Divines whether any of the three Points instanced by the Doctor viz. Veneration of Images Adoration of the B. Sacrament and Invocation of Saints be Idolatry or no and those who side least with that Party which are called Non-conformists are for the Negative Viz. that it is not Idolatry whereas if it had been the sense of the Church of England in those Articles that it were Idolatry to do any of those things they had by maintaining the contrary as erroneous incurr'd Excommunication ips facto as appears by the Canons Printed before the 39 Articles set forth by Mr. Rogers Here therefore the Doctor to maintain his charge of Idolatry to be as he calls it the receiv'd Doctrin and practice of the Church of England is forc'd to have recourse to the Book of Homilies and to the Sentiments of Particular Persons of which he cites no less than Seventeen the greatest part of whom I shall show to be incompetent Witnesses in the case and the rest to speak nothing to his Purpose First then for the Book of Homilies which he saith is not barely allow'd but subscribed to as containing godly and wholsome Doctrine and necessary for these times I answer this doth not Evince that every particular Doctrin contained in it is such And therefore Mr. Thorndike speaking of the very Homily against peril of Idolatry here urged by Dr. St. saith that in this particular he must have leave to think it fails as it evidently doth in others And Bish Mountague saith The Book of Homilies contains a general Godly doctrin yet it is not in every part the publick dogmatical doctrin of the Church And Dr. Heylin in his necessary Introduction to Cyprianus Anglicus p. 14. tells us that the vehemence used in those Homilies was not against Images as Intolerable in themselves but as they might be made in those broken and unsetled times an occasion of falling But that People being well instructed in the right use of them Images may be still kept for good uses in Churches and for stirring up of devotion in which respect they were called saith he by Pope Gregory and not unfitly the Lay-men's Books As for the particular Doctors he cites I except against little less than two parts of three of them as Incompetent Witnesses in the Case And in Order to this I shall take the same measure the Doctor himself puts into my hand when to show the Testimony of Arch bishop Whitgift to be valid in his cause he premises that none could be less suspected to be Puritanically inclined than He that is I shall cast out of the List all those who shall be found to have been Puritans or Puritanically inclin'd And first for his two Arch-bishops Whitgift and Abbot the Former though otherwise a stiff Asserter of the Disciplin of the Church of England is known to have consented to the frameing of the Lambeth Articles and to have proposed them to the Divines of Cambridge and the latter was so great a Favourer and Abettor of the Puritan Party that to stop them in their full Carreer Dr. Heylin saith it was found necessary to suspend Him from his Metropolitical Jurisdiction of Dr. White the same Heylin reports p. 135. that for Licensing Bishop Mountague's Appello Caesarem it was said that White was turned Black Jewel Bilson and Davenant were all excepted against by our late Soveraign K. Charles I. in his 3d. Paper to Hinderson Dr. Fulk also in Matth. 28. 46. is noted for abetting Calvin in his blasphemous Opinion that our Saviour Christ suffered in his Soul the very pains of a damned Person upon the Cross Reynolds and Whitaker are notorious for their siding with the Puritans the latter being a great stickler for the Lambeth Articles and the Former appearing publickly the Fore-man or Champion of that Party at the Conference at Hampton-Court against the Church of England Bishop Usher and Bishop Downam cannot be excused The story of the first is to be seen in Cyprianus Anglicus p. 271. where after many Calvinistical Opinions of which the said Primate was the Contriver in Ireland Dr. Heylin saith he refused to receive the whole Body of the Canons made in the year 1603 because he was afraid of bowing at the name of Jesus and some other Reverences which he neither practised nor approved and p. 216. that his Book called Gottescalchus had run the same Fate of being called in with that of Bishop Downam 's about Perseverance but that it seem'd not fit to put a publick disgrace upon the Primate of a Nation By all which it appears that of Seventeen Authors He cites to maintain his unjust charge of Idolatry upon the Church of Rome to be the sense of the Church of England no less than Eleven are shown to have been downright Puritans or Puritanically affected For the Six which remain viz. Dr. Jackson Dr. Field Isaac Casaubon Bishop Andrews Arch bishop Laud and King James whoever compares what the Doctor cites out of them with what they write in other places nay whoever attentively considers but the very places cited by my Adversary shall find that they do not impugn the Doctrin it self of the Church of Rome or the practice conformable to that Doctrin but such things as they conceived to be great abuses in the Practice of it For Dr. Jackson as cited by the Doctor doth not say that to give a honourary Veneration to Images is Idolatry but to give divine honour to them which he saith the Papists do and the Papists themselves deny Bishop Andrews in like manner giveth for the reason of his charge that the Papists do not meerly pray to the Saints to pray for them but to give what they pray for themselves and the Papists profess they do no such things Dr. Field doth not charge the Invocation of Saints with Idolatry and Superstition but speaks only of the Idolatry and Superstition whâ—ch he thought but not truly was committed in it Arch-bishop Laud also as his own words declare speaks of the practice of Adoration of Images in the Modern Church of Rome which he erroneously affirmeth to be too like to Paganism And so K. James in the place cited by the Doctor had He not so soon forgot his promise of reporting faithfully saith expresly that what He condemns is Adoring of Images viz. with Divine Worship praying to them and imagining a kind of sanctity to be in them all which are detested by Catholicks And all that he cites out of Isaac Casaubon when He was employed by the King to deliver His Opinion to Cardinal Perron in the Invocation of Saints was that the Church of England did affirm that some Particular Practices were joyned with great impiety So that it is not the Doctrin of the Church of Rome if rightly practic'd which these Authors condemn of Idolatry but the abuses they conceiv'd to be committed in the practice of it as to give the Worship due to God to an Image to pray to
a Name which is above every Name that it might have as much Reverence given It as we give to great Meg of Westminster What would Bishop Andrews have said had he lived to hear this Verily saith He in his Sermon upon the foregoing words of St. Paul God will not have us worship him like Elephants as if we had no Joynts in our Knees He will have more honour of men than of the Pillars of the Church He will have us to bow our Knees and let us bow them in God's Name and To his Name For this is another Prerogative He is exalted to whose Person Knees do bow but He to whose Name onely much more But the cause is here otherwise For his Person is taken up out of our sight all we can do will not reach unto it But his Name he hath left behind to us that we may shew by our Reverence and Respect to it how much we esteem him How true the Psalm shall be Holy and Reverend is his Name But if we have much ado to get it bow at all much more shall we have to get it done to his Name There be that do it not what speak I of not doing it There be that not onely forbear to do it themselves but put themselves to an evil Occupation to find faults where none is and cast scruples into mens minds by no means to do it And again a little after But to keep us to the Name This is sure the words themselves of St. Paul are so plain as they are able to convince any mans Conscience And there is no Writer not of the Ancient on this place that I can find save he that turned all into Allegories but literally understands it and likes well enough we should actually perform it Thus Dr. Andrews a very Learned Bishop of his Church as Dr. St. himself calls him p. 101. And can any legitimate Son of that Church hear him preach that no more Reverence is due to the Name of JESUS than to the tolling of a Bell and yet cry him up hereafter for a Pillar of that Church unless it be in the Bishop's sense above-mentioned whose practise he exposes as ridiculous by so unhandsome a Comparison I remember at the beginning of the Long Parliament one of the first Wounds given to the Church of England was from a Book whose Title as I read it posted up in Westminster-Hall was Jesu-Worship Confuted and whether the same might not have been put for a Marginal Note to this Answer of the Doctors I leave to Judgment of the Reader Give me leave to speak a Word to you Sons of the Church of England what if the Doctor should come upon you for reverencing the Name of JESUS with your Hat or Knee as he doth upon us for honouring in like manner his Image viz. p. 102. that the Reverence you give to that Holy Name is either the same you give to God or distinct from it If it be the same then you give proper divine worship to the Name and if it be distinct then the Name is worshipped with divine worship for it self and it is in your choice what sort of Idolatry you will commit who worship the Name of JESUS but neither way can you avoid it If you tell him that the Reverence you give that H. Name is not the worship due to God but a Relative and inferiour respect for his sake he will tell you again as he did me in the case of Images p. 100. that this is just as if an unchast Wife should plead in her excuse to her Husband that the Person she was too kind with was extreamly like him and a dear friend of his nay had his very name and that it was out of respect to him that she gave him the honour of his Bed I do not hear that he hath press'd this argument upon you and if he do not I cannot but wonder his zeal for God's honour suffers you so long to go on in your Idolatrous practise and much more if he comply with you himself in shewing any reverence to that Name for though like a wiser Christian there being degrees among Christians as well as Heathens he differ extreamly from the Vulgar in his Opinion of Religion yet this is to concur with them in the external practise of their Idolatry and so he falls under the same censure with his wiser Heathens p. 73. On the other side if he do it noâ— Bishop Andrews hath told him he hath just reason to fear least the Knee that will not bow be strucken with something which shall make it not able to bow and for the Name that they that will do no honour to it when time of need comes shall receive no honour by it But to conclude this Point If it be the sense of the Sons of the Church of England that they intend to give no more reverence to the most Holy Name of Jesus when they hear it read than to a Bell when they hear it toll I confess I was mistaken in alledging this Practise of theirs for an Instance But if they acknowledge more is due to that sacred Name than to a Bell and yet not so much as is due to God himself I have the end for which I brought it which was to let them see what kind of worship it is we give to the Images of Christ such as is given by themselves to the Name of Jesus For we make Images no more the Objects of our worship when we kneel before them than they do that Holy Name when they bow at it § 5. The Fift Instance was of the Reverence given to the Sacramental signs in the Supper by kneeling before them which if the Bread and Wine had any sense in them as he saith of Images p. 102. would think were done to them And what saith my Adversary to this Marry that this of all things should not be objected to them If you ask him why He tells you because they have declared in their â—ubrick after the Communion that thereby no adoration is intended or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental Dread and Wine there bodily received or any corporal presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Blood for the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored For that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians I confess I reflected up in this Rubrick when I put down Kneeling at the Eucâ—arist for an Instance but I could not imagin the Doctor would make it a matter of Triumph over the Church of England It is not yet more than a dozen years since this Rubrick was inserted into the Communion Book and the occasion is well known to have been a design to gain scrupulous and dissenting Parties to a conformity in so innocent a Ceremony And because the Church of England hath been so kind to those who dissented from her as to declare no adoration is intended
proof of Christ's Divinity he will appeal to him whether there are the same Grounds and Motives from thence to believe Transubstantiation as there are the Divinity of Christ But if Catholicks do not acknowledge Scripture alone to be the Rule of Faith what am I concern'd whether Bellarmin produce many Texts or but One or none at all Does not the Doctor himself say that some of our Religion have said that Transubstantiation could not be prov'd from Scripture alone and have not others of it said as much of the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father I am sure this was believed before the Scripture was written and so Scripture could not be the Rule of believing it But then again what if Bellarmin produc'd but One Text of Scripture for Transubstantiation therefore can there no more be produc'd Or if no more could be produc'd would there not be the same Ground of believing from thence supposing I am certain of the true sense of thâ—s One as if there were many Are we not bound as much to believe God when he says a thing once if we be sure of the true sense of what he saith as when he says the same twice or thrice And were not all those places cited by Bellarmin for Christ's Divinity as much impugned by the Arrians as this of Christ's words This is my Body is by Calvin and his Complices Why then must I because Bellarmin produces out of Scripture but one Text for Transubstantiation and many for Christ's Divinity acknowledge there are not the same Grounds or Motives to believe the one as the other § 7. I but Bellarmin himself acknowledges that there is some obscurity or ambiguity in the very Text he cites for after he had spent the greatest part of the Chapter against the Lutherans He concludes it thus saith the Doctor p. 131. Although there be some obscurity or ambiguity in the words of our Lord yet that is taken away by Councils and Fathers which is a plain Indication he thought the Doctrine of Transubstantiation could not be proved from Scripture alone But stay am I bound to believe Dr. St. upon his bare word May I not look into Bellarmin to see what he says without incurring a sin of rash judgement against my Neighbour The Book God be thanked is not so hard to be found as that of Trigautius I ventur'd to look the place upon the Remembrance of some former dexterity I had noted in him in citing of Authors and although I could hardly believe my Eyes nor did not till I look'd into another Edition I found Bellarmin not to say what he affirms him to say but in reality the contrary For after he had proved from the words of our Lord the Real Presence of his Body in the Sacrament against the Calvinists li. 1. de Euch. c. 1. and in the present Chapter had shown against the Lutherans that Transubstantiation is absolutely inferr'd from the very same words being to carry on his Proofs from Scripture to Councils and Fathers he concludes the Chapter in these words and that by way of Transition Adde quod LICET in verbis Domini ESSET aliqua obscuritas vel ambiguitas ea tamen sublata est per multa Concilia Catholicae Ecclesiae Patrum Consensum Add saith he that ALTHOUGH THERE WERE or should be which is as much as to say suppose there were some obscurity or ambiguity in the words of our Lord yet that is taken away by the many Councils of the Catholick Church and the Consent of Fathers And now I appeal to the Reader whether Dr. St. have not given us here a very rare example of reporting faithfully as he calls it in his Preface the words and sense of an Author Is it all one to say although there be and although there should be He that saith Although there be some ambiguity in the words supposes them to be ambiguous He that saith Although there should be some Ambiguity in them supposes them not to be ambiguous And this is the case between Bellarmin and the Doctor Bellarmin only puts the case they were ambiguous and by so doing supposes them not to be so and the Doctor makes him acknowledge them de facto to be ambiguous which is just as if when the Doctor himself says p. 111. supposing there were the same divine Revelation of Transubstantiation and of Christ's Divinity c. I should infer that he acknowledges the Revelation to be the same de facto in both 'T is manifest then that by this Translation he hath corrupted both the words and sense of Bellarmin And this not by mistake as appears but too too plainly for that himself makes the words of Bellarmin as he translates them to be a plain Indication that he thought Transubstantiation could not be proved from Scripture alone whereas had he reported them as they stand in Bellarmin LICET ESSET Although there were or should be some ambiguity in the words of our Lord c. They had been a plain Indication that Bellarmin for his part thought that he had sufficiently prov'd the Doctrine of Transubstantiation out of Scripture And now the Reader sees what the Doctor meant in his Preface by his design as he calls it to report faithfully And however he intended to make use of it for his advantage yet it is a very plain Indication of what shifts and artifices they are fain to avail themselves of who will maintain a bad cause To conclude I shall give him the Opinion of Dr. Taylor in this Point more faithfully who in his Liberty of Prophecying Sect. 20. n. 16. saith that Catholicks have a Divine Revelation viz. This is my Body whose literal and Grammatical sense if that were intended is so clear and evident for Transubstantiation that it would warrant them to do violence to all the Sciences in the Circle CHAP. VI. Dr. Taylor 's Argument in behalf of Catholicks supposing them mistaken Un-answered by Dr. St. His Parallel of such a supposed mistake with that of Idolaters shown to be a real and very gross mistake in himself § 1. HAving shown in my Reply that the Dr's Argument by which he would prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry for adoring our Lord Christ in the Eucharist would be of equal sorce srom the Pen of an Arrian against the adoration of him as God wherever present I added p. 20. that supposing Catholicks should be mistaken in their belief And I hope the Doctor will not infer from hence that I acknowledge them to be mistaken de facto yet so eminent and learned a Man among the Protestants as Dr. Taylor denies it would follow from thence that they were Idolaters And the words I cited were these out of his Liberty of Prophecying Sect. 20. Numb 16. Idolatry saith he is a forsaking the true God and giving divine worship to a Creature or to an Idol that is to an Imaginary God who hath no Foundation in Essence or Existence And this is
not Image reinforced Pag. 33. Chap. 4. The Doctor 's Second Proof from the Reason of the Law sophistical All Representations of God not dishonourable to him nor rejected as such by the Church of England The Proper Reason of the Law on God's part is assigned and asserted to be the Supream Excellency of his Nature pag. 57. Chap. 5. Worship unlawful by the light of Nature equally unlawful to Jews and Christians A strange Paradox advanced by Dr. Stillingfleet viz. What can an Image do to the heightning devotion or raising Affections How far his Devotion to the Sun may be allowed in the Judgement of St. Leo. pag. 76. Chap. 6. Of the Notions and practice of the Wiser Heathens in the matter of their Images The Texts of St. Paul Acts 17. 24. and Rom. 1. 21. explained Some of the Doctor 's Testimonies examined in particular the Relation He gives of what the Jesuites did in China Pag. 95. Chap. 7. Of the 2d General Council of Nice call'd most irreverently by Dr. St. that wise Synod His Constantinopolitan Father's Objections answered by Epiphanius and his Answers shown to be goâ—d pag. 118. Chap. 8. The Dr.'s Objection from the Council of Franckford examin'd and shown to be no advantage to his Cause pag. 140. Chap. 9. Of the Doctor 's Third Proof from the Judgment as He pretends of the Law-giver His Speculation concerning the Golden Calves manifestly repugnant to the H. Scripture and Fathers Mr. Thorndike's Judgment of the Meaning and Extent of the second Commandment pag. 153. Chap. 10. What kind of honour the Church gives to Holy Images explained and the Doctor 's mixing School-disputes with matters of Faith shown to be sophistical pag. 176. Chap. 11. Of the Instances brought to explicate the nature of the honour given to Images from the like Reverence given to the Chair of State to the Ground to the Ark to the Name of Jesus c. The weakness of the Doctor 's Evasions laid open and His own Arguments return'd upon Him pag. 193. PART II. Of the Adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament Chap. 1. THe Practice of the Primitive Church in this Point The Doctor 's Argument to prove it to be Idolatry built upon an Injurious Calumny that Catholicks believe the Bread to be God The sense of his first Proposition cleared and the Proofs He brings for it refuted pag. 221. Chap. 2. The true State of the Controversie laid open together with the Doctor 's endeavours to mis-represent it His manner of arguing against the Adoration of Christ in the Eucharist equally destructive to the Adoration of Him as God pag. 243. Chap. 3. Of Dr. St.'s Scruple about the Host's not being consecrated for want of Intention in the Priest and his mistake of the true Reason of giving Adoration to Christ in the Sacrament pag. 256. Chap. 4. His Fundamental Principle of judging of matters proposed to our Belief by Sense and Reason shown to be absurd in it self and destructive to Christianity p. 272. Chap. 5. A Check to the Doctor 's bigg words against the Grounds of Transubstantiation With a New Example of reporting faithfully as he calls it the words and sense of an Author pag. 294. Chap. 6. Dr. Taylor 's Argument in behalf of Catholicks supposing them mistaken in the belief of Transubstantiation not answered by Dr. St. The Parallel of such a supposed mistake with that of Idolaters shown to be a real and very gross mistake in Himself pag. 317. PART III. Of the Invocation of Saints Chap. 1. THe Doctrine of the Church of Rome in this Point supposed by Dr. St. to be Idolatry but not proved The disparity between the Worship given by Catholicks to the Saints and that of the Heathens to their Inferiour Deities laid open pag. 333. Chap. 2. What kind of Honour Catholicks give to the Saints The Testimonies of Origen and St. Ambrose explained Of the practice of making Addresses to Particular Saints pag. 353. Chap. 3. What kind of Worship of Angels was condemned by St. Paul Theodoret c. with a farther display of the disparity between the Heathens Worship of their Inferiour Deities and that given by Catholicks to Holy Angels and Saints pag. 377. Chap. 4. Of the Term Formal Invocation and the different Forms used in the Invocation of Saints Some Instances out of the Fathers to show the like to have been used in their Times pag. 397. Chap. 5. The disparity assigned by Dr. St. between desiring the Saints in Heaven and Holy Men upon Earth to pray for us shown to be Insignificant pag. 414. Chap. 6. Of the practice of Christian People in St. Austin's time in the Invocation of Saints pag. 430. The Two Questions whence Dr. Still took Occasion to raise this Controversy 1. WHether a Protestant having the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in the Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians His Answer to the aforesaid Questions The first Question being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant yet continuing so doth imply a contradiction viz. That a Protestant continuing so should have the same Motives to become a Catholick taking that term here only as signifying one of the communion of the Church of Rome which those have who have been horn or bred in that communion But supposing the meaning of the Question to be this Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of our Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who are bred in it I answer 1. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the communion of a Church wherein salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them No more than it is for a Man to leap from the plain Ground into a Ship that is in danger of being wrackt because he may equally hope to be saved with those who are in it Nay supposing an equal capacity of Salvation in two several Churches there can be no reason to forsake the communion of the one for the other So that to perswade any one to leave our Church to embrace that of Rome it is by no means sufficient to ask whether such a one may not as well be savâ—d as they that are in it already but it is necessary that they prove that it is of necessity to salvation to leave our Church and become a Member of theirs And when they do this I intend to be one of their number 2. We assert that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their Souls ought to embrace it or
that none of the Idols of the Heathen were to be compared to Him in Wisdom Greatness Power c. as is manifest he does from v. 12. to the end of the Chapter it is no more to the purpose for which he alledges it viz. Therefore it is forbidden to worship God himself by bowing or kneeling before an Image than if one should say There is no comparison for Riches and Greatness between a King and a Peasant therefore it is not lawful to give honour to the King by putting off ones Hat before his Picture or the Chair of State § 7. To the other Text of Deut. 4. 15. where Moses saith Take good heed to your selves for ye saw no manner of Similitude in the day that the Lord spake to you I answer That de facto no manner of Similitude was seen at that time by the People that afterwards they might not take occasion as they were apt enough to conceive it to have been a proper Representation of the Divinity and so entertain an erroneous Conceit of God Notwithstanding if it had so pleas'd him when he gave the Law he might have appeared to the People in some visible likeness without disparagement to his Nature as it is likely he did in a glorious manner to Moses at the Second giving of the Law when he descended and stood with him on the Rock and he saw the back parts of God and bowed to the Earth and worshipped Exod. 33. 23. 34. 5 8. and as both before and after he appeared to the Patriarchs and Prophets and consequently his not appearing so de facto could not be the Reason of the Law For as Dr. St. himself confesses very ingenuously p. 63. Although God had appeared with a Similitude then yet there might have been great reason for making a Law against worshipping the Heathen Idols or fixing the intention of their Worship upon the bare Image I add Even against thinking of honouring God by an Image made by men if that were the meaning of the Law as it is not since such a Law if necessary might have been made and would have obliged although God had chosen some visible likeness to appear in at that time The words then For ye saw no manner of Similitude on the day that the Lord spake to you though cited by the Doctor without a Parenthesis to make them seem of more force were not set down by Moses as the Reason of the Law But the matter of fact was made use of by him as a Motive to induce the People to the Observance of it in a Sermon he makes Deut. 4. to press them to that duty And this Explication also the Doctor might have found in his own Bible if he had but vouchsafed to cast his Eye upon the Contents of the Chapter where the whole Discourse is entituled An Exhortation to Obedience or on the Breviate on the top of the Page where the Arguments us'd in it are call'd Perswasions to Obedience But there was the word likeness in the first Text and Similitude in the second denied of God and these were enough without considering the Context or the intent of the Writer or the Contents of the Chapters to ask Whether God by that Reason doth not declare that all Worship given to him by any visible Representation of him is extreamly dishonourable to him Now though Protestants may hold with Dr. St. that the Scripture is the most certain Rule of their Faith yet unless they wilfully shut their Eyes they cannot think the Method he takes to be the most certain way to find out its Sense But to draw to a Conclusion in this matter § 8. Let us suppose the Argument notwithstanding all that hath been said to shew its deficiency in all its parts to be good and sound and that in its largest extent viz. The Nature of God being infinite and incomprehensible cannot be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it Let us grant I say this Antecedent and the Places of Scripture in the sense they are cited by him Let us grant the Consequence too he infers from them Therefore all Worship given to Him by any visible Representation of him whether Proper or Analogical is extreamly dishonourable to him Suppose I say all this to be so Will it follow from hence that Christ according to his Humanity cannot be represented but with great disparagement to Him Or that to put off our Hats when we behold the Figure of his Sacred Body as Nailed upon the Cross with intent to Worship Him must be extremly dishonourable to Him What if the Soul of Man be Invisible and cannot be represented by any Corporeal Figure or Colours Will it follow from thence that any Picture made to represent a Prince according to his External Features would be a disparagement to him and any Honour given him by means of such a Representation a Dishonour The Consequence he brings is no better in order to Christ and his Image If then his Argument do not at all concern the practise of Catholicks in making the Images of Christ and his Saints with respect to their Honour to what purpose was it to lay down for the Reason of the Law in which he will have it to be forbidden That God's Nature being Infinite and Incomprehensible could not be represented without infinite disparagement to it To what purpose was it to spend no less than three Pages as he does § 6. in citing Authours to prove that the Wiser Persons of the Heathens themselves condemned the Worship of God by Images as incongruous to a Divine Nature Was it to make his Reader believe that Catholicks allow of any Pictures as proper Representations of the Invisible Deity Let him lay his Hand upon his Heart I have told him the Churches Sense in that Point What those Wiser Persons of the Heathens meant is evident from their Words and from the Time in which they lived to be this That the Nature of God being Spiritual and Invisible it could not be represented by any thing like unto it and therefore the Worship which the People gave to their Images as Gods or like unto the Gods they worshipped was incongruous to the Divine Nature and a disparagement to the Deity And if the Germans as Tacitus reporteth de morib German c. 9. rejected Images made in the likeness of men which the Doctor conveniently leaves out because they thought them unsuitable to the Greatness of Celestial Deities for Other Figures and Symbols they had in their consecrated Groves as the same Tacitus there witnesseth and Dr. St. suppresseth it was but what the Light of Nature taught them concerning the notion of a Deity which had the mystery of God made Man been revealed to them would have taught them also that it was no disparagement to Him to be represented in the likeness of Man and to be worshipped by such an Image His other Citations I took upon his word without
examining them and the Reader may guess by this out of Tacitus whether it be not likely I did him a kindness in it CHAP. V. Worship unlawful by the Light of Nature equally unlawful to Jews and Christians A strange Paradox advanced by Dr. Stillingfleet viz. What can an Image do to the heightning of Devotion or raising Affections How far his Devotion to the Sun may be allowed in the Judgment of St. Leo. § 1. FRom the Notions of the Wiser Heathens concerning the Worship of Images he passes to the Clearer Discoveries of the Gospel S. 7. and wonders as at a thing of all things the most strange to him that any Persons should think this Precept onely respected the Jewish Oeconomy and he repeats his wonder in a higher strain p. 67. when he asks How any men in their Senseâ— can imagine that Worship to be lawful among Christians which was unlawful to the Jews It seems he wanted an Adversary to combate and rather than lay down his Weapons he was resolved to make one though of empty Air For there is not one word in the Reply which he pretends to answer to signifie that the Author of it ever look'd upon this Precept as a meer positive Law which by his wondering he would make his Reader believe but the quite contrary For the meaning of the Law there given is this That what God forbids in it is to give his Worship to Idols which Prohibition being but an Explication of the Law of Nature must equally oblige both Jews and Christians Yet to speak to a Point the occasion of so much wonder What Worship is it he means was unlawful to the Jews and is lawful to Christians Was it to worship God by some Symbolical Figures instituted to raise their Minds to a more lively apprehension of Gods Majesty and Glory No for this the Jews did by bowing down before the Ark and the Cherubins and very lawfully they did it as appears by David's exhorting them to bow or fall down before the footstool of God Psal 98. Or was it to worship God by some Corporeal Representation conceiv'd as Proper to his Nature This he hath been told before is no less unlawful to Christians now than it was formerly to the Jews but rather more by reason of the clearer knowledge they have of the Nature of God What Worship then does he mean Pray take it in his own words and make the best on 't you can God's being a Spirit is given saith he as a particular Reason why we ought to worship him after a spiritual manner and not by any Corporeal Representation as the Jews said the Samaritans worshipped God in the form of a Dove This is what he saith and if his words be to be taken with relation to what the Samaritans did he ought first to have told us what that was For as it appears from Scripture 4 Kings 17. 33. they made an erroneous Conceit of God because they worshipped him together with the Gods of the Assyrians and as One of Many though the Best of the Company which neither the Jews did nor Christians I hope do but as the onely true God But if his words must be taken without that respect as they make up an Antecedent and Consequence viz. God is a Spirit therefore we ought to worship him after a spiritual manner and not by any Corporeal Representation whatsoever As the Consequence will hold as well against worshipping God by any Corporeal Gesture or Ceremony as by an Image So the giving him Worship by any Corporeal Representation supposing the Law not to be meerly Positive but Natural and the Consequence good was and is alike unlawful both to Jews and Christians But in case there were a particular Prohibition given to the Jews by reason of their proneness to Idolatry of not making any Image or likeness for Worship though of God himself the Law as to that part is evinâ—'d to be only Ceremonial from their being dispens'd with in the making and use of the Ark and Cherubins and so not obliging Christians but manifestly inferring that the use of Images abstracting from such a positive Prohibition is not unlawful From hence it appears how incongruous his comparison is between the use of Images and Common Swearing This being of its own nature evil and always dangerous That not such nor dangerous in Christians who are imbued from their Infancy with a more cleaâ— and perfect knowledge of the Nature of God than ever the Wiser Heathens attained to by the Light of Reason or the Jews by the Law of Moses Yet is not their state so spiritual as to put them quite out of their Senses The Maxim of the Philosopher holds still good with them That nothing enters into their Understanding but what passes first by the Gates of their Senses and no Operation of the Sight the quickest of them is performed without an Image § 2. Hitherto the Doctor hath been very careful to make his Reader believe him serious but who can imagine him to be so when he advances that strange Paradox p. 68. What can such an Image that is to use his own phrase a Block or a â—ewnstone representing God to his mind What can such an Image saith he do to the heightning of Devotion or raising Affections And he means not onely an Image of the Deity by way of Likeness or Analogy or Union every one of which he saith tends highly to the dishonour of the Deity and suggests mean thoughts to us of the God we are to worship but also of the Images of Christ our Lord made to represent his Humane Nature with respect to his Worship as is evident by his applauding the Constantinopolitan Fathers for condemning it as a great Absurdity p. 79. the reason whereof he seems to give in this place when he immediately addes And is there no danger among Christians that they should entertain too low and unworthy thoughts of God And can any thing tend to it more effectually than the bringing down the Representations of him to the Figure and Lineaments of a Man drawn upon a Table or carved in an Image Thus He And if he be serious what can I do but admire the thrice-happy state of these men who living in the Body as out of the Body it is so spiritualiz'd by continual Praying Fasting and other Macerations can mount at pleasure into the Third Heaven and need not the assistance of any visible Representations to raise them to the knowledge of the Invisible and Incomprehensible Deity This I confess is a state more to be admired than ever to be hoped for in this life by the greater part of the Children of Adam And therefore God to lead man to the knowledge of Him by means proportionable to his Nature which as I said is to derive its knowledge from the Senses created the stately Machin of this visible World to serve as a Hieroglyphick of his Greatness and Power Next having chosen a peculiar People to
down and made new ones of them Did the People at the preaching of the Jesuites cast them into the fire and They not condemn them Did the People tear them from the Altar and They perswade them not to lay them aside Did the People consume them in the fire and They make new ones of them Of will he say that the word Images being General may be applied respectively to the Images of 〈◊〉 false Gods and of Christ But where then was his Fidelity in translating the word Simulacra used by Ecclesiastical Writers and particularly by the Author in this place to signifie the Idols of the Heathens by the General word Images Where was his sincerity in confounding together the Images of the false Gods and of Christ with so many 〈◊〉 one upon another and the first of them which was to guide the rest supposing for the Images of the false Gods that it was scarce possible for an ordinary Protestant Reader to avoid being mistaken whereas Trigautius himself had distinguished them so clearly in his Relation that it was impossible for any one to mistake but by design What that must be in a Person who dares to charge the whole Church of Christ with Idolatry for so many hundreds of years together a wise man will easily guess What lies open to every one is that he hath an excellent faculty in reporting faithfully as he calls it in his Preface I suppose he means by Faithful there the same as being True to his own Cause the sense of an Author especially if the Book be hard to be found and the thing done as far off as China and that by the Jesuites As for the Fact it self of burning the Images of false Gods and setting up that of Christ in their room it was no more if not much less than what St. Gregory did by whom this Nation receiv'd its Christianity in ordering the Pagan Festivals of our Ancestors to be converted to the Assemblies of Christians Whose Wisdom in so doing is highly extolled and justified by Mr. Thorndike from the very nature of Christianity which saith he sanctifieth all times all places all gestures all circumstances that can pretend to express to procure to advance that attention of mind that elevation of spirit wherewith Christians profess to worship God in Spirit and Truth And that the Images of Christ among other things may pretend to this by calling him to mind and raising our Affections to Him I have shewed in the precedent Chapter § 7. To adde new Colour to his supposed Reason of the Law which he will have to be the Unsuitableness of an Image to represent the Deity he tells us in the next place that the Christian Church believed this Law to be immutable And to prove this he cites a passage or two out of Origen and Clemens of Alexandria affirming that the making use of corporeal representations makes the Deity contemptible and that Christians have nothing to do with Images because of the second Commandment And to this I answer as formerly What Roman-Catholick ever denied it of such Images as they there speak of viz. the Images of the Heathens against whom they disputed who thought their false Gods to dwell in their Images Which thought saith Mr. Thorndike made them Idols or of such Images as were by the erroneous conception of the Maker or Worshipper supposed to represent the Divinity in it self Which kind of Images are so far from the hearts of Catholicks that we profess with St. Germanus and St. John Damascen cited by the Doctor That it is the highest madness and impiety to go about to make an Image or Similitude of the Invisible Deity And whereas he would make Clichtovaeus and Bellarmin to appear non-sensical and ridiculous for expounding the aforesaid Fathers to speak of such Images as should be thought to be like unto God and perfectly to represent him to us by adding most triumphantly As if ever men were such fools to believe an Image could perfectly represent an Infinite Being or that God need make a Law to forbid that which is utterly impossible in the very nature of the thing It is evident he does but trifle for although it be impossible in the very nature of the thing to make an Image which shall perfectly represent the Deity as it is yet it is not impossible for men to be such fools as to conceive the Deity otherwise than it is and so to go about to make an Image to represent it◠which is plainly Clichtovaeus his sense and Bellarmin's Answer likewise as the Doctor himself confesses yet rather than spoil so pretty a Comparison as he had in his head he goes on to tell us that God might more reasonably forbid men to paint a Sound to grasp all the Air in the hollow of their hands to drink up the Ocean to wear the Sun for a Pendant at their Ears or to make new Worlds than to command them not to make any Image which should perfectly represent his Nature These gay Expressions were too dear to be lost though the last of them which is the ground of the rest were borrowed from Chamier and Bellarmin must be made seemingly to speak nonsense rather than not be told he lies So glorious a thing it is to seem to have Confuted Bellarmin But to end this Chapter Two things I desire to know of him The first is How he reconciles himself with himself when he makes the Irrepresentableness of Gods Nature to be the Reason of the Law and yet will not have the Law forbid us to Think of making an Image to represent it although this later be the immediate Consequence of the former The second How he will reconcile himself to his Master Calvin who expounding this very Law Thou shalt not make to thy self a graven thing or any likeness c. expresly affirms that God by those words restrains our licentiousness that we should not attempt to represent Him by any visible figure If not by any then certainly not by such an one as we should think might represent him perfectly I leave them conferring notes and proceed CHAP. VII Of the Second General Council of Nice called most irreverently by Dr. St. That Wise Synod His Constantinopolitan Fathers Objections answered by Epiphanius and the Answers shewn to be Good § 1. WE are come now to that Stone of Offence that Rock of Scandal as the Doctor would have it the Second General Council of Nice Anno 789. in which all such were anathematiz'd and condemned as Hereticks who should call the Images of Christ and his Saints Idols and assert the honour given them by Christians to be Idolatry What wonder then if he who finds himself comprehended under that Anathema be in such a passion against the Council that in contempt and scorn he most irreverently calls it That Wise Synod p. 76. that is in plain English the Three Hundred and Fifty Fathers who voted in it Fools together with
much or as great adoration is due to them as to Christ himself The first he knows is affirmed by us the second denyed because as was said before of Images p. 190. although Christ and the Accidents be worshipped by the same Act of Adoration yet as considered precisely relating to the Accidents it falls upon them after an Inferiour manner And it became a Generous Adversary as he shows himself to be in supposing the same divine Revelation for Christ's Presence in the Eucharist as for his Divinity which he needed not have done to have told us clearly his meaning in this Point But this he thought not fit to do but to blend both senses confusedly together that when he found himself press'd in one he might slie for refuge to the other The Catholick sense is this that the same or as great adoration is due to Christ in the Sacrament as out of it Against this he objects two things 1. That there is a plain Command in Scripture for the One and none for the other 2. That the One gives us a sufficient reason for our Worship the other doth not To the first I answer as he foresaw very well I would that a General Command such as those cited by himself Let all the Angels adore him that is Christ Hebr. 1. 6. and to his Name every Knee is to bow Phil. 2. 10. doth extend to him wherever he is present as a like command of honouring such a Person for King would do wherever he should be known to reside And this I take to be Intimation enough that we are to worship Christ under the Accidents supposing him present there And whereas he saith this Answer proves no more his worship in them than in a Turf or any other piece of bread because Christ saith he being God is every where present as if his being God made him every where present as he is supposed to be in the Sacrament This was but an Artifice to divert the Reader from the matter in hand which is not about the worship of God as every where present but as hypostatically present in the Flesh And so the Question between us is whether in case there be a general command to worship the Son of God made Man we may not as lawfully do it to him supposing a divine Revelation that he is so present in the Sacrament as the Apostles and others adored him when he was conversant among them To this Question I Answer affirmatively and he Negatively unless he can see a plain Command to do it to him as present in the Sacrament And who can but wonder to see him now so scrupulous in giveing adoration to God made Man believing him to be really present in the Host unless he have an express command to do it who professes of himself p. 101. that were he of our mind in the matter of Images he should not stick to offer up the Host it self that is God-Man really present under the Sacramental signs in Sacrifice to a block or a hewn stone without any command at all either general or particular to do it But to remove this scruple as I have endeavoured to do some others it may suffice to tell him that although our worship be not to be guided by our fancies but the will of God Yet where there is a general command without any Exception to worship the Word made Flesh there he hath given a sufficient Indication of the lawfulness of doing it wherever we are certain by Faith that He is so present What particular command had the Wisemen to adore Him in the Manger or the Thief upon the Cross Was it not enough that they had a Divine Revelation that He was the Son of God to move them to adore Him with Divine Worship Or is he less adorable under the Sacramental signs than bound up in swadling-cloths or covered with blood and spittle Surely it was happy for the Wise-men and the Thief that they had not Dr. St. to direct them what to do For had they followed his Casuistry they must have suspended their Adoration for want of an Express Command in their particular cases § 5. But he had not advanced above a Leaf farther when it seems he perceiv'd the weakness of this Answer and therefore to piece it out he tells us p. 115. that in case of Christ's visible appearance to us in any place we need not a particular command in such a case to make it lawful to adore him But that which goes against the grain of his sense and reason is that he should do it to him under a Veil though he be more certain by Faith that it is He that is there present than if he saw him with his eyes This is such a self-denyal as is not to be expected from flesh and blood And if you ask him why there is not the same reason of believing Christ to be present as seeing him He answers with a distinction much more subtil than that he alledged out of Scotland for saying the Lord's Prayer to a Saint p. 101. that in matters of pure Revelation where the matter propos'd to our Faith can be no Object of sense as Christ's Infinite presence in all places as God there he may firmly believe and worship Him upon the credit of Divine Revelation but speaking of the visible presence of Christ where honour is given on the account of the divine nature but he can be known to be present only by his Humanity in this case I say saith he and his Ipse dixit must be of no less authority than that of Pythagoras I say the evidence of sense is necessary in ordâ—r to the true worshipping of the Person of Christ Here is indeed an appearance of a distinction but such an one as quite overthrows his whole discourse for if he suppose as he doth at present that the Humanity of Christ is really present in the Sacrament in such a way that it cannot be the Object of sense he must rank it among his matters of pure Revelation and so not only firmly believe it but also give him worship suitable to his presence When therefore he tells us the question is concerning the visible presence of Christ it is manifest he either changes the state of the Question or retracts what before he so generously granted of his Invisible presence in the Sacrament This then is plain was but to delude the Reader and not answer to the Question which was Why there is not the same reason for worshipping Christ in the Sacrament believing him to be there upon the credit of a Divine Revelation as if we saw Him with our eyes But to follow him a little in his wandrings and speak to the visible presence of Christ In case he can be known to be present only by his Humanity Why must the Evidence of sense be necessary in order to his worship Was he not so present in the Womb of the Virgin after the Angels message Was he not so
the case is the same as to the Point of Reason Men must be allowed the use of their Judgment and Reason in the search of both And therefore he must either acknowledge his Charge to have been groundless when he taxed Catholicks for exposing Faith to uncertainty or he must grant to Men though it be with contradicting himself which is much easier to do than to swallow the least seeming Contradiction in a matter of Faith that they may and ought to make use of their discerning Faculty as to the truth or falshood of matters proposed to our belief which I confess I take to be the same as to believe no more than their Reason can comprehend and so if Reason chance to meet with some seeming Contradiction with which it is not able or willing to grapple the Article ought and must be exploded for such a monstrous Prodigy of hood wink'd and abused Faith as no Man can imagine God would e're obtrude upon the Faith of Reasonable Men. But here again perhaps he will say that although God may impose upon us an Obligation of believing against the Conceptions of our Reason yet he cannot do it against the suggestion of our sense because as he asserts p. 540. This would be to overthrow all certainty of Faith where the matters to be believed depend upon mattâ—r of Fact But here I would desire to know what Angel from Heaven reveal'd this Doctrin to him Suppose in the case of the two Disciples at Emmaus that our Saviour had vanished out of their sight before he brake bread might he not hâ—ve told them afterwards that it was He who had appeared to them in a disguise without overthrowing all the certainty of Faith where matters to be believed depend upon matter of Fact St. Chrysostome above cited I am sure was of another mind in the very point of Christ's real presence in the Sacrament when he bids us obey God in that mystery though what he say seem to contradict our thoughts and eyes And so was St. Cyril too when he exhorts Christians not to consider it as naked Bread and Wine for it 〈…〉 Blood of Christ according to the words of Christ himself And although sense do suggest this to theâ— viz. that it is Bread yet let Faith confirm thee Do not judge of the thing by thy tast but know and hold for most certain that this Bread which is seen of us is not Bread though the tast judge it to be Bread but the Body of Christ and that the Wine which is seen by us although it seem Wine to the sense of tasting notwithstanding is not Wine but the Blood of Christ This is what these Holy Fathers teach in this matter and with great reason for as God is not only God of the Hills but also of the Valleys So is he God not onâ—y of our Reason but of our Senses also And if the Antidote his Goodness hath prâ—scrib'd to Cure our Corrupt Nature be prepared in such a manner as requires the captivating of our Sense as well as of our Understanding who shall question either his Wisdome or Power He hath said This is my Body though it appear to us to be bread And this being but one Exception from the General Rule of Sensation why that should overthrow all certainty of Faith more than so many exceptions as the Trinity and other Mysteries lay upon the General Rules of our Reasoning I leave to all Men of sense and Reason to judge O but this is the strangest of Miracles and Miracles ought to be the objects of sense I grant it of such Miracles as are done for the Conversion of Unbelievers but this is not done upon such an account but for the Sanctification of those who believe already And for these it is enough that Christ hath said It is his Body They know very well the danger of not believing him more than their senses And that others may know it also I shall set it before them in the words of St. Epiphanius no less than 1300. Years ago We see saith he speaking of the Blessed Sacrament that It is neither equal nor like in proportion or Image to his Flesh to the Invisible Deity to the lineaments of a Body for this is of a round forme and insensible according to power And yet because he was pleased to say through Grace This is my Body every one believeth his saying For who believeth not that it is his very true Body falleth from Grace and Salvation Thus much to the Doctors Principles of Sense and Reason Let us now see what he says against the Grounds and Motives of Transubstantiation CHAP. V. A Check to the Doctor 's bigg words against the Grounds of Transubstantiation with a new Example of reporting faithfully as he calls it the Words and Sense of an Author § 1. TO show there are not the same Grounds and Motives for Christs presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation as for his Divinity my Adversary instances in Three 1. The Authority of the Roman Church 2. Catholick Tradition 3. Scripture And for the first of these Viz. The Authority of the Roman Church if it have any at all it stands against the Doctor for Transubstantiation and that so evidently that he is forced to take the confidence p. 130. utterly to deny that to be any ground of believing at all For my part I believe every sober Person of his own Party will judge he had much better have said nothing at all And I cannot but think how St. Austin who calls the Chair of Peter that Rock which the proud Gates of Hell do not overcome and professes that the Principality of the Apostolick Chair did always conserve its vigour in the Roman Church would have startled to hear one single Doctor so pertly deny it to be any Ground at all of believing How St. Hierome who writing to Pope Damasus saith I know that upon this Rock the Church is built and whosoever eateth the Lamb out of this House is Prophane c. would have whetted his stile more against him for denying her Authority to be any Ground of believing at all than ever he did against Vigilantius for deriding Invocation of Saints Veneration of Relicks or Lighting Candles at Noon-Day in the Church c. And how St. Irenaeus would have excluded him out of the Society of Christians for this peremptory behaviour when he affirms it necessary for all other Churches convenire to have recourse and agree with the Roman by reason of its more eminent Principality That this was the Dignity and Prerogative of the Roman Church in the time of these Holy Fathers the Doctor himself cannot deny and if he pretend she is fallen from the Purity she then enjoyed it is but what the Donatists his Predecessors in this point said above twelve hundred years ago when as St. Austin tells us they call'd the Apostolick Chair the Chair of Pestilence because it oppos'd their Novelities
Humane but such as a Creature is capable of for Religion's sake and that Relation which it settleth By this it appears that if the Doctor mean by Religious Worship that Honor which is due to God alone it is true what the Fathers say that It is not to be given to the most excellent created Beings but nothing at all to the Point in debate between us If he mean that Honour of which a Creature is capable of for Religion's sake and that Relation which it settleth I shall show it to be false that the Fathers deny any such honour to be given to the Holy Angels and Saints And if he contend that this kind of worship ought not to be called Religious St. Austin will tell him that it is but a meer wrangling about words because the word Religion as he shows may be used in other senses besides that of the worship due to God and Himself speaking of the honour given by Christians to the Martyrs saith We celebrate their Memories with Religious Solemnity And who so saith Mr. Thorndike in the place above cited could wish that the Memories of the Martyrs and other Saints who lived so as to assure the Church they would have been Martyrs had they been called to it Alas He never thought that for ought Dr. St. can know they were great Hypocrites had not been honoured as is plain they were honoured by Christians must find in his heart by consequence to wish that Christianity had not prevailed Whether this Censure of Mr. Thorndike's be applicable to my Adversary or no depends upon his allowing or not allowing such honour to the Saints as is plain was given them by Christians but for the distinction he makes between the Religious worship due to God and that of which a Creature is capable of for Religion's sake it will clearly dispell the Mâ—st he hath raised from the Testimonies of the Fathers and let the Reader see how he hath perverted their meaning and yet said nothing to the purpose § 2. The first he cites is Origen affirming that the Scripture doth indeed stile God the God of Gods and Lord of Lords but withall saith that to us there is but one God the Father of whom are all things and One Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by Him And his mind ascends up to the supreme God who worships him inseparably and indivisibly by his Son who alone conducts us to the Father Therefore seeing there are many Gods and many Lords we endeavour by all means not only to carry our minds above those things on Earth which are worshipped by the Heathen for Gods but above those whom the Scripture calls Gods by which Origen means the Angels To this I answer that it is plain from the very words themselves that the worship which Origen here contends ought not to be given to Angels is divine worship proper to God alone for he speaks only of that worship which is given to the Father inseparably and indivisibly by his Son And when-ever such worship is to be given we must not only carry our minds above those things which were worshipped by the Heathens for Gods but above the good Angels also because they are not inseparably and indivisibly One with the Father as the Son is who alone can conduct us by his Grace and Merits to the Father And this is yet more plain from the Reply which Origen gave to that Evasion of Celsus viz. that None were to be honoured for Gods but those to whom the supreme God doth communicate it for denying any such honour to have been granted by God to the Heroes or Daemons of the Heathens he proves from Miracles and Prophecies and Precepts that this honour was given to Christ Ut omnes honorent Filium sicut Patrem honorant that all should honour the Son as they honour the Father that is that they should honour him as God which the Doctor translates that they who honour the Father should honour the Son also tacitly insinuating that no honour at all mâ—ght be lawfully given but to the Son And again when Celsus objects that by the same Rule that Christians gave honor to Christ he thought they might give it to Inferiour Deities The account which Origen gives of the worship which Christians attribute to the Son viz. because it is said I and my Father are One makes it yet more evident that he speaks of divine worship which cannot be given to any created Beings and not of such an Inferiour Worship of which Creatures are capable upon account of their Holiness and Relation to God For of these he saith and who will not wonder to see it cited though but imperfectly by the Doctor himself that if Celsus had spoken of the true Ministers of God after his only begotten Son such as Gabriel Michael and all the Angels and Archangels and had contended that they were to be worshipped which last words though very material are left out by Dr. St. he acknowledges that by explaining the notion of worship or respect and the Actions of those that give it perhaps he should have said something of that Subject as far as the dignity of so great a thing and the reach of his understanding would have permitted But this not being objected by Celsus but only that they were by the same Rule by which they worshipped Christ for God to worship in like manner the Inferiour Deities of the Heathens he thought it not necessary to enlarge upon that Subject at present but only to show the different account upon which they worshipped Christ as one with his Father By which it is manifest he held a certain worship or respect due to the Angels inferiour to that which is due to God alone And all that the Doctor hath to say for himself is that Origen saith elsewhere Although the Angels be called Gods in Scripture yet we are not to worship them with divine worship which is a plain concession that when Origen denies worship to any created Beings he speaks of divine worship and so nothing against that Inferiour worship or respect which is given by Catholicks to the Holy Angels and Saints § 3. But now the Doctor would seem to say something to the purpose when he tells us that Origen utterly denies that our Prayers are to be offered to any but Christ alone and that any word which is proper to Religious worship is to be attributed to the Angels themselves But he does but seem to come home to the Point for as Mr. Thorndike well observes The terms of Prayer Invocation calling upon and whatever else we can use are or may be in despite of our hearts equivocal that is we may be constrained unless we use that diligence which common discretion counts superfluous to use the same words in signifying requests made to God and to Men. And a little aâ—ter Prayer Invocation calling upon is not so proper to God but
that whether you will or not every Petition to a Prince or Court of Justice is necessarily a Prayer and he that makes it Invocates or Calls upon that Prince or Court for favour or for Justice The Notion then of Prayer may be distinguished as well as that of Worship and Protestants themselves when they pray others to pray for them use it in a quite different sense than when they pray to God for as applyed to God it imports a total dependance upon him as the Author of all good but as apply'd to Just and Holy-men it implies no more than a Communion of Love and Society in the Members of the Church Militant with those of the Triumphant for the assistance of their Prayers to him who only can give what we ask And in this sense the words Prayer Invocation c. are used by Catholicks when they are applyed to the Holy Angels and Saints And that Origen when he denies that our Prayers are to be offered to any but Christ alone speaks of Prayer in the first sense and not in the latter is evident from what he had said before in the beginning of the first Book where he acknowledges that the Angels do offer up the Prayers of Men to God and surely it can never be Idolatry in us to desire them to do what they do and much more from his own practice in his first Homily upon Ezechiel where he Invocates an Angel in these words Come Holy Angel and receive Him who is converted from his former Errour And therfore when he says We are not to pray to them who pray for us He adds as the Doctor cites him p. 149. That we ought not to divide our supplications between God and them By which he explains himself to mean that we ought not to pray to them in the same manner as we do to God for that indeed were to divide our supplications But to desire them to offer up our Prayers or to pray for us is not to divide our supplications between God and them but to unite their Prayers to ours as we do the Prayers of â—ust Men upon Earth whom we desire to pray for us It is evident then and mostly out of the very places cited by the Doctor himself that the Invocation or Honour which Origen denies to be given to Angels is that which is due to God § 4. But now the Doctor weary it seems of being serious so long to no purpose thought fit to entertain his Reader with an other Essay for one Enterlude of this kind we have had already in the 1st Chap. of the peculiar Faculty he hath in exposing the Saints to derision Celsus saith he p. 150 yet further urges that according to the doctrin of the Aegyptians every part of a Man hath a particular Daemon or Ethereal God and every one of these being invocated heals the diseases of the parts proper to themselves why then may they not justly be invocated saith Celsus And if one of the Church of Rome saith Dr. Still had been to answer him he must have told him that the thing was rational which he said only they were out in their Names for instead of Chnumen Chnaachumen Cnat Sicat Biu Eru c. They should have chosen Raphael for travelling and against Diseases Apollonia against the Toothâ—ach Sebastian and Roch against the Plague St. Nicholas against Tempests Michael and St. George against Enemies and others in like cases Thus the Doctor makes sport for himself and others of his humour by deriding a practice used by some Catholick People of addressing themselves to some particular Saints rather than others against particular dangers oâ— diseases as if there were no difference between the Aegyptians daemons or Ethercal Gods and the Saints but in the Names or between the Aegyptians addresses to those Devils and those of Catholicks to the Holy Saints and Angels but in the language and that there needed no more but to correct the Names as you would do faults escaped in Printing viz. for Chnumen to read Raphael for Chnaachumen Apollonia for Cnat Sebastian for Sicat Roch for Biu Michael and I suppose for c. it is so like the Dragon's Tail St. George who otherwise must be left out But the sport is not more pleasing to those who mock at all Religion than I shall make it appear ridiculous to all sober Readers by showing Two things 1. The difference between the Doctrine and Practice of the Aegyptians and that of Catholicks 2. The reasonableness of the practice of making addresses to one particular Saint rather than another First then That Catholicks look upon the Saints with a different regard from what the Aegyptians did their Daemons is evident in that the Aegyptians believed them to be Gods which is far from the hearâ— of any Catholick to believe of the Angels and Saints And it is no less evident that the addresses they make to them are different from those the Aegyptians made to those Gods because as Origen saith the Invocation which Celsus contended for was Votiva illis sacrificia reddere to offer sacrifice to them which is due to God alone and that upon account that they had power to heal the Disâ—ases of the Parts proper to themselves But the Invocation which Catholicks make to the Holy Angels and Saints is but to desire them as we do Holy Men upon Earth to pray for us And therefore when the Doctor saith that If one of the Church of Rome had been to Answer Celsus he must have told him that the thing was Rational which he said I must tell him that what he saith is Irrational and false because both the Conceit they have of the Angels and Saints and the addresses they make to them as I have shewed are point blank opposite to those of the Aegyptians But now on the other side supposing the Aegyptians had the same conceit of their Daemons which Catholicks have of the Holy Angels and Saints and that they did no more but as Catholicks do desire them to pray for them to the supream God would it follow that Catholicks may not desire the Prayers of the Saints and Angels No more than because the Aegyptians erected Temples and offred Sacrifice to their great God Osiris therefore Catholicks may not do the same to the very true God himself or because they made their solemn supplications to a false God therefore Protestants may not offer up their Prayers to the true One 2. The reasonableness of making addresses to one particular Saint rather than another in some particular occasions And this will appear from the Consideration upon which it is usually done which is not a division of Offices among the Saints every one of whom may equally intercede without entrenching upon the Propriety of another and their Intercession may be implored by us in all kinds of necessities whatsoever but it is grounded upon a Reflexion which the suppliant makes either upon some signal Grace which shined in that
here by the Doctor he affirms that that service which is given by servants to their Masters is wont to be called by another Name in Greek that is dulia But this the Reader was not to know for fear he might infer that if some degree of the service called in Greek dulia might be given by Servants to their Masters then surely a higher degree of it may be given to the Holy Angels § 4. But now after all these endeavours used by the Doctor to hide himself in the General terms of such worship Religious worship Prayer Invocation c. and some obscure passages of the Fathers He tells us that he knows very well and I pray God his own knowledge may not rise against him in the Day of Judgment by what Arts all these Testimonies are endeavoured to be evaded or rather by what Light he will be discovered to have said nothing to the purpose Viz. That these sayings of the Fathers were intended against the Heathens Idolatry who worshipped those Spirits as Gods and offered Sacrifices to them But the Church of Rome denieâ— the Angels and Saints to be Gods and asserts that the worship by Sacrifice is proper only to God This Answer is indeed given by St. Austin very often and others of the Fathers And there needed no other to the Testimonies he produces if all who read his Book knew as much as himself But such devices as these for so he calls them though prov'd to be the sense of the Fathers out of the very places cited by him he saith can never satisfy an impartial mind And to return him his own words in a like occasion I must tell him that if ever he speak home to our case he must do it upon this Point And so he does but very little to his comfort as I shall make appear by showing the nullity of the Reasons with which he endeavours to make the aforesaid Answer seem insufficient 1. The First is because The Fathers he saith p. 158. do expresly deny that Invocation or Prayer is to be made to the Angels and Saints But this is but to say the same thing over again or to equivocate as Mr. Thorndike saith in the terms of Prayer and Invocation which are not so proper to God but that in despite of our hearts they may be used in signifying requests made also to Men. 2. His second Reason is because It would be no more unlawful to sacrifice to Saints or Angels than to Invocate them And this Reason clearly destroys it self because it supposes we hold it unlawful to sacrifice to the Saints as the Heathens did to their Inferiour Deities But to let that pass with the rest If he take the word Invocation here to signifie the Prayer we make to God as the Author and Giver of all Good I grant it no less unlawful to sacrifice to Saints and Angels than to Invocate them For what Catholick ever taught or thought that it was lawful to Invocate any Angel or Saint upon that account But if the word Invocation on the one side as in despite of all opposition it may be and by the Custome of the Church it is used be taken to signify the requests we make to Angels and Saints to pray for us and on the other side the offering of sacrifice be not only by the custome of the Church but of all Mankind as St. Austin teacheth appropriated to signify the absolute worship due only to God Who sees not the unlawfulness of offering it to any Saint or Angel may consist with the lawfulness of desiring them to pray for us The case is plain in just Men upon Earth For St. Paul and Barnabas accepted willingly the Prayers which others made to them for their assistance but utterly refused to admit the sacrifice which the Lycaonians Acts 14. would have offered to them and it is as plain of the Saints in Heaven because we pray no otherwise to them than we do to Holy Men upon Earth though more devoutly upon the account of their unchangeable state of Bliss How then could the Doctor parallel these two together and not only parallel them but make it less unlawful to pray to the Saints than to offer sacrifice to them I 'le tell you Catholicks when they write against Inâ—idels or Hereticks make use of the Answers which the Fathers have formerly given to their Objections But Dr. St. being to oppose the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in the Point of Invocation of Saints is forâ—'t to maintain an Argument of the Heathens against St. Austin Nay saith he p. 158. The Heathens in St. Austin argued very well that sacrifices being meer external things might more properly belong to the Inferiour Deities but the more Invisible the Deity was the more Invisible the sacrifices were to be and the greater and better the Deity the sacrifice was to be still proportionable Thus the Doctor to show that in all reason the duty of Prayer ought to be reserved as more proper to God than any External sacrifice or as he vaâ—ies the Phrâ—â—se than a meer outward sacrifice and consequently that Prayer was less communicable to a Saint than Sacrifice But do you not think the Doctor us'd the utmost of his confidence here to own and maintain for good nay very good an Argument of the Heathens confuted by St. Austin in that very place The Heathen saith Dr. St. argued very well I deny it saith St. Austin because in so arguing they manifest that they do not know nesciunt that visible sacrifices are the signs of the Invisible Sacrifices of the mind like as the words we speak are the signs of things For as when we pray or praise we direct the words to him to whom we offer in our hearts the things themselves which we signify by them so when we sacrifice we know that the visible Sacrifice is to be offered to no other but to Him whose Invisible Sacrifice we our selves ought to be in our hearts And upon this account he adds a little below it is and no other that the Devils require sacrifice to be offered to them because they know it to be due to God alone endeavouring by that means to hinder access to the true God that Man may not be his sacrifice whilst sacrifice is offered to any but to him Thus St. Austin in Answer to the Heathens Objection and the Doctor 's By which it appears 1st That in the Judgment of St. Austin external sacrifice being the highest expression of the highest part of Prayer which is the devoting and sacrificing our selves in our hearts to God it ought of all others to be reserv'd as most proper and acceptable to him And that Religion which admits no external visible sacrifice must needs be deficient in the most signal part of the Publick Worship of God 2dly That in the Judgment of the same St. Austin the Doctor if he speak as he thinks knows no more than the Heathens did what the
as he is affected and nothing more subject to different construction than words They are like those Pictures which represent a Man to one that stands on the right hand and a Beast to another who stands on the left or like the Pillar of Cloud which gave Light to the Israelites but was darkness to the Aegyptians For Example those words of Christ to his Apostles You are the Light of the World if you set a Jew on the one side and Dr. St. on the other The Jew who owns Christ for no other than a Seducer will call them Blasphemous but the Doctor I hope will not do so although Christ say of Himself that He is the Light of the World And the only Reason he can give is because though the words be the same yet the sense in which they are applyed to Christ and his Apostles is very different And possibly those highest strains of Prayer to God which he saith are applyed in that Psalter to the B. Virgin may if examined be found not chargeable with Blasphemy on the like account For if it be not the dead words but the Intention of the Speaker that animates them which makes them to be Prayer otherwise a Parrot which should be taught to say Help me God would pray as well as a Christian it follows that as the Intention of the Speaker is different so will the Prayer be also that is the same words spoken to God will have respect to Him as who alone can give what we desire but applyed to the B. Virgin will signifie only that we desire her Prayers to obtain for us of God what we believe that he alone can give and consequently no strain of Prayer properly so called which is made to GOD will be applyed to the B. Virgin § 5. But now the Doctor will be so just as not to insist upon the Ancient Breviaries or Obsolete Forms or Private Devotions among which surely the Psalter he speaks of may be ranked There is Blasphemy and Idolatry enough he thinks in the present Roman Breviary to serve his turn The first Instance he gives is that of the Antiphon Hail B. Virgin Thou alone hast destroy'd all the Heresies in the World and least this should be interpreted of doing it by her Son as the Church doth when she presently addeth Dum virgo Deum Hominem genuisti that is by bringing Him into the World who was both God and Man a Formal Invocation of Her he saith follows Give me strength against thy Enemies to which he adds those Ejaculations in the Hymn Ave Maris stella Wherein she is intreated to loose the bonds of the guilty to give light to the blind and drive away our evils but he leaves out and to beg for us all good things and to shew her self to be a Mother or as it is saith he in the Masse-Book at Paris 1634. Jure Matris Impera Redemptori As thou art a Mother Command the Redeemer But then again least the Hymn should be thought only Poetical he saith that in the Feast of S. Maria ad Nives a formal Prayer is made to Her to help the miserable to strengthen the weak to comfort those that mourn where again he leaves out Pray for the People Intercede for the Clergy c. And the like forms he saith are used to St. Michael and the Angel Guardians and to the Apostles And now saith he is all this only praying to the Saints to pray for us Yes surely if it be the sense which makes the words to be Prayer as I shewed above and not the bare Characters or Letters And that the Church's sense is no other but to desire them to obtain for us of God the blessings expressed in those forms viz. help comfort light c. is manifest both from her frequent intermixing that usual form of Pray for us which the Doctor conveniently leaves out and from her publick Doctrin as set down in the Council of Trent and inculcated to all the Faithful in their Catâ—chisms But what can be said to those words in the Mass-Book at Paris 1634. Jure Matris Impera Redemptori As thou art a Mother Command thy Son I Answer 1. That those words shew thy self to be a Mother to which the Doctor makes these other of the Mass-Book at Paris correspond are not found in any Mass-Book at all that I can hear of nor do the words cited by the Doctor agree in their number and measure with the rest of the Verses of that Hymn and consequently I have some Reason to believe him mistaken at least in citing that Mass-Book But 2dly Supposing the words as cited by the Doctor to be found in that Mass-Book I confess they express a vehemency of Spirit not unsuitable to the brisk and sudden efforts propet to that Nation but yet they are such as may admit of a fair construction if they meet with a Reader who is not obstinately bent to be way-ward There are even in Scripture some expressions which seem to carry with them as great an excess as this For example when it is said that Josue spake to our Lord and the Sun stood still God obeying the voice of a Man And when our Saviour saith of Himself that in Heaven he will make his Servants to sit down to Meat and will serve them Now as the former of these expression doth not signify a real Obedience in God to the voice of Man but his readiness to do the will of those that fear him nor the latter that Christ will really serve the Elect at Table but only signifies the great care He will take that nothing shall be wanting to the complement of their joy and satisfaction â—o also the words objected by the Doctor Aâ— thou art a Mother Command the Redâ—emâ—◠〈◊〉 not signify that she should really command Him as she did when he was subject to her upon Earth but that she would use that Grace and Favour on Our behalf which She hath with Him as a Mother above all other Saints And this being understood to be the sense of the words all that the Doctor can say is that the Author was too Hyperbolical in the manner of his Expression and in this I dare affirm he will find very few Catholicks dissenting from him Nay more I have reason to believe that the Parisian Missal of 1634. if there were any such words in it hath been since corrected Otherwise my Adversary would doubtless have cited the Mass-Book of 1670. and not of 1634. And then the words he objects ought to have been cast among the Obsolete Forms which he said before he should not insist upon § 6. But now again if we use the same form of words to the B. Virgin and other Saints as we do to God as when we desire her to strengthen the weak to give light to the blind c. From whence saith the Doctor must the People take the sense of these Prayers if not from the
signification of the words I Answer not meerly from Lilly's Grammar Rules but from the Doctrine of the Church delivered in her Councils and Catechisms and from the common use of such words and expressions among Christians If a Child being taught by his Parents that God alone can give what we ask when he saith to his Father Bless me understands the meaning of the words to be that his Father should pray to God to bless him then surely much more must Catholick People when they pray to the B. Virgin to drive away all evils understand the sense to be that she would pray to God to deliver them from all evil there being besides the common Doctrine of Christianity by which they are taught that God alone is the Giver of all good things so many Sermons Catechisms and Explications both by word and writing daily made in the Catholick Church by Priests to the People and Parents to their Children in this particular Point Well but if this were all saith the Doctor why in all this time that those Prayers have been complained of viz. by those who have revolted from the Church hath not their sense been better expressed Why have they not been expunged all this while after that their Breviaries have been so often reviewed This I fear if done would not be enough to keep them from telling us Once upon a time there was a blasphemous Book or in the Mass-Book Printed at Paris in such a Year there was But why to comply with the humour of a few Opiniators whom no Reason can satisfy must Mankind be debarred the natural manner of expressing their affections And why have not those scrupulous Person◠all this while devised a Dictionary or Phrase-Book to furnish us with words and forms of speaking which may equal our Conceptions and express every little variation of our thoughts and all the different tempers and emotions of the Spirit Do we not do the same action sometimes more quick and smartly than at others Why then must we be tyed to use always the same form of words Why may we not sometimes utter the same affection in a more fervent manner of expression than at others He that sees himself in an imminent danger makes no long Preambles but cries out Help me And St. Gregory Nazianzen records it as an act of great devotion in St. Justina that to free her self from the snares of Satan she call'd upon the Virgin Mary to help and succour her But the Doctor hath now found a Staff to beat Bellarmin with for offering to instance in Scripture that the Apostles are said to save Men Viz. by their Prayers c. Therefore in the like sense we may desire them to save us And he lays on so hard that he hath beat all the brains out of the Cardinal's head at a blow For will any Man saith he in his Wits say the Case is the same in Ordinary Speech and in Prayer Is it all one saith he for a Man to say that his Staff helped him in his going and to fall down upon his Knees and pray to his Staff to help him And now I pray who so proper a Man to confute Bellarmin as Dr. St. Bellarmin speaks of such Instruments as have both Understanding and Will to help us to Heaven by their Prayers and he presently lets drive at Him with his Staff for speaking Non-sense Let the Reader judge whether the Instrument be more Irrational or the Use he makes of it I have long since observ'd that whenever he makes other Men out of their Wits The Reader hath reason to suspect all is not right at home But St. Paul doubtless was a Rational Instrument and What would He have said saith the Doctor to one who should say to him I pray you pardon my sins and assist me with the grace of God I believe he would neither have condemned him of gross Idolatry nor prodigious Folly as the Doctor doth but considering the bitterness of his Soul by the eagerness of his Expression would have given him the assistance of his Prayers to obtain what he aimed to procure by his means of God § 7. Having thus cleared the fense of those Forms of Prayer we sometimes use to the B. Virgin and other Saints to be no other than praying to them to pray to God for us as I asserted in my Reply and answered the little exceptions the Doctor made against it I shall conclude this Point with some Instances of like expressions either used or approved by the Fathers of the Primitive times And first for the usual form of Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us the Instances are so numerous that to transcribe them would make a Volume Many of the Fathers are taxed for this practice by the Magdeburgenses and other Protestant Writers and for this sort of Invocation Mr. Thorndike saith it is confessed that the Lights both of the Greek and Latin Church Basil Nazianzen Nyssen Ambrose Hierome Austin Chrysostom Cyrils both Theodoret Fulgentius St. Gregory the Great Leo more or rather all after that time have spoken to the Saints and desired their Assistance Nay the Doctor himself though diminute in his Confession acknowledges there are some Instances of them in good Authors although he will needs have them to be but Rhetorical Apostrophes and Poetical Flourishes or Wishes that the Saints would pray for us as we Englishmen when we are at play saith Mr. Perkins and I wonder so pat an Example could escape the Doctor call upon the Bowls to rubb or to run as we would have them At this sport he fancies St. Hierome to have been when he cry'd to Paul after her death Help me O Paul in my old Age with thy Prayers And so no doubt was the Emperor Theodosius too when as Ruffinus reporteth Hist Eccl. l. 2. c. 33. He went to visit the Sepulchers of the Martyrs accompanyed with all the Clergy and People it was it seems a General Day of Bowling and prostrate before their Ashes You may imagin to take surer aim implored aid by their Intercession or as St. Chrysost hath it in the same or a like occasion Ho. 26. in 2 Cor. besought the Saints to be his Patrons and Advocates with GOD. And the Doctor Himself brings in Saint Austin as playing at the same Game when he says p. 173. that he wishes rather than praise that St. Cyprian would help him with his prayers Confessing also as I said before that there are some Instances of this pleasant kind of Invocation to be found in good Authors The difficulty then lies in those prayers which we make to Saints to help our Necessities But of these also there want not Instances in the Writings of good Authors of the Primitive times parallel to those which the Doctor objects out of the present Roman Breviary and Office of our Lady Do we say there Hail B. Virgin Thou alone hast destroyed all Heresies in the World Vouchsafe Holy Virgin to