ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ STILLINGFLEETON OR An account given to a Catholick Friend of Dr. Stillingfleets late book against the Roman Church Together with a short Postil upon his Text In three Letters By I. V. C. All things are not which seem to be Nor do all things seem to be which are Bruges Printed by Luke Kerchove 1672. ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ THE PREFACE SIR MAny learned Treatises have been composed and set forth by the Reverend J. V. C. the worthy Author of FIAT LUX for perswading a right Vnderstanding and Moderation in matters of Religion and for the convincing this our distracted Nation of the Innocency of our Catholick Religion and Practices in order to Church and State which have been received with much benefit and applause But that good esteem wherwith You and Others entertained the First Part of his TO KATHOLIKO did especially engage Him to endeavour the publishing the remaining Pieces therof then fitted for your view in obedience to your command as well as to undeceive Dr. Stilâ—â—'s seduced Readers both concerning his Errours and our Vnblamableness as also to discover the grand Imposture contrived by his Malice or Folly for the subversion of his Catholick Neighbours The whole Work had long since been made publick had it not as the cause it justifies suffred much Persecution almost to its utter suppression The malignity of our Adversaeries conscious of the weakness of the Doctor 's charge against Vs and fearing least the perversness of their hearts in imposing and divulging so evident calumnies should become Visible has constrained this your harmless Postill to a longer Voyage then the timely Vindication of our Churches impeached Honour would have otherwise reasonably allowed Having now escaped many storms it walks alone and ventures to look forth upon you yet had its worthy Author been longer spared with Vs you would have seen it in a fuller and more fashionable dress though even thus it is not beneath your Expectations offring unto your Consideration such sober Reflections as well become the dignity of the Holy and Apostolical Religion of Catholicks and do clearly Vindicate that our Way from the foulest aspersions carnal wisdom could utter against plain Truth and Honesty Were that freedom which the Doctor 's provocations imply allowed Vs for a legal defence of our holy Church which the Law of Nations and our Venerable Courts of Justice afford the most wretched assayled Innocents in Case of fraud and Calumny against the Prevaricators of common peace It would be easy to manifest that as our Catholick Doctrin and Devotions need no other Champion then that Churches perfection and Majesty So her many Doctors neither want skill or will to put by those weak thrusts the Doctor makes at her reputation hitherto preserved without blemish by God's assured providence over her watchful Pastours The Doctor in this his Account of the Idolatry Impiety Fanaticism Divisions and what not of Iniquity of the Roman Church hath summ'd up high Criminations against Vs and then having laid the Foundations of his own Belief concludes the Church of Rome neither to be the Catholick Church nor any sound part or member thereof but whether he designed this his so peremptory a Charge as an Obelisk with GRATITUDO POSUIT to his thereby deluded Benefactours or to be a new Dioclesian Columne with NOMINE CHRISTIANO DELETO for this Age too he knows best who framed it sure it is his fundamentals are such that they subvert all Christian Monarchy and Obedience without which not only Christianity but neither any Church consisting of more then one member can long preserve its self from mouldring into Divisions and Desolation The truth is if ever any Opposer of our Catholick Faith has betray'd his own Cause this Doctor is notably guilty of it for his Imputations upon Vs are so evidently slanderous and the Principles of his own Religion so leakie that they have rendred the whole Reformation suspected of a Notorious Cheat in its growth and progress to all unprejudiced Judgments who by the sober ways of our Religious Worship our many great encouragements to piety our zeal in obseâ—ving Evangelical Counsels and our wonderful Vnity in the groundsills of our Christianity are clearly convinced of the holiness of our Catholick Truths and Maxims of Morality and notwithstanding our Adversaries loud declaimings against Vs even from the Infancy of Christian Religion to this Age when the Reformation was Vshered in by unclean licentiousness much different from the subtil Errours of Primitive Dissenters that neither Wit nor Malice of Man can overthrow the Faith and Moral Precepts of the Roman Church conveyed unto Vs in her sacred Canons whereas her Impugners still like Jonas Gourd wither in their blossom for the counsels of Men shall fail according to the good Gamaliels Rule but God and Truth have their Date everlasting Had the Doctor as carefully perused the large Records of our Church Histories which treasure up and continue to Vs the Body of our Christian Belief and Rules of manners unchanged through all its Ages by the Vigilancy of her Apostolical Governors by whom Primitive Truths have been unanimously conserved and conveyed unto Vs in their Original Purity as he has been in Rakeing over the foul ashes of ambitious Schismaticks Scepticks and Libertines the Cockle that still grows up with Christ's best corn and in frameing his Creed by the Square of his Truth discerning Reason that which Holy Scripture forbids to our utter peril he had discovered our Catholick Doctrin to be the very Image of her Divine Architype who IS and changes not and who has accordingly laid the Foundation of and built up this our Impregnable City of the Pilgrim Saints still guarding It with his own sacred Spirit and assisting her Visible Pastours in the Government of that his Catholick Body that as he hath promised Hell may not prevail against it Nor may the Doctor 's severe Account hope other success herein than the more powerful Swords of Pagan Cesars the Edicts of Senats and the wrath of Flamins of the Old Heathen Rome upon whose Ruins our glorious Lord hath by S. Peter built up this his everlasting Church in Communion wherewith only we can pretend to the Title of Christianity or to the promises which Jesus Christ has thereunto annexed if either Christ's promise or guift to or prayers for S. Peter may be allowed to have either power with God or any credit with Mankind Hence Sir the Doctor 's Book as it has bred admiration at his confidence and contempt of his Malice amongst all Catholicks who are better acquainted with their own Faith and practices then to be instructed in them or misled from them by any prevaricatours sounding brass or tinkling Cymbal so hath it raised up an amazement in some of the more learned Clergy of Protestants at that his boldness and caused them to suspect too their own cause which after so oft plaistring over their breach from Vs with manifold Vntruths at length needs buttressing up
operations as in the times and places seasonable for worship and devotion But how they should worship God by images or as he speaketh oftner in the context of his discourse in images this they do not easily understand When he lays any thing to Catholicks charge he ought to speak I should think as Catholicks do and then he will be understood by them It is not to be conceived how any one can worship God by images and in images but either for the real presence there or ideal imitation or some sort of occasion of worshâ—p arising thence And so God must be worshipped by them and in them either presentially ideally or occasionally And it cannot be presentially For so God is no otherwise present in a picture than in the wall it hangs upon nor yet ideally for the picture for example of St. Mary Magdalen or St. Paul is no idea of that invisible and glorious Godhead nor yet is any other as the Crucifix for example or Christ our Lord in his Birth or Resurrection for all these figures are representations of his humanity and no idea's of his Deity at all And Mr. Stillingfleet must needs mean one of these two ways For otherwise he could not charge them with idolatry for it And therefore I say that his charge is false and slanderous But if he mean that they worship God by images in their images occasionally which is a moral interpretation and the only true one Then is such a work so far from Idolatry that it is a sublime piety For what can they better do then to give God thanks for so great graces mercies helps and comforts bestowed in Jesus our Lord upon his Apostles Martyrs Confessors and Virgins when they look upon their Figures and Pictures either in their contemplations or patience of Martyrdome or conversion of the world subduing and bringing flesh Satan and the World under their seet especially if Catholicks conceive thereby some pious resolution as well they may of doing something the more and patiently suffering for God in imitation of those pious Heroes our Predecessours in Religion and yet naturally but flesh and blood as we our selves are I say all this is signal piety and our Christian duty And according to this morall meaning Catholicks if they do worship God by their Images and in their Images do well and like good Christians But the Doctor will not charge them I suppose with a matter of so much truth and great piety as this is although his words cannot make out any other sence that is true but only this morall one And the more logical sence of worshipping God by images and in images ideally or presentially is false Let him even take whâ—ch sence he pleases either what justifies Catholicks or what falsifies his own assertion It is all one to me whether we stand or he fall § 6. He adds That the worship of God by Images does not terminate upon God because God has forbid it and so gives Gods honor to the Creature This is strange gibberish An act that tends to nothing is no act If it be some act it tends and has already tended to something and it terminates upon that thing unto which it tends and whose act it is denominated This is clear enough even to a young sophomore or one who indeed never yet came into the Air of Philosophy if he do but understand the terms and words here used For example I cannot see a man in the street except my vision terminate upon him nor can my vision terminate upon him but I must see him And it is all one whether I see him close by me or by my Window or in a Looking-glass at home For I cannot see him any way but my sight must terminate upon him and if it do not I see him not And this course of nature is not hindred nor yet altered at all because that Person may haply have forbidden me to look upon him either this way or that For our acts or actions are accomplished within our selves independently of any acceptance or disacceptance of them Acceptance or dâ—sacceptance commanding or forbidding is another thing extrinsecal and quite differing from the substance of the act or action For they specifie onely either the motive or event which may make the act either good or evil either grateful or displeasing but not make it an act or no act or not to tend where it has tended And so must my act of worshipping God by images terminate upon God or else it is no act of worshipping God by them however God may have either commanded or forbid it God has forbidden blasphemy and yet the act terminates upon him otherwise it could not be a sin against him And if Gods worship by Images do not terminate on God whither on Gods name does it tend and how is God worshiped by them This he does not tell us here unless he insinuate it in those following words oâ— his but gives the honour due to God unto the Creature But how can that be If God should have forbid us by his law to see a star through a tube should we not therefore see it but the tube only or should not our sight then be terminated upon the Star So it seems by this Doctors philosophy who hath conversed with the learneder sort of Papists and the wiser sort of heathens but very little with himself Holy Fathers and Doctors have often said that the honour of an Image redounds to the Prototype but never thought or said that the honour of the Prototype redounds to the Image as it is here affirmed against both art and experience But let us hear him proceed in his discourse He will surely let fall some sence or truth ere long § 7. Gods infinite and incomprehensible Deity saith he cannot be represented O here it is This is very true What a comfortable thing it is to meet with a draught of truth sometimes when a man is dry and thirsts after it But to what purpose is this spoken here Catholicks have no representations of that invisible Deity nor none they look after Figures they have of our Lord Christ born as man amongst us and made flesh and crucified and ascending into Heaven Figures also of his holy Followers and Martyrs but representations of the invisible Deify they never yet saw nor heard nor thought of On then The wisest of Heathens judged any such representations of the Divine nature incongruous and unbecoming his glory Indeed they were wise heathens and their judgment very right and good Nor did I ever hear of any Christian wise or unwise any otherwise minded O how would this Doctor prevail if this wise Discourse of his were as pertinent as it is true But he trusts and hopes well that his good fate will so accompany his Reader that he shall not doubt at all that every word that is true in his book is also to some purpose And to some purpose indeed it is namely to
have it thought that he is victorious in his main design although indeed and truth it belong nothing at all to it But let me not stop his carreere If any such figure of the Deity were inconsistent in the old Law much more in the new where we are commanded to worship God in spirit and truth O uncontroulable consequence arising from premisses most true No man can or dare deny all this Methinks I love him here for his reason and cannot but grieve it should be all spilt in vain so pure it is and precious A little more of this while he is in a good mood It seems more rational to worship God in the Sun and Moon which have more of God in them than a Picture has and to say our prayers to the Sun and Moon than to any Image Seems so Sir It is certainly more rational what should we doubt of And what a pitty is it there should be none to be found who worship God in a Picture either ideally or presentially none who say their prayers to a picture that this great blow of his might not beat the Aire to the indangering of his elbows Saint Paul testifies that the Godhead is not like either to gold or silver or stone Good St. Paul always said well and his testimony is good at all times and especially now when it hits so pat with the wiser Heathens There be many Churches now in England which have since our reformation the Tetragram name of God written upon the walls within side in golden letters Unto those men who did this it would not seem altogether impertinent to tell them that the Godhead is not like to gold silver or stone But to such as use only the effigies of our Lord according to his humanity and his holy Apostles and Martyrs what a pitty it is it should be impertinent and wholly lost Let him speak on some more of his truths Germanus Patriark of Constantinople says expresly that Christians make no representation of the invisible Deity and St. Damascene affirms it madness to go about it Marry God have mercy o' their souls for this their express saying Catholicks would desire no better a testimony for themselves if they wanted any then this of those two great Catholick Doctors that no such repreâ—entation entation they have and none they go about to have O but he hopes that all this being true will make strongly against the Church of Rome And will it so I have heard say there be a thousand Churches in Rome which are all Churches of Rome equally Which of them all are concerned in this talk that their walls may confute him But he means Catholick people perhaps oh O then all is well they are safe enough and unhurt by all this which is but their own doctrine and faith At least he has by these fair shreds of truth farced up a dozen pages in his book And he hopes that his protestant reader will believe it all to be most pertinent and apposite discourse against papishes though it be nothing less And if they do so think he has his end a happy Man no doubt § 8. Moses forbad saith he the making of any graven thing and the word which Moses uses in that his law for a graven thing is general and signifies not an idol only as Papists say but any picture likeness image or representation as Moses himself speaks either in heaven above or in earth below or waters under the earth pesel themurah eikon glypton sculptile any kind of thing that may be exprest either with the pencil or graving tool Believe me Sir if this be true it will undo all our Painters who come flocking hither into England as the only thriving place for them out of Holland Germany France and Italy too and here fill the Land with pesels themunahs eikons gâ—yptons sculptile's and any things they can express with their pencils for our delight Dolphins whales and other fish of the Sea biâ—ds of the Aire Beasts Flowers Woods gallant men and fair women all that ever Moses forbad to be exprest Nay I have seen my self in a Protestant Church Moses himself painted on the walls with glittering hornes on his head and a pair of law tables in his hand But it may be Law-makers do exemp themselves at least some Protestants may interpret as they seem to do that Moses forbad to make the figure of Jesus Christ but not his own No man in England scruples to have any of these eikons no not the Doctor himself notwithstanding this law of Moses so expresly contrary to them all no man doubts to set any painter or graver on work And yet must still this Law be cast in the teeth of Catholicks as transgressors of it For Gods sake why is St. Mary Magdalen in her penitential weeds upon her knees with beads in her hand and eyes all blubbered and swoln with tears more against the law of Moses than one of our delicate Paragons of beauty in her shining dress lips of coral and sparkling eyes O but Catholicks worship them Sâ—r this word in the sense and meaning of protestants is as great a falshood as was ever uttered by man For Catholicks neither have nor can have any other relative esteem of any Picture than what they have to the penitential works they represent or to the worth and piety of the Persons And an absolute esteem of the Picture this is measured out only by the Materials and artifice of the Painter according to which one Picture shall be worth five hundred pounds and another representing the same thing not worth five shillings And can we believe that our Protestant young Gentlemen have no veneration at all to our beauties set thus in their Majesty nor no kind of affections rising in their hearts towards them Yea ten to one more of ill affections and god wot greater then any good ones we can have to our crucisied Jesus in our way of piety And the difference indeed is only this that our reverence and affection is towards holy persons and unto an imitation of their piety hope patience constancy and charity Their 's to a concupiscence of flesh and eyes This and nothing but this if truth may be spoken makes them so wrathful and furious against our Catholick pictures Satan hates Jesus Christ and therefore inflames them to tear down his memories and representations but he loves pride of life and those portractures must stand that advance this He is pleased with that which feeds concupiscence of eyes and concupiscence of flesh brings him in the disciples which Jesus Christ loses Moses did forbid Jews who were travelling with him towards Palestine and idolatrous Nation to make to themselves that is to say on their own heads without warrant of the Synagogue or in imitation of the Pagan rites any of the idolatrous images there and elsewhere to be met withal or any similitude at all least seduced thereby they leave their own God and religion to
graven things were made representations and similitudes both in Heaven and Earth notwithstanding the said law as the Serpent of brass which must either be made by melting or graving pomegranates lilies and various such-like things both graven in stone and interwoven in silks Cherubins or Angels in the Propitiatory even in Moses time and afterwards more fully and plentifully in Solomon's Temple it is not rationally to be doubted but that this law of his was intended only to keep those People close and constant to their own God and to their own Religion which was inconsistent with the idols of the Nations and not for any purpose of keeping Abraham Isaac and Jacob either out of their chamber hangings or ours I know the Jews do urge this Precept of Moses very eagerly against Christians ever since Jesus Christ our Lord was rejected by them whose image and figure they cannot abide to see But we must have patience with all men § 9. Moses saith he grounded this law of his upon a reason unchangable namely that Gods infinite and incomprehensible Deity cannot be represented O profound invention This is such a law and ground of a law as was never before thought of The ground and reason of making a law must be this an impossibility of breaking it They must not make any representations of God because God cannot be represented And the same motive or reason will be equally proper for all the rest of the Commandments They must keep the seventh day of the week a holy day The reason and motive because there is not an eighth day to keep holy and sanctifie They must honour their Parents The ground and reason of this because none of the whole Camp had any Fathers or Mothers alive to dishonour They must not kill The motive and reason is because they were all shot-free and so firmly inchanted that none could hurt them They must not commit adultery The ground and reason is because there was never a Woman in the Camp which any man though provok'd with the highest lust could possibly come near or touch with a pair of tongues They must not steal The great cause thereof is that there is nothing at all in the Camp for any man to take away Thus the Doctor imagines Moses to forbid any representations of God because God cannot be represented And such another discreet Mounsieur was he who solemnly commanded his Bowyer not to make him any shafts at all of a Piggs tail and he gravely gave him the reason for it because quoth he of a piggs tail no shaft can be made Truth is Moses never thought of any such Law nor any such reason of it much less but provided for the security of the Hebrews Religion that it might remain unchangable and firm in the mids of those many Nations round about them who worshiped false Gods and idols as Moses very frequently interprets himself and all the Prophets after him Therefore saith God by Moses thou shalt have no other Gods but me thou shalt not make to thy self any figures as the Gentiles do nor worship them For I am a jealous God and will have no intermingling of devillish idolatry with my service And all the reason given by Moses is gods jealousie not induring any divine worship but his own This is the very truth and all the truth of this business which this Doctor would turn another way thereby to make Moses seem as simple a man as himself And those idols forbidden by Moses did so involve an opposition to the true God and his divine worship that People could not possibly betake themselves to one but they must leave the other Therefore did Moses forbid both other Gods besides their own one God and all idols together which was by antient Christians very rationally and wisely reckoned all one and the same Commandement whereof no less a Man then St. Austin himself is witness But the memories of Abraham Isaac and Jacob could bring no such danger with them And that is our care for we are not in danger of loosing the faith of Jesus Christ by keeping the Image of him our crucified Lord among us or forsaking the communion of Saints by retaining their portraictures before our eyes We should ipso facto renounce our Lord and all his whole Religion should we set up Moses his forbidden Idols and make it our religion to worship them as heathens did But we are heartened incouraged and confirmed in our Christian Religion by looking on the faces of so many our glorious Martyrs holy Anchorets and Hermits pious Virgins and Confessors who profest this our Religion before us bravely triumphing by the power of Christs love and divine faith over sins allurements and deaths ugliest terrours though incompassed themselves with the like passions and infirmities we are our selves invironed round about And when we are entred into a Church amongst so many of our worthy Predecessors we compose our selves more heartily to our devotion then otherwise we should do in imitation of them remembring now that we are come up to Mount Sion to the City of our living God to celestial Jerusalem and society of Angels to the Church of Primitive Christians conscript in the Heavens to God the Judge of all to the Spirits of just men perfected to Jesus the Mediator of a new Testament and to the aspersion of blood speaking better things than Abel § 10. The Heathens saith he did ill in their idol worship and yet the wiser sort among them testifie that they did not hold them to be Gods but worshipped God in them Our acute divine having now by his fine wit so clarified Moses law that it might not so much concern Idolaters as our vulgar Painters he now begins so to purifie idolaters practice too that they may seem but in the same condition with our Catholick and best Christians And who would not give his penny to hear him act and speak The heathens all in general are so excused in their idolatry Aaron in his act of apostacy and Jeroboam in his great sin that they are all and each of them no otherwise faulty then the Church of Rome in his books Thus doth Mr. Stillingfleet convert idolatrous Nations while he sits dreaming in his Closet Here he diminishes and there he exaggerates here he blacks with his Pen and there he whitens and then he cries out all is one all of the same measure all of the same colour And truly I believe the great Gyant Goliah and little David might thus be made equal if the Gyant were beheaded and cut off by the knees on one side and David on the other side set upon a high pair of stilts While Cathoâ—icks are made to do what they do not and Heathens not to do what they do on a supposal that all this is true there can be no great difference Let us then hear him what he tells us of Heathens in general The wiser sort among them testifie quoth he that they worshiped not