practice It will be very acceptable to give the Reader the Monk's Prayer not only for the extraordinary nature of it but for the Saint's sake so famous in England Having finished his Translation of the Saints Life He concludes all with this Prayer to the Saint himself To whom with all devotion now lett ws hartely pray and with this subsequent Prayer thus shall I end and seast O Laureat Precious Martyr preserve the Church all way our Kynge with the Commynaltee and send ws rest and pease The Hed Father of this Monastery with all his both more and lesse Preserve of special grace and pray for the queck and dede which for the Church cause list gladly thy blod shede Vita cum Actibus Thomae Cant. Archiep. in English Metre Translated 1497. in a MS. in Bennet College Library I will pass on to the next Father Origen who will give us the fullest account of the Doctrine of the Church especially in that Treatise which he wrote in defence of Christianity it self against Celsus the eighth Book of which Treatise is almost wholly spent in the proving that all Worship and Prayer are to be offered up to GOD ALONE through our LORD JESUS CHRIST Celsus the Heathen was of opinion that inasmuch as the Angels did belong to God men ought to make Oblations and Prayers to them that thereby they might obtain their favour and Intercession and make them propitious unto them Origen rejects this Advice with indignation Away says he with Celsus's Counsel that tells us we must PRAY TO ANGELS and let us not afford the least ear to it n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΜΟÎΩ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΘΕΩ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΜΟ ÎΟΓΕÎΕΙ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΛΟΓΩ ΘΕΟΥ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origen contra Celsum l. 8. p. 395. Edit Cantabr 1658. for as for us Christians we must PRAY TO HIM ALONE who is GOD over all and we must PRAY to the WORD of GOD his only Begotten and the First-born of all Creatures and we must intreat HIM that He as High Priest would present our Prayer when come up to him unto his God and our God. And for the procuring the favour of the Angels he just after tells Celsus that the way to attain it was to lead holy Lives and to imitate the Angels in their uninterrupted service of God assuring him withal that if by that means we have God favourable to us we have all his Friends both Angels Souls and Spirits loving and affectionate to us And before this in his Fifth Book against the same Heathen upon Celsus's inquiry what the Christians lookt upon Angels to be and his answer that though they were wont from their office to call them Angels yet that they found them named Gods in the Scriptures by reason of a certain Divinity in them Origen does prevent the Heathen's Assumption that if they were such they ought to be worshipped by telling him that the Scriptures did not give Angels the Names of Gods so as to command us to worship and adore them instead of God who are ministring o 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΠΑΣΑΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΔΕΗΣΙΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΠΡΟΣΕΥΧΗΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΕÎΤΕΥΞΙΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΕΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΙΑΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΤΩ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΘΕΩ ΔΙΑ ΤΟΥ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΕΜΨΥΧΟΥ ΛΟΓΟΥ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΘΕΟΥ ΔΕΗΣΟΜΕΘΑ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΑΥΤΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΛΟΓΟΥ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Origen contra Celsum l. 5. p. 233. Edit Cantab. Spirits bring down to us the Blessings from God. But that ALL SUPPLICATION and PRAYER and INTERCESSION and THANKSGIVING must be sent up unto GOD ALMIGHTY by the HIGH PRIEST who is above all Angels and is the LIVING WORD and GOD. And we must put up our Supplications also unto the WORD HIMSELF our Intercessions also and Prayers and Thanksgivings must be offered up to HIM But to invocate Angels is ABSURD since we do not comprehend the knowledge of them which is out of our reach And granting that the knowledge of them which is wonderful and secret might be comprehended this very knowledge declaring their nature to us and their several charges would not suffer us to presume so far as to PRAY unto ANY OTHER but the GOD who is Lord over all and abundantly sufficient for all by our Saviour the Son of God. I cannot leave this so particular an account of the Church's Doctrine against Invocation without making an Observation from it which is that Origen does make Invocation and Worship to be Synonymous here and does confine them both to the same Object and shews that whatsoever is invocated is worshipped and that since all Worship is peculiar to God alone all Prayer upon that account must be offered up to Him alone and if this was the Church's sense at that time as we are hence certain it was we can very justly gather from it that they were far from either practising or teaching an Invocation of Saints or Angels who were for dedicating all Prayer to God alone and we may also gather this further from it that where any other Fathers do deny any worship's being paid to any Creature they did by that very denyal exclude all Invocation or Prayer being made to any even the most glorified Creature since Invocation or Prayer is one of the chief parts of Worship Origen himself and other Fathers after him as I shall shew at large do make Invocation and Adoration to be the same thing and do prove the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour from his being Invocated or prayed to which would have been a false and an absurd Argument had Saints and Angels been invocated at that time and it would have proved too much since if our Saviour is proved to be God from his being Invocated all the Saints as well as Angels were by the same Argument proved to be Gods had they been Invocated in those days I will give the Reader his words since they are of such extraordinary moment herein Origen commenting upon that passage in St. Paul How shall they call on or invocate him in whom they have not believed tells us that the Jews did not invocate Christ because they did not believe in Him and argues afterwards that if Enos Moses Aaron and Samuel did call on or invocate the Lord they did without doubt invocate Christ Jesus the Lord for if says he in proof thereof to call upon the name p Et si INVOCARE Domini nomen ADORARE DEUM UNUM atque IDEM est sicut INVOCATUR CHRISTUS ADORANDUS est Christus sicut offerimus Deo Patri primo omnium Orationes ita Domino Jesu Christo c. Orig. In Ep. ad Rom. l. 8. c. 10. p. 477 478. Edit Frob. 1536. of the Lord and to ADORE GOD be ONE and the SAME THING as CHRIST is INVOCATED so CHRIST is also to be ADORED and as
much above and more Glorious than the dead Remains of any Saint and therefore must needs be much further from the giving WORSHIP to the Saints Reliques Having thus proved these two things that the Church of Rome doth worship Reliques and that the Primitive Church did not we ought to conclude as to this Point about Reliques that the Primitive Fathers were no Papists but Protestants since they did declare against the Worship of Reliques as much as the Church of England doth and did detest the Worshipping of them as much as we can There is one Great Mistake that the Compiler must be rectified in before I leave this Chapter about Reliques and that is from the Community of Actions and Expressions to gather that the same thing was done by some of the Fathers towards the Reliques that is done now in the Church of Rome He cannot be ignorant that most of the External Expressions of Respect are common to Civil and Religious Worship and yet that no Body is so wild as to conclude from thence that Civil and Religious Worship are the same thing When Abraham bowed himself to the ground before the Children of Heth he used the very same Gesture that he was wont to make use of in his Worship of God and yet I hope our Compiler would not have it concluded from the same Gesture used upon both those Occasions either that Abraham when he bowed to the Children of Heth paid Religious Worship unto them or that he using the same Gesture in the Service of God paid only a Civil Worship unto Him. And yet This is all that he builds upon when he is so earnest about the thing and would confound Civil and Religious Worship by shewing what no Body denies that several of the Outward Expressions of Civil and Religious Worship are the same Whereas notwithstanding the Outward Gestures be the same we do easily know Religious from Civil Worship by the Object to whom it is paid and by the Professions of them who pay it And by this we are able to decide and resolve that Scruple which the Compiler would fain raise about the Matter of Reliques The Primitive Fathers did declare that they were against giving any Religious Worship to Reliques and therefore when we meet with any extraordinary Expressions or Actions among them which might otherwise appear to be Religious we are obliged to look upon them only as Expressions of Civil Worship by reason of the Declaration so often made by them that they did not worship Reliques But for the same Gestures or Actions used by the Church of Rome towards the Reliques or Bodies of the Saints we are obliged upon the very same Reason to look upon them as Expressions of a Religious Worship or Adoration since She hath prevented our taking them in the other Sense by declaring and decreeing in her Council of Trent that the BODIES and RELIQUES of the SAINTS are to be WORSHIPPED or ADORED And further to let him see this by an Instance used by Himself He urges that they used to touch and kiss the Reliques of the Martyrs and shews it from Gregory Nyssen which was the highest Expression of Respect used then towards Reliques Now how far this is from being Religious Worship in them or the same Kiss from being but Civil Worship in the Church of Rome I have already abundantly cleared from the Professions made about Reliques by the Primitive Fathers and by the Church of Rome in her Council of Trent I have insisted the longer upon this Business about the Reliques because the Compiler himself did and have taken the more care to clear the whole Matter about the Worship of Reliques because He took so much pains to disguise and obscure it and by confounding Civil and Religious Worship to bear the credulous Reader in hand that the Church of Rome and the Primitive Church are exactly the same in their Respect to Reliques and that the Church of Rome doth no more pay a Religious Worship or Adoration to Reliques than the Primitive Fathers did the Vanity and Falshood of all which I have fully display'd that so the Compiler being driven out of this Hold and being made ashamed of such groundless Delusions and Distinctions may e'en fall into the Old Track of defending Popery and speak out fairly the Sense of their Church about the Worship of Reliques and defend with the Angelical Doctor S. Thomas Aquinas and his Disciples who Sabran the Jesuit tells us are above One half of the Divines of the Christian World that THE RELIQUES of the SAINTS OUGHT TO BE ADORED He next undertakes the business of Purgatory and finding that I had invincibly shewn that the Primitive Fathers notwithstanding their Prayers for the Faithful deceased did believe that they were at the same time in a state of Bliss of Comfort of Peace of Joy and Light and Tranquillity nay in Heaven it self every one of which is utterly inconsistent with the Condition of Purgatory believed and taught by the Church of Rome He hopes to salve all by granting what he could not deny of the Primitive Fathers believing the Faithful deceased to be in such a Condition and reconciling all this to the Belief of Purgatory in his Church To this purpose he tells us that the supposing those Souls for which the Fathers pray'd to be in a State of Joy and Comfort does most nearly agree with the present Practice and Doctrine of the Church of Rome I am glad to hear this and now I perceive there is none of those torments and burnings in the Case with which the people used to be frighted out of their Wits themselves and to scare one another but the unhappiness is this is too good news to be true and I doubt we shall find by and by that the Romish Purgatory is the very same place that it used to be thought and that it is just as hot and as tormenting and intolerable at this very day as it was six hundred years ago when those lamentable shreeks were so often heard from the poor Souls in Purgatory However since I suppose our Compiler knows himself not to have been so careful of his Life as to imagine he shall escape calling at Purgatory I cannot discommend his making Purgatory as easy as he can and his representing it to be just such a place as he would with all his heart find it when he comes thither He endeavours to prove this agreement from that Prayer in the Canon of the Mass used in their Church wherein they pray God to grant to those his faithful Servants who rest in the sleep of Peace a Place of Comfort Light and Peace In answer to which I will only tell him here that this Old-Prayer in the Canon of the Mass is directly against the present Church of Rome in the business of Purgatory and against what the Compiler hath positively asserted a little after this about Prayer not being made for those in Bliss or those in Hell but only
him that the Controversie betwixt him and me about Reliques is whether they were worshipped or no during the first five hundred years and that I am so far from retiring within the Three first Centuries that I challenged the Fourth and Fifth as well as the Three first as expresly rejecting and denying the worship of Reliques It is necessary for me to do this since the Compiler confounding what I had said in relation to the Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries with what we do at present condemn the Church of Rome of runs me down most grievously for a page or two for daring to censure what was then done about the searching and treasuring up of Reliques tho' I had shewn it to be expresly contrary to what was the Practice of the three first Centuries for which I suppose I ought to have as great veneration at least as for the Practice of the Fourth and Fifth Ay but says he don't you see what men he dares to censure S. Basil S. Gregory Nyssen S. Gregory Nazianzen S. Chrysostom S. Ambrose S. Jerom S. Austin and Theodoret and then grows very angry upon it forgetting all the while that he is as pert against what the Church of Antioch did to S. Ignatius's body the Church of Smyrna to S. Polycarp's against what the Body of the Clergy of the Church of Rome did expresly enjoin in their Letter to the Clergy of Carthage against what was done by all the Faithful of the first Ages towards the Bodies and Ashes of all the Martyrs against what the Great Anchorite S. Anthony as it is related in his Life written by S. Athanasius did so often beg of the Bishops that they would forbid their people to keep the Bodies of their dead Friends unburied censuring thereby the Custom of the Egyptians and I may add of all those Fathers mentioned by the Compiler against me who before his time had begun what was so zealously practised and commended by those Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries and is so angrily contended for by the Compiler in his Vindication I will set down the whole passage because it is so compleat a defence of all that I have written about these things and is so full an Answer to all that the Compiler doth make so much noise about S. Athanasius having related S. Anthony's farewel Oration to his Brother Monks and their great desire to stay him with them that so they might be honoured with his ending his days among them tells us that S. Anthony upon several reasons was utterly against it but especially for that presumptuous custom of Egypt which he thus describes For the Egyptians e Mos etenim Aegyptiis est nobilium praecipue beatorum Martyrum Corpora linteamine quidem obvolvere studium funeri solitum non negare terrâ verò non abscondere sed super lectulos domi posita reservare Hunc honorem quiescentibus reddi inveteratae con uetudinis VANITAS tradidit De hoc Antonius saepe Episcopos deprecatus est ut populos Ecclesiastica consuetudine corrigerent laicos viros ac mulieres rigidius ipse convenit dicens Nec LICITUM HOC ESSE nec DEO PLACITUM quippe cum Patriarcharum Prophetarum Sepulchra quae ad nos usque perdurant haec facta convincerent Dominici quoque Corporis exemplum oportere intueri jubebat quod in Sepulchro positum lapide usque ad resurrectionis tertium diem clausum fuerit Atque his modis vitium circa defunctos Aegypti etiam si Sancta essent Corpora coarguebat Haec justa persuasio multorum insitum evellit errorem repositis in terra cadaveribus domino gratias pro bono Magisterio retulerunt D. Athanasii Vita S. Antonii Tom. 2. p. 482. Edit Commelin 1600. have a Custom among them of wrapping up indeed in linnen the Bodies of their Virtuous Men and especially of the blessed Martyrs and of giving them Funeral Rites but they do not bury them in the Earth but lay them upon Couches and keep them in their Houses The VANITY of an inveterate Custom hath taught them that this Honour is to be shewn to the Deceased S. Anthony had often complained to the Bishops about this thing and requested of them that they would by Ecclesiastical Censure cure the People of this Evil Custom and He himself was wont to chide both Men and Women very severely for it telling them that it was NOT LAWFUL and that IT was NOT PLEASING TO GOD and that the Sepulchres of the Patriarchs and Prophets which continue to these days did convince these actions to be unlawful and he bid them to consider the Example of our Lords own Body which was buried in a Sepulchre and sealed up with a Stone to the Third day on which he was to rise again And by these means S. Anthony did reprehend and put a stop to this Evil Custom of Aegypt towards the deceased tho' it was to the Bodies which were Holy and this just Reproof did root out of many this inbred Error and they having buried the dead Bodies of their deceased Friends returned the Lord thanks for the Good Admonition Our Compiler however is very earnest upon it that what was practised in the latter end of the fourth and fifth Centuries towards the Reliques of the Saints and Martyrs is the very same and no more than what is now practised towards them by the Order of the Church of Rome and he builds this whole fancy upon the equivocalness of some words and actions used then as well as now but that I may ruine this groundless pretence and all his Jingling about words I will settle and prove these two things First That the Church of Rome doth command and practise the worship of Reliques Secondly That for the First Five Centuries of the Church the Worship of Reliques was neither commanded nor practised by the Primitive Church For the proof of the First I need only insist on what the Council of Trent in her twenty-fifth and last Session did decree about Reliques that the Bodies and Reliques of the Saints were to be worshipped and a little after she denounces an Anathema against all that should affirm that Veneration and Honour are not to be paid to Reliques That by Veneration and Honour in this Decree Religious Worship is meant may be cleared from the best Writers of the Church of Rome who use the words Veneration and Adoration promiscuously and in the same sense Thus Vasques the great Schoolman Vasques in Par. 3. D. Thom. Disp 112. since that Council in his Disputations upon S. Thomas having proposed this question whether the Bodies and Reliques of the Saints are to be VENERATED answers that it is an indisputable Truth among the Catholicks that the RELIQUES of SAINTS whether they be any parts of them as Bones Flesh and Ashes or any other things that have touch'd them or did belong to them ought to be ADORED and honoured with Sacred or DIVINE
she would have made her Intentions plain enough by putting down the Praises for the Martyrs as distinctly and as properly as she would the Prayers for others I must not forget to prove this also from that Prayer in the Canon of the Mass urged by our Compiler wherein they pray not only for those Servants of God who have gone before them with the Seal of Faith and rest in the Sleep of Peace but for ALL WHO REST in CHRIST which does comprehend all even Martyrs as well as Saints or Men of Lesser Sanctity and as it includes Martyrs it prays for those whom the Compiler and his whole Church believe to be in Heaven But this Prayer is no more consistent with the Doctrines of the present Writers of the Church of Rome than it is with the present Purgatory of that Church which supposes the Faithful deceased to endure Fiery Torments in order to Expiation whereas this very Old Prayer supposes them to rest in the Sleep of Peace That they prayed also even for the Damned is plain from S. Chrysostom who in his above-quoted Third Homily upon the Philippians did advise such Prayers upon this Perswasion that tho' they could not obtain a Release for them from Hell yet they would procure for them some Alleviation of Torments some small Relief and S. Austin himself seems to be for the same thing when he speaks of the Prayers of the Living profiting so much as either p Aut ad hoc prosunt ut sit plena Remissio aut certe tolerabilior fiat ipsa Damnatio D. August Enchirid. ad Laur. c. 110. to procure a compleat and full Remission or that their Damnation should be made more tolerable Our Compiler cavils before he leaves this Point very rudely at me for saying S. Chrysostom only advises the Oblation of Alms for the Increase of Happiness to his Son's Soul and does very scornfully ask me what means S. Chrysostom's bidding him also pray for the discharge of his Son's Guilt I can answer him without such rudeness in a very few Words That the Increase of Glory was the sole Intention of his praying for the discharge of the Guilt of Sin and that the latter was wholly design'd for the former Thus I have got through that Chapter about Purgatory and have fixed all that I had proved before in my Answer to the Nubes Testium that the Fathers neither knew of nor taught any such Purgatory as the Church of Rome doth and therefore since they believed the Romish Purgatory no more than we of the Church of England they are no more Papists than we are in this thing When he is come to the next great Controversy about Transubstantiation he was resolved to divert himself and his Reader and in order to it by perverting of my sense to make himself sport He pretends to be mightily at a loss what I would have the Doctrine of our Church to be about the Eucharist and brings me in first saying Christ's Body is really present in the Eucharist then that 't is the Body of Christ Figuratively only but within four lines after that it is the Flesh and Blood of Christ ABSOLUTELY without any addition of really or figuratively yet that in the next page 't is not Christ's True Natural Body but his Figurative or Symbolical Body So that he says I play backward and forward in declaring the Doctrine of our Church and make the Sacrament to be really Christ's Body and yet to be Figuratively only that is really not his Body But does this Man believe himself in all this Does he from his heart think that I am guilty of all this confusion and contradiction about this thing I am well enough assured that no Man of the least sense doth find such stuff in my Book it self and therefore that the Compiler did not but was forc'd to abuse my sense and falsify my words in order to his ridiculing of them and me For as to the first passage about Christ's Body being really present in the Eucharist it was occasion'd by my telling Him that the Controversy betwixt the Church of England and Rome is not about a Real Presence which the Church of England did believe when she looks upon the Consecrated Elements not to be the Body and Bloud of Christ themselves but to be appointed by God to exhibit to every faithful Receiver not to every Receiver the Body and Bloud of Christ But for the Consecrated Elements themselves she believes them to be Figuratively only Christ's Body and Bloud the Reason of which I so often inculcated because BREAD and WINE CAN NO OTHERWISE BE THE BODY and BLOUD of CHRIST AND BREAD STILL AT THE SAME TIME and therefore our Compiler ought to blush at his great disingenuity when he brings me in contradicting those very words within four lines of them and says I grant there that It that is the Sacrament is the Flesh and Bloud of Christ ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT ANY ADDITION of Really or Figuratively whereas any Man else would have carried my meaning along with him for so short a way as four lines had I said so absolutely without any Addition of Really or Figuratively but this is absolutely false for immediately after I had granted as to Justin Martyr's words that the Consecrated Food was the Flesh and Bloud of Christ to prevent any such misinterpretation of my words as the Compiler would make notwithstanding it I added these very words However to corroborate what we said above which was that the Blessed Bread is the Flesh of Christ but Figuratively only it is evident to a Demonstration that This Consecrated Food was still Bread and NOT TRANSUBSTANTIATED into the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ Did I here then say it was the Flesh of Christ absolutely without any Restriction or Explication of my words and sense Is this the Candour that becomes a Scholar Is this the Sincerity that becomes a Christian Is this the Veracity of a Priest of the Living God Well Well If this be answering an Adversary I perceive it is no matter whether it be true or false which we write nor whether it be right or wrong which we assert so that we secure our main design of ridiculing or abusing our Adversary That I might state the Controversy betwixt us and Rome aright in this great point I shewed our Compiler that it was whether upon Consecration the Bread and Wine were transubstantiated into that very Body and Bloud of Christ which was nail'd and pour'd out upon the Cross or whether after Consecration there is no other substance there but the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ This I told him we expect they should prove and that it is to no purpose to bring us only passages of the Fathers to shew that they gave to the Consecrated Elements the Name and Appellation of the Body and Bloud of Christ and that they said of the Elements that they were Consecrated made or turned into the Body and Bloud of