaven and obtain for and convey many blessings to us and therefore it is good and profitable to pray to them and to flie to their patronage now though indeed they date the Intercession of Saints as they do their admission into heaven from the Resurrection of our Saviour yet there is as much evidence for the aids and intercessions of Angels before and under the Law as there is now nay I think somewhat more for the government of the world was much more under the administration of Angels in the time of the Law then it is now and yet notwithstanding this God did by an express law forbid the worship of any being but himself and therefore of these Angelical powers who are somewhat superiour to Saints in Heaven and if this were no good reason against making this law it can be no good reason to prove the abrogation of it â— The next way they take to evade the obligation of this law of worshipping God only is by distinctions As to name the chief of them They tell us that this law is only opposed to the worship of false Gods such Gods as the Heathens worshipped not to the worship of Saints and Angels who are the Friends and Favourites of God And then they distinguish about the nature of worship they confess there is a worship which is peculiar to God Supreme and Soveraign worship which is peculiar to the Supreme Beeing and this for what reason I know not they call Latria but then there is an inferiour degree of worship which they call Dulia which may be given to excellent Creatures to Saints and Angels who reign with Christ in Heaven They farther distinguish between absolute and relative worship Absolute worship is when we worship a Beeing for its self and thus God only is to be worshipped but relative worship is when we worship one Beeing out of respect to another and thus we may worship Saints and Angels upon account of their relation to God Now I shall have occasion to examine these distinctions more particularly hereafter my business at present is to examine how far these distinctions can justifie the worship of Saints and Angels against an express Law which commands us to worship God only And I have three things to say on this argument 1. That the letter of the law will admit of no such distinctions as these 2. That the Scripture no where allows any such distinctions And 3. That no distinctions can justifie our acting against the letter of a law which have not the same authority which the Law has 1. The letter of the Law will admit of no such distinctions Exod. 20 as these The Law is Thou shalt have none other Gods before ME. The explication of this Law is Deut. 10 20. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God him shalt thou serve and to him shalt thou cleave and swear by his name Or as Matth 4 10 our Saviour expounds it Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Now these words do plainly exclude the worship of all other Beeings besides the Supreme God They exclude indeed the worship of all the Heathen Gods which were at that time worshipped in the world but they are not confined to the worship of the Heathen Gods nor meerly to the worship of those Gods who were at that time worshipped but should any new Gods start up in after Ages whither among Jews or Christians the words extend to all that are and all that ever shall be worshipped Thou shalt have noe other Gods before Me signifies that we must worship no other Beeing but the Supreme God for to have a God is to give religious worship to some Beeing as appears from that exposition which both Moses and our Saviour Christ gives of it Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve For it is impossible to have any God besides the Supreme God in any other sense then as we worship some other Beeing besides the Supreme God with Divine honours and whatever being we so worship become our God and therefore this Law forbids the worship of any Beeing which is not God be it Saint or Angel or the Virgin Mary how excellent and perfect Creatures soever they be they are not our God and therefore must not be worshipped If we must worship and serve God only as our Saviour expresly tells us that we must worship no creature whatever it be the worship of saints and Angels is as expresly forbid by this Law as the worship of the Heathen Gods for that Law which commands us to worship GOD onely excludes the worship of all Creatures whatever they be But may not the meaning of this Law be onely this That we must not give supreme and soveraign worship to any other â—eeing but the supreme GOD but we may give an inferiour degree of worship to some excellent spirits who under God have the care of us And is not this plainly signified in the very letter of the Law when it sayes Thou shalt have none other Gods before me For no other worship makes any Beeing a God but that which is supreme and soveraign peculiar and appropriate to the One supreme God and therefore not to have any other Beeing for our God is not to give Supreme and Soveraign Worship to it Now what that worship is which is peculiar and appropriate to the Supreme God I shall discourse particularly in the second part our present inquiry is whither this Law makes any such distinction The Laws says Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve Here is no distinction between supreme and subordinate worship whatever is an Act of worshâ—p must be given to God onely But the Law sayes Thou shalt have no other Gods before me and therefore it must signifie supreme and soveraign worship for no other degree of worship makes a God Did the Heathens then worship no inferiour gods did those who worshipped so many several gods look â—pon them all as supreme and absolute or were they so senseless as to give supreme and soveraign
prohibite the worship of all those Gods which were then worshipped in the world will any one in theirs wits hence conclude that if the folly and superstition of men should set up a new race and generation of Gods in after ages that the worship of these new Gods is not as well forbidden by this general Law as the worship of those gods which were worship'd at that time when this Law was given If this were true possibly Pagan Rome it self was not guilty of Idolatry for most if not all of their Gods might be of a later date then the giving the Law 3. Now since no such distinctions as these appear in Scripture it is impossible they should justifie the worship of Saints and Angels which is so expresly forbidden by the Law if we will acknowledge them to be distinct Beeings from the Supreme God for if they are not the Supreme GOD we must not worship them for we must worship none but God No distinctions can justifie us in this case but such as GOD himself makes for otherwise it were easie to distinguish away any Law of God Humane Laws will admit of no distinctions but such as they make themselves for a distinction does either confine and streighten or enlarge the Law and he who has power to distinguish upon a Law has so far power to make it If the Law says that we shall worship no other Beeing besides God and we have power if we have but wit enough to invent some new distinctions between the worship of good and bad spirits between Supreme and Subordinate absolute and relative worship this makes a new Law of it for it is one thing to say thou shalt worship GOD only and quite contrary to say thou shalt worship God only and good Spirits God with a supreme and absolute good Spirits with a subordinate and relative worship This I think is sufficient to shew that we must admit of no distinctions upon a Divine Law but what the Scripture it self owns and therefore since those distinctions with which the Church of Rome justifies her worship of Saints and Angels are no where to be found in Scripture they have no authority against an express Law 3. The next course the Papists take to justifie their Creature-worship in contradiction to that Law which expresly commands us to worship none but God is an appeal to such authorities as they think sufficient to decide this matter Now I shall not say much to this for I believe all Mankind will acknowledge that no Authority less then Divine can repeal a Divine Law and therefore unless God himself or such persons as act by a Divine Authority have repealed this Law no other Authority can do it That Christ and his Apostles have not repealed this Law I have already proved that the whole Church in after Ages had any Authority to repeal this Law I desire them to prove For the authority of the Church as to the essentials of Faith and Worship is not the authority of Law-givers but of Witnesses The Church never pretended in former Ages to make or to repeal any Divine Laws but to declare and testifie what the belief and practice of the Primitive and Apostolick Churches was and it is unreasonable to think that they should have any such Authority for then Christ and his Apostles preached the Gospel to little purpose if it were in the power of the Church to make a new Gospel of it when they pleased But indeed could it appear that the Apostles did teach the Christians of that Age and the Church in those Ages which immediately succeeded the Apostles did practise the worship of Saints and Angels we should have reason to suspect that we and not they are mistaken in the sense of that Law which commands us to worship none but God But then none can be admitted as competent witnesses of this matter but those who did immediately succeed the Apostles or conversed with Apostolical men and Churches And thanks be to God there is no appearance of creature-worship in those Ages we dare appeal to the testimony of Fathers and Councils for above three hundred years and those who come after come a little too late to be witnesses of what was done in the Apostolick Churches especially when all the intermediate Ages knew nothing of it I shall not fill up this discourse with particular â—itations which learned men know where to find since the Roman Doctors can find nothing in the Writings of the first Fathers to justifie the worship of Saints and Angels and the Protestant Writeâ—s find a great deal in those Ages against it Indeed at the latter end of the fourth Century some of the Fathers used some Rhetorical Apostrophes to the Saints and Martyrs in in their Orations which the Church of Rome interprets to be Prayers to them but though other See Bishops Ushers Answer to the Jesuits Challenge Learned men have vindicated those passages so far as to shew the vast difference between them and solemn and formal Invocation which is not my business at this time yet there are several things very well worth our observation towards the true stating of this matter As 1. That these Fathers came too late to be witnesses of the Apostolical practice which they could know no otherwise then we might know it if there had been any such thing viz. by the testimony and practice of the Church from the Apostles till that time This was no where pretended by them that the Invocation of Saints had been the practice of the Catholick Church in all ages and they could have no proof of this unless they had better Records of former times then we have at this day and such as contradicted all the Records which we now have of the Apostolick and Primitive Churches and I believe few men will be so hardy as to assert this and me thinks there should be as few who are so credulous as to believe it and I am sure there is no man living who is able to prove it 2. Nay the particular sayings of these Fathers by which the Romanists prove the Invocation of Saints do not prove that it was the Judgement and practice of the Church of that age They no where say that it was and it does not appear to be so by any other Records Let them shew me any Council before or in those times when these Fathers lived that is in the fourth Century which decreed the worship of Saints and Angels Let them produce any publick offices of Religion in in those dayes which allows this worship and if no such thing appears those men must be very well prepared to believe this who will without any other evidence judge of the practice of the Church only from some extravagant slights of Poets and Orators and if even in those dayes the worship of Saints was not received into the publick offices of the Church methinks we may as well live without it still and they must either grant
that these Fathers whose authority they alledge mean'd no such thing by these Rhetorical flourishes as they extract out of them or else that they introduced a new and unknown worship into the Christian Church and then let them prove that some few Fathers of the fourth Century without the publick authority of the Church had authority enough of their own to change the object of worship contrary as the Church in former Ages believed to an express Divine Law which commands us to worship none but God 3. Nay I farther observe that these Fathers whose authority is urged for the invocation of Saints by the Church of Rome do no where dogmatically and positively assert the lawfulness of Praying to Saints and Angels and many Fathers of the same Age do positively deny the lawfulness of it which is a plain argument that it was not the judgement and practice of the Church of that Age and a good reasonable presumption that these Fathers never intended any such thing in what they said how liable soever their words may be to be expounded to such a sense Gregâ—ry Nazianzen indeed in this Book against Julian the Apostate speaks to the Soul of Constantius in this manner Hear O thou Soul of great Constantius if thou hast any sense of these things c. But will you call this a Prayer to Constantius does this Father any where assert in plain terms that it is lawful to pray to Saints departed a hundred such sayings as these which are no Prayers to Saints cannot prove the lawfulness of praying to Saints against the Doctrine of the Fathers of that Age. Thus is his Funeral Oration for his Sister Gorgonia he bespeaks her to this purpose that if she knew what he was now a doing and if holy Souls Greg. Naz. Orat. 2. in Gorg. did receive this favour from God to know such matters as these that then she would kindly accept that Oration which he made in her praise insteed of other Funeral Ocsequâ—es Is this a Prayer to Gorgonia to intercede for him with God by no means He only desires if she heard what he said of her which he was not sure she did that she would take it kindly Whereas in that very Age the Fathers asserted that we must pray only to God and therefore they define Prayer by its relation to God That Prayer is a request of some good things made Basil Orat in Julit Martyr Greg. Naz. Orat 1. de Oratione Chrys in Genes Homil. 30. Aug. De clvit Dei l 22 cap. 10. by devout Souls to God that it is a conference with God that it is a request offered with supplication to God Which is a very imperfect definition of Prayer were it lawful to pray to any other Being besides God St. Austin tells us that when the names of the Martyrs were rehearsed in their publick Liturgies it was not to invoke them or pray to them but only for an honourable remembrance nay he expresly tells us that the worship of dead men must be no part of our Religion for if they were pious men they do not desire this kind of honour but would have us worship Idâ—â— de vera Religione cap. â—5 GOD honorandi ergo sunt propter imitationem non adorandi propter Religionem they are to be honoured for imitation not to be adored as an act of Religion The Council of Laodicea condemned the Worship of Angels and so does Theodoret Oecumenius and others of that Age. It is notoriously known that the Arrians were condemned as guilty of Idolatry for worshipping Christ whom they would not own to be the true GOD though they owned him to be far exalted above all Saints and Angels and to be as like to GOD as it is for any creature to be and those who upon these Principles condemned the worship of the most perfect and excellent Creature could never allow the worship of Saints and Angels So that through the worship of Saints and Angels did begin abouâ— this time to creep into the Church yet it was opposed by these pious and learned Fathers and condemned in the first smallest appearances of it which shews that this was no Catholick Doctrine and Practice in that Age much less that it had been so from the Apostles and I think after this time there was no authority in the Church to alter the object of worship nor to justifie such an Innovation as the worship of Saints and Angels in opposition to the express law of God The sum of this Argument is this Since there is an express Law against the worship of any other Beeing besides the supreme God the Lord Jehovah which never was expresly repealed whatever plausible reasons â—ay be urged for the worship of Saints and Angels they cannot justifie us in acting contrary to an express Law of God THE END A DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE CELEBRATION OF Divine Service IN AN UNKNOWN TONGUE UPon this Argument the Church of England doth fully declare it self in these words It is a Article 24. thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God and the Custome of the Primitive Church to have publick Prayers in the church or to minister the Sacraments in a Tongue not understood of the people But if we consult the Doctors of the Church of Rome about it we shall find them as in most other Comment in Eccles 5. 1. points differing extremely amongst themselves Mercer a very learned person and Professor of Hebrew at Paris is so free as to say Temere fecerunt c. They amongst us have done rashly that brought in the Custome of praying in an Vnknown Tongue which very often neither they themselves nor our people understand And Cardinal Cajetan saith Melius est c. It is better for our Church that the publick Prayers in the Congregation be said in a Tongue common to the In 1. Ep. Corinth c. 14. Priests and People and not in Latine Others of them are of another Mind and say that the having Divine Service in a Tongue known to the people is new and prophane and the Doctrine requiring it Diaboli calliditatem sâ—pit smells of the craft of the Devil And that the Church in making use of the Latine Tongue therein received it by inspiration from the Holy Ghost as a late Author saith Stapleton Quaest quodl Quaest 2. Sixtus Senens biblioth l. 6. â—nnot 263. Portraiture of the church of Jesus Christ c 14. With what consistence soever the former sort may speak to Truth and Reason yet I am sure the later speak with consistence enough to the Opinion Declarations and Practice of their church as is evident from the Council of Treâ—t the present Standard of the Doctrine of the church of Rome which I find thus Englished to my Hands by a noted person of their Cone Trid. Sess 22. c. 8. S. c. Answ to Dr. Pierce c. 15. church Though the Mass contain great instruction for GODS faithful people yet it seemed
laid for it in mens Minds or constant Provision made for the due Exercise of it all necessary Encouragement given to it and a sutable strict and regular Practice of it observable among them And there are several things which are not at all insisted on by us which they of the Church of Rome boast of as serving to some or all of these puâ—poses which I shall represent as fairly as I can that we may see what there is in that Church that doth answer such great pretences For it is observed that they of the Church of Rome oftentimes insteed of dispute endeavour to work on our People and too often prevail by appealinâ— to matters of Practice visible to every ones Eye an Argument to which men need not use their Reason but their Sense and this will say they sufficiently convince any of the excellency of our way For here are several things used as Instances and Expressions of Devotion very acceptable to God and sutable to a good Christian Temper which are either not at all used in the Church of England or at least not in that Degree and Measure and yet all those that are used in the Church of England say they are used among us For we not only enjoyn and practise constant use of Prayers publick and private together with Reading and Preaching of the Word Sacraments and whatever is used in the Church of England but we have besides several things which are as well proper Expressions of Devotion as Helps and Assistances which are not used among the Protestants The Principal things which they urge are such as these 1. They blame the Reformation in general as well as the Church of England for the want of Monasteries and such other Religious Houses which are so numerous in the Popish Countries where Holy Men and Women being shut up and having bid adiew to the World live as in Heaven in constant Exercise of praising of God Night and Day and of praying to him for the Church and State and particular Christians as well as themselves and who are not only so beneficial to the World by the constancy of their Prayers but also by their Example putting others in mind of Religion and of doing likewise and by the severity of their lives as to Diet Garbe and other Circumstances live in a constant Practice of that self-denyal which is commanded in Scripture and was so practised by Holy Men almost from the begining of Christianity and are as it were constant Preachers of Holiness and Mortification who tho' they do indeed stay here in the World below yet converse not in it but are in some Sense out of it and live above it 2. They sometimes also boast of the extraordinary Charity and Liberality to all good and Holy Uses pressed and practised among them which is but sparingly used say they among the Protestants Especially their excessive Expence and Cost in building and endowing Monasteries erecting Churches Chappels and Crosses their so pompous adorning the places dedicated to the Worship of God besides their Charitable Assistance and relief which they afford to the Bodies of the Living and the Souls of the Dead and no Man can deny but Charity is a certaint Evidence as well as a great branch and duty of true Religion and Devotion 3. Sometimes they glory in the great number of Saints commemorated in their Church and dying in the Communion of it and urge them as a forcible Example to others and a mighty incentive to Devotion they think also it redounds much to the Honour and Commendation of their Church to have had such glorious Members of it and twit us as they think severely when they ask us what Saints we have of our Church and wonder especially that we should observe so few Festivals and Holidayes whereas the very many dayes set apart in their Church in memory of their several Saints they think not only afford proper Occasions for all Acts of Religion but are a sign of their being less addicted to this World when so great a part of their time is spent in the Service of God and that Piety and Devotion are a considerable part of their Business and Imployment 4. They urge also the multitude of Pictures and Images of several Famous Men and Women who have in an eminent manner served and pleased God and been instrumental in converting the World as very proper assistances of a Mans Devotion instructing some they being the Books of the Unlearned and sensibly affecting and alluring all to the Imitation of the Persons whom they represent 5. Sometimes they commend their Church for the Fastings and other Acts of severity and Mortification used not only by the Monks and Regulars but by all sorts of Men according to the Rules of their Church on set dayes of the Week or Seasons of the Year as well as such Austerities as are enjoyned by their Confessors by way of Penance their going bare-foot and bare headed in Processions their whipping and lashing themselves their drawing great Chains and Weights after them as great and proper Instances of Self-denial and Devotion 6. They place also a great Deal of Religion in Pilgrimages which the more Devout sort take and spend their Estates and sometimes their Lives in to Jerusalem Rome Loretto Mount-ferrdt to St. Thomas at Canterbury St. Winefrid's Well or some such other places where some extraordinary Person hath lived or some strange Relique is left or where they reckon God hath on some Occasion or other wonderfully manifested himself and they reckon that the very visiting or kissing these are either an Argument of truly Devout Minds or that which will make them so And their Manuals or Books which their Priests give into the peoples hands do not fail by all the art imaginable to endeavour to screw up Mens Devotion even to rapture and extasie in Commendation of these Practises and Orders even as if they would have us believe that there is no true Religion and Devotion without these and that where there are these things practised it is a certain sign that the mind is affected as it ought Piety flourisheth in the highest Degree And besides these Matters of Practice their are also several Doctrines and Opinions peculiar to themselves which they reckon do naturally tend to the advancement of true Devotion As 7. Their Doctrine concerning the Intercession of Saints for us and the Advantage of Invocation or prayer to them and that we of the Church of England want one of the greatest Encouragements to Prayer and Devotion that can be who neither own nor make use of these Helps and therefore that we cannot have such hope of Success and Blessing as they have 8. Their Doctrine concerning the Merit of Good Works and Supererogation is of the same Nature in their esteem For the more Worth you suppose in any Action the greater Incouragement is there to the performance of it and therefore surely it must be a most irresistible motive to
is neither a Sign of the good State and condition of their church nor is their keeping so many Holy dayes in remembrance of them any instance of true Devotion As for many of the Saints which they commemorate we own as well as they and can pretend as good a right in them as they can because we own and will submit to whatever can be urged from them such are the Blessed Virgin the Apostles and Evangelists and after them also the Bishops Martyrs and Confessors in the Primitive church but we confess that we have not the same esteem of many whom they commemorate as Saints and utterly diâ—allow of their canonizing or Sainting of them For many of them I believe never had any being but in the Fancy of these Saint-makers who yet are commemorated and prayed to as well as any others Such as St. Longinus under which name they have made a Man of the Spear which pierced our Saviours Blessed Body St. Almachius on Jan. 1. which only comes from the Corruption of Alman ack Saint Amphibalus who was only St. Alban's Cloak St. Vrsula and her 11000 Virgins of whom no Foot-steps can be found in true History Many of them I fear it had been better that they had never been as being notoriously vicious and scandalous in their Lives And others though more innocent yet if we believe what is written in their Lives were so prodigiously ridiculous that a wise and religious man would be asham'd of such company To hear men in an Extasie of Devotion to talk Non-sence or to preach to Birds and Beasts to run naked to wander voluntarily in Desarts c. is more likely with sober men to bring their persons and Actions into contempt and scorn then to affect them with any quick Sense of Religion at best it will excite men only to that extatical and enthusiastical kind of Devotion which was in vogue among the Heathens whose Preists were besides themselves when they spake in the Name of their Gods and their most celebrated Exercises of Religion were such kind of irrational Actions but there is nothing of this at all countenanced under Christianity For the Gospel would make us wise as well as devout and it is not required that we put off the Man but the Old Man and its Vices when we become Christians And though we are sensible of many among us that have been very examplary for Vertue and Piety and have no reason to doubt of their Salvation but have as full Assurance of it at least as they of their Saints yet we are very shy of canonizing or sainting of them because we know not Mens Hearts nor dare we to presume to dispose so absolutely of Heaven as the Pope doth We thank God for those that have lived and died well among us and exhort our People to imitate all the Good which shewed it self in them but we know not to what purpose Canonization is If it be only to recommend their Vertues to Example the Canonization of them will signifie no more then the bare History of their good Lives faithfully recorded would do but if it be in order to praying to them we utterly condemn it And it is too plain that this is the end of their being canonized For from that time solemn Prayer and Invocation is allowed and offered up to them And this I believe hath been an occasion of falling from the Truth of Christian Doctrine as well as practice For they taking such a man to be a Saint think themselves oblidged to follow and vindicate whatever he either did or said as holy and true not considering that the best of meer Men have been guilty of Mistakes and Imperfections and then much more may we suspect the Judgment and Understanding the Vertue and Piety of many of those that fill up the bigger part of the Romish Kalendar And for the same reason we think there is not much Religion or Devotion expressed in the keeping up the Memory of such Saints by so many holydayes observed among them If they commend their holydayes for the opportunities afforded in in them of serving God in publik we have such Conveniencies in many-places every day If they comend them as dayes set apart to Rest and Idleness we are not altogether of their mind for we think we have as many as our Poor can well spare and are sure that they have more holy dayes then their Poor can afford to observe So that their Holy dayes are no advantage to any The Rich need them not because if they have Abilities they may be idle and luxurious every day But they are a great evil and Burthen to the poor when they are forced to lose so many dayes from their Work by which they should maintain themselves and their Families And though the Popes by reason of this Cry of the poor have been prevailed with to cut off many of those days of Idleness yet still in most places the Number of them is intolerable Fourthly As for Images I should have thought it more proper to range them among the Hinderances of Devotion did I not see the Men of Rome to plead earnestlie for them as Helps and Assistances and to blame us for not using them and paying no respect to them I consess my self not a cute enough to discern how they can any wayes advance Devotion For their paying such Honour and Respect to them as they do own and acknowledge must needs be a great Distraction it diverting the Mind and making Men spend their religious Reverence on that which is exposed to their View but their paying such Worship to them as they do pay but are ashamed to own is flatly destructive to all true Devotion They indeed plead the Ignorance of the People for the necessity of Images and call them the Books of the Unlearned but they must first suppose their People insufferably ignorant to need such Helps as these are And to give the Priests their due if any Ignorance would suffice to justifie such a Practice they take care to keep their People in Ignorance sufficient And then if they are so ignorant that they cannot worship God without an Image the Church cannot be secure but these so sillie People may worship the Image for God or Christ or at least as having some extraordinary Vertue in it and so make an Idol of it especially when they see the Eyes and Hands of the Image to move and see Miracles wrought by the Touch of it as is frequently pretended and believed to be done So that either there is no need of Images or great danger in the use of them I confess I am not of Mr. Baxter's Mind who thinks that they may be properly or safely used to excite Devotion at least I must confess my self of a different temper from him Methinks I represent God in greater Majesty to my self when I consider him in his Works of Creation and Providence then to see him pictured as in the Clouds though
particularly to set them up in competition with God and to create in Men an Opinion that they are more easily entreated and readier to do us a Kindness then he is And therefore though Men may fear God more yet they will rather love the Saint and Love is the truest Motive to such Devotion as will be best accepted with God And yet in this plainly consists all that Court which they make to the Virgin Mary that she should pacifie the Anger of GOD the Father or of the Son towards Men they are represented severe and almost cruel to render her more amiable to the people in her interceeding for them So they frequently in their printed and allowed Books of Devotion call her Fountain of Mercy and Pity and other Names of the like Importance Now all the assurance they have of her being tender and compassionate is only because she is a Woman but they are assured of God's Mercy both from his Nature and his Word They have no Assurance that she or any other Saint hears them nor can they shew how the Saint can be rationally supposed to know every thing that we do or say but they are well assured that God hears them For he is stilled the God that heareth Prayer which Prerogative of his by every Prayer to a Saint they may at least suspect that they intrench on They are not assured that the Saint can help them but they may be fully satisfied of his Help who is Almighty They have no Encouragement from Scripture for praying to Saints For though the Angels rejoyce at the repentance of a sinner it doth not follow that therefore every concern of Men is known or Prayer heard by them much less that we may pray to them for the Gift of Repentance or any other Grace And prayer being so considerable a part of Divine Worship we need not doubt but the Angels and Saints would refuse it For so St. John was rebuked for offering to Worship the Angel though supposed immediately and visibly with him Worship God Rev. 19. 10. So that if they prayed to Saints and Angels only to mediate and interceed for them to GOD it is more then they have any Warrant or Allowance for Christ being alwayes represented as the Mediator between God and Man and the setting up his servants in his Office is as far as is possible a deposing of him Nor is it in this case as it is in Courts on Earth which is their common Excuse where a Favourite is made use of to represent our cause and request to the King For this is done because our Kings do not know our Persons nor understand our Case nor can they be present in all places and hear all causes themselves so that it is often necessary that Princes should imploy and trust other then their own Eyes and Ears Many things they think below them to inquire particularly into and sometimes they will do that at the request of a Favourite which they would not do for the sake of a Person that is not particularly known to them But there is no Room nor Occasion for this in the Court of Heaven For God is not onely intimately known but is immediately present to all his Creatures as he hath declar'd himself no Respecter of Persons but to love all and therefore there is no need of any Intercessor for us except the Lord Jesus he affects not empty pomp and state but his Providence extends to every particular Concern of the meanest of all his creatures and though he may give some undeserved Favours as longer Lives and farther Opportunities of Amendment c. for the sake of others Prayers yet no man is so far his Favourite as to be able to perswade him to reverse his own Laws and to save a wicked Person that continues in his Wickedness On all which Accounts there is no Occasion of praying to the Saints so much as to interceed for us as the Church of Rome pretends But to pray to them to bless us and give us this or that Temporal or spiritual Good as they of the Church of Rome practise and to suppose them to have Power to help us in this or that particular Difficulty and Distemper is plainly intollerable For this is in a great measure to revive Heathenism by which Men Worshipped this or that GOD for this or that particular Case They must grant the Saint to have though not an Original yet a most certain and derivative Power according to which he will not fail to assist them that worship him and in all such Prayer methinks they even terminate their Worship on the Saint For if I pray to a Saint to help me in this or that Difficulty with a full assurance that this Saint hath sufficient power to help me though I should grant that this Saint received this Power from GOD yet my prayers terminate on the Saint Indeed the Saint is oblidged to God for that power but I seem to own my self only oblidged to the Saint for his applying this his general power to my particular case Just as I am oblidged to a man for giving me an Estate though he is beholden to the Government and Laws that either he enjoyed the Estate himself or was impowered to give it to another Besides that they often pray to Saints for such things which if they be only Creatures they can have no power to give or to be even so much as the Instruments of conveying to us and yet it is notorious they pray sometimâ—â— to the Saints for Grace for Pardon of Sins and strength against them So in Benaventure's Psalter translated into Italian and published Salmi di S. Bonav in Lode della Virgine per Giovan Battista Pinello in Genoa Anno 1606. for the use of the People tho' the Translator and Publisher sayes that he had purged it from the Blasphemies which were in the former Editions yet we find such passages as these to the Virgin Mary Psal 7. Come to her all ye that are heavy laden and she shall give Rest and Refreshment to your Souls Psal 40. Cleanse my heart Psal 41. Thou art the begining and the end of my Salvation Psal 44. By thy Holiness my sins are purged and by thy Integrity Incorruptibility is given to me Psal 104 Eternal Salvation is in thy Hund O Lady and he that worthily honoureth thee sâ—all obtain it And many more Sayings of this nature or wroâ—e if possible Now can any man say that such Prayers as these are fit to be offered up to a Creature or that they are Instances of the Devotion of a Christian when they are so offered I am sure that we charge the Heathen with giving Divine Worship to Men though we can hardly find any Expressions or prayers to their Gods which are so high and argue their terminating their Worship on them so fully as these and other such which are commonly used by those of the Church of Rome to Saints and especially to the
an unfeigned Repentance is absolutely Necessary and not a Verbal one only That it is out of our power and of any Man 's in the World to turn Attrition into contrition We pretend not to dispense with any for not obeying the Command of God We have no Taxa Camere by which the Papists are shewn how all sins are fined in their Church for in that Book Men see at what Charge they may kill a Father or commit Incest with their Sisters But we assure all that the Wages of sin is Death Death Eternal if indulged and not most earnestly repented of And we tell all that Devotion is necessary for all though the Church of Rome hath wayes of gratifying every Inclination so as they that will not lead a strict Life need not and yet may have hopes of Salvation We own their Policy in this Contrivance but do not so much admire their Religious regard to the Salvation of Mens Souls And to conclude though we thus forcibly press all Christian Duties on all Men yet at the same time we warn them not to pretend to Merit Heaven at God's Hand but after they have done their best to confess they are unprofitable servants Wee say of our Charity or whatever else we do in Obedience to God that of his own we give to him and we are bound to thank him both for the will and the Ability to give The most that we pretend to ' is onlie to make a small Acknowledgment by way of Sacrifice for what we have received we beg of God to accept it as a Testimonie of a grateful Mind and we know that his Goodness is so great that he will abundantlie reward an honest and sincere servant though he hath done no more then was his Duty And we hope that what we offer though mingled with many Imperfections he will be pleased to accept for the sake of Christ as if it were perfect These are the Grounds that we go on in our Devotions ' and whatever we do for the Honour of God and thus designing and thus acting and persisting we need not doubt but the good Providence of God which watcheth over his whole Church will in an especial manner watch over this which is so pure a Member of it that he will accept of the Devotions which are offered to him in it and hear the Prayers that are made unto him for it and defend it against all its Enemies on every side which God of his Infinite Mercy grant for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. A DISCOURSE Concerning Invocation OF Saints How shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed Rom. 10. 14. EDINBVRGH Re-printed by John Reid Anno DOM. 1686. A DISCOURSE Concerning Invocation 〈◊〉 Saints AMongst many other very corrupt and erroneous Doctrines of the Romanists the Church of England in her twenty second Article condemns that of Invocatioâ— of Saiâ—â—s as a â—ond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrantry of Scriâ—ture but rather repugnant to the Word of God and in her Learned Homily against the peril of Idolatry passes yet a much severer Censure upon it and makes all those that believe and practise it Guilty of the same Idolatry that was amongst Ethnicks and Gentiles How sharp soever this charge may be thought to be 't is you see the plain sense and judgment of our Church and what I believe is the Truth and no hard matter to make good To proceed therefore in the easiest and clearest method I can I purpose to sum up all that I think needfull to be said upon it under these following heads 1. What 's the profest Doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome as to Invocation of Saints 2. On what occasion it began and spread in the Church 3. That there is not the least p â— of for it from Scripture 4. That there is no proof for it from the Fathers of the first three hundred years and more 5. That there is full and evident proof in Scripture against it 6. That the Fathers of the first and purest Ages till after three hundred are all express and positive in thâ—â—â— writings against it 7. That the Doctrine and Practice of Saint-Invocation is impious and Idolatrous I. What 's the profest Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome as to Invocation of Saints AN Account of this I shall give you first in general as it is set down in the decree of the Trent Council and then lay it before you more at large distributed under several particulars In the twenty fifth Session of that pack'd Synod we have its decree in these words That all Bishops and Pastors that have the cure of souls do diligently instruct their Flock that it 's good and profitable Humbly to pray unto the Saints and to have recourse to their prayers help and aid And then to reinforce the Obligation of it it denounces an Anathema against all those who shall find fault with it or refuse to practise it so that now whosoever shall be so hardy as to think and teach the contrary to say that either it ought not to be done or that it 's a foolish thing to do it that the practice is little less then Idolatry repugnant to the Glory of God as sole Governour of the World and highly injurious to the Honour of Christ as the only Mediator betwixt God and Man does in the judgment of that Church think impiously and if the Popes Power as well as his Infallibility does not fail him he most be Curs'd and Damn'd for it But for once not to be frighted with his vain Thunder I shall proceed in due place by Gods assistance to prove all the foregoing particulars against it when I have given you yet a fuller description of it First then 1. The least and most excusable thing in this Doctrine and practice is to pray to Saints to pray for them Thus much is not only confest by them but made the pretence to bring off this Doctrine without the charge of Idolatry and Creature Worship We do no more in praying to Saints departed say they then one living Christian does to another when he sayes pray Sir pray for me or remember me in your prayers But was this indeed the true meaning of such Devotions it 's so far from being any justification of them that the Apologly it self is sinful and admitting the excuse the practice no less to be condemned For When they Pray to Saints departed to pray for them those Saints do either hear their prayers and become acquainted with their desires or they do not If they do hear all those prayers that are put up to them at the same time by innumerable persons and that in far distant places what 's this but to ascribe to them that ubiquity and omnipresence that 's solely peculiarly and incommunicably in God If they do not then it 's very absurd and ridiculous and a great abuse of that reason God hath given men for other
their Addresses to one Saint rather then to another according as in this World they were famous either for some eminent Grace shining in them or for some strange cure or extraordinary deliverance wrought by them but onlie that they believe and trust that those who did such great things on Earth are much more willing and able to do them now they are in Heaven where while other Graces cease Charity and Beneficence are perfected and abide for ever Thus because St. Roch was signally Charitable in assisting those who were infected with the plague therefore do they call upon him in times of infection because St. Appollonia had all her Teeth struck out for her undaunted Confession of the Faith of Jesus therefore do they fly to her for ease against the Rage of Teeth because St George was by profession a Souldier and renowned for wonderful Atchievements therefore have they recourse to him for assistance against Enemies 'T is true was it Lawfull to Address to any at all this might be a sufficient reason why they Address to this rather then to another Saint because his or her former actions or sufferings do best suit and befit their present case but being not sure that these and such like Canoniz'd Saints of the Romish Church are Saints in Heaven being sure if they are they can't hear us nor know our particular State much less bestow health and deliverance upon us whilest we Love and Honour the Memory of Saints indeed we ought to call only upon God who only is a present help in time of need and the Saviour of them that put their trust in him But to put this out of doubt it will not be amiss to set down some of their forms of Devotion to Saints departed And here not to rake for them in some obscure Authors that have privately stole into the World I shall need go no farther then the present Roman Breviary Corrected and Published by the Decree and Order of the Council of Trent The blessed Virgin is there Invocated in the Feast of the Assumption For strength against Enemies and in the Hymn frequently used in her Office she is not only called the Gate of Heaven but intreated to loose the bonds of the Guilty to give light to the blind to drive away our evils to obtain good things for us and to shew her self to be a Mother that is as the Mass-Book of Paris 1634 interprets it * O foelix puerpera nostra pians scelera jure matris impera Redemptori Dall de cultu Latin lib. 3. c. 4. p. 359. Not denied by Natalis Alexander though he answers this Citation of Dalle only sayes Nec est ab ecclesâ—â— probata quibusdam tantâ—m missalibus â—lim inserâ—â— est Hisâ— Eâ—â—l sec 5. dissert 5. p. 343. 347. in right of a Mother to command her Son In another place she is sued to for help to the Miserable for strength to the Weak for comfort to the Afflicted and that all that Celebrate her Festivals may feel her assistance And but that I said I would not hunt for matter I could send you to Authors of theirs and not of the least note where we may read such Blasphemy as this †Biel. in Can. mis sect 80. That God hath given the Virgin Mary half of his Kingdom * Salmeroâ— in Tim. 1. 2. disc 8. That the Prayers made to and by all Saints are better then those made by Christ †Carol. scrib in Amph. hon Com. p. 29. Châ—â—â— exemp Invocat Sanct. p. 146. That the Mothers Milk is equally to be esteemed with the Sons Blood This you may take for a tast of that Hyperdulia that super-refin'd service which they put up to the blessed Virgin and yet that to the Apostles and other Saints of less magnitude comes not much behind it St. Peter is intreated by the power given to him To hear their prayers to unty the bonds of their iniquity and to open the Gates of Heaven all the Apostles to absolve them from their sins by their command to heal all their spiritual maladies and to encrease their vertues St. Andrew is supplicated for patience to bear chearfully the Cross of Christ St. Francis for deliverance from the drudgery and bondage of sin St. Brigit for Wisdom against the snares of the World St. Nicholas for courage against the assaults of the Devil St. Agnes for the chiefest of Graces that of Charity and St. Catharine for all Graces We are taught to pray to be delivered from Hell and to be made partakers of Heaven by their merits to fly to them as our Patrons and Advocates to put confidence in their intercessions Breviar â—â—ss and to ascribe our mercies and deliverances to their Power and Interest in God In the office of Visitation of the Sick the Priest laying his right hand upon Rituâ—l de Visit Infirm the head of the Sick Person prayes that Jesus the Son of Mary and Saviour of the World would for the Merits and Intercession of his Apostles Peter and Paul and all saints be gracious Merciful to him in another place in the same office that through the intercession of the blessed Virgin all saints he might obtain Eternal-Life these are enough but I Merits and intercessione S. S. Ritual Rom. de Sacram. poenit cannot omit one more which is a flower indeed in the office about the Sacrament of Penance there is found this remarkable Prayer The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ the Merits of the blessed Virgin Mary and of all saints and whatsoever good thou hast done and whatsoever Evil thou hast suffered be to thee for the remission of sins the encrease of grace and the reward of Eternal Life And now let the Reader judge if this be not to give the Creature that Worship that 's due only to the Creator and to seek to obtain those blessings from finite Beeings and through their procurement which only Almighty God and his blessed Son Christ Jesus can give unto Men. 3. 'T is the Doctrine of the church of Rome that Mental Prayers as well as Vocal are to be put up to Voce vel mente Supplicare Saints departed So the Trent-Council decreed so their Bishops and Pastors are enjoyned to teach the People and so they practise this being a form of Prayer to Saints in frequent use amongst them With the desire of our Hearts we pray unto you regard the ready service of our minds So that according to them Saints departed do not only hear our Prayers but know our Hearts also and indeed this is necessarily implied in every Prayer that 's made to them viz. That they not only hear the Prayer but know the disposition of the Heart from whence it proceeds otherwise the Hypocritical Supplicant must be supposed as likely to obtain their favour as the Sincerest Votary 4. They not only Pray to them with Mental and Vocal Prayer but They confess their sins to
them Very remarkable is that form of Confession in the Reformed Roman Ordinar missae 217. Missal I confess to Almighty God to the ever blessed Virgin to Hessed Michael Arch-Angel to blessed John Baptist to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul to all the saints and to you Brethren that I have sinned in thought word and deed They make Vows to them nothing is more common then at entrance into Religious Orders thus Francis Albertin de Angel Custod p. 224. Horst in dedic sect 2. p. 83. to express their Devotion I Vow to God and the blessed Virgin then to Vow that their whole life shall be devoted to the blessed Virgin or some other Saint according to the famous Pattern I humbly beg of thee Oh Mother of all Clemency that thou wouldest vouchsafe to admit me into the number of those who have devouted themselves to thee to be thy perpetual servants Another of this kind not much inferiour to it we meet with in Horstius viz I firmly resolve henceforth to serve thee and thy Son with all Faithfulness and for ever to cleave to thee They offer up Laud and Praise to them and intreat them to hear and receive their Thanksgiving thus Brev. Rom in fest S. Jacob. to St. James they pray that he would joyfully hear the acknowledgements that as right and due they paid to him 'T is usual with their Learned Men to conclude their Books with praise to God and the Blessed Virgin particularly Valentia and Bellarmine the letter of which thus ends his Book concâ—rning the Worship of faints praise be to God and to the blessed Virgin also to Jesus Christ Morstius before had it thee and thy Son Bellarmine here the Blessed Virgin and then Jesus Christ whereby we Bellarm de cul-Sanct Lyon Edit Laus deo virginique Mariae Jesu item Christâ— may see they give her not only an equal part with God in their Praises but by placing her before Christ seem to give her somewhat of preeminence above him 5. They appoint Angels and saints Deputies and Lievtenants under God in the Government of the World and stick not to make them Cuardians Patrons and Patronesses over particular Kingdoms Cities Churches and single persons The Scripture indeed frequently speaks oft he Knowledge presence Dignity occasional Ministry and Embassies of holy Angels but that delegation of power the Romanists give them whereby they make them share Empire and Dominion with God in the Government of the world can be as little proved of them as of saints departed however I am chiefly to consider their Doctrine and practice in reference to the latter they teach the people to make choico of one or more out of the number of the saints to be their Patron to Love them to imitate them through their hands Horst parad Animae sect 2. to offer daily their works to God to commend themselves to their protection at all times especially in difficulties and temptations they give to one saint this precinct and to another that to one power over this malady over that to others more of this you have drawn to the life in the forementioned excellent Homily of our Church against Idolatry out of which I shall only â—ull some passages and refer â—he Reader for farther satisfaction to the Homily it self it compares such saints in the Roman Church to whom they allot Homil of Idolat the defence of certain countries to the Dii Tutelares of the Gentile Idolaters such to whom the safety of certain Cities are cammitted to their Dii presides and such to whom Temples and Churches are Builded and Altars Erected to their Dii Patroni it tâ—lls us that the Romanists have no fewer saints then the Heathens had Gods to whom they give the Honour due to God every Artificer and profession has his special saint as a peculiar God for example Scholars have St. Nicholas and St. Gregory Painters St. Luke neither lack souldiers their Mars not Lovers their Venus amongst Christians The sea and waters amongst the Romanists as well as Cities and Countries have their special Saints to preside over them as amongst the Heathens they had Gods all diseases have their special Saints as Gods the Curers of them the Pox St. Roch the Falling-Evil St. Cornelis the Toothach St. Apollonia neither do Beasts and Cattle lack their Gods with us for St. Loy is the Horsleach and St. Anthony the swineheard c. where is Gods Providence and due Honour in the mean time Who saith the Heavens be mine the Earth is mine the whole World and all that therein is but we have left him neither Heaven nor Earth nor Water nor Country nor City Peace nor War to Rule and Govern neither Man nor Beasts nor their diseases to Cure and as if we doubted of his ability or will to help we joyn to him another as if he were a Noun Adjective using these sayings such as Learn GOD and St. Nichol as be my speed such as sâ—eese GOD help and St. John to the Horse God and St. Loy save thee thus are we become like Horses and Mules that have no understanding Oh Heavens Oh Earth What madness and wickedness against God are Men fallen into What dishonour do the Creatures to their Creator and Maker This is not written to reproach the Saints but to condemn the Foolishness and Wickedness of Men who make of the true servants of GOD false Gods by attributing to them the Power and Honour which is Gods and due to him only II. On what occasion this Doctrine and Practice began and spread in the Church GReat was the Honour the Primitive Christians had for the Martyrs and Confessors they frequented their Tombs erected Altars on the places of their burial highly esteemed their bones and reliques â—here they rehearsed their good works done in their life time and their Faith Patience and Constancy shewed at Death here they blessed God for that Grace that was given to them and for that good that accrued to themselves by their example here they proposed their vertues for imitation and had their own Piety and Zeal enflamed by the remembrance of them and the Christian cause being then harassed on every side by implacable Enemies the Malice of the Jew and the subtity of the Greek and the Power of the Roman combining with their united force to destroy and root it up it pleased God not only by the demonstration of a Divine power in the Apostles and their immediate Successors whilst they were alive but also by many wonderful things done at their Tombs when the were dead and by sensibly answering Prayers that were there puup to him to confiâ—m the Truth of Christianity to declare hi approbation of the sufferings of his servants and to encourage others to Seal the Doctrine of the Gospel with their Blood as they bad done To them in a particular manner may that of the Apostle be applied Wâ—om GOD did foreknow Rom. 8. 29 30. them he did predestinate
practice excepting only the object of their Worship giving them real Saints and Holy Angels instead of their feigned and impure Deities and that which makes this the more probable is that their invasion and stay in Italy and the rise and growth of Daemon-Worship there jump exactly as to time and both bear date from the Fourth and Fifth Centures III. That there is not the least proof for it from Scripture 1. ANd here we are firstâ—â— take notice that Bellar. de sanct beat c. 19. Salm. in 1 Tim. 2. disp 7. Eckius Enchirid de vener sanct c. 15. Cardin. du Perron it is â—reely confeâ—â— by some of their own Learned Divines that there is no express Text either in the Old or New Testament for this Doctrine and practice and is it not hard to make that an Article of Faith that has no Foundation to stand on in the word of God Or to make that a Duty that has no Law â—or sanction to bind us to the practice of it Were not the Scriptures written to make Men Wise unto salvation and to instruct them throughly unâ—o all good works Were they not written that 2 Tim. 3. 15. 16. we might believe believing might have Eternal Life Do not the Apostles say they have made known to Man the whole will of God and kept nothing hid from them Do John 20. 30. they not abound in earnest Exhortations to Pray to Pray alwayes to pray without ceasing with all prayer Have they not left frequent directions for the right performance of it in a Language that all that hear may understand with pure hands in Faith without wrath and doubting And now can 1 Cor. 14. we imagine after all this that had Invocation of Saints been so good and profitable a Duty or that it had been so great a Crime so much as to doubt of the Blessed Virgin 's Merits and Ability to help that theâ— would have been Catech. Rom. 584. wholly silent as to this matter Were not the Apostles guided by the Holy Spirit of God Must they not be supposed to have as hearty a concern and as burning a Zeal for the Salvation of Souls and the Glory of God as the Trent Fathers had And now had this practice been so highly instrumental to promote both these as that Synod would have us believe is it to be imagined that every one of them would have quite forgot it and neglected to have given it in charge with as much strictness as they have done to all Bishops and Pastors to instruct their Flocks in the Pieâ—y and Usefulness of it Have not the Apostles both by their precept and example enjoyned Christians to beg the Prayers of one another whilst they are in the body Have they not prescribed the Sick Man as the most Soveraign receipt to have recourse to the Prayers of the Elders of the Jaâ— 5. 14. Church What reason then can be given that we have not any one example or precept to fly to the Prayers of Saints departed to their help and assistance as the more prevailing and meritorious but only this that they are not in a capacity to hear our requests or to know our conditions Nay had our Saviour and his Apostles intended this Saint-Invocation as a necessary Christian Duty it would have needed a more express command and penalty to have inforced its obligation then most other Duties of Christianity since it was altogether a thing new to the Jews and what had never been practised by them for though sometimes in their prayers to God they besought him to remember Abraham Isaac and Luk 1. 55. 72. 73. Deut. 7. â— Jacob that is his own covenant and promise he had made with and to them yet they never used them as intercessors or said Holy Abraham or Holy Isaac pray for us But to blunt the edge of this Argument that they themselves have put into our hands against it they tell us was not for any intrinsick Evil in the thing but for some particular reasons relating to the times of the Old Testament and the first Ages of the New that It was not mentioned and enioyned in scripture but if the reasons produced by them do hold with equal force against it promiscuously in all Ages as well as against it then certainly the main reason why it 's no where prescribed in scripture is that it might at no time be put in practice The reasons they give are chiefly two For the Old Testament they say it 's not there enjoyned because the Patriarchs and Saints departed during that dispensation were not admitted into the beatifick Vision and so could not ordinarily understand the Prayers of the Living but if for ought we know Abraham Isaac and Jacob are still in the same Limbo or place of rest they went to at first or if our Saviour at his ascension into Heaven did give them a happy deliverance and took them up with him into the immediate presence of God 't is not certain that they understand the desires of the Living any more then they did before then there is as much reason not to Invocate them now as there was not to do it then Many of the Romanists will not have the Saints in Heaven come to know the desires of their Living Votaries by the benefit of the beaufick Vision which they enjoy but by particular Revelation from God and if so then the Old Testament worthies were as capable of it and consequentlie there was as much reason to pray unto them before our Saviours coming when they were but in Paradise as afterwards when by his Glorious Victory and Triumph over Death they were exalted into Heaven since God could have revealed the requests of their supplicants alike to them in all places in one as well as another besides considering the great esteem and veneration the Jews ever had for those great Men the Founders of their Nation Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses Joshua and others had there been no evil in the thing no reason can be given why it was not preached to the Jews by our Saviour and his Apostles as the most likely argument to win them to embrace the Christian Religion For the New Testament they say 't is not there enjoyned because it would have been a great offence and scandal to the new converted Gentiles and have given them an occasion to think that they had only changed their Gods but not their Religion that the Christian Doctrine was only a device of the Apostles to thrust out their old Daemons and Heroes and to put in themselves that as those had hitherto been Worship'd for the great services and benefactions they did in this present World so they for the future might have the some Honour done them for the full discoveries they had made and excellent directions they had given relating to a future and more happy State And is not this a good Argument and does it not hold still against Romish Invocation Is
by the Romanists own Confession are of this opinion and though they should be mistaken as their great Cardinal thinks they were and endeavours to prove yet 't is enough to our purpose that they did not hold the one and therefore could neither teach nor practice the other 2. One chief Argument which the Primitive Fathers used to prove the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost against the Arrians and Macedonians was the Catholick practice of the Church in Praying to them which would not have been of any force had they believed that any Creatures though never so highly exalted in Nature and Condition might have had that Honour payed unto them They tell us frequently in their writings that when the Gospel directs us to invocate the Son and Holy Ghost in conjunction with the Father it proves them Orig. l. 8. in Epis ad Rom. c. 10 Athan. Orat. 4. contr Arrianos to be true God that Invocation supposing them every where to be present when they are invock'd and that Omnipresence being the sole property of God For the same reason when the Arrians who conceived Christ to be no more then an excellent and Godlike Creature did yet Pray unto him the Catholicks accused them of Idolatry Had the Catholicks at the same time practised the Invocation of Saints the charge might have been returned with greater force upon themselves and whatever could have been thought of by the Catholicks to excuse themselves from that guilt might with more strength have been urged by the Arians in their behalf Had the Catholicks replied as the Romanists do now that though they did Pray to the blessed Spirits yet they did not do it with that Soveraign direct and final Prayer nor with those Sublimest Thoughts and intentions of Honour wherewith they did address to God but only with indirect subaltern and relative Prayer and with no higher intentions of Honour to them then what is proportioned to the excellencies of their finite nature the Arrians might have returned upon them with great advantage even after the same manner Sirs and with the same due limitations do we Invocate the Man Christ Jesus and whilst we do no more but so we have more reason for what we do then you can have since Christ is confessedly superiour to all Creatures and consequently deserves at least as great an Honour to be paid to him as unto any the highest amongst them though we do not think him God equal with the Father yet the Scripture assures us he is exalted far above all Angels Principalities and Powers and every name which is named in Heaven and Earth and though we may not Honour the Son in the same high degree with an as of equality as we do the Father yet the Scripture enjoyns us to do it with the same kind of Honour with an as of similitude and likeness and this is more then can be said in defence of that Honour and Invocation you offer to Saints and Angels 3. Because the Fathers condemned the Heathens as guilty of Idolatry for Invocating their Doemons or inferiour Deities which in a manner is the same with the Romish Invocation of Angels and Saints This has been invincibly proved Dean of St. P. against G. against the Romanists by a great Light of our Church who hath made the Parity and Agreement betwixt them to be very obvious as 1. In the Object of their Invocation the Heathens had one Supreme God and a multitude of Inferiâ—uâ— Deities the Romanists have also besides one God above all a multitude of Angels and Saints departed It may be the Vulgar and Ordinary People might mistake for their Gods Jupiter of Crete Mars Venus Vulcan Bacchus Persons that had been famous for Lewdness and Adulteries and if they did 't is to feared not much better an account can be given of many of the Canonized Saints in the Church of Rome but the Wiser sort had farr different apprehensions of their Deities they said and believed the same of the Supreme God as Christians do That he made the whole Plot Enn. 5. l. 9. c. 5. Laert. in Vit. Thal. p 24. Senec. Ep. 83 World and sees all things that he wants neither Power nor Will nor Knowledge to make his Providence concerned in the least things that neither the Actions nor the very thoughts of Mens minds can be hid from him Accordingly we find St. Paul affirming of the Heathens that they knew God ascribing to the Heathens Jupiter he being the Creator of all things so he told the Athenians Him whom ye Ignorantly Worship declare I Acts. 17 unto you God that made the World and the being the Father of all Mankind when he said in the words of one of heir Poets for we are all his off-spring And then for their Inferiour Deities there is so very little disparity betwixt them and the Angels and Saints Invocated by the Church of Rome that it seems to be only in name Accordingly St. Austin Confest that the Platonists did affirm the same things of their good Daemons as Christians St. Aust de civit Dei l. 9. c. 23. did of the blessed Angels did they distinguish their Inferiour Deities into such Spirits as were by Death delivered from the Body and such as never had any into such as alwayes lived in Heaven and such Apul. de Deo Socr. p. 50. cic de leg l. 2. whose merits had advanced them thither how exactly doth this sute with the difference given by Romanists betwixt Angels and Saints departed and the reason of their Worshiping of them The spiritual and Heavenly Nature of the one and the Merits of the other 2. In the Office ascribed to them The imployment the Heathens put upon their Daemons was to Aug. de civ Dei l. 8 e. 18. carry up the Prayers of Men to God and what they had obtained to bring back to Men imagining the Supreme God to be of too pure and sublime a Nature immediately to converse with Men they look'd upon these as Advocates and Mediators betwixt God and Men and as Intercessors and Procurers of their desired blessings and is not this the same thing the Church of Rome sayes touching the Office of Angels and blessed Spirits in the behalf of Men such as do solicite God for them and by their more prevailing merits and interest in God obtain of him what they themselves Pray for 3. In that which they make the Foundation of their Worship and Invocation to them viz. a middle sort of excellency betwixt God and Men so said the Heathens that there were a sort of Beeings between God and Men that participated of both Natures and that by means of those intermediate Beeings an intercourse was maintained betwixt Heaven and Earth and as God was to be Worship'd for himself so the others to be Loved and Honoured for his sake as being Gods by way of participation as likest to him as his Vicars and as Reconcilers betwixt them And is
not this the declared reason why the Church of Rome gives Religious Worship to Angels and departed Saints Because of a middle sort of worth and excellency that is in them that 's neither infinite as the divine nor so low as the humane but Spiritual and Supernatural whereby approaching near to the Divinity they have great interest in the Court of Heaven and ought as Celsus said of their Daemons to be Prayed unto to be favourable and propitious to us So exact you see is the parallel betwixt them Now against this Daemon-Worship the Fathers replied that whatever great and supernatural excellencies were to be found in the Spirits above ought indeed to have an Acknowledgement and Honour paied to them both in Mind and Action proportioned and Commensurate to such excellencies but yet they were not to be esteemed inwardly as Gods nor to be Worshipp'd with any outward Act of Religious Worship be it erecting Altars making Vows or puting up Prayers to them as if they were such For all and every part of that was solely due to God and not to be given to any the highest Created Excellency As you may see their minds more fully in the next particular 4. The Fathers positively assert that none but God ought to be invocated And the first I shall mention is that advice Ign. Ep. ad Philadelph which Ignatius gave the Virgins of his time not to direct their Prayers and Supplications to any but only to the Blessed Trinity Oh ye Virgins have Christ alone before your Eyes and his Father in your Prayers being enlightned by the Spirit Irenaeus in his first Book taking notice of some Persons who had entertained strange fancies concerning the Power of Angels accordingly gave Divine Worship to them tells us plainly that the Doctrine and Practice of the Iren l. 2. c. 57. Church in his dayes was far otherwise and that throughout the World it did nothing by Invocation of Angels nor by Incantations but purely and manifestly directs her Prayers to God who made all and calls upon the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ Feuardentius in his notes upon the place would have the words of the Father to be understood only of Prayers made by Evil Spirits and angels but then why did not the Father express it so Why does he exclud all Angels without distinction from Divine Worship when he sayes the whole Church every where called only upon God and his Son Christ Jesus Eusebius in his History hath set down a long Prayer of the of the Holy Martyr Polycrap which he uttered at the time of his Suffering wherein there is not any one Petition put up to Saints but every one directed to God through the Meditation of Christ closing his Prayer with Euseb l. 4. c. 15. this Doxology Therefore in all things I Praise thee I Bless thee I Glorify thee through the Eternal Priest Jesus Christ thy Beloved Son to whom with thee Oh Father and the Holy Ghost be all Glory now and for ever To which we may add what also is Recorded by the same Author that when the Church of Smyrna desired the Body of their Martyred Bishop to give it an Honourable Inteâ—ment and was denyed it by the Governour upon the unworthy suggestion of the Jews that they would Worship it they thus replied We can never be induced to Worship any other but Christ him being the Son of God we adore others as Martyrs and his sincere Disciples we worthily Love and Respect and that which here deserves a particular observation is what the Learned Primate of Armagh hath pointed out to us viz. that what in the Original Greek Sebein Religiously to Worship is in the Latin Edition that was wont to be read in all the Churches of the West rendred precem Orationis Ex passion M. S. 7. Kalend. Febr. in Bib. Eccl. Sarish Dom. Rob. Cotton impendere to impart the Supplication of Prayer The nexâ— Testimony I shall produce is that of Origen who is very full to this purpose in his Writings against Celsus he tells us We must endeavour to please God alone and labour to have him propitious to us procuring his good will with Godliness and all kind of Vertue and if Celsus will have us to procure the good will of any others after him that is God ovâ—â— all let him consider that as when the Body is moved the motions of the shadow thereof doth follow it so in like manner having God favourable to us who is over all it followeth that we shall have all his Friends both Angels and Spirits loving to us and whereas Celsus had said of the Angels that they belong to God and in that respect were to be Prayed unto that they may be favourable to us he thus sharply replies Away with Celsus's Council saying that we must Pray to Angels for we must Pray to him who is God over all and we must Pray to the Word of God his only begotten Son and the first born of all Creatures and we must intreat him that he as High Priest would present our Prayer unto his God and our God And when Celsus Objected that the Christians did not keep to their own rule of Praying to and Worshipping none but God since they gave the same Honour to Christ whom they knew to be a Man he replies that Christ was God as well as Man one with the Father and proves it from Miracles and Prophesies and Precepts that this Honour was given to him to be Worship'd as they Worship'd the Father Had Celsus Objected that the Christians Worship'd Angels and Saints departed it had been laid right and would have born hard upon them and he had inferred strongly that they might as well Worship their Inferiour Deities but Celsus Objects no such thing but only their Worshipping of Christ which Origen was well provided to answer and this is an evident proof that the Christians were not guilty of it Had there been but the least ground to suspect them for it it would have been so hugely serviceable to his cause and with so much force have rebounded back upon the Christians that 't is not to be imagined so industrious and spightfull an Adversary as Celsus would have omitted with the greatest Insult and Triumph to have laid it at their Door To these we might add the Suffrages of many more St. Cyprian who have written set Treatises of Prayer teaching us to regulate all our Prayers after that most perfect Pattern of our Lords and ever to direct our Petitions to our Heavenly Father only Gregory Nyssen saith we are taught to Worship and aktiston physin Cont. Eunom Tom. 2. Orat. 4. Oâ—at 3. Contr. Arrian De ver Relig. c. 55. de civit Dei l. 22. c. 10. Ep. 42. Adore that Nature only that 's uncreated Athanasius That God only is to be Worshipped that the creature is not to Adore the creature St. Austin sayes expresly that the Saints are to be Honoured for
Angels or Saints departed said God at any time Sit thou on my right hand to make intercession for Men Of which of them has he at any time affirmed as he has done of Christ He is able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him seeing he ever lives to make Intercession for Men That if any Man Sin he is an Advocate with the Father for him Or whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in his name it shall be given you Certainly they who will have Angels and Saints Mediatours betwixt God and Men ought to produce a Commission signed by God or his Son Jesus to constitute them such but this they are no more able to do then they are to make a grant of such Power and Honour themselves to them It 's true the Blessed Spirits above are said to stand about the Throne of God and the Holy Angels to behold his Face and as the Honour of a Prince is encreased by the number of his Attendants so is our Lords exaltation rendered the more Glorious by those ten thousand times ten thousand that Minister unto him but yet it 's never said They sit at Gods right Hand or live for ever to make Intercession for us and having no such delegation of Power from God for this office the Honour and Worship that belongs to it can't be given to them without manifest Wrong and Sacriledge to Christ who has The Holy Angels are Gods ministring Spirits and the Spirits of Just-Men departed his Glorified Saints but God hath made Jesus the Lord and Christ and put all things in Heaven and Earth in Subjection under his feet of him only hath he said Let all the Angels Honour him and all the Saints fall down before him and all Men Honour the Son even as they Honour the John 5. 23 Father Amen To Conclude WEre we certain that the Saints departed do now reign in Heaven and enjoy the Beatifick Vision and that it was lawful to Invocate such as are undoubtely Saints as the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Apostles Yet methinks a wary Man should be shy and not over-forward to exhibit that honour to all whom the Pope hath Cannoniz'd I cannot for my heart but think that the Prelates and Bishops in King Henry the Eighth's time had as much reason to Unsaint Thomas Becket for being a Rebel against his Prince as Pope Alexander the Third had to Canonize him for being a Biggot for the Church What can a sober Christian think of the Saintship of some who never had any being in the World and of others who never had any goodness many of their Saints are meer Names without Persons and many meer Persons without Holiness nay I am very confident that the greatest Incendiaries and Disturbers of the Peace of the World do as well deserve it as that famous Pope Hildebrand or Gregory the seventh Inumerable might be instanc'd in whose Saintship justly falls under great Suspicion but 't is enough that some Romanists themselves and those of no little Authority in their Church have granted that the Popes canonizations are doubtful and subject to error If then at any Billar de beat sanct l. 1. c. 7. 8. time his Infallibility should chance to mistake as I am pretty sure he has more then once done the Members of that Church are in a sweet case and are not only in danger of Invocating Saints but Devils also which is Idolatry with a witness and by their own Confession FINIS A DISCOURSE AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION EDINBVRGH Re-printed by John Reid Anno DOM 1686. A DISCOURSE AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION COncerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper one of the two great positive Institutions of the Christian Religion there are two main Points of difference between Vs and the Church of Rome One about the Doctrine of Transubstantiation in which they think but are not certain that they have the Scripture and the words of our Saviour on their side The other about the administration of this Sacrament to the People in both kinds in which we are sure that we have the Scripture and our Saviour's Institution on our side and that so plainly that our Adversaries themselves do not deny it Of the first of these I shall now treat and endeavour to shew against the Church of Rome That in this Sacrament there is no substantial change made of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Bloud of Christ that Body which was born of the Virgin Mary and suffered upon the Cross for so they explain that hard word Transubstantiation Before I engage in this Argument I cannot but observe what an unreasonable task we are put upon by the bold confidence of our Adversaries to dispute a matter of Sense which is one of those things about which Aristotle hath long since pronounc'd there ought to be no dispute It might well seem strange if any man should write a Book to prove that an Egg is not an Elephant and that a Musket-Bullet is not a Pike It is every whit as hard a case to be put to maintain by a long Discourse that what we see and handle and taste to be Bread is Bread and not the Body of a Man and what we see and taste to be Wine is Wine and not Bloud And if this evidence may not pass for sufficient without any farther proof I do see why any man that hath confidence enough to do so may not deny any thing to be what all the world sees it is or affirm any thing to be what all the world sees it is not and this without all possibility of being farther confuted So that the business of Transubstantiation is not a controversie of scripture against scripture or of Reason against Reason but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of scripture and all the sense and Reason of Mankind It is a most self-evident Falshood and there is no Doctrine or Proposition in the world that is of it self more evidently true then Transubstantiation is evidently false And yet if it were possible to be true it would be the most ill-natur'd and pernicious truth in the World because it would suffer nothing else to be true it is like the Roman-catholick Church which will needs be the whole Christian Church and will allow no other society of Christians to be any part of it so Transubstantiation if it be true at all it is all truth for it cannot be true unless our senses and the senses of all mankind be deceived about their proper objects and if this be true and certain then nothing else can be so for if we be not certain of what we see we can be certain of nothing And yet notwithstanding all this there is a Company of men in the World so abandon'd and given up by God to the efficacy of delusion as in good earnest to believe this gross and palpable Errour and to impose the belief of it upon the Christian World under no less
Church and Christian will be both lost which would be as if a Prince should knock all his Subjects on the Head to keep them quiet 'T is true this would be an effectual way to procure it but by these means he must lose his Kingdom and make himself no Prince into the bargain 'T is no doubt but if Men were ignorant enough they would be quiet but then the consequences of it would be that they would cease to be Men. Lastly They frustrate the effects of real Religion by their Pretences to extraordinary Power and Priviledges that is they pretend to make that lawfull which is unlawfull Bellarmine saith that the Pope may declare vice to be vertue and vertue vice by this practice they attempt to change the reason of things which all Mankind agree to be unalterable By this pretended Power they can turn attrition into contrition that is they can make such a consternation of mind as fell upon Judas when he went and hanged himself to be contrition by the Priest's Absolution they can mâ—ke bodily Pennance to be of equal validity with an inward change of mind and true Repentance they pretend they can produce by I know not what magical force strange spiritual effects by vertue of Holy Water and the Cross they are also much puff't up with a Power they assume of Absolving Men from solemn Oaths and Obligations They boast much of the efficacy of Indulgences for the pardon of sin and for the delivery of Souls out of Purgatory by which Invention they detract from the efficacy of God's Grace as if it were not sufficient to prepare us for and at last to bring us to Heaven unless we pass through this imaginary Purgation after Death by which also they themselves are deceived whilst they couple prayer for the Dead and Purgatory together as if the one did necessarily suppose or imply the other But they doe not for though the sins of the Faithfull be privately and particularily forgiven at the day of Death yet the publick promulgation of their pardon is to come at the day of Judgment Christians then may be allowed to pray for this consummation of Blessedness when the Body shall be reunited to the Soul So we pray as often as we say Thy Kingdom come or come Lord Jesus coâ—â— quickly this is far enough from being a Prayer to deliver them out of Purgatory besides the Roman Church is not able to produce any one Prayer publick or private nor one Indulgence for the delivery of any one Soul out of Purgatory in all the Primitive times or out of their own ancient Missals or Records All these things before mentioned are not to be justified but thus the Papists have endeavoured to spoil the best Religion that ever was made known unto Men. Whereas the Christian Religion as it is professed in the Reformed Church is quite another thing for it doth neither persecute nor hold any principâ—es of faction or disturbance but only those of peace and obedience to the Laws of God and Man if there be any agitatours of Miscief and Treason it is the fault of particular parties and not to be charged upon the Reformed Church which Church holds the Worship of God and all other offices of Religion to be performed in the Vulgar Tongue so that Knowledge may be thereby had and promoted which Knowledge of Religion if any Man doth abuse for the ends of Pride Rebellion or Heresie he doth it at his own peril and God will judge him for it But St. Paul is so far from allowing any Service to God in an unknown Tongue that he calls it a piece of madness 1 Cor. 14. 23. If the whole Church be come together into one place and all speak with divers tongues and there come in the unlearned will not they say that you are mad that is they may justly say so Now a Man would wonder that any society of Men retaining the Name of Christians should zealously press that to be necessary for the Christian Church which St. Paul hath said to be a piece of madness The same Reformed Church owns the free use of the Scriptures both in publick and private calls upon Men as our Savâ—our did to search them for these make the Man of God perfect and do richly furnish him for every good work and by their help we are able to render a reason of the hope that is in us We do declare that the Preachers of the Church ought not to take away the Key of Knowledge from the People as our Saviour charges the Pharisees or as St. Augustine saith They do not command Faith in Men upon peril of Damnation to shew their superioritie but they appear as Officers do direct and give Counsel not with Pride to rule but in Compassion to lead others into the way of Truth and to recover them out of mislakes In short we tell the People that the Scripture is the only rule of their faith that it is full and perspicuous in all matters necessary for good life and practicâ— so that if they use diligence and mind them well they may easily understand them and be satiâ—fied we never demand any implicite Faith from them neiâ—her do we expect that they should resign up their Faculties as others believe blindfold and withâ—ut reason Therefore the Reformed Church is honest in all its dealings doth not deceive Men â—e any wâ—yes of fraud or faâ—shood such as the whole Doctrine of Merit â—s and the Relieving of Souls out of Purgatory by Massâ—s But there is a plâ—ce in the World where Coelum est venale Deusque Heaven and God himself is set to sale The premisses considered we may conclude that the Church of England had good reason to declare in her twenty second Aâ—â—cle that The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory Pardons Worshipping and Adoration as well of Images as of Reliqâ—es and aâ—so Invâ—â—ation â—â— Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warraâ—â—â— of Scripture but rather repugnant to the word of God For the whole Scripture is against Purgatory wheâ—ein wâ— reaâ— 1 Joh. 1. 7. That the bloud of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin that the Children of God who die in Câ—â—ist do rest from their labours that as they are absent from the Lord wâ—â—â—e theâ— aâ—â— in the body so when they are absent from the body â—hey aâ—e present with the Lord Joh. 5. 24. They come not into Judgemenâ— but pass from Death to Life The same Doctrine is taughâ— bâ—â—â—â— ancient Fathers of the Chuâ—châ— Tertullian Tertul. lib de patien ch 3. sayes it is an Injury to Christ to maintain that such as be called from hence by him are in a Cyprian de Mortali sect 2. edit Goulart state that should be pitied Thus St. Cyprian affiâ—ms the Servants of God to have Peace and Rest as soon as they are withdrawn from the storms of this lower World And Hilary observes in the Gospel Hilar. in Psal 2. of the
Rich Man and Lazarus S. Basil Prooem in Regulas c. that every one is sent eiâ—her to Abraham's bosome or to torments as soon as this Life is ended St. Baâ—il declares this Nazianz. orati 9. ad Julianum World to be the time of Repentance the other of Retribution this of Hierom. Epist 25. Working that of receiving a Reward So Nazianzen in his Funeral Orations plainly denies â—hat after this Life there is any purging to be expected and therefore he tells us that it is better to be purged now then be sent into torments where the time of punishing is and not of purging St. Hierome also comforts Paula for the Death of her Daughter after this manner let the Dead be lamented but let us whom Christ cometh forth to meet after our departure be the more grieved because so long as we remain here we are Pilgrims from God I could cite more Fathers to this purpose but the Testimonies of these may suffice to shew that all were not of Bellarmin's minâ— as he pretends by his precarious assertion that antiquity constantly taught there was a Purgatory Whereas the Grecians are so far from being of his Faith that they do not believe it at this day The oldest and best Authours that I know to be on his side are Plato in his Gorgias and Phoedo Tully in the end of the Dream of Scipio and Virgil in his sixth Aeneide Tertullian likewise when he was an Heretick seemed to favour his opinion and Origen was very much of that Beâ—ief who acknowledges no other punishment after this life but Purgatory-pains only Notwithstanding the Romish Clergy have the confidence to impose this extravagant Doctrine upon the World now it was never heard of in the Church for the space of a Thousand years after the Birth of our Sayiour when Thomas Aquinas and other Fryars had framed the cheat the Doctours of the Greek Church did publickly oppose it afterwards the Pope and his Agents prevailed so far in the Council Council Florentin sess 25. at Florence that for Peace sâ—ke they were contented to yield That the middle sort of Souls were in a Place of punishment but whither that were Fire Darkness and Tempest or something else they would not contend But as I have said the Greek Church the Muscovites and Russians the Cophtites and Abassines the Georgians and Armenians could never be brought to submit to it But this opinion with some others no less absurd and ridiculous came into the World when Ignorance and Interest had fatally depraved the Primitive purity of the Christian Faith and Worship The broachers of these Fictions are very crafty and industrious in contriving wayes how they may fasten them upon credulous People and although it is more then an hundred years since our Ancestours threw off the Pope's Tyranny yet if he doth not meet with a proportionable zeal in their Posterity to oppose his designs it will not be hard to conjecture the success of a vigorous attacque and a faint defence As therefore we are Memberr of a Christian Church in which we may assuredly find Salvation if we continue in it let us be firmly united among our selves against all innovations in Religion As we have no other rule of Faith and practice then the Holy Scripture let us reject all notorious innovations that are obtruded upon us for fundamentals As we are taught to be obedient to the supreme Magistrate not only for Wrath but Conscience sake so we are bound to avoid the Communion of that Church which claims a power of deposing him and of knocking those on the head who keep close to the Faith once delivered to the Saints What obligations then have we to the Church we are of and to the Religion we profess which hath delivered us from the Laws of the Roman Religion that are written in Bloud that hath recovered us from the Idolatrous practice of the heathen World that will not suffer us to Worship Images or fall down to the stock of a Tree that doth not rob us of the benefit of publick Prayers by putting them into an unknown tongue that doth not enjoyn an implicite Faith or blind obedience but allows to every Christian a judgmentâ—â— of Discretion who keeps within the bounds of due obedience and submission to his lawfull Superiours that he may prove all things hold fast That which is good a Church that hath no pardons at a set price for guilty persons no forged miracles to amuse the credulous and ignorant no pompous shews Beads Tickets Agnus Dei's Rosaries to please the Vulgar or to gratifie the superstitious If therefore we have any love of our Religion or any concern for the happiness of our Church and Nation if we have any desire to hold the freedom of our Consciences or any care for the eternal safety of our Souls it behoves us to beware of the Emissaries of Rome in whose success we must expect to forfeit all these interests every one of which ought to be dearer to us then our lives Let us not be imposed upon by the specious Name of Roman Catholick it is a mere contradiction one of the Pope's Bulls as if he should say universal particular a Catholick Schismatick Let us not be afraid to encounter this pretended Catholick with the Councils and Fathers though these are a Labyrinth an intangled Wood which Papists love to fight in not so much with hope of victory as to hide the shame of an open overthrow which in this kind of combat many of our Divines have given them But let them bound their Disputations on the Scripture onely and an ordinary Protestant well read in the Bible may turn and wind their ablest Doctours for as among Papists their ignorance in the Scripture chiefly upholds Popery so amongst Protestants the frequent and serious reading thereof will soonest baffle it And we need not doubt of an entire conquest if we add to this the amendment of our lives with all speed left through impenitency pride luxury bold and open Atheism uncharitable jarring and pelting at one another through stubborn disobedience to the Laws of GOD and Man we run into that sottishly which we seek so warily to avoid the worst of Superstitions that enervates and destroyes the whole design of Christianity FINIS A DISCOURSE CONCERNING AURICULAR CONFESSION As it is prescribed by the COUNCIL OF TRENT And practised in the CHURCH of ROME With a Post script on occasion of a Book lately printed in France called Historia Confessionis Auricularis EDINBVRGH Re-printed by John Reid Anno DOM. 1686. A DISCOURSE CONCERNING AURICULAR CONFESSION THE Zealots of the Church of Rome are wont to Glory of the singular advantages in the Communion of that Church especially in respect of the greater means and helps of Spiritual comfort which they pretend are to be had there above and beyond what are to be found amongst other Societies of Christians Which one thing if it could be as substantially made out as
Power or Design it 's no wonder it did prevail in a sly and silent manner interest having put out their eyes this Kingdom came not with observation and the approaches of the Enemy in the night of Ignorance viz. the darkness that could be felt of the ninth tenth and eleventh century when all good Learning and Manners too were fast asleep the time when many of the new devices of Rome were hammering out and the noise not heard were not discovered till they had taken possession and then by vertue of Power and great Names defended their Title And their own Writers confess that many of the great Guardians of Faith the Popes of Rome were very Vicious and Illiterate persons whose Vice and Ignorance kept them nodding while the little Theives the Notions and Speculations of men of Wit and Interest set open the Churches doors for the greater Errours to come crouding in Our Saviour confirms the truth of this when he compares his Church to a Field which had been sown by him and his Apostles with very good seed Wheat or some other Grain but while men sleept when Christians were grown wicked and careless ignorant or factious comes the Enemy and scatters the Tares and a new harvest of Weeds Heretical Doctrines Superstitious Practices Foppish and Phantastick Mat. 13. 24 25. Rites over-ran and choakt the purer Grain And the Apostle tells his Disciples that men of dangerous principles abusing the grace of God speaking evil of Dignities and despising Dominions and denying Christ that bought them had creept in unawares being well disguis'd with fine Names and pretences Jude 4. while good men were careless and sleept And when most begin to broach nâ—w Errours and spread their inventions for mighty Truths they do it with all the skill and artifice that so bad a design can possibly require Errour and Innovation necessarily calling for the utmost cunning and slyness to its aid and assistance Religion therefore may easily suffer a considerable change yet good men know not how neither the time nor authors of it It being therefore only absolutely necessary for us to know that whensoever and howsoever these errours in the Church first sprung up that they were contrary to the Primitive Faith of Christ and his Apostles and therefore were to be amended and weeded up notwithstanding the common question where was our harvest of Wheat before the Weeders our Reformers came for the Church of England finding old Christianity strangely over-grown with the new Doctrines and Creeds of Rome contrary to the Offices of CHRIST the designe of his undertaking for Mankind and the true spirit of his Religion it became a duty as much as they lov'd their Souls and would be true and loyal unto CHRIST to shake off these new and sinful Impositions and restore true and primitive Christianity Had our differences with Rome consisted only in things less fit and proper used by them in their religious Offices or in Rituals or Gestures not so decent they might have had some pretence to roar against us for breaking off Communion with her but when they plow up the very Foundation as one of her Pagan Captains did the Walls of Jerusalems Temple and lay all waste before them their new additions eating out the very Heart of old Religion to thunder out damnation against us because we renounce her Communion in this is to add uncharitableness and other gross Vices to their former sin as though they could not preserve Christianity but by defacing of it more Our Prince being constituted by GOD a nursing Father of the Church and our Bishops in their Episcopal power being co-ordinate with him of Rome or any other in the Christian World ought under the penalty of Damnation and did accordingly reform the Romish corruptions which had tainted the Vitals of Christianity an indispensable duty it was to preserve the Primitive Faith like a chast Virgin and not to suffer it to be 2 Cor. 11. 2. longer prostituted to the Designs and Passions of men by a solemn Vow and our Souls were at stake we had engag'd to preserve it pure undefiled therefore with all just and proper wayes and methods we were bound earnestly to contend for it In duty therefore to our Lord and Masters Command at such a time we began our Reformation but wish that it had been promoted and compleated many years before though the same Question would have been as fitly asked then or any other time except they think that errours must be immortal and the gates of Heaven shall not prevail against them The goodness and wisdom of our Reformation would be readily acknowledg'd and imitated did not Fame and Ambition Power and Secular Interest infect the Eye and change the natural shape and colour of things and 't is a sign the cause of Rome wants strength when such a trifling only popular Objection against our Reformation is made so powerful to preserve their Disciples in their Communion and amuse our own And we need say no more against it but this and 't is no Roman uncharitableness and rigour That if Rome notwithstanding all the clear evidence against her new and upstart Opinions shall obstinately defend them and contemn a wise and pious Reformation let her suffer the just punishment of her wilful errours He that will prefer an old Disease before a new Cure let him be for ever sick For we have healed Babylon and she was not healed FINIS A DISCOURSE ABOUT TRADITION Shewing what is meant by it AND WHAT TRADITION Is to be Received AND WHAT TRADITION Is to be Rejected The third EDITION EDINBURGH Printed by J. Reid 1686. A DISCOURSE ABOUT TRADITION AN Obligation being laid upon us at our Baptism to believe and to do the whole will of GOD revealed unto us by Christ Jesus it concerns every one that would be saved to enquire where that whole intire Will of God is to be found where he may so certainly meet with it and be so informed about it that he may rest satisfied he hath it all And there would be no difficulty in this matter had not the worldly interest of some men raised Controversies about it and made that intricate and perplexed which in it self is easie and plain For the Rehearsal of the Apostles Creed at Baptism and of that alone as a Summary of the Faith whose sincere profession intitles us to the Grace there conferred warrants the Doctrine of the Church of England in its VI Article that the Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation But this strickes off so many of the Doctrines of the present Roman Church which are not to be found in the Scripture nor have any countenance there that they are forced to say the Faith once delivered to the
Saints mentioned by St. Jude is not intirely delivered in the Scripture but we must seek for the rest in the Traditions of the Church Which Traditions say they are to be received as a part of the Rule of Faith with the same Religious Reverence that we do the Holy Scripture Now though this is not really the bottom of their heart as will appear before I have done but they finally rest for their satisfaction in matters of Faith somewhere else yet this being plausibly pretended by them in their own Justification that they follow Tradition and in their Accusations of us that we foresake Tradition I shall briefly let all our People see who are not willing to be deceived what they are to judge and say in this business of Tradition About which a great noise is made as if we durst not stand to it and as if they of the Roman Church stedfastly kept it without any variation neither of which is true I shall plainly shew in this short Discourse The meaning of the Word Which for clearness sake shall begin with the meaning of the word TRADITION which in English is no more than delivering unto another and by a Figure signifies the matter which is delivered and among Christians the Doctrine of our Religion delivered to us And there being two wayes of delivering Doctrines to us either by writing or by word of mouth it signifies either of them indifferently the Scriptures as you shall see presently being Traditions But custom hath determined this word to the last of these wayes and distinguished Tradition from Scriptures or writings at least from the Holy Writings and made it signifie that which is not delivered in the Holy Scriptures or Writings For though the Scripture be Tradition also and the very first Tradition and the Fountain of all true and legitimate Antiquity yet in common Language Traditions now are such ancient Doctrines as are conveyed to us some other way whither by word of mouth as some will have it from one Generation to another or by humane Writings which are not of the same authority with the Holy Scriptures How to judge of them Now there is no better way to judge aright of such Traditions then by considering these four things First The Authors of them whence they come Secondly the matter of them Thirdly Their Authority Fourthly The means by which we come to know they derive themselves from such Authors as they pretend unto and consequently have any authority to demand admission into our belief 1. For the first of these every body knows and confesses that all Traditions suppose some Author from whom they originally come and who is the diliverer of those Doctrines to Christian people who being told by the present Church or any person in it that such and such Doctrines are to be received though not contained in the Holy Scriptures because they are Traditions ought in Conscience to inquire from whom those Traditions come or who first delivered them By which means they will be able to judge what credit is to be given to them when it is once cleared to them from what Authors they really come Now whatsoever is delivered to us in Christianity comes either from Christ or from his Apostles or from the Church either in General or in part or from private Doctors in the Church There is nothing now called a Tradition in the Christian World but proceeds from one or from all of these four Originals 2. And the mater which they deliver to us which is next to be considered is either concerning that Faith and godly life which is necessary to Salvation or concerning Opinions Rites Ceremonies Customs and things belonging to Order Both which as I said may be conveyed either by writing or without writing by the Divine Writings or by Humane Writings though these two wayes are not alike certain 3. Now it is evident to every understanding that things of both sorts which are delivered to us have their Authority from the credit of the Author from whence they first come If that be Divine their Authority is Divine if it be onely Humane their Authority can be no more And among Humane Authors if their Credit be great the Authority of what they deliver it great if it be little its Authority is little and accordingly must be accepted with greater or lesser Reverence Upon which score whatsoever can be made appear to come from Christ it hath the highest authority and ought to be received with absolute submission to it because he is the Son of God And likewise whatsoever appears to have been delivered by the Apostles in his Name hath the same Authority they being his Ministers sent by Him as He was by God the Father and indued with a Divine Power which attested unto them In like manner whatsoever is delivered by the Church hath the same Authority which the Church hath which though it be not equal to the foregoing the Church having no such Divine Power nor infallible Judgement as the Apostles had yet is of such weight and moment that it ought to be reverenced next to theirs I mean the sense of the whole Church which must be acknowledged also to be of greater or lesser Authority as it was nearer or farther off from the times of the Apostles What was delivered by their immediate Followers ought to weigh so much with us as to have the greatest Humane Authority and to be looked upon as little less then Divine The Universal consent of the next Generation is an Authority approaching as near to the former As the Ages do one to another But what is delivered in latter times hath less humane Authority though pretending to come but without proof from more early dayes and hath no Authority at all if it contradict the sense of the Church when it was capable to be better acquainted with the mind of Christ and of his Apostles As for particular Churches their Authority ought to be reverenced by every Member of them when they profess to deliver sincerely the sense of the Church Universal and when they determine as they have power to do Controversies of Faith or decree Rites and Ceremonies not contrary to GOD's Word in which every one ought to acquiesce But we cannot say the same of that which comes from any private Doctor in the Church Modern or Ancient which can have no greater Authority than he himself was of but is more or less credible according as he was more or less diligent knowing and strictly religious 4. But to all this it is necessary that it do sufficiently appear that such Doctrines do really come from those Authours whose Traditions they pretend to be This is the great and the only thing about which there is any question among sober and judicious persons How to be sufficiently assured that any thing which is not delivered unto us in the Scriptures doth certainly come for instance from CHRIST or his holy Apostles For in this all Christians are