from granting this to them that on the contrary we always accuse them of Innovations and denying those Articles which are Fundamental and as necessary and as plainly revealed as many of those others which they admit We always affirm We are in possession of our Doctrines and our Practices that these have been delivered down to us by our Predecessors as Truths revealed to the Prophets and Apostles we always tell them We have the Decisions of a Church in our behalf a Church I say 1 Tim. 3.15 which is the Pillar and Ground of Truth Matth. 16.18 a Church against which the Gates of Hell by the express Promise of JESUS CHRIST was never to prevail Eph. 4.11 12 c. and in which Pastors and Teachers were to remain for ever lest we should be led away with every wind of Doctrine We tell them He who denies one Article revealed by God and proposed by his Church as so revealed is as guilty of the Breach of Faith as he who denies them all because he rejects God's Veracity upon which that Faith is grounded And by consequence we cannot but tell them That whilst they renounce those Articles which we believe are revealed Truths they are guilty of Fundamental Errors and hold not the Ancient and Vndoubted Foundation of the Christian Faith So that the true State of the Controversie in general betwixt Catholics and Protestants is whether they or we do Innovate they in refusing to believe those Doctrines we profess to have receiv'd with the Grounds of Christianity or we in maintaining our Possession And the Dispute is Whether Roman Catholics ought to maintain their Possession for which many Protestants themselves grant they have a Prescription of above 1000 Years or whether the Authorities brought by Protestants against the Roman Catholic Doctrine be so weighty that every Roman Catholic is oblig'd to renounce the Communion of that Church in which he was bred up and quit his Prescription and Possession Which certainly they are not obliged to do unless it can be plainly prov'd they have innovated or taught such Doctrines as overthrow those Truths which are on both Sides allow'd to be Divine This the Bishop of Condom knew they could never do and that our Doctrines when truly represented were so far from contradicting those mutually-received Articles of our Faith that on the contrary they confirm'd our Belief of them And therefore he undertook to separate the Articles of our Faith from what was falsly imputed to us and resolved to propose them according to the received Sence of the Church declared in the Council of Trent And whether he has faithfully perform'd this Undertaking or no is our present Question which we are to examine in these following Articles What do's it therefore avail this Author to tell us Pag. 6. he will in the following Articles endeavour to give a clear and free Account of what they can approve and what they dislike in the Doctrines of the Catholic Church unless he first shew us and that by some Authentic Acts of the Church that those are her Doctrines and secondly give us some assurance of greater Authority then the Prescription of the Roman Catholic Church that they are Novelties or Erroneous ART II. Religious Worship is terminated only in God THat all Religious Worship is terminated in God alone is the Biship of Condom's Assertion Art 2. and the Churches Doctrine to which both this and another later Author agree Answer to a Discourse entituled Papists Protesting c. but both of them will have the Invocation of Saints and the Honour which we pay to Images and Relics to be inconsistent with that Maxim What the Bishop has said is enough to satisfie any one who is not obstinate his Words are these The same Church teaches us Expos p. â— That all Religious Worship ought to terminate in God as its necessary End and that if the Honour which she renders to the Blessed Virgin and to the Saints may in some sence be call'd Religious it is for its necessary relation to God From which Words it is plain the Bishop thought Religious Honour or Worship might be taken in a double sence the first strict and that he acknowledges is only due to God the other in a larger sence which may be paid to Creatures But how this other may be called Religious Honour he tells us is because of the reference which it has to God Thus that Civil Honour or Obedience which we pay to Magistrates if we do it for Conscience sake that is purely to obey the Ordinance of God may be not improperly call'd a Religious Honour or Obedience because by Honouring or Obeying them for God's sake we Honour and Obey God Thus to visit the orphan and the widow in their tribulations is called by St. James a clean and unspotted Religion James 1.27 But if we take Religion in a stricter sence for a Supreme and Sovereign Honour or an adhesion to an Independent Being with all the Powers of our Soul c. it is only proper to God and cannot be paid to Creatures and in that sence the Honour which we pay to our Blessed Lady and other Saints is far from being a Religious Honour Let Mary be Honoured Epiph. Haer. 79. but let God be Adored was the Saying of an ancient Father not with Divine Honour for that is due to God alone Soli Deo honor gloria but with an Inferiour Honour which if our Authors will not have us call Religious we will not dispute about the Name We ought not to deprive God of any thing that is due to him alone that we may give it to his Creatures neither Honour nor Worship nor Prayer nor Thanksgiving nor Sacrifice But yet we may honour those whom God has honoured we may give an inferiour Degree of Worship to those who are in some Degree of Honour above us in this World and why not to the Invisible Inhabitants of the other so it elevate them not above the State of Creatures We may pray to our Friends and Parents here on Earth to pray for us without derogating from our Duty to God and why the same may not be addressed to Saints and Angels who are no less our Friends without robbing God of what is his due is I must confess to me unintelligible If you tell me the first is only Civil or if it may be called a Religious Love or Honour Answ to Papist Protest p. 38. when it is done for God's sake yet it is but an extrinsecal Denomination from the Cause and Motive not from the Nature of the Act and therefore cannot make Gods of them we affirm the same of the second and renounce any other sort of Religious Worship which is so from the nature of the Act and by consequence only due to God This Distinction reflected on will be sufficient to answer all the Objections brought against our Doctrine by both those Authors And we cannot
But any thing must pass now to deceive the vulgar tho' Men of Sence see the contrary Another Argument he brings to delude the Authority of the Church of Rome is to make her apss only for a particular Church But how often have they been told that Catholics do not take the Church of Rome as it is the Suburbican Diocess to be the Catholic Church but all the Christian Churches in Communion with the Bishop of Rome And that this is the true Church appears by the marks of it deliver'd in the Nicene Creed no other Church being able to pretend to that Unity Sanctity Universality and Antiquity which she is manifestly invested with The true Church must be one and by conquence free from Schism which destroys that notion which some of late have held that the true Church is that Catholic Church which is composed of all Christians the Roman the Grecians the Armenians Prtoestants c. all which they acknowledge to be Members of the True Church tho' they may be rotten ones and this notion our Author seems to have of it when he tells us that the Roman Church has in all ages made up but a part of the Church Pag. 77. and that not always the greatest neither The true Church must be also Holy and must by consequence be free from Heresie and teach no Erroneous Doctrine which how it stands with that Idea which this Author insinuates that the Church of Rome has erred event in necessary points of Faith and is yet a Member of the True Church is worthy a mature Consideration This indeed made the first Reformers who accused the Roman Catholic Church of Idolatry and Superstition say that the Church of JESUS CHRIST was hidden fled into the Wilderness See the Protestant Authors cited by Brereley in his Protestant Apology Tract 2. Cap. 1. Sect. 4. and invisible for 1000 or 1200 years that the Pope was Antichrist and the Church of Rome Antichristian But the Men of our Age being sufficiently convinced that the Church of Christ was to have Kings and Queens for Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers that she was to have Pastors and Teachers in all Ages Whitakers contra Duraeum l. 3. p. 260. that the Administration of the Sacraments and the Preaching of the true word of God were the Essential Proprieties of the Church c. and that all these marks do necessarily denote a Visible Church and finding moreover they could never prove any Christian Kings before Luther Converted to Protestancy or any visible Pastors or Teachers of their Doctrine or any Assembly that Administred the Sacraments as they do or Preached the word of God in their Sence and finding they could not deny the Conversion of many Kings and Nations to the Religion established in the Church of Rome found themselves obliged also to admit her as a part of the True Church tho' a corrupted one and would rather destroy the Sanctity of Christs Church and her Vnity than acknowledge themselves to be justly cut off from being Members of her The third Mark is Catholic which is universal as to Place Time and Doctrine that Church cannot be the true Church the sound whereof is not gone through the whole Earth and is not it self spread over and visible in all Nations that cannot be the true Church which has not continued in all Ages Visible Holy and Uniform neither lastly can that be the true Church which either adds or diminishes from the Doctrines revealed by God to the Prophets and Apostles so that those are as guilty of the Breach of Faith who refuse to believe what has been taught as those who impose new Doctrines The last mark of the Church is that she must be Apostolic that is grounded upon the Doctrines and Faith of the Apostles and deriving a continual Succession from them All which marks are so far from being applicable to the Church of England or to the Universal Church according to the notion given of it be these late Writers that a Man of the smallest judgment if Impartial cannot but see the fallacy thereof ART XXII Authority of the Holy See and of Episcopacy AS for his two other Articles The Opinion of the Church of England as to the Authority of the Church and that of the See Apostolic and Episcopacy I have nothing to say to him but to desire him to remember his promises Pag. 81. and to enquire what is the Authority the Antient Councils of the Primitive Church have acknowledged and the Holy Fathers have always taught the Faithful to give to the Successour to St. Peter and whether the first Four General Councils might not be termed neither General nor Free with as much Reason as the Council of Trent or those others acknowledged by all the Western World and most of the Eastern Churches before the new pretended Reformation The Conclusion I Come now to his Close in which he sums up all the Poison of his Book lays what he pleases to our charge and draws what Consequences he will to inflame his Reader He tells us of Bitter and Vnchristian Hatred we have conceiv'd against them Pag. 82. and desires to know what warrant we have for it I desire all unprejudic'd Persons to consider whether we have not more reason to complain than he Here was a Church established in England Truths delivered to her with Christianity it self were here Practis'd and Preach'd Religious Houses were here endow'd with ample Revenues c. when behold a Pretended Reformation comes destroys this Church dissolves all the Constitutions of it changes the established Doctrines and alters many of its antientest Practices pulls down Religious Houses and Churches alienates the Revenues turns the Religious Inhabitants into the wide World make Laws against all those who should defend that Doctrine Imprisonment loss of Goods and Fortunes nay even of Life it self are the Punishments ordained for them who are found guilty of Practising or Preaching that Religion And what less could such a Church do than Excommunicate they who thus Renounc'd her Doctrines Contemned her Authority and persecuted her Children But this Excommunication must be called Severity and unchristian hatred And if we declare that all those who forsake the Unity of the Church are guilty of Schism and they who will not acquiess to those Points of Faith which God has Revealed and the Church which is the Pillar and Ground of Truth has declar'd to have been so Reveal'd are guilty of Heresie and that Heresie and Schism will bring inevitable damnation to all those who die without repenting of them we must be esteem'd uncharitable I must therefore Retort his Popular Argument and ask him and all unprejudic'd Protestants what they can find in all our Doctrines when truly Represented to warrant that bitter and unchristian hatred they have conceiv'd against us a hatred which has occasioned so many Penal and Sanguinary Laws and still makes them use all endeavours to keep them in full force against
not defire to add any thing to it That they Advise even Private Confession upon many accounts which the Bishop of Meaux has remarked and which they willingly allow as very useful to the Penitent that is I suppose he allows with the Bishop the Penitential Court of Judicature to be a curb to Liberty Expos pag. 18. a plentiful sourse of Wise Admonitions and a sensible consolation for Souls afflicted for their Sins all which he acknowledges render it very useful and convenient even to those who have no doubt nor scruple But yet he will not have this so beneficial an exercise to be necessary where the Sinner can quiet his Conscience without it but calls it an unnecessary Rack to Mens Consciences So that if a Man be either insensible of his sins or have brought his Conscience to such a pass that it checks him not or be presumptious of Gods Mercies and upon that think himself secure of a Pardon it seems it is not necessary with them he should either have that Curb or those Admonitions whereas we think those Persons have most need of all the helps imaginable and doubt not but that God who gave so large a Commission to his Priest to bind or loose did not exempt those who stand in need of it from a due submission to that Tribunal We assirm therefore that Penance is necessary not for every Man in particular but to those only who have offended mortally after Baptism That true Contrition which must vertually include all the parts of it is sufficient in case of a non-possibility of performing some of them That Confession which is one of the parts of it either public or private is necessary to be performed to a Priest that they who have Authority to bind or loose may know upon what it is they are to pronounce Sentence That tho' our Sentence be absolute yet since we cannot know when the Penitent has those due Dispositions which are required to receive the Benefit of it neither also can we be sure that God always confirms our Sentence These are our Doctrines this we have always held and practis'd and this we affirm to be conformable to the practice of the most Antient and Orthodox Churches and we cannot but be astonished why they should be rejected and no better grounds brought than we suppose Pag. 43. or we must beg leave with assurance to say that such Doctrines ar directly contrary to the Tradition of the Church and to many plain and undoubted places of Holy Scripture If he say he only undertook an Exposition of their Doctrine and therefore was no more oblig'd to prove it than the Bishop of Meaux himself I must tell him the difference is great for the Bishop of Meaux undertaking to Expound a Doctrine establish'd in the Church that very Possession was a sufficient proof of its Antiquity and Universality it being a constant maxim in our Church that no particular Opinions or Practises ought ever to be establish'd as necessary to all and that nothing can be declared as an Article of our Faith which was not materially so before that is which was not handed down to us by universal Tradition as a reveal'd Truth Whereas this Author undertaking to give us an Exposition of a Doctrine which dissents from ours so establish'd and of which we are in possession if he would have it bear any weight he ought to have given some solid Reasons for their defection from those Doctrines which had been establish'd in England for above a Thousand Years from the very time that Pagan Idolatry was rooted out by St. Augustin the Benedictin Monk he ought I say to have given some solid Reasons such as were no less than Domonstrations or manifest Revelations to which and to no other those who are in Possession of a Doctrine so establish'd ought to submit and without which all Arguments for a Reformation dwindle into this which is very inefficacious we suppose we have a just reason to reform we think we are in the right we are persuaded it is according to Scripture c. but we are not certain ART XII Of Extream Vnction AS to the Sacrament of Extream Vnction Art 13. p. 44. this Author cannot deny but the words of St. James If any man be sick James 5.14 15. let him call for the Priests of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him with oyl in the Name of our Lord. And the prayer of Faith shall save the sick and our Lord shall lift him up and if he be in sins they shall be remitted to him I say he cannot deny but these words exhibit to us an outward Visible Sign and an Inward Spiritual Grace but yet he will not have the meaning of this Passage to reser at all to a Sacrament but only to the miraculous Cures of the Apostles contrary to the express words of Scripture and to the sence of them received and delivered to us by Antiquity The Grace of Curing the Sick was not given to all Priests or Elders alike but only to some select Persons these did not only cure the Sick but the Lame and the Blind their Power of Miracles was not tied to the Ceremony of Unction only all those that were anointed were not cured neither had all they who were cured by them who had the Gift of Healing any assurance by that Cure of the Forgiveness of their Sins Yet St. James here speaks of those only that are Sick he appoints them to call in the Priests in general and not them only who had the Gift of Healing he speaks only of anointing them with Oyl and not of any other Ceremonies used by CHRIST or his Apostles in order to the curing of the Sick He promises The prayer of faith shall save the sick adn the Lord shall lift him up which if it had been meant of Bdily Health those only would have died in the Apostles time who either neglected this Advice or whose Deaths prevented the accomplishment of that Ceremony And lastly he pronounces That if they be in sins they shall be remitted which shews plainly enough it cannot belong only to Bodily Cures as he would have it But he tells us The Rituals of the Roman Church for above Eight hundred years understood it plainly of Bodily Cures and that Cardinal Cajetan himself freely confesses that it can belong to no other Had he only told us that the ancient Roman Rituals shew this Ceremony had a respect to Bodily Cures as well as to the Cures of the Mind he had told us nothing but what our Rituals at this day manifest and what may be gathered from the Council of Trent as the Bishop of Meaux observes Sess 14. de Sac. Extrem Unc. cap. 2. which speaking of the Effects of this Sacrament tells us That the Sick Person do's sometimes by it obtain Health of Body when it is expedient for the Salvation of the Soul Had he told us also only that