Image of an Apostle or a Martyr our intention is not so much to honour the Image Pont. Com. de Bened. Imag. Sess 25. Dec. de Inv. c. as to honour the Apostle or the Martyr in presence of the Image Thus the Roman Pontifical tells us and the Council of Trent expresses the same thing when it say the honour we render to Images has such a reference to those they represent that by the means of those Images which we kiss and before which we kneel we adore JESUS CHRIST and honour the Saints whose Types they are In fine one may know with what intention the Church honours Images by that honour which she renders to the Cross and to the Bible All the world sees very well that before the Cross she adores him who bore our Iniquities upon the wood and that if her children bow the head before the Bible 1 Pet. 2. if they rise up out of respect when it is carried before them and if they kiss it reverently all this honour is referred to the eternal Verity which it proposeth to us They must have but little Justice who treat with the term of Idolatry that Religious Sentiment which moves us to uncover our heads and bow them before the Image of the Cross in remembrance of him who was crucified for the love of us and it would be too much blindness not to perceive the excessive difference betwixt those who put their trust in Idols out of an opinion that some divinity or some vertue was as I may say tyed to them and those who declare as we do that they will not make use of Images but to raise their minds towards heaven to the end they may there honour JESVS CHRIST or his Saints and in the Saints God himself who is the Author of all Sanctity and Grace After the same manner we ought to understand that honour which we pay to Reliques after the example of the Primitive Church and if our Adversaries would but consider that we look upon the bodies of Saints as having been Victimes offered up to God either by Martyrdom or by Penance they would not think the honour which we pay them upon this account could alienate us from that which we render to God himself We may say in general that if they would but consider how the affections which we bear to any one propagates it self without being divided to his children to his friends and after that by several degrees to the representation of him to any remains of him and to any thing which renews in us his remembrance If they did but conceive that honour has the like progression seeing honour is nothing else but Love mixed with respect and Fear in fine If they would but consider that all the exteriour worship of the Catholic Church has its source in God himself and returns back again to him they would never believe that this worship which he himself alone animates could excite his Jealousie They would on the contrary see that if God as Jealous as he is of the love of men does not look upon us as dividing our selves betwixt him and Creatures when we love our neighbour for the love of him the same God tho Jealous of the honour which his faithful pay him cannot look upon them as dividing that worship which is due to him alone when out of respect to him they honour those whom he had honoured It is true nevertheless that seeing the sensible marks of reverence are not all of them absolutely necessary the Church might without the least alteration in her doctrine extend these exteriour practices more or less according to the different exigences of times places or occurrences being desirous that her Children should not be slavishly subject to sensible things but only excited and as it were advertised by their means to fly to God and to offer up to him in Spirit and in the truth that rational service which he expects from his creatures One may see by this doctrine how truly I affirmed that a great part of our Controversies would vanish by the sole understanding of the Terms if these points were but discussed with charity and if our adversaries would but with moderation consider the foregoing Explications which comprehend the express doctrine of the Council of Trent they would cease to accuse us of injuring the mediation of JESVS CHRIST of Invocating the Saints and adoring Images after a manner which is peculiar to God alone It is true that seeing in one sense Adoration Invocation and the name of Mediator are only proper to God and JESVS CHRIST it is no hard matter to misapply these terms whereby to render our doctrine odious But if they be strictly kept to that sence in which we use them these objections and accusations will lose their force and if any other less important difficulties remain to these gentlemen of the pretended Reform'd Religion sincerity will oblige them to acknowledg they are satisfied as to the principal subject of their complaints Furthermore there is nothing so unjust as to accuse the Church of placing all her piety in these devotions to the Saints seeing as we have already observed Sess 25. Dec. de Inv. c. the Council of Trent contents it self to teach the Faithful that this practice is good and beneficial without saying any more of it So that the intention of the Church is only to condemn those who reject this practice either out of disrespect or Error She is obliged to condemn them because She is obliged not to suffer any practice which is beneficial to salvation to be despised nor a doctrine authorised by antiquity to be condemned by novellists SECT VI. Justification THE doctrine of Justification will shew yet more clearly how many difficulties may be ended by a plain exposition of our sentiments Those who are never so little versed in the history of the pretended Reformation are not ignorant that the first Authors proposed this Article to all the world as the principal of all the rest and as the most essential cause of their seperation So this is the most necessary to be well understood We believe in the first place that Our sins are freely forgiven us by the divine mercy Conc. Trid. Sess 6. c. 9. for JESVS CHRIST's sake These are the express terms of the Council of Trent which adds that we are said to be justified gratis Ibid. c. 8. because none of those acts which precede Justification whether they be Faith or good works can merit this Grace Seeing the Scripture explicates the remission of sins by sometimes telling us that God covers them and sometimes that he takes them away Tit. 3.5 6 7. and blots them out by the Grace of his Holy Spirit which makes us new creatures we believe that to form a perfect Idea of the Justification of a sinner we must joyn together both these Expressions For which reason we believe our sins not only to be covered but also
naturally form in the minds of the Faithful give us nothing but the Ideas of his real presence Therefore it was necessary our adversaries should find out some expressions the sound of which might at least give us a confused Idea of this reality When a Man fixes himself either entirely upon Faith as Catholicks do or entirely upon humane Reason as Infidels do it is easie for him to establish a connected and uniform model of Doctrine But when a man goes about to make a composition of one and the other he always says something which he would not say and afterwards falls into opinions the sole contrarieties of which shew the manifest falsity of them This is what has hapned to these Gentlemen of the pretended reform'd Religion and God has so permitted it to facilitate their return to Catholic unity For whereas their proper experience shows them they must necessarily express themselves as we do to speak the language of Truth ought they not to judge it necessary to think as we do to understand it right If they observe in their own belief many expressions which have no sence but according to our tenets is it not sufficient to convince them that Truth is not in its full perfection but amongst us And those unconnected parts of Catholick Doctrine which are scatered here and there in their Catechisms but which as I may say require to be united to the whole ought they not to excite them to search in the Communion of the Church a full and entire explication of the Mystery of the Eucharist They would no doubt of it be brought to it did not humane Reflections trouble and perplex their Faith which has too much dependance upon Sence But having shown what Fruit they ought to reap from the Exposition of their Doctrine let us finish the explication of our own SECT XIII Of Transubstantiation and Adoration and in what sence the Eucharist is said to be a Sign IT having been convenient as it was said before that the Senses should not perceive any thing in this Mystery of Faith it was necessary nothing should be changed in respect of them in the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist Upon which account being we see the same Species and feel the same Effects as before in this Sacrament we must not wonder if the same name be given to them sometimes and in some certain Sense Yet notwithstanding Faith being attentive to his word who performs what pleases him in Heaven and on Earth acknowledges here no other Substance but what is designed by the same word that is to say the proper Body and Blood of JESVS CHRIST into which the Bread and Wine are changed this is what we call Transubstantiation However That real verity which is interiorly contained in the Eucharist hinders not the exterior and sensible part from being a sign but a sign of such a Nature that it is so far from excluding the reality of the thing signified it bears it necessarily along with it seeing that in effect these words This is my Body pronounc'd upon that matter which JESVS CHRIST himself made choice of is to us a certain sign that his Body is present and though the Symbols appear always the same to our Senses yet our Mind judges otherwise of them and not according to Sense because a Superior Authority interposes So that whereas certain Species and a certain sequel of natural impressions on our Senses have been accustomed to design to us the substance of Bread and Wine the Authority of Him in whom we believe causes these same Species to begin to shew us another substance For we give ear to him who said that this which we receive and eat is his Body and such is the force of these words they hinder us from referring those exteriour appearances to the Substance of Bread and induced us to refer them to the Body of JESVS CHRIST there present Insomuch that the presence of such an adorable Object being rendered certain to us by this sign we are not afraid to pay it our adorations I will not dwell upon the point of Adoration because the most learned and the most intelligent of our Adversaries have long since granted us those who are perswaded of the real Presence of JESVS CHRIST in the Eucharist ought to pay him in it their Adorations In fine being once convinced the all-powerful words of the Son of God operate whatever they declare we believe that in the last Supper they had their effect as soon as they were pronounced by him and by a necessary Consequence we acknowledg the real Presence of his Body before our receiving of it SECT XIV Sacrifice of the Mass THese things being supposed there remains no particular difficulty about the Sacrifice which we acknowledg in the Eucharist We have observed two actions in this Mystery which cease not to be distinct the one of them has a Relation to the other The first is the consecration by which the Bread and Wine are changed into the Body and Blood and the second is the receiving by which we partake of them In the Consecration the Body and the Blood are mystically seperated because JESVS CHRIST said separately This is my Body this is my Blood which includes a lively and efficacious Representation of the violent Death he suffered So that the Son of God is placed upon the Holy Table in vertue of these words cloathed with those signs which represent his Death this is effected by consecration and this Religious action carries with it an acknowledgment of Gods Soveraignty in as much as JESVS CHRIST there present renews and perpetuates in some sort the remembrance of his being obedient even to the Death of the Cross So that there is nothing wanting to render this a true Sacrifice We cannot doubt but this Action as distinct from that of Communicating is of it self acceptable to God and makes him look upon us with a more propitious Eye because it represents to him that voluntary Death which his beloved Son has suffered for us Sinners or rather places before his Eyes that very Son of his under the signs of this Death by which his Wrath had been appeased All Christians will confess the sole Presence of JESVS CHRIST to be a most Powerful Intercession before God for all mankind according to the saying of the Apostle That JESVS CHRIST presents himself and appears for us before the Face of God Heb. 9.24 So that we believe that JESVS CHRIST being present upon the Holy Table under this Figure of Death intercedes for us and represents continually to his Father that Death which he has suffered for his Church It is in this Sense we say JESVS CHRIST offers up himself to God for us in the Eucharist it is after this manner we conceive this Oblation renders God more propitious to us and therefore we call this a Propitiatory Sacrifice When we consider what it is JESVS CHRIST operates in this Mystery and that we see him
Prelate is come to a fair composition about Transubstantiation He is willing to content himself with such a reality of the Body of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament as the Pretended Reform'd themselves believe An. Avert p. 27. When he treats of the Invocation of Saints He endeavours to mitigate and extenuate this worship of the Roman Church An. p. 24. both as to her Tenets and Practice Together with the Veneration of Saints he softens that of Images An. p. 24. An. p. 65. as also the Articles of Satisfaction Sacrifice of the Mass and the Popes Authority As for Images he is ashamed of the Excess to which the Doctrine as well as Practice has been carried The Anonymus who represents him as if he had changed the Council of Trents expression in the Article of Satisfaction p. 110. will needs have it that this change in the Expression proceeds from an alteration which he introduces in the Doctrine In fine he represents him as one who is going over to the Sentiments of the new Reformation or to use his own Expression like the Dove which returns to the Ark not finding where to rest his foot An. p. 104 368. He not only lays to his charge particular Opinions about the Merits of Good Works and the Authority of the Pope but seems ready if we would conform our selves to the Doctrine of the Exposition to admit of those two Articles which so much perplex those of his Communion There is nothing generally more frequently repeated in his Book An. Avert p. 23 26. Rep. p 3. c. than the reproaches he casts upon the Author of the Exposition for deserting the Communion of the Church of Rome He wishes all those of M. de Condoms Communion would reduce themselves to the moderations in this Book An. Avert p. 30. and write conformably to its sense This would says he a little after be a happy beginning of a Reformation which might have much more happy consequences Nay more he takes an advantage from these pretended allievations These Softnings of M. de Condom says he are so far from giving us an ill opinion of our Reformation An. p. 85. they confirm us that good and moderate Person themselves condemn at least a great deal that we do and by consequence in some measure acknowledge a Reformation to be useful and necessary He should have concluded quite otherwise For a Reformation such as theirs is which tends to a change in Doctrine ought not to regard those things which are condemned already by a common consent But the pretended Reform'd are willing to perswade themselves that the Honest and moderate Persons in Communion with Rome amongst which number they allow M. de Condom a place in many things abandon the Sentiments of their Church and come over as much as they can to the new Reformation Thus you see what they are made to believe by this strange manner of mis-representing the Catholick Doctrine Being accustomed to that hideous and terrible form in which their Ministers represent it in their Pulpits they imagine those Catholicks who lay it open in its natural Purity disguise and alter it The more justly we represent it as it is the less are they acquainted with it and they imagine we are going over to them when we only disabuse them of their false preocupations 'T is true they say not always the same thing The Anonymus who accuses M. de Condom of making such considerable alterations in the Doctrine of the Church p 61 6 tells us this Exposition has nothing new in it but a dextrous and delicate turn and in fine nothing but apparent qualifying which consisting only in some expressions or in things of small consequence gives no body any Satisfaction and only raises new difficulties instead of resolving old So that he seems to be sorry for having represented the Exposition as a Book which made an alteration in the Faith of the Church in all its principal points not only in the Expressions but in the Doctrine Let him take it which way he pleases If he continue to think a Book so truly Catholick as the Exposition contrary to so many important points of the Roman Faith he shews himself never to have had any thing but false Ideas of its Doctrine And if it be true that by sweetning only the expressions or retrenching as he says matters of small consequence the Catholick Doctrine seems to him so much more tractable he will in the end find the grounds of it were better then he imagined But the truth of the matter is M. de Condom has not betrayed his trust nor dissembled the Faith of the Church in which the Holy Ghost has placed him a Bishop And the pretended Reform'd could not perswade themselves that a Doctrine which already appears less strange by the sole exposition of it and that an Exposition so plain so easie and so 〈◊〉 should be that Doctrine which their Ministers represented to them full of Blasphemy and Idolatrous We ought no doubt to give God thanks for such a disposition because although it shew in them a strange prejudice against us yet it gives us hopes they will look upon our Tenets with a more equal temper when once they are satisfied that the Doctrine of this Treatise which seems to them already more pleasing is the pure Doctrine of the Church So that we are so far from being angry at them for making so great a difficulty to to believe us when we propose our Faith to them that we are obliged in Charity to give them Lights so clear and evident that they may not hereafter doubt but it was faithfully expounded to them The thing shews it self and we need but tell them that this Treatise of the Exposition which they believe is contrary not only to the Common Tenets of the Doctors of the Roman Church but also to the words and Doctrine of the Council is approved by the whole Church and that after having received divers Testimonies of Approbation from Rome as well as from other places it has at last been approved by the Pope himself in the most express and most Authentick manner that could be expected This Book had no sooner appeared in publick but the good repute it had throughout France was testified to the Author by Letters from all sorts of People from Lay Persons Ecclesiasticks Religious and Doctors but especially from the most Learned Prelates of the Church whose Testimonies he could even then have produced had the Subject been ever so little dubious or new But because the Pretended Reform'd are apt to believe us in France to have particular thoughts and Tenets which approach nearer unto theirs in matters of Faith than the rest of the Church and particularly than Rome it is convenient we should let them see how matters there were carried on As soon as this Treatise was come forth Cardinal Bouillon sent it to Cardinal Bona desiring him to examine it with
JESVS CHRIST as unsufficient Will they deny their Catechisms and Confessions of Faith are not grounded upon this foundation What will they now say when the Author of the Exposition tells them with the whole Church That JESVS CHRIST Expos p. 16. seq God and Man was solely capable by the infinite Dignity of his Person to offer up to God a sufficient Satisfaction for our Sins That this Satisfaction is infinite That our Saviour has payed the entire Price of our Redemption That nothing is wanting to this Price seeing it is infinite and that the Punishments reserv'd suffered in Penance come not from any defect in the Payment but from a certain Order which he has established to restrain us by just fears and by a saving Discipline These and all those other Expressions which make the Anonymus say this Author extenuates the Doctrine of Satisfaction and returns like the Dove to the Ark are the pure Doctrines of the Church and of the Council of Trent acknowledged for such by the Pope himself Why therefore will they make People believe the Church looks upon that as an aid to the Satisfactions of Jesus Christ which she proposes as a means only to apply it And with what security of Conscience could the Pretended Reform'd upon such false suppositions violate that Holy unity which JESVS CHRIST has so much recommended to his Church They look upon our Sacrifice of the Altar with Horrour as if JESVS CHRIST were again put to Death upon it Epos p. 25. What has the Author of the Exposition done to diminish this horrour so unjust but only represented the Doctrine of the Church faithfully He has told them this Sacrifice is of such a nature that it admits only a mystical and Spiritual Death of our adorable Victim who remains always impassible and immortal and is so far from diminishing the infinite Perfection of the Sacrifice of the Cross It is established only to celebrate the remembrance of it and to apply the Vertue The Anonymus assures us upon this account that M. de Condom minces the Doctrine of the Catholick Church And M. Noguier also assures us he has not exposed the Truth Nog p. 286. Exp. p. 36. An. p. 61. An. p. 24. And yet he has only followed the Doctrine of the Council whose proper Terms he has made use of and the whole Church approves his Exposition Who does not therefore perceive how this Doctrine appears to the Pretended Reform'd more moderate and agreeable only because they do not find those Monsters in it which they imagine to themselves The Anonymus himself tells us Rep. p. 24 35. The Article of Invocation of Saints is one of the most Essential in Religion It is also one of those wherein M. de Condom seems to him chiefly to soften the Doctrine of his Church for he accuses him of it no less than three times But what has M. de Condom said the same that the Catechism of the Council of Trent said the same that the Council it self and the Confession of Faith drawn from it has said and the same which all Catholicks say Epos p. 6. sequ That the Saints offer their Prayers for us This is what the Confession of Faith says that they offer them by JESVS CHRIST this is what the Council says in a word That we pray to them with the same Mind we pray to our Brethren who are upon Earth with us Expos p. â— that is to Pray with us and for us to our common Master in the name of our common Mediator who is JESVS CHRIST Behold what Mide Condom has extracted out of the Council out of the Catechism and out of all the publick acts of the Church the reason his Doctrine has been so much approved This answer is sufficient to ruin the very Grounds of that horrour which the Pretended Reform'd have conceived against our Doctrine Their Catechism accuses us of Idolatry because by that recourse we have to Saints Catech. dim 34. we place one part of our Trust in them and give to them what God has reserv'd to himself But on the contrary it appears when we pray to Saints we Pray to them only to pray for us a kind of Prayer which by its own Nature is so far from being reserved by an independent Being to himself it can never be address'd to him And if this form of Prayer Pray for us diminished the trust we have in God it would be no less Condemnable to use it to the living than to the dead 1 Thes 5.25.2 3.1 and St. Paul would not have said so often Brethren pray for us The whole Scripture is full of Prayers of this Nature Heb. 13.18 But says their Confession of Faith this is to overthrow the Mediation of J. C. Who commands us to retire our selves in private Conf. Art 24. and to pray to his Father in his Name How can any one imagine this seeing the Saints who are in Heaven no more than the Faithful upon Earth make intercessions by and through themselves or in their own Names Ep. p. 6. but in the Name of JESVS CHRIST as all Catholicks teach with the Council Thus the Catholick Church has only to declare as she does her intention never was to demand any thing of the Saints but their humble Prayers in the name of JESVS CHRIST of Nature with those the Faithful offer up for one another upon Earth these few Words will convince for ever the pretendedly Reform'd that they have born to her a hatred most unjust But M Noguier declares Let M. de Candom say what he will Nog p. 54. he will never be perswaded the Roman Church has no other Intention when she tells us it is prositable to invocate the Saints but that we should ask them the assistance of their Prayers as we do those of the Faithful who live amongst us But what will he say now he sees the Roman Church so visibly approve what M. de Condom had in effect only gathered from the universal belief of those in Communion with her But why then adds M. Noguier Nog p. 57. Do Catholicks ask not only the Prayers but the Aid Protection and Succour of the blessed Virgin and of the Saints As if that were not a kind of Aid Succour and Protection to recommend the miserable to him who alone can comfort them Such is the Protection we may receive from the blessed Virgin and from the Saints It is not a small Succour to be aided by their Prayers seeing they are at the same time so humble so pleasing and so efficatious But why should we argue about words where the thing is so evident The Exposition produces to these Ministers most certain Testimonies by which it is manifest Expos p. 7. that in what Terms soever the Prayers we offer to the Saints be Couched the Intention of the Church and of the Faithful always reduces them to this Form PRAY
FOR VS No matter for that the Ministers will never believe it They must then raise out of their Catechism and their Confession of Faith these accusations of Idolatry with which they are filled they must retrench in their Sermons so many bloody Invectives which have no other Grounds and this they cannot resolve of and let us make what Declarations we can of our Minds they will neither believe the Council not its Catechism nor our Confession of Faith nor the Bishops nor the Pope himself It is not necessary to repeat here what is said in the Exposition as to other objections Exp. p. 8. and principally as to that where they accuse the Church of attributing to Saints a divine Knowledge and Power whilst she teaches they can neither know nor do any thing of themselves But the accusation of Idolatry has another Foundation which they accuse M. de Condom to have palliated as well as the others And it is the Article concerning Images An. Av. p. 24. where nevertheless he has searched no other Palliations but to expose faithfully the meaning of the Church Rep. p. 65. There needs no more than this to make the very Suspition of Idolatry to vanish according to the Principles of the Pretended Reform'd and they need only in this compare the Doctrine of their own Catechism with that of the Council of Trent represented in the Exposition Their Catechism upon this Commandment Dim 23. Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image Asks whether God forbids the making of any Image And the answer is No but that God forbids only the making of any Image whereby to represent God or to adore it Behold the two things which they think forbidden in this Precept of the Decalogue It may be they will do us the Justice to believe we do not pretend to represent God and that if they see in some Pictures God the Father Painted in that form which he was pleased so often to appear in to his Prophets we pretend no more to derogate from his Invisibile and Spiritual Nature than he himself when he exhibited himself under that form The Council explicates sufficiently to them upon this account Sess 25. that we pretend not thereby to represent or express the Divinity or to give it any Colours and I think I should do them an injury in proceeding to a clearer Proof Let us pass to the second part of their Doctrine and let us learn from their Catechisms what form of Adoration is condemned To Prostrate ones self says the Answer before an Image to pray to it to how the Knee before it or shew some other sign of reverence as if God exhibited himself there to us This is in effect the Errour of the Gentiles and the proper Character of Idolatry But they who believe Expos p. 9 10 11. with the Council That Images have neither Divinity nor Vertue in them for which they ought to be reverenced and who place all the benefit in their recalling the Originals to our remembrance do not believe that God in them exhibits himself to them It is not therefore Idolatry by the consent of the Pretended Reform'd and according to the proper Definition of their Catechism The Anonymus seems to have been sensible of this Truth in that place where objecting this Commandment of the Decalogue he says P. 67. that God forbids to make Images and to worship them He is in the right The words of the Precept are express and the Images there spoken of are those which are forbidden to to be made as well as to be worshiped That is to say according to the explication of his Catechism those which are made to represent God and those which are made to show him present and which are worshipped with the same intention as full of his Divinity We neither make nor suffer any of this nature We do not worship Images God forbid but we make use of Images to put us in mind of the Originals Our Council so odious to the pretended Reform'd Church teaches us no other use of them Is this then enough to make them say as that Church doth in her own Confession of Faith that all sorts of Idolatry are in vogue in the Roman Church Art 28. Is it for this that her Discipline calls us Idolaters and our Religion Idolatry Disc art 11.13 Art 5.2 Without doubt they represent to themselves other things than our Doctrine when they give us the name of Gentiles They believe we follow their abominable Errors and that we believe as they did that God shews himself to us in those Images Had it not been for these mortal Prejudices had it not been for Ideas which they frame to themselves of the sentiments of the Church Christians could never have imagined it so detestable a crime to kiss the Cross in remembrance of him who bore our Iniquities upon the wood nor that so simple and natural a demonstration of those sentiments of tenderness which that Pious Object excites in our hearts ought to make us regarded as if we Adored Baal or the Golden Galves of Samaria During this strange preocupation of the Pretended Reform'd this Treatise of the Exposition might well appear to them which really in effect it did a Book full of Artifice which did nothing but extenuate the Sentiments of Catholicks But now when they see clearly all the Artifice of this Book is to separate the Doctrines which they have imputed to the Church from those which she professes that all the mitigations he makes in Doctrine is that he has taken off that hidious Masque which the Ministers had put upon it let them confess this Church was not worthy of so much horror as they had for her and that at least she deserves to be heard Neither the Pope nor the Sea Apostolick ought to be hereafter accused of diminshing that adoration which is due to God nor that confidence which a Christian ought to establish in his sole goodness through our Lord Jesus Christ since they see without further search this Treatise of the Exposition which is made only to explicate these two Truths has received at Rome and from the Pope himself so Authentick an Approbation After this they will certainly be ashamed of that Title which they give the Pope No one can think on it without horrour nor hear without astonishment that the Pretended Reform'd who boast to follow Scripture word for word when the Apostle St. John who has alone named Antichrist tells us three or four times that Antichrist is he who denies that JESVS CHRIST is come in flesh 2. Joh. 1.7 1 Joh. 2.22.4.3 dare so much as think that he who teaches so fully the Mystery of JESVS CHRIST that is to say his Divinity his Incarnation the superbundance of his Merits the necessity of his Grace and that absolute confidence we must have in it should nevertheless be that Antichrist described by the Apostle But it is
entirely washed away by the Blood of JESVS CHRIST and by the grace of regeneration which is so far from obscuring or lessening that Idea which we ought to have of the merit of this Blood on the contrary it heightens and augments it So that the Justice of JESVS CHRIST is not only imputed but actually communicated to the faithful by the operation of the Holy Spirit in so much that they are not only reputed but rendred just by his grace If that Righteousness which is in us were only such in the eyes of men it would not be the work of the holy Ghost It is then a righteousness and that before God seeing it is God himself who produces it in us by pouring forth his charity in our hearts Nevertheless it is too true that the flesh rebels against the Spirit Gal. 5.17 and the Spirit against the flesh and that we all offend in many things Jam. 3.2 So that tho our Justice be truly such by the infusion of his Charity yet it is not perfect Justice because of the combat of Concupiscence In so much that the continual sighings of a soul penitent for her offences is the most necessary duty of a Christian righteousness which obliges us to confess humbly with St. Augustin that our Justice in this life consists rather in the remission of sin than in the perfection of Vertues SECT VII Merits of Good Works AS to the merit of Good works Sess 6. c. 16. the Catholic Church teacheth us that eternal life ought to be proposed to the children of God both as a Grace which is mercifully promised to them by the mediation of our Lord JESUS CHRIST and as a recompence which is faithfully rendred to their good works and merits in vertue of this promise These are the proper terms of the Council of Trent But least human pride should flatter it self with an opinion of a presumptuous merit the same Council teacheth us that all the price and value of a Christians works proceeds from the sanctifying grace which is given us gratis in the name of JESVS CHRIST Ibid. and that it is an effect of the continual influence of this divine Head upon its Members Really the Precepts Exhortations Promises Threatnings and Reproaches of the Gospel show clearly enough we must work out our salvation by the cooperation of our wills together with the grace of God assisting us But it is one of our first Principles that the free-will can act nothing conducing to eternal happiness but as it is moved and elevated by the Holy Ghost So that the Church knowing it is this divine Spirit which works in us by his Graces all the good we do she is obliged to believe the good works of the Faithful very acceptable to God and of great consideration before him and it is just she should make use of the word Merit with all Christian antiquity whereby she may principally denote the value the price and the dignity of those works which we perform through grace But seeing all their Sanctity comes from God who produces them in us the same Church has in the Council of Trent received these words of St. Augustin as a doctrine of Catholic Faith that God crowns his own gifts in crowning the merits of his Servants We beg of those who love Truth and Peace that they would be pleased here to read a little more at length the words of this Council to the end they may once for all disabuse themselves of those false inpressions which has been given them concerning our doctrine Although we see Sess 6. c. 16. say the Fathers in this Council that holy writ esteems Good works so much That JESUS CHRIST himself promises that a glass of cold water given to the poor shall not want its reward and that the Apostle testifies how a moment of light pain endured in this world shall produce an eternal weight of Glory nevertheless God forbid a Christian should glory in himself and not in our Lord whose bounty is so great to all men that he will have those gifts which he bestowes upon them to be their merits This doctrine is dispersed throughout the whole Council which teacheth us in another Session Sess 14. c. 8. that we who can do nothing of our selves can do all things with him who strengthens us in such sort that man has nothing of which he may glory nor for which he may confide in himself but all his confidence and all his glory is in JESUS CHRIST in whom we live in whom we merit in whom we satisfy bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance which draw their vertue from him and by him are offered to his Father and accepted of by his Father through him Wherefore we ask all things we hope all things we render thanks for all things through our Lord JESVS CHRIST We confess aloud we are not acceptable to God but in and by him and we cannot comprehend why any other thought should be attributed to us We so place all the hopes of our salvation in him that we dayly make use of these words to God in the Sacrifice Vouchsafe O God to grant to us sinners thy servants who hope in the multitude of thy mercies some part and society with the Blessed Apostles and Martyers into whose number we beseech thee to be pleased to receive us not looking upon our merits but gratiously pardoning us in the name of JESUS CHRIST our Lord. Will the Church never be able to perswade her Children now become her adversaries neither by the Exposition of her Faith nor by the Decisions of her Councils nor by the Prayers in her Sacrifice that her belief is that she can have no life but in JESVS CHRIST and that she has no hope but in him This hope is so firm it makes the Children of God who walk faithfully in his wayes to find a peace which surpasseth all understanding as the Apostle tells us Phil. 4.7 But tho this hope be stronger than the promises and menaces of the world and sufficient to calm the troubles of our Conciences yet it does not wholy extinguish Fear for tho we be assured God will never abandon us of his own accord yet we are never certain we shall not lose him by our own fault in rejecting his inspirations He has been pleased by this saving fear to mitigate that confidence which he has infused into his children because as St. Augustin tells us such is our infirmity in this place of Temptations and dangers that an absolute security would produce tepidity and pride in us whereas this fear which according to the Apostles command makes us work out our salvation with trembling Phil. 2.12 renders us more vigilant and makes us rely with a more humble dependance upon him who works in us by his Grace both to will and to do according to his good pleasure as the same St. Paul expresses it Thus you have seen what is most necessary in the
the Holy Fathers expressions Now to imagine this manner by which JESVS CHRIST presents himself to God should injure the Sacrifice of the Cross is what cannot in any kind be supposed without overthrowing the the whole Scripture and particularly this Epistle which is so vehemently objected against us For it must by the same reason be concluded that when JESVS CHRIST offered up himself to God In entring into the World Heb. 10.5 to substitute himself in place of those Victims which could not please him he injured that Action by which he offered up himself upon the Cross Heb. 9.24 that when he continues to appear before God for us Heb. 9.26 he weakens that Oblation by which he appeared once Heb. 7.25 by the immolation of himself and that not ceasing to interceed for us he accuses of insufficiency that intercession which he made in dying with so many tears and such an exclamation Heb. 5.7 All this would be ridiculous We must therefore understand that JESVS CHRIST who once offered up himself to be the humble Victim of the Divine Justice does not cease to offer up himself always for us that the infinite perfection of the Sacrifice of the Cross consists in this that whatsoever preceded it as well as what follows it has an entire reference to it that as what preceded it was a preparation to it so that which follows it is the consummation and application of it that in reality the payment of the price of our Redemption is no more reiterated because it was fully discharged the first time but that what applies that Redemption to us continues without ceasing that lastly we must make a distinction betwixt those things which are reiterated as imperfect and those which are continued as perfect and necessary SECT XVI Reflections upon the preceding Doctrine WE conjure all those of the Pretended Reformation to make some little Reflection upon what has been said concerning the Eucharist The Doctrine of the Real Presence has been the necessary foundation of it This Foundation is impugned by the Calvinists There is nothing appears more important than this in our Controversies seeing the Question is concerning the real Presence of JESVS CHRIST himself There is nothing our Adversaries find more difficult to believe And there is nothing in which we are so directly opposite as in this In most other Disputes when these Gentlemen hear us with Calmness they find the difficulties to vanish and that they are more offended with words than with the things themselves On the contrary upon this Subject we agree more about the manner of speaking because both sides use the words of Real Participation and the like But the fuller we explicate our selves the more we find our selves opposed because our Adversaries do not receive all the consequences of those truths which they admit being discouraged as I said by the difficulties which Sence and Human Reason find in these consequences This is therefore to speak truly the most difficult of all our Controversies and that in which we are the most opposite to one another Nevertheless God has permitted the Lutherans should adhere to the belief of the real Presence as well as we and he has also permitted the Calvinists should declare this Doctrine to have no poison in it that it does not subvert the foundations of Salvation and Faith and that it ought not to break communion betwixt Brethren Let those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion who think seriously of their Salvation render themselves here attentive to that Order which the Divine Providence makes use of to bring them insensibly nearer to us and Truth One may either intirely dissipate all the other grounds of their complaints or at least reduce them to very few Heads with a little explication In this where we cannot hope to conquer by this Method they have themselves removed the chief difficulty by declaring this Doctrine to contain nothing in it contrary to Salvation or to the fundamentals of Religion It is true the Lutherans tho they concur with us in the ground of the reality yet admit not all the consequences of it They put Bread together with the Body of JESVS CHRIST some of them reject the Adoration and they seem to acknowledg the real Presence only in the Act of receiving But all the subtilty of the Ministers can never perswade ingenuous and understanding Persons but that if they maintain the real Presence which is the most important and the most difficult point they ought also to maintain the rest Moreover the same Providence which labours secretly for our nearer Union and lays the foundations of Reconciliation and of Peace in the midst of Bitterness and Disputes has farther permitted the Calvinists to allow that supposing these words This is my Body ought to be taken in a literal sence Catholics reason better and more consequently than the Lutherans If I relate not the passages which have been so often cited on this account I hope I shall easily be excused because all those who are not obstinate will grant us without difficulty that the reeal Presence being supposed our Doctrine is that which most naturally follows It is then an established Truth that our Doctrine in this point contains nothing but the real Presence rightly understood But we must not stop there and we beseech the Pretended Reformed to consider we make use of no other things to explicate the Sacrifice of the Eucharist but only such as are necessarily included in this reality of presence If it should be asked us after this how it comes then to pass the Lutherans who believe the real presence should nevertheless reject the Sacrifice which is according to us only a consequence of it our answer is in one word that this Doctrine must be numbred amongst the other consequences of the real presence which these Lutherans have not understood and which we have penetrated much better then they as the Calvinists themselves confess If our Explications persuade these last that our doctrine about the Sacrifice is included in that of the real presence they ought to see clearly that this mighty dispute of the Sacrifice of the Mass which has filled so many Volumes and occasioned so many Invectives ought from henceforwards to be retrenched from the body of their controversies because this point has not now any particular difficulty and which is much more important because this Sacrifice against which they have so great repugnance is no other but a necessary consequence and a natural explication of a Doctrine which according to them has no venom in it Let them now examin themselves and after this try before God whether they have so much reason as they imagine to withdraw themselves from those Altars where their fore-fathers received the Bread of life SECT XVII Communion under both kinds THere remains one other Consequence of this doctrine to be examined which is that JESVS CHRIST being really present in the Sacrament The Grace and Benediction is