obedience to the will of God being agreed to be the condition of mans happiness no other way of Revelation is in it self necessary to that end than such whereby man may know what the will of God is 2. Man being framed a rational Creature capable of reflecting upon himself may antecedently to any external Revelation certainly know the Being of God and his dependence upon him and those things which are naturally pleasing unto him else there could be no such thing as a Law of Nature or any principles of Natural Religion 3. All supernatural and external Revelation must suppose the truth of natural Religion for unless we be antecedently certain that there is a God and that we are capable of knowing him it is impossible to be certain that God hath revealed his will to us by any supernatural means 4. Nothing ought to be admitted for Divine Revelation which overthrows the certainty of those Principles which must be antecedently supposed to all Divine Revelation For that were to overthrow the means whereby we are to Judge concerning the truth of any Divine Revelation 5. There can be no other means imagined whereby we are to judge of the truth of Divine Revelation but a Faculty in us of discerning truth and falshood in matters proposed to our belief which if we do not exercise in Judging the truth of Divine Revelation we must be imposed upon by every thing which pretends to be so 6. The pretence of Infallibility in any person or Society of men must be Judged in the same way that the truth of a Divine Revelation is for that Infallibility being challenged by vertue of a supernatural assistance and for that end to assure men what the will of God is the same means must be used for the trial of that as for any other supernatural way of Gods making known his Will to men 7. It being in the power of God to make choice of several wayes of revealing his will to us we ought not to dispute from the Attributes of God the necessity of one particular way to the Exclusion of all others but we ought to enquire what way God himself hath chosen and whatever he hath done we are sure cannot be repugnant to Infinite Justice Wisdome Goodness and Truth 8. Whatever way is capable of certainly conveying the will of God to us may be made choice of by him for the means of making known his will in order to the happiness of mankind so that no Argument can be sufficient a priori to prove that God cannot choose any particular way to reveal his mind by but such which evidently proves the insufficiency of that means for conveying the Will of God to us 9. There are several wayes conceivable by us how God may make known his Will to us either by immediate voice from Heaven or inward inspiration to every particular person or inspiring some to speak personally to others or assisting them with an infallible spirit in Writing such Books which shall contain the Will of God for the Benefit of distant Persons and future Ages 10. If the Will of God cannot be sufficiently declared to men by Writing it must either be because no Writing can be intelligible enough for that end or that it can never be known to be Written by men infallibly assisted the former is repugnant to common sense for words are equally capable of being understood spoken or written the latter overthrows the possibility of the Scriptures being known to be the Word of God 11. It is agreed among all Christians that although God in the first Ages of the World did reveal his mind to men immediately by a voice or secret inspirations yet afterwards he did communicate his mind to some immediately inspired to Write his Will in Books to be preserved for the benefit of future Ages and particularly that these Books of the New Testament which we now Receive were so Written by the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ. 12. Such Writings having been received by the Christian Church of the first Ages as Divine and Infallible and being delivered down as such to us by an universal consent of all Ages since they ought to be owned by us as the certain rule of faith whereby we are to Judge what the Will of God is in order to our Salvation unless it appear with an evidence equal to that whereby we believe those Books to be the Word of God that they were never intended for that end because of their obscurity or imperfection 13. Although we cannot argue against any particular way of Revelation from the necessary Attributes of God yet such a way as writing being made choice of by him we may justly say that it is repugnant to the nature of the design and the Wisdom and Goodness of God to give infallible assurance to persons in Writing his Will for the benefit of Mankind if those Writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation 14. To suppose the Books so Written to be imperfect i. e. that any things necessary to be believed or practised are not contained in them is either to charge the first Author of them with fraud and not delivering his whole mind or the Writers with insincerity in not setting it down and the whole Christian Church of the first Ages with folly in believing the Fulness and Prefection of the Scriptures in order to Salvation 15. These Writings being owned as containing in them the whole Will of God so plainly revealed that no sober enquirer can miss of what is necessary for salvation there can be no necessity supposed of any infallible society of men either to attest or explain these Writings among Christians any more than there was for some Ages before Christ of such a Body of men among the Iews to attest or explain to them the Writings of Moses or the Prophets 16. There can be no more intolerable usurpation upon the faith of Christians than for any Person or Society of men to pretend to an assistance as infallible in what they propose as was in Christ or his Apostles without giving an equal degree of evidence that they are so assisted as Christ and his Apostles did viz. by miracles as great publick and convincing as theirs were by which I mean such as are wrought by those very persons who challeng this infallibility and with a design for the conviction of those who doe not believe it 17. Nothing can be more absurd than to pretend the necessity of such an infallible commission and assistance to assure us of the truth of these writings and to interpret them and at the same time to prove that commission from those writings from which we are told nothing can be certainly deduced such an assistance not being supposed or to pretend that infallibility in a body of men is not as lyable to doubts and disputes as in those books from
to her Confessors they were strictly examined and after them by the Bishops and Divines of Sweden and approved as divine revelations from them they were sent as such to the Council of Basil from thence they were examined over again at Naples and there allowed and preached in the presence and by command of the Queen and Archbishop before all the people of the City again examined at Rome by Prelats and Cardinals A. D. 1377. by the Popes appointment and there approved and A. D. 1379. they are declared by those Vrban the sixth committed the new examination of them to to be authentick and to come from the Spirit of God and so much is declared by Boniface the ninth in the Bull of her Canonization and at last approved saith Wadding at the General Council of Basil. What could be expected less after this than that they should have been received as Canonical Scriptures they having never taken so much pains in examining and approving any controverted Books of the Bible as they had done about these revelations And no man knows how far their authority might have prevailed if the whole Sect of Dominicans had not been engaged in the opposite opinion For nothing else that I can find hath given any discredit to her revelations but this which makes Cajetan call them old Wives dreams as Wadding confesseth But it falls out very conveniently that S. Catharines revelation was just in the Dominican way in which she had been educated and for all that I can see wants little of the reputation of St. Brigitt For they were both very wonderful persons and had more familiar reyelations than any of the Prophets we read of S. Brigitt in her Childhood if we believe the account given of her in the Bull of Canonization by Bonifacius and her life by Vastavius had Visions as frequently as other Children have Babyes and was as well pleased with them the Virgin Mary was once her Midwife as the Pope very gravely tells us but her revelations after Christ took her for his Spouse have filled a great Volume Wherein a person that hath leisure enough may see strange effects of the power of imagination or a Religious Melancholy and to that Book the Pope in his Bull refers us and if any thing can be more considerable than the Popes authority the whole Roman Church in the prayers upon S. Brigitts day do confess these revelations to have come immediately from God to her and in one of the Lessons for that day do magnifie the multitude of her divine revelations But to say truth the Church of Rome allows fair play in the case for it magnifies S. Catharine as much as S. Brigitt for her holy Extasies are mentioned in the Lessons upon her day in one of which were five rayes coming from the five wounds of our Saviour to five parts of her body and she being wonderfull humble prayed our Lord that the wounds might not appear for fear she should have been thought as holy as S. Francis and immediately the colour of the blood was changed into pure light upon her hands and feet and heart And her Confessor Raimund who is alwayes a principal man in these things as Matthias a Suecia was to S. Brigitt without whom she was advised from Heaven to do nothing saw these splendid wounds upon her body but by what instrument did he see the wound in her heart Well though we Hereticks are not apt to be too credulous in these cases the Church of Rome very gravely tells us in the next Lesson that her learning was not acquired but infused by which she answered the most profound Doctors in the most difficult speculations in Divinity but these were nothing to her revelations and the service she did the Church of Rome by them in a time of Schisme But one gift she had above S. Brigitt which was that while she was on earth she could not only see but smell souls too and could not endure the stench of wicked souls as Raynaldus tells us from her Confessor Raimund a gift very few had besides her and Philip Nerius the Father of the Oratorians for Raynaldus one of his Order tells us from Bacius the Writer of his life that he was sometimes so offended with the smells of filthy souls that he would desire the persons to empty the Iakes of their souls Such divine Noses had these two Saints among them A degree of Enthusiasme above the Spirit of discerning any Quakers among us have ever pretended to Pope Pius the second in the Bull of Canonization of S. Catharine not only acknowledgeth a gift of Prophecy to have been in her but that sometimes her Extasies were so great that she was sensible of no kind of pain in them And S. Brigitt was often seen much above ground in her devotions and one saw Rivers and another Fire came out of her mouth but I think not at the same time These are things we rake not the old Kennells of the Golden Legends for but are at this day allowed and approved of in the Roman Church and their dayes kept and they prayed to upon the account of such things as these are § 3. Yet still we are to seek what is to be done when two Revelations contradict each other for the Dominicans are as peremptory for the revelation of S. Catharine as their adversaries are for that of S. Brigitt Two bold Fellows called Henricus de Hassia and Sybillanus knew no other way but to reject both as illusions and fancies but what becomes then of the Popes and Councils infallibility who have approved both Franciscus Picus Mirandula being a Learned and Ingenuous man confesseth himself at a loss both being concerning a thing passed there must be truth on one side and falshood on the other for the case is not the same saith he as to past and future things in which a condition may be understood By which means St. Bernard escaped when he promised great success to an expedition into the Holy Land and they who went in it found the quite contrary But at last gives us leave to conjecture his meaning when he saith That if any thing be false in a prophecy though some prove true we have cause to suspect all especially if it come from women whose judgements are weak and their passions vehement and imaginations easily possessed with what they are most desirous of and least able to distinguish between the strength of imagination and a divine revelation but as to that particular case of S. Catharine and S. Brigitt where both were women he saith The Divines were generally for the former and the Monks for the latter but which was in the truth he thinks cannot be known upon earth Martin Del Rio discoursing of the Revelations of Canonized Saints who were women in the Church of Rome reckons up S. Angela a Carmelitess whose Book of Revelations came out above four hundred years
Martyrs with that Worship of love and society with which even in this life also holy men of God are worshipped whose heart we judge prepared to suffer the like Martyrdom for the truth of the Gospel But we worship them so much the more devoutly because more securely after they have overcome all the Incertainties of this world as also we praise them more confidently now reigning Conquerors in a more happy life than whilst they were sighting in this but with that Worship which in Greek is called Latria and cannot be expressed by one word in Latin for as much as it is a certain service properly due to the Divinity we neither worship them nor teach them to be worshipped but God alone Now whereas the offering of Sacrifice belongs to this Worship of Latria from whence they are called Idolaters who gave it also to Idols by no means do we suffer any such thing or command it to be offered to any Martyr or any holy soul or any Angel And whosoever declines into this Error we reprove him by sound Doctrine either that he may be corrected or avoided And a little after It is a much less sin for a man to be derided by the Martyrs for drunkenness then ever fasting to offer Sacrifice to them I say to sacrifice to Martyrs I say not to sacrifice to God in the memories or Churches of the Martyrs which we do most frequently by that rite alone by which in the manifestation of the New Testament he hath commanded Sacrifice to be offered to him which belongs to that Worship which is called Latria and is due only to God This was the Doctrine and practice of Christian people in St. Augustines time and that he himself held formal Invocations a part of the Worship due to Saints is evident from the prayer he made to St. Cyprian after his Martyrdom Adjuveritque nos Beatus Cyprianus orationibus suis c. Let Blessed Cyprian therefore help us who are still encompassed with this mortal flesh and labour as in a dark cloud with his prayer that by Gods grace we may as far as we are able imitate his good works Thus St. Austin where you see he directs his prayer to St. Cyprian which I take to be formal invocation and for a further confirmation of it we have the ingenuous Confession of Calvin himself Instit. li. 3. ch 20. n. 22. where speaking of the third Council of Carthage in which St. Austin was present he acknowledged it was the custom at that time to say Sancta Maria aut Sancte Petre Ora pro nobis Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us But now Madam what if after all this he himself shall deny that any of the opposite Tenets are Articles of his faith viz. That honour is not to be given to the Images of Christ and his Saints that what appears to be bread in the Eucharist is not the body of Christ That it is not lawful to invocate the Saints to pray for us Press him close and I believe you shall find him deny that he believes any one of these Negative points to be Divine truths and if so you will easily see his charge of Idolatry against us to be vain and groundless Having thus given a direct and punctual answer to his argument I must now expect as much charity from him as is consistent with Scripture and Reason How much that is you will see in his third Answer to the first Question But to proceed § 8. He brings a Miscellany of such opinions and practices as he calls them which are very apt to hinder a good life and therefore none who have a care of their salvation can venture their souls in the communion of such a Church which either enjoyns or publickly allows them He reckons up no less than ten 1. That we destroy the necessity of good life by makeing the Sacrament of Penance that is confession and absolution joyned with contrition sufficient for salvation And do not Protestants make contrition alone which is less sufficient for salvation But perhaps the joyning of confession and absolution with contrition makes it of a malignant nature If so certainly when the Book of Common Prayer in the visitation of the sick enjoyns the sick man if he find his conscience troubled with any weighty matter to make a special confession and receive absolution from the Priest in the same words the Catholick Church uses it prescribes him that as a means to prepare himself for a holy death which in the judgement of the Objector destroyes the necessity of good life 2. Catholicks he sayes take off the care of good life by supposing an expiation of sin by the prayer of the living after death But certainly the belief of temporal pains to be sustained after death if there be not a perfect expiation of sin in this life by works of penance is rather apt to make a man careful not to commit the least sin than to take off the care of a good life And though he be ascertained by faith that he may be holpen by the charitable suffrages of the faithful living yet this is no more encouragement to him to sin than it would be to a Spendthrift to run into debt and be cast into Prison because he knows he may be relieved by the charity of his Friends If he were sure there were no Prison for him that would be an encouragement indeed to play the Spend-thrift And this is the case of the Protestants in their denyal of Purgatory 3. The sincerity of Devotion he sayes is much obstructed by prayers in a language which many understand not If he speak of private prayers all Catholicks are taught to say them in their Mother Tongue If of the publick prayers of the Church I understand not why it may not be done with as much sincerity of devotion the people joyning their intention and particular prayers with the Priest as their Embassador to God as if they understood him I am sure the effects of a sincere devotion for nine hundred years together which this manner of Worship produced in this Nation were much different from those we have seen since the readucing of the publick Lyturgie into English as is manifest from those Monuments which yet remain of Churches Colledges Religious Houses c. with their endowments and in the conversion of many Nations from Heathenism to Christianity effected by the labours and zeal of English Missionaries in those times c. But this is a matter of Discipline and so not to be regulated by the fancies of private men but the judgement of the Church and so universal hath this practice been both in the Primitive Greek and Latine Churches and is still by the confession of the Protestant Authors themselves of the Bible of many Languages Printed at London Anno 1655. in most of the Sects of Christians to have not only the Scriptures but also the Liturgies and Rituals in a Tongue unknown but to
Proph. Sect. 20. Speaking of Catholicks The beauty and Splendour of their Church their pompous he should have said solemn Service the stateliness and solemnity of the Hierarchy their name of Catholick which they suppose he should have said their very Adversaries give them as their own due and to concern no other Sect of Christians the Antiquity of many of their Doctrines he should have said all the continual succession of their Bishops their immediate derivation from the Apostles their Title to succeed St. Peter the flattering he should have said due expression of Minor Bishops he means acknowledging the Pope head of the Church which by being old records have obtained credibility the multitude and variety of People which are of their perswasion apparent consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected and a pretended and sometimes he should have said alwayes apparent consent with some elder Ages in matters Doctrinal The great consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide of Faith The great differences which are commenced among their Adversaries abusing the liberty of Prophecying into a very great licentiousness Their happiness of being Instruments in converting divers he should rather have said of all Nations The piety and austerity of their Religious Orders of Men and Women The single life of their Priests and Bishops the severity of their Fasts and their exteriour observances the great reputation of their first Bishops for faith and sanctity the known holiness of some of those persons whose institutes the Religious persons pretend to imitate the oblique Arts and indirect proceedings of some of those who departed from them and amongst many other things the names of Heretick and Schismatick which they with infinite pertinacity he should have said upon the same grounds the Fathers did fasten upon all that disagree from them These things saith he and divers others may very easily perswade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Fore-fathers which had actually possession and seizure of mens understandings before the opposite professions to wit of Protestant Presbyterian Anabaptist c. had a name Thus Dr. Taylor an eminent and leading man amongst the Protestants and if he confess that these Motives were sufficient for a Catholick to retain his Religion they must be of like force to perswade a dis-interessed Protestant to embrace it unless the Protestants can produce Motives for their Religion of greater or at least equal force with these which so great a man among them confesseth that Catholicks have for theirs Here therefore you must call upon the Author of the Paper you sent me to produce a Catalogue of grounds or at least some one ground for the Protestant Religion of greater or equal force with all these And as Dr. Taylor saith divers others which he omitted viz. The Scripture interpreted by the consent of Fathers the determination of General Councils the known Maxime of Catholicks that nothing is to be believed of Faith but what was received from their Fore-fathers as handed down from the Apostles The testimonie of the present Church of no less Authority now than in St. Austins time both for the Letter and the sence of the Scripture c. Do this and the Controversie will quickly be at an end Particular disputes are endless and above the understanding of such as are not learned but in grounds and principles 't is not so hard for Reason and common sence to Iudge That you may the better do it in your case I shall desire you to take these two Cautions along with you First That the Subject of the present Controversie are not those Articles in which the Protestants agree with us and for which they may pretend to produce the same Motives we do But in those in which they dissent from us such as are no Transubstantiation no Purgatory no honour due to Images no Invocation to Saints and the like in which the very Essence of Protestant as distinct from Catholick consists What Motives they can or will produce for these I do not foresee The pretence of Scriptures being sufficiently plain hath no place here because then the foresaid Negatives would be necessary to be believed as divine Truths And for their own Reason and Learning it will be found too light when put into the scale against that of the Catholick Church for so many Ages The second Caution is That you be careful to distinguish between Protestants producing grounds for their own Religion and finding fault with ours An Atheist can cavil and find fault with the grounds which learned men bring to prove a Deity such as are the Order of this visible World the general consent of Nations c. In this an Atheist thinks he doth somewhat But can he produce as good or better grounds for his own opinion No you see then 't is one thing to produce grounds for what we hold and another to find fault with those which are produced by the contrary part The latter hath made Controversie so long and the former will make it as short let the Answerer therefore instead of finding fault with our Motives produce his own for the Articles in Controversie and I am confident you will quickly discern which carry the most weight and consequently which are to be preferred A Defence of the foregoing Answer to the Questions CHAP. I. Of the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in the Worship of Images The introduction concerning the occasion of the debate The Church of Rome makes its members guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry First Of the Worship of God by Images Some propositions for clearing the notion of Divine Worship It is in Gods power to determine the way of his Worship which being determined Gods Law and not our intention is to be the rule of Worship The main question is Whether God hath forbidden the worshipping of himself by an Image under the notion of Idolatry Of the meaning of the second Commandment from the terms therein used the large sense and importance of them which cannot be understood only of Heathen Idols Of the reason of that Law from Gods infinite and invisible nature How far that hath been acknowledged by Heathens The Law against Image Worship no ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews the reason against it made more clear by the Gospel The wiser Heathen did not worship their Images as Gods yet their worship condemned as Idolatry The Christian Church believed the reason of this Law to be immutable Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice the opposition to it in Greece Germany France and England Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment in the Golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel Of the distinctions used to excuse image-worship from being Idolatry The vanity and folly of them The instances supposed to be parallel answered Madam § 1. THat
was performed to the Martyrs for neither was any Sacrifice offered up to any of them nor any other part of religious worship for thereupon he shews which is very conveniently left out in the citation that not only Sacrifice was refused by Saints and Angels but any other religious honour which is due to God himself as the Angel forbad St. Iohn to fall down and worship him All the worship therefore he saith that they give to Saints is That of love and society and of the same kind which we give to holy men in this life who are ready to suffer for the truth of the Gospel But that the worship of Invocation is expresly excluded by St. Austin appears by what himself saith on a like occasion where he shews the difference between the Gentiles worship and theirs They saith he build Temples erect Altars appoint Priests and offer Sacrifices but we erect no Temples to Martyrs as to Gods but Memories as to dead men whose Spirits live with God we raise no Altars on which to sacrifice to Martyrs but to one God the God of Martyrs as well as ours at which as men of God who have overcome the world by confessing him they are named in their place and order but are not invocated by the Priest who sacrifices And elsewhere saith Whatever the Christians do at the memories of the Martyrs is for ornaments to those memories not as any sacred Rites or Sacrifices belonging to the dead as Gods we therefore do not worship our Martyrs with divine honours nor with the faults of men as the Gentiles did their Gods Which gave occasion to Lud. Vives in his Notes on that Chapter to say that many Christians in his time what sort of Catholicks those were it is easie to guess but to be sure none of St. Austins did no otherwise worship Saints than they did God himself neither could he see in many things any difference between the opinion they had of Saints and what the Gentiles had of their Gods I cannot understand then how St. Austins answer should justifie that which he condemns He denyes that there was an Invocation of Saints but only a commemoration of them the Church of Rome pleads for any Invocation of them and condemns all those who deny it So that his answer is very far from clearing the Roman Church in the practice of Invocation and the objection we make against it that it doth parallel the Heathen Idolatry for it grants it would do so if they gave to the Saints the worship due to God of which he makes Invocation to be a part But after all this can we imagine that he should practise himself contrary to his own doctrine Yes saith he he made a prayer to St. Cyprian let Blessed Cyprian therefore help us in our prayers But is there no difference to be made between such an Apostrophe to a person in ones writing and solemn supplication to him with all the soâ—emnity of devotion in the duties of Religious worship If I should now say Let St. Austin now help me in his prayers while I am defending his constant opinion that Invocation is proper to God alone would they take this for renouncing the Protestant doctrine and embracing that of the Church of Rome I doubt they would not think that I escaped the Anathema of the Council of Trent for all this The Question between us is not how far such wishes rather than prayers were thought allowable being uttered occasionally as St. Austin doth this to St. Cyprian but whether solemn Invocation of Saints in the duties of Religious worship as it is now practised in the Roman Church were ever practised in St. Austins time and this we utterly deny We do not say that they did not then believe that the Saints in Heaven did pray for them and that some of them did express their wishes that they would pray particularly for them we do not say that some superstitions did not creep in after the Anniversary meetings at the Sepulchres of the Martyrs grew in request for St. Austin himself saith that what they taught was one thing and what they did bear with was another speaking of the customes used at those solemnities But here we stand and fix our foot against all opposition whatsoever that there was no such doctrine or practice allowed in the Church at that time as is owned and approved at this day in the Church of Rome But from St. Austin we are sent to Calvin whose authority though never owned as infallible by us we need not fear in this point and I cannot but wonder if he saw the words in Calvin or Bellarmin that he would produce them For Calvin doth there say That the Council of Carthage did forbid praying to Saints lest the publick prayers should be corrupted by such kind of addresses Holy Peter pray for us If St. Austin were present in this Council as my Adversary saith he was I wonder what advantage it will be to him from Calvins saying that the Council did condemn and forbid those prayers which were in use by some of the people But it seems he takes the peoples part against the Council and St. Austin too and thinks it enough for them to follow the practices condemned by Councils and Fathers which we are sure they do and are glad to find so ingenuous a confession of it He may as well the next time bring St. Austins testimony for worshipping Martyrs and Images because he saith he knew many who adored Sepulchres and Pictures and for the worship of Angels because he saith he had heard of many who had tryed to go to God by praying to Angels and were thought worthy to fall into delusions § 16. But the strangest effort of all the rest is what he hath reserved to the last place viz. That the charge of Idolatry against them must be vain and groundless because if I be pressed close I shall deny any one of these Negative points to be divine truths viz. that honour is not to be given to the Images of Christ and his Saints that what appears to be bread in the Eucharist is not the body of Christ that it is not lawful to Invocate the Saints to pray for us But the answer to this is so easie that it will not require much time to dispatch it For I do assert it to be an Article of my faith That God alone is to be worshipped with divine and religious worship and he that cannot hence infer that no created Being is to be so worshipped hath the name of reasonable creature given him to no purpose What need we make Negative Articles of faith where the Affirmative do necessarily imply them If I believe that the Scripture is my only rule of faith as I most firmly do will any man that considers what he saith require me to make Negative Articles of faith that the Pope is not Tradition is not Councils are not a
ago S. Gertrude A. D. 664. S. Hildegardis in Germany A. D. 1180. and about the same time S. Elizabeth of Sconaugh all whose revelations were published and the last collected by Roger an English Cistertian and in latter times he mentions S. Brigitt and S. Catharine whose revelations he saith were opposed by some but he declares for his part that he is not at all moved with their arguments for that would diminish too much the honour due to those holy Spouses of Christ as he calls them but in truth he confesses the honour of their Church is concerned in it for saith he several Popes upon diligent examination have allowed and approved these revelations as Eugenius the third did those of Hildegardis as well as Boniface the ninth those of S. Brigitt For the argument from the contradiction of these revelations he knows not how to come off but by a charge of Forgery on the Dominican side and why might not they as well return it on the other unless Matthias a Suetia Confessor to S. Brigitt were more infallible than Raimundus or those who believed S. Catharine But this is not the only case wherein these female revelations so much approved by the Church of Rome are contradictory to each other in those things whereon the proof of a point of doctrine depends For who knows not to what end the revelation of S. Gregoryes delivering the soul of Trajan by his prayers is so frequently urged and this is confirmed by a revelation of S. Brigitt to that purpose from whence Salmeron calls it an unanswerable argument and Alphonsus Ciacconius published by the Popes authority an Apology for that revelation Yet Baronius tells us that S. Mathildis had a revelation to the contrary and if it were not contradictory to S. Brigitts it must be contradictory to it self And therefore he very fairly rejects them all but with what honour to his Church which had before approved them I can by no means understand And Bellarmin to the revelation of Mathildis wherein she desired to know what became of the souls of Sampson Solomon Origen and Trajan and God answered her that none should know what he had done with them opposes another revelation wherein the soul of Origen was seen together with that of Arius and Nestorius in Hell So infallible are these revelations even when they contradict each other How often have visions and apparitions of souls been made use of to prove the doctrine of Purgatory Witness the famous testimonies to this purpose out of S. Gregories Dialogues and Bedes History which latter is at large recited being very proper for it in the late great Legend published by Mr. Cressy under the name of a Church History who justifies the substance of the story as far as it concerns the Doctrine of Purgatory although he doth not think the person really dead but only in a Trance which is all one to our purpose as long as such arguments as these are made use of to prove matters of faith by We need not go so far back as Gabriel Biel to shew that the doctrine of Transubstantiation hath been proved by the appearance of a Child in a Host such an argument hath been lately published to the World and Bellarmin reckons up several to this purpose one wherein instead of Bread was seen real Flesh and another wherein Christ was seen in the form of a Child Which are well attended with St. Anthony of Padua 's Horse which would never have left his Provender to Worship the Host unless he had seen some notable sight there And he very doughtily proves Auricular Confession by a certain Vision of a tall and terrible man with his Book in his hand which blotted out presently all the sins which the humble Thief confessed upon his knees to the Priest but he hath not proved that terrible man did not represent the Devil who by that Ceremony might shew that he turned over the keeping of his Books of Accompts to the Priest who upon Confession might tell mens sins as well as he could do without But they have not only attempted to prove matters of Doctrine by these things but things have been defined in the Church meerly upon the credit of private revelations So the Spanish Ambassadour urges the Pope smartly upon the Revelations of St. Bridgitt That there were many of his predecessors that had determined more things in the Church partly relying upon private Revelations therein whose authority was not greater than hers were Pius 1. he saith determined the Controversie of Easter-day upon the credit of a Revelation made to Hermes Urban 4. Instituted the Festival of Corpus Christi in opposition to the denyers of Transubstantiation upon the instinct and revelation of a certain Woman Paul the Hermite was Canonized for a Saint upon the Authority of a Vision and Revelation to Anthony the one of his soul flying to Heaven the other of his being there The Feast of the apparition of the Arch-angel Michael which is constantly observed in the Church of Rome depended upon a revelation to the Bishop of Siponto and a few Drovers upon the Mountain Garganus These are things briefly touched by the Ambassadour but it will not be amiss to give a more particular account of those instances which concern the Institution of Festival Solemnities by which it will appear that they are Fanatical even in their Superstitions Pope Vrban 4. in the Bull still extant for the Celebration of Corpus Christi day mentions that as one of the great reasons of appointing it that while he was in a lower capacity he understood that a revelation had been made to certain Catholicks that this Feast should be observed in the Church This which is only intimated here is at large explained by Ioh. Diestemius Blaerus Prior of St. Iames in Liege where these things happened In an Hospital hard by the Town he tells us there was a famous Virgin called Iuliana which had many Extasies and Raptures and so Prophetical a Spirit as to discern the thoughts and intentions of her Neighbours Hearts she wrestled with Devils discoursed with the Apostles and wrought many Miracles But one thing peculiar to her was that in her Prayers she almost alwayes saw the Moon in her brightness but with a snip taken off from her roundness at which she was much troubled but by no means could get it out of her Phancy At last God was pleased to reveal it to her that the Moon signified the present Church and that fraction the want of one solemnity more to be observed in it upon which she received a command from Heaven to proclaim the observation of this solemnity For twenty years she prayed that God would excuse her and make choice of a more worthy person but none being found she communicates it to Iohannes de Lausenna and he to Iacobus de Trecis then Arch-deacon of Liege and afterwards Vrban 4. But although
the same Author layes it down as a fundamental rule that God only by his holy Inspirations is the guide and directour in an Internal contemplative life and that all the light they have therein is from immediate divine illumination as well as our strength from the divine operation and that this light doth extend further and to more and other more particular objects than the divine light or Grace by which good Christians living common lives in the world are lead extends to yea than it does even in those that seek perfection by the exercises of an active life But which is very extraordinary in this supernatural light he saith that generally when there is proposed the not doing or doing of an external work and both of them are lawfull the divine inspiration moves to the not doing but this is not all but among the impediments to divine Inspirations he reckons not only all external duties of Religion but the doing things meerly for Edification A most excellent and Apostolical doctrine but it is happy for the Christian world the Apostles had other kind of Inspirations from these or else they had never done much good in the World or been such eminent examples of holy life and actions What becomes of all the precepts they have left us of doing good of mutual edification of constant business besides the commands for the outward duties of Worship if these be the hinderances in the way to perfection And although he would not have his spiritual internal liver to pretend to extraordinary apparitions voices conversations with spirits message from Heaven c. Yet in his Discourse of Passive Vnions he saith that God reveals himself to the soul by a supernatural species impressed in her which revelations are either sensible as apparitions words c. or intellectual either immediately or by Angels the effects of which supernatural inactions of God are Rapts or Extasies internal visions c. in which he saith that the less experienced and imperfect are to advise with their directour about them but those who were more eminently perfect have followed their own light in judging of those things and practising accordingly without consulting others and withall addes that such souls which receive these things must carefully observe her internal direction and that they are not so absolutely obliged to resign their judgements and wills to others as to neglect their own proper call received from God And doth this doctrine now differ from that of the Fanatick Sectaries which have swarmed in England Yes Mr. Cressy in his Preface undertakes at large to shew the difference by answering the objection taken from thence against the publishing this doctrine because it would justifie them in all their frenzies and disorders and in order to this 1. He very foolishly goes about to prove the necessity of divine Inspirations from the necessity of divine Grace for the doing good actions which is not denyed by the greatest enemies to Enthusiasme 2. He saith we ought to correspond to those Divine Inspirations which stirr us up to good actions if he means by them nothing but the assistance of Divine Grace no one questions it 3. That there may be false suggestions of the Devil which may appear like the motions of Gods Spirit 4. That it being necessary these should be distinguished from each other the only means imaginable that can be proper natural and efficacious to obtain such a supernatural light to discern Gods will in all things as pure spiritual prayer exercised by a soul living an abstracted internal recollected life spent in a continual attendance on God c. i. e. in short the directions of F. Augustin Baker And is not this think we a very cunning way of vindicating his doctrine from Fanaticism to make Enthusiasm necessary to distinguish the motions of the good and bad Spirit in our minds I have already shewed that he teaches the highest Enthusiasm and it seems those who made the objection were sensible of it But how doth Mr. Cressy answer it by shewing what they condemn to be necessary and in effect that no man can know the difference between the motions of the Holy Ghost and the Devil but by Enthusiasme nay that is the plain meaning of his words for this contemplative prayer he saith is the only means to gain such a supernatural light whereby we can distinguish one from the other An admirable way to tell men they must first be mad before they can know whether they be in their wits or no. But since this contemplative state hath besides the common though immediate illuminations many passive unions or extraordinary revelations attending it suppose the Question were put how one should know whether these came from God or the Devil what answer will Mr. Cressy then give will he return back again to try illuminations by inspirations as he calls them and so inspirations by illuminations which is just like the Scripture by the Church and the Church by Scripture But here saith Mr. Cressy is no pretending to new or strange revelations no walking in mirabilibus super se yes I think he doth so when he utters these things for what are passive unions but new revelations and as great as ever any Fanatick Sectary pretended to Did not they deliver this for their Doctrine that men ought to hearken to the immediate impulses of the Spirit of God within them and that now God doth acquaint his own people with his mind and will in a way peculiar to themselves And what have they done of the mystical way but only changed a few terms and asserted the thing it self higher than our Enthusiasts did who did not boast of so many raptures visions and revelations as those of the Church of Rome have done Lud. Blosius in his works hath one Book called Monile Spirituale which consists of nothing but the new and strange revelations which were made to four Women Saints St. Gertrude St. Mathildis St. Bridgitt and St. Catharine and in his Preface saith it is a sign of a carnal mind to despise such revelations as these are for the Church of God is wonderfully enlightned by them What saith he did not the Prophets and Apostles receive truth from Heaven by Revelations As though the case were the very same in these melancholy Women and in the holy Prophets and Apostles and we had just as much reason to believe the effects of hysterical vapours and the divine Spirit And lest we should imagine these were only the Fancies of some Women which their Church would not be concerned for the credit of he concludes with saying that these Revelations were known to the world and approved For those of St. Bridgitt we have before shewed how much they were approved For St. Gertrudes he saith the same and that one very learned and illuminate man did say after the accurate reading of them that man could not have
Fornication Indeed he saith that this falling from that holy chastity which was vowed to God may in some sense be said to be worse than Adultery but he never imagined such a construction could be made of his words as though the act of Fornication were not a greater falling from it than meer marriage could be So much shall suffice for the Instances produced in the Roman Church of such things which tend to obstruct a good life and devotion § 14. The 3. argument I used to prove the danger a person runs of his salvation in the communion of the Roman Church was because it exposeth the faith of Christians to so great uncertainties which he looks on as a strange charge from the Pen of a Protestant As strange as it is I have at large proved it true in a full examination of the whole Controversie of the Resolution of faith between us and them to which I expect a particular Answer before this charge be renewed again To which I must refer him for the main proof of it and shall here subjoyn only short replyes to his Answers or references to what is fully answered already 1. His distinction of the authority of the Scripture in it self and to us signifies nothing for when we enquire into the proofs of the Authority of Scripture it can be understood no otherwise than in respect to us and if the Scriptures Authority as to us is to be proved by the Church and the Churches Authority as to us to be provved by the Scripture the difficulty is not in the least avoided by that distinction And as little to the purpose is the other that it is only an argument ad hominem to prove the Infallibility of the Church from Scriptures for I would fain know upon what other grounds they build their own belief of the Churches Infallibility than on the Promises of Christ in the Scripture These are miserable evasions and nothing else For the trite saying of S. Austin that he would not believe the Gospel c. I have at large proved that the meaning of it is no more than that the Testimony of the Vniversal Church from the Apostles times is the best way to prove the particular books of Scripture to be authentical and cannot be understood of the Infallibility of the present Church and that the testimony of some few persons as the Manichees were was not to be taken in opposition to the whole Christian Church Which is a thing we as much contend for as they but is far enough from making the Infallibility of our faith to depend on the Authority of the present Church which we say is the way to overthrow all certainty of faith to any considering man 2. To that of overthrowing the certainty of sense in the doctrine of transubstantiation he saith that divine revelation ought to be believed against the evidence of sense To which I answer 1. that divine revelation in matters not capable of being judged by our senses is to be believed notwithstanding any argument can be drawn from sensible experiments against it as in the belief of God the doctrine of the Trinity the future state of the soul c. 2. that in the proper objects of sense to suppose a Revelation contrary to the evidence of sense is to overthrow all certainty of faith where the matters to be believed depend upon matters of fact As for Instance the truth of the whole Christian doctrine depends upon the truth of Christs resurrection from the dead if sense be not here to be believed in a proper object of it what assurance can we have that the Apostles were not deceived when they said they saw Christ after he was risen If it be said there was no revelation against sense in that case that doth not take off the difficulty for the reason why I am to believe revelation at any time against sense must be because sense may be deceived but revelation cannot but if I yield to that principle that sense may be deceived in its most proper object we can have no infallible certainty by sense at all and consequently not in that point that Christ is risen from the dead If it be said that sense cannot be deceived where there is no revelation against it I desire to know how it comes to be deceived supposing a revelation contrary to it Doth God impose upon our senses at that time then he plainly deceives us is it by telling us we ought to believe more than we see that we deny not but we desire only to believe according to our senses in what we doe see as what we see to be bread that is bread that what the Apostles saw to be the body of Christ was the body of Christ really and substantially and not meerly the accidents of a body Besides if revelation is to be believed against sense then either that revelation is conveyed immediately to our minds which is to make every one a Prophet that believes transubstantiation or mediately by our senses as in those words this is my body if so than I am to believe this revelation by my senses and believing this revelation I am not to believe my senses which is an excellent way of making faith certain All this on supposition there were a revelation in this case which is not only false but if it were true would overthrow the certainty of faith 3. To that I objected as to their denying to men the use of their judgement and reason as to the matters of faith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church he answers that this cannot expose faith to any uncertainty because it is only preferring the Churches judgement before our own but he doth not seem to understand the force of my objection which lay in this Every one must use his own judgement and reason in the choice of the Church he is to rely upon is he certain in this or not if he be uncertain all that he receives on the Authority of that Church must be uncertain too if the use of reason be certain then how comes the Authority of a Church to be a necessary means of certainty in matters of faith And they who condemn the use of a mans reason and judgement in Religion must overthrow all certainty on their own grounds since the choice of his Infallible Guide must depend upon it Now he understands my argument better he may know better how to answer it but I assure him I meant no such thing by the use of reason as he supposes I would have which is to believe nothing but what my reason can comprehend for I believe an Infinite Being and all the Doctrines revealed by it in Holy Scriptures although I cannot reconcile all particulars concerning them to those conceptions we call reason But therefore to argue against the use of mens judgements in matters of faith and the grounds of believing is to dispute against that which
whence only they derive their infallibility 18. There can be no hazard to any person in mistaking the meaning of any particular place in those books supposing he use the best means for understanding them comparable to that which every one runs who believes any person or society of men to be infallible who are not for in this latter he runs unavoidably into one great errour and by that may be led into a thousand but in the former God hath promised either he shall not erre or he shall not be damned for it 19. The assistance which God hath promised to those who sincerely desire to know his will may give them greater assurance of the truth of what is contained in the bookes of Scripture than it is possible for the greatest infallibility in any other persons to doe supposing they have not such assurance of their infallibility 20. No mans faith can therefore be infallible meerly because the Proponent is said to be infallible because the nature of Assent doth not depend upon the objective infallibility of any thing without us but is agreeable to the evidence we have of it in our minds for assent is not built on the nature of things but their evidence to us 21. It is therefore necessary in order to an infallible assent that every particular person be infallibly assisted in Judging of the matters proposed to him to be believed so that the ground on which a necessity of some external infallible Proponent is asserted must rather make every particular person infallible if no divine faith can be without an infallible assent and so renders any other infallibility useless 22. If no particular person be infallible in the assent he gives to matters proposed by others to him then no man can be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible and so the Churches infallibility can signifie nothing to our infallible assurance without an equal infallibility in our selves in the belief of it 23. The infallibility of every particular person being not asserted by those who plead for the infallibility of a Church and the one rendring the other useless for if every person be infallible what need any representative Church to be so and the infallibility of a Church being of no effect if every person be not infallible in the belief of it we are farther to inquire what certainty men may have in matters of faith supposing no external proponent to be infallible 24. There are different degrees of certainty to be attained according to the different degrees of evidence and measure of divine assistance but every Christian by the use of his reason and common helps of Grace may attain to so great a degree of certainty from the convincing arguments of the Christian Religion and authority of the Scriptures that on the same grounds on which men doubt of the truth of them they may as well doubt of the truth of those things which they Judge to be most evident to sense or reason 25. No man who firmly assents to any thing as true can at the same time entertaine any suspition of the falshood of it for that were to make him certain and uncertain of the same thing it is therefore absurd to say that those who are certain of what they believe may at the same time not know but it may be false which is an apparent contradiction and overthrowes any faculty in us of judging of truth or falshood 26. Whatever necessarily proves a thing to be true doth at the same time prove it impossible to be false because it is impossible the same thing should be true and false at the same time Therefore they who assent firmly to the doctrine of the Gospel as true doe thereby declare their belief of the Impossibility of the falshood of it 27. The nature of certainty doth receive several names either according to the nature of the proof or the degrees of the assent Thus moral certainty may be so called either as it is opposed to Mathematical evidence but implying a firme assent upon the highest evidence that Moral things can receive or as it is opposed to a higher degree of certainty in the same kind so Moral certainty implies only greater probabilities of one side than the other in the former sense we assert the certainty of Christian faith to be moral but not only in the latter 28. A Christian being thus certain to the highest degree of a firme assent that the Scriptures are the word of God his faith is thereby resolved into the Scriptures as into the rule and measure of what he is to believe as it is into the veracity of God as the ground of his believing what is therein contained 29. No Christian can be obliged under any pretence of infallibility to believe any thing as a matter of faith but what was revealed by God himself in that book wherein he believes his will to be contained and consequently is bound to reject whatsoever is offered to be imposed upon his faith which hath no foundation in Scripture or is contrary thereto which rejection is no making Negative Articles of faith but only applying the general grounds of faith to particular instances as because I believe nothing necessary to salvation but what is contained in Scripture therefore no such particular things which neither are there nor can be deduced thence 30. There can be no better way to prevent mens mistakes in the sense of Scripture which men being fallible are subject to than the considering the consequence of mistaking in a matter wherein their salvation is concerned And there can be no sufficient reason given why that may not serve in matters of faith which God himself hath made use of as the means to keep men from sin in their lives unless any imagine that errours in opinion are far more dangerous to mens souls than a vitious life is and therefore God is bound to take more care to prevent the one than the other It followeth that 1. There is no necessity at all or use of an infallible Society of men to assure men of the truth of those things which they may be certain without and cannot have any greater assurance supposing such infallibility to be in them 2. The infallibility of that Society of men who call themselves the Catholick Church must be examined by the same faculties in man the same rules of tryal the same motives by which the infallibility of any divine revelation is 3. The less convincing the miracles the more doubtful the marks the more obscure the sense of either what is called the Catholick Church or declared by it the less reason hath any Christian to believe upon the account of any who call themselves by the name of the Catholick Church 4. The more absurd any opinions are and repugnant to the first principles of sense and reason which any Church obtrudes upon the faith of men the greater reason men still have to reject the pretence of infallibility in that Church as a