Let us therefore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find Grace to help in time of need Or is it finally that the interest of the Blessed Jesus is not great enough with his Father unless you add a mad Francis a bloody Dominick a Rebellious Becket an enthusiastick Ignatius to be joynt Advocates with him If these indeed be your thoughts let us plainly know the impiety of them And upon what unchristian foundations the benefit of this practise is established by you But if you dare not say that any Saint in Heaven can prevail where Christ alone cannot if you are ashamed to own that you think any one can love us more dearly than he who gave himself for us and redeem'd us with his own most precious Blood or by consequence can be more ready to hear and intercede for us Tell me then what profit is it that having this fountain of living water you run to the broken Cisterns of the merits and intercession of your fellow Creatures which can hold no Water 141. But I will go yet further to shew you the unprofitableness of this service It was objected by a great Man of your own Church Durand in sent IV. d. 45. q. 4. If says he the Saints know our necessities and those defects which we express in our Prayers How comes it to pass that we do not oftner find our selves relieved by them To this he answers ' That altho the Saints in Heaven have doubtless the greatest Charity imaginable for us yet they have withal their Wills so intirely conformed to the Will of God as not to lend any assistance to us but according to what they see the Knowledge and Will of God disposed towards us An excellent reflexion certainly and which no one can doubt to be most true But then it will follow from it that you do in vain sollicite the Saints who cannot lend you any assistance till God is pleased to permit himself to be intreated for you Whilst our Heavenly Father is our Enemy all the Host of Heaven are so too We must first be reconciled to him before ever we can expect any favour or acceptance with them In short it was the Conclusion of an antient Father whom I before mentioned That the only way to make the Angels and Saints our Friends is to make God so first And tho' we know little of what those blessed Spirits above do for us yet we have all the reason in the World to believe that they Love and Hate according to the Divine Pleasure and if they do pray for us the most ready way to obtain their Prayers is to be constant and zealous and persevering both in our Prayers and Piety towards God through his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. 142. I shall conclude this with the words of S. Austin De verâ Religione p. 290. Lugd. 1664. Let it not be any matter of Religion to us to Worship dead Men because if they have lived well they desire no such Honour but rather that we should Worship him by whose Illumination they rejoyce that we are Companions of their Piety They are therefore to be Honoured for our Imitation not to be Worshipped out of Religion And the same let us think of Angels that they above all things desire that we should together with them Worship God only in whose Vision they are happy Tying our Souls to him alone from which Religion derives its very Name let us lay aside all Superstition Behold I Worship one God the One principle of all things Whatsoever Angel loves this God I am sure that he loves me too Whosoever remains in him and can understand the Prayers of Men in him he hears me Whosoever has God for his Good do's in him help me Let the Adorers of the parts of the Universe tell me What good person is there that he does not reconcile to himself who Worships him only whom every good person loves and in whose knowledge he rejoyces and by recurring to which principle he becomes good Let therefore Religion bind us to the One God Almighty c. But I insist too long on these Reflections I add only Secondly To close all That this Invocation of Saints departed is as Impious as it is Unprofitable 143. For First To take this Practice in the most Moderate Sense that may be yet to pray to any Creature after the manner that you do to the Saints departed is to make them the Objects of a proper Religious Worship and to pay that Service to the Creature which is due only to the Creator and this certainly cannot be done without a very great Impiety 144. Secondly To pray to the Saints but only as Intercessors even this do's usurp upon the peculiar Prerogative of our Blessed Saviour who is our only Mediator and whose singular Priviledge it is to appear in the presence of God for us And to joyn others with Christ in his great Office and Employment to make to our selves new Mediators what is this but tacitely at least to imply that we dare not trust either his Mercy or his Interest in the concern of our Everlasting Salvation But then 145. Thirdly To pray as you evidently do not only that the Saints would intercede for you but that God would be merciful to you not only through the Merits of Christ but of the Saint whose Memory you celebrate this is a downright undervaluing of our Saviour's Bloud and do's despight unto the Covenant of Grace 146. Fourthly To pray to the Saints as if we may be allow'd to understand the meaning of plain words you do as the Arbitrary Dispensers of Benefits to you that they would themselves grant you those things which you ask of them this makes your Service yet more intollerable And tho' you seek to evade the justice of this Censure by those unreasonable Expositions of your prayers I have before refuted yet I am sure it ought to be more than enough to make us avoid that practice which cannot be excused but by such forced Interpretations as should men use the like on other Occasions all Society must be overthrown and Mens Words be no longer relied upon as sufficient to declare the Sense of their Minds 147. Fifthly As to what concerns the practice of the people in this point it cannot be deny'd nay it is by some of your own Church openly complain'd of how much their hope and confidence their Love and Service are hereby lessen'd towards God and what greater signs of Zeal appear in them towards the Blessed Virgin than towards our Saviour Christ himself And indeed you who ought to have better inform'd them are the very Persons that have especially help'd to mislead them 'T is from you they have learnt as a great practice of piety to salute her ten times for God's once 'T is you that have taught them to joyn Mary still with Jesus in their Mouths Insomuch as if it be possible to let her
Meaux tell us that all the Prayers of your Church be their Words never so repugnant must yet be reduced to this sense PRAY FOR US But you have often been told that this is utterly disallow'd by us However to take off all occasion of Cavil as far as is possible I will offer you the State of the Question in such Terms as you shall have no just cause to except against it viz. Whether it be Lawful to pray to the Saints after the manner that is at this day prescribed and practised in the Church of Rome And I will so far comply with you as to consider it in both respects 1. According to your own Representation of it 2. According to that which is indeed your Practice and freely acknowledged by the greatest Men of your Church to be so I. POINT Whether it be Lawful to pray to the Saints to PRAY FOR US 3. This is the least that can possibly be made of this Matter And because I would bring the Point to the fairest Issue that may be as I have proposed the Question according to your own desire so I will dispute it with you upon your own Principles 4. And first for what concerns the Terms of the Question they are exactly taken from your own Wards You tell us in your Vindication that all you say is Vindic. p. 30. That it is LAWFUL to Pray to the Saints and here in your Reply That the Difference between us is Whether it be LAWFUL for us to Pray to them Reply p. 11 In which yet you seem to fall a little below even the Bishop of Meaux Himself who tells us That your Church teaches that it is PROFITABLE at least to Pray to them Exposit Sect. IV. p. 5. But however such is our Security according to Both of you that neither You nor He care to say it is our Duty so to do or that we run any Danger in the neglect of it Whatever therefore be the Issue of this Dispute it is wholly your Concern to look to it thus much we are Agreed in That there is no Sin in our Omission For where there is no Law there is no Transgression 5. But I will now presume to go farther And since you dare not say that such an Invocation is Necessary I will undertake to affirm that neither is it Profitable nor indeed Lawful but utterly forbidden And for proof of this I shall lay down no Other Foundation than what you have your self establish'd viz. That Religious Honour or Worship may be taken in a double Sense See Vidicat p. 27. First Strictly and so is due Only to God Secondly More largely and so may be paid to Creatures And what you mean by these Terms you thus more fully express Ibid. p. 28 29. That by Religious Honour in this latter sense and as you apply it to the Saints you understand only an Honour so called by an extrinsecal Denomination from the CAUSE and MOTIVE but not from the NATURE of the ACT it self That is such an Honour as may be in it self Civil and is only CALLED Religious because it is done for God's sake and in Obedience to God's Commands But for a strict and proper Religious Worship such as is in its own Nature so this you confess with us to be due to God ONLY From whence I conclude That to give such a Worship to any Creature must be to pay that Service to the Creature which is due only to the Creator and that is in Our Sense to Commit Idolatry 6. And now from this Principle which you have your self laid down Vindic. p. 28. and which you think will be alone sufficient to Answer all Objections brought against your Doctrine I take leave to inferr That if even such an Invocation as you confess you pay to the Saints be strictly a Religious Honour in the very Nature of the Act it self and not barely by an Extrinsecal Denomination from the Cause and Motive of it it will then remain that you are guilty in this Service of giving that Worship to the Saints which is due only to God and are by Consequence therein guilty of Idolatry And this I shall shew I. From the very Nature of the Act it self II. From the Circumstances of it I. That the very Nature of the Act it self of Invocating the Saints does shew that it is strictly and properly a Religious Worship 7. This is what I know Monsieur de Meaux denies He tells us That when you pray to the Saints Expos Artic. IV. you do it in the same Spirit of Charity and according to the same Order of Brotherly Society which moves us to demand Assistance of our Brethren living upon Earth Thus he smooths your Invocation of Saints departed to make it lie even with our desires of one anothers prayers But did he in good earnest believe that nothing but a Spirit of Charity and the Order of Brotherly Society is to be discerned in the Act of calling upon departed Saints to pray for us We have indeed that Charity for them as to believe that they have Charity for us and though they are highly advanced above us we yet take them to be our Brethren But is this all that is implied in the Act of calling upon them to pray for us For my part I cannot but believe that Monsieur de Meaux himself was sensible of a vast difference in the Case as appears by his endeavouring to blind it afterwards And I shall now offer some Reasons that may perhaps convince others as they have fully satisfied my self about it 8. For 1. If the Nature of that Act of Invoking the Saints in Heaven be the same with that of desiring my Christian Brother to pray for me upon Earth then on the other hand this is also of the same Nature with that And by consequence I may as well fall down upon my Knees here in London and desire my Christian Brother who is now it may be in Japan or somewhere in the East Indies or perhaps on his return homewards to pray for me as do the like to S. Peter or S. Paul who for any thing I can tell are at a vastly greater distance from me than my Friend upon Earth is But if there be something more than a Spirit of Charity or an acknowledgment of Brotherhood in calling upon my living friend who is out of all natural distance of hearing there is also something more than this in calling upon the dead who it may be are a thousand times farther from me than the living can be from one another Would not such an Invocation of my Friend think you suppose him to be more than a Brother or a Man Would not the Nature of the Act ascribe to him not only the praise of Charity but likewise the power of hearing and knowing all that is said upon Earth at any distance whatsoever I grant that if this were indeed no more than according to the Order
apprehension of his being every where present And tho much of it is due to the natural Impressions which God has left of himself in our Souls yet the Reflexions we make upon it are chiefly owing to the frequent Addresses we make every where publickly and privately to the Invisible Being the Lord of All of whom we have some knowledge by Nature and more by Christian Instruction But when Prayer is made to other Invisible Beings as generally as to God how can it be otherwise but that the People should conceive them to be as Omnipresent as God himself is Especially if it be considered that when their Educated and Philosophical Men come to vindicate their Practice and Doctrine from this imputation they cannot so much as speak sense about it but with all their Art talk more meanly and confusedly than meer Nature would instruct an Honest man to do The difference between the People and the blind guides on the one side and between the Seers on the other being only this That the Worship and the Notions of the former go together and are of a piece but the latter with as bad a Worship have better Notions and give that Honour to the Saints by their Practice which their Notions as they would have us think at least deny to them But for that reason they are the more to blame and tho their Idolatry be not so gross as the Peoples yet it is more inexcusable 13. And yet if we may judge of their thoughts by their words some of the refined Controvertists do not come much behind the Common People in this stupidity If they think otherwise than they say they are to answer to God for that too Cardinal Bellarmine and others De Cultu ss lib. iii. c. 9. who had none of these Expounding designs to carry on speak out freely and tell us that the Saints are Dii per participationem God's by participation and upon that account he justifies the Practice of the Church of Rome in swearing by them and making Vows to them Expos §. IV. p. 7. Nor indeed do I see how that differs very much from Monsieur de Meaux's giving them the Knowledge which the hearing of all Prayers requires as by a light communicated to them by God. For what is that but to say that God has in effect made them partakers of his Immensity Nay the Representer if we may conclude any thing from his arguing seems plainly to yeild that the Saints have a Natural Knowledge of our Prayers Part 1. §. ii p. 3. For says he Abraham heard the Petition of Dives who was yet at a greater distance from him than the Saints are from us even in Hell and told him likewise the manner of his living whilst as yet on Earth Nay since 't is generally allow'd that the very Devils hear those desperate Wretches who call on them why should we doubt that the Saints want this priviledge 14. No wonder therefore if Bellarmine makes a greater difference between the Prayers to the Saints and our desires of good mens Prayers upon Earth than Monsieur de Meaux seems willing to acknowledge and looks upon it to be a Worship due to them Conc. Trid. Seff ult thus in the words of your Synod of Trent suppliantly to call upon them For what can be more reasonable than to esteem that Prayer the Invocation of Suppliants and the Worship of Invocation which is made with such deference of respect from the very Nature of the Act as is due to God the only Omnipresent Being And what more unreasonable and foolish than to call our desires of each others Prayers by such Titles as these And hitherto have I shewn that in the very Act of praying to the Saints without any regard had to the form or substance of your Petitions or the circumstances with which you call upon them you give proper religious Worship to them which you acknowledge it is unlawful for you to do I proceed Secondly to shew this yet more plainly II. From the Circumstances of it 15. And here to avoid if it be possible all your little Cavils so usual upon this occasion as in speaking to the former part of this Argument I have managed it so as not to concern my self with any of your distinctions of Supreme and Inferiour Religious Worship Reply p. 7. so here I will not insist on those Exteriour Actions of the Body which you tell me are Equivocal and of which Monsieur de Meaux roundly affirms Expos p. 8. That the Nature of that Exteriour Honour which you render to the Saints must be judged from the internal Sentiments of the Mind The Circumstances I shall now insist upon are such as are not liable to any of these Evasions but will if not silence a Contentious Spirit yet I am confident satisfie any unprejudiced Christian that the Prayers which you make to the Saints are properly a Religious Act and not only called so by an external denomination from the Cause and Motive of them 16. For 1. What else can be gathered from those outward Circumstances of the Place Time and Manner to say nothing of the Gestures of the Body with which you call upon them Do not all these speak plainly to us what the Nature of this Worship is You pray for instance to the Saints in the House of God it may be in a Temple which you have consecrated at once to the Service of God and to the Honour of the Saint whom you invoke You accompany these Prayers with Incense smoking before their Images a Circumstance which was once reckon'd as a peculiar instance of External Religions Adoration and which was therefore thought so appropriate an Act of Divine Worship among the Primitive Christians that they chose to die rather than to throw a little Incense into the fire upon the Heathen Altars You call at the same instant upon the One and upon the other and too often place them in an equal rank with one another Thus Missal R. in ord Miss if you confess your sins you do it to God Almighty to the B. Virgin to St. Michael the Archangel to S. John Baptist to the Holy Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul and in short to All the Saints If you commend a departing Soul Rituale R. Ord. Comm. An. you bid him go out in the Name of God the Father Almighty who created him and of Jesus Christ Son of the living God who suffer'd for him and in the Name of the Holy Ghost who was poured out upon him in the Name of Angels and Archangels of Apostles Evangelists c. If you conjure a Tempest Ritual Fr. de Sales p 77. in fin you call upon God and the Holy Angels you adjure the Evil Spirit you contradict him by the Vertue of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary In the Offices of the Church your Addresses to God and the Blessed Virgin are so inter-woven with each other
mixture of Infirmity This He illustrates with a Story which at once shews what their Power is with reference to us and How they are pray'd to in the Church of Rome upon presumption of it St. Gregory says he relates in his Book of Dialogues Lib. iii. cap. 36. That a certain Holy Man being just ready to be slain by the Hangman whose Arm was stretch'd out and Sword drawn for that purpose cry'd out in that Instant Saint John hold him and immediately his Hand wither'd that he could neither put it down again nor so much as move it S. John therefore continues the Cardinal from the highest Heaven heard the Voice of his Client and struck his Executioner with this Infirmity so suddenly as to hinder the Stroke already begun This is the Power of those Heavenly Kings that neither the almost infinite distance of Place nor the Solitariness of a poor and uâ—â—â—m'd Righteous Man nor the multitude of Armed Enemies could prevent S. John from delivering his SUPPLIANT from the Danger of Death 32. I shall not need to transcribe what He in the next place adds concerning the Worship that upon this and other accounts is paid to the Saints beyond that of any Earthly Monarch But from what has been said I conclude That it is the Opinion of those in the Church of Rome that as the Council of Trent expresses it The Saints reign together with Christ and are Gods by Participation that is are made Partakers of the Dignity and Power of God. 2. That therefore whatever Intercourse the Faithful upon Earth may have with them it must be vastly different from what they have with their Brethren here below who are neither admitted to such a Dignity nor Partakers of this Power 3. That since the Saints are thus Kings in Heaven when those of the Roman Church address to them in a SUPPLIANT manner as their CLIENTS for Help and Assistance they do not do this in the same Spirit of Charity Expos Mr. de Meaux sect IV. nor after the same Order of Fraternal Society with which they would desire the Prayers of their Fellow-Christians yet living And 4. That seeing the Bless'd in Heaven have Power together with God of taking Care of us and bestowing Blessings upon us there is neither Truth nor Reason in that vain Pretence Reply p. 22. That all the Prayers that are made to them must be reduced to this One form PRAY FOR US but that we ought indeed to understand them to desire of the Saints what both their Principles allow them to do and their Words declare that they do desire viz. THEIR HELP and ASSISTANCE as reigning TOGETHER WITH Christ 33. But Thirdly I have yet more to say in Answer to this Evasion It is well known how much those Prayers you make to the Saints scandalized many of the most Eminent Men of your Church In Elencho Abusuum Wicelius doubted not to say of one of your Hymns that it was full of downright Blasphemy and horrible Superstition of others that they were wholly inexcusable Ludovicus Vives profess'd Lud. Vives Comm. in S. August de Civ dei lib. viii cap. 27. that he found little difference in the Peoples Opinion of their Saints in many things from what the Heathens had of their Gods and that numbers in your Church worshipp'd them no otherwise than God. Now this the Council of Trent could not but know and it then lay before them to redress it If therefore those Fathers had thought that there was no other form of Invocation allowable to the Saints than as you now pretend to Pray to them to Pray for us is it to be imagined that at such a juncture as this they would have taken no care about a thing so justly scandalous not only to the Protestants whom they desired to reduce but even to many of their own Communion How easie had it been for them to say That to satisfie the complaints of these Learned Men and of their Enemies and to prevent any mistakes of the like kind for the future it seem'd good to the Holy Ghost and to them to declare that in what terms soever the Prayers of their Church were conceived yet that the Ecclesiastical sense of them was in all one and the same viz. Pray for us But now instead of such a declaration and which such wise men in this case would never have omitted they regard no Complaints that were made against this Service but roundly decree an Invocation to be due to them and establish it upon the Old Foundation before-mention'd and which had given rise to all these excesses viz. that the Saints REIGN TOGETHER WITH CHRIST and were therefore in A SUPLIANT MANNER to be call'd upon and that for the obtaining benefits of God they were to fly not only to their Prayers but also to their Help and Assistance And when according to their Order for reciting the Missals and Breviaries they were again set out the one Four the other Six years after the Council was ended the Hymns and Prayers were left still as we see and not so much as the least Note in a Rubrick for a right Exposition of them 34. Nay I will go yet farther There was not only no Care taken then but at this day men are suffer'd to run without Censure into the same Excesses We know to what Extravagance Card. Bona Father Crasset and but the other day Doctor J. C. our own Countryman have gone and no One of your Church censures them for it Cassander immediately after the Council no less complain'd of these things than Vives and Wicelius before and that too was disregarded On the contrary whilst the Extravagances of these Votaries are encouraged the moderation of the others is censured by the highest Authority of your Church The Psalter of S. Bonaventure goes abroad with permission but the Comments of Lud. Vives are put in the Expurgatory Index and George Cassander's Works absolutely prohibited Crasset devotion veritable pref p. 2. If Advices are given from the Blessed Virgin to her indiscreet Worshippers All the Servants of the B. Virgin run to Arms to encounter him The Learned of All Nations write against him the Holy See condemns him Spain banishes him out of all its Dominions and forbids to Read or Print his Book as impious and Erroneous But if a Crasset in his Zeal for the Mother of God runs into such blasphemous Excesses as no pious Ears can hear without indignation If he rake together all that the Folly and Superstition of former Ages has said or done the most excessively on this Subject to make up a Volumn scandalous to that Church and Society that endures him not only the Divines of his Order approve it but his Provincial licenses it to be Printed the King's Permission is obtain'd for it and the Expounders themselves are so very good natur'd that they cannot see any harm in it And then let the World judge what your true