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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42238	The truth of Christian religion in six books / written in Latine by Hugo Grotius ; and now translated into English, with the addition of a seventh book, by Symon Patrick ...; De veritate religionis Christianae. English	Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645.; Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1680 (1680)	Wing G2128; ESTC R7722	132,577	348

hand I now take into my hands to present unto thy Majesty under the form of Bread and Wine Him thou canst not reject nor me his Priest who offer Him unto Thee c. Or some such like words more befitting their present notions than desiring an Angel may carry what the Priest offers and present it unto GOD. But we find quite contrary which is the last thing I shall observe that in conclusion the Priest acknowledges that by Christ Jesus God always creates and sanctifies and quickens and blesses making a cross upon the Host and the Chalice at every one of those three last words all these good things Which can be meant of nothing but the Bread and Wine consecrated to the commemoration and representation of Christ's body and bloud sacrificed for us For Christ's own very natural body and bloud cannot in any tolerable sense be said to be continually created and quickned or made alive unless you will suppose him to have been dead before nay not to have been at all For creation implies the thing not to have been and vivification not to have been then alive when it was quickned Yet this fancy of Christs real presence in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation against which there are such numerous Testimonies in their own Communion Service is now become the main Article of their Religion For we all know to our great grief and astonishment that when the publick Authority of this Realm was on their side subscription was not urged to any Article of their Religion upon such violent and bloudy terms as unto this of the Real Presence The Mystery of which iniquity as a great Man of our own said in the Age before us cannot be better resolved than into the powerful and deceitful working of Satan who delights thus to do despite to our Lord and to his Religion by seducing his professed Subjects into a belief of such things as make them and Him ridiculous unto unbelievers and ingage them in the worst kind of Rebellion he could imagine by worshipping Bread and Wine instead of their Saviour and all this upon the least occasions and shallowest reasons SECT XIII Other Instances of it BUT besides these plain confessions of that Church against it self there are many other things which I shall but just name wherein we have the testimony of several of their own learned Men ready to be produced for our and against their belief proving clearly that the present is not the old Religion of that Church but that they have brought into it many Innovations by adding to the Canonical Books of Scripture by making their vulgar Latine Translation of the Bible about which they themselves cannot agree authentical by forbidding the People to read the holy Scriptures in their own Language and by denying them the publick Prayers in a Language they understand by giving the Pope not only a new Title of Universal Bishop but an authority and jurisdiction which was never heard of for many Ages by increasing the number of Sacraments and altering their nature by taking away the Cup from the People and turning the Sacrament of Christs body and bloud into a proper expiatory sacrifice by celebrating the Eucharist without any body to communicate by setting up Images in Churches and ordaining Religious Worship to be given to them by invocating Saints and Angels as was said before and by the Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences and many other together with a vast number of strange ceremonies in the making holy water consecrating bells c. For which no antiquity can be pretended The woful effect of which is this if we may speak the plain Truth that by pressing upon Mens belief a great deal too much and placing great vertue in trifles they have tempted Men to believe nothing at all As is apparent from hence that where and when as an excellent Writer of our own speaks this Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheism or Infidelity hath most abounded And how should it do otherwise when as he observes so many lying Legends have been obtruded upon Mens belief and so many false Miracles forged to justifie them as are very likely to make suspicious Men question the truth of all And so many weak and frivolous ceremonies devised and such abundance of ridiculous observances in Religion introduced as are no less apt to beget a secret contempt and scorn of it in witty Men and consequently Atheism and Impiety if they have this perswasion setled in their mind which is indeavoured to be rooted in them from their childhood that if they be not of that Religion they were as good be of none at all And when a great part also of the Doctrines now mentioned so apparently make for the temporal ends of those who teach them that sagacious Men can scarce forbear thinking they were on purpose devised to serve those designs That particular doctrine also of Transubstantiation being so portentous that joyned with the forenamed perswasion of No Papists no Christians it hath in all probability brought more than Averroes to this resolution since Christians eat that which they adore let my Soul be among the Philosophers And lastly the pretence which is so common that there is no ground to believe the Scriptures but their Churches infallibility and yet no ground to believe their Churches infallibility but some Texts of Scripture being too plain a way to lead those who discern the labyrinth wherein they are to believe neither Church nor Scripture SECT XIV Whereby they have spoil'd Christianity as the Pagans did the Natural Religion THESE things which have been already urged by the Writers of our Church for the conviction of those who are capable of it I repeat here again because they seem to me very powerful for the preservation of those who are not already tainted or too far gone in that delusion Which is so great that to summ up all belonging to this Head we may safely say Popery is just such a depravation of the true Christian Religion as Paganism was of the Natural Religion There cannot be a righter conception of it than this which appears too plainly in the absurd doctrines and opinions which they have mingled with the Christian Faith in their multiplied superstitions in their fabulous relations of the Saints wherein they have surpassed the very Poets themselves and to pass by the rest in their prostrating themselves before Images and giving religious worship to Men departed Which last instance furnished the Pagans of Cochin with this answer to the Jesuits as Christoph Borrus one of that Order relates when they pressed upon them the belief of one God and no more We do believe it said they but those whom you see us worship in their Images were Men of great Sanctity whom pious People therefore worship according to their merit just as you give to the Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors divers degrees of honour and religious service as you know them to have excelled in vertue

over Jordan carried nothing with him save his staff only and yet returned enriched with a great flock of sheep Moses was a poor exile and feeding the flocks when God appeared to him in the bush and gave him commission for the conduct of his People David also was called to his Kingdom when he was feeding sheep and with many other such like examples doth the Sacred story abound Now concerning the Messias we read that he should be a gladsome Messenger unto the poor that he should make no noise in publick nor use any strife and contention but deal gently forbearing to break the shaken reed and cherishing that heat which remains in smoaking flax Neither ought the rest of his afflictions no not his ignominious death to make him despicable to any For God oftentimes suffereth the godly not only to be vexed and disquieted by the wicked as righteous Lot was by the Citizens of Sodom but also even to be destroyed and slain as is plain by the example of Abel who was cruelly murdered by his Brother of Isaiah who was sawn in pieces and of the seven brethren in the Macchabees who together with their mother were miserably tormented and put to death The very Jews themselves sing the Seventy-ninth Psalm wherein are these words The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven the flesh of those whom thou lovest O God unto the beasts of the earth Their bloud have they shed like water round about Jerusalem and there was none to bury them And whosoever considers the words of Isaiah in the 53. Chapter cannot deny that the Messias himself ought to have passed thorow much affliction and death to come into his Kingdom and obtain power to adorn his Houshold or Church with the most excellent blessings The words in the Prophet are these Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground He hath no form or comeliness and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him He is despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs And we hide as it were our faces from him He was so despised and in so small esteem among us Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he openeth not his mouth After imprisonment and sentence passed on him he was taken away but who shall worthily declare his duration when he was restored to life again For he was cut off out of the land of the living but for the transgression of my people he was stricken and he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death though he had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth But though it hath pleased the Lord to bruise him and he hath put him to grief Yet because he made himself an offering for sin he shall see his seed he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many by taking away their iniquities Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he hath poured out his soul unto death And he was numbred with the transgressors and he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors Who is there either among the Kings or Prophets to whom these things can be applyed Surely none As touching that shift which some later Jews have invented telling us that the Prophet speaks here of the Hebrews dispersed thorow all Nations that by their example and perswasion they might every where make many Proselytes this sense is first of all repugnant to many testimonies of holy Writ which loudly proclaim that no evil is befaln the Jews which they have not deserved and a great deal more beside for their evil deeds He also of whom Esaias treats was to deprecate God for the Heathen which the Jews do not And lastly the very order and series of the Prophetical Discourse will not bear that interpretation For either the Prophet which seems more proper to that place or God saith This evil happened unto him for the iniquities of my People Now the people of Isaiah or the peculiar people of God are the people of the Hebrews therefore he who is said by Isaiah to have suffered such grievous things cannot be that same People But the ancient Doctors of the Hebrews more ingenuously confess that these things were spoken of the Messias whereupon some later among them have devised two Messiases the one they call the Son of Joseph who was to suffer many miseries and a bloudy death the other is the Son of David to whom all things should succeed prosperously When it would be far more easie and more consonant with the Writings of the Prophets to acknowledge but one Messias who was to pass unto his Kingdom through many difficulties and death it self which we believe of Jesus and the thing it self declares to be most true SECT XX. And as though they were honest men that put him to death MANY of the Jews are kept back from receiving the Religion of Jesus by a certain preconceived opinion of the vertue and honesty of their Ancestors and specially of the Priests who out of prejudice condemned Jesus and rejected his Doctrine But what kind of Men their Ancestors oft-time were that they may not think I defame them let them hear the words of their own Law and Prophets wherein they are often called uncircumcised in heart and ears a people that honoured God with their lips and with the garnish of Ceremonies but their hearts were far from him It was their Ancestors that went about and were very near to have kill'd their brother Joseph and in very deed sold him into bondage It was their Ancestors also that by their continual mutinies and seditions made Moses weary of his life who was their Leader and Redeemer whom the Earth the Sea and the Air obeyed These were they that loathed the Bread that was sent from Heaven complaining as though they had been in greatest want and scarcity even when they belched up again the Fowl that they had eaten It was their Ancestors that forsaking

but to all People and not after that mankind had lived above the space of Two Thousand Years but even from the beginning of all Neither Abel Enoch Noah Melchisedeck Job Abraham Isaac or Jacob though all of them were godly men and dearly beloved of God knew this part of the Law but were altogether ignorant or very little acquainted therewith yet notwithstanding for all that they received the testimony of their confidence in God and of God's love unto them Besides neither did Moses exhort Jethro his Father in law to the receiving of these rites nor did Jonah the Ninivites neither did any other Prophets reprehend the Chaldeans Aegyptians Sydonians Tyrians Idumeans and Moabites for not admitting those ceremonies though when they writ unto them they reckoned up their sins exactly enough These then were peculiar precepts introduced either for the avoiding of some evil which the Jews were prone unto or for the trial of their obedience or for the signification of some future things Wherefore it is no more to be wondred that these are abolished than if any King should abrogate some Municipal Statutes which belong that is to particular Corporations to the end he might establish one law within his dominions Neither can there any reason be alledged to prove that God did so bind himself as that he would change nothing of the same For if it be said that these precepts are called perpetual the same word Men oftentimes use when they would signifie that that which they command is not yearly or accommodated to certain times suppose of War Peace or Scarcity Yet they are not thereby hindred from making new constitutions of the same things specially when the publick good requires it Thus in like manner some of the Divine precepts given to the Hebrews were temporary during the Peoples abode in the Wilderness others were strictly tied to their habitation in the Land of Canaan therefore to distinguish these from the other he calls them perpetual whereby might be understood that they ought not any where or at any time to be intermitted unless God signified that it was his will so to be Which manner of speaking since it is commonly used by all people ought to be less wondered at by the Hebrews who know that in their Law it is called a perpetual statute and a perpetual bondage which continues only from one Jubilee to another And the coming of the Messias is called by them the accomplishment of the Jubilee or the greatest Jubilee of all Thus in the Hebrew Prophets there was anciently a promise of making a new covenant as in Jerem xxxi where God promiseth that he will make a new covenant which shall be put into their inward parts and written in their hearts neither shall men have any need that one shall learn Religion of another for it shall be manifest unto all Yea further the Lord will forgive them their former iniquities and will remember their sin no more which is as if a King after great enmity and discord amongst his Citizens and Subjects should for the establishment of peace and tranquillity among them take away all diversity of Laws and make one perfect Law common to them all promising forgiveness of faults by-past if hereafter they do amend And this which hath been said might suffice but we will survey every part of the Law which is abrogated and shew they were neither such as in themselves could be well pleasing unto God nor ought they to continue for ever SECT VIII As the Sacrifices which of themselves were never well-pleasing unto God THE first and chief thing to be considered are the Sacrifices which many of the Hebrews think were invented by Man before that they were commanded by God And true it is indeed the Hebrews were desirous of abundance of Rites and Ceremonies so that there was cause enough why GOD should enjoyn them very many if it were but for this reason lest they should return unto the worship of false Gods by the remembrance of their sojourning in Egypt Howbeit when their Posterity made too great account of them as though of themselves they had been acceptable unto God and a part of true piety then did the Prophets reprehend them for it About Sacrifices saith God by David in the fiftieth Psalm I will not so much as exchange a word with thee as if I were desirous to have thy burnt offerings continually before me I will take no Buliock out of thy house nor he-goats out of thy folds For every beast of the forest is mine and so are the cattel upon a thousand hills I know all the fowls of the mountains and the wila beasts of the field are mine If I were hungry I would not tell thee for the World is mine and the fulness thereof thinkest thou that I will eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the bloud of goats Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the most high Some there are among the Hebrews who say that this is spoken because they that offered those sacrifices were of an impure mind and dishonest conversation But the words now alledged shew another matter to wit that the thing in it self was no whit acceptable unto God For if we consider the whole series and order of the Psalm we shall and that God in these words speaks unto the godly for he had said Gather my Saints together unto me and hear my people which are the words of a Teacher and one that instructeth Then having ended those words now alledged as his manner is he speaks unto the wicked But unto the wicked God saith To the same sense we may cite other places as in the 51. Psal Thou desirest not sacrifice else would I give it thee but thou delightest not in burnt-offerings The sacrifice of God is a broken Spirit a broken and contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise So likewise in the fortieth Psalm Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire but hast tied me to thee as he whose ear was boared through to be thy servant burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required Then said I Loe I come In the volume of the book it is written of me I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my heart I have preached righteousness in the great Congregation Loe I have not refrained my Lips O Lord thou knowest I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great Congregation The like we read in the Prophet Isaiah chap. 1. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me saith the Lord I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts and I delight not in the bloud of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats When ye come to appear before me who hath required this at your hand to tread my Courts Answerable to this place and the