Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

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truth_n	father_n	true_a	worship_v	5,831	5	9.4836	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56600	An answer to a book, spread abroad by the Romish priests, intituled, The touchstone of the reformed Gospel wherein the true doctrine of the Church of England, and many texts of the Holy Scripture are faithfully explained / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Symon, Lord Bishop of Ely.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1692 (1692)	Wing P745; ESTC R10288	116,883	290

of him when she stooped to touch the hem of his Garment His Fathers help him not at all For Eusebius only saith the Chair of St. James first Bishop of Jerusalem was preserved but not a word of its having any vertue in it or of its being kept to be worshipped as they now do Relicks Athanasius * In Vita S. Anton. speaks of an old Cloak and another Garment which St. Anthony desired might be given to him who had bestow'd it on him new when he died as we are wont to bequeath something or other in remembrance of us But that he laid it up and delivered it to posterity as a sacred Relick we are yet to learn And how far he was from desiring to have his Garments preserved as Relicks appears from the Charge he gives in the same place about his own Body which he would not have them carry into Egypt lest it should be reserved in some of their Houses * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mind this but bury it in some unknown place And so they did none knowing where they interred it but only two Servants to whom that care was committed His Friends indeed he saith kept those Garments as some great thing but mark what follows as the Reason For he that saw them thought be saw Anthony and he that wore them was as if he carried about with him joyfully his Precepts They were not laid up then as Relicks but used still as Garments which put them in mind of him and of his words St. Basil doth speak of wonderful things at the touch of the Bones of a Martyr whom God was pleased to honour at that time to convince Unbelievers of the truth of that Religion which Martyrs sealed with their Blood But there is no reason to expect such things now nor have their Bones been preserved to this Age. Saint Chrysostom's words are falsly alledged by Bellarmin from whom this man hath all these Fathers when he makes him say Let us visit them often let us adore their Tombs when in truth the very Latin Interpreter hath it let us adorn their Tombs and this not according to the Greek where it is let us touch their Coffin St. Ambrose his honouring the Ashes of Martyrs is nothing to the worshipping of them If we knew of any true Relicks of their Bodies we should not fail to honour them And we think the greatest honour would be to give them a decent burial XXXVI That creatures cannot be sanctified or made more holy than they are already of their own nature Answer NO not so much as to make them become Sacramental things which have a power in them to purge away venial sins cure diseases drive away devils preserve from all dangers and produce other such-like supernatural effects which they ascribe to Holy Water and many other blessed things But that creatures may be set apart to holy uses we own by our practice and withal acknowledg That by Prayer and Thanksgiving to God they may be blessed to us in the use of them more than otherwise they would be It is only the forementioned Sanctification of them which we believe to be superstitious and magical for we can find nothing in God's Word to warrant such consecrations of creatures to those supernatural effects St. Paul in 1 Tim. IV. 4. 1 Tim. IV. 4. speaks only of a general sanctification of the things we eat and drink which may be performed by any good Christian not of such a special one as this man intends made by the Bishop For doth any creature that we receive tho sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer cure diseases lay storms and tempests preserve from Thunder and Lightning and such-like mischiefs The Apostle plainly disputes against those who condemned the use of certain meats as not only the Jews but the Followers of Simon Magus Ebion and others did which he proves from the words of Moses as Theodoret observes are all good in their kind And if they be received with Thanksgiving in remembrance of God who hath made these things and by his Word given us allowance to eat them they become more than good saith the same Theodoret being sanctified by that holy action which makes the use of them well-pleasing to God That 's the most that can be meant by Sanctified And so Emanuel Sa one of his own Interpreters expounds it It is sanct fi●d that is made fit for food Which Claud. Guillandus like a man of learning thus further explains It is sanctified by the word of God ' by which we believe that nothing is any longer common or unclean and by Prayer whereby we request that such things may be given us and for which being given we return thanks to God But the Popish Sanctification of Creatures supposes that they are not only unclean but that the Devil is in them or that they are under his power the very opinion of the old Hereticks which is the reason of their Exorcisms that they may cast the Devil out of them Whereas should we grant they are any way unclean as Theophylact and Menochius think the Apostle speaks by way of Concession it is quite taken away and purged that 's all they understand by Sanctification if we take this to be the sense by God's word which allows the use of them and by Prayer and Benediction when we sit down to eat our meat We need not be told That in ancient time they sent sometimes part of the Consecrated Bread unto their neighbours in token of mutual love and fellowship in the same Faith But this was forbidden by the Council of Laodicea and when afterwards they sent only Bread Blessed not Consecrated unto those who were not yet baptized but in the number of Learners under instruction that had the like meaning to put them in hope they should at last be taken into Church Communion But what is this to the Blessing of Water and Oyl and Wax c. for such purposes as Agnus Dei's are Consecrated in the Roman Church Which may be seen in several of our Authors out of the Ceremoniale His Texts out of XXIII Matth. 17 19. prove no such Sanctification either of the Altar or Gift but only the separation of them from profane uses which doth not amount to the making them powerful against sin the Devil and all manner of evil He bids us see more in 2 Kings II. where we find Elisha cast salt in the waters and thereby made them wholsome to drink but did not infuse into them such a vertue as they pretend to give to the water mixed with salt which the Priest exorcises in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost with Crosses at the name of every one of them that it may become an exorcised water to drive away all the power of the enemy and to root out the Enemy himself with all his apostate Angels as their Church speaks in the Office for this purpose Why he mentions Raphel's using the Liver

Nay his own Sixtus Senensis saith upon the like place though Noah Daniel and Job stood before me that the Prophet speaks upon a supposition that if such men as they were in this sinful World they should deliver none c. God would not hear them for such a wicked People It is of no consequence what Baruch saith being never reputed a Canonical Book and according to his own Rule in his Preface ought to pass for nothing unless he had prov'd the same that Baruch saith by places of Canonical Writ Besides III. Baruc 4. dead Israelites may mean no more but those now dead who when they were alive prayed as their Posterity now did And so Nich. Lyra understands by dead Israelies the holy Patriarchs and Prophets who when they were alive prayed for the good Estate of their Posterity Or dead may signify those whose condition was so low that they could do nothing for themselves as he describes all Israel v. 10. that they were accounted with them that go down into the grave that is dead men This I will stand to it is an Interpretation they cannot confute Theodoret doth say that these words clearly prove the immortality of the Soul and that 's all I see no reason why II. Rev. 26 27. may not be interpreted of the preferment Christ promised in this world to those who should keep his words i. e. fulfil his Commands to the end of that present persecution But if it relate to the other World Menochius a better Interpreter than he expresly saith that Christ speaks of the power which the Saints shall exercise in the day of judgment over all Nations which did not obey Christ judging them with Christ and delivering them to the punishment of eternal death Agreeable to what we read III. Wisd 8. They shall judge the Nations and have dominion over the people St. Austin hath not a word of this matter upon the second Psalm but only says these words ruling with a Rod of iron is as much as with inflexible Justice We see what th●se men would bring things to it they be let alone The Saints may be looked upon now as Rulers of this World by a power imparted unto them from Christ who hath thus established them this man saith over the Nations He should have shewn us where he reads this for we cannot find it here But this leads him into reasoning again finding so little help in his express Scriptures and that is as weak as all the rest For it is out of a Parabolical Scripture before-named from which all acknowledge Arguments ought not to be drawn And besides it is not a Prayer to Abraham but such a request as we make one to another here when we want relief What St. Austin saith on this place is not worth the searching after for it will prove no more than what he quotes out of his XVth Sermon de verb. Apostol he should have said the XVIIth where he distinguisheth between the Commemoration that was made of the Martyrs at the Altar and of other Faithful persons For the l●tter they prayed but this would have been an injury he thinks to the Martyrs by whose Prayers we rather should be recommended to God But this signifies no more than a general recommendation of the Church to God's Mercy His next Father St. H●lary speaks only of what Angels do not of Saints And I gave an account of that before but for want of company he brings him in again He concludes with Damascen a Father that lived almost Eight hundred years after Christ and was so credulous as to vouch it for a Truth That Trajan's Soul was delivered out of H ll by Gregory 's Prayers and saith The whole world witnesseth it Which all the world now even their own Church believes to be a fable And yet this Damascen s●ith no more but that they are to be honoured as those that make Intercession to God for us that is for the Church XXXIII That we ought not to beseech God to grant our Prayers in favour of the Saints or their merits nor do we reeeive any benefit thereby Answer IT is no small favour that we can get so much truth out of him as to confess That this is one way of their Praying by the Mediation of Saints to beseech God to grant their desires in favour of them and their merits For some of his brethren mince the matter and say they only desire the Saints to pray for them But their Missals and Breviaries confute such men as notorious dissemblers for there are abundance of Prayers like this That * Decemb. VI. by the Merits and Prayers of St. Nicholas God would deliver them from the fire of Hell Which if it be an allowable way of Praying I do not see but the Saints are Mediators of Redemption as well as of Intercession as they are wont to distinguish for by their merits is a great deal more than by their Intercession And if they intercede by their merits wherein do they fall short of Christ who by his Merits redeemed us and in virture of the same Merits intercedes for us But let us hear his Scriptures which the Reader may take notice are every one of them out of the Old Testament during which according to the common Doctrine of their Church the Souls of pious men were held in a Limbus remote from God in the borders of Hell and therefore could not be Intercessors with God much less plead their merits This is enough to overthrow his whole Discourse in this Chapter yet to shew his folly a little more fully I am content to consider them particularly The first is XXXII Exod. 13. which he hath the confidence to say XXXII Exod. 13. is against us in express words when there is no mention of merit and the sense is evidently declared in the Text it self which speaks of the Oath of God to those great men Abraham Isaac and Jacob shewing that Moses his Prayer was grounded not upon their merit but upon God's gracious Covenant with them confirmed by his Oath XXVI Gen. 3. Which is the sense of Theodoret also whom this man most shamefully belies in the place by him quoted Moses mentions the name of the Patriarchs instead of supplication and remembers the Oaths made to them and begs that the Covenants wherein he was engaged to them might stand firm Who would trust such a man as this who makes Theodoret say that Moses added the intercession of the holy Patriarchs thinking himself insufficient when he only saith he mentioned their name as men i. e. in covenant with God instead of supplication And thus he deals with St. Austin or rather worse who in the place he mentions saith not a word of Abraham Isaac and Jacob but only of Moses whose merits were so great with God as his most faithful Servant that God saith Let me alone c. upon which Passage he makes this reflection We are admonished hereby that when our

but all to Abraham who is desired to send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger c. And yet this man was so intoxicated with some thing or other that he thinks the rich man called upon Lazarus also to have Mercy on him For shame let them throw this Book away and not give it about any more For all that can be gathered from this story is that such was the torment of the rich man that if he could have seen Abraham and Lazarus in his Bosom and have spoken to him he would have expressed in some such words as these his intollerable pain It is to no end to look what St. Austin saith I know not where when he declares himself so positively * L. XXII de Civ Dei c. 10. That tho they named the Martyrs at the Altar yet they were not invoked by the Priest that sacrificed The next place of Scripture I have considered before V. Job 1. and both given the meaning and answered his Cavils when he brought it to prove praying to Angels as now so indigent and beggarly they are it is pressed for praying to Saints He will lose his labour that looks into the other places which he barely names or into his Fathers Some of which are forged as Dionysius Areop Athanasius de Annunc St. Chrysostom Hom. 66. ad Pop. for there 's but one and twenty in the Ancient Greek MS. as Posevine acknowledges Maximus Taurin whose Sermon upon Saint Agnes is by others ascribed to St. Ambrose but Bellarmin confesses it contradicts St. Ambrose in another place and therefore cannot be his nor any one's else on whom we can rely And others of his Fathers are falsely alledged as St. Basil who only says that People run to their Memories or Monuments viz. there to pray to God not to them St. Bernard is a Father that lived above 1150. years after Christ who should have learnt of his Elders particularly Epiphanius * Her LXXXIX that Mary is to be honoured but God the Father Son and Holy Ghost alone to be worshipped I could name a vast number of the Fathers who expresly condemn this Worship of Saints and none more than Saint Chrysostom St. Hierom doth not pray to Paula but speaking to her in an Oration as if she were present saith Farewel Paula and help thy honourer that is him that honoured her when she was alive with thy Prayers From hence one may plainly conclude he never intended to pray to her for he takes his leave of her and bids her adieu and is one of those Fathers who believed the Saints do not know what we do here as appears by another Epitaph he made upon Nepotian as this upon Paula where he saith Nepotian was happy in that he neither saw nor heard the Calamities which were then upon the Church XXXV That the Bones or Relicks of Saints are not to be kept or reserved no vertue proceeding from them after they be once dead Answer HEre he saith some truth We do beli●ve they ought not to be kept or reserved that is to be worshipped but to be decently buried as we read in the most ancient Letter of the Church of Smyrna the Reliques of Polycarp were His first Text 2 King XIII 21. 2 King XIII 21. saith not a word much less speaks expresly of their taking the Bones of Elisha out of the Sepulchre but for any thing that appears they let them lie there still Nor doth it say any vertue proceeded out of them but that upon the touching of them the dead man revived and stood upon his feet that is was raised by the power of God Who thereby testified to the truth of Elisha's Prophecy and confirmed the Israelites in the belief of what he had said a little before he died concerning their Victories over the Syrians Acts V. 14 15. The next place V. Act. 14 15. is alledged so senselesly that it may tempt one to be a little pleasant upon it For is not a shadow cast from a man's Body a pretty Relick Who caught it How did they keep it Who can shew us this Relique or where shall we find it reserved And what proof is there that vertue proceeded out of Peter's shadow and cured sick People we believe it went forth from our Lord as Peter passed by and cast his shadow upon them The Sermon he quotes of Saint Austin is a Bastard lewdly fathered on him And the gloss which this man makes upon this passage of it is very idle For it is most reasonable to take the sense of it to be this that if they received so much benefit by his shadow the fulness of his power could do more for them speaking not of what he can do now in Heaven but what at that time they might have received when his very shadow coming upon them they were healed of their Infirmities So he says the words are in their Bible but he undertook to confute us out of our own And if this passage was in ours as it would have been now if it had been found in the most ancient Copies it would have signified no more then the rest of the words do without it Which give us sufficiently to understand that the sick were cured when Peter's shadow overshadowed them XIX Acts II. 12. says not a syllable of those Aprons and Handcherchiefs being kept as Relicks much less of their working any Cures when the Apostles were dead or after that time when they were immediately brought from St. Paul's Body unto the Sick St. Chrysostom might well argue the Divinity of our Saviour from the power that wrought in his Servants nay accompanied their very Shadows and Napkins But doth this prove that these Napkins were kept as Reliques Shadows we are sure could not and that this vertue proceeded from them was inherent and continued in them when the Apostles were gone For this the Reader may go look if he know where Hitherto we have not heard one word to the purpose and if we will see more we shall find nothing but that they carried Joseph's Bones with them when they went out of Egypt XIII Exod. 19. XIII Exod 19. because he charged them so to do as an argument God would bring them into Canaan where he desired his Bones might be laid in the Grave of his Father not kept as Relicks for People to kiss and worship We read also that Elijah's Mantle fell down from him when he was carried to Heaven with which Elisha smote the waters 2 Kings II. 2 King II. 8.14 8.14 but what became of this Mantle we do not read it is most likely he wore it out I can find nothing of the reverend esteem St. John Baptist had of our Saviour's Shoe-latchet much less of his keeping it for a Relick I. Joh. 27. I. John 27. He only expresses his reverent esteem of our Saviour whom he was not worthy to serve in the meanest Ministry as the Woman did her high opinion