had in her Breast turned into Oil wherewith she did anoint her sores and somtimes also she used it as Butter to sweeten her Bread Cardinals and whole Towns besides can aver these Extravagancies and make therewith the first kind of Roman Miracles A second Evidence against Roman Miracles is their looking quite another way and their being design'd for the confirmation of quite different Doctrines then ancient Miracles were The last Primitive Christian Miracles being wrought for the most part at the Graves of Holy Martyrs never confirmed more then this Truth That the Death the Souls and the very Ashes of those Saints were precious before the Lord and therefore that the Christian Faith which they had believed taught and died for was very true So it remained only to enquire what this Faith was and what kind of Doctrine St. Stephen and other Martyrs believed and Preach'd for nothing else but this can be asserted by their Miracles What is it saith St. Augustin g Aug de Civit. l. 22. c 9. that these Miracles will attest but the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ The Holy Apostles being alive never confirmed by their Miracles but what they taught and what they taught St. Paul tells you is concluded within the Law and the Prophets You may be sure it went no farther then what you find in Christs Gospel This is that Faith which once and but once being delivered to the Saints was carried thro all Nations and thus made Catholic by the Almighty Breath of God and there setled by his Almighty Hand and the Miracles that followed it Mark 16.20 So at this very day tho all sorts of Operations were continually seen at the Sepulcher of S. Paul at Rome they would rather confirm his Epistles then the Popes Bulls As for Roman Miracles they do follow likewise Roman Doctrines which sometimes are quite contrary to and alwaies quite different from the true Christian Gospel They would be huge books that could contain all the Revelations and strange Wonders that encourage Men in general to the worship of the Virgin Mary As many more are bestowed upon the doing it by special waies and at special Feasts for what else mean those swarms of Monks who lie hid h S. Anton. 3. part Hist. t. 23. c. 3. sect 1. under her Coat or those Ladders whited with her Milk i Chronic. Deip. an 1231. from which no body taking that way to go up to Heaven can tumble down or those Quires of k Histor. Carnat an 1116. Angels heard in the bottom of a deep Well to sing her Praises What can you make of those Images that l Archiv Buburg in Frand an 1383. bleed or m Menol. Cisterc 28. April speak or fly as light n Leand. in vita Hyacinthi ap Sur. 16. August as Feathers unless they serve to bring Mankind to the worshipping of Wood and Stone What aile those thousands of sad Souls to ramble up and down the whole World since the times of Pope Gregory but to revele Purgatory and to recommend Masses for the dead How many strange Feats have bin wrought by the hands of S. Dominic and S. Francis to no better end then to confirm the new Orders and waies of these Saints All those heaps of Excommunicated p Specul Exemp Tit. Excommunicatio Exemp 5. Flies and that q Ibid. Exemp 4. poor Raven pining to death under the same Fate for having fled away with a Bishops Ring What else can they signifie but the terror of the Roman Keies What shall I say of those both small and huge great Toads crawling r Ibid. Tit. Confessio Exempl 22. out and into Mens mouths when they do observe ill or well the Rules of Auricular Confession or of the many little Children s Ibid. Tit. Eucharistia standing upon Consecrated Wafers there purposely to justifie the real Transubstantiation at Mass or of the many Cures wrought every where partly in the behalf t S. Bonav in vit Franc. of the five Wounds which St. Francis had in his Body or of the Rope he did wear about his Loins And since we are about this great Saint tell me what you think of this Miracle †Hieron Platus de Bono statu Relig. l. 5. c. 33. A Bishop moved with Passion against a Convent of Franciscans had resolved to turn them out of his City and was to do it the next day the Night before behold their Sacrist sees in a Vision the Image of St. Paul and the Image of St. Francis both painted in the Church Window talking earnestly one with the other He hears St. Paul extremely blaming St. Francis o Gregor in Dialog passim for no better defending his own Order and St. Francis answering to him What shall I do saies he I have but a Cross and that is no defensive Weapon but had I a Sword as you have for commonly they represent them so perhaps I might do somewhat more The man being awak'd starts off his Bed and his Imagination being full of this runs to the Church finds the two Pictures had exchang'd their Arms Paul in the Window had the Cross and St. Francis had the Sword This amaz'd the whole Convent but that which is more then all the rest St. Francis had not St. Pauls Sword in vain for that same night the Bishop had his Throat cut What Evangelical Doctrine can be confirm'd by these three Wonders Pictures that can speak and move St. Paul that exhorts to revenge and a Saint who during his Life made conscience as they say to kill a Louse now can cut his Bishops Throat What I say can you make of this unless it be this wholesome Doctrine That Bishops are not Jure Divino but Fryers are All these and whole Millions of other such Roman Miracles are not fit for Christs Kalender because they never were fitted for perswading Men of the truth of Christs Gospel and therefore upon that account must needs proceed from any other then Christs Spirit The third foul mark of Roman Miracles is that besides their unchristian ends they happen in such suspicious times as may discredit the best that are The Gift of Miracles being to Teachers what both Credential Letters and Roial Colors are to public Officers which signifie much with good Subjects whilst they know them granted to none but such as the King doth really send but very little after they see those in the hands these on the backs of every dirty Carrier who hath a mind for his own ends to counterfeit them and rant with them No wise man takes for good paiment whatsoever hath Cesars Image after he hears of false Coiners who have dispersed vast sums abroad and marked them with the same Stamp We are not now in the privileged daies either of Moses or Elias or Jesus Christ or his Apostles when neither all the Magicians could make one Louse nor all the Baalims could light Fire on one Altar nor all
Cologne S. Barbara of Germany c. and before the happy Reformation S. George S. Andrew and S. Patrick had the respective charges of England Scotland and Ireland Secondly they subdivide their Emploiments in these and other Countries after the several sorts of Professions and Trades extant therein For S. Nicolas and S. Christopher are thought to look to the Seamen S. Catharine to the Scholars S. Austin to the Divines S. Luke to the Painters S. Ivo to the Lawiers S. Eustachius to the Hunters S. Chrispin to the Shoemakers The very Whores have their proper Saints and they are S. Magdalen and S. Afra who look to them Some others are put to equally vile Services as St. Anthony about Swine St. Pelagius about Cows St. Eulogius about Horses Saint Vendeline and S. Gallus have the care both of Sheep and Geese Judg you how gladly these happy Souls leave the Bosom of Abraham to drudg about these sorts of Cattel Thirdly In these distinct Provinces and about these ranks of Men and Beasts the Roman Saints are for the most part appointed to distinct Works and Helps Non omnia possumus omnes that is Every one cannot do all saies one of the †Biel. sup Learned Catholics and therefore will they sometimes direct Clients to other altho possibly inferior Saints as once St. Peter sent a d Gregor Dialog l. 3. c. 25. Woman to a Sacrist he had at Rome for the cure of her Palsie and it is upon this ground that devout Persons are directed to several Saints for their several Exigencies to the end that both every Saint may have his share in the Worship and every Client in the Relief This is it which they e Idem in Can. Lect. 32. N. call the discreet Variety so honorable to their Church and so advantageous to her poor Members when you shall see one pray to St. Peter for the Gift of Submission to St. Agnes for Continency to our Lady S. Anna for Wealth to S. Margarite for Child-bearing to St. Rochus against the Plague to St. Petronilla against an Ague to Saint Apollonia against the Tooth-ach to St. Liberius against the Stone and so to every Saint for that help that is in his way Let no Batchellors go to St. Peter because a married Man nor no married Man to St. John because he was a Batchellor but †Salazar Proverb c. 8. v. 18. n. 172. let every one go to a Saint of his on Tribe a Widow to a Widow-Saint and a Soldier to one of his Trade for this is the humor of Roman Saints to favor better their own Companions According to this Oeconomy there is not one Romanist but may pretend to march under the colors of several Saints For example a French Catholic born at Paris hath as fair title as Rome can give to the protection of St. Michael St. Denis and our Lady who generally rule that Kingdom of St. Genevefa that more specially looks to Paris of St. Germain or St. Thomas or St. Sulpice if he either be born or reside in those Parishes of St. Cosmus and St. Damian in case he do practice Physic of St. Ottilia and St. Lucia when his Ears and Eies trouble him and of St. Mathur in also if he be troubled with folly Over and above these he may be sure of other Saints St. Dominic S. Celestin S. Francis and twenty more by matriculating his Name into their Confraternities which he may do for a small matter It is great pitty that this fancy of distributing Presidencies and Powers thus among Roman Saints hath no better ground then that had which Julian * Julian ap Cyrill Alexand. l. 4. sub init the Apostat alleges and S. Augustin observes f Augustin de Civitate l. 6 7 8. to have bin constantly practiced among the ancient Pagan Gods What signifies saies the holy Father elsewhere g Idem de Civit. l. 6. c. 9. that trifling Division of Offices among your Gods wherefore must they be severally praied to but to make it rather a Play fit for a Stage then any thing which may become the worth and gravity of a true God This new Comedy is still the same only the Actors wear better Clothes or rather borrow better Names and the Roman People that stand about it adore the Virgin for Juno and S. George instead of Mars and as a Learned Romanist h Lud. Vives de Civ l. 8. c. 27. saies another kind of he and she Saints instead of the old Gods and Goddesses But as to any honest ground and precedent for such practices these two things may and must be said to the everlasting shame of the Roman Church The first is That whereas as long as either the Patriarchs or the Prophets or the Apostles or any Holy and Apostolical Men ordered the Church there never appeared one soul that offered to speak to Men unless the soul of Samuel 1 Sam. 28. and in the judgment both of the Fathers and of many Roman Doctors that appearing soul was a Devil the Church of Rome brags in her time of above ten thousand souls all coming down to talk with Men which souls she believes to be Saints The second is That whereas neither Patriarchs nor Prophets nor any Apostles or any Apostolical Holy Men in all their dangers and distresses ever Praied to or Worshipped any Creature whatsoever whether holy Angel or holy Soul the Church of Rome in a great mesure praies to and worships nothing else And the truth is this unusual praying to departed Saints and this new appearing of Mens souls may very well meet together It is the constant practice of evil spirits tho neither called nor thought on to meet Men in unlawful waies When the Pagans did consult Fowls of the Air about their good or bad success and so did bird for Prophesies the Devils moved Ravens and Eaglesto signifie somewhat by either flying or croaking the same did actuate stocks stones when they did call upon Images they made the Votaries often to see Visions when they watched for them about Tombs And it is both very just with the true God to suffer and pleasing to false gods to do that they who run after dead Saints should find the same thing that Saul and the Witch did when they sought after dead Prophets First It is a great presumption to pretend to more Wisdom in point of serving God and saving our selves then either God hath appointed or all the holy Prophets and Apostles have known and taught and it is most just and likely that Men should meet with strong Delusions and with the Devils themselves when they venture upon slippery unknown and dark by-paths where not one of Gods Saints ever durst walk Secondly Admit what we know not that the Souls of Holy Men are not confined to Heaven and fixt there to their happy rest but which i Origen ad Rom. c. 2. l. 2. any discreet Man tho he suspected it would not
affirm that they may come down now and then and take some care of our Affairs Admit that these few Apparitions which I find recorded by good Authors 1. Of Potamiena k Euseb Eccl. Hist l. 6. c. 5. to Basilides 2. Of a Father l August de Curapro Mort. c. 11. who after his death brings the true Acquittance of a Debt that his poor Son was troubled for 3. Of something like Felix the Confessor m Ibid. c. 16. appearing to relieve Nola 4. Of something like Spiridians daughter that n Socrat. Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 12. offered to the good Bishop her Father to shew him where she had laid the Jewels which a Friend had entrusted her with 5. Of somthing like John Monachus a Holy Man that o Aug. sup c. 17. appeared to a really pious Woman when once she longed to see him 6. And of something like St. Augustin that once appeared to his p Ibid. c. 11. Disciple Eulogius and another time q Idem c. 12. to one Curma about Hippo when both this John and St. Augustin were yet alive and knew nothing of this appearing at the least St. Augustin did not but what he heard other Men say Suppose I say both against all probability and the s Ibid. c. 16. c. positive judgment of St. Augustin himself that these were not Angels but real Souls What are some few extraordinary Apparitions to ground an universal and perpetual way of Worship And suppose that not few but whole thousands of Souls should swarm down amongst us as we know the Angels do the Angels we also know were never called upon nor praied to by any true Servant of God as long as the Church was ordered by any Prophet Apostle or Apostolical Men and after their departure it is well known how the Fathers who next succeeded them alwaies voted both against Worshipping and Praying to any one created Angel The Disciples of Christ saies St. Ireneus t Iren. cont Haeres l. 2. c. 57. sub fin do nothing by praying to Angels but by directing holy and undefiled Praiers to the Lord who hath created all things Praiers directed to others it seems are defiled with something And tho the blessed Angels u Orig. Cont. Celsum l. 5. p. 233. Edit Cantabr saies Origen a most authentic Author in this Point are sometimes called Gods and convey down to us the favors of God yet we do not serve them as Gods for all our Praiers Supplications Addresses and givings of Thanks which he makes to be all one with the true Service of God must be directed to God who is the Master of all things thro our High Priest the living Word and God who is greater then all the Angels And as for the Angels themselves we have no reason to pray to them because we do not understand them well and tho we did this very knowing of both their Nature and Offices would not afford us the confidence of offering our Vows and Praiers to any other then to the All-sufficient and Supreme God by his Son our Savior Not to trouble my self or others with any more clear and direct Citations to this purpose I will only add the Verdict of two and thirty Fathers who find x Concil Laodic Can. 35. in a full Council that the praying to Angels for so St. Theodoret y Theodor. Colossens c. 2. v. 18. interprets the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be both a hidden Idolatry and a forsaking of Christ and his Church The true reason which makes these and other Fathers so sharp against Praying to Angels much more against Praying to Saints as to call it Idolatry is not because the Angels cannot hear alwaies the Saints never for this would make praying to them no more then an idle and useless act but mainly and principally because Praier Vows and giving of Thanks is a main part of Gods service and therefore Saint z Iren. Sup. Ireneus and a Orig. sup Origen take Praier and Worship promiscuously for the same thing And 't is upon this same account that both b Psalm 50 14.15 Scripture and the Ancient c Tertullian Apol. c. 30. Euseb Demonst Evang. c. ult sub fin Orig. in Rom. c. 10. v. 14. p. 382. Edit Paris 1619. Fathers still reckon Praier and Thanksgiving among the truest Sacrifices and which can belong to none but God Now Praier is part of Gods service because if serious and devout and I am sure Roman praying to Saints is no jest it presupposes and acknowleges in the Saint which is praied to such an infinite knowledg of Mens hearts such an Universal and extensive Capacity or rather Being in hearing them all alwaies every where and such an immense sufficiency and power of helping them accordingly that to make or to presuppose created either Saints or Angels fit persons for to be praied to is to make or to presuppose them to be Gods And this is the true account wherefore calling upon God is reputed an Honor given to God Call upon me and thou shalt glorifie me Psal 50.15.23 because it implies and in very deed acknowledgeth the Immensity the Knowlege the Mercy and Power of God not calling upon him is Atheism Psalm 79.6 And so calling on them who are not Gods is down-right Idolatry The truth is you may call upon a Saint without any danger of Idolatry if he be in such a distance whence intelligent Creatures may without Miracle hear one another thus the Prophets were not afraid to speak to Angels Dan. Ch. 10. and Ch. 22. Zachar. 1.9 If you did pray a Holy Man whil'st he is with you to pray for you and to recommend you to God after he is dead perhaps this exceeds not much the ordinary power of a Saint Thus St. Cyprian d Cyprian l. 1. Ep. 1. sub fin intreated his Friend Cornelius then Bishop of Rome that he of them two who should by suffering Martyrdom step the formost to Jesus Christ would being with him there continue his wonted Praiers for his poor Brother whom he knew to be left behind And as I take it the same Father asks the same favor of his Holy and Devout Virgins against the time when their Virgin Zeal and Piety e Idem de Habitu Virg. Tract 2. sub fin should be crowned with its due Honor. Thus far I see nothing at all that an humble Christian may not wish and a created Saint may not perform and if such Praiers have any defect it is not Idolatry nor Superstition perhaps 't is only they want an Example Nor is it any Idolatry to pray to your Friends by letters at any distant whatsoever for St. Paul in his Epistles doth often so and therefore I would not blame our learned Papists for dedicating their Books and writing Dedicatory Letters to the most Blessed Virgin Mary if they had Expresses to carry them But if you can fancy a Saint of such
she was all the while rambling up and down in Bawdy-houses that it was not her self but an Angel who ran Races and fought Battels in the shape of her Worshippers being then at Mass Some are also pleased to say that every Saturday she goes down to Purgatory not by her self but by her Proxy for the rescuing thence of some Souls But none of her Historians will aver that it was a Deputy or any other but her self who did hug and kiss St. Bernard St. Dominic and St. Alain upon several occasions who did once ride behind a Knight in the shape of a Woman in order to surprize the Devil or who in a dark tempestuous night was really met by two wandering Travellers in a Forrest with St. Michael and St. Peter It is she and not another if you will believe what she saies who now and then will call her self the Mother of Grace and Mercies who comes often to visit Churches with sweet Perfumes or Holy Waters or whole Baskets of Holy Roses or white and black Hoods for her Chaplains And accordingly it is she her self and not her Angel that is adored in all the places where she appears No man praies either to her or to any other Saint or Angel upon any considerable occasion but thinks to have her and them present and so the very same conceit of an Universal Power and Presence essential Attributes of God which makes them willing to pray to Saints must needs make them Idolaters in praying thus This impious worship is an Abuse of what was don sometimes to God in the primitive times at the Graves of his own Martyrs and no wonder if ignorant men could turn the Miracles and Mercies of God as they can all other good things to their own destruction It is well known how many wonders were wrought at the Sepulchers of holy Martyrs as one at the shadow of S. Peter Act. 13. and at the Bones of the holy Prophet Elisha 2 Kin. 13.21 These Miracles were to those Saints in some mesure what the glorious Resurrection and Ascension had bin before to their Savior to wit high Declarations from above that their Souls and Bodies however they had appeared vile in the Eies of their Murderers were pretious in the sight of God and that what they had believed taught and signed as it were with their own Blood were both true Doctrines good Examples in order to Salvation And these extraordinary Marks of Gods favor on their Persons and Seals of truth to their belief as they were principally intended in behalfs of Infidels so they mostly and longest continued in those parts of the world as Africa e Lege Aug. de Civit. l. 22. for example where more Pagans remained not called or not converted to the Faith It is well known also how at the same time which was a time of generall and cruel persecutions the holy Zeal and Death of the Martyrs as it was marked out as it were by the finger of God in his Miracles so it was exalted both to their own praise and to the encouragement of others by the Christians in all Churches The highest strains of Eloquence which the Fathers had were spent in the magnifying of Martyrs They set down their Names in their best Church Records and rehearsed them duly in their solemn Eucharists and public praises to their Savior They gave the most honorable Burial they could in those sad times to their bodies and having no Churches then they made their graves their most ordinary Places of Meeting to declare before all the world that by this resorting to their Sepulchers they prepared themselves to their Death In a word they did what they could to bring both themselves and their Flocks to love and admire those holy Souls that so both themselves and others might be encouraged to follow them Bless and esteem most sincerely saies S. Basil f Basil in 40. Martyr the holy Martyrs that you may in your course do as they did in the mean while in your real intention be accounted as good as real Martyrs already that you may without the blows cruelties which they suffered attain to the rewards which they enjoy These zealous exhortations in times of Persecution and the visible hand of God confirming whatever they said as to this point prevailed so far upon the People that * S. Basil ibid. at every particulat occasion as well as upon solemn daies they did go and pray hard by their Graves and did take for a great honor to be buried where they had praied till at last their Pagan Foes began to take notice of it and to believe at least to say g Cyril Alexand. cont Jul. l. 6. p. 202. Ed. Paris 1638. Maximus Madaur ap August Ep. 43. that Christians did adore dead men as themselves did adore their Gods This gave an Occasion to the holy Fathers to wipe off all suspicions of this kind from Christian Religion and to declare to all the world I wish that Roman Catholics would take better notice of it first that they did not worship c Hieron contr Vigilant Martyrs at all neither as Gods nor as Presidents and Vice Roys d Cyrill Alex. contr Julian l. 6. of any Town or Country Secondly that the blessed Saints have neither particular notice e August de cura pro Mort. c. 13. nor care of the Affairs of this world and if by chance they medled with it it was as extraordinary to them to do so as f August ibid. c. 16. as to the Water to become Wine or to a dead Body to rise up Thirdly that the Veneration and Reverence which they did bear to holy Martyrs exceeded not that degree of honor which in former times was deferred to * Cyrill sup pag. 204. valiant men after they had spent their lives for the defence of their Country or that is due to all the Friends g Smyrnensis ap Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 4. c. 15. and true Disciples of Jesus Christ and is of no other h August cont Faust l. 20. c. 21. sort then is that which in this life we give to other holy men whom we think to be endued with the same piety that Martyrs were only our Devotion for the Dead Saints is more confident then it can be for living because these are yet fighting and those have got the victory Fourthly that when they builded i Idem De Civitat l. 22. c. 10. Monuments and Houses of Praier where these Martyrs were buried the Monuments were for the Dead Saints and the Houses of Praier were only for the living God Fifthly that when the names of the Martyrs were there mentioned it was neither to pray for them nor to them but to keep up after k Dionys Areop de Eccl. Hierar c. 3. their death an Authentic Declaration of their continual being with God and specially in these great Mysteries where Christ is both signified and received of their
continuing Sacred communion with Christ Sixthly that these Honors were all bestowed on them l Scriptum Smyrn ap Eus Eccl. Hist l. 4. c. 5. both for the more solemn celebrating of their faith thro-out all Churches and for the encouraging of all Christians to their Example This was enough to vindicate the Truth of God and the true meaning of his Church as to the Honor due to his Saints It might have bin enough also to smother in the very birth the growing superstitions of some private men in this case that St. Austin doth complain of or at the least to restrain them from growing worse and endangering the after Ages if the Pagans being confuted some partly seduced partly seducing Christians had not revived their quarrel and gon about to justify as much as in them did lie their old Reproches by propping their praying to Saints upon the two main Points whereon the Pagans worshipt their Gods The first is taken from the prudence that humble or wise Sutors must use at Court You shall hardly find one Papist but will tell you that it is rashness to go bluntly and directly to great Persons unless you be presented to them by their Officers and favorites and why should any man pretend any easier a Chrisost in S. Philogon tom 5 p. 505. Ed. t. Eton. admittance to God without their intercession and favor who as the Saints and the Angels do stand continually about him This is the very self same Argument which the heathenish Philosophers mainly objected to the Fathers and to which the Fathers gave two such Answers as at once may stop equally both the Pagan and Roman Mouths the one is that m Ambros ad Rom. c. 1. V. Dicentes se esse sapientes of S. Ambrose We are forced to go to the King saies he by the mediation of his Nobles because great Kings are men as we are and have this Infirmity along with their condition that they must hear and understand with the help of others besides themselves whereas God understands every thing which every supplicant asks and deserves and as for the obtaining of his favor we can employ no better friend then an honest and pious Soul The other is most singular and I have it from Origen But if you have a mind also to have the concurrence of the Angels n Origen cont Cels l. 8. p. 420. Edit Cantah saies he we have it when by pious lives and praiers we do address our selves to God For as the motion of the shadow must needs follow that of the Bodies what way soever these will turn let us know this that if we move God towards us we shall get by the same means all the good Angels Souls and Spirits to be our Friends and which is more actual helpers both by praiers and other waies for these blessed Spirits take most especial notice of men qualified for Gods favor And I dare say confidently that whosoever praies to God devoutly hath whole Legions of holy Angels at the same time praying for him without his desiring them to do so This antient Author is the first who ventured to say That the Saints might perhaps pray and act for us and yet he is as express as any other to direct men to God by Christ alone and to keep them from Praying to Angels and Saints The other main Ground common to Pagans and Papists for Praying those to their Gods these to their Saints is either the false Allegation or the false Construction of Miracles This every one knows who knows them both Whereas when the Miracles of the Saints were at the best that is during the three Primitive hundred years they never temted Christians any farther then to go and to pray to God in those places where they were wrought and where Praiers had somtimes very extraordinary returns there they might perhaps wish to God that he would hear in their behalf the general Praiers which these Souls most probably offer to God for the afflicted members of his Church But where is the worthy Prelate or Christian saith o S. August contra Faust l. 21. c. 21. Id. De Civit. l. 8. c. 27. St. Augustin who being by the Grave of a Martyr ever said Peter or Paul or Cyprian I offer to you this Sacrifice whether of Praier or Praise or Vow 't is all one The Miracles don by Holy Men did set as it were the Seal of God upon the Gospel which they believed and upon the Worship which they both promoted and died for therefore we must believe and worship as they did If they did set also as certainly they did some Marks of Reverence on their Persons and their Memory 't was not to this purpose that they should be either adored or praied to We do not read that true Israelites ever praied to the dead Prophet for the great Miracle wrought at his Tomb nor that Christians ever worship'd the living Apostles for all the signs wrought by their hands and sometimes at their very shadow S. Chrysostom p S. Chrysost ad Pop. Antioch Hom. 1. assures me that God kept them most commonly under some sensible Infirmity which they could not ease themselves of as the ill Stomach of Timothy and the troublesom Angel about St. Paul that the Glory of their Miracles might wholly reflect on Christs Power and that nothing of it might be abused to the admiration of their Persons But all is in vain to save those Men who have a mind to lose themselves Pagans in spight of all will worship the living Apostles Acts 14. and Papists will pray to dead Saints The Miracles of God must be wrested to countenance these Mens folly and to use the words of an ancient Father q S. Chrys Ibid. to this purpose here observe the Wiles of Satan Christ emploies both at once his Apostles and his Miracles to destroy all Idolatry from among Men and Pagans and Papists make use of both to bring it in This manner of calling on Saints is both unchristian and unjust on all the sides that you can take it First It transfers on Creatures that Prerogative of Gods glory and that special part of his Worship which in Holy Scriptures doth comprehend his whole Service Secondly It makes Saints to be what the Holy Ghost alone is searchers of Mens Hearts and Thoughts and present over all the World if not How can they perceive mental Praiers Thirdly if you suppose that night and day God is reveling to them what Men do and what they would have it forges another Impiety and make God a perpetual Clerk Mediator and Drudg to his own Saints Fourthly It intrudes into Christs Office as many Mediators to intercede with God for Men both by their Sufferings and their Merits as there are with him Saints and Angels whereas the Church knows none but one Fifthly It quite disables the Church from all possibility of asserting Christ and the Holy Ghosts Divine Nature by their usual
Demonstrations to wit That God is in Scripture praied to and that the Holy Ghost is every where or it proves Saints to have it also Sixthly As it is practiced by the devoutest Persons of Rome it complements the Saints with such Praiers such Expressions and such Services as you may safely challenge Melchisedec Moses David and all the Prophets and Apostles to magnifie God Almighty with any better You may be sure that the Papists will disown this because their own discretion suffers them not to avow more among strangers then they think themselves able to make good But where Mass is the reigning Service there Books and Mouths and if these should hold their peace the very stones of their Altars Churches and Images do speak it out and judg what Religious Worship that is which modest Men must flatly deny or palliate and excuse Some will tell you r Georg. Cassand Hym. Eccles in Vigil Pontec Schol. pag. 242. Edit Paris 1016. that all their Praiers to the Saints are but such Apostrophes or Rhetorical Figures as was that of David to Heaven and Angels Psalm 103. and that their Litanies Peter Paul c. Pray for me come but to this wishing Would to God or how I do wish that all these Saints should pray for me Others who see what either blindness or impudence it is to say so plainly confess that they directly s Bell. de Sanct. Beat. l. 1. c. 19. sect Praeterea in utroque pray to Saints but mince it as it were but as to Friends only to desire them to pray which yet at that distance were bad enough not as to principal Benefactors and it is upon this ground they say that praying to Saints in Heaven and praying to Friends in my House to pray for me comes both to one These Men are so confident at Rome and do think us to be so blind to all ends and purposes here in England that they shall perswade us these two things The first That all their Breviaries and Psalters signifie nothing but what they please The other That they make Saints * Ibid. c. 18. sect Nos autem facile to be Rulers and Princes over Nations with an Iron Rod in their Hands only to pray This desperate Cause forces Bellarmin at every turn the honestest and wisest Papist of his time to forsake upon this account both all Knowledg and Conscience For here you shall find him sometimes offering t Bell. ibid. c. 19. Athanasius Sermone proofs out of some Books under the name of St. Athanasius which when he needs them not u Id. De Scriptorib Eccl. observat in Tom. 3. Athanasis he acknowledgeth to be false sometimes most willingly and grosly satisfying x Bell. de Beatit Sanct. l. 1. c. 19. sect Eusebius lib. 13. Eusebius sometimes insisting y Ibidem sect Deinde in sexta Synodo upon such Canons and Decrees ascribed to the sixth Council as in his Heart he knows to be z Binius infin 6. Synod pag. 360. Edit Paris 1636. meer Forgeries somtimes siding with the a Cyrill Alexand. Thesaur p. 115. Edit Paris 1638. Arians and leaving the b Ibid. pag. 116. Athanas cont Arian Orat. 4. pag. 260. Edit Commel 1600. Chrysost in Genes Hom. 66. Fathers thereby to get some little thing that may favor the Praying to Angels sometimes he saies that the Roman Church praying to Saints makes c Bell. sup c. 19 20. them no more then Holy Men and in the point of Vows and such other Divine Honors that mere Men are in no wise fit for he himself d Id. De Cultu Sanct. c. 9. sect Tertio quia Sancti makes them to be by participation nothing less then Gods And thus the Papists must own at last what they did dissemble at the first And what can you make of such shifts turnings and contradictions but that there is most plain untruth as well as jugling in the case Either let them shew out of Scripture or out of any true Record written in true Primitive Times that any Prophet any Apostle or any Martyr have in any one of their many and great Distresses called upon any other Saint but God alone or else let them shew they have found some new Lights and some better waies then all these Saints ever did St. Chrysostom e S. Chrysost in Lazar. Orat. 2. S. Epiph. contr Collyrid pag. 447. Edit Basil takes for mere Devils those Spirits who even in his time did appear under human Shapes and did go under such and such Mens names And St. Epiphanius adds more to this that these Devils will under Religious and plausible pretences both make Men to appear like Gods and induce People to believe it And who can warrant that all those Souls that come creeping in Bellarmin first under the notion of Gods Friends and afterwards as Gods themselves are none of these However in point of serving them let the pretences be never so fair it is not safe to venture on waies which none of Gods ancient Servants have trac'd before But the following Chapter shall tell us more for certainly the name of the Blessed Virgin is unworthily abused now adaies to complete in all respects the full mesure of Idolatry CHAP. V. Of the Worship deferred to the Virgin and all the Blessings expected from this Worship THat which Rome adores under this name deserves a Chapter by it self It is both the great Allurement to and the great Diana of that Church It is with them the Head of all the Saints the very †Vid. infra Crown and Accomplishment of the ever Blessed Trinity and therefore such a Divinity in the Eies of thorough Catholics that some that had denied both their Baptism and God himself could never * Scala Coeli be temted so far as to deny and leave this Goddess Between the two contrary Extremes to wit the looking with some indiscreet Arabians on the Blessed Virgin as an ordinary Woman and the Worshipping her as a Goddess the Holy Fathers keep the middle way Let the Virgin Mary be honored saies St. Epiphanius a Epiphan contra Collyrid but let God alone be worshipped The Holy Scripture doth the same calling her in opposition to all profane Persons Blessed against all Superstitious Adorers leaving her among the Women Blessed art thou among Women Luke 1.28 Elizabeth likewise calls her The Mother of the Lord as the Fathers do upon another account The Mother of God that is Mother of that Savior as to the flesh who by the Hypostatical Union is also God And lest this Title should seem to exalt her as it doth commonly other Mothers to the same dignity with her Son the Holy Scripture sets her alwaies by Christ since the time of his public appearing to Israel rather like a Disciple then like a Mother witness the manner he uses her or answers her at all the times when they appear both
Altars and Churches with this admirable Water I say the Bishop washes and Hallows the Cross next he takes Fire and Frankincense a Drug able in their judgment after it hath had three crost Blessings to cure all manner of Diseases and to drive away all manner of Devils if they but smell the Smoke of it and perfumes it well with the vapor and both in the Name of the Trinity and the vertue of three Crossings he commands the Grace of the true Cross where Christ had once his holy Members to come rest on the Crucifix to this effect that whosoever will bow before it may thereby find a sure Relief both for his Body and his Soul For conclusion the Mass Bishop devoutly c Pontifical Rom. supra kneels before this his new Crucifix and both adores and kisses it so do all other Catholics in their greatest Devotions specially in time of Distress and so all may if Crucifixes be such helpers All other Images especially that d Pontif. Rom. de Bened. Imag. B. M. of our Lady are consecrated in the same way with the same noblest holy water and the burning of Incense only they have this special Praier more to wit that God e Ibid. Item sect Bened. Imag. aliorum S. S. Almighty would be pleased so to sanctifie the said Images that whosoever shall pray before them may never want the Mediation and Intercession of that Saint who owns the Image to promote all what he praies for Where by the bie you may discern Blasphemy and Impertinence coupled together A Blasphemy in calling upon God to bless that which in his service he so professedly curses and detests and the Impertinency in praying Backward and forward forward to God to move or get his Saints to mediate and backward to move or get their God to the hearing of all the Requests that shall be made before their Image A Mathematical Device indeed an Image is and who would not have such an Instrument to turn God down to any Saint and to turn up any Saint to God and both God and Saints to what one saies when he kneels before that Figure To spare Gods Name out of the Case for it is both a most fearful boldness to go to God for a Blessing upon what he hates and condemns and a most desperate folly to believe that He will grant it a very Child might see both in the drift and the manner of these Consecrations that the main design of Images is not to set up Resemblances or Memorials as Pope Gregory * Regist l. 9. Epist 9. said to Serenus where unlearned People might see what they could not read but to contrive such kind of Engins wherewith Christians might call in and presentiate their Saints as the Pagans had to call in their Gods For Holy water and Frankincense are quite extrinsecal you know and impertinent as to the procuring of representation and likeness but they may perhaps conduce much to making and procuring such a neat and sweet Abode as both in the Papists and Pagans opinion might invite to it a great Saint But if you will go to the practice the common use made of Images shall tell you most plainly what is the true end that they are made for No Worshipper goes to Lauretto to S. Denys to S. Michael c. there to learn and read upon Images the Face or the Mine of such Saints nor would he think it worth the trouble and the charges of a long Journy to go so far merely to instruct himself more fully whether our Lady hath an Aquiline Nose or whether S. Michael hath wings in his back or S. Francis a deep long Hood or S. Dominic a bald Pate the main Motive that drives Pilgrims to those Churches where Images are is to find not the Resemblance but the very Presence of the Saint So when they say as they may truly that these Images are consecrated to represent Saints it is in a much higher sense then when we say that Pictures do represent Faces for it is also and chiefly too as when we say that Embassadors and Nuncios represent Kings and e Bellar. De Imaginib l. 2 c. 20. sect 3. Distinctio Roman Popes and upon this account it is that if you chance to misuse the Image thereby you do misuse the Saint as really as they did whip Henry the great whosoever whipt stout du Perron representing at Rome that Kings Person Contrariwise kneeling praying and bowing before the Image thereby you kneel and pray and bow as really before the Saint as our Kings under Popery did submit all to his Holiness when they did it to his Legats or as poor Frederic the Emperor thought really to put his Neck under the Feet of S. Peter himself when he put it under the Popes Thus are Images set up in Churches with a twofold Capacity the one as formal Representatives to be served with all the Worship Praiers Masses burning Lamps consecrated Tapers and Candles and all such other Formalities as the very Saints can be served with and the other as Sacred Seats of their assisting Presence and Power Divum Numen so that whensoever you touch or pray to the Image this must be don as with the same Devotion so with the same hope of Relief as if you did touch and pray personally and immediately to the very he or she Saints themselves the Images in such occasions being joined f Ibid. c. 23. sect Quod autem as they say or even identified with the Saints and the Saints clothed with their Images Now how Saints and Images come to be so nearly related and concern'd one with another is a Mystery that goes beyond any Christian Apprehension When Princes allow or resent what is don to their Embassadors ill or Good as don to themselves t is because they out of their own plesure have chosen and sent them abroad as their own Representatives and if they concern themselves in the wrong don to their Statues as the Emperor Theodosius once which Bellarmin g Bellar. De Imag. l. 2. c. 12. sect Theodosius stands much upon it is because they did set them up as Roial Marks of their Soveraignty And if God would have those Israelites that had bin bitten by Serpents to look up toward the Brazen Figure of a Serpent in the Desart or in their public services to turn their Faces towards the Ark as now Christ will have Christians come with reverence to his Table it is because God for certain Reasons Typical and proper to the Law had ordained those Ceremonies as now Christ under the Gospel hath ordained his Sacraments But what is all this to this Roman purpose and for Gods sake what is the connexion between Gods Saints and Romes Images First did ever any one of Gods Saints express any desire of being served or praied unto after his death Secondly suppose this untruth that they did have they declared in what and by what sort of
Snares and with the help of God to secure from the hazard of perishing all such Persons as are not willing to perish If in all these Essaies my Discourses seem to be long as I confess they are this length I hope shall be tedious and useless to none but to such as read them only that they may divertise themselves which end this Book is not made for my real intention being only this to give Men a solid account both of the true Christian Doctrine that is of the true waies of God to save and of the new Methods and Wiles of other Spirits to seduce Souls Of these I have said as much as at this time I could prove out of their Books but much less then I know by mine own Experience It is a gross mistake to think that the Roman Religion is made up of nothing else then what we find in their Councils and Breviaries You might fansie as well that Rome hath all within the Walls of the City and little or nothing in the Suburbs and that all her unwritten Traditions are destitute of unwritten Waies and Practices The truth is in time of War the Romanists love to Camp as close as they can to Lateran to Trent and to such other Council Forts while they stand upon their defence but they dwell and spread infinitly farther about when in peaceable Times they have a mind either to win or conquer others and I may safely affirm that Rome hath no ground more commodious for Ambushes nor more dangerous to poor Strangers then what she can either take or leave as she sees cause There is not so deadly biting as with those Teeth that Vipers as they say can keep unseen in their Gums nor are there fitter Tools to do mischief then those short Weapons which one draws out or hides under his Clothes The Roman Church hath Officers that can offer you Salvation on any terms if you take them they are that which in their Language must needs ease you of all your Sins and if you happen to perceive the Cheat and the incredible Extravagancy then she hath other graver Doctors that will tell you in order to save her Credit that these are but the Dreams of some Monks and no part of their Catholic Doctrine So let that Church mix and temper whatever kind of stuff she pleases to charm you into her Party if she find you well disposed to devour it then she gives it you as good Meat but if she see that you abhor it then to please you she will disown it as rank Poison By these means Rome both abuseth the World and keeps up her Reputation and under this Collusion lies works and thrives the Mystery of Iniquity and the Power of Darkness If after this second Warning Men will fall off to a Religion which in its most Essential Services as I have already shewed is plain impiety and be led to it by Motives which I shew here to be no other then the worst kind of Impostures their Blood shall fall on their own Heads It is not in the power of human Help in this case to save Men who will destroy themselves THE CONTENTS Chap. I. A General Account of the new waies to Salvation and Services of the Roman Church Pag. 1. Chap. II. How far and in what sense Papists may be called Catholics and how the Roman Church is neither the true Catholic nor a truly Catholic Church Pag. 8. Chap. III. Concerning the second Inducement to Popery The Roman Miracles Pag. 34. Chap. IV. Concerning the Protection and Assistance of Roman Saints Pag. 71. Chap. V. Of the Worship deferred the Virgin and of the Blessings expected from this Worship Pag. 99. Chap. VI. Concerning the Adoration and new waies of serving the Virgin Mary Pag. 123. Chap. VII Concerning the daily Services bestowed upon the Virgin Mary Pag. 153. Chap. VIII Of another special Inducement to Popery by a more easie way of serving the Virgin by Beads which they call the Rosary Pag. 168. Chap. IX Of the vast Tresure of the Roman Church and her power to dispose it Pag. 189. Chap. X. Concerning the Roman Indulgences the most general Inducement to Popery Pag. 210. Chap. XI Concerning the procuring Pardon of Sins by the means of Holy Confraternities and Friends Pag. 240. Chap. XII Concerning three special means of Salvation The Holy Girdle of St. Francis The 150 Beads of St. Dominic and the Scapulary of St. Simon Stock in their respective Fraternities Pag. 269. 1. Concerning the Holy Rope or Girdle of St. Francis Pag. ib. Chap. XIII 2. Concerning the second special Means of Salvation in the Confraternity of Mount Carmel by wearing the little Mantle or Scapulary of Saint Simon Stock Pag. 277. Chap. XIV 3. Concerning the third means of obtaining Salvation by the Confraternity and 150 Beads of St. Dominic Pag. 284. Chap. XV. Concerning divers other Instruments of Blessing and Salvation Pag. 300. Chap. XVI Concerning the most general and most sensible Inducement to Popery by the means and in the use of Consecrated Images Pag. 330. SAUL and SAMUEL AT ENDOR c. CHAP. I. A General Account of the new Waies to Salvation and Services of the Roman Church WELL may the Church of Rome look Full and Rich since what the Church of Christ hath single she still hath double and of different sorts keeping in her Bosom as much of good and bad together as can both furnish true Catholics with the Fundamentals of Christian Faith and lend to others thereon to build whole heaps of ruinous Superstitions and Abuses Here you shall find under one Roof the Eternal God of Israel and a Mortal Woman standing very near upon the same ground both for your Worship and Praiers Two sorts of Christs called upon in the same way the one born of a Virgin and the other made by a Mass Priest two necessary Sacrifices for the Salvation of Mankind one once offered up to God on the Cross and another which is offered up every day upon an Altar Two sorts of Mediators and Advocates worshipped and surrounded with an equal number of Clients our Blessed Savior and Canoniz'd Saints Suitably to these two different sorts of Patrons you shall find in the same Church two different waies of obtaining pardon of sins the one by the Evangelical Mercy of God upon all men whosoever shall repent and believe on his Son and another by the Bulls of the Pope for them who will either pray before an Image or without any mention of Praiers look devoutly towards an Altar Two Ladders to get up to Heaven one white with the milk of Mary the other red with the Blood of Jesus both equally puzling poor Worshippers about the choice Two sorts of sufferings to be allow'd to sinners for their behoof and benefit the Passion of the same Savior and the Mortifications and Services of the Saints Finally two sorts of Spiritual Kindred and Ghostly Fraternity that of Christ by a partaking in Faith and
other Christian Champions whil'st they were writing large Volumes in defence of Religion where it seemed subject to reproach to leave this part alone undefended which by all Mens confession had if then in being the greatest need of defence If the Church of God had in those daies a most real and continual Mass-Sacrifice How came S. Cyrill of Alexandria to be so dull against his Custom as when Julian laughed at Christians for having neither Altars nor Sacrifices to stop his mouth with nothing else then Metaphorical Oblations And was this Apostate such a Sot as to object at every turn such meer Falshoods if Mass be true wherein he knew having bin long a Christian that any Body might stop his mouth It seems as some of their best Authors d Alphons de Cast. l. 8. tit Indulgentia confess the Mystery of Transubstantiation was yet in the Church incognito and came to appear as it doth now but a long while as they say e Gabr. Biel. in Can. Sect. 41. I. too after Christ had instituted it So it is not Catholic at all 3. Go you down to Purgatory that vast and wide subterranean Rome as great at least as this above-ground who also in a very great mesure is her Mother and Nurse for if this pretends to send down any kind of relief to that by her Masses and Massoffices yet 't is that which maintains and helps up this with Wealth Honors Monasteries and all imaginable affluence of Riches In the mean time this commerce how mutual and great soever is nothing less then Catholic having not followed the Gospel through all the Countries nor times of the Church Whensoever and wheresoever the Christian Faith was Preached there is left an Impression in the Heart of all Believers that there is after this Life a Heaven prepared for Faithful Souls and an everlasting Hell for those that shall be found not to be so Purgatory which is a third place and should of course if true have gon in the same company with these two never followed them half the way no Apostle so far as we can see in their holy Writings ever Preached it it was not blown by Gods Spirit thro-out the whole World as other Catholic Doctrines were it lodg'd in some corners only and that late or upon a Heathenish account and where by chance it was admitted it found no better entertainment then a wavering Opinion Such a thing may be saies one It is not unlikely saies another The Greek and Armenian Churches larger then the Roman is do not believe it f Alfon. di Castro l. 12. tit Purgatorium saies one of the most learned Papists It was believed but somewhat late saies g Fisher cont Luther Art item one of their Cardinal Bishops and tho Bellarmin turns over and over all the Scriptures to search it out many of his own Church do confess that they h Fisher ibid. Pet. à Solv Assert 8. Mart. Peresius de Traditione cannot find it there 4. Indulgences that vast revenue and staple Merchandize of Rome is neither more ancient nor Universal then its correspondent Purgatory For saies i Polyd Virgil. de Invent. l. 8. c. 1. a good Roman Author after Cardinal Fisher no body thought of Indulgences before Purgatory was set a foot these without this being of no value But a while after men had bin affrighted with the Purgatory Torments then began Indulgences to be of use If you will know why both came in late they will endeavor to k Gab. Biel. in Can. Lect. 57. M. Alfons à Castro l. 8. â—it Indulgentia satisfie you with two Reasons the first is because Christians in primitive time had few sins to trouble them after their death when they had any they needed no other flames then their own Zeal to burn them out and their great i Gregor de Valent. de Indulg punct 2. Mortifications besides left nothing to do for Indulgences The second is because the Ancient Church did not know all however much less then now we do The first reason stands upon mere inconsideration of what men were for the most part in the best times The second stands fair for new lights and upon this account you must exclude Purgatory Indulgences and Fanaticism from being Catholic Doctrines 5. You may join with those three all the Roman Praiers and Devotions to Saints This recommended daily and reputedly devout Emploiment hath not so much as the shadow of Catholic for it crept in among Christians as the Baalim did in Israel when the Holy men that had seen Moses and Joshua and the elders of that generation were all departed Jud. 2.10.11.12 when our Savior and his Apostles and the first Preachers of the Gospel had left the world During above four thousand years when God had undoubted Saints living on Earth among his People you shall not find one who ever call'd praied or worshipped any other Saint in Heaven then the Holy one of Israel Salmero one of the learned Disputants at Trent confesses m Salmero 1. ad Timoth. Disp 7. Sect. Nec obiter such Invocations have no express ground in all the Scriptures Bellarmin n Bell. de Beat Sanct l. 1. c. 19. Sect. Item ex c. 32. Suar. p. 3. q. 52. Salm. 1. Tim. 2. Disput 8. Eckius Enchirid. c. 15. and others must yeild it as to the 4000 and odd years that preceded the Ascension And as for the years that followed it Would to God saies Stapulensis o Faber Stapul Praefat. in Evang. we would conform our waies of Faith and Devotion to the example of the Primitive Church who never lookt but on one Christ and never Worshipped any other then he Holy Trinity Eckius p Eckius in Enchirid. câ—de Venerat SS also is clear for this Read for your better satisfaction Origen contra Cels l. 8. Euseb Eccles Hist. l. 4. c. 15. S. Epiphanius his whole Tract against the worshippers of the blessed Virgin S. Ambros 1. Rom. S. Austin de Civit. l. 8. c. 27. l. 22. c. 10. item contra Faust. l. 20. c. 21. The whole business of Image worship the most visible part of the Roman Religion came in later then the Saints worship and therefore appears to be less Catholic If Ancient Authors mention once as it were by chance q Euseb Eccl Hist l. 7. c. 18. a Statue made by the Woman and a Heathenish Woman was she whom Christ had cured of a bloody Flux or the Picture of some Apostles which had bin seen on private walls or the Figure of a Shepherd with a Lamb upon his shoulders ingraved in a Cummunion s Tertull. de Pudicitia Cup or a Representation of Histories and t Gregor Nyssen Tom. 3. Martyr Theodor. p. 579. Edit Paris 1638. Martyrdoms in one or two Oratories yet where is the Prophet the Apostle or the Holy Father who ever lookt on such Figures otherwise then common representations or Pieces
or Hobgoblins What is there in the whole world more impertinent then to make the most blessed and holy Virgin Mary come purposely out of Heaven whence it was not heard she came before to drudg here and there about Monks about sick Wives about Images such like things Who could take for a holy Soul or a good Angel much less for that ever Blessed Saint that which appears under her Name like a Woman shewing her Breast * Alan Rediv. part 2. c. 4. embracing men giving them suck enticing them with her Favors Hoods Vests and somtimes fine Rings which she makes for them of her own hairs for whensoever she is pleased to come down and to bring her Heavenly Train about her it is commonly for such purposes Once St. Ildephonse met her at Church i Jul. Pomer in vita Ildeph ap Sur. 23 Jan. sitting gravely in his own Throne with thousands of other Virgins that stood singing round about her and about the reading Pulpit This great Appearance was for nothing else then for complimenting that Bishop and for presenting him with a white Robe Come to me saies she thou Servant of God and accept of my hand this small Present which I have taken out of my Sons Ward-robe Thou maiest wear it upon my day that is her Assumtion or Conception c. and not at any other time and because thou holdest the eies of thy Faith continually bent to my Service for this is the best Eie of Roman Faith thou shalt use it here in this Church and hereafter in my Closets in Promtuariis meis thou shalt have joy They shew yet this Gown at Toledo At Magdeburg another time she came to Church upon a more serious affair She k Chronic. Deipar an 985. had the goodness before it seems often to chide Vdo the then Bishop for lying so often as he did with her Virgins the Nuns Thou hast had saies she sport enough do so no more Notwithstanding this fair warning she found him afterwards a Bed with no meaner Miss then the Mother Abbess her self then indeed was she sore vexed so she calls down her Son to her you may be sure it was not Christ and they both by their Angels pulled him off out of the Bed from his Abbess and soundly beat him for his pains At every blow Vdo vomited out one of those Hosts which he had consecrated being in that sin and because of her Sons dirty lying if Transubstantiation be true in that stinking she held the Chalice to take both the wafers her Son in it Then the Quen of Heaven saies the Historian takes up these vomited Wafers and washes them clean with great care and laies them up reverently on the Altar It would never be don to tell you of all her other strange passages as when she goes to Orleans l Leander in vita Reginald with a Box of precious Ointment there to anoint the back of a Dean when she m Chronic. Deip. an 598. gives special Pills to a Monk to purge his choler when she feeds S. Albert n Robert Archid. in vita S. Albert. ap Sur. 7 Apr. with a kind of Bread after which he resolved ever after to feed upon nothing but Roots and Herbs when she comes down out of Heaven that is I think from the Powers of the Air purposely to uncover her Breast and to put her Paps into mens mouths as for example to o Histor. Eccl. Carnot an 1020. S. Fulberts but more effectually p Chronic. Deip. an 1152. to S. Bernards for since this Virgins milk went down his Throat his Words and Eloquence saies the same Author were much sweeter when after these familiar visits this obliging Lady comes to woe Sweet-hearts and to desire their Marriage Thus when once she had made a Ring q Ibid. an 1476. of her own Hair and given it to S. Alain a most filthy companion before and in the presence of her Saints and Angels all Spirits of the like nature she then took him after for her Husband But before him she had another who deserves to be remembred it was the pretty S. Harman This Gentleman was from his youth much devoted to her Service and she to his At last after many sweet Conversations and Visits under the notion of our Lady and her Chaplain for she used to call him so once she appears r Chronic. Deip. an 1235. to him being at his Devotions led by two Angels who being come within the distance where S. Harman did well hear them one of them cries out To whom shall we give and marry this Virgin the other answered quite as loud To whom should we rather then to this young man meaning Harman Then the Angel took him by the hand and joined it with the said Virgin with these solemn Expressions O Harman I give thee this Virgin to be thy Spouse in the same manner as once she was to Joseph and hereafter be thou her Husband and upon these terms be called Joseph Then at night when he was asleep this Queen of Heaven comes to his Bed side and laying her Child whom she carried on her left Arm into this new Bridegrooms hands Take you charge of him saies she hereafter as once my other Joseph did when we three fled into Egypt but after all these good Kindnesses there as 't is usual among Lovers happened an unlucky distaste for this Joseph being intrusted with the Guardianship of a Convent she grew Jealous of her new Joseph which she never was of the old as if he had taken greater care of his Convent then of her self and being in that musty humor she appears to him under such an old ugly Face that poor Harman thought as well he might it was the same Devil who in former times used to haunt him and cryed out frightfully Who art thou I am saies the Apparation I am the Keeper of this place as you know I was so before then Joseph Harman knowing who she was by her sweet Voice tho much troubled at her sowre Face O my Rose quoth he for he was used to call her so art thou the same and how camest thou by this old Face I had a mind replied she to appear in your Eies such as I fear I am in your heart where I perceive I am accounted no better then if I were an old Woman Where are now the frequent Praiers which I used to receive of thee and which did heretofore render us young one to the other With these and many more reproches she so mortified her poor Joseph that he quite laid aside all the care he had of his Convent and since that time had no other thought then of making his Queen younger by rehearsing her Ave Maries and other-like Angelical Prizes till poor Harman got a mischance for when he was running too fast he fell down flat upon his Face and struck out two of his best Fore-teeth by that fall but his Lady
glorious appearance Roman Miracles and Visions have most commonly some black Mark which may convince any sober man that they are not what they seem to be Consider in the holy Scriptures what all the true Saints of God both holy Angels and Apostles say or do whensoever they meet with more honor then is their due and ask S. Austin what Spirits those are who take it whensoever given or call for it when it is not No Saints or Angels saies this holy Father e August cont Faust l. 20. c. 21. 22. will take of others what they know to be due only to God as it appears by Paul and Barnabas who tore their clothes to shew they were mere men Act. 14. and by that Angel who rejected adoration Unclean Spirits are for Worship and tho they care little for Flesh yet they pride themselves with Sacrifices only because they are due to God And in another Place f Idem De vera Relig. c. 55. Good Angels are for this one thing namely that with them we may serve God in whose contemplation they are happy but those who invite us to serve themselves are like proud men c. only the serving of proud Devils is more hurtful And in another place g Idem de Civit. l. 10. c. 7. Celestial and happy h Ibid. c. 16. Spirits will have us Sacrifice not to themselves but unto God whose Oblation they are as well as we and therefore all Revelations and Miracles that invite us to serve more then one God are such Seductions of Devils as any pious and prudent men must needs throw off for this is their proud malice who by that token are noted to be neither good Angels in themselves nor the Angels of a good God For the i Ibid c. 7. item l. 9. c. 23. good Angels love us so well that they will not have us serve them but serve the true God Bring now to these Christian Rules most of the Roman Apparitions and Miracles Shew me where this humble Spirit whom they worship did the like good Angel ever reject one worshipping or devout Adoration shew me where she tore once her clothes at the hearing the Te Deum and the whole Psalter of David sung and applied most blasphemously from God to her I am sure I find in her waies for several centuries of years the steps of another Spirit seeking continually for more honor We shall behold one who strokes k Caesarius l. 7. Hist c. 55. and kisses pious men because they both l Leandr de vrt is Illustrib Chron. Deip. an 1372. begin and end their best Devotions with her Praises who teaches in what godly form they must m Chronic. Deip. an 1178. pray to her for all Blessing who calls them into brakes n Franc. Hierasc in Vit. Henr. Sylvice of Thornes and Nettles and sometimes into holes under ground to find and adore her Images one who can put on the shape either of a o Odo Gissaeus Histor. Virg. Aniciensis Stag or p In vita Manaveri ap sur 5. Jun. a Pigeon or a great r Arch. Gian Cent. 3. Annal. l. 4. c. 9. Queen purposely to shew the place and stone where she must needs have an Altar or a Chappel or a great Church that there she Å¿ Od. Gissaeus supra may be served and worshipped to the worlds end and there t Niceph Eccl. Hist l. 15. c. 25. walk and delight her self one I say who in all these Churches brags among men as if she were the u Blosius in Monili Mother of Campassions the Lady x Menol Cisterc 22. Dec. of the House of Praier and the fountain y Chronic. Deip. an 1467. of all Blessings lastly one who spreads forth about her a great Mantle therewith to betoken the great z Tho. Malvenda Tom. 1. Annal. Ord. Praedic an 1221. largeness of her mercies and favors which she saies she denies to none that will come to her with faith Hereupon let S. Austin judg what kind of Creatures these Spirits are and what great difference there is between those which among Pagans did perpetually labor for Sacrifices and these which now among Papists are all for Masses and the greatest Oblations that can be set on Romes Altars Mean while we may be confident that none but God alone can own Sacrifices Altars and Churches to be served with and that none but Devils ever owned Images to speak move or in any wise to work in Such Spirits as these may be the Authors of all the Roman Apparitions and Miracles and such Apparitions and Miracles are very fit for such Spirits and both foretold and reserved for the last times And so you may guess what that Church is that hath her proper establishment both from such Wonders and such Saints CHAP. IV. Concerning the Protection and Assistance of Roman Saints THIS pretended help of men and women who after their departure out of this world and their being Canonized by some Pope are called Saints are another great Enchantment to keep and draw People to Rome Their Souls are conceived to be still ready to go about any business which their worshippers have in Heaven and their Bodies even to the least of their Bones their Clothes and their Shoes withal can at every good occasion work great Cures and Feats on Earth Thus one Saint is upon this account worth as much or more then any two Angels What sober man therefore would not be temted to turn a Roman Catholic and who would turn from being so tho there were no other reason for either then the getting and losing such Friends The perswasion of Romanists is that all such Souls as deserve their Canonization at Rome go up directly to Heaven as to a place where their happy Rest from all their Labors and an happy Possession of an eternal Glory with God is not all what they expect they must have also Government and Regencies a Bell. de Sanct. Beati t. l. 1. c. 18. over the whole world wherefore they fancy them sometimes like so many great Captains marshalling all the Natione under Christ with an Iron Rod sometimes like great Pillars above holding all Churches under them And because so much were too much for any one Saint to manage it well and that no Creature is capable of such an Universal Burden except the Virgin Mary above and the Pope of Rome here below to facilitate b Gab. Biel. in Can. Lect 32. N. the business they divide the whole among themselves that every one may be troubled with no more then his proper share First by this imaginary Distribution they divide their Saints into Countries c Salmero 1. ad Tim. c. 2. Disp 7. S. James is to take care of Spain S. Sebastian of Portugall S. Denys of France S. Mark of the Venetians S. Nicolas of the Moscovites S. Ambrose of Milan the three Kings of the Electorat of
the stead of either a Prophet to revele or of a Messenger to bring or of a kind of Clerk to read to them all these Praiers Here to make use of those Examples wherewith both o Bell. de Beatit Sanct. l. 1. c. 20. sect Respondeo quemadmodum Papists and p S. Ambros ad Rom. c. 1. Pagans will perswade Men to call upon their Saints the King alone must be the Master of Requests to his Courtiers and the Speaker to his Commons to inform them of every great and every petty trifling thing that their respective Relations Countries and Towns will have them put in a Bill and then present it to his own self Whensoever the Pope calls on S. Peter or a Cardinal on S. Jerom or a Monk on St. Cutbert or any Catholic Man or Woman upon the Virgin nothing is done till God himself calls for these Saints and tells them Hear you Peter Jerome and you Cuthert such and such People now pray to you that you would pray to me and perswade me thro your Merits to grant them such and such things And to dispose you the better to be forward in this Office I must tell you the Pope is old the Cardinal wants an Estate suitable to his Eminence and unless you make hast to solicit me for more Grace such Monks or Maidens your humble Suiters are at this very nick of time in great danger of Incontinency Then and not a moment before come up the Saints with these Praiers to press and solicit with God the very same things and circumstances which God hath reveled to his Saints before Such Wheelings and Impertinencies as these were ridiculous upon a Stage much more are they so in a Church and how much more with God in Heaven And what can you think of the Comedians who dare bring both God and his Saints as chief Actors in such a Play Well Praier to Saints includes these sins in its most plausible Practice when 't is no more then calling on the blessed Saints that they be pleased to mediate and to intercede in their Praiers for us to God which is the cheating notion under which Men ashamed of what they do would fain disguise their Praying to Souls and Angels with the colour of doing q Bell. de Sanct. Beat. l. 1. c. 17. c. 20. no more then when we pray here our Friends and Pastors to pray to God Almighty for us But when they pray and beg at their hands not only for Praiers but as it is apparent by their real practice and the stories of their best Saints for effectual Deliverances such praying is without excuse for instead of the former Drudgery which the other puts upon God this attributes Ubiquity Omnipotency and other infinite and Divine Powers to Saints that is the Church of Rome cannot expect and upon that expectation cannot Pray as they do every where at the same time to the Virgin Mary for example to bless and help them unless she be conceived as being both present every where and potent to bless them and help them every where And this is a double Immensity that of being present where they pray especially where they pray more devoutly and of being present where she helps For without this Ubiquity how could she be seen at Harvest wiping the Faces of r Vincent Sperat Hist l. 8. c 17. of reaping Monks or in a Chamber rubbing s Menol. Cisterc. 22. Decemb. the Head of the good honest Father Adam whilest she is elsewhere t Chronicon Ord. Min. Tom. 2. l. 5. burning Villages or in a rich Abby u De Mirac B. M. 2 Tem. Serm. Discipuli Moguntiae 1612. Mid-wiving an Abbess whom her Steward had unfortunatly gotten with Child Is it not unimaginable that during either of the two daies when she was under a Gallows x Chronic. Deip. an 1358. holding up a Thief under the Feet for fear his own weight should strangle him she could be then in a River y Ib. an 1134. riding Prince Pocoldas his Horse or upon the Walls of Poictiers beating the English off from that Town Or if she be so nimble as to be at the same time under a Gallows upon a Wall and in the middle of a River because all these places are in Europe Can she run both the East and West Indies at the same moment of time there to a Beretar invita Anachoretae l. 1. c. 1. make a Jesuit more chast and here to comfort b Bal nghem 11. Apr. a poor Captain Thus far what Bellarmin saies c Bell. de Beat. Sanct. l. 1. c. 20. sect Alii dicunt may very well pass for certain truth that to help Men in the point of need at z Ibid. an 1200. the same time and in so many distant Countries no nimbleness can serve the turn nor any thing less saies he then a true Omnipresence which is an Attribute proper to God Every Saturday in the Week requires in a special manner this Universal Presence for then the Virgin Mary is in her own Person undoubtedly and by their most solemn Devotions upon that day exalted besides others above the highest Heavens She is at the same time conceived to be most present and beneficial by her Miracles and other waies to her Worshippers upon Earth and according to the promises which she hath d Bull. Sabbath passed to Pope John the 22d she goes down to Purgatory upon that day and therefore she is then under ground This same Universal Presence the clearest Character of God is in a very great mesure required in all other Saints for she goes seldom without them then they are praied to nevertheless from all parts not only to intercede in Heaven which there they might being in one place but to assist them by Sea and Land in Spain and in Armenia which no man believes they can do without believing them every where For no created Causes whatsoever can work any thing but where they are If our Savior did help some sick at a distance from him as Matth. 8.12 He did it with that Divine immense Nature that his human was united to And Holy Souls are not likely to have more power then the Angels who are personally present wheresoever they work any thing If any one say that the Saints may out of Heaven do on Earth whatever they please not by their coming down themselves but by their sending down some Angels First let him shew That the Saints are not only equal to but superiors to the Angels and then that they have the disposal of this Celestial Hierarchy Secondly tho they or at the least the Virgin had it yet this sending of Angels could not be applied but to some few private Services as when some say 't was not her self but some Angel whom she had sent for her but to counterfeit the Devotions and to save the credit of a Nun for the space of nine whole Years when
together as when she seeks him in the Temple Luke 2.49 or when she put him in mind of what they wanted in Cana John 2.13 or when she stood without and sent for him Mark 3.34 or lastly for I do not find them any more meeting and speaking together when he saw her standing by his Cross John 19.26 for there you cannot chuse but observe how little this great God and Savior was moved with all those Concerns even during the daies of his flesh that had their ground in flesh and blood and that if this Blessed Woman deserved any b Chrysost in Matth. c. 12. Hom. 44. Blessedness and had a gracious access to her Son it was by being a Believer rather then by being a Mother These four Passages cannot well bear any other sense and the severity which some of them express besides as some Fathers do c Epiph. cont Haeres l. 3. p. 447. Edit Basil well observe it stands upon Record for a warning to keep the Church from thinking better of Mary then her being a Blessed Virgin and perhaps a Holy Martyr Christ by this short Reply Woman what have I to do with thee John 2.3 having branded that great Impiety which he foresaw in after Ages and which we see to our great grief scandalously reigning in our daies For now at the head of ten thousand Saints of whom some were never in being as far as any true Authors can tell as St. Christopher St. Catharine St. Longis some were no better then Villains as Thomas Becket James Clement and such like which the Pope pleases to Canonize some are very true and blessed Saints but were never praied for nor praied to as long as Israel had a Prophet or the Church of Christ an Apostle at the Head I say of all these appears now in the Church of Rome what all both Prophets and Apostles may justly rend their Garments at the Virgin Mary under the Pomp and the very name of Goddess Not to mention the Worshippers how many and famous soever who in their Devotions * Ambros Cathar de Consummata Gloria pag. 112. and 115. Bernarden Meriale 3. p. S. 5. de Nominatione Mariae Lugdun Francisc Mendos Virid l. 2. Probl. 2. call her so one Pope or two may serve for all Leo the tenth in an Epistle that was published and therefore confirmed by the Command of Paul the third demands some better Timber for the repair of one of her Churches Ne tumnos tum Deam ipsam c. d Petr. Bemb Epist. l. 8. Epist 17. Lest by sending some useless sticks you seem saies he to delude both his Holiness and the Goddess her self This pretended God-head Deification e Petr. Damian Serm. 1. in Nativ Virg. and Divine f Mart. Delrius de Divin Milit. p. 886. Lips de Virgine Hall passim Gononus Chronic. an 1356. Majesty which under several Titles is attributed to this Goddess is not a thin Participation such as they allow to other Saints whom upon this score they call Gods but g S. Bernardin Serm. 61. a kind of Equality with God and an Infinity of Perfections which no Creature ever had Some do call it h Argentensis De Sept. Excellentiis identity others more plainly i B. Alanus part 2. c. 6. Esse Dei that is the very same thing or the very Being of God besides her other three Beings 1. of Grace 2. of Glory 3. and of the Mother of God Hereupon the Jesuites infer as well they may 1. that k Mendosa de Florib l. 2. Problem 2. n. 11. there is an infinite distance between the Mother and the Servants 2. That the greatness l Viegas Apocal. 12. Comm. 1. Sect. 4. n. 3. of this Goddess is a Mesure in a manner of Gods own Immensity 3. And that therefore 't is impossible to know well Gods Immensity without understanding the Virgins greatness Now if you will know how the blessed Virgin who was and is confessedly a finite Creature hath attained to this real Godhead and to the Infinity that attends it they will tell you that this great Miracle of being made Goddess was wrought in her 1. By a Singular Glorification and mutation in her proceeding from the whole Trinity For when once m Alan suprà c. 8. pag. 130. she presented her self to the Blessed Trinity in behalf both of her self and her devout servants God Almighty they say spoke to her thus Esto c. Be thou the noble and threefold Room where the Trinity shall inhabit I will be thoroughly changed into thee and thou shalt be thoroughly changed into me by special and singular Glorification 2. More especially by an entire and essential Communication from the second Person for thus they make Christ speaking n Guerricus ap Mendos Virid l. 2. Probl. 2. n. 11. to her Thou hast given me to be man I will also give thee my being God 3. Most specially by such a large Effusion of all Divine Excellencies as may o Quir. Salazar in Prov. c. 8. v. 23. n. 302. hold up proportion with the infinite Goodness and Appetency which the holy Ghost hath to be diffused to others So that as the Father did satisfie his own desire in bestowing his whole Divine Being on his Son and the Son with the Father in bestowing all what they have upon the Holy Ghost so likewise the Holy Ghost hath the same satisfaction for want of a fourth Person to spend and to pour himself in gifts and Graces upon Mary whom upon this account they dare all and God forgive them for calling her so Totius Trinitatis Complementum that is the Perfection and Accomplishment of the whole Trinity and to this purpose belongs what they say that in Heaven she hath her Throne by the Father as his only Daughter and Mignion or as others say p Argentens De Septem Excell 7. in quality of Gods Lady above the Son q Ibid. as being his Mother and close to the Holy Ghost in quality of his dear Spouse I have no mind to trouble my Reader and my self with rehearsing what here they babble or rather most ridiculously blaspheme concerning the r Salar in Prov. c. 31. n. 55 56 57. Jealousie between the Holy Ghost and Joseph upon the point of serving and pleasing her best It is enough which they will tell you and insist upon twenty times that this Virgin was the chief Allurement which in the beginning moved God Almighty s Idem c. 8 v. 25. n. 317. to make the world t Bernard Serm. 1. in Salv. and that Heaven and Earth were created and all the holy Scriptures written ob hanc propter hanc for her sake and upon her account That when in the eternal Decree and Prevision u Salazar Prov. c. 8. v. 23. n. 269. of God all other things did appear but as Molehills the great worth of this Virgin stood before him as
Soul thirst after her and do not leave her till she hath blessed thee Let thy mouth be filled with her praise and sing of her greatness all the day long That of the same Moses at the red Sea Exod. 15. Let us sing to our glorious Lady the Virgin Mary Our Lady is Almighty Her name is next to God She hath thrown into the Sea the Chariots of Pharaoh his Host c. O Lady thou hast delivered my Soul from the Lion O my dearest Lady cover thou me as a Hen doth c. I am all thine and all I have is thine I will put thee as a signet upon my heart c. That of Isaiah 12. I will sing to thee O Lady c. for thou hast comforted me my Lady is my Savior I will trust in thee and will not fear Thou art my strength in the Lord and art become my Salvation with joy will I draw Waters out of thy brook and I will call upon thy name alwaies c. That of King Hezekias in the same Prophet 38.9 when he was recovered from his mortal Disease I said in the midst of my daies I will go to Mary c. Father Mother and Friends did forsake me but Mary hath holden me up I will put my trust in her in the morning in the evening and at noon-day God had as it were a Lion broken my bones but thou our Lady hast delivered my Soul from perishing my Darling from the hand of the Dog c. That of the three Children commonly so called All the works of the Lord bless our Lady praise and magnifie her for ever O ye Angels bless our Lady c. Blessed be thou O Crown of Kings Let every knee in Heaven in Earth and in Hell bow unto thy Name c. That of Zachary Luke 1.38 Blessed be thou Lady Mother c. Save us from all our Enemies c. and perform the Mercy promised to our Fathers and us that we being delivered out of the hands of our Enemies may serve thee without fear c. And thou Mary shalt be called the Prophetess of the Highest by whom he hath given the knowledg of Salvation c. By the Bowels of thy Mercy O Morning Star do thou visit us from on high To complete Idolatry with absurdity that very Hymn wherewith she adored once her God is with some parcels of the Song of Annah 1 Sam. 2. now turned into an Office to adore her My Soul doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in my Lady c. There is no Saint like our Lady c. Let Sion and Jerusalem rejoice and praise Mary for she is the greatest among the Ladies of Israel She makes poor and she makes rich She brings low and she lifts up on high This Lady of ours is higher then the Heavens broader then the Earth and purer then the very Stars 6. Sixthly She is adored with the most solemn and elevated Office that the ancient Church could worship God with namely Te Deum We praise thee O Mary we a Melch. Inchofern Ep. B.M. ad finem acknowledg thee to be the Lady All the Earth doth worship thee as the Spouse of the everlasting Father To thee all Angels c. continually do cry Holy holy holy Mary the Mother of God The holy Church thro out all the world doth acknowledg thee Mother of an Infinite Majesty Thou art the Queen of Glory O Mary the Ark of Grace and the Ladder of Heaven Thou art the hope of all the world the Salvation of them that call on thee the Teacheress of the Apostles the strength of the Martyrs c. O Lady save thy People c. Vouchsafe O Lady to keep us this day and for ever O Lady have mercy upon us have mercy upon us O Lady let thy mercy lighten upon us as our trust in thee c. Lastly there is added to her Honor that Praier which belongs to the Holy Ghost Veni Creator and which some say the Council of Constance at their meeting were pleased to present the Virgin with Come Mother of Grace Spring of Mercy Light of the Church Queen Star c. come to defend the Church to destroy Heresie and to make peace c. And in a word to do any thing that an honest and pious Council may better expect of the holy Ghost 7. Seventhly There is a whole Bible made and Printed to her Honor Biblia Mariae Albertus Magnus both a great Scholar and a great Bishop and a kind of Roman Saint is the Prophet who as it is thought composed it This Holy Book gives the Virgin all or b Biblia Mariae Tit. Pag. Omnia fere most part of what was in the true Bible either said or intended for God and Christ As for Example in Genesis She is the truth both of the Altar which Noah built and of the Sacrifice which he offered and the Sweet savor which there was smelled is nothing else then her Praier She is the Ladder which Jacob saw Gen. 28. wherewith Christ is to come down to us and we are to come up to him In Exodus she is said to be both the true Mercy-seat and the great Altar of Burnt-offerings In Leviticus and Numbers she is the Ark of the Covenant the Rock whence flow the Waters of Grace and the Star which Balaam saw c. In Joshuah she is the Border of our Heavenly Inheritance the Window through which we must escape and be saved from Jericho that is from perishing in and with the World the Ark which marches before us to Canaan that is Heaven there to prepare us a resting place the City of Refuge where those must seek shelter whosoever flee from the Wrath of God c. In the Book of Judges she is the true and great Captain in whose hand our Celestial Father puts the whole Land Heaven all Power and Himself Therefore take heed saies this Godly Bible from going to war without her In Ruth she is the true Ruth with more probability then the Captain who goes to the Field that is the Church there to glean ears of corn left in the Field by the Reapers that is some few which she rescues from Devils Thus she gleans whomsoever she pleases for Boaz hath charged the reaping Angels not to to touch her Ruth 2.9.15 16. When she hath gleaned them she takes them up into the Bosom of her Mercy and carries them into the City v. 8. that is into the Celestial Jerusalem In the 1. Kings 1.2 3. She is the fair and young Virgin who is to lie in the Kings or Gods Bosom and inflames him to love and compassion towards his People Thus this Bible running all along to the Revelation after this rate at last ends with this Praier instead of the Grace of our Lord c. O Queen of Mercy Grace and Glory Emperess of all the Creatures blot out all my Transgressions and lead me to the life everlasting 8. The Virgin
having Bibles and Psalmes and other Instruments of Devotion wherewith Christians serve God and Christ there is no reason she should want Churches And she hath them in so great a number consecrated to her Service and Visited to her honor and all in such a special manner that as they impiously are used to say c Salazar Prov. ε. 31. v. 11. n. 55. that the Holy Ghost is jealous of Joseph on her account because they both are her Husbands God Almighty the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost may justly be Jealous of that Idol which appearing under her Name gets more Churches to its Service then God to his Those men cover this Shame but with Figleaves who give out these Churches to be but d Bell. de Cult Sanct. l. 3. c. 4. sect Altera solutie Palaces and herein as well their own Church Books as their very Goddess gives them the lie Their own Church Books For they have not one Church consecrated to God since Poperie that is not with the same words and order consecrated to the Virgin e Pontifical Rom. Tit. de Dedication Eccles Sanctificetur c. Let this Church be Sanctified and consecrated in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost to the Honor of God and of the Glorious Virgin and to the memory of such a Saint By which words it appears that tho the Palace be pretended to be but a Memorial to such a Saint talis Sancti it must be a Church to the Virgin or not to God Since He an She have the same Rank and Interest in that main End that the Church is consecrated to I say that their very Goddess also confutes their distinction between a Palace and a Church whensoever she appears abroad for the building either of them Witness the Celestial f Chronic. Deip. an 1274. Ladder and the ascending Angels and her self above them all to mark the very Ground where she would have a Church built to her Honor. Witness S. Balduin the Ermite whom this evil Spirit for the g S. August contra Faust. l. 20. c. 21. item de Civit. l. 20 passim good Spirits abhor such things chid severely h Chronic. Deip. an 1112. for not building a Church so fast as she did wish in a place that She had chosen for them that would serve her Witness that large and square Stone of Anis where she declared what she intended for her self both in that and all other places k Odo Gissaus Histor Virg. Anic This is the Place saies she which I have chosen to this purpose that here and hereafter mortal men may worship me and serve me throughout all Generations Now I hope such houses for Devotion Praier and Worship by what name soever you call them are just that which we use to call Churches by making them stately and Roial you may make them Palaces also but this Magnificency cannot unchurch them The Jesuite Canisius is plain and downright and herein more sincere then his good Brother Bellarmin for he calls them Templa Mariana l Canisius De B. V. l. 5. c. 23. the Temples or the Churches of Mary In those Churches they say that she will appear sometimes in a created capacity only either to sing her part among the Nuns like a Chorister or to burn Incense to Perfume n Bover Tom. 1. Annal. Capucin the Church like a Diacon or to give the Sacrament o Chronic. Deip. an 1248. like a Priest Visne c. that is My Son Sylvester wilt thou take the Body of my Son or to Confirm her worshippers and cross them p Leand. Albert. in vita Jordan all with her Sons hand or to sit in an Episcopal Throne like a Bishop But at last her main purpose is to appear there more like her self to proclame before all the world that she is the x Blosius in Monili Mother of God and the Queen both of men and Angels and upon this account Bellarmins Palace well becomes her to swear y Henriquez in Guntelin 13. Sept. Catholics to her Service to promise them z Nicephor Eccles Hist l. 15. c. 25. protection and all spiritual Blessings upon condition they shall pray to her heartily and at the Service of God both begin a Chronic. Deip. 221. and end with her Praises Sometimes she will take this trouble upon her of teaching them how to do it And this is the Model she gave and sung once to S. Godrick S. Maria c. b Matth. Paris in vita Godric Holy Mary Mother of Christ blot out my Sins reign in my heart and bring me up to Happiness with God alone God himself cannot have more and Churches by their usual Consecration promise no less And to render this Consecration yet more solemn as the Ground where these Churches stand is commonly markt outby the Virgin so the Consecrating of them to her Service is now and then c Odo Gissaeus Histor B. V. Anic performed by her Angels 9. Ninthly These Churches of hers have Altars which are no part of a Palace and which are dedicated to her Service Every Altar even in Christs own Church is consecrated to this double use to wit d Pontificat Roman supra to the Honor of God and to that of the Glorious Virgin and this on several respects either e Ibid. as a Stone or a Table or a Sepulcher or a complete Altar twenty times But besides this She hath as many other Altars which are proper to her alone where if God have any share it is as it were but by the by Such as the Rosary Altars Mariana Altaria the Altars of the good Mary and sometimes under several Titles f Chronic. Deip. an 1287. five such in one and the same Church The Holy God of Israel never had so many in his own Temple It is both a great disingenuity to disguise and as great an impudence to face out this gross and open Idolatry with saying as they will sometimes that these belong to God alone as Altars and to the blessed Saints as Sepulchers For first the Virgin Mary left no Bones if that be true which they say that her whole Body was taken up and carried by the Angels into Heaven And if you be so simple to believe what they talk of that great Abundance of milk which they have got of her since she is above to wit when she is pleased to come down and give suck for having a Child on her Arm she must needs have milk to give him these Altars are not sepulchers for they do not bury this milk under them but keep it among the other Relicks they have of her Combes Gloves Hairs Shifts and Slippers very safe as in wardrobes 2. It is not a Grave it is an Altar which she or rather a quite other Spirit under her Name calls for Go saies that Ambitious Spirit and get me g Chronic. Deip. an
an 1292. knew nothing of it before and to take him for her Husband upon condition he should keep it which he gladly undertaking her Son came down to the wedding and in facie Ecclesiae being in a Priestly Habit and in the face of the whole Church joined this holy Monk and his Mother in a Roman Wedlock together Her other Solemn and great Feast which they call the Assumtion and which in the Roman account makes the Virgin as much a Goddess as the blessed Ascension among the Socinians can make Christ God is scarce older One of the most skilful of all the Fathers in Sacred Antiquity I mean St. Epiphanius had not yet in his time heard of it nor had a great many years after pious and learned Pulcheria when she sought s Nicephor Eccles Hist b 5. c. 14. the Virgins Corps in the Holy Land not dreaming it was in Heaven Neither could Venerable t Beda de Locis Sacr. c. 6. Bede or Arch-Bishop * Martyrol Adon. 18. Cal. Sept. Ado men the best versed both in all true and untrue stories tell much more nor had Ludulphus de Saxonia tho a great Adorer of the Virgin †Devita Christ part c. 186. yet heard of that Legend Nicephorus is the first u Niceph. ibid. Romancer that can distinctly tell with what Triumph of men and Angles She went up twelve hundred years after it was don The Blessed Virgin Mary kept her self during that interval close and happy like other Souls in the Bosom of Abraham and under the wings of her Savior She never thought yet of coming forth either to throw x Mag. Speculum Tit. Festum Exemp 2. Gold or Medals into their hand who kept this Feast or to bury y Bencius supra them under ground who kept it not Neither mortal Ears had heard till then in the blindest times of the Church the Angels z Cantiprat l. 2. c. 4. n. 7. singing their Mattins to celebrate that Festival nor mortal Eies seen Trees * Gonon ex Annalib Colmar an 1276. both to blossom and bear Fruit against nature nor Hoods and a Cantiprat l. 2. c. 29. n. 26. Frocks becoming as good as strong Boats to ferry Monks over a great River when they would preach the Glory of that day In good earnest can an infallible Church can a true Church be drawn away to new Services upon the account of such Tales Or if these Tales and hundred other as bad or worse be true stories as they may be and I am not he that will dispute it what must we think of that Spirit which is pleased to entice us to his Service upon such Grounds This matter proves as bad again in the Point of Altars and Churches First it cannot be a good Spirit if created that calls for either Altars or Churches Secondly it is not a good Spirit neither that calls for them by unbecoming ridiculous and jugling waies Thirdly 'T is not a true Religion or a true Church that yields to that Spirit what he calls for both on those accounts and by those waies First Such Spirits what name soever they take are to be shrewdly suspected who call for Churches Vows Altars Offerings and all such other sacred services as clearly belong to God alone And in express terms Saint Augustin makes no doubt b August de Civit. l. 10. c. 19. but that they are Devils Good Angels saies this holy Father do then love us and for our sakes do rejoice when we worship the only God but if we do the like to them they are not pleased with it at all but openly cast it from them And when some have thought of deferring also to them that honor they forbad them and commanded them to do it to him to whom alone they know that it can be lawfully done Herein the Holy Men of God do imitate the Holy Angels c. Therefore saies and concludes the c Ibidem same Father as well he may when some of those Spirits or Saints have a mind to be served with holy Rites and Sacrifices and others avert it from themselves and order it for God alone the very sense of true Piety may teach any Man how to discern between that which proceeds from true Religion and what from a Spirit of pride for proud Spirits are neither good Angels nor the Angels of a good God And let d Ibid. c. 11. them do what Miracles they will even beyond the course of Nature these are but seducing Tricks of wicked Devils which true Piety must take heed of Here the Papists cannot answer St. Augustin nor satisfie him at all by saying That no Roman Saint or Spirit was ever found calling for any Sacrifices that is for the Blood of Bulls or Goats which here St. Augustin understands for then the Father will reply and out of Porphyrius an authentic Pagan Author that these proud c Ibid. c. 19. Devils never cared for the Blood or smell of slain Beasts upon any other account then because such Sacrifices were in those daies the Expressions of Divine Worship as now surely Churches and Masses are destined to the same end and therefore as much at the least if not more desirable and pleasing to them Who doubts but all the Gold and Silver Utensils which you shall find at Lauretta may be as rich Oblations as all that was once at Delphi And let any Jeweller tell me whether one of those many precious Stones which are daily by formal Vows sent and presented to that Goddess would not buy the best Bull or Ram that ever was at any time Sacrificed at Jerusalem To follow the Roman accounts one Mass is better then all what both Delphi and Jerusalem had together and if the Devils anciently craved for the slaughter of silly Beasts because such was the solemn worship of Israel how proud may they be now to see upon their Altars the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ which tho in very deed but a Wafer yet in the Opinion of Papists is the most solemn Worship of Rome You will say that this Flesh or Wafer is not sacrificed to the Virgin Mary true indeed but it is worse for it is sacrificed to God for her sake in honorem Mariae Thus when I make much of a Stranger for my Friends sake the Stranger hath the entertainment and God upon the Roman Principles hath the Sacrifice or the Mass but the Friend and the good Lady are the main end and the main Persons I look upon he in the Entertainment and she in the Sacrifice a Gonon Chronic. an 1372. Thus this she Ghost understands it Thou art my servant saies she to a Priest offering the First-fruits of his Mass Priesthood when he was singing his first Mass Thou art my servant for I have chosen thee God uses to speak so to his Prophets and I will be glorified in thee I dearly love them of your b Leand. Albert. in vita
Christ the Merits of the Virgin Mary and the Suffrages of the Holy Church we beseech thee O Dominic do not keep us here any longer The Holy Angels can revele to thee at any time what thou wilt know and as for us we are such Liars as no Christian can believe us But the Saint fell to another Praier O worthiest Mother of Wisdom for the Salvation of this good People who have learned in this Rosary to salute thee force thou these Enemies to declare to us the plain truth He had scarce made an end of Praying when behold she comes with a Troop of above an hundred Angels armed with golden weapons and in the midst of them the Virgin with a golden Rod fell foul on the Devils Backs Then fell all the Devils to new howlings O Damning foe who emtiest Hell and makest the best way to Heaven thou dost force us against our will to speak out truth and our own Confusion Hear ye therefore O Christians This Mother of Christ is too potent to preserve her devout Servants from ever falling into our hands It is she who breaks all our Plots and we confess that whosoever keeps to her Adoration and Service can never be damned with us we never can prevail against any one of her People She saves many against our Rights at the very moment of Death and were it not that she frustrates all our Designs we might have long ago made all her Church fall from the Faith To say all in a word no man who makes use of her Rosary can be damned S. Dominic having by this time what he lookt for bids the People to say the Rosary then O Miracle never to be forgotten at every Ave Maria a Troop of Devils under the figure of burning Coals breaks out of that Heretics Body and being all out The Virgin gives them her Blessing and goes her way The Conclusion and design of all this is all sorts of People from that time applied themselves in good earnest to the use of the Rosary and to the worship of Mary Christ and all his Apostles never thought of making thus the Devils to preach his Gospel no more did Moses or Elias employ them so to confirm the Law It seems the Rosary as to its end hath neither Christ nor Elias nor Moses nor any true Saint to favor it and therefore t is no wonder if it was helped by other waies Nevertheless all the World was not so generally blind and sottish as not to see that the Devil could tell a ly and juggle then with S. Dominic and so this new sort of service having no better ground to stand upon then the warranty of the Devil made so little Progress in the world that the same sprite under the Name of the Virgin Mary 400 years after was fain to appear e Gonon Chronic. an 1476. to another Saint and with extraordinary Favors as Rings made of her own hair and milk which she Drew out of her own Brest to enchant him to the same Service At the first it was called our Ladies f Bulla Sext. 4. Psalter because the Lady hath there 150 Salutations as in the Bible the Lord hath 150 Psalmes Now it is called the Rosary either because of the Sweet Comforts that g Martin Navar. De Rosar Miscell 1. as they say it perfumes Devout Hearts with or more probably because of a sweet odour sweeter then that of any Roses which devout worshippers pretend to smell at such Praiers Herman this Ladies great Mignion did smell it so perfectly that at each naming of Mary h Chronic. Deip. an 1235. he stooped his nose to the very ground that so he might have it the fresher and they tell us of an old man of the same Confraternity that at any time or place soever when and where he said his Rosary i Ibid. an 1594. he was revived with this Aromatical Fragrancy Nay the very hand of Saint Caecilia k Ibid. an 1507. even after she was quite dead did smell they say better then any Rose by often touching her Rosary This smell is invented to perswade men of the Excellency of the matter which Excellency is quite other as they take it then could be had either from the breath of an Arch-angel or the mouth of a Prophet For the Roman Church hath improved it to such a form to such an end and to such a signification that now it hath a hundred Mysteries in the mouth of a Catholic which it never had in that of the Angel tho you should grant as they will have it that he l Gonon Chronicon pag. 10. sung it upon his knees For as they take it Ave that is sine vae that is without any thing that hath any smell of Curse is such m Martin Navar. de Oratione Dom. c. 19. n. 131. a Salutation as proclams the Virgin Mary to have bin free from all kind of sin whatsoever from the Original in her passive Conception from all Actual whether mortal or venial in her life time and from any decay or corruption in her Body either at or after her death Maria in their Roman Construction raises the heart of a Worshipper to adore her both Soverain and Universal Monarchy over all men and Angels sometimes n Missal Paris in Sab. Missae de S. Maria. over God himself too They take and construe o Navar. De Orat. Domin c. 19. Maria also for that special Star that guides poor Travellers upon the Sea Stella Maris the surest defense against all storms the best Leader into Heaven both by her Example and Merits the Light of them that sit in darkness and the great Star that Balaam saw Gratiaplena makes her in the same Grammar * Navar. ibid. a whole Sea and Ocean whence the Sinners have their Pardon the just men all Increase of Grace the Angels joy and the whole Trinity Glory here they find in particular the seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost the nine Miraculous Powers and the twelve p Antonin 4 part Tit. 15. c. 20. special Privileges of being the Mother of us all the Gate of Heaven c. Therefore this Ave Maria when specially thus understood makes the sweetest Melody by * Chronic. Deip. an 1303. her own confession that ever you can sing in her Ears Christ himself as they think or at the least say sings q Vita S. Margaritae Chronic. S. Franc. c. 3. it sometimes upon the Altar and the Virgin hath it written in letters of Gold upon r Gonon Chron. an 294. her brest Many People who knew nothing but the three or four first words of this Angelical Salutation s Chronic. Deip. an 1149. Ren. Benedict de Vit. SS 1. Nov. Th. Cantiprat l. 2. c. 29. sect 9. have bin as they say as well saved therewith as if they had known the whole Gospel And all the t Molan Indic SS Belg. Roses and white Lilies nay
kind of Relief these Bulls can afford to contrite and repenting Robbers against hanging in an human Judicature and then hope or despair of what they are boasted to do against the Soveraign Divine Justice Nay let the wisest of all the Papists hearken to their own sense and reason If an g Bellar. de Indulg l. 2. c. 1. sect Quarta Objectio Indulgence saies Bellarmin cannot so much as take away the Punishment which an Inferior Magistrate condemns a Thief or a Murderer to how much less able shall it be to take of that Punishment which God hath decreed against Sinners And what do they conceive Purgatory Burning to be else They * Ibid. acknowledg also that the Pope by his Indulgences cannot pardon any Punishment which is inflicted by God as Judg in an Exterior and criminal Judicature If so in good earnest doth not God Almighty act as a Judg when he condemns men to Punishment in order to satisfy his Justice And is not that an exterior and Criminal Court of Justice wheresoever men are condemned to such grievous and long and outward Punishments Or if you call it inward why should the Judgment of God be less and the Power of the Pope more regarded in Gods own internal then in his external Judicature Here the Popes are pleased to juggle as the Fellow used to do who bragged how far he could jump at Rhodes where he knew no man had seen him But saies one if it be so come friend here is as good ground as at Rhodes let us therefore see what you can do The Popes brag much how bravely they can save men from all the dangers in a Place where no body tells us the truth of what they are pleased to brag of But here in the Course of this mortal life where we see so many temporal Judgments of God so many Plagues and Penalties inflicted by God Almighty upon absolved sinners for their sins my Rhodian Boaster cannot jump the Popes Bulls save from none of them and by their own Confession their Indulgences h Bellar. de Indulg l. 1. c. 8. can help no man against any kind of Miseries whether for Original sins such as are Infirmities Diseases and Death or for any actual sins such as Plagues upon men and Countries It is in vain when men go to Rome for a Bull against any kind of Tribulations whatsoever either in their Soul or Body Relations or Fortune No Indulgence can reprive from any Punishments that we can see only that one which we see not the being tormented in Purgatory for sins which God hath forgiven and there only my Jumpers can work wonders and their Indulgences are worth Gold If the compassing of these two Ends namely the easing you from pious Exercises whensoever you are troubled with them and the removing of Gods purgatory Justice be both impious and impossible the manner of attemting it by laying out the blood of Christ in Indulgences is not much better At first when the Fathers of Trent talk magnificently of opening their great i Concil Trident. Sess 21. c. 9. Celestial Magazines and of drawing out thence by the means of their Indulgences Christs Blood and all sorts of Blessings all this makes shew of a great matter But if you will come but somewhat near you shall find it what Eneas did when being in the Heathenish Limbus he thought to see and embrace his Father it is but an emty Phantome which hath neither flesh nor bones that you can hold 1. For first this Celestial Magazine is not lockt and opened at Rome as the Vatican Library is whence the Pope and his Officers may lend to Baronius what Ancient Records he calls for there to find tales for his purpose and sometimes Truth against himself Nor is it like the Tresury where His Holiness keeps his Monies when it comes in from selling Bulls under the pretense of Holy Wars c. and goes out as they k Aventin Annal. Boior l. 7. say sometimes it doth in real truth to arm Turks against Chrians Nor is it like those more holy consecrated Repositories where their holy Relics are kept and whence they may at any time shew all what you have a mind to see the Head or the Toe of a Saint the Milk or the Hairs of the Virgin It were fair if this Tresury where Christs Blood and Ransom is kept were but like their Holy Mass Pyx where the whole Body lies still at hand for any man that may want it for then it were easy for the Pope to take in and out what he pleases They say that this whole Tresure is laid up in mente acceptatione Divina l Suarez De Thesaur Deip. 51. Sect. 1. n. 6. that is in the very mind and acceptation of God himself where no sober man will imagine that any Roman Pope can reach as he must in the present Case The Case is this The Pope must have to dispose of as much or as little of the blood of Christ as he intends to make his Indulgence to be worth If it be an Indulgence for 40 daies any Bishop may take as much so very little of this blood may serve if the Indulgence be for 40 or for 4 or 500 years he must proportionably take so much the more for all Indulgences being supposed to be really fraught with Christs Blood and to be effective Paiments made by the Pope to God himself out of his Sons satisfactions and Sufferings here first you must admit another such business as in the Mass Sacrifice First the Pope reaches to part of this Celestial Tresure which is with God above any human reach one should think otherwise how could he pay it and having it I leave to others to determine what way the Pope can come it supply all Exigencies especially at the Jubilee and generally at any time I ask any Christian Conscience whether these satisfactions and this Blood supposing true what they fancy should not be much better left in the hand of Christ himself then in the disposal of a Pope who when we may have the greatest need namely when after Death we must all stand above at the Bar is at a great distance from us knows neither our Danger nor our sins nor what Judgment shall pass on us nor what we want to secure against that danger Were not this better in his hand who hath shed it and presented it already to God who sees our need and who stands there to help out Were it not better left in Gods own hand to whom Christ first presented it And who is the Judg to whom they say the Pope must present it back again Is the Pope being at Rome more willing or more able having this Blood under his key to help with it remote and unknown Souls then Christ who is present to save his Members And whether of the two is more merciful and more likely to use it best to our Salvation the Pope at a distance
the saying de Profundis * Clemens 8. Constit 29. Ex debito nostri for Souls vexed in Purgatory in the Arch-confraternity of the Blessed Mary de Suffragio allowed by Pope Clement the 8th or Worshipping an Arm of S. Andrew a Toe of St. Paul and a Finger of S. Catharine y Sixt. 4. Constitut. 14. in the Confraternity of the Holy Ghost or in visiting a certain Altar and Chappel z Pius 4. Constitut 16. as in the Confraternity of St. Rochus or in kneeling with an Ave when you hear a certain Bell a Paul 3. Constit 20 as in the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament or praying before a little Image found by a Shepherd in an old Tree b Lipsius Virg. Hall Astericoll as in the Confraternity of our Lady Hallensis and of Montague And who can doubt but these and other such elevated Devotions about Bones Bells and old Images may much Spiritualize Christian Souls and advance them to Heavenly Things 2. The second advantage of these Holy Confraternities consists in an infinite heap of Indulgences which the Popes call c Gregor 13. Constit. 38. Pastoris aeterni the Spiritual Sweet-Meats Spiritualium Alimentorum Esca wherewith Men are allured and baited to Christian Perfection At your first step into a Confraternity all your sins whatsoever Heresie and Rebellion against the Pope alwaies excepted shall be most fully forgiven at your stepping out of it by death you have as much and as long as you live in it you scarce can do any the least thing as to go to Church walk after a Procession or in case you must keep your Chamber say a short d Paul 3. Constit. 20. Dominus noster Paul 5. Constit 29. Postulat ratio Ave when it passes or when the little Bell rings but you shall be rewarded for what you do with seven or ten and sometimes a hundred Years of true Pardon Besides all this by entring into a Confraternity you enter at the same time under the Protection and special Favor of some great Saints St. Sebastian St. Hubert c. and most commonly our Lady her self who you may be sure will look well to her Family and make good what true Catholics daily teach and hope of her c Franc. Mendosa Viridar l. 2. c. 9. namely That it is absolutly impossible for any one of her Servants to be damned And hence swarm out most if not all yet most of the Revelations the Miracles and wonderful Deliverances wrought in behalf of the Brethren whether Monkish or Lay and Secular Persons of every Confraternity 3. But the main Benefit indeed and the most earnestly sued after by them who give their names to these admirable Companies is that of exchanging their Guilt and Sins with other Mens Satisfactions and good Works The Protestants never understood well how the Roman Church is skilful in shifting on and off good and bad Deeds from one Man over to another First There are in every Confraternity Saints and other more common Brethren endued with so many and great Merits and satisfactory Works that they have much to spare to others Secondly There are as they say in every one of these good Works two several distinct Virtues to accommodate a poor Friend with to wit a Meritorious Influence to procure him Grace and an Expiatory Quality to secure him from Punishment Thirdly they can order both Influences to go just what way and upon what Person they direct them If the Owner feels any need of them for his own use it is fit they should stay at home but if he wishes them for a Neighbor this very wishing and actual Intention will so appropriate the whole business to whomsoever he pleases that when he Praies Fasts Whips himself and doth any act of like Piety all this shall make the poor Sinner both as acceptable to God ex Congruo that is in equity and as safe from Punishment ex Condigno that is in due course of Justice as if he had done all himself But in case the Holy Man designs by his work nothing else but to please God and so thinks neither of his Friend nor of Himself then it must be presupposed that he is alwaies for the good of his Corporation and this which they call Implicit or Virtual Intention conveies all the Merit and Satisfaction of what he doth not into the public Tresury whence the Pope takes his Indulgences but into these more private Magazins which are proper to each Company whence every Member takes what he wants And if you compare these two together the Tresure of the Church may afford more Satisfactions to shelter one against Purgatory but the stock of Confraternities is more proper for investing him with Merits and advancing him to Gods Favor Therefore Papal Indulgences f Navar. de Jubil Notabil 31. n. 24. saies their best Doctor upon this Matter may be more certain to keep off vengeance but the entring into a Fraternity which all Catholics of all Ages and sorts may do is the better way to procure Grace For whatsoever great Saints have ever deserved of God in their life times as S. Francis in teaching of Birds and St. Dominic in making Beads and all others in like holy Feats besides their Intercession and Patronage is reserved in or hath a direct Influence upon their respective Societies that is the reason wherefore now adaies all sorts of People both high and low Husbands and Wives Nobles and common Trades-men throng to get in and to have their names entred into these visible Sanctuaries And who is the ignorant or mad Sinner that would not there provide himself with other Mens Satisfactions and Merits when he knows he wants his own Tho these saving Harbors be grown and growing more and more beyond numbring I will recommend to my Catholic Friends but these three Namely 1. The Confraternity of St. Francis his Holy Rope 2. That of St. Simon 's Scapulary 3. And that of S. Dominic's 150 Beads CHAP. XII Concerning three special Means of Salvation the Holy Girdle of St. Francis the 150 Beads of St. Dominic and the Scapulary of St. Simon Stock in their respective Fraternities First Concerning the Holy Rope or Girdle of St. Francis PIOUS and Learned Authors have of late sufficiently informed the World what kind of Saint S. Francis is He is the Man whom the Pope in a Prophetical Dream saw a S. Bonaventur in vita S. Franc. ap Lippom. c. 13. supporting his Lateran Church from falling He is the Man whose Soul roving abroad as bright as the Sun in darkness and like Phaethon in a Chariot whil'st he was at his Praiers gave from that time b Ibidem c. 4. a clear Omen that he was born to be the Light and the Chariot of the Roman World He is the Man who taking on himself this vast Province as he was by two special Revelations directed to save it not by Praying only to which
Bosom to enrich all her neediest Members without any begging from Rome The Scapulary alone well applied to the Breast and Back is by it self a great Jewel It may as they say preserve mens lives better then the strongest Armor against all temporal Dangers and if you hearken to them all they will come to you with hundred stories what of women deliver'd some m Vid. The French Book intituled Alliance spirituelle avec la Vierge of Childbed some of a Cancer some of Leprosie some of a Feaver by appling this blessed Badg unto their Flesh what of men who could not be choaked by Devils n Fasti Carmel an 1368. nor drowned after they were bound hand and foot and thrown into the bottom of the Sea because they had the Scapulary But neither God nor the Pope ever gave the Church any thing comparable to it in all Spiritual Concerns They are not ashamed to call it a Mark of Eternal Salvation and a Spiritual Covenant with Gods Mother by which Covenant you have a clear Title to all what in favor and Mercy she can do for you But without resting on mens sayings because the honestest Monks we know are sometimes temted to say strange things you have as much from her own Mouth In hoc moriens c. i.e. He that dies with this Habit shall be saved and shall not suffer eternal Fire S. Simon and a great many Angels are Witnesses that she said so and as to Purgatory the terror of Roman Catholic Souls she her self engages solemnly Ego Mater Gloriosa c. I the Glorious Mother of God will come down in Person and fetch them out And of this you have no meaner witness then the Monarch and visible Head of your Church Pope John the 22d. Here is his Authentic Testimony in a Bull of his called the Sabbatina or Saturday Bull as I find it in Latin in an Authentic * Benedict Gononus Chronic. An. 1321. Roman Author with the approbation of both the Dominican and the Carmelitan Order And I thought fit to English it that every one may take notice what Spiritual waies Rome can afford for saving Men beyond what Christ and his Apostles were ever known to be able to do The Bull of Pope John the XXII for the Confirmation and Approbation of the Holy Scapulary JOHN Bishop and Servant of the Servants of Jesus Christ to all and every Faithful c. While I was Praying upon my Knees the Virgin of Mount Carmel appears to me and spake unto me in these Words O John O John the Vicar of my dear Son as I will deliver thee out of the hand of thine Adversary the Emperor Lewis the 4th whom he had Excommunicated and make thee Pope so I will that thou shouldest grant to my Holy and Devout Order of Mount Carmel founded by Elias and Elisha the grace of a full Confirmation namely That whosoever being profest will observe the Rule given by my Servant Albert the Patriarch and approved of by my well-beloved Innocent the true Vicar of my Son giving his consent upon Earth to what my Son had decreed in Heaven viz. That whosoever shall persevere in that Holy Obedience Poverty and Chastity and shall enter into this Order shall he saved And that any other Men or Women whosoever shall enter into this Holy Religion wearing the sign of the Holy Habit to wit the Scapulary calling themselves by the Name of Brethren and Sisters of the said Order and Confraternity shall be delivered and absolved from the third part of their Sins from the day of their admittance promising withal Chastity if she be Widow Virginity if a Maid and Conjugal Fidelity if she be a Married Woman And as to the profest Brethren of this said Order they shall be delivered both from Punishment and Sin And when they shall part out of this World making speed to Purgatory I the Glorious Mother of God will come down thither the next Saturday after their death and will rescue whomsoever I shall find in Purgatory and will bring them up into the holy Hill of Eternal Life But these Brethren and Sisters of the said Confraternity must say the Canonical hours after the Rule of St. Albert and if they be ignorant they must abstain from eating Flesh every Wednesday and Saturday unless some necessity hinder them except on my Sons Nativity Having said thus much that holy Apparition vanished away Therefore I John aforesaid accept of this Holy Indulgence and do confirm and strengthen it on Earth just as Jesus Christ hath by the Merits of his glorious Mother granted it in Heaven Therefore let no Man presume to annul or contradict this Page or Writ of our Indulgence or if he dare let him know that he shall incur the indignation of God Almighty and of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul Given at Avignion Indict 3. and the first Year of our Pontificat This being so I wonder who would wish for more or who would not leave all to have so much 3. Nevertheless altho the best Indulgences of Rome or all other such Roman Pullies cannot do more then this viz. to pull a burning Soul out of the Purgatory Fire up to the Hill of Eternal Life yet if this happy Soul had a mind to appear there more Gentile then her own Works will allow her she hath the advantage of borrowing from the Confraternity wherewith to make her self as spruce and neat as one can wish Let but any Man imagine what stock of Mortifications and holy Works Elias did leave behind for Jezebel and John the Baptist for Herod and Herodias or our Country-man S. Simon for all other such as those three were in case they will all humbly come and devoutly wear about them this holy Scapulary Who is the ignorant or blind Buzard that wil not leave any Religion Gospel and Protestant Churches to run himself and all his sins under this blessed shelter CHAP. XIV Concerning the third means of obtaining Salvation by the Confraternity and 150 Beads of St. Dominic SAint Dominic and S. Francis are the two Saints which as they say our Lady Mary pacified a Flaminius in vita S. Dominic her own Son with being about to destroy Mankind for there she past her honest Word that these two Doctors should without fail reform the three sorts of Sinners the Proud the Covetous and the Carnal whom he hated and so set up again true Holiness thro the whole World You may guess what Francis hath don on that account by what I have said of his Girdle and you may hope likewise that S. Dominic may do as much or more with his 150 Beads However these two are by his Holiness b Bulla Aurea Sacri Praedicatorum Sixtus the Fourth voted to be both the two great Seraphims that help Men to flee up to Heaven upon the Wings of Divine Contemplations and Raptures and the two loud Trumpets which fill Heaven and Earth with their Holy sound
of God threatning that he will not hold them guiltless but look on them alwaies as Sinners and abominable guilty Persons whosoever do take his Name in vain Read who will Roman Service Books there he shall find the whole Trinity as frequently and as formally called down on Bells as on Children as dreadfully named and conjured Per Deum vivum c. By the true God the living God the Holy and Almighty God upon Salt Stones Ashes and such Trash as on his Sacred Ordinances The whole Service of Rome from end to end is pestered with such Conjurings 3. But if such Conjurings be not thought to be taking Gods Name in vain but seem somtimes to work out somthing you may justly fear that they be worse The Jews had an Art of casting out Devils and curing many Diseases some with Rings and Roots of r Joseph Antiquit. l. 8. c. 2. Herbs which they said they had from Solomon some by Suffumigations ſ Justin Martyr cont Tryph. p. 91. Edit Steph. 1551. and Conjurings The ancient Pagans did the same with Flowers t Euseb Praepar Evang. l. 5. p. 117. Edit Rob. Steph. with Figures and with Words which themselves did not understand These for the most part were Scripture names Sabaoth u Origens ê cont Celsum l. 1. Adonai God of Abraham Isaac and Israel c. The truth is abused Scripture and Medicine have ever bin the two common Ingredients of Black Arts this finds out Herbs Roots Gums Perfumes c. that furnishes sacred Words sacred Figures and holy Daies to make up the Enchantment Thus the Devils are best pleased when they trample both on Nature and Grace both on Gods good Creatures and Christs sacred Ordinances You can no where find more of this then both in the Jewish Talmud and in the Consecrations of Rome No Salt no Wine no Smoak no sound of strange Words and Characters can be out of their way and use in order to true Popery and if Christ and the Primitive Fathers ever used any of these Creatures to a Moral and Mystical sense the Papists will first stretch it out to extravagant Allegories and at the conclusion will abuse it for the working out of strange Feats Thus the use of Oil which by the Fathers was applied to represent the Graces of the Holy Ghost falls into the hands of Papists to cure Diseases Thus the ringing of the Bells is improved from calling the People to Church to make Corn prosper in the Fields and thus the Bones of dead Saints and the very Sacrament of the Lord from being kept as holy Memorials to be thrown to quench the Fire and to save Houses And as the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel and such other Names of God proper to his ancient People so must the Holy Trinity the Living God and such other Expressions of the blessed Divine Nature which are more proper to the Christians among other names of Saints and Angels be now brought in with many Crossings and Figures to conjure their Business and as Cardinal Rasponi ingeniously expresses it to make a x Respon de Lateran Basilic l. 2. c. 8. p. 147. Charm of Blessing With this a little Bottle of Holy Water hanged at or by the Beds Tester is conceived to keep the whole Chamber both from Fire and evil Spirits and as much as a small Peper corn of Wax sowed and wrapt up with Silk in the Figure of a Heart and carried about ones Neck is a stronger Preservative then all the forbidden y Concil Laodicen Can. 36. Phylacteries And as these great and sacred Names did not conjure so well as when pronounced in Hebrew for the Devil did not care for the word unless it was said Sabaoth or Adonai as Learned Origen well z Lib. 1. cont Celsum p. 20. Edit Cantab. observes all the Pontifical Consecrations and Exorcisms are in Latin Per Deum Vivum c. and this may he thought a good reason for celebrating their Mass in a Tongue that few understand for fear the Consecrating words in English or other known and common Languages might not work out the great Miracle which they call Transubstantiation Therefore whensoever Serpents or Floods or Quartan Agues are conjured or when to the same good purpose Spells and Papers are given out all is said and written in Latin out of their vulgar Version See their Book called Flagellum Daemonum full of Enchantments to scourge the Devils or their other Book called The Tresure of the dreadful Conjurings Thus 't is the Fate of corrupted Religions whether Jewish or Mahometan or Roman to end in Witchcraft and Sorcery and who can wonder if such continual abusing Gods Holy Name and Scripture proves a strong Invitation to any other Spirit rather then his own But of this you shall hear more about Images CHAP. XVI Concerning the most general and most sensible Inducement to Popery by the means and in the use of Consecrated Images BOTH the first scope and most difficult work of Christian Religion concerning Mankind is to raise up their Souls from low and gross visible Creatures to God himself and all Spiritual Objects Contrariwise the main business of Heathenish Superstitions was ever observed to consist in depressing Men from God and all supercelestial thoughts down as low as ever they could to gross and sensual Idols This second is the easier Task because human corrupt Nature all good or bad Religions being laid aside is apt and prone to move downwards by the very weight of its Principles Men naturally do love as little to look up or to employ themselves about invisible Matters as to gaze at random on emty Air and being guided only by their Senses it is exceeding hard for them to take any other way but towards what they see and touch Hence Rome hath taken the advantage to fit her own Religion from what true Christianity prescribes to what sensual Men can or will do For as to what they can if to love God with all their hearts and to adore him in Spirit be much above their Moral strength to bow passing by an Altar or to sprinkle themselves with Holy Water or to stand or kneel demurely at the lifting up of a Wafer are such acts of Devotion as any one who hath but some health and the natural use of his Members hath sufficient ability to perform And as to what they affect altho all spiritual Exercises and mental Elevations be to them unpleasing and all pure and eternal Objects very far above their sight and farther yet above their care yet they will kiss a Crucifix salute a Cross carry most devoutly a Scapulary an Agnus or a set of Beads about them and these and other like Devotions as I have shewed in many Instances go far in the Roman Account And as to the great Zeal and Passion which the Gospel of Christ requires tho few Men can force themselves so much as patiently to hear one Preaching upon any
Battles e Cartagena De Mirand Deip. sect 70. because he kept among his Captives one who wore still about his Neck a small Image of the Virgin Many hundred years before him old King Arthur most successfully used the same Devise for he had still a shield most curiously painted with the Image of the same Saint * Gononus Chronic. an 640. which revived his Spirits and strength whensoever he found himself fainting And doubtless this is the reason why S. Lewis when tired with hunting or otherwise distrest used to alight and to hang f Eened Gonon Chronic. an 815. an Image which he carried still about him to the first Tree he met with and there kneeling and praying to it had presently what he wanted and it is believed that by this Means he recovered his Estate which his Children had taken from him when they kept him close in a Cloister 3. Now which is the third and the last and the most considerable Point to examine what is or may be the matter in or about all these Images which can procure these quick Returns and herewith upon all occasions temt men to pray and worship them is more then the Roman worshippers can or dare distinctly tell All that you find in an Image must come to some of these three Things 1. The substance that it is made off 2. The outward g Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. c. 21. sect Quarto in Shape or Resemblance that makes it in mens conceit the Image of such an Angel or such a Saint 3. The Consecration that makes it a holy Image As to the first the matter or substance it self to wit Marble Brass or Silver c. can do no more then to make the Image more or less fine rich and costly and tho it were a Saint Christopher that is a huge great statue like a Giant which stands in most of their Churches of Massy Gold it might draw men to admire the Price but not the vertue of the Image For when Images are consecrated it is not as in the case of Mass-wafers which in five words are presently transubstantiated from what they were the Marble or Brass or any substance whatsoever remains still the same and thus far Pagans and Papists may be equally credited when whatsoever their worshipping be they solemnly disown Gold Wood or Stone for being either their Saints or their Gods The second considerable thing in an Image is the outward form and figure intended to represent either among the Pagans a God or among the Papists a Saint Upon this Point tho Roman Images were so ancient and so happy as to be undoubtedly acknowledged for Pictures of S. Nicodemus or S. Luke or a very Angels drawing and tho they should most truly represent the Blessed Virgins-Face and Features the utmost they could temt men to by this most exact Resemblance were perhaps to go a good way purposely to see and view them yet no sober men on such accounts could be temted to worship them much less to hope any great matter from having seen and worshipt them Figures Shapes and Proportions which make Images like or unlike are of themselves you know as uneffectual and unactive on other scores as bare words Cyphers or letters are and therefore the Resemblances which result from them can produce no effect at all but as sacred or profane signs may by some either Divine or human Institution Thus once the Israelites might well hope to keep off the Destroier by sprinkling their Lintels with Blood or to recover their former health by looking up toward the Serpent because God had instituted these two signs and had promised such Blessings if the People did use them so Thus the subjects of the ancient Roman Empire might hope besides the performance of their Duty to get the favor of their Princes by standing about their Statues or by their low and civil kneeling when their first Ministers as once Joseph was in Egypt or Mordecai under Assuerus chance to pass by because these Soveraigns had resolved and declared it should be so and because it is in their power as to challenge their Peoples Duty so to dispense their own Favors at any time at any Place and at any mark sign or token which they will chuse For tho great Kings cannot appear in their own persons every where yet will they some other way appear as Soveraigns and be acknowledged so every where and if any private person or any unruly Multitude take down what they were pleased to set up as the Ensigns of their Empire or of their declared Plesure as they did who pulled down the Statue of Eudocia which Bellarmin h Bellar. de Imag. l. 2. c. 12. sect Theodosius quoque is pleased to make a foolish plea for Images they do affront the Emperors and Kings themselves Now to bring all this home to the Case 1. Who knows that Roman Images are either drawn by a Saint whom no Scripture saies to have bin a Painter rather then by Pilate or by Simon the Sorcerer who perhaps i Iren. cont Haeres l. 1. c. 20. c. 24. were or drawn so true as to invite so much as sober Curiosity to look on them Is it certain that Christ or his Mother were just such as they are now represented she with a delicate Italian Face he with the Corpulency of a Dutch Boy 2. When there is little to satisfie a curious Eie is there more for a pious heart what Sacred Institution of either Christ or his Apostles about Images can either give ground to a due lawful worship or supply the expected Blessings which neither shape nor likeness can Did ever any one of Gods Saints intimate some where in their lives that they would take it very kindly if they were praied to before Images and did ever the Virgin promise to any Body that she would either come or send to save Towns and Countries from plagues and wars when ever they would set up her Statues whether of the two waies is more likely to bring her to what we desire the carrying her Pictures about or as it hath bin successfully don sometimes the plain k Antonin 2. part Tit. 14. c. 2. sect 3. threatening her with drowning it Are the saints come to be of the Devils mind who perform most effectually what Magicians enjoin when they treat l Chaeremon ap Euseb de Praepar Ev. l. 4. p. 117. him with rough Language If both supplicating and threatening be alike uncommanded and impertinent for this Purpose is the looking toward the Ark or the looking up to the Brazen Serpent which had both a Commandment and a Promise so fit a Precedent as they m Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. c. 12. pretend to countenance praying or looking to Images which for certain had neither of these Therefore since neither the Matter nor the external Form of Images have any strength either themselves or of any known help conferr'd by God to
enable them towards any manner of work let us see what the consecrating of this Matter and Form can do For if this last can do little or nothing in order to those great and extraordinary Operations which are attributed to Roman Images you must needs seek farther for some other both as great and extraordinary Principles The Consecrating of Images as the Roman Church practises it may be considered either as a Praier or as an ordinary or extraordinary Power If you take it as a Praier 1. What Ground of faith have they for venturing upon such Praiers and what Promise Precept or Precedent for Blessing Images in hope of being afterwards blessed by them 2. With what Christian and sober modesty can they wish and devise Instruments which no holy man or Scripture ever thought of to put both God upon hearing or his Saints upon mediating and promoting what we shall pray for before Images 3. And as to more special Blessings which are lookt for at the devout using of these Engines what silly fancy is this to call upon God for making wood stone or any other materials that Images are commonly made of after they have shaped it after their own way happy and powerful Instruments to keep houses and Vineyards to keep off Hail and Devils to give women an easie labor to procure good Husbands to Maidens or to kill them who are not so For I am sure many Images are renowned and sought after for such Blessings 4. But what horrible Boldness is this to conjure God in these consecrating Praiers thro his holy Names and Titles in behalf of such strange Purposes so far against the ordinary Course of his Providence and farther beyond his Promises And what Returns can they expect of such faithless sinful Praiers but Vanity and if something else but Gods wrath and their own Confusion If you take this Consecration as a Power I pray when and where appears it that God ever bestowed this Power either on his or the Popes Church Christ in the first times of the Church invested both his Apostles and other Servants with many great and extraordinary Gifts for casting out Devils for curing all sorts of Diseases for removing even Mountains but where either for enabling Images or for the doing either good or harm with Images They bestowed the Gifts of the Holy Ghost very often and as it were of course upon Believers at their Baptism but when and where upon Marbles or curiously wrought Pieces of Timber at their Consecration Where and when did they consecrate Pictures to sink Ships to rout Armies to raise storms and thunders and Hails as Roman Images will do sometimes When the blessed Apostles with the laying on of their hands could endue other men besides themselves with miraculous Power from above in order to prophesying and speaking Mysteries in strange Languages did they endue carved stones also with power to speak and to play to sing or weep and to do all those handsom Feats which are said of Roman Images Did ever S. Peter leave this Power with Simon Magus or the Pope or any consecrating Bishop that on what statue or Picture soever he should lay his hand and sprinkle water and pour Oil and burn Frankincense it should be forthwith elevated to high and mighty Performances If Peter and Paul had this Power and left it to succession God and his Saints must look to it for as Christ is at every turn liable by Consecration to be shut up in a Mass wafer God and his Saints are not quite free from consecrated Shapes and Images For the Consecration as a Power obliges God in a considerable manner to hear and report to his Saints whatsoever is praied for at their Images and ties as considerably the Saints to sollicite and intercede with God for the Request which he reports and often to come down themselves to execute and dispatch it God is bound I say by this consecrating Power which he is supposed to grant both he to hear and to report what is said before the Image for otherwise how could the Saints concerned in the Case understand it and what were the Power good for And the Saint is put to so much trouble For besides the trouble of solliciting the business which they understand they are praied for at their consecated Images how many Ramblings to and fro are they in equity obliged to unless all their Apparitions and Activities about their Images be mere Lies either to hear it the sooner or to give it a quicker dispatch And who knows not that Roman Images and Roman Saints in famous Churches especially are never or seldom asunder I call to witness all the long and holy Pilgrimages undertaken upon this score to Lauretta to Montserrat to S. Michael c. there purposely to meet either with the respective Saints or their assisting Vertue Divorum Divarum Numen that is the Godhead of the He or She Saint which is supposed to watch somewhere in or about his dear Image I call to witness the many Vows which are directed from all parts to these said Saints not in Heaven their proper Abode as one should think but to the Lady at Lauretta or Montaigue or to the good Saint at Padua Ardilliers Montegardia c. there helping men and women by their Images in such Churches And it is to this purpose that both these Images and Churches are consecrated with the greatest Pomp washt with the best sort of Holy water made sweet with the choicest Perfumes lighted day and night with the clearest Lamps and Candles dressed with the costliest Clothes and Laces served with the Curiousest Music the Images specially seated on the Eminentest Places of the Church and what would you have more honor'd with the compleatest Mass to invite thither out of Heaven these Holy guests And let Rome search out her Vatican and try whether in all Antiquity she can find an honest Example for such Consecrations and Attractives but either among old heathenish Priests or among old and new Sorcerers Now tho by this which I have said it appears clearly enough that the Matter the Form the Likeness the Power of Consecration or any thing else which you can find intrinsecal to an Image is both uneffectual and unchristian both as to make it a fit Object for any Religious service or to make it a sufficient Cause of any wonderful Blessing Nevertheless it is found by experience and however it is most certain in the common Apprehension of Roman Catholics that a very great number of Images by being consecrated and worshipped have attained to such a great degree and improvement of strength and Action above what either they are in their Nature or can be raised to by Art that it highly concerns all Christians seriously to inquire into the hidden Causes and Principles of such Extraordinary Atchievements For my part I do not believe and many Papists do not that all and every particular thing commonly reported of these Roman Images is
true and of the other side I do not believe that all is false However if all were false they should do well to burn out of their Church their great Pontifical Ceremonial and Missal Books and to throw away their Images back again into the same Holes whence they were pleased to dig them out But if any part of what they say concerning them be true I make no question it will prove worse then if it were false and to make it good I require only the patient attention of an understanding and unprepossessed Reader Not to make Pagans or Papists in any degree worse then they are both disown in the consecrating of their Images all such a Cellus ap Origen l. 7. substantial Change as in the transubstantiating of Mass wafers both acknowlege the material part of their Images however called and adored by those as Gods by these as Saints to be still stone or wood or silver or viler stuff And in this case the Papists deal disingenuously with the Pagans when they b Bellar. de Imag. l. 2. c. 3. make these worse then they are that they may seem worse then themselves But that within neer or about the Roman or Pagan Images either by consecrating or worshipping them are imported such Additionals of either inherent or wonderful assisting vertues as may both help out worshippers and well deserve Adoration and Service is an Article of Heathenish Faith which the Pagans publicly declare and which the Papists do as really presuppose in all their practice and Histories nor can in truth without belying both their Devotions and Consciences plainly deny however they think it more convenient to mince and palliate it for mere shame This is the down-right Confession of the Heathenish Philosophers You must not wonder saies c Ap. Sozomen Eccles Hist l. 7. c. 15. Olympius to his persecuted Pagans if you see the pulling down and the breaking of your Images since they are made of vile matter and therefore easie to be bruised to dust But once were within them those Immortal and Invisible Powers which are now gone up to Heaven For as another adds more fully d Ap. Arnob. Contr. Gent. l. 6. We take not Brass Gold or Silver properly to be our Gods only we worship in them what holy Consecration hath called into and seated within those Images And this is the Religion of Roman Doctors and Saints 1. e Thom. 3. part q. 83. a. 3. That these dead and inanimate things Wood Stone c. by being Consecrated receive a kind of Spiritual Vertue which makes them fit for Gods Service and for the Peoples Adoration So 2. f Bellarm de Imag. l. 2. c. 23. sect Quod autem possit That both the Saint and his Image being joined together may be Praied to and Adored together also 3. And g Ibid. c. 21. sect Nunc juxta if they be taken asunder the very Images may lawfully be worshipped both by themselves and for themselves besides the Worship due to the Saint No Pagan Idolater for all I know ever said so much and the Roman Practice goes yet much farther First In their ordinary Language the Image is called and taken for the very Saint and in that ordinary Devotion the Image is adored kissed embraced and spoken to just as if they had the Saint in their arms 'T is you saies the Preacher speaking to a Crucifix h Bellarm. De Imag. l. 2. c. 23. that have redeemed us it is you that have reconciled us with God the Father c. Just as the cursed Idolater in the Prophets Isa 44.9 Habakkuk 2.15 praies to the Wood Rowse now thy self and rescue me There both the Devil and his Idol and there the Saint and his Image are hudled up in the same Adoration And as when the Host is carried along all that see the Mass-Priest at any distance fall on their knees and if they hear only the little Bell they cry There is the good God who passes by whosoever goes to or comes from a Church saies Either I will go and pray or now I come from visiting and praying to our good Lady because as he really believes that there the Mass-Wafer is by Transubstantiation become the Lord so he believes that the Image which he hath seen is either by Consubstantiation Inhabitation or some other assisting mode become to him the good Lady And I defie all the Roman Preachers to say any thing to justifie what they do upon this account which the Pagans may not say as well or better for themselves Secondly Lest you should think that Wood and Stone are thus adored spoken and praied to upon the mere account of Resemblance in which case any one of our Ladies Pictures might be adored and praied to as well at a Painters as in a Church is is generally done upon the Faith and Belief of an inclosed or at least assisting Vertue It is this strong perswasion that makes a Catholic Worshipper creep reverently and trembling to our Lady to get a touch for the little Image which he hath newly bought of a Shop and all Men know how much the better their Beads will sell when the Pedler can stoutly swear that they have touched such a Saint that is his Image By this it doth appear evidently that the Image is conceived by them to have some prime Vertue in it self since it imparts it to another and I would know who of them all dares say any of those Images which he dares not scarce look in the Face that it hath besides resemblance nothing more then another stone They that go to touch the Chin or the Toe or some other Bone of a Saint think it endued with some vertue above that of ordinary Bones because it was and is still the part of a Holy Body They who go a long Pilgrimage to rub their Clothes against the Shift of our Lady or their Stockings against the Breeches of Thomas Becket must think that the warmth of their holy Flesh have left in them some hidden Blessing which they do hope may be in some mesure communicated to other things Ask the Papists why that Image which they do call Veronica should have such extraordinary vertues they will tell you that Christ made it himself and that besides this he made it of the Sweat and Blood in his Face But what have other Images in their carved pieces of Wood which may temt sober Men to seek after to touch to kiss in hope of being Blessed by such Embraces unless it be the assisting or inhabitation or some other like commerce of Holy Powers which the Papists call Numina which are either therein or thereabout Thirdly If you will have more convincing Proofs go for example to the Image of our Lady in Mount Gardia i Bened. Gononus Chron. an 1433. which keeps Whores off and perfumes all that comes near it with a most Celestial Fragrancy or to another Image of hers once adored in
and the ordinary Seats of Roman Saints and when Bellarmin with some others say that they do honor these Images as signs only representing and and not as Seats and Instruments inhabited or assisted by the invisible Spirit of their Saints they are confuted by these two waies the visible Practice of their Church and the invisible Testimony of their own private Consciences What might be said more probably both in behalf of these Images and of their zealous Devotion in worshipping them is what frees them from the reproach which Holy Scripture casts on Idols that they have Eies and see withal they have Hands wherewith they handle and somtimes give terrible blows if they have Mouths it is not in vain since they can cry and laugh and speak and somtimes also Prophesie Feet have they and thereon leap and walk and flee and if they have Noses they smell therewith and can tell where the wanton and the wicked Persons are All this I say from their own approved Authors Only the main difficulty remains and I conjure all sober Men as they tender their Salvation to look how to satisfie it well to know what is the inward Principle Spirit or Soul which moves and animates these dead Figures to all and more then what living Bodies can perform with the help of their living Souls Here let the Roman Catholics well consider whether to justifie them by these acts of activity from being Idols doth not by the same means both accuse and convince them of being Devils The Holy Scripture warns Men often against false Christs and false Prophets against false Apostles and false Spirits it were strange if we had no need of warning or of being wary against false Saints I find somtimes the best Roman Monks much puzled what to think of their most celebrated Apparitions and tho they trust too much their Holy Water a pitiful trial God knows in the discernment of the good from the bad Spirits yet they do not think it uncatholic to demur somtimes in such matters It is neither want of Learning nor want of Faith in the School-men the Primitive Fathers of Popery which makes them dispute now and then whether that which they see at Mass under the Figure of raw Flesh or a young Child be Christ himself or a Phantome and certainly we have no ground either in Scripture or in Reason or in Experience to secure us but that the Devils which play such pranks both in Apparitions and on Altars may juggle as well and play worse tricks about consecrated Images First It is no small prejudice against these Roman Images and the Roman way of using them that both came so late into the Church and that in the best Primitive Times when the Church was a purer Virgin none but Heretics had Images whereas in these later and worse Ages when the Church is confessedly worse too no Roman Catholics are without them It is also no small prejudice against the best as it is supposed and the most famous of these Images that when they were admitted at first as either visible Records of Ecclesiastical Antiquity or as Ornaments of new Walls not one of them did work Miracles or if it did 't was in behalf of Infidels and Pagans only as it is presupposed by Patriarch Tharasius n Nicaen Synod secund Act. 4. pag. 626. Edit Bin. Paris 1634. the great Promoter of Image Worship whereas now since they are become both the Objects and the Instruments of Roman Devotion and Blessing they generally work all Miracles in behalf of the Romanists The alteration in the Church as it is now full of Images from the Church as it was then without any Image Worship as it is visible and great must have some visible and great Cause Is it because the Pagans and the Heretics then and the Mass-Priests and Papists now understand the worth of Images and the right use of Image-worship better then the Holy Apostles did Or is it because the Holy Apostles had neither Patriarchs nor Prophets nor Martyrs to make Saints of or to consecrate Images to Is it not more probable to think that this Alteration hath thus happened because both Pagans and Papists are of the same mind as to Images And because the Spirits which Christ and his Blessed Apostles had silenced and beaten off from most of their Pagan Quarters having long wandered among the Heathen and in dry places have at last found better shelter and emploiment at Lauretta Montserat and other great Roman Oracles What can one think else of Images which having kept themselves close dumb and obscure in the best and Primitive daies take now their advantage to start up and to make a noise and to shew Miracles in these later times of the Church when both by Christ and his Apostles Predictions and the Judgment p Joseph Acosta de Temporib Novissim l. 3. c. 3. 14. of sober Papists all must be full of false Prophesies of strong Illusions and lying Wonders Secondly That which aggravates the suspition of appearing in unhappy Times like the coming of Thieves and unexpected Straglers in dark Nights is the ugly and pitiful Holes where most of these Images were at first found For these Images I mean those wonderful and famous ones which the Roman Church runs most after were neither lately made by common Painters nor consecrated by ordinary Roman Bishops they are supposed to have bin made and consecrated by no meaner Workmen then God himself his Christ his Angels and such of his Saints as S. Luke S. Nicodemus c. were and so left and deposited to the Christian Church and Catholic Tradition Hereupon let me ask two things absolutely necessary for any sober satisfaction The first When and where if ever at all these Saints made these Images and by laying on of their Hands or otherwise conferred on them the Gifts of Speaking of Prophecying and working Miracles or put in them an inward or assisting Spirit to make them speak foretel and do strange things The second When and where having used them as it is supposed they have they thought fit to bury them under Ground and to hide some among Thorns some under Brambles all in most pitiful places as dark Holes and hollow Trees where they were found and where any wise Man would rather look for Worms or Toads If you say they hid them in those places for fear of the Pagan Persecuters Pagans were not haters at all nor destroiers of Images contrariwise they loved Images as Papists do But since they were great Burners and Destroiers of Holy Scriptures Why would the Apostolical Men rather hide their Books under ground which were most principally both hated and sought after then their Images which were not so And if they hid both Images and Books together by what universal Mischance did they never find any of these where they found those How came the Holy Scriptures to discover themselves so soon ever in cruellest times of the Primitive
Persecutions and Roman Images so late and so many hundred Years after all these Persecutions were over Why did not Images howl or sing under their Nettles as well in the fourth and fifth Age when S. Epiphanius S. Jerome S. Chrysostom and such Learned Fathers might have best judged of their worth as they did many hundred Years after when Antichrist was expected and when all the Learning and Holiness of the Gospel was under the thickest Cloud If you go to Tradition which is what the second Nicene Council and now the Papists go too as if Roman Images were come from hand to hand immediatly from the Apostles By what misfortune comes it to pass that the many hundreds of Greek Prelats all great Admirers of Images and Boasters of Tradition had never one of St. Luke's Pictures nor of Nicodemus nor of Christ and that now Rome hath got them all But since these Images never came to us through their hands as it is certain they came not that way Rome hath got them either flying like Birds and Fowls over their Heads or creeping along silently like Moles and Vermin under their Feet The truth is when this second Council of Nice was held it was somwhat too soon for such Roman Novelties as the prating and howling of Images to appear above Christian Ground it was not then yet quite so dark but the Church could see about her altho it was toward Sun-setting Hobgodlings venture not to dance at any Light but the Moon-shine A deep Mid-night of Ignorance and of all other Confusions besides which soon after over-whelmed the following Ages was by much a fitter time for Stones and Images to speak and for Spirits to delude Men. And you may judg what Ghosts they are who hide their Heads during the times of the Apostles and all the Primitive Fathers and take their times to shew them when all is full of new Revelations and Dreams and Monks and yet shew themselves in such a manner as marks both their Original and their Nature appearing forth from under ground and watching under Bushes and Brambles like those Spirits in Isa 29.4 which were not heard but muttering out of the dust Certainly those blessed Spirits who are imagined to speak thus are not in Hell whence damned Souls in Romes account will somtimes howl nor in that other place which in their Opinion is about it and which they call Purgatory whence they say that tortured Spirits will come up to bemoan themselves they have a most happy and glorious abode in Heaven whence it is not imaginable they will come down unless thrust out to lurk and weep here under Hedges The Scripture speaks of some false Gods which you may be sure of it were true Devils who loved to be courted under green Trees and of some other wicked Spirits which either whisper with a low voice as from the Earth or are met with and spoken to in some Sepulcher and love to keep themselves and others in Wildernesses and about Tombs The Heathen Rome had familiar Spirits or Demons Dii Lares and Dii Penates which watch'd and fluttered about their Hearths and Houses I have heard of some who had travelled in the East that in those vast Desarts between the Holy Land and the Red Sea especially about Mount Sina there are many unhappy Phantomes that will watch and kill Men somtimes when they find them single and stragling from their Convoies or Caravans And I am satisfied by some noble and living Eye-witnesses that often in some Silver Mines as for example near Befo rt in the Frontiers of France and Germany are seen a sort of seeming little Men in red or blue Juppa's Genii Metallici playing and trifling about Work-men especially in the deepest Holes These are both fit and likely Juglers to act their part in hollow Trees and dark Corners But who could expect it of Moses of Elias or of any Glorious and Blessed Saints or Angels that instead of waiting upon Christ in their Robes about his Throne or if need be as at his Glorification upon the glorious Mount they would come down into base Holes and there become Pupetplaiers to make Images whistle under Nettles Let Rome find us one such Example and second it with some reason why the Blessed Saints and Angels whosoever appear in Holy Scriptures detest and wave Adoration for themselves and now a daies under Popery come down purposely to crave and beg it for their Images Thirdly in the judgment of the holy Fathers a Eusebius De Praepar Evang. l. 5. p. 120. Edit Rob. Steph. 1544. in their Controversies against Pagans it was a sufficient Evidence and Demonstration against false Gods and it can be no less against false Saints to shew that they did teach men to make Images and that they did love these the like Figures And the truth is if holy Souls may be allowed in that elevated condition wherein they live to fancy yet dead and gross things it were rather their Bones and Relics wherewith they have fought the good Fight then carved Wood and painted Boards wherewith they never had any commerce For as to Pieces of stone or wood which are nothing to their Nature and as little to their Happiness it were most strange to see them taken with such Things and upon such poor silly accounts because therein forsooth they see somewhat like either their Form or their Faces Tho good and sober men may love sometimes their Friends Pictures none but vain fools dote on their own and they that laugh to see young Cats turning about and admiring their Resemblance in looking-Glasses would be sorry to see their old and venerable Friends doing the like in their Pictures Let the great Devil Serapis brag among his other Pagan Gods b Euseb supra p. 119. of the fine Head brave Locks and Beard and golden Feet which he then had in his Statues How mean and unbecoming such a great Saint as certainly the Blessed Virgin is were it to see her pleasing her self as doth the Laurettan Lady with acquainting sometimes a c Horat. Tursel Laur. Hist l 1. sick Mass Bishop and sometimes an d Ibid. c. 6. old Eremite with the value of what she had in her Chamber at Lauretta and shewing here the very Altar where S. Peter did officiate and there the very Crucifix which the Apostles had set over it But especially saies she here is our Image of Cedar which Luke the Evangelist made with his own hand to represent my Face as much to the life as it was possible for a Mortal and all this is a Dear Jewel both to God Almighty and to my self She accuaints them withall that it had bin long honored and with the highest degree of worship in her Town of Nazareth But at last their Faith and Devotion decaying she had removed all from thence to receive more Honor in Italie In good earnest will a true Saint make such discourses and will a true Saint
tell such a lie as that S. Luke had bin a Painter S. Luke was an honest Jew and therefore drove no dishonest Trade such as that of making either Pictures or Statues was e Origen cont Cels l 4. pag. 181. Edit Cantab. among Jews But will a grave and glorified Saint ever make so much of a trifle and leave her Station near Gods Throne to be fluttering continually or at least the best part of her time about a miserable painted Board she might upon a better account come down purposely from heaven to admire her Hair her Milk her Combs and Gloves her pared Nails and all wherein she had a nearer Concern But suppose that the Saints had alwaies a fond inclination for such Toies can you think them also so fierce as the Roman Saints are commonly to revenge them What do you think of those poor Jews f Jovius in Epitom l. 21. who had their Faces wrencht to their Backs for following the Law of their Fore-fathers and turning their Eies aside in detestation of an Image Do you not pity the case g Chronic. Deip. an 1490. of the honest Prebend at Florence whom this said Lady suddenly destroied with Thunder because he chanced to smile a little when he saw the Rosary Confraternity carrying in solemn Procession her dear Image through his own Church How lamentable was the reward of that good Lady who being sorry h Bened. Gonon ex Vetusto Cod. an 1310. to see one of our Ladies Images both Worm-eaten and ugly shaped as it was and wishing for a better one happened but to say What is this old Dame doing here Few daies after appears the said Goddess in Person and taking the affront done to her Image as if it had bin done to her self revenged it accordingly Whosoever saies she calls me old Dame shall be unhappy and shall not live long and so it was with the Gentlewoman for presently she was stript off by her own Son of her Estate inspired to it it seems by our Lady and lived begging from door to door until she died If these and a hundred more like Stories be true as Catholics believe they are Whether is it a Saint or a Devil that destroies Gods living Image to save dead Stones and Stocks from any shew of Injury And is this the Mother of Mercy or not rather one of those sworn haters of Men that love alike both the destruction of Men and the preservation of Images Take the Images at their best side the Blessed Saints are more earnest and serious then to be taken with such Trifles and if you take them at the worst the Blessed Saints are more holy then to be such zealous Hectors in the defence of what God hates Fourthly Another shrewd Evidence to prove that such seeming Saints are real Devils is the Magical Sympathy and usual Correspondency that binds them and their Images together and this is what Image-worship is come to The first Christians had neither Image-worship nor Images Afterwards about the Year 600 Pope Gregory the first would have Images * Regist l. 9. Epist 9. But no worship and thus they stood awhile only as Ornaments to Walls and as a kind of Book to Ignorant People About some 200 Years after Gregory by the Forwardness of Pope Adrian a bold Gazetteer of old Tales as I can prove whensoever I will and by the blind Zeal of Irene a cruel Mother to her own Son and more cruel to Gods Service Worship was fastened upon Images and both were in a Council pack'd up as the Empress pleased and regulated to these terms that the honor or dishonor done to the Images should redound upon the Saint and that Saints might be conceived to have such a moral Being or civil Capacity in their Images as Princes have in their Ambassadors and private Men in their Proxies Hitherto the Roman Doctors dare not own or advance more then this in their Disputations and Schools But alas in their Practises and in their Sermons and devout Discourses and Histories the true Food of their Roman People this Moral Capacity is grown into a true Natural Inexistency or Conjunction both of the Saint acting and doing all in his Image and of the Image as a subservient Instrument or beloved Seat to the Saint And from hence comes the true fellow-feeling and mutual Sympathy between Roman Images and Roman Saints such as have bin alwaies observed to be between Pagan Idols and Pagan Gods For proof whereof you may observe 1. That when the Roman Saint is either hardly used or hard at work his Image suffers the Symptoms of it Thus if the Lady be in great distress as they say that she was once to see her Son ready to destroy all Man-kind i Chronic. Deip. an 1160. and her self scarce able to hold him her dear Image was seen sweating If she is terribly provoked as once she was against a Preacher who said that she was conceived in Sin her Image tho made of cold Marble will be sensible of that affront k Ibid. an 1460. and with a fierce and angry look turn its back to him when he passes If she have a mind to a certain Day as when she would chuse the Saturday in every Week her l Ibid. an 770. Image will correspond to her secret Intention and constantly upon that day put off its Veil that all the World may thereby know that both the Saint and the Image have a desire to be then seen On the other side the Saint is neither unthankful nor backward in returning with advantage all good Offices to his or her Images not only by countenancing them for that he or she doth most zealously but also in any way that may bespeak a strict Partnership and friendly mutual Intelligence For example if one will be wedded to the Roman Lady let him but do * Rob. Rich. in vita S. Edmund c. 6. as Edmund of Canterbury did take any Ring and with that intention put it upon her Images Finger she will wear the same on her own and accept him for her Husband If you will well secure your Town against Wars and Invasions trust her sweet Image with the Keies and you shall see by what she did †Vid. supra once at Poitiers and at Tournay how she will lustily bestir her self to make good the Trust If the Image be hurt or maimed the Saint commonly lends it some Blood to bleed that Men may see that t is not a Stone that they strike at but a Body which is or some other for it sensible Sometimes the Saint will take on himself the very Marks of all the Injuries which have bin offered to his Image as when a Jew had bin so impious as to strike one full in the Face and then being troubled to see it bleed and upon that fear hiding himself the next day m Mag. Specul Tit. Ira ego Exempl 19. the Saint the R. Lady appears pittifully
black and blew where her Image had bin abused and inspires a Black-Smith both with Intelligence where to seek out the hidden Jew and with skill and spirit to fight with him in a Duel for it was an affront she had received that was to be repair'd by her Hectors valor and kill him This one instance and many more that might be had to this purpose doth plainly shew that Roman Saints concern themselves in their Images not in a civil regard only as Kings abused in their Envoies or Nobles beheaded in their Pictures or Effigies but in a far more real manner as if Catholic Kings did find their Backs excoriated when some Pope scourges their Ambassadors and as if Gentlemen had their Heads really cut off from their shoulders when the Hang-man strikes their Pictures There is such an effectual Correspondency between Roman Saints and Images as is observed between Twins who most commonly are either well or ill together or to come somewhat nearer the case as between enchanted Images of Wax and the Persons intended by them who freez or burn accordingly as the Magician manages the business After this rate as they speak n Plutarch de Defect Oracul ap Euseb de Prepar Evang. l. 5. pag. 122. of the Howlings of Devils when Christs Passion and Sacrifice turned them all out from their old Seats you may hear somtimes these Roman Saints weep and bemoan themselves sometimes in the o Vincent Specul Hist l. 7. c. 81. Clouds sometimes under Walls when they are abused in their Images It is upon this same account of care and sympathy for their dear Receptacles that as Pagans did with threatning force their Gods to what they had a mind they should do Roman Saints may be led that way if you tell them unless they do it that either q Mart. Polon ad an 715. pet Canisius de Deip. l. 5. c. 24. you will drown their Images or take r Caesarius l. 7. c 46. away the sweet Baby as did really the Woman who kept him so long in her Chest upon the loss of her Child s Ibid. whom a Wolf had run away with till with wonderful humility the Queen of Heaven commanded the Wolf to bring again and restore his prey her Majesty seeming to be exceedingly afraid of being deprived of her Son that is the little Cherub whom she hath commonly on her left Arm. Hence you may learn upon what ground the Tyrians once being besieged kept their chief Image * Quint. Curt. in obsidione Tyri in Chains the Trojans secured their Palladium the Romans their Ancile and now the Roman Catholics have so great care of their Images Those were once what these are now dear Pawns and as it were Hostages to draw on any side the Gods and Saints p Franc. Hierasc in vita Henr. Sylv. whom these Images do relate to Never fear that the good Lady can forget her ancient Friend at Lauretta at Maria major or at Montserrat and if she be sometimes out of the way when Pilgrims adore those Images it is because she looks to some others But if the Image be deeply engaged either in its Reputation as when it had bin intrusted with the Keies and keeping of t Annal. Flandr l. 12. an 1340. Tournay or in its own preservation as that was which the Sextan u Bov. supra would burn to bake his Wafers then read what Apollo did x Herodot Vrania for Delphi and Minerva for her little Chappel when both were assaulted by Xerxes compare it with what in the like occasion our Lady did for y Tursel Lauret Hist l. 2. c. 20. Lauretta for z Annal. Fland. sup Tournay for an old Image and so upon this whole matter judg whether Pagan Gods and Roman Saints be not alike as to their care and kindness to their Images and how unreasonable it were if you take those for very Devils to take these for any true Saints Fifthly The very acts of making Images to speak is an irrefragable Evidence of their being both ungodlike and unsaint-like Spirits God and his Blessed Angels have in times past expressed themselves several waies by Visions Dreams Vrim and Thummim Signs Judgments Fires and Thunders I leave out Gods speaking by Men because it is his most ordinary way of Revelation But let the Roman Catholics turn over either the Holy Scripture or the genuine Writings of any ancient Father and then shew me where ever God or Saints or Angels spake either in the Church or abroad in the World a Balinghem 28. May. by Stocks or Stones or any kind of dead Pictures and after they have consulted their Consciences if instructed with any degree of Learning let them pronounce whether both speaking and working through Images be or be not the most universal and most constant way of Devils Hereupon let Rome consider that tho Devils may and do often countenance themselves with counterfeiting the waies of of God God or his Saints never have disparaged themselves with using the waies of Devils much less such a way as the use of Images is which God hath so earnestly and constantly disowned and declared himself against Sixthly Their own Speeches and Actings may convince any sober Man by their own Ridiculousness or Impiety what kind of Spirits set them on work To be short consider but this one instance namely the Image of our good Lady with a young Child on her left arm the great Goddess and God of Rome and at the first entring into a Roman Church the first and most conspicuous Object of the Roman Adoration Consider in this double Image 1. The Roman Lady 2. The Roman or as they call it the sweet Baby each by themselves 3. Both the Mother and the Babe together First As to the main and Mother Image What is it do you think that makes Images sometimes as light as any Feather sometimes as heavy and immovable as any Rock sometimes to fly sometimes to dance sometimes to sing sometimes to weep sometimes to sweat sometimes to tear themselves to pieces For if all the Pranks be true as 't is certain they are possible do they not become somewhat better those wild silly Spirits that use to tumble stools and dishes or to skip up and down in a house then the most Holy the most serious and the most truly glorified Virgin Mary Whosoever will be at the trouble of summing up the Hours and Daies which since these six or seven hundred years have bin mispent about such doings shall find both that this spirit whosoever it is that animates this Roman Image is oftner below then above and that against the condition of all true glorified Saints he or she fidles away more of his time about Visions and Drudgeries about Gallows Whores and Prisons and about Monks and their Images then is left him or her to spend with the Blessed Saints about Gods Throne and in the Beatifical Vision Seeondly what do you
I take thee for my Dame and therefore I hereby do give and engage my self and my Soul to thy good Plesure That simple young Prince l Al. Gazaeus De Offic. M. p. 91. of Hungary said much less without Ring or Intention only reading of course the words of an Antiphone Thou m Stellar Beat. Virg. l. 12. c. 10. art fair and Beautiful c. This was enough for the Lady to make her come down to him and what said she if I am so fair why leavest thou me to take another Thus the young man being astonisht for he was in the Church already upon the very point of taking a wife at these words and deluded with fine Promises of becoming a great Monarch in this Devils Heavenly Kingdom left his other Bride at the Altar to the great scandal of all the world and to his own far greater shame Now commend me to such a Saint who can free men from just Promises and put asunder to some purpose them whom God would have join'd together If this instance be not enough Take this other from a grave Bishop n Vincent Bell. Specul Histor l. 7. c. 87. A young Gallant being about to play in a Place where the same Virgin had a Statue puts a Ring he had on its Finger and after he had don playing thinking to take his Ring again the Image had closed her Finger so being unwilling to struggle too much for t is not safe to be too bold with some Images he left it there and some few years after he happened to get an honest Match with a considerable Fortune but he is not sooner with her a Bed then presently another Bride fairer then she appears to him shews him his Ring which he had left on the Statue and as she took it had engaged himself to her with it before The man takes this for a Phantome and so it was and a devillish one too but when he thought again to sleep the same Lady comes in again but much more terrible then before and what with her angry look what with her fearful Threatnings for this Mother of Mercy will prove sometimes a dangerous Dame she frighted him away out of his Bed from his lawful Wife his good Estate into a pittiful Cloister Now to judg how grave and holy this is and how likely to come from a Saint compare it with this Parallel which I have o Matthaeus Westmonaster Flor. Hist. ad an 1058. from a good Author In the year 1058. a young Nobleman of Rome after a magnificent wedding Dinner goes with his Guests to Campus Martius and being at a hot Exercise puts his Ring into the finger of a stately brazen Image which stood hard by and had in former times bin consecrated to Venus an hour after my Gentleman being to return home goes for his Ring but the Statue had miraculously shut its hand so being loth to speak of it for fear of being laughed at by his Friends he leaves it there and when it was night coming back again with tools and men to get it off the hand was open but the Ring gon So the best he could make of a clear loss was to concele it and to go to Bed with his Bride As soon as they were in Bed he felt a big soft Bundle as it had bin a sack of Wool tumbling between them and hindering them from ever coming near one another he heard withal a voice Lie thou with me I am Venus whom thou hast taken to Wife this afternoon with this Ring which here is on my finger To make short the same both Bundle and Voice kept them ever asunder as often as they offered to touch one another till with the advice of their Friends they went to one named Palumbus a skilful Necromancer and Priest who for a good sum of Mony meeting the Devil in his own way got the Ring out of Venus hand These two Cases are so like that one might think them to have bin transcribed the one from the other the same manner of wedding Apparitions the same Correspondency and Proxiship between these Spirits and their Images the same Malice and opposition against Faith and Gods Ordinance the same base and low trifling beneath the condition of any Noble Creature Hereupon in Cases so like so unholy so ungodly so unseemly let the Church of Rome breed such fools as to think that the one can be a great Saint when the other is a downright Devil 2. In the second place comes the Baby whom most commonly you shall see doing some foolish thing or other upon the left Arm of this Dame For this little Image is known to act as many Parts as the great one can It weeps it prates it sings it turns its back it jumps from one hand to another it stretches out its little hand And whereas at first it was intended that this little thing should stand still as an Historical Memorial of Christs Birth it hath bin since these last Ages so well animated and warmed with the heat of Roman worship that it shews all the life and Activity sometimes that can be expected of a true natural Child besides what Juglers can do The inward Soul and Principle which actuates and moves this Image certainly cannot be a good Angel for good Angels are too serious for such mere Childish Motitions Good Angels in all the Scriptures since their Creation till Popery are not known to speak in Images and when they speak in any way they do neither lie nor blaspheme as this woodden pupet must needs whensoever he takes on himself the name of God Christ and Savior The true Mover and as it were the Soul of this Infantine Image can be no other then that Spirit which often in the Roman Church appears acting that by himself which he acts by his Image and none is fitter nor likelier to prate with a woodden Parrot then he that can do it with his own Lips For setting a side the little Image the Papists have a little God whom they call in English the Sweet Babe and more blasphemously in Latin Puer Jesus the Child Jesus and whom another Spirit under the name of Queen of Heaven in all great Apparitions carries commonly on her left Arm t Bened. Gonon ex Antiquo Cod. ad an 1285. and gives to many People u Flaminius in vita S. Cathar Bonon Menol. Cisterc. 29. Octob. Chronic. Deip. an 1508. Balinghem 17. Jun. to kiss to carry about x Gonon Patr. Occident l. 6. in vita Harman Praem as S. Joseph did to lay by them in their y Chronic. Deip. an 1561. beds S. Lucia z Chronic. Grdin Praedic an 1543. had him once three night and when S. Arnulphus a Chronic. Deip. an 1228. they say had him but a quarter of an hour he was so overcome with Joy that he was forced to give him back Sometimes this sweet Baby will leave his Mother and walk