Dioclesian though he set up Inscriptions ob deletum nomen Christianum Constantius or Valens but only for a Julian whose Apostasie and Wickedness is fingular in Ecclesiastical History and the like of whom in all probability can never be expected again Nay Sir this disloyal principle will not let Christian snbjects pray for the death of a Julian though he tyranizes never so much over their bodies goods and liberties if he do not blaspheme Christ and persecute the Church of God with a diabolical spite against the evidence of Divine Miracles It leaves the Christian subjects of all Tyrants but such as are Julians indeed under the obligation of praying for them according to the Apostle's direction and the practice of the Primitive Christians which the Author of Jovian hath so much insisted upon and commended and his Prince must be a Julian indeed a Julian in all circumstances before he can be so much as tempted to pray against him for he doth not say that he would pray but that he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of a Julian indeed And it had been happy for the Christian world if the chief Pastors and Bishops and Councils and Doctors and Casuists of that which you call the Catholick Church had never taught any principle more disloyal than this Now Sir I beseech you to tell me how much disloyalty there is in this principle which secures all Infidel Heretical and Apostate Princes against the Prayers of their Christian subjects unless they be in all degrees as bad as Julian and secures even Julians themselves against all resistance and how much disloyalty there is in a man who by his principles will pray for all Tyrants but such an one as Julian was according to the Author of Jovian Sir I would to God you and your Doctors would declare as much Loyalty as this and I desire you to tell me that suppose a Roman Catholick Prince should become a Julian indeed and take up the methods of that Apostate whether you think his Roman Catholick Subjects would be tempted to pray for his destruction and if they should do so and no more do you think they would transgress any rule of Christian Loyalty Answer me these two questions sincerely and possitively and if your answer to the last be affirmative give your arguments for your Opinion and I dare engage the Author of Jovian shall submit to your reasons or answer them For I am confident he hath no fondness for his Opinion to which it is evident he was led by his great Charity for the Bishop and Church of Nazianzum And though in apologizing for them he hath asserted that he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of a Julian indeed yet he is so Loyal a Person that I believe he would overcome the temptation and only forbear praying for him as having sinned the sin unto death After which Apology you will suffer me to tell you that your Reflections will hardly be called an answer to the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome because in them you have not said a word to some material points of Controversy between you and us stated in that Book out of the Trent-Council and Catechism as if either the right were on your Adversaries side which I suppose you will be loath to acknowledge or his reasonings were unworthy your second thoughts which I suppose you will not own and if you do few wise men will acquiesce in your Sentiments for you wholly praetermit reflecting upon the Chapters of the Eucharist of Indulgences of satisfaction ex condigno of keeping the Scriptures and Prayers in an unknown Tongue of communion in one kind and of adding the Apocrypha and traditions to the holy writ with some others which being some of the most material points in difference between your Church and ours will either deserve some new thoughts or you will allow us to say that that book cannot be thought an answer which in silence passes by or leaps over so many weighty things that make up so much of the Controversy You assure us * Refl p. 5. that the Council of Trent is received here and all the Catholick World over as to its definitions of Faith though it be not wholly received in some places as to its other decrees which relate only to discipline Where I shall not ask what you mean by the Catholick World for I am well assured that you mean all Christians of the Roman persuasion which is a very narrow notion of the Catholick World excluding all other Christians from being Members of the Catholick Church but those of your own Opinion so that neither the Greek Church nor the rest of the Eastern Christians are in your sense any more Catholicks than the Church of England and the rest of the Protestants though antiently any man or Church of men were called Catholick because they agreed with the whole Catholick Church in Faith but now the holy Catholick Church of Christ must lose its name if it agree not with the particular Church of Rome but I would willingly know of you whence any particular Church hath that power that it may receive a general Council as you call that of Trent in some things and not in others I thought that the highest authority of the Church on Earth had been a general Council and if so why its definitions in matters of discipline should not be received and observed by all particular Churches is to me a great question for I cannot but see that one of these two things must follow from your Opinion either that Councils and Popes are fallible for if they are deceived in one Opinion such as that of the power of the Church to depose Princes why may they not be deceived in another such as Transubstantiation or Purgatory or else that they are infallible in greater matters only and then to me it is a great wonder that they should erre in things of less moment and I never yet understood but that if general Councils could decide matters of Doctrine but that they had also as great a power in matters of discipline for if it be a lawful preface to the decrees of all Councils as your men say Visum est spiritui sancto nobis then the holy spirit is doubtless their guide in matters of discipline as well as in matters of Doctrine I am sure that the Antient Councils took upon them to decide both by their authority and all Christians thought themselves oblig'd to follow their dictates so the first general Council of the Apostles bound up all Christians from eating things strangled and Blood so the Council of Nice determin'd the precise day when Easter should be celebrated as well as the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and so also the second general Council made Constantinople a Patriarchate as well as Rome to go no further And I find no persons disputed those constitutions though only in matters of Discipline and
that Canon and Can. 26. the words are plain quae ab eo per Dei gratiam misericordiam Jesu Christi meritum c. And if so the Controversie seems to me easily decided for if it be of grace how is it then of works where is the merit Your Answer to the Goliah Argument of your Adversary as you are pleased to call it I remit to be consider'd towards the end of these Remarks because it ought to be spoken to more largely and by it self and proceed to take notice that * Refl p. 11. you blame your Adversary for taking the sense of your Church from some expressions in your old Missals and Rituals tho I am apt to think that the Church of England will be contented to be judged by her Liturgy and Rituals in the like case but perhaps you are not disgusted at the use of your Missals but at the use of old Missals and I am persuaded that you have reason so to be because the subtilty of the modern Church hath made it self appear in your present Missals and Breviaries as well as in your Edition of the Vulgar Translation of the Bible and in other Treatises For instance in the old Roman Breviary printed at Venice An. 1482. and at Paris An. 1543. Jun. 28. lect 2. noct 2. S. Leonis the words run thus In eo Concilio damnati sunt Cyrus Sergius Honorius Pyrrhus Paulus c. in that Synod Cyrus and Sergius Honorius c were condemned but in the new Breviary the name of Honorius is left out which had it been left there would have reflected too much on the Papal Infallibility and inform'd the World that even Popes themselves have fallen into Heresie while in the same Office they take care to keep up the memory that that Pope Leo 2. fregit superbiam Ravennatum brought the Archbishop of Ravenna to acknowledge the Roman Supremacy which before that time that See did not A second Instance may be this In all the antient Missals in Cathedra S. Petri Antioch Feb. 22. as also in the old Diumale printed at Antwerp 1553. the Prayer is read in these words Deus qui B. Petro Apostolo collatis clavibus regni coelestis animas ligandi atque solvendi pontificium dedisti i. e. O God who having given thy blessed Apostle St. Peter the Keys of thy heavenly Kingdom gavest him Episcopal power of binding and loosing Souls but they have now left out the word Animas i. e. Souls for with that limitation the Pope's power was only Priestly to use the Keys in binding and loosing men's Souls but without that limitation every man is at liberty to believe that St. Peter's Keys may be imployed in temporal affairs also in binding Kings and setting up a Pontifical Monarchy to which I shall add one Instance more that whereas in the Sacramentarium of St. Gregory the Prayer for St. Leo runs thus Annue nobis Domine c. Grant O Lord that this Oblation may be advantageous to the Soul of thy Servant Leo now the words are altered into Annue c. Grant Lord that by the intercession of thy Servant Leo this Oblation may be profitable to us the first being an Instance of the Antients Prayers for the Dead for Saints as well as others the latter an endeavour to countenance Prayers to Saints by asserting their intercession And whereas to requite us for quoting your Missals * Ibid. you object to us all the expressions of Prayer Preaching and Devotion in our Church the parallel doth not hold unless you mean our authoriz'd Liturgy in whose collects we are ready to vindicate whatever is asserted Nor is it fair to say that an Atheist may make himself sport with Scripture if he may be allowed to separate an infinite number of expressions there i. e. as I understand you to make use of broken sentences for if an Atheist uses Scripture in the sense to which the coherence leads him he can never make Christianity ridiculous much less as ridiculous as Turcism and for the passages quoted out of your Missals they are quoted in the sense in which they are meant and if you deny this you may right your self by shewing the contrary Nor do you do well with the Church of England to say * Refl p. 11. she allows the Psalms in Meeter I dare be confident to averr that the Singing Psalms as they are usally called were never commanded by our Church to be used and are no part of our service as our Rubric's will inform you where there is not the lest mention of them though we acknowledge the custom was brought in through the connivance of our Governors who at that time were intent upon matters of greater moment nor do we say that the sense of the Church will help out the non-sense or ill expressions of any of those Rhymes which is a subtle insinuation but withal we say that since custom hath brought in the use no Priest of our Communion that I know of is so weak I am sure no one ought to be so but he knows how to choose out of that great number some few Psalms that are pertinently enough translated and incentive of Devotion by singing of which neither God is dishonor'd nor the Congregation engaged to any thing that is either evil or ridiculous which Apology cannot be made for any of your Missals which your Priests were obliged to use without any power left them to choose what Collects or Antiphona's c. they pleased And now you will allow me to smile when †Refl p. 12. you say that if we conclude a Papist guilty of Idolatry because he bows down kneels c. to an Image we may as well say that Abigail was guilty of constructive Idolatry when she fell on her face before David and so are Subjects when they kneel to their Prince and the Lincolns-Inn-Field Beggars when they kneel for an Alms to those who pass by For these instances do not reach the case that we are talking of for if Abigail should have kneel'd before the Picture of David or a Subject before the Picture of his Prince or a Beggar before a Gentleman's Picture and begg'd with earnestness and seeming devotion any blessing there is no sober man but would believe that they were either very mad or very foolish but if they thought them sober and in their right sense as we do believe your people at Church to be they cannot be acquitted of Idolatry if so be the honour be Religious as you acknowledge your veneration of Images is more than civil honour so that by these instances you seem to run into the errour of those * Alens Aq. Bonav c. apud Bellar. to 2. lib. 2. c 20. § 2. Opinio Schoolmen that the same honour let it be Latria hyperdulia or dulia is due to the Image that is due to the person represented and if any Law be to be judg'd of by the common practice
c. or that which is directed by the Revelations made in Holy Scriptures and by the unanimous Interpretations made of those Scriptures by the ancient Fathers as the Church of England expresly doth 2. That you follow the methods of the French Church which is so far from being the Catholick Church even in your sence of the word that it is but a small part of it from them you take your Principles from the Bishop of Condom and Monsieur Veron and after their Example you make your complaints of being mis-represented for so the Gallican Bishops did in their late general Assemblies held July 11. An. 1685. complain of being mis-represented and of the Calumnies Injuries and Falsities which the Reformed Churches lay to their charge desiring that King in their Petition prefixt to the Acts of that Assembly to revoke all the Edicts made in behalf of the Hugonots because permitted onely in times of disturbance and for reasons which no longer subsist which though they afterwards modifie and limit onely to the passing an Edict to forbid the calumniating their Religion yet every considering man sees what they aim at And upon this Address the King past an Edict Aug. 23. forbidding all the Reformed to preach or write any thing against the Catholick Religion either directly or indirectly and to allow them the liberty of the Press onely for printing the Confession of their Faith their Prayers and the Rules of their Discipline but no other Books written by the Reformed Divines of that Kingdom and what the effects of that and other Edicts have been every wise Observer hath seen May our blessed and holy Saviour the true and undoubted Head of the Catholick Church heal all the Breaches thereof convert all Hereticks to the knowledge of the Truth shame and bring back all Schismaticks into the Unity of his Mystical Body that we may be one Sheepfold under one Shepherd the Bishop of our Souls Amen FINIS Advertisement of BOOKS Printed for Samuel Smith at the Princes Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard THE Vanity of all Pretences for Tolleration wherein the Late Pleas for Tolleration are fully answered and the Popular Arguments drawn from the Practice of the United Netherlands are stated at large and shewn to be weak fallacious and insufficient Quarto The Book of Bertram or Ratramnus Priest and Monk of Corbey concerning the Body and Bloud of the Lord in Latine With a New English Translation more exact than the former Also an Historical Dissertation concerning the Author and this Work wherein both are vindicated from the Exceptions of the Writers of the Church of Rome Protestancy proved Safer than Popery by a late Convert to the Church of England Miscellanea in quibus Continentur praemonitio ad Lectorem de infantum Communione apud Graecos Defensio Libri de Graecae Eccles statu contra Object Authoris Hist Criticae super fide Ritibus orientalium Brevis succincta Narratio de Vita studiis Gestis Martyrio D. Cyrilli Lucarii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Commentatio de Hymnis matutino Vespertino Graecorum Exercitatio Theologica de Causis remediisque dissidiorum quae orbem Christianum hodie affligunt Authore Thoma Smith Becles Augl Presbyt 1686. Octavo History of the Original and Progress of Ecclesiastical Revenues By the Learned P. Simon Octavo Enquiry after Happiness by the Author of Practical Christianity Octavo The Duty of Servants containing 1. How Parents ought to breed up their Children that they may be fit to be employed and trusted 2. How Servants may wisely chuse a Service 3. How they are to behave themselves in it in discharging their Duty towards God their Master and themselves with Prayers suited to each Duty To which is added a Discourse of the Sacrament intended chiefly for Servants By the Author of Practical Christianity Octavo Miracles Works above and contrary to Nature or an Answer to a late Translation out of Spinosa's Tractatus Theolog. Politicus Mr. Hobbs's Leviathan c. Quarto A Sermon about Frequent Communion By Dr. Tho. Smith Quarto
as the Maxim faith Lex currit cum praxi this is very plain from the usages of the generality of people in your Church And I am sure to confirm this your way of arguing that I have somewhere read though I cannot now readily light on the place that Scribanius affirms that Adoration of Saints and Images is very lawful because Abraham bowed down to the Children of Heth Gen. 23.7 Surrexit Abraham adoravit populum terrae filios viz. Heth. As it is in the Vulgar Latine And if I must not judge of any man's Idolatry by his outward actions which is your exception then I can never know any man to be an Idolater for a Heathen may fall down before one of his Idols and call upon it for help and yet say that his intention is just and that he only meant thereby to worship the True God which is the excuse made by the men of your Church After this * Refl p. 16. you compare the Power of the Pope to that of Civil Powers as to the Obedience due to them from their Subjects but pray deal candidly Do you believe the Pope to have no more Authority in commanding Obedience than Civil Powers have Doubtless you do believe him to have more Authority or else why do so many of your Church refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance which yet you †Cath. princ sect 2. § 4. p. 3. allow to be a lawful Oath for you say they refuse it not for any unlawfulness in the Oath but because the Doctrine of Deposing Princes is therein called Heretical which they cannot allow of as the word is understood in a Catholick sense where you will allow me to observe that for the true notion of Heresie you depend on the Pope's Breve and so allow the Pope to be a Judge in matters of Faith for Heresie is contrary to the Faith and consequently the Deposing Power which the Pope hath determin'd is a matter of Faith and why do they follow the Papal Dictates in those things wherein by the Laws of God and Nations they are bound to submit to their Superiours Here also I observe that when * Popery misrepresented p. 46. you Treat of the Pope's Power you give your self a great latitude when you say That you never scruple to receive his Decrees and Definitions such as are issued forth by his Authority with all their due Circumstances and according to Law but never tell us what those Circumstances are as your Adversary well remarks which puts me in mind of somewhat which your * Tanner disp 1. de fid q. 4. dub 6. n. 263. Compton in 22. dis 22. § 5. Authors say concerning the Bull of Sixtus 5. prefixt to his Edition of the Vulgar Translation which was afterward recalled by Clement 8. That it was true the Bull was printed with the Bible but that it was not affixt to the Gates of St. Peter 's Church and in the Campo fiore so long as it ought to have been according to the Laws of the Romish Chancery as if such little things as those made Ecclesiastical Decrees more or less valid And now to shew you that your Answerer did not show his Learnlng in discovering that the Popes have dispenc't only with positive Institutions but not with the Moral Law with Lying and Forswearing as if he sought a knot in a Bull-rush and took Sanctuary in a Mystery as you term it by talking only in general terms what think you of the many Dispensations that have been given by former Popes to the Subjects of this and other Kingdoms to break their Oaths of Allegiance and Duty to their Soveraigns the relation between Princes and their Subjects being not grounded on their being Christians but on the Obligation of Civil Society so that a dispensing with the Oath of Allegiance is a dispensing with a Duty of Natural Religion which binds Subjects to obey their Superiours For either Subjection to Princes is a Duty of the Fifth Commandment as we reckon them Honour thy Father and Mother c. or it is not if it be not you will do well to assert it and we shall take care to prove it to be a Duty of that Commandment not only from the Authority of the Antients and from Reason but from the Authority of your own Catechism which †Part. 3. praec 4. § 3. 11.2 § 17 18. says That all persons who are possessors of power or dignity are included under the term Parents which is afterward explain'd by those who have Empire Magistracy or power committed to them who govern the Commonwealth But if to obey Princes be a duty of that Commandment then to dispence with that duty is to dispence with a Moral Law and to dispence with Oaths that bind to that duty is to give men a dispensation to be perjur'd and to forswear themselves And because you tell us * Pap. repraesent p. 47 48. That the Papist is taught in all Books that to Lye is a sin and to call God to witness to an untruth is damnable and that the practices of your Church are according to those praescriptions and that neither the Sacrament nor an Oath of Secrecy can excuse any man from perjury nor did you ever hear of any such thing from any Priests in Sermons or Confessions never read of them in your Books or Catechisms nor saw the practice of any of them in any of your Communion in which words there is some Art used for do you believe that any Priest of your Communion may reveal what he hears in confession against the Laws of your Church which bind him to Secrecy sub sigillo and when you tell us You never read of any such thing either in Books or Catechisms you mean I suppose Books of Devotion for in other Books you may undoubtedly read such Doctrines or else why should the Pope condemn them And when you say You never saw any such thing I hope you mean it never fell within the reach of your particular observation but if you read the account of Mr. Garnet and his accomplices you will find that they took the Sacrament as an Oath of Secrecy to carry on that Hellish design And withal subjoyn * Ib. p. 66. That the present Pope hath condemn'd all Equivocations and Mental Reservations under the penalty of Excommunication latae sententiae by his Decree March 2. 1679. We do still averr that your Church hath given dispensations for Lying and Forswearing and we know not but it may be done for the future For not to instance in the Jesuite Moralists †Filiut to 2. tr 25. n. 325. Sanches oper moral l. 3. c. 10. n. 7. 8. Filiutius Sanches c. their averring That if a man promises any thing and swears to it yet if he do not intend it he may without sin break that promise and that Oath so that the intention of the Swearer among these Casuists makes the Oath
and upon some considerations those other Constitutions and Decrees relating to Discipline and Government are obligatory i. e. upon condition tho not absolutely and withal you tell us as freely that if the Deposing Doctrine had been as evidently declared in former Councils as ever Purgatory or Transubstantiation were in that of Trent yet with you it should be no Article of Faith Which way of arguing tho it be very generous seems to me to destroy your distinction of matters of Faith and matters of Discipline for if the Lateran Council had defin'd the Deposing Doctrine as a matter of Faith and requir'd the belief of it under the penalty of an Anathema as the Trent-Council did Purgatory and Transubstantiation then either you must have believ'd as the Council required or else in matters of Faith defin'd by a general Council a man may think himself not bound to believe them and if so I see no other reason why any other man may not as well refuse to believe Purgatory and Transubstantiation upon your own principles But if we allow of your distinction in your own sense I suppose you will hardly allow another man to make the like deductions and think himself at Liberty to follow his own dictates for if so then the half communion Priests Marriages Prayers in Latin the Popes Supremacy and many other such points being matters of Discipline every man by parity of reason may give himself a dispensation to believe contrary to the definitions of Councils if you allow your self a liberty to believe the Princes cannot be deposed though it were defin'd as matter of Faith in a general Council And it is remarkable that for the better understanding of this distinction you recommend * Refl p. 10. Card. Bellarmine to us who I am sure makes the Popes personal infallibility his superiority to a general Council and his power of deposing Princes matters of Faith But to allow of your distinction between matters of Doctrine and matters of Discipline and that in matters of Faith from the definitions of a general Council no man ought to vary but in matters of Discipline though defined by the same Cooncil a man is left at liberty pray tell me seriously is every man left at liberty or some men only If every man then the assertors of the Deposing Doctrine have as much right on their side as you have for the private spirit is not to be your guide in your Church any more than in ours and the assertors of that deposing power have Councils on their side and Popes and many private Doctors and if you tell me that you are not to follow your own prudence but the Doctors of the Church where you live in what a general Council hath not decided as matters of Faith then you must change Opinions with the climate you live in as Pere Cotton said of himself that in France he believ'd a general Council to be above the Pope but in Italy that the Pope was above a general Council for if you inquire in France whence I suppose you have your principles as well as your arguments they will tell you now that the Pope hath no superiority over Kings and that they have condemn'd Sanctarellus his book and burnt Mariana's but if you inquire in the Neighbouring Countries they will tell you the contrary it is well known what the belief of Italy is in this point and for Spain the Inquisition at Toledo Jan 10. 1683. condemn'd the late censure of the Sorbon and in the Low-countries D'Enghien a Professor of Louvaine hath written in defence of the Popes power over Princes against Natalis Alexander and positively averrs that the French Opinion is either Heresie or next to Heresie and that more Authors in your Church assert than deny the Deposing Doctrine the present Pope urging that and several other Universities to censure the Decrees of the French Assembly V. d'Engbien p. 549. c. Jucieu Calvinisme Papisme mis en parallel to 2. part 3. ch 3. An. 1682. Among whom it is observable that the University of Doway prayed the King of France their new Master to whom they were lately made Subjects that he would not force them to change their Doctrine lest they should be accused of taking up a new Theology with a new Soveraign and if you go into Hungary the Clergy there also condemn'd the Doctrine of the French Bishops as erroneous and schismatical Oct. 24. 1682. and when the Arch-Bishop of Gran the Primate of lower Hungary wrote against the Propositions of the said French Assembly an order was given to the Sorbon to censure the Arch-Bishop's Book which they refused to do but upon this condition that they might be allowed to condemn the propositions as if extracted out of some other Author which looks like a fine fetch of Sophistry And now †Pap. misrep p. 50. Where is three times the number who disown this Doctrine of deposing to them that own it as you say Whereas besides what hath been above mention'd the Author of the first Treatise against the Oath of Allegiance p. 13. says that the Deposing Doctrine hath been the common received Doctrine of all School-divines Casuists and Canonists from first to last afore Calvin's time in the several Nations of Christendom yea even in France it self and even there of those French Divines that were most eager for their Temporal Princes against the Pope as Occam Almain Joh. Parisiensis Gerson c. And is it not an argument of the great care which your Church hath taken of the Persons and Interests of Princes which are sacred that every Writer of your Church whether Priest or Lay-man shall have liberty freely to publish his thoughts about the rights of Soveraigns and whether their Subjects or the Pope may depose them As if the Doctrine of Obedience to Superiors were such a slight indifferent thing that a man may with safety to his Religion and Conscience believe either that the Pope may or may not absolve Subjects from their Obedience A wise man would think that there were a greater necessity to define such a point upon which the safety of Kings and their Kingdoms depends than to define the precise manner of our blessed Saviour's presence in the Sacrament which had it never been defin'd while all Christians acknowledge him to be there might have been the occasion of much peace and happiness to Chistendom And if you plead that some men among us have asserted the Deposing Doctrine to this your * Ch. 20. p. 75. Adversary hath given you a full answer For until you can show that our Archbishops Bishops and inferior Clergy in Convocation have owned any such Doctrine or countenanc't such men in asserting it you say nothing to the purpose for we damn the Doctrine by whomsoever vented and our superiors are ready to censure the assertors of it if they durst appear openly Nor is it enough to say that this hath been done by the French
dictum And this I write to you because you appear the Advocate of your Party while I acknowledge that I make these Proposals onely as a private Person though I doubt not but all the Prelates of the Church of England would rejoyce to see so much done towards the healing of the Breaches of Christendom Amen And here I thought to have put a period to this Essay had not your Vindication of your Reflections come to my hands upon which I cannot but bestow a few Remarks while your learned Adversary will take care of a more full Reply In which among other things you undertake to †Protest Popery c. p. 16. prove by several instances That our Church is guilty of mis-representing yours because it impeaches the Papists of Idolatry in the worshipping of Images and we acknowledge that she does so impeach you but withal we affirm that there is a great difference between what is spoken by any man or any Society of men in a Homily or Sermon and what is thetically laid down as an Article or maintain'd in disputation you your selves as well as we being often forc'd to make use of this distinction to salve many Sayings of the Fathers that they were spoken not Dogmatically but Rhetorically but we need not depend on this Answer for our Homily does not speak of the Canons of your Councils but of the received Opinions and Practices of your Church Now that 't is a current Opinion among many of your School-men That the Image ought to have the same Worship with the Prototype I have already proved out of Cardinal Bellarmine and that the Practice of the Common People in this case was very disallowable and much like the Idolatry of the Heathen as I understand the Trent-Council is the Complaint in †Sess 25. de Imag. general of those Fathers and of some other of your Writers in particular so that herein the Homily speaks but the sence of your own Authors and with Justice censures the Usages of the People of your Communion And if what your * Ibid. Council says be true That the Idolatry of the Heathens did consist in their putting their trust in their Idols he who considers how much more Worship there is paid to the same Images of the Blessed Virgin at Loretto Monferrat c. than to other her Images elsewhere which can as well put the People in mind of the Mother of God as those famous Shrines will be perswaded that the generality of your Communion put their trust also in the Image as did the Heathens in their Idols Now to vindicate your Church from Idolatry in this case though you †Protest Pop. p. 33. acknowledge That you do give Religious Honour to Images yet you say That that Honour cannot be called Idolatry unless it makes a God of that to which it is paid But does not the Second Commandment as we reckon them forbid the worshipping of the true God by an Image And do not the worst of Idolaters say That they do not worship the Image but the God who is represented by it Doth not Celsus say so much on the behalf of the Gentile Idolaters to Origen * Lib. 7. p. 373. Orig. contr Cels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Who but a perfect Fool thinks an Image made of Stone or Timber of Brass or Gold to be a God c. And for the Jews when they fell into Idolatry in the Wilderness by worshipping the Golden Calf they onely worshipt it as a representation of the true God for the Feast that was set apart for it is called †Exod. 32.5 a Feast held to Jehovah which is the incommunicable Name of the onely true God And the like might be said of the Calves in Dan and Bethel But perhaps you are of the opinion of some men of Eminence in your own Communion and whose Books have never been that I know of condemn'd who think that the Worship of the Golden Calf was not Idolatry for so Moncoeus in his Aaron Purgatus exprefly affirms as * c. 7. p. 49. Greg. de Valentia in his Apologetic for Idolatry a bold Title for a Book written by a Christian Priest argues from 1 Pet. 4.3 that because the Apostle doth forbid unlawful Idolatries abominable Idolatries as our Translation renders it that therefore there is some Idolatry that is lawful which is that of the Worship of Images But you object †Protest Pop. p. 34. that we our selves are by this Argument guilty of Idolatry by bowing to the Altar and to the Name of Jesus and by kneeling at the Sacrament Whereas I must tell you that we bow not to the Altar but towards it toward the East where the Christian Altar always used to stand and toward which part of Heaven the Primitive Christians used to direct even their private Devotions nor do we bow to the Name but at the Recital of the Name of our blessed Saviour so that we pay no Religious Worship to the Altar or to the Syllables of that Venerable Name as you confess you do to Images and when we kneel we profess we do not worship the Sacramental Elements nor the Body and Bloud of Christ hid under the Accidents of Bread and Wine but we kneel because then we pray and we worship God to whom we direct our Prayers so that these actions are not external acts of Adoration to any thing that is seen or heard but onely to God But by this way of arguing I perceive the Cause wants assistance when you borrow Arguments from our Dissenters to assault our Church with for these are their little Objections that have been so often hist off the Stage You further tell us That it is the intention of the Person who pays the Worship that makes the Worship either idolatrous or lawful And if so pray tell me if a Christian in the East Indies should go into a Pagod and bow down before one of their Images and pay it in all respects the same outward Adoration that its most bigotted Votaries offer it and at the same time intend his Worship towards the blessed Trinity does this man by virtue of his intention escape the guilt of Idolatry And I put you this Question the more willingly because some of your Jesuits have determined it in the affirmitive and acquit the votary of Idolatry and I would willingly know your Opinion for if you consult the †Let. 5. p. 61. Edit Lat. Colon. An. 1658. Provincial Letters the Author of them will tell you that the Jesuits in China and other places of the Indies taught the People that they might publickly worship the Idols of the Country Cacin choan and Keumfucum so they directed this Adoration of theirs intentionally to the Image of our blessed Saviour hid under their Cloaths and that this is no Calumny the same Author says * P. 62. That the Practice was complain'd of and censured at Rome July 9. An. 1646.