this we understand the reproof which S. Paul makes of the Gnosticks Col. 2. of whose practice he forewarns the Christians that they suffer not themselves to be deceiv'd by the worshipping of Angels Now by these authorities it is plain that it can at least be no duty to worship Angels and therefore they that do it not cannot be blamed but if these words mean here as they do in all other places there is at least great danger to do it 4 And of the like danger is Invocation of Saints which if it be no more than a meer desire to them to pray for us why is it express'd in their publick Offices in words that differ not from our Prayers to God if it be more it creates in us or is apt to create in us confidence in the creatures it relies upon that which S. Paul us'd as an argument against worship of Angels and that is intruding into those things we understand not for it pretends to know their present state which is hid from our eyes and it proceeds upon the very reason upon which the Gnosticks and the Valentinians went that is that it is fit to have mediators between God and us that we may present our prayers to them and they to God To which adde that the Church of Rome presenting Candles and other Donaries to the Virgin Mary as to the Queen of Heaven do that which the Collyridians did the gift is only differing as Candle and Cake Gold and Garments this vow or that vow All which being put together makes a dangerous Liturgy not like to the Worship and Devotion us'd in the Primitive Church but so like to what is forbidden in Scripture that it is much the worse The advantage got by these things cannot countervail the evil of the suspicion and the wit of them that do so cannot by a secure answer escape the force of a prohibition and therefore it were infinitely more safe to let it alone and to invocate and adore him only who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Father of the Aeönes the Father of Men and Angels and God through Jesus Christ and that answers all objections 5. What good does the worship of Images do to the souls of Christians What glory is done to God by being represented in little shapes and humane or phantastick figures What Scripture did ever command it what prophet did not reprove it Is it not in all appearance and grammatical and proper understanding of words forbidden by an express Commandment of God Is there any duty incumbent on us to do it Certainly all the arts of witty men of the Roman side are little enough and much too little to prove that it is lawful to make and worship them and the distinctions and elusions the tricks and artifices are so many that it is a great piece of impertinent learning to remember them and no small trouble to understand them and they that most need the distinctions that is the common people cannot use them and at the best it is very hard to think it lawful but very easie to understand that it is forbidden and most easie to be assur'd it is very innocent to let it alone Where an image is there is no religion said Lactantius and we ought rather to die than to pollute our faith with such impieties said Origen Now let us suppose that these fathers speak against the heathen superstition of worshipping the images of their gods Against these quotations us'd in the Preface of the first Part the Author of the Letter to a friend page 3. And the Author of Truth will out page 6. object that these Fathers speak against the worshipping of the images of heathen gods not of the use of images amongst Christians which cavil the Reader may see largely refuted in the Sect. Of Images certainly if it was a fault in them it is worse in Christians who have received so many Commands to the contrary and who are tied to worship the Father in spirit and in truth and were never permitted to worship him by an image And true it is that images are more fit for false gods than for the true God the Father of Spirits the superstition of images is more proportion'd to the Idolatry of false gods than to true religion and the worship of him whom eye hath not seen and cannot see nor heart can comprehend And it is a vain Elusion to say that these Fathers did not severely censure the use of images among Christians for all that time among the Christians there was no use of images at all in religion and for the very reasons by which they condemn'd the heathen superstition of image-worship for the same reasons they would never endure it at all amongst Christians But then if this be so highly criminal as these Ancient Fathers say I desire it may be consider'd for what pretended reasons the Church of Rome should not onely permit but allow and decree and urge the use of images in their religious adorations If it be onely for instruction of the Laity that might be better supplied by Catechisings and frequent Homilies and if instruction be intended then the single Statues are less useful but Histories and Hieroglyphicks are to be painted upon Tables and in them I suppose there would be less temptation of doing abomination But when the images simple or mixt are painted or carved the people must be told what their meaning is and then they will not need such books who may with less danger learn their lesson by heart and besides this they are told strange stories of the Saints whose images they see and of the images themselves that represent the Saints and then it may be these Lay-mens books may teach them things that they must unlearn again But yet if they be useful for instruction what benefit is done to our spirits by giving them adoration That God will accept it as an honour done to himself he hath no where told us and he seems often to have told us the contrary and if it be possible by mans wit to acquit this practice from being what the prophets so highly reprove spiritual whoredom in giving Gods due to an image yet it can never be prov'd to be a part of that worshipping of God in spirit and in truth which he requires And though it would never have been believed in Origen's Tertullian's or Lactantius's days that ever there would arise a sort of Christians that should contend earnestly for the worshipping images or that ever the heathen way of worship viz. of what they call'd God by an image should become a great part of Christianity or that a Council of Bishops should decree the worship of images as an article of faith or that they should think men should be damned for denying worship to images yet after all this when it is considered that the worshipping of images by Christians is so great a scandal to the Indians that they think themselves justified in
fallen into Heresie since that time is now not worth inquiring but yet how reasonable that old doctrine is is very fit to consider 4. Of necessity it must be true because what ever kind of absolution or binding it is that the Bishops and Priests have power to use it does it's work intended without any real changing of state in the penitent The Priest alters nothing he diminishes no man's right he gives nothing to him but what he had before The Priest baptizes and he absolves and he communicates and he prays and he declares the will of God and by importunity he compells men to come and if he find them unworthy he keeps them out but it is such as he finds to be unworthy Such who are in a state of perdition he cannot he ought not to admit to the Ministeries of life True it is he prays to God for pardon and so he prays that God will give the sinner the grace of Repentance but he can no more give Pardon than he can give Repentance he that gives this gives that And it is so also in the case of Absolution he can absolve none but those that are truly penitent he can give thanks indeed to God on his behalf but as that Thanksgiving supposes pardon so that Pardon supposes repentance and if it be true Repentance the Priest will as certainly find him pardon'd as find him penitent And therefore we find in the old Penitentials and Usages of the Church that the Priest did not absolve the penitent in the Indicative or Judicial form To this purpose it is observed by Goar Pag. 676. in the Euchologion that now many do freely assert and tenaciously defend and clearly teach and prosperously write that the solemn form of reconciling Absolvo te à peccatis tuis is not perhaps above the age of 400 years and that the old form of Absolution in the Latin Church was composed in words of deprecation so far forth as we may conjecture out of the Ecclesiastical history ancient Rituals Tradition and other Testimonies without exception And in the Opuscula of Thomas Aquinas Opusc. 22. he tells that a Doctor said to him that the Optative form or deprecatory was the Usual and that then it was not thirty years since the Indicative form of Ego te Absolvo was us'd which computation comes neer the computation made by Goar And this is the more evidently so in that it appears that in the ancient Discipline of the Church a Deacon might reconcile the penitents if the Priest were absent Aleuin de Divini Offic. cap. Deâ—jejunio Si autem necessitas evenerit Presbyter non fuerit praesens Diaconus suscipiat poenitentem ac det Sanctam Communionem And if a Deacon can minister this affair then the Priest is not indispensably necessary nor his power judicial and pretorial But besides this the power of the Keys is under the Master in the hands of the Steward of the house who is the Minister of Government and the power of remitting and retaining being but the verification of the Promise of the Keys is to be understood by the same analogy and is exercised in many instances and to many great purposes though no man had ever dreamt of a judicial power of absolution of secret sins viz. in discipline and government in removing scandals in restoring persons overtaken in a fault to the peace of the Church in sustaining the weak in cutting off of corrupt members in rejecting hereticks in preaching peace by Jesus Christ and repentance through his name and ministering the word of reconciliation and interceding in the ministery of Christ's mediation that is being God's Embassadour he is God's Messenger in the great work of the Gospel which is Repentance and Forgiveness In short Binding and Loosing remitting and retaining are acts of Government relating to publick discipline And of any other pardoning or retaining no Man hath any power but what he ministers in the Word of God and prayer unto which the Ministery of the Sacraments is understood to belong For what does the Church when she binds a sinner or retains his sin but separate him from the communication of publick Prayers and Sacraments according to that saying of Tertullian Apolog. c. 39. Summum futuri judicii praejudicium est si quis ita deliquerit ut à communicatione orationis conventus omnis sancti commercii relegetur Homil. 50. c. 9. And the like was said by S. Austin Versetur ante oculos imago futuri judicii ut cum alii accedunt ad altare Dei quo ipse non accedit cogitet quà m sit contremiscenda illa poena qua percipientibus aliis vitam aeternam alii in mortem praecipitantur aeternam And when the Church upon the sinner's repentance does restore him to the benefit of publick Assemblies and Sacraments she does truly pardon his sins that is she takes off the evil that was upon him for his sins For so Christ prov'd his power on Earth to forgive sins by taking the poor man's palsie away and so does the Church pardon his sins by taking away that horrible punishment of separating him from all the publick communion of the Church and both these are in their several kinds the most material and proper pardons But then is the Church gives pardon propertionable to the evil she inflicts which God also will verifie if it be done here in truth and righteousness so there is a pardon which God onely gives He is the injured and offended Person and he alone can remit of his own right But yet to this pardon the Church does co-operate by her Ministery Now what this pardon is we understand best by the evils that are by him inflicted upon the sinner For to talk of a power of pardoning sins where there is no power to take away the punishment of sin is but a dream of a shadow sins are only then pardoned when the punishment is removed Now who but God alone can take away a sickness or rescue a soul from the power of his sins or snatch him out of the Devils possession The Spirit of God alone can do this It is the spirit that quickneth and raiseth from spiritual death and giveth us the life of God Man can pray for the spirit but God alone can give it our Blessed Saviour obtain'd for us the Spirit of God by this way by prayer I will pray unto the Father and he shall give you another Comforter even the spirit of truth and therefore much less do any of Christ's Ministers convey the spirit to any one but by prayer and holy Ministeries in the way of prayer But this is best illustrated by the case of Baptism Summ. part 4. q. 21. memb 1. It is a matter of equal power said Alexander of Ales to baptize with internal Baptism and to absolve from deadly sin But it was not fit that God should communicate the power of baptizing internally unto any lest we
in this affair Epiphanius is the first I mentioned as a witness Haeres 75. but because I cited no words of his and my adversaries have cited them for me but imperfectly and left out the words where the argument lies I shall set them down at length 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We make mention of the just and of sinners for sinners that we may implore the mercy of God for them For the just the Fathers the Patriarchs the Prophets Evangelists and Martyrs Confessors Bishops and Anachorets that prosecuting the Lord Jesus Christ with a singular honour we separate these from the rank of other men and give due worship to his Divine Majesty while we account that he is not to be made equal to mortal men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although they had a thousand times more righteousness than they have Now first here is mention made of all in their prayers and oblations and yet no mention made that the Church prays for one sort and only gives thanks for the other Letter pag. 10. Truth will out pag. 25. as these Gentlemen the objectors falsely pretend But here is a double separation made of the righteous departed one is from the worser sort of sinners the other from the most righteous Saviour True it is they believ'd they had more need to pray for some than for others but if they did not pray for all when they made mention of all how did they honour Christ by separating their condition from his Is it not lawful to give thanks for the life and death for the resurrection holiness and glorification of Christ And if the Church only gave thanks for the departed Saints and did not pray for mercy for them too how are not the Saints in this made equal to Christ So that I think the testimony of Epiphanius is clear and pertinent In Psal. 36. Conc. 2. To. 8. p. 120. To which greater light is given by the words of S. Austin Who is he for whom no man prays but only he who interceeds for all men viz. our Blessed Lord. And there is more light yet by the example of S. Austin who though he did most certainly believe his Mother to be a Saint and the Church of Rome believes so too yet he prayed for pardon for her Now by this it was that Epiphanius separated Christ from the Saints departed for he could not mean any thing else and because he was then writing against Aerius who did not deny it to be lawful to give God thanks for the Saints departed but affirm'd it to be needless to pray for them viz. he must mean this of the Churches praying for all her dead or else he had said nothing against his adversary or for his own cause S. Cyril though he be confidently denied to have said what he did say yet is confessed to have said these words A. L p. 11. Then we pray for the deceased Fathers and Bishops and finally for all who among us have departed this life Believing it to be a very great help of the souls Mysta Catech. 5. for which is offered the obsecration of the holy and dreadful sacrifice If S. Cyril means what his words signifie then the Church did pray for departed Saints for they prayed for all the departed Fathers and Bishops it is hard if amongst them there were no Saints but suppose that yet if there were any Saints at all that died out of the militant Church yet the case is the same for they prayed for all the departed And 2. They offered the dreadful sacrifice for them all 3. They offered it for all in the way of prayer 4. And they believed this to be a great help to souls Now unless the souls of all Saints that died then went to Purgatory which I am sure the Roman Doctors dare not own the case is plain that prayer and not thanksgivings only were offered by the Ancient Church for souls who by the Confession of all sides never went to Purgatory and therefore praying for the dead is but a weak argument to prove Purgatory Nicolaus Cabasilas hath an evasion from all this as he supposes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the word us'd in the memorials of Saints does not alwayes signifie praying for one but it may signifie giving of thanks This is true but it is to no purpose for when ever it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we pray for such a one that must signifie to pray for and not to give thanks and that 's our present case and therefore no escape here can be made the words of S. Cyril are very plain The third allegation is of the Canon of the Greeks which is so plain evident and notorious and so confess'd even by these Gentlemen the objectors that I will be tried by the words which the Author of the letter acknowledges So it is in the Liturgy of S. James Remember all Orthodox from Abel the just unto this day make them to rest in the land of the living in thy Kingdom and the delights of Paradise Thus far this Gentleman quoted S. James and I wonder that he shall urge a conclusion manifestly contrary to his own allegation Did all the Orthodox from Abel to that day go to Purgatory Certainly Abraham and Moses and Elias and the Blessed Virgin did not and S. Stephen did not and the Apostles that died before this Liturgy was made did not and yet the Church prayed for all Orthodox prayed that they might rest in the land of the living c. and therefore they prayed for such which by the confession of all sides never went to Purgatory In the other Liturgies also the Gentleman sets down words enough to confute himself as the Reader may see in the letter if it be worth the reading But because he sets down what he list and makes breaches and Rabbet holes to pop in as he please I shall for the satisfaction of the Reader set down the full sense and practice of the Greek Canon in this question And first for S. James his Liturgy Biblioth Sanct. 1. 6. Annot. 345 Sect. Jacob. Apostolus which being merrily disposed and dreaming of advantage by it he is pleased to call the Mass of S. James Sixtus Senensis gives this account of it James the Apostle in the Liturgy of the Divine sacrifice prays for the souls of Saints resting in Christ so that he shews they are not yet arriv'd at the place of expected blessedness But the form of the prayer is after this manner Domine Deus noster c. O Lord our God remember all the Orthodox and them that believe rightly in the faith from Abel the just unto this day Make them to rest in the region of the living in thy Kingdom in the delights of Paradise in the bosom of Abraham Isaac and Jacob our Holy Fathers from whence are banished grief sorrow and sighing where the light of thy countenance is president and perpetually
the case now for God hath forbidden any such way of passing honour to him by an image of him and he hath forbidden it in the second Commandement and this is confessed by Vasquez * Tom. 3. Comment in 3. part Qu. 25. art 3. disp 94. c. 3. So that upon this account for all the pretence of the same motion to the image and the sampler to pass such a worship to God is no better than the doing as the Heathen did when they worshipped Mercury by throwing stones at him An other authority brought by E. W. for veneration of images Pag. 50. is from Athanasius but himself damns it in the Margent with and without ingenuity for ingenuously saying that he does not affirm it to be the Great Athanasius yet most disingenuously he adds valeat quantum valere potest that is they that will be cosened let them And indeed these Questions and Answers to Antiochus are notoriously spurious for in them are quoted S. Epiphanius and Gregory Nyssen Chrysostom Scala Johannis Maximus and Nicephorus who were after Athanasius and the book is rejected by Delrio Martinus Delrio Vindiciae Areopag c. 14. by Sixtus Senensis and Possevine But with such stuff as this the Roman Doctors are forc'd to build their Babel and E. W. in page 56. quotes the same book against me for worshipping the Cross together with another spurious peice de Cruce passione Domini which Nannius a very learned man of their own and professor at Lovaine rejects as it is to be seen in his Nuncupatory Epistle Yea but S. Chrysostoms Liturgy is very clear for it is said that the Priest turns himself to our Saviours picture and bows his head before the picture and says this prayer These words indeed are very plain but it is not plain that these are S. Chrysostoms words for their are none such in S. Chrysostoms Liturgy in the Editions of it by Claudius de Saintes or Morellus and Claudius Espencaeus acknowledges with great truth and ingenuity that this Liturgy begun and compos'd by S. Chrysostom was enlarged by many things put into it according to the variety of times And it is evidently so because divers persons are there commemorated who liv'd after the death of Chrysostom as Cyrillus Euthymius Sabas and Iohannes Eleemosynarius whereof the last but one liv'd 126. years the last 213. years after S. Chrysostom Now how likely nay how certain it is that this very passage was not put in by S. Chrysostom but is of later interpolation let all the world judge by that known saying of S. Chrysostom Comment◠in Isai. c. 2. T 3. Quid enim est vilius atque humilius homine ante res inanimatas se incurvante saxa venerante What in the world is baser and more abject than to see a man worshipping stones and bowing himself before inanimate things These are his great authorities which are now come to nothing what he hath from them who came after these I shall leave to him to make his best of them for about the time of Gregory some began to worship images and some to break them the latter of which he reproves and the former he condemns what it was afterwards all the world knows But now having clear'd the Question from the trifling arguments of my adversaries I shall observe some things fit to be considered in this matter of images 1. It came at first from a very base and unworthy stock I have already pointed at this but now I shall explain it more fully it came from Simon Magus and his crew Theodoret says that the followers of Simon brought in the worship of images viz. of Simons in the shape of Jupiter De haeres ad qued vult Deum paulò ab initio haeres 1. E. W. pag. 51. and Helena in the figure of Minerva but S. Austin says that Simon Magus himself imagines suam cujusdam meretricis quam sibi sociam scelerum fecerat discipulis suis praebuisse adorandas E. W. upon what confidence I know not says that Theodoret hath nothing like it either under the title de Simone or Carpocrate And he says true but with a shameful purpose to calumniate me and deceive his Reader as if I had quoted a thing that Theodoret said not and therefore the Reader ought not to believe me But since in the Dissuasive Theodoret was only quoted lib. 5. haeret Cum ejus statuam in Jovis figuram construxissent Helenae autem in Minervae speciem eis thura adolebant libabant tanquam Deos adorabant Simonianos seipsos nominantes Theodoret. haeret fab lib. 1. tit Simonis haeresis in fin fabul and no title set down if he had pleased to look to the next title Simonis haeresis where in reason all Simons heresies were to be look'd for he should have found that which I referred to But why E. W. denies S. Austin to have reported that for which he is quoted viz. that Simon Magus brought in some images to be worshipped I cannot conjecture neither do I think himself can tell but the words are plain in the place quoted according to the intention of the Dissuasive But that he may yet seem to lay more load upon me he very learnedly says that Irenaeus in the place quoted by me says not a word of Simon Magus being Author of images and would have his Reader believe that I mistook Simon Magus for Simon Irenaeus Vide Irenae lib. 1. adv haeres c. 23. 24. But the good man I suppose wrote this after supper and could not then read or consider that the testimony of Irenaeus was brought in to no such purpose neither did it relate to any Simon at all but to the Gnostics or Carpocratians who also were very early and very deep in this impiety only they did not worship the pictures of Simon and Selene Vbi suprà haeres 7. but of Iesus and Paul and Homer and Pythagoras as S. Austin testifies of them But that which he remarks in them is this that Marcellina one of their sect worshipped the pictures of Iesus c. adorando incensumque ponendo they did adore them and put incense before them I wish the Church of Rome would leave to do so or acknowledge whose Disciples they are in this thing The same also is said by Epiphanius and that the Carpocratians placed the image of Iesus with the Philosophers of the world collocatasque adorant gentium mysteria perficiunt But I doubt that both Epiphanius and S. Austin who took this story from Irenaeus went farther in the Narrative than Irenaeus for he says only that they placed the images of Christ c. Et has coronant No more and yet even for this for crowning the image of Christ with flowers * Iren. reliquam observationem circa eas similitèr ut gentes faciunt i. e. sicut coeterorum illustrium virorum imaginibus consueverunt facere though they did not so much as is