Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	incense_n	prayer_n	smoke_n	1,391	5	11.4786	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42896	Catholicks no idolaters, or, A full refutation of Doctor Stillingfleet's unjust charge of idolatry against the Church of Rome.	Godden, Thomas, 1624-1688.	1672 (1672)	Wing G918; ESTC R16817	244,621	532

condescended to go with the third who fell on his Knees before Him And I would gladly be inform'd what Evil at all it would be to set a Saint were he present in some higher Place in the Church as we do a Bishop for the People to see Him and desire his Prayers Perhaps it is the smoke of the Incense which troubles his Eyes that he cannot distinguish between the use of it as applyed to God and as applyed to his Servants or other things relating to him But this being of its own nature an indifferent Ceremony as bowing and kneeling also are and not appropriated at least in the new Law to the worship of God it is in the freedome of the Church to determine how and when it shall be used And as when we kneel to God that posture is a sign of the soveraign honour we give to him as the Lord of all things but when we do it to a Holy Man or our Parents it is but a sign of an Inferiour respect due to them So likewise the Ceremony of Incense when directed to God signifies the worship we owe to him but to Holy Persons or things an Inferiour respect or veneration to them for his sake The use of it is very ancient as Bellarmin shows and the significations many and very fitly adapted to the Publick Service of God as well for the Reverence of the Place as to mind us of the Inaccessible Glory of God who appeared in a Cloud and the sweet Odour our Prayers are to him if sent up from a heart inflamed with the love of God This then being the Intention of Catholick People in the use of these and the like Ceremonies viz. to give only a Honourary respect or Veneration to the Saints and to desire them only to pray for us it is evident that neither in the place nor the time nor the manner any incroachment at all is made upon the worship and service due to God alone and all the Dr. hath done in this Paragraff was to endeavour to tye a knot in a Bull-rush when he could find none and the matter was so brittle that it would not hold the tying CHAP. VI. Of the Practise of Christian People in St. Austin's time in the Invocation of Saints § 1. THe second Answer I gave to the Dr.'s Injurious Parallel of the Heathens Worship of their Inferiour Deities and the worship given by Catholicks to the Saints was that the same Calumny as St. Austin calls it was cast upon the Catholicks in his time and is answered by him and his Answer will serve now as well as then That Himself held such Formal Invocation a part of the Worship due to Saints as is evident from the Prayer he made to St. Cyprian after his Martyrdome Let B. Cyprian therefore help us with his Prayers c. And for a farther Confirmation of it I added that Calvin himself acknowledgeth it was the custome at that time to say Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us The Dr. comes now as he saith p. 170. to consider the Answer of St. Austin whether it will serve to vindicate us now as well as then And I must desire the Reader to take the pains to peruse attentively the words of St. Austin as they stand cited in the Reply and the Doctor 's Considerations upon them for himself thought not fit to call them an Answer that by his Performance in this Point he may see to what miserable shifts and disengenuous Arts they are put who will shut their Eyes and fight against the light of a Noon-day Truth § 2. His first Consideration is that Sr. Austin utterly denies that any Religious worship was performed to the Martyrs And how could he affirm this if he had not shut his Eyes when St. Austin says expresly in the place cited that it was the custom of the Christian People in his time to celebrate with Religious Solemnity the Memories of the Martyrs That the Reader might not see this Contradiction he corrupts the words of St. Austin by translating them after his mode Viz. It was the Custome of the Christians in his time to have their Religious Assemblies at the Sepulchres or Memories of the Martyrs As if their Meetings were only to honour God in Himself and not his Martyrs for his sake But this is both expresly opposite to the words themselves and is refuted by St. Austin himself when having admitted in Answer to Faustus his Objection that Christians did celebrate the Memories of the Martyrs with Religious Solemnity he declares himself not to speak of that Religious Worship which is due only to God but such a kind of worship with which even Holy Men in this life are worshipped We worship therefore saith he the Martyrs with that worship of Love and Society c. But we worship them so much more devoutly than we do Holy Men upon Earth because more securely after they have overcome all the Dangers and Incertainties of this Life He that hath but half an Eye open must see that St. Austin speaks here of the Worship which the Christians of his time gave to the Martyrs themselves And that the Dr. doth but Equivocate in the term Religious worship which may reasonably be applyed to the honour due to the Saints as I shewed above in the 2d Chap. And whereas he saith that I conveniently left out what St. Austin adds that not only Sacrifice was refused by Saints and Angels but any other Religious honour which is due to God himself as the Angel forbad St. John to fall down and Worship Him had He not conveniently put those words any other Religious honour into the Text for they are not in St. Austin he had had nothing to blind his Reader with and yet as himself cites the words it is evident that St. Austin speaks of such Religious honour as is due to God himself Whoever looks into the Text which I omitted only for brevities sake will judge he had done much more conveniently for his cause had he left it out § 3. His second Consideration is p. 171 that Invocation is expresly excluded by St. Austin as no part of the Worship due to Saints And how again without shutting his Eyes could he affirm this when St. Austin expresly says that Christians did celebrate the Memories of the Martyrs with Religious Solemnity not only to excite to the Imitation of their Vertues but also to be partakers of their Merits and to obtain help by their Prayers This he conveniently avoids the repeating of and slies for refuge to another place of St. Austin where he saith We raise no Altars on which to sacrifice to Martyrs but to One God the God of Martyrs as well as ours at which as Men of God who have overcome the World by Confession of Him they are named in their place and order but are not invocated by the Priest who sacrifices And here he thinks he hath done our work for

let me praise Thee St. Cyril saith By Thee Holy Mother and Virgin every Creature that worshipped Idols hath been converted to the knowledge of the Truth Praise and Glory be to Thee O Sacred Trinity Praise also be to Thee O Holy Mother of God Who can sufficiently set forth thy Praises Do we entreat the B. Virgin to help the miserable to strengthen the weak c. St. Gregory Nazianzen above-cited commends St. Justina for beseeching the B. Virgin to help and succour her Do we desire her to protect us from our Enemies and shew her self to be a Mother St. Gregory Nissen calls upon St. Theodorus to fight for his Country as a Souldier and to use that liberty of speech for his Fellow-servants which besits a Martyr Do we supplicate the Angels to come to our help and defend Us St. Ambrose saith that they are to be supplicated for us who are given us for our Protectors Lastly Do we desire the Apostles Jubere the word signifies to wish or desire as well as to command but the Doctor will have it here to command the guilty to be loosed And He might as well have translated Jubeo te valere I command you to farewell It is not so much as what that devout Woman in St. Austin said to St. Stephen when upon the death of her Child before Baptism she brought the dead Body to the shrine of the B. Martyr and there exacted ofhim saith St. Austin to restore her Son to Life with these words Redde filium meum c. Give me my Son that I may behold him in the presence of him who crowned thee A thing both commended by St. Austin as a Testimony of her great Faith and confirmed for such by God in restoring her Son to Life at the Intercession of the Saint Thus much may suffice to show that whil'st the Doctor casts so much Dirt upon the Doctrine and Practice of the present Roman Church He makes it fly in the Faces of those great Fathers and Lights of the Primitive Times And much less might have sufficed for an Objection which taken in all its parts is as like the seeking for a knot in a Bul-rush as ever yet I met with any but that as the Apostle saith We are Debtors both to the Wise and to the Unwise Let us see whether the next be any better CHAP. V. The disparity assigned by Dr. St. between desiring the Saints in Heaven and Holy Men upon Earth to pray for Us shown to be Insignificant § 1. TO manifest farther the weakness of the Doctor 's Argument I added in my Reply that if Catholicks must be guilty of Idolatry for desiring just Persons in Heaven to pray for them upon the same account we must not desire the Prayers of a just Man even in this Life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an Inferiour Deity And the Doctor rejoins p. 168. that supposing this were all yet this would not excuse them But from what He was loath to name it the consequence is so absurd yet he would have his Reader believe that it would not excuse them from Idolatry And the Reason he gives is For their practice is very different in their Invocation of Saints from desiring our Brethren on Earth to pray for us And he cannot but wonder how any Men of common sense can suffer themselves to be imposed upon so easily in this matter But if he suppose that what we do● Invocating the Saints is no more than to desire them to pray for us as we do other Holy Men upon Earth How comes the one to be Idolatry and not the other The difference as far as I can gather from his words consists in this that amidst the Solemn Devotions of the Church after we have prayed to the Persons of the Holy Trinity to have mercy on us remaining upon our Knees we address to the Saints and require the assistance of their prayers saying Holy Peter and Paul pray for us and this without being sure that they hear us This together with a hint of our setting up their Images in some higher place in the Church and burning Incense before them is the whole summe of his Argument These circumstances he says make the desiring the Saints in Heaven to pray for us to be of a very different nature from desiring the same from our Brethren on Earth And I wonder how any Men of common sense can suffer themselves to be so far imposed upon as to believe that any thing of this or all of it together can amount to Idolatry Why we do not the same in all respects to Holy Men upon Earth St. Austin gives the Reason when he says that we worship the Saints in Heaven so much more devou●ly than when they were upon Earth because more securely after they have overcome all the dangers and uncertainties of this World as also we praise them more confidently now reigning Conquerours in●a more happy Life than whilst they were fighting in this So that what we do more to them in Heaven than whilst they were upon Earth in praying to and praising of them is an expression of a greater devotion to them now than then upon the account of their secure injoyment of a state of Bliss which they can never lose But for that Worship which is call'd Latria for as much as it is a certain service proper to the Divinity we neither worship them saith St. Austin and all Catholicks with him nor teach them to be worshipped but God alone But to return to the Doctor § 2. The first thing he cavils at is our turning to the Apostles with the same postures and expression of devotion to desire them to pray for us after we have invoked the Persons of the Holy Trinity And where lies the Idolatry here if we desire them only as he supposes to pray for us Is the desiring a just Man to pray for us to give him the honour due to God Why then were Job's Friends sent to him for his Intercession Or is it the doing it upon our Knees Why then do Parents permit their Children to ask them blessing in that posture Or is it the using that posture in the Church Are all the People then Idolaters for desiring upon their Knees the Priest nay one another to pray unto God for them These are such pitiful trifles that they were not worth the reciting much less refuting if as St. Hierom saith of the like to recite them were not to refute them Well but St. Peter he saith who would not permit Cornelius to fall down before him and St. Paul who rent his Garments and cryed out to the Men of Lystra Why do you these things would no doubt have been less pleased with this And why so if Cornelius as St. Hierome thinks intended through Error to worship him with divine honour and the Men of Lystra as St. Luke relates to offer sacrifice to St. Paul as to