A discourse concerning transubstantiation and idolatry being an answer to the Bishop of Oxford's plea relating to those two points.

A discourse concerning transubstantiation and idolatry being an answer to the Bishop of Oxford's plea relating to those two points.

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Title page

An ANSWER to the REASONS of the Bishop of Oxford, &c.

AN ANSVVER To that Part about IDOLATRY, &c.

ADVERTISEMENT.

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A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Transubstantiation AND IDOLATRY.

BEING AN ANSWER TO THE BISHOP of Oxford's PLEA relating to those two Points.

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London, Printed in the Year, 1688.

An ANSWER to the REASONS of the Bishop of Oxford, &c.

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THIS Author would perswade the World, ‘That Transubstantiation is but a Nicety of the Schools, calculated to the Aristotelian Philosophy; and not defined positively in the Church of Rome; but that the Corporal and Real Presence of the Substance of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament was the Doctrine of the Universal Church in the Primitive Times; and that it is at this day the generally received Doctrine by all the different Parties in Europe, not only the Roman Catholicks and Lutherans, but both by the Churches of Switzerland and France, and more particularly by the Church of England: So that since all that the Church of Rome means by Transubstantiation, is the Real Presence, and since the Real Presence is so universally received, it is a heinous thing to renounce Transubstantiation; for that is in effect the renouncing the Real Presence.’

This is the whole strength of his Argument, which he fortifies by many Citations, to prove that both the Antient Fathers, and the Modern Reformers, believed the Real Presence; and that the Church of Rome believes no more. But to all this I shall offer a few Exceptions.

[Page]I. If Transubstantiation is only a Philosophical Nicety concerning the manner of the Presence, where is the hurt of renouncing it? And why are the Roman Catholicks at so much Pains to have the Test repealed? For it contains nothing against the Real Presence: Indeed, if this Argument has any force, it should rather lead the Rom. Catholicks to take the Test, since, according to the Bishop, they do not renounce in it any Article of Faith, but only a bold Curiosity of the School-men. Yet after all, it seems they know, that this is contrary to their Doctrine, otherwise they would not venture so much upon a Point of an old and decried Philosophy.

II. In order to the stating this matter aright, it is necessary to give the true Notion of the Real Presence, as it is acknowledged by the Reformed. We all know in what sense the Church of Rome understands it, that in the Sacrament there is no Real Bread and Wine; but that under the appearance of them we have the true Substance of Christ's glorified Body. On the other hand, the Reformed, when they found the World generally fond of this Phrase; they by the same Spirit of Compliance, which our Saviour and his Apostles had for the Iews, and that the Primitive Church had (perhaps to excess) for the Heathens, retained the Phrase of Real Presence: But as they gave it such a sense as did fully demonstrate, that tho they retained a term that had for it a long Prescription, yet they quite changed its meaning: For they always shewed, that the Body and Blood of Christ, which they believed present, was his Body broken, and his Blood shed, that is to say, his Body, not in its glorified State, but as it was crucified. So that the Presence belonging to Christ's [Page] dead Body, which is not now actually in being, is only his Death that is to be conceived to be presented to us, and this being the sense that they always give of the Real Presence, the reality falls only on that conveyance, that is made to us in the Sacrament, by a federal right of Christ's Death as our Sacrifice. The Learned Answerer to the Oxford Discourses has so fully demonstrated this from the copious Explanations which all the Reformed give of that Phrase, that one would think it were not possible either to mistake or cavil in so clear a Point. The Papists had generally objected to the Reformers, that they made the Sacrament no more than a bare Commemoratory Feast; and some few had carried their aversion to that gross Presence, which the Church of Rome had set up, to another extreme, to which the People by a Principle of Libertinism might have been too easily carried, if the true Dignity of the Sacrament had not been maintained by Expressions of great Majesty: So finding that the World was possessed of the Phrase of the Real Presence, they thought fit to preserve it, but with an Explanation that was liable to no Ambiguity. Yet it seems our Reformers in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign had found, that the Phrase had more power to carry Men to Superstition, than the Explanations given to it, had to retire them from it, and therefore the Convocation ordered it to be laid aside, tho that Order was suppressed out of Prudence: And the Phrase has been ever since in use among us, of which Dr. Burnet has given us a copious account, Hist. Reform. 2 vol. 3d Book.

III. The difference between the Notion of the Sacraments being a meer Commemoratory Feast, and the Real Presence, is as great, as the value of the King's [Page] Head stamped upon a Meddal differs from the current Coin, or the Impression made by the Great Seal upon Wax differs from that which any Carver or Graver may make. The one is a meer Memorial, but the other has a sacred Badg of Authority in it. The Paschal Lamb was not only a Remembrance of the Deliverance of the People of Israel out of Egypt, but a continuance of the Covenant, that Moses made between God and them, which distinguished them from all the Nations round about them, as well as the first Passover had distinguished them from the Egyptians. Now it were a strange Inference, because the Lamb was called the Lord's Passover, that is, the Sacrifice upon the sprinkling of whose Blood the Angel passed over or passed by the Houses of the Israelites, when he smote the firstborn of the Egyptians, to say, that there was a change of the Substance of the Lamb: Or because the Real Faith of a Prince is given by his Geat Seal, printed on Wax, and affixed to a Parchment, that therefore the Substance of the Wax is changed: So it is no less absurd to imagine, that because the Bread and Wine are said to be the Body and Blood of Christ as broken and shed, that is, his Death really and effectually offered to us, as our Sacrifice, that therefore the Substance of the Bread and Wine are changed.

And thus upon the whole matter, that which is present in the Sacrament is Christ dead, and since his Death was transacted above 1600 Years ago, the reality of his Presence can be no other than a Real Offer of his Death made to us in an Institution and federal Symbol. I have explained this the more fully, because with this all the Ambiguity in the use of that commonly received Phrase falls off.

[Page]IV. As for the Doctrine of the Antient Church, there has been so much said in this Enquiry, that a Man cannot hope to add any new Discoveries to what has been already found out: Therefore I shall only endeavour to bring some of the most Important Observations into a narrow compass, and to set them in a good Light, and shall first offer some general Presumptions, to shew that it is not like, that this was the Doctrine of the Primitive Times, and then some positive proof of it.

1. It is no slight Presumption against it, that we do not find the Fathers take any pains to answer the Objections that do naturally arise out of the present Doctrine of the Church of Rome. These Objections do not arise out of profound Study, or great Learning, but from the plain Dictates of common Sense, which make it hard (to say no more) for us to believe, That a Body can be in more places than one at once; and that it can be in a place after the manner of a Spirit: That Accidents can be without their Subject; or that our Senses can deceive us in the plainest cases. We find the Fathers explain some abstruse Difficulties, that arise out of other Mysteries, that were less known, and were more speculative: And while they are thought perhaps to overdo the one, it is a little strange that they should never touch the other: But on the contrary, when they treat of Philosophical Matters, they express themselves roundly in opposition to those Consequences of this Doctrine: Whereas since this Doctrine has been received, we see all the Speculations of Philosophy have been so managed, as to keep a reserve for this Doctrine. So that the uncautious way in which the Fathers handled them (in proof of which Volumes of Quotatations [Page] can be made) shews they had not then received that Doctrine, which must of necessity give them occasion to write otherwise than they did.

2. We find the Heathens studied to load the Christian Religion with all the heaviest Imputations that they could give it. They objected to them the believing a God that was born, and that died, and the Resurrection of the Dead, and many lesser matters, which seemed absurd to them: They had Malice enough to seek out every thing that could disgrace a Religion which grew too hard for them: But they never once object this, of making a God out of a piece of Bread, and then eating him: If this had been the Doctrine of those Ages, the Heathens, chiefly Celsus and Porphiry, but above all Iulian, could not have been ignorant of it. Now it does not stand with common Sense to think, that those who insist much upon inconsiderable things, could have passed over this, which is both so sensible, and of such importance, if it had been the received Belief of those Ages.

3. It is also of weight, that there were no Disputes nor Heresies upon this Point during the first Ages; and that none of the Hereticks ever objected it to the Doctors of the Church. We find they contended about all other Points: Now this hath so many Difficulties in it, that it should seem a little strange, that all Mens Understandings should have been then so easie and consenting, that this was the single Point of the whole Body of Divinity, about which the Church had no dispute for the first seven Centuries. It therefore inclines a Man rather to think, that because there were no Disputes concerning it, therefore it was not then broached: Since we see plainly, that ever since it was broached in the West, it has occasioned lasting [Page] Disputes, both with those who could not be brought to believe it, and with one another concerning the several ways of explaining and maintaining it.

4. It is also a strong Prejudice against the Antiquity of this Doctrine, that there were none of those Rites in the first Ages, which have crept in in the latter; which were such natural Consequences of it, that the belief of the one making way for the other, we may conclude, that where the one were not practised, the other was not believed. I will not mention all the Pomp which the latter Ages have invented to raise the lustre of this Doctrine, with which the former Ages were unacquainted. It is enough to observe, that the Adoration of the Sacrament was such a necessary Consequence of this Doctrine, that since the Primitive Times know nothing of it, as the Greek Church does not to this day, it is perhaps more than a Presumption, that they believed it not.

V. But now I come to more positive and convincing Proofs: And,

1. The Language of the whole Church is only to be found in the Liturgies, which are more severely composed than Rhetorical Discourses; and of all the parts of the Office, the Prayer of Consecration is that, in which we must hope to find most certainly the Doctrine of the Church: We find then in the fourth Century, that in the Prayer of Consecration the Elements were said to be the Types of the Body and Blood of Christ, as St. Basil informs us from the Greek Liturgies, and the Figure of his Body and Blood, as St. Ambrose informs us from the Latin Liturgies: The Prayer of Consecration, that is now in the Canon of the Mass, is in a great part the same with that which is cited by [Page] St. Ambrose, but with this important difference, that instead of the words, which is the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ, that are in the former, there is a Petition added in the latter, that the Gifts may be to us the Body and Blood of Christ. If we had so many of the MSS. of the ancient Liturgies left, as to be able to find out the time in which the Prayer of the Consecration was altered, from what it was in St. Ambrose's days, to what it is now, this would be no small Article in the History of Transubstantiation: But most of these are lost; since then the antient Church could not believe otherwise of the Sacrament, than as she expressed her self concerning it in the Prayer of Consecration; it is plain, that her first Doctrine concerning it was, That the Bread and Wine were the Types, and the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ.

2. A second Proof is from the Controversy, that was began by the Apollinarists, and carried on by the Eutichians, Whether Christ's Humanity was swallowed up of his Divinity or not? The Eutychians made use of the general Expressions, by which the change in the Sacrament seemed to be carried so far, that the Bread and Wine were swallowed up by it; and from this they inferred, that in like manner the Human Nature of Christ was swallowed up by his Divinity: But in opposition to all this, we find Chrysostome the Patriarch of Constantinople, Ephrem the Patriarch of Antioch, Gelasius the Pope, Theodoret a Bishop in Asia the less, and Facundus in Africk, all within the compass of little more than an Age, agree almost in the same words, in refuting all this: asserting, That as the Human Nature in Christ remained still the same that it was before, notwithstanding its Union with the Divine Nature; even so the Bread and Wine retained still their former Nature, Substance and [Page] Form, and that they are only sanctified, not by the change of their Nature, but by adding Grace to Nature. This they do in terms plain, and beyond all exception; and Theodoret goes over the matter again and again, in two different Treatises; so that no Matter of Fact can appear more plainly, than that the whole Church East, and West, and South, did in the 5th and 6th Centuries believe, that the Sanctification of the Elements in the Sacrament did no more destroy their Natures, than the Union of the two Natures in Christ did destroy his Humane Nature.

3. A third Proof is taken from a Practice, which I will not offer to justify, how ancient soever it may have been: It appears indeed in the ancientest Liturgies now extant, and is a Prayer, in which the Sacrament is said to be offered up in Honour of the Saint of the Day, to which a Petition is added, that it may be accepted of God by the Intercession of the Saint. This is yet in the Missal, and is used upon most of the Saints days: Now if the Sacrament was then believed to be the very Body and Blood of Christ, there is nothing more crude, not to say Prophane, than to offer this up to the Honour of a Saint, and and to pray that the Sacrifice of Christ's Body may be accepted of God thrô the Intercession of a Saint. Therefore to give any tolerable Sense to these words, we must conclude, That tho these Prayers have been continued in the Roman Church, since this Opinion prevailed; yet they were never made in an Age in which it was received. The only meaning that can be given to these words is, that they made the Saintsdays days of Communion, as well as the Sundays were; and upon that they prayed, that the Sacrament which they received that day, to do the more Honour to the Memory of the Saint, might be recommended to the [Page] Divine Acceptance by the Intercession of the Saint: So that this superstitious Practice shews plainly, That the Church had not, even when it began, received the Doctrine of the change of the Elements into the Body and Blood of Christ.

I will not pursue the Proof of this Point farther, nor will I enter into a particular recital of the Sayings of the Fathers upon this Subject; which would carry me far: And it is done so copiously by others, that I had rather refer my Reader to them, than offer him a lean Abridgment of their Labours.

I shall only add, That the Presumptions and Proofs that I have offered, are much more to be valued, than the pious and Rhetorical Figures, by which many of the Fathers have set forth the manner of Christ's Presence in the Sacrament. One thing is plain, that in most of them they represent Christ present in his dead and crucified State, which appears most eminently in St. Chrysostome; so that this agrees with that Notion of a Real Presence, that was formerly explained. Men that have at the same time all the heat in their Imaginations that Eloquence can raise, and all the fervour in their Heart which Devotion can inspire, are seldom so correct in their Phrases and Figures, as not to need some allowances: Therefore one plain Proof of their Opinions from their reasonings, when in cold Blood, ought to be of much more weight than all their Transports and Amplifications.

From this general view of the State of the Church during the first Centuries, I come next to consider the steps of the Change which was afterwards made. I will not offer to trace out that History, which Mr. Larrogue has done copiously, whom I the rather mention, because he is put in English. I shall only observe, [Page] that by reason of the high Expressions, which were used upon the occasion of the Eutychian Controversy formerly mentioned, by which the Sanctification of the Elements was compared to the Union of the Humane Nature of Christ with his Divinity, a great step was made to all that followed. During the Dispute concerning Images, those who opposed the Worship of them, said, according to all the ancient Liturgies, that they indeed acknowleged one Image of Christ, which was the Sacrament; those who promoted that piece of Superstition (for I refer the calling it Idolatry to its proper place) had the Impudence to deny, that it had ever been called the Image of Christ's Body and Blood; and said, that it was really his Body and Blood. We will not much dispute concerning an Age, in which the World seemed mad with a Zeal for the Worship of Images; and in which Rebellion, and the deposing of Princes, upon the pretence of Heresy, began to be put in practice: Such Times as these we willingly yeild up to our Adversaries. Yet Damascene, and the Greek Church after him, carried this matter no farther than to assert an Assumption of the Elements into an Union with the Body and Blood of Christ. But when the Monk of Corbie began to carry the matter yet farther, and to say, that the Elements were changed into that very Body of Christ that was born of the Virgin, we find all the great Men of that Age, both in France, Germany and England, writ against him: And he himself owns that he was looked upon as an Innovator; those who writ against him, chiefly Rabanus Maurus, and Bertram or Ratramne, did so plainly assert the ancient Opinion of the Sacraments being the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ, that we cannot express our selves more formally than they did: And [Page] from thence it was, that our Saxon Homily on Easter-Day was so express in this point. Yet the War and the Northern Invasions that followed, put the World into so much disorder, that all Disputes were soon forgot, and that in the 11th Century this Opinion, which had so many Partisans in the 9th, was generally decried and much abandoned.

VI. But with relation to those Ages in which it was received, some Observations occur so readily to every one that knows History, that it is only for the sake of the more ignorant that I make them.

1. They were Times of so much Ignorance, that it is scarce conceivable to any but to those who have laboured a little in reading the Productions of those Ages, which is the driest Piece of Study I know: The Stile in which they writ, and their way of arguing, and explaining Scripture, are all of a piece, both Matter and Form are equally barbarous. Now in such Times, as the ignorant Populace were easily misled, so there is somewhat in incredible Stories and Opinions, that makes them pass as easily, as Men are apt to fancy they see Sprights in the Night: Nay the more of Mystery and Darkness that there is in any Opinion, such Times are apt to cherish it the more for that very reason.

2. Those were Ages in which the whole Ecclesiastical Order had entred into such Conspiracies against the State, which were managed and set on with such vigor by the Popes, that every Opinion which tended to render the Persons of Church-men sacred, and to raise their Character, was likely to receive the best Entertainment, and the greatest Incouragement possible. Nothing could so secure the Persons of Priests, and render them so considerable, as to believe that they made [Page] their God: And in such Ages no Armour was of so sure a Proof, as for a Priest to take his God in his Hands.

Now it is known that P. Gregory the 7th, who condemned Berengarius, laid the Foundations of the Ecclesiastical Empire, by establishing the Deposing Power; so P. Innocent the 3d, who got Transubstantiation to be decreed, in the 4th Council of the Lateran, seemed to have compleated the Project, by the Addition made to the Deposing Power, of transferring the Dominions of the Deposed Prince to whom he pleased; since before this the Dominions must have gone to the next Heirs of the Deposed Prince. It is then so plain, that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation was so suitable to the advancing of those ends, that it had been a Wonder indeed, if it being once set on foot, had not been established in such times.

3. Those Ages were so corrupt, and more particularly the Clergy, and chiefly the Popes were by the confession of all Writers so excessively vicious, that such Men could have no regard to Truth in any of their Decisions. Interest must have carried all other things before it with such Popes, who according to the Historians of their own Communion, were perhaps the worst Men that ever lived. Their Vices were so crying, that nothing but the Credit that is due to Writers of their own Time, and their own Church, could determine us to believe them.

4. As the Ignorance and Vices of those Times derogate justly from all the Credit that is due to them; so the Cruelty which followed their Decisions, and which was employed in the Execution of them, makes it appear rather a stranger thing that so many opposed them, than that so many submitted to them. When Inquisitors or Dragoons manage an Argument, how strong soever [Page] the Spirit may be in opposing, it is certain the Flesh will be weak, and will ply easily. When Princes were threatned with Deposition, and Hereticks with Extirpation, and when both were executed with so much rigour, the Success of all the Doctrines that were established in those Days ought to make no Impression on us, in its Favour.

VII. It is no less plain, that there was a great and vigorous Opposition made to every Step of the Progress of this Doctrine. When the Eutychians first made use of it, the greatest Men of that Age set themselves against it. When the Worshippers of Images did afterwards deny, that the Sacrament was the Image of the Body and Blood of Christ, a General Council in the East asserted, according to the ancient Liturgies, the contrary Proposition. When Paschase Radbert set on foot the Corporal Presence in the West, all the great Men of the Age writ against him. Berenger was likewise highly esteemed, and had many secret Followers, when this Doctrine was first decreed: And ever since the time of the Council of the Lateran, that Transubstantiation was established, there have been whole Bodies of Men that have opposed it, and that have fallen as Sacrifices to the Rage of the Inquisitors. And by the Processes of those of Tholouse, of which I have seen the Original Records, for the space of twenty Years, it appears, that as Transubstantiation was the Article upon which they were always chiefly examined; so it was that which many of them did constantly deny, so far were they on both sides from looking on it only as an Explanation of the Real Presence.

VIII. The Novelty of this Doctrine appears plainly by the strange work that the Schools have made with it, [Page] since they got it among them, both in their Philosophy and Divinity, and by the many different Methods that they took for explaining it, till they had licked it into the shape, in which it is now: Which is as plain an Evidence of the Novelty of the Doctrine as can be imagined. The Learned Mr. Alix has given us a clear Deduction of all that Confusion, into which it has cast the School-men, and the many various Methods that they fell on for maintaining it. First, They thought the Body of Christ was broken by the Teeth of the Faithful: Then that appearing absurd, and subjecting our Saviour to new Sufferings, the Doctrine of a Body's being in a place after the manner of a Spirit was set up. And as to the Change, some thought that the Matter of Bread remained, but that it was united to the Body of Christ, as Nourishment is digested into our Bodies: Others thought, that the Form of Bread remained, the Matter only being changed: And some thought, that the Bread was only withdrawn to give place to the Body of Christ, whereas others thought it was annihilated. While the better Judges had always an Eye either to a Consubstantiation, or to such an Assumption of the Bread and Wine by the Eternal Word, as made the Sacrament in some sense his Body indeed; but not that Body which is now in Heaven. All these different Opinions, in which the School-men were divided▪ even after the Decision made by Pope Innocent, in the Council of the Lateran, shew, that the Doctrine, being a Novelty, Men did not yet know how to mould or form it: But in process of Time the whole Philosophy was so digested, as to prepare all Scholars in their first Formation to receive it the more easily. And in our Age, in which that Philosophy has lost its Credit, what Pains do they take to suppress the New Philosophy, [Page] as seeing that it cannot be so easily subdued to support this Doctrine, as the Old one was? And it is no unpleasant thing to see the shifts, to which the Partisans of the Cartesian Philosophy are driven, to explain themselves: Which are indeed so very ridiculous, that one can hardly think, that those who make use of them, believe them; for they are plainly rather Tricks and Excuses than Answers.

IX. No Man can deny, that Transubstantiation is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome; but he that will dispute the Authority of the Councils of the Lateran and Trent. Now tho some have done the first avowedly, yet as their Number is small, and their Opinion decried; so for the Council of Trent, tho I have known some of that Communion, who do not look upon it as a General Council, and tho it is not at all received in France, neither as to Doctrine nor Discipline, yet the contrary Opinion is so universally received, that they who think otherwise, dare not speak out; and so give their Opinion as a Secret, which they trust in Confidence, rather than as a Doctrine which they will own. But setting aside the Authority of these Councils, the common Resolution of Faith in the Church of Rome being Tradition, it cannot be denied, that the constant and general Tradition in the Church of Rome, these last 500 Years, has been in favour of Transubstantiation, and that is witnessed by all the Evidences by which it is possible to know Tradition. The Writings of Learned Men, the Sermons of Preachers, the Proceedings of Tribunals, the Decisions of Councils, that, if they were not General, were yet very numerous, and above all by the many Authentical Declarations the Popes have made in this matter. So that either Tradition is to be [Page] for ever rejected as a false Conveyance, or this is the received Doctrine of the Church of Rome, from which she can never depart, without giving up both her Infallibility, and the Authority of Tradition.

X. There is not any one Point, in which all the Reformed Churches do more unanimously agree, than in the rejecting of Transubstantiation; as appears both by the Harmony of their Confessions, and by the current of all the Reformed Writers. And for the Real Presence, tho the Lutherans explain it by a Consubstantiation, and the rest of the Reformed by a Reality of Vertue and Efficacy, and a Presence of Christ as crucified; yet all of them have taken much Pains to shew, that in what sense soever they meant it, they were still far enough from Transubstantiation. This demonstrates the Wisdom of our Legislators, in singling out this to be the sole Point of the Test for Imployments: Since it is perhaps the only Point in Controversy, in which the whole Church of Rome holds the Affirmative, and the whole Reformed hold the Negative. And it is as certain, that Transubstantiation is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome, as that it is rejected by the Church of England; it being by Name condemned in our Articles.

And thus, I hope, the whole Plea of our Author in favour of Transubstantiation is overthrown in all its three Branches: which relate to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church, the Doctrine of the Church of Rome, and the Doctrine of the Church of England, as well as of the other Reformed Churches. I have not loaded this Paper with Quotations, because I intended to be short: But I am ready to make good all the matters of [Page] Fact asserted in it, under the highest Pains of Infamy, if I fail in the performance: And besides, the more Voluminous Works that have been writ on this Subject, such as Albertines, Clauds Answer to Mr. Arnaud, and F. Nonet, Larrogues History of the Eucharist, there have been so many learned Discourses written of late on this Subject, and in particular, two Answers to the Bishops Books, that if it had not been thought expedient, that I should have cast the whole matter into a short Paper, I should not have judged it necessary to trouble the World with more Discourses on a Subject that seems exhausted. I will add no more, but that by the next I will give another Paper of the same Bulk upon the Idolatry of the Church of Rome.

AN ANSVVER To that Part about IDOLATRY, &c.

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THE words of the Test that belong to this Point are these, The Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous; upon which our Author fastens this Censure, ‘That since by this the Church of Rome is charged with Idolatry, which both forfeits Mens Lives here, and their Salvation hereafter, according to the express words of Scripture: It's a damnable peice of Cruelty and Uncharitableness, to load them with this Charge, if they are not guilty of it▪ and upon this he goes to clear them of it not only in the two Articles mentioned in the Test, the Worship of Saints, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, but that his Apology might be compleat, he takes in, and indeed insists chiefly on the Worship of Images, tho, that is not at all mentioned in the Test, he brings a great many Quotations out of the Old Testament, to shew the Idolatry prohibited in it, was the worshipping the Sun, Moon, and Stars, or the making an Image to resemble the Divine Essence, upon which he produces also sōme other Authorities.’ And in this consists the Substance of his Plea for the Church of Rome. But upon all this he ought to have retracted both the License that himself gave some Years ago to Dr. Stillingfleet's Book, of the Idolatry of the Church of Rome, and his own hasty Assertion in condemning both Turk andDef. of his Eccl. Pol. p. 285, 286. Papist as guilty of Idolatry; the one for worshipping a lewd Impostor, [Page] and the other for worshipping a sensless piece of matter. It seems he is now convinced, that the latter part of this Charge that falls on the Papists, was as false as the former that falls on the Turks certainly is; for they never worshipped Mahomet, but hold him only in high Reverence, as an extraordinary Prophet, as the Iews do Moses. It's very like that if the Turks had taken Vienna, he would have retracted that, as he has now in effect done the other: for I believe he is in the same disposition to reconcile himself to the Mufti, and the Pope, but the Ottoman Empire is now as low as Popery is high: so he will brave the Turk still to his Teeth, tho he did him wrong, and will humble himself to the Papist, tho he did him nothing but right: But now I take leave of the Man, and will confine my self severely to the matter that is before me. And,

1. How guilty soever the Church of Rome is of Idolatry, yet the Test does not plainly assert that; for there is as great a difference between Idolatrous and Idolatry, as there is in Law between what is treasonable and what is Treason. The one imports only a Worship that is conformable to Idolatry, and that has a tendency to it, whereas the other is the plain Sin it self. There is also a great difference between what is now us'd in that Church, and the Explanations that some of their Doctors give of that usage. We are to take the usage of the Church of Rome from her Publick Offices, and her authorised Practices; so that if these have a Conformity to Idolatry, and a tendency tō it, then the words of the Test are justified, what Sense soever some learned Men among them may put on these Offices and Practices; therefore the Test may be well maintained, even tho we should acknowledg that the Church of Rome was not guilty of Idolatry.

2. If Idolatry was a Crime punishable by Death under the Old Testament, that does not at all concern us: nor does the Charge of Idolatry authorize the People to kill all Idolaters; unless our Author can prove, that we believe our selves to be under all the Political and Judiciary Precepts of the Law of Moses; and even among the Jews the Execution of that severe Law belonged either to the Magistrate, or to some authorized and inspired Person, who as a Zealot might execute the Law, when the Magistrate was wanting to his Duty; so that this was writ inviduously only, as it seems, to inflame the Papist the more [Page] against us. But the same Calvinist Prince, that has exprest so just an Aversion to the repealing the Test, has at the same time shewed so merciful an Inclination towards the Ro. Catholicks, that of all the Reproaches in the World, one that intended to plead for that Religion ought to have avoided the mentioning of Blood or Cruelty with the greatest care.

3. It's true we cannot help believing that Idolatry is a damnable Sin, that shuts Men out of the Kingdom of Heaven; and if every Sin in which a Man dies without Repentance does it, much more this, which is one of the greatest of all Sins. But yet after all, there is Mercy for Sins of Ignorance upon Mens general Repentance; and therefore since God alone knows the degrees of Mens Knowledg and of their Ignorance, and how far it is either affected on the one hand, and invincible on the other, we do not take upon us to enter into God's Secrets, or to judg of the Salvation or Damnation of particular Persons, nor must we be byassed in our Enquiry into the nature of any Sin, either by a fond regard to the state of our Ancestors, or by the due respect that we owe to those who are over us in Civil Matters. In this case things are what God has declared them to be; we can neither make them better nor worse than he has made them; and we are only to judg of things, leaving Persons to the merciful as well as the just and dreadful Judgment of God.

4. All the stir that our Author keeps with the examining of the Idolatry committed by the Iews under the Old Testament, supposing it were all true, will serve no more for acquitting the Church of Rome, than a Plea would avail a Criminal, who were arraigned of High Treason for coyning Mony, or for counterfeiting the King's Seal, in which one should set forth, that High Treason was the murdering the King, or the levying War against him, and that therefore the Criminal who was guilty of neither of these two, ought to be acquitted. Idolatry, as well as Treason, is a comprehensive Notion, and has many different Branches: so that tho the worshipping the Host of Heaven, or the worshipping an Image as a Resemblance of the Divinity, may be acknowledged to be the highest degrees of Idolatry, yet many other Corruptions in the Worship of God are justly reducible to it, and may be termed not only idolatrous, but Idolatry it self.

[Page]5. Our Saviour in his Sermon on the Mount has shewed us how many Sins are reducible to the second Table of the Law, besides those of Murder, Adultery, &c. that are expresly named in it; and tho the Jews in that time having delivered themselves entirely from the Sin of Idolatry, to which their Fathers were so prone, gave him no occasion of commenting on the first and second Commandment, yet by the parity of things we may conclude, that many Sins are reducible to them, besides those that are expresly named; and tho we have not so compleat a History of the Idolatry of the Neighbouring Nations to Iudea before the Captivity, yet we do certainly know what was the Idolatry of which the Greeks and Romans were guilty when the New Testament was writ, and the greatest part of the New Testament is written chiefly with relation to the Jews, whose freedom from Idolatry gave no occasion to treat of it, yet in those few Passages which relate to the Heathen Idolatry then on foot, the holy Writers retain the same Phrase and Style, that were used in the Old Testament, which gives us just reason to believe, that the Idolatry was upon the matter and in its main stroak the same under both, and if so, then we have a Door opened to us to discover all our Author's false reasonings; and upon this discovery we shall find that all the inspired Writers charged the Heathen Worship with Idolatry, not so much with relation to the Glosses that Philosophers and other Political Men might put on their Rites, but with relation to the Practice in it self.

6. But since Idolatry is a Sin against a moral and unchangeable Law, let us state the true Notion of the right Worship of God, and by consequence of Idolatry (tho this is done with that exactness by the worthy Master of the Temple, that it should make a Man afraid to come after him.) Our Ideas of God, and▪ the Homage of Worship and Service that we offer up pursuant to these, are not only to be considered as they are just thoughts of God, and Acts suitable to those thoughts, but as they are Ideas that tend both to elevate and purifie our own Natures; for the Thoughts of God are the Seeds of all Truth and Vertue in us, which being deeply rooted in us, makes us become conformable to the Divine Nature. So that the Sin of Idolatry consists in this, that our Ideas of God being corrupted, he is either defrauded of that Honour, which, tho due to him, is transferred to another, or is dishonoured by a Worship unsutable to his [Page] Nature, and we also by forming wrong Ideas of the Object of our Worship, become corrupted by them. Nothing raises the Soul of Man more than sublime Thoughts of God's Greatness and Glory; and nothing perfects it more than just notions of his Wisdom and Goodness. On the contrary, nothing debases our Natures more, than the offering our Worship and Service to a Being that is low and unworthy of it; or the depressing the Supreme Being in our Thoughts or Worship to somewhat that is like our selves, or perhaps worse; therefore the design of true Religion being the forming in us such notions as may exalt and sanctify our Natures, as well as the raising a Tribute to the Author of our Being, that is in some sort unworthy of him, the Sin of Idolatry is upon this account chiefly forbidden in Scripture, because it corrupts our Ideas of God, and by a natural tendency this must likewise corrupt our Natures, when we either raise up an Idol so far in our Thoughts as to fancy it a God, or depress God so far as to make him an Idol, for these two species of Idolatry have both the same effect on us: and as a Wound in a Man's Vitals is much more destructive, than any, how deep and dangerous soever, that is in his Limbs, since it is possible for him to recover of the one, but not of the other; so Idolatry corrupts Religion in its source: Thus Idolatry in its moral▪ and unchangeable Nature is the honouring any Creature as a God, or the imagining that God is such a Being as the other▪ Creatures are; and this had been a Sin, tho no Law against it had ever been given to Mankind but the Light and Law of Nature.

7. But after all this there are different degrees in this Sin: for the true notion of God being this, that he comprehends all Perfections in his Essence; the ascribing all these to a Creature is the highest degree of Idolatry: but the ascribing any one of these infinite Perfections, or (which is all one with relation to our Actions) the doing any thing which imports, or is understood to import it, is likewise Idolatry, tho of a lower degree of Guilt▪ so likewise the imagining that the true God is no other than as an Idol, represents him to be, is the highest degree of the other species of Idolatry, but the conceiving him as having a Body in which his Eternal Mind dwells, or fancying that any strange Virtue from him dwells in any Body to such a degree, as to make that Body the proper Object of Worship, unless he has assured [Page] us that he is really united to that Body, and dwells in it; which was the case of the Cloud of Glory under the Old Testament, and much more of the humane Nature of Christ under the New; this is likewise Idolatry, for in all these it is plain that the true Ideas of God, and the Principles of Religion are corrupted.

8. There are two Principles in the Nature of Man that make him very apt to fall into Idolatry, either inward or outward. The first is the weakness of most Peoples Minds, which are so sunk into gross Phantasms and sensible Objects, that they are scarce capable to raise their Thoughts to pure and spiritual Ideas: and therefore they are apt either to forget Religion quite, or to entertain it by Objects that are visible and sensible: the other is, that Mens Appetites and Passions being for the most part too strong for them, and these not being reconcileable to the true Ideas of a pure and spiritual Essence, they are easily dispos'd to embrace such notions of God as may live more peaceably with their Vices: and so they hope by a Profusion of Expence and Honour, or of Fury and Rage, which they employ in the Worship of an imaginary Deity, to purchase their Pardons, and to compensate for their other Crimes, if not to authorise them. These two Principles that are so rooted in our frail and corrupt Natures, being wrought on by the Craft and Authority of ambitious and covetous Men, who are never wanting in all Ages and Nations, have brought forth all that Idolatry, that has appear'd in so many different Shapes up and down the World, and has been diversified according to the various Tempers, Accidents and Constitutions of the several Nations and Ages of the World.

9. I now come to examine the Beginnings of Idolatry as they are represented to us in the Scripture, in which it will appear, that our Author's account of it shews him guilty, either of great Ignorance or of that which is worse: he pretends, ‘that the first plain Intimation that we have of it in Palestine, is, when Iacob after his Conversation with the Schechemites, commanded his Family to put away their strange Gods;’ whereas we have an earlier and more particular account of those strange Gods in the same Book of Genesis, Chap. 31. where when Iacob fled away from Laban, it is said, ver. 19. that Rachel stole her Father's Images or Teraphim: and these are afterwards call'd by Laban his Gods, ver. 30. and these very Images are called by Ioshua 24. v. 2. Strange Gods: so that the strange Gods from [Page] which Iacob cleansed his Family, Gen. 35. 2. were no other than the Teraphim; so that in the Teraphim we are to seek for the true Original of Idolatry, and for the sense of the Phrase of other Gods, or strange Gods, which is indeed the true Key to this whole matter. These were little Statues, such as the Dii laris or Penates were afterwards among the Romans, or the Pagods now in the East, in which it was believed, that there was such a Divine Virtue shut up, that the Idolaters expected Protection from them: and as all People in all times are apt to trust to Charms, so those who pretended to chain down the Divine Influences to those Images, had here a great occasion given them to deceive the World; of this sort was the Palladium of Troy, and the Ancille of Rome; and this gave the rise to all the Cheats of Tolesmes and Talismans that came afterwards, these were of different Figures: and since our Author confesses, p. 124. that Cherubim and Teraphim are sometimes used promiscuously for one another, it is probable that the Figure of both was the same; and since it is plain from Ezekiel that the Cherubim resembled a Calf (compare Ezek. 1. 10. with chap. 10. 14. where what is called in the first the Face of an Ox, is called in the other the Face of a Cherub) from hence it is probable that the Teraphim, or at least some of them were of the same Figure. In these it was also believed, that there were different degrees of Charms: Some were believed stronger than others; so that probably Pharaoh thought that Moses and Aaron had a Teraphim of greater Virtue than his Magicians had, which is the clearest account that I know of his hardening his Heart against so many Miracles: and this also seems to be the first occasion of the Phrase of the Gods of the several Nations, and of some being stronger than other; that is, the Teraphim of the one were believed to have a higher degree of Enchantment in them, than the others had.

This then leads us to the right Notion of Aaron's Golden Calf, and of the terms of graved and carved Images in the second Commandment, and even of the other Gods in the first Commandment: for we have seen that both in the stile of Moses and Ioshua the Images were those Teraphim, which they also called strange Gods, when the Israelites thought that Moses had forsaken them, they came to Aaron desiring him to make them God's, that is, Teraphims, yet they prescribed no form to him, but left that wholly to him, and so the Dream of their Fondness of the Egyptian [Page] Idolatry vanishes; for it was Aaron's choice that made it a Calf: perhaps he had seen the Divine Glory, as a Cloud between the Cherubims when he went up into the Mountain; Exod. 24. 9, 10. for a Pattern being shewed to Moses of the Tabernacle that he was to make, it is probable Aaron saw that likewise, and this might dispose him to give them a Seraphim, in that figure: this is also the most probable account both of the Calves of Dan and Bethel set up by Ieroboam, and also of the Israelites worshipping the Ephod that Gideon made▪ Iud. 8. 27. of the Idolatry of Micah and the Danites who robbed him, Iud. 17. 18. and of the Israelites offering Incense to the Brazen Serpent, 2 Kings 18. 4. which seemed to have all the Solemnities of a Teraphim in it, so that it is plain, the greatest part of the Idolatry under the Old Testament was the Worship of the Teraphim.

10. But to compleat this Argument with relation to the present Point, it is no less plain, that the true Jehovah was worshipped in those Teraphim. To begin with the first, it is clear that Laban in the Covenant he made with Iacob, appeals not only to the God of Abraham, Gen. 31. 53. but likewise to Iehovah, ver. 49. for though that Name was not then known, yet Moses by using it on that occasion, shews us plainly that Laban was a Worshipper of the true God; Aaron shews the same by intimating that Feast which he appointed to Iehovah, Exod. 32. 5. (which our Author thought not fit to mention) the People also by calling these, ver. 4. the Gods that brought them out of Egypt, shew that they had no Thoughts of the Egyptian Idolatry: but they believed that Moses had carried away the Teraphim, in the Virtue of which it seems they fancied that he had wrought his Miracles, and that Aaron, who they believed knew the Secret, had made them new ones: and this is the most probable account of their Joy in celebrating that Feast. And as for Ieroboam, the case seems to be plainly the same; he made the People believe that the Teraphim which he gave them in Dan and Bethel, were as good as those that were at Ierusalem: for as his design was no other than to hinder their going thither, 1 Kings 12. 27. so it is not likely that either he would or durst venture upon a total Change of their Religion, or that it could have passed so easily with the People, whereas the other had nothing extraordinary in it. It is also plain, that as Ieroboam called the Calves the Gods that brought them out of Egypt, v. 28. so he still [Page] acknowledged the true Iehovah: for the Prophets both true and false in his Time prophesied in the Name of Iehovah, 1 King. 13. 2, 18, 26. and when his Son was sick, he sent his Wife to the Prophet of Iehovah, ch. 14. The Story of the new Idolatry, that Achab set up of the Baalim, shews also plainly that the old Worshippers of the Calves adhered to the true Iehovah: for Elijah states the matter, as if the Nation had been divided between Iehovah and Baal, 1 King. 18. 21, 39. And the whole Story of Iehu confirms this, 2 Kings 9. 6, 12, 36. he was anointed King in the Name of Iehovah: and assoon as the Captains that were with him, knew this, they acknowledged him their King; he likewise speaking of the Fact of the Men of Samaria, cites the Authority of Iehovah, 2 Kings 10. 10, 16, 29. which shews that the People acknowledged it still: and he called his Zeal against the Worship of Baal, his Zeal for Iehovah, and yet both he and his Party worshipped the Calves. It is no less clear that Micah, who called his Teraphim his Gods, Judg. 18. 24. was a Worshipper of the true Iehovah, Judg. 17. 13. and there is little reason to doubt that this was the case of Gideon's Ephod, and of the Brazen Serpent. It were needless to go about the proving that all these corrupt Ways of Worship were Idolatrous: the Calf is expresly called an Idol by St. Stephen, Acts 7. 41. and the thing is so plain that it is denied by none that I know of; so here we have a Species of Idolatry plainly set forth in Scripture, in which the true God was worshipped in an Image; and I fancy it is scarce necessary to insorm the Reader, that wherever he finds LORD in Capitals in the English Bible, it is for Iehovah in the Hebrew.

11. It is very true that the great and prevailing Idolatry of all the East grew to be the Worship of the Host of Heaven, which seems to have risen very naturally out of the other Idolatry of the Teraphim, which probably was the ancienter of the two, for when Men came to think that Divine Influences were tied to such Images, it was very natural for them to fancy that a more soveraign degree of Influence was in the Sun, and by consequence that he deserved Divine Adoration much more than their poor little Teraphim. But it is also clear, that this Adoration which they offered to the Sun, was not with relation to the matter of that shining Body, but to the Divinity, which they believed was lodged in it. This appears not only [Page] from the Greek Writers, Zenophon and Plutarch, but from the greatest Antiquity that is now in the World; the bas Reliefs that are in the Ruins of the Temple of Persepolis, which are described with so much Cost and Care, by that worthy and learned Gentleman Sir Iohn Chardin, and which the World expects so greedily from him, he favoured me with a fight of them, and in these it appears, that in their Triumphs, of which a whole Series remains intire, they carried not only the Fire, which was the Emblem of the Body of the Sun, but after that the Emblem of the Divinity that it seems they thought was in it under the Representation of a Head environed with Clouds, which is the most natural Emblem that we can fancy, of an Intelligent and Incomprehensible Being. It's true, as Idolatry grows still grosser and grosser, the Intelligent Being was at last forgot, tho it seems it was remembred by their Philosophers, since the Greeks came to know it, and all their Worship was paid to the Sun, or to his Emblem the Fire, so that even this Idolatry was most probably the Worship of the true God at first, under a visible Representation; and that this was an effect of the former Idolatry is confirmed from what was said by Moses, Deut. 4. 14 to 19. where he plainly intimates the Progress that Idolatry would have, if they once came to worship Graven or Molten Images, or make any sort of similitude for the great God; this would carry them to lift up their Eyes to Heaven, and worship and serve the Host of Heaven.

12. The next shape that Idolatry took, was the worshipping some subordinate Spirits their Genies, which were in effect Angels, or departed Men and Women, and this filled both Greece and Rome, and was the prevailing Idolatry when the New Testament was writ: But that all these Nations believed still one Supreme God, and that they considered these just as the Roman Church does now Angels and Saints (mutatis mutandis) has been made out so invincibly by the Learned Dr. Stillingfleet, that one would rather think that he had over-charged his Argument with too much Proof, than that it is any way defective, and yet this Worship of those Secondary Deities is charged with Idolatry both in the Acts and in the Epistles, so often, that it is plain the inspired Writers believed, that the giving any degrees of Divine Worship to a Creature, tho in a [Page] subordinate form, was Idolatry; and St. Paul gives us a comprehensive Notion of Idolatry, that it was the giving Divine Service (the word is Dulia) to those that by Nature were not Gods, Gal. 4. 8. and he throws off all Lords as well as all the Gods of the Heathen as Idols, and in opposition to these, reduces the Worship of the Christians to the Object of one God the Father, and of one Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Cor. 8. 5, 6. So that the Greek and Roman Idolatry being strictly that which is condemned in the New Testament, of which we have such a copious Evidence from their Writings, it is plain that even inferiour degrees of Worship, when offered up to Creatures, tho Angels, is Idolatry; and tho the Heathens thought neither Iupiter nor Mercury the supreme Deities, yet the Apostles did not for all that forbear to call them Idols, Acts 14. 15.

13. Our Author pretends to bear a great respect to Antiquity, and therefore I might in the next place send him to all that the Fathers have writ against the Greek and Roman Idolatry, in which he will find that the Heathens had their Explainers as well as the Church of Rome has; they denied they worshipped their Images, but said they made use of them only to raise up their Minds by those visible Objects; yet as St. Paul begun the Charge against the Athenians of Idolatry, Acts 17. 29. for their Gods of Gold, Silver, Wood and Stone, it was still kept up and often repeated by the Fathers, tho the Philosophers might have thrown it back upon them with all that Pomp of dreadful Words, which our Author makes use of against those that fasten the same Charge upon the Church of Rome. The same might be said with relation to the Fathers, accusing them of Polytheism, in worshipping many Gods, and of Idolatry, in worshipping those that had been but Men like themselves: for it is plain that at least all the Philosophers and wise Men believed, that these were only deputed by the Great God to govern some Countries and Cities; and that they were Mediators and Intercessors between God and Men; but all this, that appears so fully in Celsus, Porphiry, and many others, did not make the Fathers give over the Charge. Dr. Stillingfleet has given such full Proofs of this, that nothing can be made plainer than the matter of Fact is. We know likewise that when the Controversy arose concerning the God-head of Jesus Christ, Athanasius and the other Fathers, made use of the same Argument against the [Page] Arrians, who worshipped him, that they could not be excused from the Sin of Idolatry, in worshipping and invocating him whom they believed only to be a Creature; which shews that it was the Sense of the Christians of that Age, that all Acts of Divine Worship, and in particular, all Prayers that were offered up to any that was not truly and by Nature God, and the Eternal God, were so many Acts of Idolatry. So that upon the whole matter it is clear, that the worshipping the true God under a Corporeal Representation, and the worshipping or invocating of Creatures, tho in an inferior degree, was taxed by the Apostles and by the Primitive Church as idolatrous. When they accuse them for those Corruptions of Divine Worship, they did not consider the softning Excuses of more refined Men, so much as the Acts that were done, which to be sure do always carry the stupid vulgar to the grossest degrees of Idolatry; and therefore every step towards it is so severely forbid by God, since upon one step made in the publick Worship, the People are sure to make a great many more in their Notions of things, therefore if we should accuse the Church of Rome for all the Excesses of the past Ages, or of the more ignorant Notions in the present Age, such as Spain and Portugal, even this might be in some degree well grounded, because the publick and authoris'd Offices and Practices of that Church has given the rise to all those Disorders; and even in this we should but copy after the Fathers, who always represent the Pagan Idolatry; not as Cicero or Plutarch had done it, but according to the grossest Notions and Practices of the vulgar.

14. All that our Author says concerning the Cherubims, deserves not an Answer; for what use soever might be made of this, to excuse the Lutherans for the use of Images, without worshipping them, (tho after all, the doing such a thing upon a Divine Commandment, and the doing it without a Command, are two very different things) yet it cannot belong to the Worship of Images, since the Israelites paid no worship to the Cherubims. They paid indeed a Divine Worship to the Cloud of Glory, which was between them, and which is often in the Old Testament called God himself, in all those Expressions in which he is said to dwell between the Cherubims. But this being a miraculous Symbol of the Divine Presence, from which they had Answers in all extraordinary Cases, it was God himself, [Page] with any Image or Representation, that was worshipped in it; as we Christians pay our Adorations to the Human Nature of Christ, by virtue of that more sublime and ineffable in-dwelling of the God-head in him, in which case it is God only that we worship, in the Man Christ: even as the Respect that we pay to a Man terminates in his Mind, tho the outward Expressions of it go to the Body, to which the Mind is united; so in that unconceivable Union between the Divine and Human Natures in Christ, we adore the God-head only, even when we worship the Man.

15. The general part of this Discourse being thus stated, the Application of it to the Church of Rome will be no hard matter: I will not insist much on the Article of Image-worship; because it is not comprehended in the Test, tho our Author dwells longest on it, to let us see how carefully, but to how little purpose he had read Dr. Spencer's learned Book. But if one considers the Ceremonies and Prayers with which Images▪ and particularly Crosses, are to be dedicated by the Roman Pontifical, and the formal Adoration of the Cross on Good-friday; and the strange Virtues that are not only believed to be in some Images by the Rabble, but that are authoriz'd not only by the Books of Devotion publickly allowed among them, but even by Papal Bulls and Indulgences, he will be forced to confess that the old Notions of the Teraphim are clearly revived among them. This could be made out in an infinite Induction of Particulars, of which the Reader will find a large account in the Learned Dr. Brevint's Treatise, entituled, Saul and Samuel at Endor. But I come now to the two Branches mentioned in the Test.

16. One is the Sacrifice of the Mass; in which if either our Senses that tell us it is now Bread and Wine, or the New Testament in which it is called both Bread, and the Fruit of the Vine, even after the Consecration; or if the Opinion of the first seven Centuries, or if the true Principles of Philosophy, concurring altogether, are strong enough, we are as certain as it is possible for us to be of any thing, that they are still according to our Author's own Phrase, a sensless piece of matter; when therefore this has Divine Adoration offered to it, when it is called the good God, carried about in solemn Processions, and receives as publick and as humble a Veneration as could be [Page] offered up to the Deity it self, if it appear'd visibly. Here the highest degree of Divine Worship is offered up to a Creature▪ nor will such Worshippers, believing this to be truly the Body of Christ, save the matter, if indeed it is not so. This may no doubt go a great way to save themselves, and to bring their Sins into the class of the Sins of Ignorance: but what large Thoughts soever we have of the Mercies of God to their Persons, we can have no Indulgence for an Act of Divine Adoration, which is directed to an Object that we are either sure is Bread, or we are sure of nothing else.

17. As for the Invocation and Adoration of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, I shall offer only three Classes of Instances to prove it Idolatrous.

1. In the Office of the Mass on many of the Saints Days, that Sacrifice which is no other than the Body and Blood of Christ, according to them is offered up to the Honour of the Saints, and they pray to God to accept of it through the Saints Intercession, one would think it were enough to offer up the Sacrifices of Prayers and Praises to them; but here is a Sacrifice, which carries in the plain Words of it the most absurd Idolatry that is possible, which is the offering up the Creator to the Honour of a Creature.

2. In the Prayers and Hymns that are in their publick Offices, there are Petitions offered up to the Saints, that in the plain sense of the Words import their pardoning our Sins, and changing our Hearts: the daily Prayer to the Virgin goes far this way; Tu nos ab hoste protege, & hora mortis suscipe; Do thou protect us from our Enemy, and receive us in the hour of Death. Another goes yet further; Culpas nostras ablue, ut perennis Sedem Gloriae, per te redempti, valeamus scandere; Wash thou away our Sins, that so being redeemed by thee, we may ascend up to the Mansions of Glory. That to the Angels is of the same nature; Nostra diluant jam Peccata prestando supernam Coeli gloriam; May they wash away our Sins, and grant us the Heavenly Glory. I shall to this add two Addresses to two of our English Saints; the first is to S. Alban, Te nunc petimus Patrone preco sedule, qui es nostra vera Gloria sive precum votis, servorum scelera; We implore thee, our Patron, who art our true Glory, do thou take away the Crimes of thy Servants, by thy Prayers. And the other relates to Thomas Becket, whom I believe our Author will not deny to have [Page] been as great a Rebel, as either Coligny or his Faction, and yet they pray thus to Christ, Tu per Thomae sanguinem, quem pro te effudit, fac nos Christe, scandere quo Thomas ascendit; Do thou, O Christ, make us by the Blood of Thomas, which he shed for thee, to ascend up whither he has ascended: and the Hymn upon him is that Verse of the 8th Psalm; Thou hast crowned him with Glory and Honour, and hast set him over all the Works of thy Hands. One would think it were no bold thing to pronounce all this and innumerable more Instances which might be brought to the same purpose, to be idolatrous. If we are sent by our Author to the sences that may be put on those Words, I shall only say with relation to that that the Test condemns the Devotions as they are used in the Roman Church; so this belongs to the plain sence of the Words, and if it is confessed that these are idolatrous, as ascribing to Creatures the Right of pardoning Sins, and of opening the Kingdom of Heaven, which are main parts of the Divine Glory, then the matter of the Test is justified.

A third sort of Instances is in the Prayer that comes after the Priest has pronounced the Words of Absolution, Passio Domini nostri Iesu Christi, merita B. Mariae Virginis, & omnium Sanctorum, & quicquid benefeceris, vel mali sustinueris, sint tibi in remissionem Peccatorum, augmentum gratiae & proemium vitae aeternae: May the Passion of our Lord Iesus Christ, the Merits of the B. Virgin, and all the Saints, and all the good thou hast done, or the evil thou hast suffered, be to thee effectual for the remission of thy Sins, the Increase of Grace, and the Reward of eternal Life. Absolution in its true and unsophisticated meaning, being the Declaration made to a Penitent of the Mercies of God in Christ, according to the Gospel, I would gladly know what milder censure is due to the mixing the Merits of the Virgin and the Saints, with the Passion of Christ, in order to the obtaining this Gospel-pardon, with all the effects of it, than in this of our Test, that it is idolatrous.

I have now examined the two Points, in which our Author thought fit to make an Apology for the Church of Rome, without descending to the particulars of his Plea more minutely. I have used him in this more gently than he deserves; for as I examined his Reasonings, I found all along both so much Ignorance and such gross Disingenuity, that I had some difficulty to restrain my self from flying out on many occasions: but I resolved [Page] to pursue these two Points, with the gravity of stile which the matter required, without entangling the Discourse with such unpleasant Digressions, as the Discovery of his Errors might have led me to. And I thought it enough to free unwary Readers from the Mistakes into which his Book might lead them, without encreasing the contempt belonging to the Writer, who has now enough upon him; but I pray God grant him Repentance, and a better Mind.

FINIS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Reader is desired to take notice, that the Author did not know of the Death of the Bishop of Oxford, till this Answer was Printed.

[Page]

Information about this book

Title statement

A discourse concerning transubstantiation and idolatry being an answer to the Bishop of Oxford's plea relating to those two points.

Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.

Edition statement

1688

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

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Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2004-03 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A30335

ID [STC]

Wing B5775

ID [STC]

ESTC R23015

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

12623040

ID [OCLC]

ocm 12623040

ID [VID]

64583

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Early English books online.

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(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A30335)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 64583)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 709:1)

Source

— A discourse concerning transubstantiation and idolatry being an answer to the Bishop of Oxford's plea relating to those two points., Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715..

Extent

36 p.

[s.n.],. London :: 1688.. (First published in two tracts, the first titled "A second part of the Enquiry into the Reasons offered by Sa. Oxon [Bp. Parker] for abrogating the test", the second, "A continuation of the second part of the Enquiry.") (Reproduction of original in Huntington Library.)

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