ought to worship God the more reverently and sincerely 1 Cor. 11.10 because of the Angels Untill I make thine enemies thy foot-stool Ps 110.1 Here the wicked are the foot-stool of God in being subjected to his will though against their own and in this respect the worshipping at his footstool does mean that we should not refrain even in the sight of the wicked to sing that new Song Ps 40.3 which God hath put into our Mouth and which they are unacquainted with even praise unto our God to this end that many even the wicked may see it and fear and trust in the Lord in the last place and out of the first Text He tells us †Pag. 472 Col. 2. in Fine Scabellum ejus est ipsa Christi humanitas the Manhood of Christ is this foot-stool To the purpose then understand we by this foot-stool as Auguanus does in the simplicity of his heart the humanity of Christ quae totaliter Deo conform is est and not only that but the whole Earth also and in that Earth not only the Church the Saints of God but the very wicked also and not only the Church Militant on Earth but that part of it which is triumphant in Heaven confirm'd in an establisht undecaying Righteousness by Christ Jesus the Holy Angels of God and understand we not by this foot-stool exclusively the humanity of Christ and nothing else but that nay understand we not that humanity of Christ only Sacramented as Doway does in the design of their hearts and then if it does not more redound to the honour of God and to the edifying and increasing of his Church that we should sincerely worship God all the Earth over not only in the Congregation of the Saints the more to inflame their devotion by the Conjunction of ours with theirs but in the presence of the wicked to make them asham'd of their irreligious folly and to invite them by our example to draw near unto the Lord with unfeigned Lips and unfeining Hearts and all this because of the Angels of God nay because of the God of those Angels if thus to do and thus every where to do and upon these grounds does not conspire in a more probable effectuality and a more innocent uninsnaring conspiration to both those ends then to worship the Body of Christ himself as that foot-stool and only to worship that Body Sacramented at some times in some places with some few then we will quit this extensive interpretation and run totis pedibus into their limited sentence 28. And least that reason which David gives and which they render because IT is holy might bear sway against this multiform sense confining the foot-stool only to one and the worship to that very footstool to evade this pretended reason I must give them to know not only that that word in the Original may be equally translated IT or He but that in that place it ought rather to be translated he because in the Verse after is set down what that worship is to invocate the Lord and because though it were so for IT is holy yet the worship is not of it but at it explained in the last verse of that Psalm and in both the same words in which the reverence is charged upon us in the 5. v. Exalt ye the Lord our God and ad re say they and worship say we Hitherto there is a perfect agreement with the 5. 1 Cor. 1.10 and last v. they do what the Apostle would have us all to do though Doway will neither hearken to us nor him speak the same thing and the explication follows In or at his holy Mount because the Lord our God is holy the Mount is confessedly holy yet the holiness of the Mount is not alleged as a reason why we should worship it but the holiness of our God why we should worship in or at his holy Mount I go on to inquire after their And elsewhere by which words and some search I find out of their notes upon Gen. 48.5 That they mean the Invocation of Angels grounded upon Mat. 18. Acts 12.1 Cor. 11. For want of their New Testament of which I am bereft they ought to be content as I must that I reply out of the Originals 29. And first what says Matthew for them He says but not for them that Christ himself said 18.10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in Heaven their Angels do alwaies behold the Face of my Father which is in Heaven what means our Saviour by this not that we should invoke Angels himself tels us no such matter but that we should not despise little ones that is it which himself tels us and upon this ground because they have Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had they hence infer'd that God had appointed Angels Ministring Spirits to take care for and to protect little ones they had argu'd right and we would shake hands with them in this matter let them tell us no more then what that Text tells us let them infer no more then what our Saviour Christ infers and we are agreed is it not enough to that purpose to take off contempt from little ones that God takes so much care of them as to appoint Angels over them though they never pray as they are never bid so to do to Angels and are not those words design'd to this purpose by Christ had Christ said Despise them not Ps 115.16 for to these Children of Men I have given the Earth Despise them not for it is for their sake Job 38.8.9 that I have shut up the Sea with doors and made the Cloud the Garment thereof and tho thick darkness a swadling band for it Despise them not for for them it is that I have created the Lights in the Firmanent of Heaven for signs and seasons Gen. 1.14 Ps 104.19 for dars and years 't is for them that I have appointed the Moon for seasons for them that the Sun knoweth his going down His going down with his Rays into the Bowels of the Earth and his bringing up from thence Herb for the service both of Man and Child that God hath done all or any of these for mankind is reason enough not to contemn the least of them but is it reason enough that Man should fall down and first worship and then eat his Herb Sarculo Amicas Colit hic Fruges Et suum hic mandit Bibit ille E man Thesourus è Soc Jesu Numen If so Happy the Heathen that are Heathen still Felices Gentes quibus haec nascuntur in Hortis Numina Juven That Man should exalt the Sun and adore the Moon that Man should bow to the Sea and kneel down to the Lights nay to the Cloud nay to the thick darkness and do his reverence to these swadling bands and to that Garment as to sacred Reliques for all of these let us
the Prophet will let them alone and we will nor quarrel at them for this is no part of the preâ—ent controversy whether God is to be worshipt with the Body also and holy and good Men of our own the stoutest adversaries of the errors of Rome have done all this but then let them do all this as a worship only to the only God let them do it upon the Prophets account bow and be lowly because God is as high now as ever he was and if they tell me the Prophet joins them together as there being the same and equal Authority or at least License for bowing before the high God as for comming before the Lord if they shall inquire why we who know it necessary to come before the Lord Heb. 10.25 and not to forsake the Assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is do yet call it unlawful and either Anti-Christian or Jewish to bow before the high God I confess I have not wherewith to reply and all this I say to take off from the scandal which has been thrown upon the former Pillars of our Church Holy Scripture it self being the Pillar of their practise which that is was not Judaical the most R. †In answer to the twâ—lfth Innovation so cald Laud hath cleard in that long before Judaism began Bethel the House of God was a place of Reverence collected out of Gen. 28.17 c. To inquire whether All the Negative Commandements do not all of them involve a Preceptive Affirmation directly contrary to the prohibition whether in the †The sccond to us but none at all to Rome second Commandement the Affirmative Duty is not that we ought to bow to God whether to bow to graven Images be not therefore Idolatry because the Image is thus worshipt with a reverence due to God non est hujus instituâ—i loci yet this is evidently and expresly enough a command Thou shalt not make unto thee any Graven Images Exod. 20.4 or the likeness Thou shalt not bow down thy self to THEM nor serve THEM and I think the Emphasis lyes in the last word These words however they have an Art and shift not to call them the Second Commandement yet they have no shift nor Art at all not to call them Scripture they being in their very own Bible as wel as in Gods one only word being chang'd which alters not and another left out which touches not the quick V. 5 and heart of the Objection In the Bible translated by the Colledge of Doway Printed by John Consturier 1635. at Roven Thou shalt not adore them nor serve them and this is the result of all their long Notes upon that Commandement they worship Saints with Dulia not with Latria that Saints are to be honour'd with Religious Honour which is greater then Civil less then Divine that they Honour God alone with Sacrifice and not Saints that they have Authentical examples in these Scriptures Gen. 32.48 Exod. 3.32 Numb 22. Joshua 5.3 Reg. 18.4 Reg. 2. Psalm 98. for honouring Saints and Reliques Not to meddle with their Dulia and Latria any otherwise then as after they interpret them by Divine and Religious worship and not to meddle with these in the answers already given to them by †Of the Church Book 3. C. 20. p. 106. Printed at London 1606. Doctor Field any otherwise than to call to your remembrance that remarkable passage out of St. Austin Honoramus cos i. e. Saints and Angels Charitate non servitute De verâ Relig. Cap. 55. which in the sense of that Holy Father dos more expresly and significantly exclude the Dulia to Saints and Angels by how much Servitus is more Latinely significant than Dulia but to examine a fresh their Distinction of worship into Divine and Religious and to determine out of Scripture-probalities at least by occasion of St. Austins distinction of Charitas and Servitus 14. I take it Divine and Civil are terms directly opposite and Religious and Civil are terms so too and Divine and Religious in respect of worship are terms equivalent All which if so it be they have much faild in Logick in dividing worship into three parts two of which three against rule and reason and disputation do Coincidere whether they do so or not and how they can or cannot be distinct in the sense in which Doway urges them let us further try The word Divine though it dos alwaies dos not only relate to God and the Membra Dividentia of any thing ought to be plain and evident and not only so but Incommunicable too as being the essentiales differentiae which do dare else and distinguere ab omni alio else why is the title of the last Book of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Revelation of St. JOHN the DIVINE of whom I never yet heard that it was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calld in question even by the Church of Rome whether he was a Divine yea or no And then as Creature may be Divine in an Interiour degree as God himself is Divine so the Creature-Worshippers if they may worship at all may worship Creature notwithstanding this plausible distinction with Divine worship Caveated that the Divine worship be infinitely inferiour to that of God this is all their own sense of Religious worship and let them evade if they can my application of it to Divine worship 15. But then next let them give me leave soberly to inquire concerning the lawfulness of this Inferiour degree as they call it and but religious worship as they diminish it I must confess that as Religion is so calld a Religando from the Obligation it lays upon Man to perform it so it cannot as yet enter into me that any thing is true Religion or truly Religious but what is made so Vi Praecepti by such a command which makes it binding and obligatory to Man is any thing Religion which may be observ'd or not observ'd is any Act Religious which may be done or omitted ad placitum spontanei cultoris O what an Indifferent what a Neutral what a luke-warm Religion is this which when Man forbears God is not offended and when Man practises God is ready to spue him out of his mouth with a Quis ista Requisivit Is 1.12 The DIVINE himself tells us as much so then because thou art luke-warm and neither cold nor hot I will spew thee out of my mouth and let them not tell me that this threat is denounc'd upon the luke-warmness of him that pays the worship and not upon the indifferency of the worship which he pays lest I tell them it is the same fault to obtrude that service with too much fervour which is at best but indifferent if not an obsequious sin as to pay that service with too little fervour which is so far from being indifferent that it is a sin of undutifulness not to pay it but is it not a Neutral not
an indifferent worship but a necessary duty if so so it is by vertue of command either from God or from the Church of God That God hath not commanded this kind of worship we shall shew anon only in the mean while let me tell them that if they pretend thâ—â— to be a duty their performance of it to be an obedience to the command of their God then this it self is not in their sense a Religious but by their own Interpretation a Divine worship in that they only obey that God in doing it who commanded them to do it If I do not worship God himself and worship him infinitely in respect of himself and as near to infinitely as I can in respect of my own devotion when I labour to the utmost of my own indeavours assisted by his grace to fulfil all or any of his own immediate commands I would fain know when it is or in what it is that they do or I can worship the God of us all with a Divine worship If they worship Saints or Angels by vertue of a command from the Church of God which very Church of God can only command either that Gods own commands be obey'd or that her commands be obeyd in the name of God in those things which God by leaving them indifferent neither charg'd nor prohibited hath left to her prudence to consider and to her power to determine not at all that any Sanction of hers be submitted to against the express will of God then they perform this duty either simply as the Church consisting of such a number of Men commands it and then it is not so much as Dulia to Saints or Angels but rather a civill worship of the Commanders for as the stream will never run up any higher then the Fountain which feeds it so their obedience cannot be denommated by a more excellent stile then that which belongs to the primary cause of their obedience or else they perform this duty as the Church not consider'd as such a number of Men but as infallibly assisted with the Grace and direction of God Injoins it and then their worship of Saints and Angels is not so little as Dulia but so much as Latria in that the Direction of God is the principal cause of their worship and the service perform'd to Saints and Angels it being not perform'd to them as they are Saints and Angels for such they are though God and his Church never bids the worship of them but because God hath commanded it either by himself immediatly or by his Spirit residing in his Church is as much a Latria and worship of God as Prayer to God himself even privatly because he hath commanded it or Prayer to God in a set form of Liturgy in his House because his Church hath prescrib'd it is a Latrta and worship of God eâdem positâ causâ idem sequitur effectus Thus for ought I yet see their distinction of Latria and Dulia and civil worship grounded upon and proportion'd to as they tell us most triumphantly the three several degrees of Excellency that of God that of created but supernatural grace and glory that of worldly Excellency which they truly say are as much different as God Heaven and Earth is as to their present use of it fallen to the ground and hath deserted them to a Palinodia Canenda for though in all these the Excellency Inherent in the severall subjects is That which Is worshipped yet the Cur sit in all of them is the Command of God els the wisest of the Heathen who often do that which is Bonum but not Benè for want of understanding the Right Cause for which they should do it do worship aright because they pay Reverence to the most Excellent object of Worship though they pay it not according to the Command and Direction of That Chief Excellency els the same Heathens Reverence their Kings aright for that of the King is the Instanc'd worldly excellency which Inferiour men ought to Reverence though they do not Reverence them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 2.13 and is there not more Regard to be had in the Reverence and Adoration which we Pay to the Chiefâ—st Excellency of all even to God Himself to the Why we do it then to the Bare doing of it But of this no more Rather 16. To take off from the Worshipping of Angels and by consequent from the Worshipping Saints too for the Reason of their Dulia drawn from Grace and Glory is equally valid or equally Invalid as to both Let me give you two Reasons One Negative out of the History of Moses and the Other Positive from the Command of Christ 17. Why is it that Moses in the History of the Creation either speaks not at all of the Creation of Angels in so much that some say the Angells were Created long before that History which Moses wrote or els that He speaks of their Creation so obscurely that some say they were Created when God made the Heavens others they were Created when God said Fiat Lux why this either preterition or Intricacy but that it is a much less Mistake and no sin at all when Man is Invincibly I or Supinely and Carelesly Ignorant of the time in which the Angels were Created or whether they were not Created before any Time Was Time which the Philosopher defines to be Numerus Motus Aristot c. de quanto and which Motus relates to Bodyes being That which the Bâ—dyless Angells are very little concernd in then to know so Curiously of them till Man does Idolize them Idolatry we all know was apt to creep into the very Cradle of the world the Serpent which Himself was the first and the early Idoll in being listned to more than God did not account it as any of his small skills to wrapp a superstitious Adoration in the Mantle of antiquity In the first Book of God we hear of an Abraham before any tidings of an Angel of that Abraham who is the Father of the Faithfull Rom. 4.12 who it is like would teach the people the same Faith which himself did bear to God alone of whom it is first recorded that He Believed in the Lord Gen. 15.6 and he counted it to him for Righteousness or in the Doway-Books Abraham believed God and it was Reputed to him unto Justice and then in the Chapter after the first newes of an Angel and the first business of an Angel in Scripture was to send back Hagar to her Mistress Sarah Gen. 16.7.9 from whom she had Fled And the Angel of the Lord said unto her Return to thy Mistress and submit thy self unto her hands perhaps to signify that least of all would they themselves robb That God whose servants and Ministers they are of the Honour due to him from any their fellow-servants when they were so Jealous of the Honour of Sarah to send back her servant to her and to charge her carry her
Men which is not in King and Brotherhood for though Estius saies by All Men he means either Men in Authority or Men of Holiness and secludes the Ungodly Man from this Honour yet we must involve him too in his Person though not him in his Impiety He too in his Essential and Constitutive parts and in the Consecutive Propriety of his best part is the Workmanship of the same God who made the Hodiest Man alive and in this sense and for that Gods sake is an Object well worthy of Honour and yet not in this neither as if there were any thing of Excellency in him that Is Honour'd above him that Does Honour but though not in All things yet in reference to the Workmanship of God an Equality and because with Relation to God the King and all Heathens to whom God gave Power and Being the Minister and all Christians to whom God gave Orders and Holiness are to be Honour'd therefore is the Fear of that God who is the Cause of the Love to the one and the Honour to the other plac'd in the midst betwixt them both let them shew that God any where commands that kind of Religious and Dulia-Honour which they apply to Creatures as we have shew'd them one and can shew them a whole Sheet of Texts that God enjoyns a Charitative Respect and actum est we will lay down the Cudgels 25. * With us the second of Kings 2.15 4 Reg. 2.15 And the Children of the Prophets said The Spirit of Elias hath rested upon Elisaeus and coming to meet him adored him to the Ground This Argument is in câdem Navi with the former and the same Rudder will serve to steer it in its Right Course 26. * With us Ps 99.5 and worship AT his Footsteel Psal 98.5 Exalt ye the Lord our God and adore his Footstool because it is holy Their short Note after that verse tels us the Hebrew Doctors understand this of the Ark the Doctors of the Church understand Christ's Humanity their Long Note after the whole Psalm tels us that the Humanity of Christ is to be adored in the holy Eucharist In this they follow Bellarmine to a hair and will erre and digress honourably because so they think he does but the whole objection from hence if we consider what he and what they would adapt this Text to prove we may safely enough ne pili quidem facere he applys it to prove the invocation of Saints and they do so too for immediatly after these words the Church honoured Saints and their Reliques follow these neither want there authentical examples of holy Scripture whereby the same the honouring of Saints and their Reliques is proved amongst the Texts in which they instance this Ps 98. is the last explicity though it be backt with And elsehwere if by that foot-stool is meant the humanity of Christ and by worshipping that humanity the honouring of Saints I must take leave to tell them such an inference is not Christian no nor Romish neither it is Socinian nay and Mahumetan too if it proves that Saints and their Reliques may be honour'd it presumes no more then that Christ was a Saint and his humanity the Relique of a Saint and this the too Reational and too ungraceful Socinian will confess nay the neither Graceful nor Rational Turke will not deny that Christ was a holy Prophet an exemplary Saint but no more of this because it is only a defect in their Logick and not a purpose to dishonour their Saviour by only Sainting of him only let them pardon me that I take so much notice of their digression as to digress my self in the Confutation of it and if they will let them thank me that I call it no more but ad rem 27. There is much to be reply'd though they talk much of the Fathers who sense it the same way with them yet I doubt not but they will grant me that one Scripture which is evident and undoubtful is a more allowable interpretation of another Scripture which is obscure and ambiguous then one Father is and that many Scriptures are more allowable then many Doctors of the Church Therefore first let me open that Text by Text Parallel to it and though they will not take notice of the words of our Translation worship at his foot-stool yet Ps 132.7 in this I shall not vicem rependere and look off every where from theirs we will go into his Tabernacles we will worship AT his foot-stool With them Ps 131.7 says our Bible we will enter into his Tabernacle we will adore IN the place where his feet stood says theirs At the foot-stool and not the foot-stool it self In the place and not the place it self Next consider we all those places in which the foot-stool of God is nam'd and worship we him at every of those foot-stools and if thus to do be not more honourable to our God more edifying that Church of his which is already his Church and more increasing that Church of his by the Accession of those who are not yet his Church then only to worship the Body of Christ in the Holy Eucharist then that Interpretation shall have the upper hand of this and thus to frame an interpretation with these mighty advantages out of the Bowels of other Scriptures which are Consonant to this in the most substantial word of them if this be not though not the best way a very fit way I leave it to all modest Christians to Judge And before I betake my self to this way I shall only bespeak them that they would not quit Admonitions with me and call this digression for the honour of a painful and well deserving †R. P. Michael Auguanus Bonon in his Comment upon the Psalms Tom. 2. cum licentia privilegiis Venitiis M. D. XIII writer of their own who upon this one Text and to a much inferiour and more impertinent purpose makes use of all those other Texts to which I now hasten Thus saith the Lord the Earth is my foot-stool Is 66.1 One part of the meaning of that in their 98. Ps and the intire meaning of it in reference to this Text is That which St. Paul hath commanded 1 Tim. 2.8 I will that Men pray every where The Lord hath cast down the beauty of Israel and remembred not his foot-stool where the Church of God is the footstool of God and thus the meaning of that in Ps 98. is that which David hath said in Ps 89. v. 7. God is greatly to be feared in the Assembly of the Saints 2 Chron. 9.18 There was to the throne a foot-stool of Gold not to inquire any further what that foot-stool of Gold is but to accept the interpretation of Auguanus Scabellum Aureum est Angelica Natura propter virtutem consummatae Charitatis but if so the meaning of that in their 98. Ps is that for this cause the Woman and the Man too
solvente Catenas But Verse 9 betwixt this Peter wist not that it was true which was done by the Angell much less did He Adore the Angel for Doing it and after all this vvhen Peter came to himself he knew that the Lord had sent his Angell Verse 11 All concludible from hence is that the Angels who are spirits by Nanure and Messengers by office do that Good to Man which God Commissions them to do All this I stedfastly believe and am a Protestant still but verse 15. when Peter Himself knockt they said it is his Angell Not to enter into That dispute at present whither there are Tutelar Angells to Nations to Particular callings to Individuall Persons be it which way it will Unusquisque sensu suo abundet it matters not neither does this nor that nor the Third way make ought for the Invocation of Angels That which should most deepely ingage a private Person to Revere his peculiar Angell does not Ingage him at all not only from the Incapacity of the Angell to receive That which is due to God but from the Incapacity of the Votary to pay that to his Angell when he knowes not which is his will you allow of a Confus'd worship Thou My Angell whosoever thou art I persuade my self Thy own Angell at That Instant would not be Thine nor is this a gratuitous persuasion for may it not therefore be that God Conceales from Nations Callings and Men who is their Deputed Guardian lest God the Lord might have too little of Honour and his servant the Angell too much There is but one mention more throughout that Chapter of Angell and it is he who punisht Idolatry with Death Herod with wormes for accepting that shout of the People It is the voyce of a God Verse 22.23 and not of Man and because he gave not God the Glory This Text will sted them less than any Thus having grappled with them in their main Battalia and in their Reserve let me follow them into their Last Hold and examin the slrength of That and then wish that we might both take our Leaves of one another 1 Cor. 11.10 for this cause ought a woman to have Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on or †Erasmus renders it in caput In her head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of the Angels a Text in the last word of which which is the very sting of the Objection †Vide Heinsium super locum Interpreters both Greek and Latin do much differ Clemens understands by Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just and vertuous Men some interpret it of the Bishops and Overseers of the Church and those Non pauci sayes my Authour some understand Angels but evill ones and those too Men of Antiquity for Saint Austin tells us of them l. 15. de Civit. Dei so does * Tertullian In lib. de Virginibus Velandis his Elder by 250. yeares Lactantius De divinis Institutionibus interprets alike so does Eusebius and ex veteribus plerique Most of the Ancients as another Authour tells me nay their own Estius in his first Tome upon S. Pauls Epistles fol. 396. col 2. recites these three opinions and does not dislike the two Former reliquae secundae expositiones suam quoque probabilitatem habent He adds a fourth opinion which some though unfitly held that women should behave themselves Modestly lest by a garish attire and wanton eye even the Heavenly Angels might be corrupted to loose thoughts at length He concludes with a fift as a Potior sententia because of the Presence of the Good Angels who are delighted to see the service of God performd decently and vvith singleness both of Heart and Ey but even in Him not one vvord of adoration and I am Loth to be quicker-sighted in his own cause than his learned self I vvill conclude this that besides the Reasons already given and vvhich shall be given after this is a most unstable ambiguous Foundation upon which to erect the Worship of Angels since it is capable of so many expositions 34. Though I am loth to take advantage upon them by Invalidating that one only Text which tells us of a Saint in Heaven who vvas Really and Actually Invokt from being an example worthy their or our Imitation yet because the beginning of this Discourse against Doway was commenc'd against the Invocation of Saints and because all their Arguments in that place are the same with Bellarmins and because their And elswhere upon Exod. 20. and their And the like upon Genes 48. may seem to design That very Text which Bellarmin also makes use of I shall account it no loss of time to enervate all his Conclusion and all their Imaginations from thence 35. Luke 16.24 The Rich man Cry'd and said Father Abraham have Mercy upon me t is true Abraham is here Invok'd but not in the sense of Rome as an Intercessour but in the Rich mans own sense as an Opitulatour nay I may say He is Invok'd with a perfect Idolatry not as a Saint but as a God at least not at all to Intercede to God for Him for if Miserere mei be not incommunicable to any other besides Him whose Mercy is over all His works which I believe Doway will not grant to me because I finde in a †By John Bouturier M. DC XXXIII Manual of Godly Prayers and Litanyes taken out of many Famous Authours of which I have reason enough to suspect Doway to be if not the Compilers the Approbatours the same Frayer to another Saint †By John Bouturier M. DC XXXIII O Holy Mary stretch abroad the hand of thy Mercy †By John Bouturier M. DC XXXIII O Holy Mary have mercy on us and Pag. 382. though Christ is not altogether left out Pag. 383. yet sometimes He is pray'd to in that secondary Order as if His Mother's prayers were more prevalent and first to be sought and then Her Son 's after †By John Bouturier M. DC XXXIII Virgin Mary Pag. 98. with her Benign Son Blessus yet the Rich Man being in Hell would certainly never pray to that God who had plung'd Him thither and from whom He knew He was for ever a Castaway or if this He did He would not be an example to us of Praying even to God himself for known Impossibilities much less to Saint or Mother of God as shall liberally appear though as a Hopefull preface to all the rest This at Best is but an example from the Damned in Hell and That opinion is wretched enough which must seek for succour out of so helpless a pit I can more easily excuse the Torturd Rich Man who by reason of Anguish said He knew not what to call upon Abraham than I can forgive any Bellarmine who takes Himself to he wel in His Witts to make such a Distracted Creature His Laudable Pattern But let us dive into the story 36. The whole of it is a