Tell me I pray you do you not hold that there are two kinds of Religious Worship namely absolute which you give to God or the Saints and relative which you give to their Images Pop. I must own it Prot. Then it is horrible impudence to say you do not give worship to the Images since you give one of these two kinds unto them and unto them only besides if all you say were true this would not acquit you from Idolatry for your Church professeth and commandeth the Worship of the Images of Saints as well as of God and Christ and since it is Idolatry to give Divine Honour to any creature as I before proved you are no less guilty in giving it to the Saints themselves than to their Images and so you are double-dy'd Idolaters My second Argument is taken from the second Commandment Thou shalt not make any graven Image But first I pray you tell me true hath your Church left out this second Commandment in divers of her Breviaries and Offices of Prayer or do our Ministers slander them I hear that In the Hours of our Lady Printed at Paris An 1611. The Commandments of the first Table are set down in these words and no other 1. Commandment I am the Lord thy God thou shalt not have nor worship any other God but me 2. Commandment Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain 3. Commandment Remember to keep holy the Sabbath Day and Feasts And that the Council of Ausburg Ann. 1548. delivering the Commandments in Dutch for the People leave out the mention of Images and that their cheat might not be discovered that the people might have their full number they make use of the mistake of one of the Fathers and divide the last Command into two against Sense and Reason and the practice of the whole ancient Church Are these things so Pop. It is true it is left out in some of our Books but we leave it in in all Bibles and divers of our Catechisms Prot. Very well I see you had wit in your anger I commend your discretion that you did not your work so grosly that all the world should cry shame of you But that you blotted it out in any is an evidence of your guilt but what say you to this Argument Pop. Then my first answer is That this Command was peculiar to the Iews who were most prone to Idolatry Prot. This is not true It sufficiently appears that the Gentiles were under the obligation of this Law from those punishments which God inflicted upon them for their transgression or breach of it by Idolatry Rom. 1. But where there is no Law there is no transgression Besides Christ tell us He came not to destroy the Law the Moral Law but to fulfil it Mat. 5. 17. Belike you are not of his mind and dare you say the Jews as soon they believed in Christ were discharged from this command and allowed to worship the Images which that command forbad Pop. I will not say so but I have a second Answer The thing prohibited here is not Images which are representations of real things as you falsly render it but Idols which are the Images of false gods which are not and never were in the world Prot. The Text its self is full against you for the Images there prohibited are not said to be the Images of the false gods of the Heathens whereof many never had any being but the Images of any thing in heaven or earth c. Moreover divers of the Heathen gods were men whom they deified I hope their Pictures were Pictures of real things yet these are Idols Pop. Though they really were Men yet their pictures were made to represent them as gods and such they were not really and therefore were Idols Prot. The learned Heathens knew as well as you and I do that Iupiter and Mars and Mercury and the rest were meer Men and they smiled at the ignorance of their Vulgar that thought otherwise only they thought of them just as you do of the Saints that the great God had put some of his honour upon them and therefore they might worship them you cannot be so silly to think the learned Heathens thought Augustus was a god really when he was dead yet their worship of his Image was Idolatry And they that worshipped the Image of Caligula while he lived were not so sottish to take him for a god whom they knew to be a foolish and wicked man yet I hope you will not excuse them from Idolatry But further as the Jews did universally understand this to be a prohibition of all manner of Images so all the Prophets and Christ and the Apostles were so far from reproving them which they would have done if it had been an Error that they every where strengthen them in this opinion by declaiming against all worship of Images without any distinction And tell me I pray you if any Jew had at that time made for instance an Image of the Sun not looking on it as God but as a glorious creature of God and therefore fit to be religiously worshipped as you think of the Saints and Angels and had bowed down to it and worshipped it Do you think he had not broken this Law Pop. I dare not deny but he had broken it Prot. Yet this had been no Idol but an Image according to your sense of it Besides I find that all manner of Images are forbidden Lev. 26. 1. howsoever to me you seem to venture your salvation upon a nice point for the Hebrew word is neither Image nor Idol but Pesel as a Divine told me and this I understand is diversly translated some render it an Image others an Idol Now you ventrue your soul upon it that the last is the only true Translation which is a dreadful hazard because it is otherwise rendred not only by Protestants but by the most and best ancient interpreters even those whom your Vulgar Translation very oft follows in other places These render it not an Idol but a graven Image and the Seventy Interpreters I am assured po promiscuously render the word sometimes an Idol sometimes a graven Image Nay more than this that it may appear how desperately our cause is I am informed your own Vulgar Translation from which you are obliged not to swerve doth frequently render it not Idol but a graven Image Sculptile particularly in Exod 20. 4. Levit. 26. 1. and Deut. 4. 16 25. and 5. 8. Are these things so Pop. I cannot deny it for the Authors themselves would confute me But one thing I have to say you must understand one Scripture so as to agree with another Now I find God himself allows and prescribes some Images as those of the Cherubims either then he contradicts himself or he doth not forbid all Images but Idols only Prot. Though I might say God may make an exception to some of his Laws when no man can as
Body of Christ Do not you profess that as soon as ever it ceaseth to be Bread it becomes the Body of Christ Pop. We do so Prot. Then surely if it be a substance according to you it must be either Bread or the Body of Christ but you allow it to be neither and therefore it is no substance at all In the next place for the word is I have shewed you do not understand that properly neither but for the word Body also do you understand that properly Pop. Yes without doubt Prot. I am told that your Church professeth to believe that Christs body is there after the manner of a spirit taking up no room that head hands feet are altogether in the least crumb of the Host. Is this true Pop. Yes we all agree in that Prot. Then sure I am the word Body is most improperly taken A learned man well observes that you plead for the propriety of words and destroy the propriety of things How can you say that it is properly a body which wants the essential property of a body which is to have quantity and take up room Take away this and the body may be properly a spirit for it is that only which differenceth it from a spirit So now I see you neither do nor can understand these words properly and upon the whole matter that this Doctrine is false and your Proofs most weak and frivolous you shall see that I have better arguments against your Doctrine than you have for it Pop. I pray you let me hear them but be brief in them Prot. I have only three Arguments your Doctrine is against Sense against Reason and against Scripture Pop. Let me see how you will make these things good Prot. For the first I ask you if I am as sure that your Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false as you are sure that the Christian Religion is true will you desire more evidence Pop. If I should I were an unreasonable person Prot. And have you any greater assurance now of the truth of the Christian Religion than you could have had if you had lived in Christs dayes Pop. That were impudence to affirm but what do you mean Prot. If you had lived then what greater evidence could you have had of it than what your senses afforded for since the great Argument for Christianity as all agree was the words that Christ spake and the works that Christ did how could you be sure that he did so speak or so work if you may not credit the reports of your eyes and ears This was S. Lukes great evidence of the truth of what he writes that it was delivered to him by eye-witnesses S. Luke 1. 1 2. and St. Johns what we have seen with our eyes and our hands have handled of the Word of life 1 John 1. And St. Paul for Christs Resurrection that he was seen of Cephas then of the twelve then of the 500 1 Cor. 15. 5 6. Even Thomas his Infidelity yielded to this argument that if he did thrust his hand into Christs side he would believe John 20. 25. Christ judged this a convincing argument when the Apostles thought he had been a Spirit handle me and see for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me have Luk. 24. 39. Are these things true Pop. I cannot deny it they are not yours but Scripture assertions Prot. And do not all my senses tell me that this is Bread Pop. I must grant that but your sense is deceived Prot. Then your senses also might have been deceived about the words and works of Christ and so the greatest evidence of Christian Religion is lost but for my part it makes me abhor your Religion that so you may but seem to defend your own opinions you care not if you shake the pillars of Christianity My second Argument is that your Doctrine of Transubstantiation is against reason Tell me I pray you do you think any of the Articles of Christian Religion are contrary to reason Pop. No they may be above reason but God forbid I should be so injurious to Christianity to say any of them are against reason Prot. But your doctrine is as much against reason as sense for it makes you believe things absolutely impossible and gross contradictions Pop. You may imagine many things impossible that really are not so but if you can prove any real impossibilities which this doctrine forceth us to believe I must yield for we joyn with you in condemning the Lutheran opinion that Christs Body is every where because it is an impossibility and we therefore expound those words I am the Vine I am a door c. figuratively because it is impossible for him who is a man to be a vine or a door Prot. And it is no less impossible for the Bread to be Christs Body Why might not the Vine as well as the Wine be by Transubstantiation converted into Christs Substance I think the Mother is as good as the Daughter and especially since Christ saith I am the true Vine you might as well have devised another transubstantiation to make Christs words good I know what work you would have made of it if he had said This is my TRVE Body or my TRVE Blood But to give that over I will shew you that there is such an heap of contradictions as never met together in the most absurd opinion that ever was in the world I profess when I set my wit at work I cannot devise greater absurdities than you believe Tell me do you hold that the whole Body of Christ is present in every crumb of the Bread and in every drop of the Wine Pop. Yes doubtless Christ is there entire and undivided Prot. I suppose you believe that Christs Body is in Heaven in such a proportion or bigness as he had upon Earth Pop. No doubt of that Prot. Then the same Body of Christ is bigger than it self and longer than its self and which is yet worse Christ is divided from himself I know not what can be more impossible than to say that all Christ is at Rome and all at London and all in Heaven and yet not in the places between Pop All this is by Gods Almighty Power Prot. Then I suppose by the same Almighty Power it is possible for any other man to be in so many places for it matters not that Christ be invisibly in so many places and another should be there visibly or that Christ is there in so little a bulk and another must be in a greater Pop. I must needs grant that and I affirm it is not absolutely impossible for any other man to be at several places at once by Gods Power Prot. Then mark what monsters follow from this suppose now Iohn to be by divine Power at the same time at Rome at Paris and at London where ever Iohn is alive I suppose he hath a power to move himself Pop. That must needs be else he were not a
of sin of God and of his Law that can so judge of such an horrid evil as Sin Scripture fully condemns this Doctrine It tells me that the wages of sin all sin without any difference is death even that death which is opposite to eternal life Rom. 6. 23. that He that shall break the least of Gods commands and teach men so though peradventure he do it ignorantly and so according to your opinion it is a venial sin shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven that is he shall have no portion there It tells me Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3. 10. And he speaks of that curse which Christ underwent for us and redeemed us from It tells me that for every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the Day of Iudgment and by such words if not repented of they shall be condemned Mat. 12. 36 37. So now your foundation and one of the Pillars of Purgatory is gone And as for your other fansie that Christ did not satisfie for our temporal punishments I pray you tell me did not Christ suffer temporal afflictions Pop. Yes doubtless the whole Gospel is full of such sufferings Prot. Surely all that Christ suffered he suffered for us both in our stead and for our good He was cut off not for himself but for our sins Dan. 9. 25. It was for our sakes that he bare that temporal part of the curse to be hanged on a Tree and all that pain and shame was but a temporal punishment Gal. 3. 13. I read Isa. 53. that Christ bore our griefs and carried our sorrows v. 4. which was not only accomplished in this that he bare the guilt of our sins as S. Peter expounds it 1 Pet. 2. 24. but also in this that he delivered them from sicknesses and temporal afflictions as St. Matthew expounds it Mat. 8. 16 17. and both these consist well together since Christ removed both sin the cause and affliction the effect of it Pop. If Christ had satisfied for our temporal punishments then Believers should be free from all pains and loss and death which it is apparent they are not and therefore notwithstanding the fulness of Christs satisfaction they may be liable to pains in Purgatory as well as in this life Prot. To this I answer three things First Your inference from the pains of this life to the torments of Purgatory is weak and false I may and must believe that God afflicts his people here because Scripture and Experience put it out of doubt But that Cod will punish his people in Purgatory after this life no Scripture affirms You that can multiply your instances of the sufferings of Believers in this life and can tell us of Adam and David and Solomon and many others have not to this day been able though often urged to produce one instance of the sufferings of any one Believer after this life which one consideration is sufficient to overthrow this Argument in the judgement of any indifferent man Secondly There is not the same reason for the sufferings of believers here and those which you suppose in Purgatory nor are they of the same nature The present sufferings of Believers are necessary 1 Pet. 1. 6. You are in heaviness if need be both for Believers themselves to subdue the Flesh which in this life is potent and altogether needs such a curb By this shall the iniquity of Iacob be purged Isa. 27. 9. and to prevent their eternal damnation 1 Cor. 11. 32. as also for the terror and caution of other offenders So that albeit Christ hath fully paid the debt yet it is upon other accounts convenient that they should smart and suffer here But there is no such necessity nor use of Purgatory sufferings neither for Believers themselves since there is no mortification of corruption after this life no temptations to sin there no improvement of grace no fear of eternal damnation nor for example and warning to others For their fellow-sufferers in Purgatory you do not pretend they are at all edified by their sufferings and men here they neither see nor know any thing of these pains nor hath God revealed any thing concerning them but when God makes any examples to others he sets them in the view of others or at least acquaints them fully therewith as he did with Hell torments to this end It were a senslesâ— thing to hang up a man in Iamaica for the terror of those that live in England Besides the sufferings of Believers here do come from the love and faithfulness of God Heb. 12. 6. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth Psal. 119. 75. In faithfulness thou hast afflicted me Accordingly good men have looked upon them as choice mercies Psal. 97. 12. Blessed is the man whom thou chastnest and Psal. 119. 67. It was good for me that I was afflicted and the denial of afflictions is threatned as a grievous punishment Is. 1. 5. Hos. 4. 14. 17. But now the sufferings of Purgatory are in all points contrary they are purely vindictive and the effects of meer wrath nor do you esteem those sufferings a mercy and your happiness but freedom from them And therefore your Argument from the pains of this life to those in Purgatory is foolish and absurd Thirdly Believers suffering here do not at all derogate from the fulness of our Redemption by Christ because as I have shewed admitting that to be compleat yet they are necessary for other purposes But your Purgatory sufferings do by communicating at least some part of his proper work to your selves You profess they wash away part of your sins which is Christs peculiar honor He washed us from our sins in his own blood Rev. 1. 5. You make them a part of the curse of the Law from which and not only from a part of it Christ hath redeemed us himself being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. You make them a real satisfaction in part to Gods justice which is not satisfied by all that Christ did or suffered without them And in a word you make men in part their own Redeemers and Saviours I hope by this you see how weakly you reason from present troubles to Purgatory torments and that notwithstanding your objection my first Argument stands good agâ—inst Purgatory My second Argument is this that the Scripture every where speaks of the state of Believers immediately after death as happy and blessed and that all the sufferings of Believers are confined to this life and of this we have many expressions and examples too in Scripture and not one to the contrary The sufferings of this present time saith S. Paul are not worthy to be compared with the glory Rom. 8. 18. He knew no other sufferings the afflictions of Believers are light and but for a moment and they too are in things that are seen 2 Cor. 4. 17 18.
it is Gods grace which gives them all their worth and meetness for Heaven Coloss. 1. 12. it is impudence to pretend to merit from God by it If yet you will boast of your own worth and merit answer the Apostles question at your leasure 1 Cor. 4. 7. For who maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou didst not receive now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it If you can baffle your conscience now you will find it an hard question to answer at the last day Pop. But eternal life is given them by Gods justice 2 Thess. 4. 6. 1 Tim. 4. 7 8. Prot. This word also doth not prove any merit for Gods Justice is oft-times taken improperly I read 1 Iohn 1. 9. If we confess our sins he is just and faithful to forgive them yet justification is not merited as you confess but is an act of meer grace being justified freely by his grace c. Rom. 3. 24 28. thus 2 Pet. 1. 1. we are said to obtain precious faith through the righteousness of God and yet faith is the gift of God and you confess that is given without merit for you grant none but justified persons can merit therefore in such places justice is taken either for equity and the congruity of it with Gods nature or word or for the faithfulness of God or the like Pop. Since you despise my arguments let me hear if you have better against the merit of good works Prot. You shall and methinks that one place Luke 17. 10. should convince you when ye shall have done all these things which are commanded you say we are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our duty to do Pop. Christ doth not affirm they are unprofitable but only bids them say they are unprofitable and teaches them to be humble Prot. Very well then you think Christ taught them to think one thing and say another that is he taught them the art of lying and that to God Pop. I answer further that without Gods grace men are unprofitable they only can merit that are in the state of grace as our Church holds Prot. Doth not your Conscience tell you the Apostles whom Christ commands to say thus were in the state of grace Pop. Though a man cannot profit God he may profit himself Prot. If he cannot profit God he cannot properly merit any thing from God for that implies a proportion between giving and receiving Pop. It is true we are unprofitable by our selves in regard of Gods absolute Soveraignty but not unprofitable in regard of Gods gracious Covenant Prot. It is ridiculous to say that is merit properly which depends on Gods meer grace and besides the Pharisees themselves whose errour Christ there strikes at were never so vain or absurd to think that they could be profitable to God in any other sense than what you affirm Pop. Let me hear your other Argument Prot. The nature of merit shews the impossibility of it in men It is evident that to merit these amongst other ingredients are required First that the work be not due already doth any man deserve an estate for that money whereby he payes an old debt Secondly That the work be our own you do not think a noble mans Almoner merits by distributing his Masters Alms. Thirdly that it be profitable to him of whom he merits Fourthly That the work be perfect for that action which needs a pardon certainly cannot deserve a reward Fifthly That it be suitable to the reward if I present my Prince with an Horse and he requites me with a Lordship who but a Horse would pretend this was merited Pop. I must acknowledge most of these things are true but this doth not concern our works Prot. That we will now examine and first all the works now we can do for God are deserved by him It fills me with horrour to hear men pretending to merit of that God who as they profess created them and every day upholds their souls in life and redeemed them and is so infinitely before hand with them every way Tell me dare you say that God doth not deserve that you should do the utmost you can for his service and glory Pop. I will not say so Prot. Then it is impudence to pretend merit from God besides the good works we do are not properly our own but Gods Faith is the gift of Gâ—d Ephes. 2. 8. Phil. 1. 29. So is Repentance Acts 11. 18. 5. 31. and in general every good and perfect gift is from God Jam. 1. 17. Pop. The first grace is from God but that I use it right that is from my self and thereby it is that I merit Prot. St. Paul was not of your mind what good work is there but it lies either in willing or doing yet both these God works in us Phil. 2. 13. not only the power of believing but the act too and suffering also is the gift of God Phil. 1. 29. and St. Pauls abundant labours in the Gospel which certainly amounted to merit if there were ever such a thing in the world and which if any thing was his own act yet he dare not take to himself I laboured yet not I but the grace of God which was with me 1 Cor. 15. 10. No less evident is it that our works cannot profit God Psal. 16. 4. Iob 22. 3. 35. 7 as also our best works are so far from meriting that they need a pardon for the infirmities accompanying them by reason of which the best of Saints have been afraid of the severe judgments of God even upon their best works so was Iob and David and Paul And lastly it is so evident that our works are not proportionable to the reward that Bellarmin hath a Chapter upon this head to prove that good works are rewarded above their desert and therefore it is an intollerable arrogance to affirm that divers of the Saints have not only merit enough to purchase eternal life but a great deal to spare for the relief of others To let this point pass now I would willingly be informed of two things which concern us Lay-people in an especial manner First Why you defraud us of the Cup. Secondly Why you order Prayer to be made in a language that many nay most of us do not understand For the first you rob us of one half of the Sacrament viz. of the Cup what can you say to acquit your selves from sacriledge Pop. Let me hear what right you have to it Prot. First I remember you disputed for Transubstantiation out of Iohn 6. which you said spoke of the Sacrament now if you say true there is a passage in it verse 53 except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you if this be spoken of the Sacrament as you say it is and the wine be really his blood then you do