chapter of St. Luke who having lavished away his substance with riotous living in a forreign countrey Luke 15.15 he joyned himself to a Citizen who employed him in feeding his swine and he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat How so that delicate youth who loathed the plentiful fare of his Fathers house now fancy the husks that swine did eat Is that a proper food for a man and such a man no but the company of swine made him put off his own nature and wear theirs And when he came to himself so followeth the Text. What did he leave himself yes saith ingenious Peter Chrysologus à se migrat transit in bestiam Chrysol Ser. 2. living with beasts he left himself and turned beast That is the ordinary effect of bad company to turn into its own condition the nature of such as adhere to it To presume the contrary is to pretend to a miracle and tempt God It were indeed a miracle and a singular one that a person living in a bad company should not conform to it Our Saviour to confirm his Doctrine with an uncontrolable miracle against the obstinate Jews who condemned as Sorceries his other miraculous works got innocent children to blaze his glory in the Temple of Jerusalem according to the Prophet David Mat. 21.16 in the eighth Psalm Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise This miracle wrought deeply upon the Jews and confirmed them in the belief of the others preceding as St. Matthew relates St. Mat. â—â— 19. And when the chief Priests and Scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying in the Temple saying Hosanna to the Son of David they were sore displeased What made them take more notice of these innocent Elegies of the children than of the other wonders he wrought 〈…〉 Euthymius glâ—ssing upon this passage answers that in other occasions they suspected Christ might have deluded their eyes with appearances of things not really existing but that their own children bred by themselves and living among them should break out into Elogies of one they saw ever contemned and reviled by them was a miracle they knew not how to controll That ears continually beaten with calumnies and opprebries against Christ should entertain any favourable opinion of him was a wonder which malice and envy it self could not suspect So strange it is that any should not act according to the temper of the company he lives in A wonder passing all wonders Such is the influence bad company hath over minds adhering to it And herewith I conclude the first Point of my Discourse how justly our Saviour in the words of our Text was so earnest in exhorting his Disciples to shun the Abominations of Jerusalem given over to corruption and reprobate obstinacy that they might not be perverted by them and that if we should see any of those three Abominations declared by the three Opinions of Interpreters related in the opening of our Text that is to say Idolatry Cruelty or Impiety or all three practised in a Church or Congregation we are to shun it with all speed and diligence Now I will proceed to the Second Point proposed of my discourse which is to declare how I saw and by what means God was pleased to let me see that all these three abominations are generally practised in the Roman Church as it stands at present to wit Idolatrie in their Manner of Worship Cruelty in their conduct of Souls and Antichristian Impiety in extolling men above God That so my receding from the Communion of It may be justified as no more nor other than a dutiful obedience to the Councel of Christ declared in our Text. But before I enter into this Point I desire my judicious hearers not to conceive I come here to scold or Insult upon my former Brethren of the Roman Communion I may not hate Them without hating my self my flesh and blood and dearest friends being among them with tender compassion I lament their Errour I could not in piety abandon the Mother at whose brest I sucked the Belief of a Christian if with tears or sweat I could hope to wash away the stains which corruption of time has cast upon her face once fair and glorious but seeing her disease appears both incurable and contagious I was forced to a divorce Mean faults could not give a just cause to it they must be grievous ones which I cannot declare without giving them their own names the same our Text and declaration of it puts into my mouth for just cause of the like seperation Idolatrie Cruelty Impiety How I came to perceive the present Practise of the Roman Church to be guilty of these faults I will endeavour to declare with the brevity and sincerity duty requires being to speak in so Illustrious an Auditory Gods Providence leading me in my younger years to the Schools of greatest credit in Spain and disposing so that having compleated in them my courses of Philosophy and Divinity I should be imployed many years in teaching the same Faculties The exercise of those Reasoning Sciences joyned with my own Genius not fit for Pythagoras his School where ipse dixit was the rule and knowledge must be taken upon credit of the Master got me a habit of demanding reason for the belief of Doctrines proposed This assisted by frequent reading of Holy Scriptures Fathers Councels and Histories of the Church made me doubt of the Truth of several Tenents introduced by the use or Authority of the Roman Church repugnant in my esteem to common reason and not warranted by Divine testimony to captivate my understanding to the belief of them Of the Truth of Holy Scriptures of the Apostles Creed of that of Nice and Athanasius I never doubted Therein I acknowledged the Heavenly gift of Faith received in the Holy Sacrament of Baptism and lifting my heart and eyes to Heaven gave thanks to God for this Soveraign benefit in those words of the Psalm Psal 4. v. 6. Signatum est super nos lumen vultûs tui Domine Thou hast lifted upon us O Lord and printed in our hearts the light of thy countenance Without which certainly an understanding accustomed to search exactly into the nature of things their Essential constitutes the proportion of causes with effects and to measure by these rules the credibility of them would never give so free and easie assent to the ineffable mysteries of Trinity and Unity in the Divine nature of the Incarnation Resurrection Ascention of Christ our Saviour of the Descent of the Holy Ghost in tongues of fire upon the Apostles and other mysteries contained in Holy Scripture and the Creeds On the other side the reluctancy I found in assenting to those Tenents of the Roman Church as opposite to other Christian Congregations was to me an occasion of suspecting they might not be grounded upon Divine institution all my understanding
was turmoiled reflecting upon the prodigious Doctrine of Transubstantiation alone sufficient to fright rational believers from the Romish Communion By it we are required to believe that when the Priest pronounces those few Latin words Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body minding what he says the substance of all the bread he lays before him is destroyed in a moment and instead of it our Saviour Jesus is placed under that figure of bread personally and corporally A wonder though a dayly one yet far surpassing that other which once happened in the world when God hearkning to the voice of Joshua made the Sun and Moon stand till he compleated his Victory against the Enemy invading Gibeon Josh 10.12 And to support this wonder a great number of others most stupendious are chained to it As First that those accidents of white and round remaining do subsist without any substance to rest upon a thing repugnant to their nature and to all humane understanding Secondly that the same accidents being converted either into vermin by corruption or into flesh and bloud by nutrition in him that eats them should produce a substance which is to give what they have not a thing surpassing all kind of power Thirdly that a proper well proportion'd body as that of our Saviour glorious in Heaven must come down and be fitted to every Wafer and to every the least crumb of them Fourthly that the same Body must lye sit or stand or however be in a hundred thousand places at the same time All these monstrous miracles and more we must swallow to support that mystery in spight of all reason to the contrary without any pertinent Text of Scripture to ground it upon nay many Texts opposing it as we shall hereafter declare and no necessity urging to it either for verifying the words of our Saviour in the institution of this blessed Sacrament or for the effects of it St. 1â— 15 Not for verifying the words seeing our Saviour in the same tenor said I am the true vine without any alteration either in his Person or in the Vine And St. Paul saith of his Corinthians 2 Cor. 12 27. ye are the Body of Christ yet meaning no conversion of substances Nor for the effects of the Sacrament Christ being able to convey with the worthy receiving of Bread and Wine what spiritual graces he pleaseth without any substantial alteration in the Elements as in the Waters of Baptism he affordeth the soveraign grace of Regeneration without any alteration in the substance of the Water The like repugnance I felt in believing their prodigious Doctrine of Indulgences Purgatory Worship of Saints and Images and other Points controverted with them but smother'd my doubts while in Spain partly fearing the severity of that Countrey in proceeding against Opposers of their Doctrine partly amused with the supposition that the Church and Pope of Rome were Infallible in their Decrees touching matters of Faith and so might stand with security to their Declarations And finally perswaded by my Catechists that it was a mortal Sin to admit willingly even a doubt in Matters of Faith A terrible yoke reaching to the thoughts of the heart but conducent to their purpose of keeping in their people by right or wrong With these Generalities I quieted in some sort my mind while I could see none that would seriously oppose those Tenents nor know the Arguments against them but by relation of Romish Writers fashioning them so as they might better receive their stroke For though by occasion of my Employment of teaching controversies in the University of Salamanca some years I had a Licence from the Inquisitor General of Spain to read prohibited Books yet the Prohibition was so severe that I could never come by any Book of their Opposers But Divine Providence leading me to this Countrey I met with persons of excellent wisedom and great integrity who in close and serious Disputes gave me a different light and help to find out the truth The chiefest of all was the Most Reverend Father in God Thomas Lord Archbishop of Cashell who at his coming to that See having notice of me and pittying I should continue in errours sought carefully after me and finding me out with admirable zeal and great dexterity dictated by Christian charity set upon me with solid Arguments of Holy Scripture Councels Fathers and Histories and gave me to view several learned Authors representing the Errours of the Roman Church in all the points controverted to which I listened the more willingly because I saw a vein of Charity and Zeal of Union among Christians run through all his discourses acknowledging the Church of Rome to be a part of the Catholick Church though not the Catholick Church as they speak excluding other Christian Congregations from that honourable Title reverencing what in them was good as the belief of Scripture and Christian Creeds the Practice of Devotion and Piety and onely reproving the Superstructures of Erroneous Practises introduced contrary to the Institution of Christ and Stile of the Primitive Church entertaining a charitable hope of the Salvation of many of them that went on with simplicity of heart and blameless ignorance of the Errours they were bred in All which sympathizing with my own temper and dictates in relation to all Christian Congregations got in my mind a special respect and regard to his reasons I replied to them with sincerity and liberty according to the principles I was instructed in Where a clear Text or pressing reason was deficient I appealed as to a Sanctuary to the Infallibility of the Church that in things surpassing our comprehension we were to captivate our understanding to the obedience of Faith proposed to us by the Church of God To secure this refuge and have it in a readiness I framed to my self and proposed to his Grace this kind of Demonstration That by natural evidences I was convinced there was a God of infinite Goodness wisedom and power That to these attributes it belonged he should provide for Man-kind means for obtaining their end of everlasting bliss That by revealed Oracles common to all Christians I believed he sent down his Son Jesus Christ for this purpose in humane nature and to shew by his Example and Doctrine a sure way to eternal happiness And providing not only for the age he lived in but for all times to come he left upon earth a Church furnished with convenient Laws for the foresaid end And whereas he foretold himself that in future times there should arise Heresies and Controversies as it is the nature of men it became his wisedom and goodness to appoint a visible Judge with infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost to determine all Controversies emergent which Judge was no other than the Pope of Rome Successor of St. Peter to whose definitions therefore we ought to stand and so quiet our minds The former part of this Demonstration had a grateful acceptance with his Grace as
God commanded Two Hebrew words Exod. 20. or Two stones signifying Doctrine and Truth to be put in the breast plate of the High Priest And what then will you infer thence more Infallibility in the Pope than in those High Priests you bring for example Will you make them all Infallible even Caiphas If we will speak in earnest I would suppose these words so inserted were an advertisement to the High Priest that he was to exercise Doctrine and Truth as becoming his place The same advertisement I allow the Pope should have and I wish he did always do accordingly This is the utmost That Text can afford And of this weight are the other Texts they bring to assure us of the Infallibility pretended to build all our Belief on This main Foundation of the Romish Church being thus weakned I began with more liberty to pry into and examine exactly the Mysteries and Tenents of both parties Protestant and Romish To which purpose if I had no other notice of the Protestant cause than that afforded by Popish Writers and Informers as long time I had not I should have been for ever kept from adhering to it Here I perceived a great Insincerity of dealing in the proceeding of Romanists who to make odious their Adversaries gathered up out of the Writings of some particular persons a heap of some extravagant doctrines adding thereto humane frailties of their private lives whether true or false I will not debate now but certainly such as any wise and modest Protestant would abhor no less than any of themselves And if he were to repay them in the like coyn he may by their own mouth do it superabundantly For Two certain Families or Orders of them reputed the most learned and grave of all but very opposite in doctrine passing from the Gravity of Scholastick Disputes to the Scurrility of Infamatory Libels have published of late such damnable doctrines and hideous vices the one of the other as any humane and more a Christian heart would tremble to hear Which lest I should defile this sacred place or your ears or my own mouth I will not relate now But I thought it fit to insinuate to them that this foul and killing Armour of their own against themselves is in a readiness if our necessary defence would require to draw it but such a necessity not intervening I think it unbecoming an Evangelical Preacher to stir that dung and indeed no effective way to conclude with serious minds upon so weighty a matter being certain that in all Congregations of men there are defects in particulars The true and proper way being to deal as becomes men of solid and serious temper is to examine these Tenents wherein each party doth generally agree with publick Uniform consent which I have done And beginning with the Church of England I find the eminent persons of it by Uniform consent of word and writing Article 20. assert the summe of their Faith and Religion to be the Word of God contained in the undoubted Canonical Scripture besides which the plain indubitable consequence of it they require nothing to be believed as matter of Faith What rule could be imagined more sacred and excellent than this for the instruction of men in Faith and good manners if you fancy Infallibility or Antiquity what more Infallible or Ancient than the eternal Word of God if Sanctity and Wâ—sedom what can be imagined more holy and wise than the councels of Christ our Saviour the sentences of holy Prophets and Apostles if the Lustre of Miracles what more admirable and certain than those wrought by our Saviour and his Prophets and Apostles in confirmation of their doctrine if Universality all true Christians do agree in embracing and honouring Canonical Scripture Now as to the Roman Church the Tenents of it as opposite to the Protestant shall be considered for the present to be reducible to these seven heads First the Infallibility and Supremacy of the Pope Secondly the Mystery of Transubstantiation Thirdly the Worship of Images Fourthly the Praying to Saints and Angels Fifthly the Half Communion denied to the Laity Sixthly the use of Indulgences and doctrine of Purgatory Seventhly the celebrating of publick Divine Worship in a Language generally unknown to the people and prohibiting the generality the reading of the Holy Scriptures Pope's Infallibility As to the First we have already declared how ill grounded their pretence to Infallibility is St. Tho. 22. q. 13. Art 3. â—â—iman â—â— 4. tr â—0 c. 6. Now it remaineth to shew how heinous a crime it is to attribute it to the Pope or his Council Their own Divines with St. Thomas Aquinas do agree in asserting that of all sins Blasphemy is the greatest 1 p q 16 ar 18 30. The same Divines do accord in saying it is Blasphemy to attribute to any creature what is proper to God whereas God's Attributes are indistinct from himself and so to ascribe any of them to a creature is to make such a creature God Now that Infallibility is one of Gods chief Attributes incommunicable to any creature 1 p. q 16. ar 8. the same St. Thomas teacheth expresly grounding his Opinion upon these words of the Eleventh Psalm Psal 11.1 according to the Latine Translation Quoniam diminutae sunt veritates à filiis hominum that verities are maimed among the children of men To which is consonant the English Translation of the same Text that the faithful fail from among the children of men Psal 115. v. 11. but more resolutely the hundred and fifteenth Psalm declareth that all men are lyars Therefore the Romanists Attributing Infallibility of Doctrine to their Pope are guilty of Blasphemy the most hainous of all crimes which is evidently deduced from premisses of their own Theologie This hainous Blasphemy of parallelling the Pope with God in the Attribute of Infallibility is raised to a higher degree in their practice of making him Supreme and Absolute Judge and Arbiter of the Law of God and his Holy Scripture So as for the belief and practice of all we must stand to his Declaration in such degree Bellarmin li 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 5. that Bellarmine sticketh not to say if the Pope did command Vices and prohibit Virtues the Church would be obliged to believe Vice to be good and Virtue bad Nay the Council of Constance professedly commandeth the Popes Decrees to be preferred to the Institutions of Christ Whereas confessing that our Saviour did ordain the giving of the Sacred Communion under both kinds to the Faithful people and that the Apostles and Primitive Church did practise it so notwithstanding they command Concil Constan Sess 13. that for the future it be not given to the Laity but under one kind Proposing no other reason for it than that the precedent Popes and Church govern'd by them practised it so though contrary to the practice of Christ and His Apostles Whereby they extol the Pope to a