with so palpably incredible calumnies therein inserted His Account indeed seemes chiefly designed for Vulgar Capacities and therfore he mainly endeavours to captivate their attention and belief with much sophistry and many smooth stories of some Doctors amongst Catholicks whose different Opinions about the Moods of Christian Doctrin which they believe simply as it is delivered them plainly though they Vary in their Explications of Divine Mysteries he makes pass for disagreeing in Articles of Faith of others some who schismatically affected speak the stile of their predominant passions not according to the Religion they received from their Catholick Teachers and are therefore censured by the great Overseers of Christiantâ—y whom nevertheless the Doctor makes to speak the pure sense of the Roman Churches Faith and Piety And of some too whose Judgments guided by the compass of their ambitious and unclean affections driving at gâ—eat Names and Places cause division in the outward Hierarchy and Government of the Church for which neither the Canons of our Faith and Manners gives them any authority nor may it be hoped that either the care or power of our chief Pastors may wholly avoid such Wolves since according to Christ's prophesy scandals will still arise though our Catholick Bishops still oppose themselves against them and yet the Doctor will have these either to be our Church Governors or their actions to be destructive of our Catholick Vnity But all these slights of his are to so little purpose that many sober Protestants has been startled at thâ—se his Cantings and Imputations upon so anâ—iâ—nt and grave a Body of Christians whom their former Teachers ever allowed to be members of Christ's Mystical Body and capable of salvation in their own way of Christian observance Whence as the Cruelty of the old Roman Emperours and Presidents against the Primitive Christians moved many Vnbelievers of those times to embrace the Roman Faith so has the severe Accusations of the Doctor against Catholicks moved many of their Adversaries to a more steddy enquiry into our Catholick Truths to confer more reverently with the Dispensers of the Doctrin of that defamed Religion and oft to conclude somewhat more than ordinary of truth and honesty to be found in that Way which being long since banished this Nation by very severe Laws is still so eagerly arraigned so clamorously cryed down in Press and Pulpit and at any Rate exposed to the severity of those whose Interest passion or dulness has ever since engaged them in its suppression The Doctors whole Account amounts to a pulling down and a setting up first he pulls down the Church of Rome then He sets up his Own he makes Vse of four formidable Engins to overturn that our Catholick Church which your TO KATHOLICO amply examines But surely if the Church of Rome falls all Churches which either received their belief from her or now communicate in faith with her must fall too and thus the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints an entire Article of the Apostles Creed is on a sudden cancelled Indeed it is so proper to all Church Reformers to pull down Churches and such like Monuments of our forefathers Christian piety suckt in with that faith they originally received from their Roman Apostles that our Natiâ—n has cause enough to bewail the power of thâ—â— Sword of Gospellers in whose sense we may confess The Roman Church in some measure to be no sound Church even no Church at all were their Swords as keen as their Pens and Tongues and as close-laid as Nero once wished His to an Imaginary Neck for we are ever bound to believe each one speaks and writes his own thoughts and hearty wishes The Doctor having endeavour'd to level our Roman Church and not finding One principled according to his own Acephalick passion wherewith to close lays the foundation of his Own properly His Stillingfleet Church Not Roman nor Protestant nor indeed any Church at all for where he leaves neither any constant Rule wherby to square our faith or observance in necessaries not clearly revealed in holy Wriâ—t nor any power to oblige to a conformity in Belief and Practices nor any One Visible Head for our Direction and Communion there can be no Church of Christ but a Babel and Confusion that which evidently follows from the Doctors Own Principles whereunto he pretends the faith of Protestants must be reduced as to the only true Test of its being Christian and Catholick And thus after our long reproaching that Church as Vnprincipled the Doctor in a full Council of his own thoughts assembled in Vertue of his all-truth discerning Spirit synodically pronounces his Anathema's against Vs and publishes Canons of faith to all the Churches of England and will prove it to be One Holy Apostolical and Catholick by such Rules as neither Scripture nor Councels nor Fathers nor any Church ever menâ—â—on'd before nor will ever be solemnly canoniz'd by any Synod of our Englâ—sh Pâ—â—lates however he pretends them to be Protestant wherein we may admire at their silence even by those Rules by which aâ—â—â—elief built on them not borrowed from the Roman Church may be contradictory and will be cleerly resolved not to have One Mark of the true Christian Church even to be no Church at all but a pure Stillingfleet an phantosm His design in forging these his Principles was thence to shew the Protestant Church as Protestant or as it is by Schism separated from the great Catholick Body of Christians to be Positive Vniform and Principled whereas by them it is clearly Negative Confusive and Begs the question in the root of all Briefly thus As for the first the Dr aims directly at the subversion of all traditional Revelation and of an external visible and infallible proponent of divine credibles and of all power obligeing to acceptance of them as such and consequently at the overthrow of all Articles by the Church of Rome allowed and Canonized as truths revealed upon those grounds As for the next his Canons for the interpreting Gods written Revelations are of that Latitude that whoever admits them if he please may disagree with the Doctor and all others and with himself too at different times by virtue of a pretended Personal infallible-all-truth discerning-faculty which he allows all in all fundamentals and superstructures depending on the controverted sense of Gods written Word after a sober enquiry and sincere endeavours however necessary those credibles be to salvation or the framing one Church of many truth-discerning members whether this their enquiry be performed by the working of reason only which in supernatural Truths revives Pelagianism or by a pretended personal divine assistance in regard of each Believer to which every one may as legally pretend and appropriate it to himself by pretence of having used his best means to understand Scripture as the Dr. himself or any other Teacher which is to erect an Acephalick Enthusiasm or Fanaticism And as for the last if it be a legal proof that there
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
talking defending and proving things never revealed unto us or any ways edifying to our salvation yet if there had been any such opinion among schoolmen then had not Dr. Still been unconscionable however he had been impertinent Schoolmen do indeed agree unanimously that the sacraments of the law of Moses conferred no grace at all So the whole four schools of S. Thomas and Scotus Aureolus and Darandus and all the many Doctors of them teach however some of them speak otherwise of circumcision which was from the fathers But this simple talk that sacraments of the old law conferred grace by the disposition of the receiver the new without it as I never heard it before so does not he know where to find it except it be in some writings of Mr. Farnaby a late Schoolmaster in London Schoolmen are much puzled and cannot agree how sacraments confer grace whether as a moral or physical cause whether as inherent or assistant whether as an instrument or a sign c. I care not if I help the Doctor a little not in the schoolmens puzling but his own The schools of St. Thomas and all the Doctors of it in declaring the efficacy of Sacraments which all Christians equally believe teach that they work grace as a physical cause and as inherent and as an instrument of it under God The whole school of Scotus teaches that they work it as a sign onely as assistant and moral cause And if the Doctor please either to dispute for St. Thomas his way in Scotus his school or for Scotus his way in the school of St. Thomas he will find that they do not fumble or puzle or stand unresolved what to say but that they struggle stoutly and maintain incessantly and defend invinceably both of them their own proper ways and opinions without ever yielding one inch of ground to the opposer And though the matter be of small importance yet the glory or shame of overcoming or being overcome is thought by them all to be no small matter Never did Aeneas and Turnus rush with a more violent shock and and resolution than sometimes they do Rumpuntur nescia vinci Pectora and all for an opinion amongst themselves affirmed by one and gainsaid as resolutely by the other Dr. Still utterly unacquainted in these affairs may say as he pleases that they fumble and puzzle and are wholly unresolved But all this signifies no more but that he is wholly ignorant of what he speaks Cassander and Arnoldus both Catholicks do hold it to be a Catholick doctrine that Sacraments do no good without the devotion of the receiver and condemn the other opinion of some amongst them as wicked Here the man names us two of our Doctors who hold it to be a Catholick doctrine that Sacraments do no good without the devotion â—f the receiver which we all believe But he names us not any one who ever said it was a Catholick doctrine that they do all their good without any disposition or devotion of the receiver which is the opinion he has put upon us all this while without any fear or wit Did Cassander and Arnoldus hold right or wrong Were they with us or against us If against us in faith then were they not Catholicks themselves if with us then is all Dr. Still's discourse against us here both impertinent and false But I perceive well enough he neither knows what faith means nor what it is to be a Catholick A most certain truth it is that Sacraments do no good to the receiver without a congruous disposition and devotion in him And all food whether spiritual or corporal if it do no good must needs do some harm And this is something more than he tells to be said by Arnoldus and Cassander § 5. Another enemy to piety is their prohibition of Scripture and keeping from people Gods holy word which might direct and comfort them This charge bears something more of colour and appearance than any or all the other four And yet things rightly understood it is nothing else but a meer colour and appearance For all the whole fourteen hundred years before PRINTING was found out in all which time those sacred writings were so rare that not one of a thousand could get them it was the labour and obligation of a Priest still night and day to read and study those books and not for himself oneâ—y and his own edification but to gather out thence such holy words as might direct encourage and comfort people in the many occurrences of life For which reason the Bible was then called Liber Sacerdâ—tis the Priests book but especially and above all to collect from thence what he thought might best conduce unto devotion and piety towards God And this was not hard for them to do after they had once by their united industry gathered out of the said Bible a complete Breviary for themselves For this lying now by them easily could they turn unto any thing they should have need of on any occasion Thus they did before PRINTING was found out But no such thing is ever done by Ministers who leave their people both to buy themselves a book and use it when they have it as they please And now since the Invention of PRINTING peoples hands are so filled with holy gospels psalms hymns canticles holy histories prayers meditations manuels and the like contents of holy scripâ—ure drawn out more amply for them in spiritual books that noâ—hing at all is there in faith or good manners wherewith they are not as fully acquainted as their Clergy And all this as it is nothing else but Gods word so is Gods word nothing else but this Therefore is not Gods word prohibited or kept from people in the Church of Rome as the doctor affirms Indeed the whole letter of scripture as it lies is permitted to none but such as have abilities to use it But what then Even our ordinary people have more now than they had in the best ages of Christianity who digesting well what they had saved their souls by it and that is enough And the little they had was all that is to be had for that purpose I have Sir often had occasion to speak of this subject and must be fain now in this my speedy haste to borrow some help from my words elsewhere delivered whose sence though it be perfect enough in my mind yet if I do not help my self thence I shall spend time which I cannot now spare in thinking how to word and express it to you Thus then it is written of this business in one place Catholicks have the sum of scripture both for history and dogm delivered them in their own language so much as may make for their salvation disintangled from the tropes and schemes and ambiguous phrases wherein it was first written good orders being set and instituted for their proficiency therein the sum of all divine truths belonging to Christianity and the whole counsel of God
slender green sprig like grass then a stronger blade then an ear promising grain which comes up at length if it be helped and not hurt cherished by sweet showers and the the Suns vital warmth and not blasted with mildew nor lodged by winds nor trod down by beasts And what is good Corn in the fields the same thing are Saints in the Church though not one of a thousand of them is put in the Calender When any one of them is a child he speaks like a child and thinks like a child and does like a child and his main perfection then is obedience fear and observance of his parents who if they be careful of their children after baptism as ancient Christians were might set them in the right way of a blessed life without much trouble In their youth they have various properties some blameable and others innocent some imitable and some to be corrected St. Austin was perverse in his ways St. Francis gallant in his conversation St. Lawrence charitable St. Bennet pious St. Romwall fearful St. Bruno pensative St. Do. minick rigorous St. Martin devout St. Gregory studious St. Nicholas addicted to abstinence St. Hilary bent against heresies St. Anthony inclined to desarts St. Thomas to reading St. Vincent to preaching and the like with infinite variety And all of them by light of Gospel and rule of life drawn out thence and accommodated to their occasions went on still mending pruning and perfecting themselves for Gods favour and further presence even in their mortal bodies as a Temple upon earth proceeding still from vertue to vertue till they all met united at length in one contemplation one spirit one peace and joy in God for eyer And he who thus persevers unto the end is safe and no saint till his voyage be wholly ended Nor is any imperfection in their life to be attributed unto other original then their earthly tabernacles as all ours are Some of them also which I must not here omit to speak are fanciful fearful and scrupulous as probably was St. Romwall in his youth and very many good women amongst whom I may well reckon St. Bridget Gertrude Joan of the Cross and Catherine of Sena not as if their whole life were so but because they were once in their life taken notice of for a notable working of their imagination about the conception Those religious women that were governed by Franciscans fancied Scotus his way truest the other a Dâ—minican Nan saw St. Thomas his school was in the right Whereas indeed they saw perhaps nothing at all in it nor understood where the difference lay And all of them were equally then lest to themselves in punishment of their business about affairs that did nothing at all concern them it was not perhaps their own fault so much as those mens who put these impertinent things into their heads though not perhaps unto any offence to God yet unto some disturbance neither useful to themselves nor others And if those Divines and Doctors who went about to have the visions and revelations of the said good women approved had been truly wise they might have easily understood that Gods good Spirit which inspires inlightens and strengthens us in the ways and will of Christ our great Lord never interposes in subtil curiosities of men I will send you my Spirit saith our Lord and when he comes he will put you in mind of all things which I have told you We are then of that good spirit to learn not what Scotus Aureolus Aquinas or Durandus have imagined but what our souls Lord and maister the eternal Wisdom hath revealed and no more but men are not usually so earnest and zealous for God as they are for their own fancies they talk and think and contend more now adays about the thin imperceptible curiosities which they learned in schools then Gods saving wisdom however be those schoolmen and school-women who they will even the best that any one can make of them sure I am that all actions of saints are not saintly action Those men and women were not dropt out of the Stars but flesh and blood as we are and â—â—able to our infirmities yet are we to admire and love our saints tenderly because they struggled so bravely through all the many encounters and oppositions of this mortal life till they came to enjoy the God of Gods in Sion And what was good or perfect in them is recorded for our imitation what was imperfect they washed away by pennance Divine contemplation and austerities and some also by their precious blood freely and plentifully shed for the sake of Jesus whom they loved unto the end Gods grace still assisting them in all their ways of holiness and truth 3. It was then in my thoughts to show in an ample manner how all the men renowned for sanctity in the world Elias Elisha saint John Baptist and all the Prophets our own twelve Apostles and the first preachers of Christ upon earth were no others then such men as St. Bennet Romwall Bruno Francis Dominick even in those very things whence Still concludes them all to be fanaticks and fools Saint Paul saw in a vision the secrets of God which he could never express by humane words which thing is derided here in St. Bennet who is said to have known the secrets of the Divinity St. Peter had a vision of a sheet let down from Heaven by the four corners of it and such a vision was that of St. Francis and Dominick supporting the Lateran Church St. Paul was buffeted by an Angel of Satan which is mockt at as fanatical in saint Romwall bruised by evil angels Saint Peter discovered Ananias that he was not what he pretended dispropriated of his goods which is markt as fanatical in St. Bennet discovering the dissimulation of Riggo who appeared before him as a King and was not Saint Paul melted so much with the love of Jesus that he no more lived now but Jesus lived in him which is laughed at here in saint Francis said to melt away at the fight of the Crucifix The same Apostle was abused all manner of ways nay even scourged and whipt by the Jews his own country-men which is noted here as a sign of fanaticism in saint Francis when the people derided and threw dirt at him Jacob saw a Ladder let down from Heaven flouted here in saint Romwall who saw Monks ascending upon such a thing Eliseus discerned the secrets contrived in the King of Syria's chamber which is here vilified in saint Bennet said to perceive his Monks when they drunk or eat out of his sight Abraham and Daniel saint John Evangelist and others had frequent revelations and visions of good and bad Angels the least part whereof is here esteemed ridiculous in saint Romwall and saint Bennet nay our holy Lord and Saviour tells us many of his own visions of Nathanael for example seen under his figtree of Dives and Lazâ—rus perceived in distant places and