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A33211
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A discourse concerning the worship of the Blessed Virgin and the saints with an account of the beginnings and rise of it amongst Christians, in answer to M. de Meaux's appeal to the fourth age, in his Exposition and pastoral letter.
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Clagett, William, 1646-1688.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing C4384; ESTC R171370
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81,086
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123
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Again Thou having the power of a Mother with God dost beyond measure gain Pardon for them who sin beyond measure For it cannot be that thou shouldst not be heard because to all purposes and in all things and through all things God obeys thee as his true and immaculate Mother This was pretty well for the eighth Age as likewise was that of Damascene who calls the B. Virgin †Joh. Damasc lib. 4. c. 15. The Lady and Go verness of all Creatures No wonder therefore that Cardinal Peter Damian coming long after these telleth her that she comes before the Altar of Reconciliation not asking only but commanding as a Lady not as a Servant I know not whether he was the Author of those glorious Titles which have since furnished some of the Hymns that we meet with in the Offices of the Blessed Virgin * Hom. 46 de Nativ B Mar. 1. Tom. 2 p. 106. The Queen of the World The Window of Heaven The Gate of Paradise The Tabernacle of God The Star of the Sea The Heavenly Ladder by which the Heavenly King came down to us below and by which man who grovelled upon the ground ascends in exaltation to Heaven But Anselm that lived in the same Age with him speaks more fully ‖ Anselm Cant. de Excell Virgin c. 11. As God is the Father and God of all things by his power creating all things so Blessed Mary the Mother of God restoring all things by her Merits is the Mother and Lady of the Vniverse Which agrees very well with that reason he had given before why her Son went to Heaven before her †Ibid. c. 7. Perhaps O Lord lest thy Court in Heaven should stand in doubt whom it should rather go out to meet See Answer to Jesuits Chall from p. 478. to p. 495. thee their Lord coming to take possession of thy Kingdom or her their Lady ascending to that Kingdom also which belonged to her by a Mothers right To this nothing could be added in so little a time beyond Bonaventure's Psalter who taking the Psalms of David put in Lady instead of Lord in this manner O come let us sing unto our Lady c. Let every thing that hath breath praise our Lady But not content with this he framed the * Psalt Bonav p. 111 112 Paris Athanasian Creed to her Service too beginning thus Whosoever will be saved before all things it is necessary that he should hold a firm Faith concerning the Virgin Mary which Faith except a man keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly And now whosoever shall consider the Litanies of the Blessed Virgin and her Rosaries and the Prayers and Hymns of her Saturday's Office and her Psalters and the vast number of Books of Devotion to her and the Worship that is accordingly given to her in pretended Catholick Countries whosoever shall consider what they say to her in those Prayers and Hymns c. which the Speculum Beatoe Virginis just now published has put together may perhaps find there are Causes of Horror which Monsieur de Meaux is not so much concerned at as he ought to be He may justly fear that if the Reformation did not give some little check neither would these excesses stop here though in many places nothing now remains to be done but without any farther reservedness to erect Altars proper to the Blessed Virgin in every Church as the †Trigautii Exp. ad Sinas lib. 5. c. 15.20 Jesuites began to do in China O Blessed God look down in thy mercy upon the miserable estate of Christianity in so many parts of the Christian World When the Blessed Virgin foretold that all Generations should call her Blessed did she mean that all Generations would Worship her would Worship her Images and Pictures would make her a Mediatrix between God and man would ascribe to her the power not of prevailing with Jesus only for any thing but of commanding him too would offer Jesus himself a Sacrifice in her Honour should burn Incense to her would use Rosaries Hours and Psalters for her especial Invocation and Service would institute and maintain Fraternities for that Service would build Temples and Chappels to her and Altars and by most solemn Invocation every-where and by proper Rites of Religious Worship and by letting Devotion run out to her more than to our Lord Jesus himself to agnize her to be the Lady of Heaven and Earth the Queen of the World No she did not mean thus in saying that all Generations should call her Blessed For thus all Generations have not served her Nothing of all this was done to her for several Generations after Christ nor any thing of it in comparison till the dregs of Time till the decay of Learning and Piety made way for gross Superstition The first beginnings of these Corruptions were more general but the Improvements of them were chiefly owing to the See of Rome which as it grew in power and greatness so it protected those Abuses more effectually A Character very ill-beseeming a Church that pretends to be the Pillar and Ground of Truth The Wit of Man could not devise any thing more serviceable to Errour to make it spread in the World and to fix it than that a powerful See grasping at Supremacy and pretending to Infallibility should take it under her wing This See is the Source of all those Oppositions which they have met with that demanded a Reformation it is this See alone which hath obstructed a general Reformation when Christendom was otherwise well disposed towards it Therefore when Reformation by common consent was made Impossible by the See of Rome what remained but that the National Churches should reform themselves Our Reformation was a return to Primitive Antiquity and that it may prove a leading example let us pray without ceasing That God would bring into the way of Truth all such as have erred and are deceived THE END Faults to be Corrected PAge 81 seventh line from the bottom for Consciences read Concessions P. 82 l. 3. for Reconciled r. Recommended P. 80 l. 6. for them read then P. 88 l. 7. for safely r. falsly P. 92 l. 3. for Prayers r. Praises A Catalogue of some Discourses Sold by T. Basset at the George in Fleetstreet 1. A Perswasive to an Ingenuous Tryal of Opinons in Religion 2. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England 3. A Discourse about the Charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 4. The Protestant Resolution of Faith being an Answer to Three Questions I. How far we must depend on the Authority of the Church for the true Sence of Scripture II. Whether a visible Succession from Christ to this day makes a Church which has this visible Succession an Infallible Interpreter of Scripture and whether no Church which has not this visible Succession can teach the true Sence of Scripture III. Whether the Church of England can make out such a visible Succession 5. A Discourse concerning a Guide in matters of Faith with Respect especially to the Romish pretence of the Necessity of such a one as is Infallible 6. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is meant by it and what Tradition is to be Recieved and what Tradition is to be Rejected 7. A Discourse concerning the Unity of the Catholick Church maintained in the Church of England 8. A Discourse concerning the Necessity of Reformation with respect to the Errours and Corruptions of the Church of Rome In two Parts 9. A Discourse concerning the Object of Religious Worship or a Scripture-Proof of the Unlawfulness of giving any Religious Worship to any other Being besides the one Supreme God 10. A Discourse against Transubstantiation 11. A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host as it is Taught and Practised in the Church of Rome Wherein an Answer is given to T. G. on that Subject and to Monsieur Bocleau's late Book de Adoratione Eucharistioe Paris 1685. 12. A Discourse concerning Invocation of Saints 13. A Discourse concerning the Devotions of the Church of Rome 14. A Discourse concerning the Celebration of Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue 15. A Discourse concerning Auricular Confession as it is Prescribed by the Council of Trent and Practised in the Church of Rome With a Postscript on occasion of a Book lately printed in France called Historia Confessionis Auricularis 16. A Discourse concerning the Worship of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints with an Account of the Beginnings and Rise of it amongst Christians In Answer to Monsieur de Meaux's Appeal to the Fourth Age in his Exposition and his Pastoral Letter A Collection of Cases and other Discourses lately written to recover Dissenters to the Communion of the Church of England by some Divines of the City of London In two Volumes in Quarto
not reach to the Case of Images which they had not But where the state of the Controversie lay between the Christians and the Heathens about Temples and Altars and what was the difference between the one and the other is too long to insert here and therefore I refer the Reader to Mr. Mede's Discourse concerning Churches Par. 1. Book 2. where 't is handled with exquisite diligence But if Petavius his reason hath any probability why were not Images brought in presently upon Constantine's coming to the Empire at least after the death of Julian For then the Church enjoy'd Peace and Power unless it were to be said that by stepping boldly into that practise assoon as they had gained power which they had utterly condemned in their distress they knew that they should bring the reproach of insincerity upon their Profession and that therefore it was more advisable to step into it by degrees But he that can believe this of the Ancient Church must not pretend any great Reverence for it But whereas Petavius thought this to be the likely reason why we hear not of Images so long together viz. that it would furnish the Heathens with objections I shall not fear to oppose this Conjecture with another and to say that it is more likely and credible that if the Antient Fathers had thought it lawful to bow down to Images and to Worship them they would have brought this practise in with one consent and that because the Gentiles had been accustomed to the worshipping of Images For it is incomparably more easie to bring men from worshipping some Images to worship others as the Jesuits knew by experience than from worshipping Images to worship none at all Nay it is yet more likely that Images were brought into several Churches in the fifth Age in compliance with the inclinations of many of the Gentiles who now the Church shined with the Glory of the World thronged into it before they had worn off their Superstition and fondness of Images and that the reason why it was done no sooner was this that the Zeal of the Ancient Church against Images being yet fresh in the minds of men must needs hinder their coming into any use immediately and leave it to be a work of some time And it is not unlikely that Petavius himself was well aware of these things for otherwise he was not likely to confess that in this Controversie about Images we are not to have regard to the Examples and Orders of the more ancient Church but rather of latter times which is in more civil terms to confess it was an Innovation for surely this learned Jesuit knew better than to say that in a Controversie about the Antiquity of worshipping Images we ought rather to regard latter times than the Ancient Church But they that will find Church-Authority for Image-Worship must go down yet lower even beyond the fifth sixth and seventh Ages of the Church Pictures were in the fifth Age brought into divers Churches for Ornament and Instruction The Histories of the Old and New Testament and at length the Passions of Martyrs and stories of Saints were to be seen upon the Walls of Churches Indeed when the seventh Age was now coming in we find the People of Marseilles began to worship Images which Serenus * Greg. lib. 9. Ep. 9. ad Serenum their Bishop discerning broke 'em down Which breaking of them Gregory the Great disallowed because he thought Images were instead of Books to them that could not read but the worshipping of them he disallowed as much as Serenus It is likely enough that some unwarrantable regard to Images began about the same time to obtain in other places For in the seventh Age there were warm Controversies about it which grew to such a heat in the Reign of Leo Isaurus that he commanded the Images to be broken down But Superstition had gotten such an head that this would not do but his Son Constantine was forced to call together a Council which consisted of 338 Bishops to put an end to those Troubles if it might be done And they did their parts effectually for they did not onely decree against the worshipping of Images but the retaining of them Now thirty years after this towards the end of the Eighth Age another Council was assembled at Nice by the promotion of the Empress Irene in which Image-Worship was stoutly maintain'd but with such kind of Arguments that if I were for the Worship of Images I should be very well content to lose the advantage of the Councils Authority provided I might never be reproached with their Reasoning The Cause was upheld by Adrian I. then Bishop of Rome who sent the Acts of this second Nicene Council to Charles the Great Charles calls a Council of Italian German and French Bishops at Frankford in which it was determined against the Constantinopolitan Council that Images might be retained and smartly concluded against these Nicene Fathers that without impiety they could not be worshipped It was unlucky that the late beginning of Antiquity for the Worship of Images should be discredited by such an Authority and robb'd of all pretence to Vniversality And therefore Petavius as others had done comforts himself with that vain pretence that the Council of Frankford * Petav. Dog Th. Tom 5. Par. 2. Lib. 15. understood not the sence of the Nicene Bishops It is a vain pretence because the Acts of the Nicene Council lay before the Fathers of Frankford But the Nicene Doctrine was condemned about 32 years after this at Paris and was indeed generally opposed in the Western Churches So that it seems there is some reason why Image-Worshippers should not regard the Examples and Constitutions of the Antient but rather of the latter times of the Church But when began the Worship of the Blessed Virgin And why have we forgotten her all this while Even because the Fathers forgat her first 'T is true we find in Gregory Nazianzen's †Greg. Naz. Orat. 18. T. 1. Oration upon St. Cyprian the story of Justina the Virgin calling upon the Virgin Mary to defend her against the unchast designes of Cyprian who if we may believe the Tale was once a Conjurer at Antioch c. But by St. Cyprian's Life written by Pontius his Deacon it is evident that this story is void of all circumstance of Truth * Bar. A. D. 250. N. 5. See Daillé de Object Cultur p. 51 c. Baronius himself confesses as much And by the endeavours that have been used to mend the Tale for the credit of G. Nazianzen 't is plain that there is no remedy but it must go for an inexcusable business And therefore if ever there was cause from the matter of a Writing imputed to a man of great Name and Authority to conclude 't is none of his this equity is to be shewn to Gregory Nazianzen it being incredible that a man of his Worth and Abilities should either invent such