an Observance of the Law together with the Gospel taught also that Angels were to be worshipped saying that the Law was given by them This Custom remained a long time in Phrygia and Pisidia Upon which account the Synod of Laodicea in Phrygia forbad them by a Law to PRAY TO ANGELS But. 116. Thirdly And to come more immediately to the Worship of Invocation Rom. X. 14. The same Apostle in that Question Rom. X. 14. How shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed furnishes us with another maxime of Holy Scripture against all such Prayers viz. That no one is to be invoked in our religious addresses but He only in whom we believe But now Reason Scripture the Common Creeds of all Christians shew that we are to believe ONLY in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and therefore upon Him ONLY must we Call. As for your distinction that this indeed in one sense is very true but then in another and secondary sense Others besides God may be both believed in Reply p. 21. and called upon if you mean in a civil respect it is indeed very true but nothing to your purpose seeing in this sense we can no more believe in than we can call upon such persons as are absent from us and know nothing at all of us which is the Case of the Saints departed But for believing in a religious sense as it is properly an Act of Divine Faith and the foundation of that Assurance with which we call upon God by our Saviour Jesus Christ this admits of no distinction nor may it by any means or in any measure be applied without Sin to any other than God alone 117. I will add but one principle more of Holy Scripture against this Service and so close this first Point Rom. XIV 23. Rom. XIV 23. That whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin. But now those Prayers which have no foundation in Holy Scripture cannot be of Faith for says the same Apostle Rom. X. 17. Faith cometh by Hearing and Hearing by the word of God And therefore such Prayers must be Sin. If God has any where revealed it to you that you may lawfully give such a religious Worship to the Saints shew this and our dispute is ended But if you cannot do this nor by consequence cannot pray to them with any well grounded perswasion of Conscience that this is what God allows and what the Saints are capable of receiving I do not see how it can be avoided but that to you it must be sin so to do S. Basil Reg. Miral 78. cap. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As an ancient Father argues from this very principle in the like manner 118. For the Other part of this Service the intercession of the Saints for us I might to this Oppose all those passages of the New Testament where Christ is set forth to us as our only Mediator But I shall content my self with one single text 1 Tim. II. 5 6. There is one God 1 Tim. II. 5.6 and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a Ransome for all Now if there be but one Mediator then Saints and Angels are not Mediators as you pretend If the foundation of Christs Mediatorship be this That he gave himself a Ransome for all then seeing the Saints have not done this it must follow that neither can they be our Mediators And this cuts off your new distinction of a Mediator of Intercession and a Mediator of Redemption which besides that it is the issue of your own Brains and was invented only to support a tottering Cause is here utterly destroy'd seeing the Foundation of Christs Mediating now in Heaven and appearing in the presence of God for us is by vertue of His being our Mediator of Redemption upon Earth and he therefore is become our intercessor there because He shed his bloud for our Expiation here This is that great Argument upon which the Author to the Hebrews so much insists Chap. IX X. And the Analogy of the High Priest under the Law making first the Expiatory Sacrifice for the people and then Entring into the Holiest to appear before God for them most evidently confirms it to us And this may suffice for the 1st Point That this Service is contrary to the principles of Holy Scripture II. It is Contrary to Antiquity 119. And here I am fallen into a vast Ocean and should never have ended should I go about particularly to shew how vain your pretences are to possession for this superstition It shall suffice me at present only to point out to you a few of those Remarks which others have more largely pursu'd and which do abundantly declare how little conformable the best and highest Antiquity has been to what you now practise 120. I have already given some short account of the first three Centuries And how little able you are to lay any claim to the Authority of them You have there seen what the Opinion was of those Holy Fathers touching the State of the Saints departed How they thought that they do not yet enjoy the Beatifick Vision and by consequence were not in a condition to be called upon by the Church on Earth I have shewn you the Fathers arguing against the Arrians for the Divinity of Christ from the Churches praying to Him and which evidently proves that they thought none but God was capable of such a service I have offer'd you the definition which those Holy Men gave of Prayer viz. That it was an Address to God a Conversing with God and the like and in all which they still restrain'd it to Him as His own peculiar prerogative There we find no mention of any calling upon the Blessed Virgin or the Saints No distinction of supreme and inferiour religious Worship of Mediators of Redemption and Intercession in short none of those Evasions with which all your discourses on this Point are now filled and without which indeed according to your principles it is impossible to explain it 121. But I will now add yet more It was a general custome in the third and following Ages concerning which we are particularly to enquire to pray for the Saints departed for Martyrs and Confessors Discourse of Purgatory and Prayers for the dead nay for the Blessed Virgin her self as has been elsewhere fully proved and I suppose you will not have the confidence to deny it Now let me appeal to any reasonable man to say could the Church in those times have prayed in a suppliant manner to the Saints as Reigning with God nay and Gods themselves by participation to aid and assist them when on the contrary they thought them in such a State as to need prayers to God for them Is it to be believed that they Addressed to those as Mediators and Intercessors with God for whom they themselves interceded to God It is a memorable remark that has been made to confirm the force
in ambiguous Terms whilst you charge Me with it The word Merit you say is Equivocal and the two Senses you give it are First To signifie that We do by our own Natural force alone deserve the Reward of Grace and Glory And in which Sense if you pretend that we charge you with pleading your own Merits you do certainly most falsly accuse us The other Sense you give the word is That our Good Works may be said to Merit because they apply the Merits of Jesus Christ to us and are the Means by which we attain Eternal Life in vertue of the Promises of God and Merits of our Blessed Redeemer In which were you sincere for all the impropriety of the Speech yet we should not be far from agreeing with you But now what is all this to your praying to God to hear you by the Merits of the Saints This may do well in its proper Article but here it serves only to amuse the Reader with that which is nothing to the purpose that so he may be disposed to forget what you were to prove Jam dic Posthume de tribus Capellis 51. You tell us then in the next Paragraph That you pray that God would not respect your own Unworthiness Reply p. 24. but regard the Merits of his Saints and for their Sakes i. e. for their Merits Hear your Prayers or accept your Sacrifices But where then is the Misrepresentation For this is the very thing we charge you with viz. That not content to Address your selves to God in the Name and through the Merits of our ONLY Mediator Jesus Christ you have sought out to your selves other Intercessors in whose Name and through whose Merits to offer up both your Prayers and Sacrifices to God. And whether we do not in this very justly accuse you let your Addresses themselves satisfie the World. O Blessed John the Baptist reach out thy Hand to us and be to us continually a Holy Intercessor to the Clemency of the most High Judge that through THY MERITS we may DESERVE to be freed from all Tribulation O God! by whose Grace we celebrate the Memories of thy Saints Saturninus and Sisinnius Grant that by THEIR MERIT we may be helped through our Lord. Mercifully accept O God our Offerings which we have made unto thee for the SAKE of the Passion of thy Blessed Martyrs Saturninus and Sisinnius that by their Intercession they may be made acceptable to thy Majesty And in the Breviary of Salisbury we find this to be a part of the Constant Service Be propitious we beseech thee O Lord unto us thy Servants Breviarium in usum Sarum in Servit B. Virg. par 2. through the glorious Merits of thy Saints whose Reliques are contain'd in this Church that by their pious Intercession we may be protected in all Adversities Grant we beseech thee Almighty God that the Merits of thy Saints whose Reliques are contain'd in this Church may protect us c. It were infinite to recount all the other Prayers which run in the same strain throughout all your Offices insomuch that the very * Missal Rom. p. 367. Canon of the Mass is infected with it I will mention only one Instance more which is indeed a singular one not so much because of the Expression of it wherein the General word of Merit is restrain'd to the particular Merit of his Death as because it was made to one who died in Actual Rebellion against his Prince and concerning whom therefore it was for some time debated amongst you Whether he were damn'd or saved BY the BLOOD of Thomas a Becket which he SHED for THEE make us to ascend to Heaven whither He is gone Mornay de la Messe p. 826. Saumur 1604. 52. It remains then that you do recur to the Saints not meerly for their Prayers but that by their Merits and Intercession they would obtain Grace and Pardon of God for you This is the Doctrine of your Catechism Catech Trid. par iij. p. 256. de Invoc SS n. 24. tit Sancti suis Meritis nos adjuvant That the Saints help us by their own Merits and are therefore the rather to be worshipped and invoked because they both pray continually for the Salvation of Men and that God bestows many Benefits upon us by their Merit and Favour 'T is from hence that the Master of the Sentences interprets your praying for their Intercession to be the same thing as to pray that by their Merits they would help you And Aquinas Aquin. 22dae q. 83. art 4. We pray to the Saints says he not to inform God of our Petitions by them but that by their PRAYERS and MERITS our Prayers may become effectual Bellarm. de Beat. SS l. 1. c. 17. We may say to the Saints says Card. Bellarmine Save me or Give me This or That provided we understand Give it me by thy Prayers or Merits So that in all this we say no more of you than what both your Doctrine and Practice warrant us to do 53. Let us see therefore how you excuse your selves in this Matter You say That your Concluding of all your Prayers Through Jesus Christ our Lord shews that you desire all at last by his Merits But indeed this is but a poor Shift and as a very Learned Man has long since told you Dr. Jackson Tom. 1. p. 941. that Close comes in in your Addresses much after the same manner that the mention of a certain Sum of Money does in Deeds of Trust only pro formâ And you are never the less guilty for this Conclusion of what we charge you with viz. That you join the Merits and Intercession of the Saints with the Merits and Intercession of Christ for Pardon and Acceptance And to the end that you may see what sensless Petitions you hereby make to God in these Addresses I will only take one of your Prayers in the literal meaning of it Idem ib. and apply it in a plain Paraphrase to your Pretensions by way of Petition to some Earthly Prince Thus then you pray upon the Third of May. Grant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who Adore the Nativity of thy Saints Alexander c. may by their Intercession be deliver'd from all Evils that hang over us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now changing only the Names this according to your Exposition will be the Paraphrase of it I beseech your Sacred Majesty that you would vouchsafe to pardon my Offences against you and deliver me from those Evils that hang over me for them at the Intercession of your Lord Chancellor c. and in Honour of this his Birth-day and that for the Sake of the Prince your Son our Royal Lord and Master In this extravagant Petition the very Transcript of the foregoing Prayer he must be blind who sees not that the Conclusion of it for the Princes sake c. is very impertinent and does not at all hinder but that the
Request is formally made by the Interest of my Lord Chancellor and in Honour of his Birth-day And therefore that notwithstanding this Conclusion which is really the Remains of your Old Forms before ever any New Intercessors were put into them you remain justly chargeable with what I accused you of That you make the Saints joint Intercessors with Christ to God and desire not only through his Merits but by theirs also to obtain your Requests 54. As for your last Pretence of Holy Scripture for this Practice it is every jot as little to the purpose in this as I have shewn it to be in the foregoing Point 1. God tells Isaac say you that he would bless him Reply p. 25. for his Father Abrahams sake Moses praying for the People desires God to remember Abraham Isaac and Jacob i. e. Because God in pursuance of his Covenant made with Abraham blessed his Son and Moses put him in mind of that Covenant to appease his Anger that he should not destroy the Israelites Therefore it is lawful now to pray to God not only by the Merits of Christ the only Mediator of God's Covenant with us but also of the Saints too for Pardon and Salvation 2. God in remembrance of his Promise made to David Reply ib. shew'd Mercy unto Solomon for his Sake Therefore Solomon might have urged to God the Merits of David for Pardon of his Sins and therefore we who have another and better and only Advocate may address to God by the Merits and Intercession of the Saints for Forgiveness I wonder you did not put in the City Jerusalems Merits too to prove that we may not only pray through the Merits of the Saints but of their Cities also For the Text seems as express in this as in the other 1 Kings xi 32. But he shall have one Tribe for my Servant David's sake and for Jerusulems sake the City which I have chosen out of all the Tribes of Israel 3. What you mean by your last Passage Reply ib. I must confess I cannot divine unless you think that because Elijah who was sent by God's express Command to make a Proof of his Divinity before all the People of Israel who were gone after Baal began his Prayer with that usual Character of his being the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob it was therefore through their Merits that the Fire came down from Heaven and burnt up his Sacrifice SECT III. In which the Arguments offer'd by the Vindicator for the Establishing of this Worship are particularly Consider'd and their Weakness laid open 55. Hitherto we have been clearing the matter of Fact what your Practice in this Invocation of Saints is I come now in the next place to examine your Arguments and see what grounds you have to support so great a Superstition And First for what concerns the Holy Scripture I find you do not much care to be try'd by that You plead Possession for your Warrant and are resolved that shall be sufficient till we by some better right can throw you out of it Now in this I cannot but commend your discretion for indeed those who go about to found this Article upon the Authority of Holy Writ do in the Opinion of many of your own Church but loose their Labour See Defence of the Expos p. 8. in annot since as they tell us for the Old Testament the Holy Patriarchs and Prophets that lived before Christ's Incarnation were not yet admitted into Heaven and therefore were not Capable of being pray'd to and for the New it was not express'd there for fear of Scandalizing the Jews and least the Gentiles should have been thereby moved to think that the Worship of new Gods had been proposed to them 56. Wherefore passing by the Holy Scripture which you look upon as unfit to be appeal'd to in this Case let us come to the Possession you so much boast of And see how you defend it against those Arguments I offer'd to prove That this Custom of Calling upon the Saints had no footing in the Church before the latter End of the IV. Defence ibid. Century and was then but beginning to creep into it And to reduce your Confusion to the clearest Method I can I will distinctly consider your Allegations in these two Periods First Of the first 300 Years wherein I affirm that there was no such practice in the Church Secondly Of the Fourth Century towards the latter End of which I confess it began to appear tho still with very great difference from what you now Practise I. PERIOD That the Custom of Praying to Saints had no being in the Church for the First 300 Years 57. Now for this I shew'd you in my Defence Defence of the Expos Art. 3. p. 6. That the Fathers of the IV. Century did certainly herein depart from the Practice and Tradition of the Ages before them because * That you were not able to produce so much as One Instance out of the first three Centuries of any such Invocation * But rather were forced to Confess that nothing of that kind was to be found amongst them * That this was in effect what your greatest Authors Card. du Perron Card. Bellarmine and even the Bishop of Meaux himself had done * And that indeed your own Principles oblige you to this Acknowledgment seeing you both allow that without believing that the Saints departed go forthwith to Heaven they could not have pray'd to them and yet cannot but say that this the Holy Fathers of the first three Ages did utterly deny These were my Arguments let us see how you clear your Possession from the force of them 58. First Reply p. 17. §. 13. You clap a Marginal Note upon my Assertion in earnest of your future Civility Primitive Fathers CALUMNIATED by the Defender And to wipe off this Calumny you undertake to shew that they did Pray to the Saints within the First 300 Years This is I confess to the purpose and if you can do it let the Note of Calumny stick upon Me but indeed I rather think that this Undertaking will fix another and a much more proper Note upon You. But let us hear your Proofs Ibid. And first you say My Brethren the Centurists of Magdeburg acknowledg that Origen prayed to Job and admitted the Invocation of Angels 59. Answer If this be true then Sir I tell you in one word that my Brethren the Centurists were mistaken and that considering the time they wrote in is no great Wonder But now did you never hear in your Life that your Brethren Erasmus Sixtus Senensis Possevin Bellarmine Baronius Labbé Du Pin c. have all confess'd that neither the Tracts nor Comments upon Job were Origen's Has no one ever told you Secondly Replique au roy de la Grande Bretagne liv v. c. 13. p. 982. that another of your Brethren Card. du Perron has utterly rejected the Authority of Origen as an incompetent
Witness in matter of fact and that especially in the very Point before us Were you indeed so ignorant Thirdly as not to know how opposite this Father is to you as I shall presently shew in his undoubtedly genuine Works as to this matter As for the other Passages you quote Fourthly out of his Comments upon Ezekiel besides that He there supposes the Angel present with Him Could you look upon this place and not see that another of your Brethren your own Editor calls it an Apostrophe to His Guardian Angel and I desire you to try if you can make any more of it And Lastly for what you finally alledge out of his Lamentations did you in good earnest not know that it was a Book mark'd not by your Brethren only but by your Holy Father Pope Gelasius as Apchryphal and rejected as such by all the Learned Men of your own Communion So unfortunate or rather unfaithful have you been in your first Entry upon Antiquity It may be you will go on a little better Reply p. 17. n. 14. Reply You tell us in the next place a story of one Justina how being in danger of making Shipwrack of her Chastity by the Magical Art of St. Cyprian she had recourse to the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary begging of Her to assist Her whose Virginity was in danger 60. Answer If by this Story you design to prove the Invocation of Saints to have been the Practice of the Church within the first 300 Years and indeed it is for this you do produce it I must then again complain of your Unsincerity seeing it is both acknowledged by your own Authors Reply p. 17. and indeed confess'd by your own self that Gregory Nazianzen was mistaken in the relation and attributed that to the great St. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage which could not belong to Him. See Baron Mart. ad 26. Sept. p. 376. Edit Paris 1613. Et annal ad ann 250. n. 5. As for the other Cyprian to whom Card. du Perron Baronius c. apply it He is not pretended to have lived within that Period and so your Proof is without the Compass of what you undertook to shew 61. But Secondly Had there been any truth in this Story even with reference to this other Cyprian how comes it to pass that none of the ancient Martyrologies no not your own Breviary since the Reformation of it makes the least mention of any such thing Would all these have omitted so Considerable a Passage had there been any grounds of certainty in it 62. To Reply therefore to this Instance I say It is more than probable that St. Gregory took up this Story either from some flying report or out of some Counterfeit Acts For one part of it at least that which relates to St. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage you confess your †Baronius calls it Explodenda fabula ad ann 250. n. 5. Billius Caecutiisse hic Gregorium in Orat. annot Vid in Martyr ubi supr selves that in this he was certainly mistaken And if any other Cyprian we hear nothing either in Eusebius or any other Historian or Writer of that Age. The first Cardinal Baronius has produced being Beda and Adelhelmus who lived not till the Eighth and Metaphrastes in the latter end of the Ninth Century But however let us see even what they say of this matter They tell us that the Cyprian here meant was Bishop of Antioch and suffer'd Martyrdom at Nicomedia with St. Justina And thus it stood in your own Breviary too till the Reformation of it by the Order of the Council of Trent Vid in Brev. Eccles Sariso ad 25. Sept. But now it is beyond dispute evident that this is utterly false for that in those times there was no such Bishop of Antioch both the accounts of the Succession of that Sea given us both by ancient and modern Historians plainly shew and Card. Baronius himself confesses it Who is therefore forced for the credit of the business contrary both to his own Authors and to your Ancient Brevaries Ibid. to degrade him from a Bishop to a Deacon And for this He has no Authority So evident do's it remain that this whole matter is what the Card. calls one part of it at least a Fable to be exploded by all Wise Men. And this is another Proof either of your integrity or ability in Church History But we will hope the next may be better 63. Reply And thus you go on with your Undertaking You tell Me you will not cite Dionysius the Areopagite Reply ibid. pag. 19. because it may be I will not allow Him to be the Author of the Book under his Name Nor Justin Martyr because I shall be apt to say he does not speak plain enough Nor Irenâ—us tho' He says plainly that the Virgin Mary was made an Advocate for the Virgin Eve I presume you mean that Eve pray'd to the Virgin Mary 4000 years before she was born Crasset par 2. Trait 4. qu. 3. p. 99. as Father Crasset says they built Temples to Her ere she came into the World because it may be I shall find out an Evasion for that too Horace de Art. poet 64. Answ Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor Hiatu You will not insist upon Dionysius nor upon Justin Martyr nor upon Irenaeus But what then will you insist upon for you have said nothing at all to the purpose yet After all this Gaping we have two Testimonies only offer'd to us for the practice of 300 years One a passage of Origen already rejected as Spurious And the other out of a Tract of Methodius if not certainly Spurious yet justly suspected by your own Critick's being neither quoted by any of the Ancients nor mention'd by Photius and of a Stile more Luxuriant than that Fathers other Writings are and that speaks so clearly of the Mystery of the Trinity of the Incarnation and Divinity of the Word whom He calls in a Phrase not well known in his time CONSUBSTANTIAL with the Father of the Trisagion never heard of for above 100 years after His death Bibliotheque T. 1. pag. 530. of the Virginity of Mary after Her Conception and of Orginal Sin that your late Critick Monsieur du Pin had certainly reason to place it among his Spurious Works however it be now cited with such assurance by you 65. But to quit this Exception against the Book The very Passage it self is so manifest a piece of Oratory that had you ever consulted it in the Greek set out by Combefis you could not have doubted of it He had begun his Apostrophe two or three Pages before what you produce and he ushered it in with this express Introduction Methodius Gl. Edit Combefis Paris cum S. Amphilochio 1644. to prepare us for it That he would conclude his Speech with an Address to the City of the great King and to all his Brethren and Fathers
imagined Affliction keeps men close to their duty whereas Prosperity too often corrupts the best manners When it pleased God to convert the Empire to Christianity there were but too many instances of Heathen Customs accommodated to the principles of the Gospel and this was one Whether it were that they could not so soon forget their ancient Rites or that they thought it a religious policy to extend the pale of the Church by suiting Christianity as much to the Heathen Ceremonies as it was possible and to dispose men thereby the more readily to embrace it Or whether finally that simplicity of the Gospel which suited well enough with a State of persecution was now thought too mean for an Establish'd Church the Religion of the Emperour and they were therefore willing to render it more pompous and set it off with greater lustre in the Eyes of Men tho in so doing they a little departed from the purity of their lower and better State. 90. Let us add to this the Opinion which then began to prevail among those Holy Fathers of the particular intercession of the Saints for us and which both the prayers that were made in those days at the memories of the Martyrs and the Miracles God was sometimes pleased to work there not to say any thing of the Visions and Apparitions that were sometimes thought to be seen there very much confirm'd them in Now this naturally prepared the way for the Invocation which follow'd upon it For now the Poets began instead of their Muses to call more Christianly upon the Saints and Martyrs to assist them The Orators following the Genius of the Age indulged themselves all the liberty of their Eloquence in Apostrophe's to the Saints at their Memories And as things seldome stop in their first beginnings by degrees through the Ignorance of some and superstition of more they fell into a formal Invocation about the beginning of the Vth. Century 91. But here another accident fell out for the carrying on of this Service For about this time Nestorius began to teach that men ought not to call the Blessed Virgin the Mother of God. Now this made some think his design was secretly to revive the Heresie of Arrius or Sabellius under a new Cover and their Zeal for the Divinity of Christ made them in the Council of Ephesus Anno 431 condemn his Opinion as Heretical and in Opposition to Him they fell into the contrary extream of an immoderate magnifying of Her tho' as I shall presently shew they still continued within much better bounds than you do now It being almost Three Hundred years after this before ever the Invocation of Her or the Saints was publickly Establish'd in the Church And this brings me to my next Proposal which was Secondly II. PERIOD To consider what Grounds this Superstition had in the IVth Century 92. And here first to what I said concerning the first beginnings of this Invocation viz. That the most part of your Allegations from this Age were rather Rhetorical flights than formal prayers you return very pleasantly Reply That the Rhetorick lies wholly at my door who fly to so poor a shift That these passages are some of the duriores loci more difficult places which some only nibbled at Others could not digest and I shift off under the notion of Rhetorical Flights or Novelties 93. Answ One would think by this Droll you had been lately reading the judgment of your University of Doway concerning Bertram Altho say they we do not much value that Book yet since he has been often Printed and is read by many and that in other ancient Catholick's we tollerate many Errors and extenuate or excuse them often times find out some contrivance or other to deny them or to set a convenient Gloss upon them when they are Opposed to us in disputes or in engaging with our Adversaries we do not see why we should not allow the same Equity to Bertram 94. But what now is this shifting Why I said that which all the learned Men in the World must allow to be true viz. That the Fathers of the IVth Age were many of them great Orators and made use of Rhetorical Addresses to the Saints And that from those conditions they sometimes expresly put into their Writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If thou hast any sense If thou hast any concern for what is done here below and the like we may reasonably conclude that this was all they meant even where they do not express any such thing 95. But did not those Fathers do somewhat more than this Can all their Expressions be fairly reduced to such Apostrophe's To this I have already said that We do acknowledge that about the latter end of this Century S. Basil Gregory Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen amongst the Greeks and their great Imitator S. Ambrose among the Latins did begin to Invocate the Saints And had you thought fit to consult that Excellent Treatise to which I referr'd you Discourse of Worship of Saints in Answer to Mr. de Meaux's Appeal to the IV. Age. or rather to take notice of what was said there for I am apt to believe you did Consult it I should not have been troubled with these impertinences here And therefore tho it were not difficult to find some considerable faults with those few passages you have alledged from those Holy Men as when you say that S. Basil exhorts those who are in Tribulatian to flie to the Saints those who are in joy to have recourse to them whereas He only Historically relates what they did do He says he who is afflicted flies to them He who is in joy runs to them yet I shall quit all to you and without either shifting or nibling leave you to make the most you can of them 96. But then that you may not put any more such Crude notes upon your Reader as you have done here where you say That Protestants grant Praying to Saints to have been established in the IVth Age I will very briefly transcribe from two Learned Men of our Church some considerable differences between what the Fathers of this Century did and what you do now and of which if you will not yet be perswaded to take any notice I hope at least all indifferent persons will see by them how impertinently you alledge their Authority for your Excuse First That in your Church Ushers answer to a challenge P. 409. Prayer to Saints is look'd upon as a part of Worship that is due to them insomuch that as I have shewn Cardinal Bellarmine places it among one of those Advantages that accrues to them upon their Canonization But this those Holy Fathers never believed on the contrary they absolutely define prayer as a service proper to God only and argued against the Arrians upon this very Topick that Christ must needs be God because the Church prayed to him If you pretend that there are two sorts of Prayers one proper to God
another that is not I reply 1. That this is false because as we have seen all Prayer is a Religious Worship and therefore proper to God only Secondly It concludes nothing because you offer the most proper sort of Prayer for Help and Assistance to the Saints that you can do to God himself P. 401. Secondly In your Church you allow mental Prayer as well as Vocal to be made to the Saints But in the Primitive this was reserved as peculiar to Him who searcheth the Heart and alone knoweth the Secrets of all the Children of Men. P. Ibid. c. Thirdly In your Church it is resolved that the Saints are capable of hearing and knowing your requests In the Primitive this was never determined and the contrary seems to have been the most generally received P. 405. Fourthly In your Church formal Prayers are made to the Saints But the Addresses of these Holy Fathers were either wishes only or requests of the same nature with those which are in this kind usually made to the living where they who are requested be evermore accounted in the Number of those that pray for us but none of those that are prayed unto by us P. 408. Fifthly In your Church the Saints are made not only joynt Petitioners with us but Advocates too and that to plead not only Christs Merits but their own likewise But against this these Fathers openly protested as an open derogation to the high prerogative of our Saviors meritorious Intercession and a manifest encroachment upon his Great Office of Mediation P. 410.416 Sixthly In your Church it is thought a more proper way of access and a surer means of obtaining your requests to address by some Saint to God than to go immediately to the Throne of Grace through our Saviour Christ But this those Fathers earnestly opposed exhorting all men to go directly to God by his Son Jesus Christ Seventhly In your Church the Saints are indifferently called upon all the World over Discourse in Answer to Mr. de Meaux's Appeal to the IVth Age. p. 82. c. which does in effect attribute a Divine perfection viz. That of Omnipresence to them But in the Primitive Church those who sought the Intercession of the Saints limited their presence to some determinate places as particularly to their Memories where they thought them within Hearing and did not call upon them indifferently every where Eightly This in your Church is an establish'd practice they who oppose it are declared to do wickedly and an Anathema is pronounced against them on that account But in the Primitive there was no Rule or Order for it it was the effect of a private and voluntary Zeal encouraged it may be by the Guides of the Church but no part of the established Service of it 97. And this may suffice to shew how vain your pretences to the Antiquity even of this Age are to warrant your Superstition and upon what slender grounds you affirm after your Master the Bishop of Meaux that this Invocation of Saints was Establish'd nay that we grant it was Establish'd in the Fourth Age. But to convince you yet more with what little reason you either boast of this or tax us with receding from our old principle of being tryed by the Fathers of the First Four General Councils upon this account I will now make you a more Liberal offer and that is to prove if you can any Authentick Establishment of this Service in the Church I do not say now in the Sixth Century but in the Seventh Nay or even before the latter end of the Eighth In short I do affirm that the first solemn Establishment of it was in the Second Council of Nice 787. and indeed that Synod which decreed the Worship of Images in opposition to the Second Commandment was the most proper to define the Religious Invocation of Saints contrary to the First And because there is something almost as bad in the manner of the Establishment as in the thing it self I will close all with a brief account of it 98. About the end of the Sixth Century both the Worship of Images and the Invocation of Saints having taken deep root in the minds of many Superstitious persons Controversies began to arise about them and generally the same persons were found to be either Friends or Enemies to both In the year 754 Constantine Copronymus called a Synod of 338 Bishops to Examine into these matters Baron ad Ann. 754. N. 38. Spondane Ibid. N. 6. and both the Invocation of Saints and Worship of Images utterly condemned by them 99. Binnius in Syn. Const p. 1663. T. VI. Concil Labbe Thirty years after this Council the Abettors of there Superstitions prevailing another Anti-Synod Was convened by the Authority of the Empress Irene at Nice In †Action VI. this the Acts of the former Council of Constantinople were recited and instead of the Canons which they made in condemnation of this Worship ‖ Defin. XV. XVII two others were read in their Names Establishing of it How this came to pass it is not known but this the †Annot. Epi-Phan in def XVII Nicene Fathers themselves acknowledge that the other Synod had established the quite contrary Nay they were such Enemies to this Invocation that Binius tells us they exacted a solemn ‖ Binnius Annot in Concil Const T. VI. p. 1663. Baron l. c. Oath of all their party That they would never invocate the Saints Apostles Martyrs or the Blessed Virgin. And yet have these good Fathers transmitted down to Posterity those two spurious Canons of the Council of Constantinople as approving that very Worship which the Council in the true definitions of it had utterly disclaimed 100. As for the Synod of Nice its self if the definitions there made were of any force that of Frankford seven years after has utterly taken it away Act. Concil Franc. in lib. Cant. praef in l. 1. in which it was so wholly abrogated and annulled as not to be placed in the number of Synods or be any otherwise esteem'd of than that of Ariminum And I should be glad you would find me any other but pretended establishment of it before your Synod of Trent in the very last Age. I have only now remaining in the last place to shew SECT IV. What our Reasons are against this Service 101. You had ask'd me in your Vindication What Authoritie have you to oppose us You say that to invocate Saints is repugnant to Gods Word Vindic. p. 30. Shew that word if you cannot we are in possession and the Antiquity and Un-interruptedness of our Doctrine besides the reasonableness and innocency of it confirms us in our belief 102. To this I answered That every text of Scripture that appropriated Divine Worship to God alone was a demonstration against you Def. pag. 9. And that that one passage of St. Paul Rom. X. 14. How shall they call upon bim in whom they
have not believed were not men willing to be contentious might End the Controversie And for the Authority you speak of that it was rediculous to pretend prescription for that which has not the least foundation neither in Holy Writ nor in Primitive Christianity of which not one instance appears for the first Three Hundred years after Christ and much to the contrary 103. Reply p. 21. §. 16. To this you now reply in your Margin with great Assurance Protestants destitute of Scripture Proofs against the Doctrine of Invocation of Saints But all you have to say in the Book is That you do not give Divine Worship to the Saints nor call upon them in that strict sense in which they are Duties only to be paid to God. That is to say you play with Words and make use of such distinctions as if they were allowed a man might evacuate any other of Gods Commands without a possibility of being confuted And I desire you to tell me what answer you would make an Impudent Woman that should give her Husbands Bed to another and being charged by you for breaking the Seventh Commandment should tell you that you were not to be so uncharitable as to judge of what she did by the External Act that the Law forbad only lying with another man as with her Husband and that in this strict sense she was still Innocent by reserving that highest Degree of Conjugal affection to him only the giving whereof to another would make her guilty 104. But since you are so desirous to know what our Reasons against this Invocation are I will now very freely lay them before you if you will first give me leave only to prepare the way for them by stating truly the difference between us in this matter which you are wonderfully apt either to mistake or to palliate 105. You tell us in your Vindication Vind. p. 30. Repl. p. 11. Expos Sect. IV. p. 5. Papist Rept N. 2. p. 2. That All you say is that it is lawful to pray to the Saints and so again in your Reply The difference you say between us is Whether it be lawful for us to beseech or intreat them to pray for us Monsieur de Meaux in the same moderate way tells us that the Church teaches that it is profitable to pray to the Saints And the Representer from the Council of Trent says of a true Papist That his Church teaches him and he believes that it is Good and profitable to desire the intercession of the Saints reigning with Christ in Heaven In your Discourses with those of our Communion there is nothing more Ordinary with you than to make them believe that you value not praying to the Saints nor Condemn any for not doing it That if this be all they scruple in your Religion they shall be received freely by you and never pray to a Saint as long as they live Nay I have heard of some who have gone so far in this matter as to venture their Religion upon it that you do not necessarily require the practise or profession of this service at all nor pronounce any Anathema against us for opposing of it 106. But this is not ingenuous nor as becomes the Disciples of Christ For tell me now I beseech you If we unite our selves to your Church will you not oblige us to go to Mass with you Or can you dare for our sakes to alter your Service and leave out all those things that relate to the Blessed Virgin and to the Saints in it Shall we be excused from having any thing to do with your Litanies and Processions your Vespers or your Salves Or will you purge all these too in Order to our Conversion When we lie in our last Agonies will you be content to Anoint us in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and leave the Angels Arch-Angels Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles Martyrs Confessors Virgins and all the Saints out of the Commission And when our Souls are now expiring shall we be sure you will not then at least trouble us with that long Beadroll which your Office prescribes to be call'd upon in that Ceremony If you have indeed the Liberty to do this why do ye not use it and remove so great a stumbling block as this out of our way But if you cannot dispense with these things for our common Conversion how shall we believe that you can do it to satisfie a private Proselyte 107. The truth is Invocation of Saints in your Church is not esteemed so indifferent a matter as you would have it thought to be It is a Worship you suppose due to them And to which they acquire a right by their Canonization So Cardinal Bellarmine informs us And therefore in your Profession of Faith set forth by the order of Pope Pius IVth you are obliged with a firm Faith to believe and profess that the Saints who reign together with Christ are to be Venerated and Invoked And tho the Alarm which the Council of Trent was in upon the News of the Popes sickness and the haste which thereupon they made to conclude that Synod permitted them not to frame any Canons in this last as they had done in the other Sessions yet the materials put together in the Chapter shews us what Anathema's would have been thunder'd against us Concil Trid. Sess 25. For to take it only as it lies in that Session There we find the Bishops and Pastors of the Church commanded to teach what therefore I hope is undoubtedly the Churches sense in this point That the Saints who Reign together with Christ offer up their Prayers to God for Men That it is Good and Profitable in a suppliant manner to call upon them And that for the obtaining benefits of God by his Son Jesus Christ our Lord who is our only Saviour and Redeemer we should flie to their Prayers Aid and Assistance They declare that those who deny which you know we all do that the Saints who enjoy Eternal Happiness in Heaven are not to be invoked or say that this Invocation is Idolatry as we generally believe it to be or that it is contrary to the Word of God or derogatory to the Honour of the One Mediator between God and Man Christ Jesus or that it is foolish to supplicate those who Reign in Heaven in word or in mind do think WICKEDLY 108. These are the words of your Council If therefore you permit your Prosolytes to profess what they do not believe if you receive those as good Catholicks into your Church whom nevertheless you know to remain still infected with wicked Opinions contrary to the Doctrine and Practise established amongst you If you allow them to assist at your prayers without any intention to joyn in them nay in an Opinion that they could not pray with you without committing a grievous sin Then go on to make folks believe as you do that you oblige no body to pray to the Saints
of this Argument that since the prevalency of this praying to Saints in the Church of Rome your publick rituals have had a notable change Those very Saints which in your ancient Missals you pray'd for being now a la Mode pray'd to Thus upon IV. Kalends of July in the Sacramentary of Pope Gregory I. Sacrament Greg. p. 112. above 600 years after Christ we find this Prayer made in behalf of S. Leo one of your Popes Grant O Lord that this Oblation may be profitable to the Soul of thy Servant Leo. But in the present Roman Missal the Collect is changed Missale Rom. pag. 6 12. and the Address made by the Intercession of the Saint now that was formerly made by way of Intercession for Him. Grant to us O Lord that by the Intercession of Blessed Leo this Offering may be profitable to US And of this change Decret lib. 3. tit 41. p. 1373 1373. Pope Innocent the 3d. gives this honest account Viz. That the Authority of Holy Scripture says that he ' injures a Martyr that prays for a Martyr wherein yet his Infallibility mislead him it being S. Austin and not the Scripture that said so ' and they do not want our Prayers but we theirs Which the Gloss thus more fully expresses It was changed viz. this prayer for Pope Leo because anciently they pray'd FOR Him but now TO Him. And from whence therefore we may warrantably infer that in those first Ages praying TO Saints was not establish'd seeing it was then the general Custom to pray FOR them 112. The truth is the whole face of the Ancient Church seems clearly opposite to the present practise Some doubted whether the holy Saints departed do at all concern themselves for us or conduce any thing to our Salvation So Origen And these to be sure never prayed to them Others made open opposition to such service So the Council of Laodicea S. Epiphanius Vigilantius and others before mention'd Now you Canonize Saints and esteem it necessary so to do to prevent mens praying to those in Heaven who are it may be at this time tormenting in Hell. But in those first Ages we find none of these Apotheoses De beatit SS lib. 1. C. 8. and Bellarmine himself could not find out any instance of any Saint that was Canonized before the VIIIth Century If we go into your Churches we find them filled with Altars and Chappels Images and Reliques of the Saints Candles are lighted up before them Incense is burned to their Honour But in those Primitive Ages not the least shadow is to be met with of any such Superstitions Your Books of Devotion are now filled with little else than advises how to pray to the Blessed Virgin to list your selves into her service to vow your selves to her Worship her Psalter and Rosary and Salutation is in every part of your performances Even the Catechism of the Council of Trent it self the most Cautious Book that has been set forth for some Ages in your Church having taught you first how to pray to God fails not to instruct you that you must in the next place have recourse to the Saints and make Prayers to them How comes it to pass if this were the primitive practise too that none of those Holy Fathers in any of their practical discourses have ever treated of these things Nay on the contrary they every where thunder in our Ears that Protestant Heretical Maxim that we must pray to GOD ONLY and that we ought not to address our selves to any other 123. In all your Sermons you call upon the Blessed Virgin for assistance In the Ends of your Books her Name seldom fails of standing in the same return of praise in which God and our Saviour are Glorified Your publick service and private prayers are all over-run with this superstition But is there any thing of this in the Primitive Rituals Look I beseech you into the account that has been given us of the publick service of the Ancient Church by Justin Martyr Tertullian nay by the Clementine Constitutions themselves Consult the Relation which Pliny made to the Emperour Trajan of their Manners Try those famous Liturgies of the Church within the first 100 years Reply p. 19. which no body has the happiness to be acquainted with but your self see if you can pick us up but one instance but some shadow of an instance to flourish with on this occasion 124. What are the Lives of your Saints but continued Histories of their Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints and the favours which upon that account they received from them But in the ancient Compilers of such kind of Discourses we find only dry accounts of their Piety towards God of their Zeal and Constancy in the Faith of their patience in suffering any thing rather than submit to such superstitious practises as these which the Heathens indeed would have drawn them to but which the Church utterly abhorred But for their knight errantry in Honour of the Blessed Virgin for watching whole Nights before her Images or in her Chappels for turning Vagabonds in order to the visiting her Chamber at Loretto or fetching a Feather from Compostella of this New Method of Piety there are not the least traces 125. I might run out these remarks into almost infinite Examples were they not things as well known as your contrary superstition is notorious But I shall reserve these and some other Observations of the like kind till you think fit to call me to account for them In the mean time I conclude from this short specimen I have here given that certainly the face of the Church must be very much changed as to these things Or otherwise that so great a difference could not possibly be found in the Lives the Writings the Actions the Customs the Opinions the Expressions Prayers Practises of those holy Fathers from what we see and lament in your Church at this day I go on thirdly to shew III. The Unreasonableness of this Service 126. And for that I shall offer only this one plain Argument If the Saints cannot ordinarily hear your prayers nor are able to attend distinctly to those Addresses that are made to them If those whom you Canonize are not indeed such as you suppose but many at this day tormented in Hell upon whom you call for assistance in Heaven If some of those to whom you pray never had any being but either in the Heralds Office or in the fruitful Womb of a Legendaries Brain Then it cannot be doubted but that to pray to the Saints must be the most unreasonable Devotion in the World you speak to the Wind and call upon them to as little purpose as if you should here in England make an Address to a Man in China or Tartary and you might as well have continued the Deities as you do the practise of the ancient Heathens in this service It being altogether as wise a Devotion to pray
for the obtaining the Help of their Reliques this is what will need no proof to those who are but never so little acquainted with your Superstition And have seen with what Zeal you touch your Beads and Psalters at the very Shrines in which they are contain'd to sanctify them thereby How upon all occasions they are brought forth by you To cure your Sickness to preserve you from Tempests at Land and in Storms at Sea but especially to drive away Evil Spirits for which they are the most beneficial The Messieurs du Port Royal Reponse à un Ecrit publié sur les Miracles de la St. Espine p. 15. Pag. 18 22. have given us a whole Volume of the Miracles wrought by the Holy Thorn. There you may see how Sister Margaret one of the Nuns being ill of the Palsy was carried to ADORE the Holy Thorn. How another being sick recurr'd to it for its help and found it too having no sooner ADORED the Holy Thorn and kissed it but she was well of her Infirmity Infinite Examples of the like kind might be produced but I shall content my self to shew what Opinion you have of the Power of your Reliques Pontific Rom. pag. 164 165. from the very Prayer that you make at the blessing of those little Vessels in which they are put We most humbly beseech thee Almighty God Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that thou wouldst vouchsafe to bless these Vessels that are prepared for the Honour of thy Saints through the Intercession of the same Saints That all those who shall venerate their Merits and humbly embrace their Reliques may be defended against the Devil and his Angels against Thunder Lightning and Tempest against the Corruption of the Air and the Plagues of Men and of Beasts against Thieves and Robbers and Invasions of Men against evil Beasts and against all the several kinds of Serpents and creeping things and against the wicked Devices of evil Men. Here I hope are benefits enough to invite a Man to seek to them and if they can help in all these Cases we need not doubt but they shall have Votaries enough to recur to them for it 131. But that which is most admirable is that in all these Cases false Reliques are every jot as good as true ones and which makes somewhat for the Opinion of Vasquez that provided a Man do's but think 't is the Relique of a Saint he may securely worship it tho it may be 't is no such thing We have before heard what mighty Cures were wrought at the Monument of the famous Bishop and Martyr VIARVM CVRANDARVM See above Art. 3. And whether the Council of Trent prescribed it or no Ressendius assures us all the Country round about did come to the Monument of this pretended Saint for the obtaining Help and Assistance and fancied at least that they found it too Tho it afterwards appear'd that 't was an old Heathen Inscription and those words far enough from signifying either the Name of a Man or the Character of a Bishop Many have been the Cheats of the like kind and which ought very much to lessen the Credit of those Miracles that you pretend are wrought in your Church But I shall finish all with one so much the more to be considered in that it was the happy occasion of undeceiving a very great Person and disposed him to receive that Truth he afterwards embraced And may it please God that the recital I shall here make of it may move those who are yet in Captivity to these Superstitions to deliver themselves from the like Impositions 132. Prince Christopher of the Family of the Dukes of Radzecil a Prince much addicted to the Superstitions of your Church Drelincourt Response à M. le Landgrave Ernest p. 348. §. lx having been in great Piety at Rome to kiss his Holiness's Feet the Pope at his departure presented him with a Box of Reliques which at his return soon became very famous in all that Country Some Months had hardly pass'd when certain Monks came to him to acquaint him that there was a D. Man possess'd of the Devil upon whom they had in vain try'd all their Conjurations and therefore they humbly intreated his Highness that for his relief he would be pleased to lend them his Reliques which he had brought from Rome The Prince readily complied with their desires and the Box was with great Solemnity carried to the Church and being applied to the Body of him that was possess'd the Devil presently went out with the Grimaces and Gestures usual on such occasions All the beholders cry'd out A Miracle and the Prince himself lifted up his Hands and Eyes to Heaven and blessed God who had favour'd him with such a Holy and powerful Treasure It happen'd not long after that the Prince relating what he had seen and magnifying very much the Virtue of his Reliques One of his Gentlemen began to smile and show by his Actions how little Credit he gave to it At which the Prince being moved his Servant after many promises of Forgiveness ingenuously told him that in their return from Rome he had unhappily lost the Box of Reliques but for fear of being exposed to his Anger had caused another to be made as like as might be to the true one which he had filled with all the little Bones and other Trinkets that he could meet with and that this was the Box that his Monks made him believe did work such Miracles The Prince the next Morning sent for the Fathers and enquired of them if they knew of any Demoniaque that had need of his Reliques They soon found one to act his part in this Farce and the Prince caused him to be exorcised in his presence But when all they could do would not prevail the Devil kept his Possession he commanded the Monks to withdraw and delivered over the Man to another kind of Exorcists some Tartars that belonged to his Stable to be well lash'd till he should confess the Cheat. The Demoniaque thought to have carried it off by horrible Gestures and Grimaces but the Tartars understood none of those Tricks but by laying on their Blows in good earnest quickly moved the Devil without the help of either Hard Names Holy Water or Reliques to confess the truth and beg Pardon of the Prince As soon as Morning was come the Prince sent again for the Monks who suspected nothing of what had pass'd and brings their Man before them who threw himself at the Princes Feet and confess'd that he was not possess'd with the Devil nor ever had been in his Life The Monks at first made light of it and told the Prince it was an Artifice of the Devil who spoke through the Mouth of that Man. But the Prince calling for his Tartars to exorcise another Devil the Father of LIES out of them too they began presently to relent and confess'd the Cheat but told him they did it with a