ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ STILLINGFLEETON. OR, An account given to a Catholic Friend, of Dr. Stillingfleets late book against the Roman Church. Together with a short Postil upon his Text, In three Letters,  
By I V C.  

All things are not, which seem to be:  
Nor do all things seem to be, which are.   
Bruges, Printed by Luke Kerchove, 1672.   

ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ THE PREFACE.  
SIR,  
MAny learned Treatises have been composed and set forth, by the Reverend J. V C. the worthy Author of FIAT LUX, for persuading a right Understanding and Moderation in matters of Religion; and for the convincing this our distracted Nation, of the Innocency of our Catholic Religion and Practices, in order to Church and State; which have been received with much benefit and applause. But that good esteem wherewith You and Others entertained the First Part of his TO KATHOLIKO, did especially engage Him, to endeavour the publishing the remaining Pieces thereof then fitted for your view, in obedience to your command, as well as to undeceive Dr. Stil●●'s seduced Readers both concerning his Errors, and our Vnblamableness; as also to discover the grand Imposture, contrived by his Malice or Folly for the subversion of his Catholic Neighbours.  
The whole Work had long since been made public, had it not (as the cause it justifies) suffered much Persecution, almost to its utter suppression. The malignity of our Adversaeries, conscious of the weakness of the Doctor's charge against Us; and fearing, lest the perverseness of their hearts, in imposing and divulging so evident calumnies, should become Visible; has constrained this your harmless Postill to a longer Voyage, than the timely Vindication of our Churches impeached Honour, would have otherwise reasonably allowed; Having now escaped many storms it walks alone, and ventures to look forth upon you; yet had its worthy Author been longer spared with Us, you would have seen it in a fuller and more fashionable dress; though even thus, it is not beneath your Expectations, offering unto your Consideration, such sober Reflections, as well become the dignity of the Holy and Apostolical Religion of Catholics, and do clearly Vindicate that our Way from the foulest aspersions, carnal wisdom could utter, against plain Truth and Honesty.  
Were that freedom, which the Doctor's provocations imply, allowed Us, for a legal defence of our holy Church, which the Law of Nations, and our Venerable Courts of Justice afford the most wretched assailed Innocents', in Case of fraud and Calumny, against the Prevaricators of common peace; It would be easy to manifest, that as our Catholic Doctrine and Devotions need no other Champion, than that Church's perfection and Majesty: So her many Doctors, neither want skill or will, to put by those weak thrusts, the Doctor makes at her reputation hitherto preserved without blemish by God's assured providence, over her watchful Pastors.  
The Doctor in this his Account of the Idolatry, Impiety, Fanaticism, Divisions, (and what not of Iniquity?) of the Roman Church, hath summed up high Criminations against Us; and then, having laid the Foundations of his own Belief, concludes, the Church of Rome, neither to be the Catholic Church, nor any sound part, or member thereof; but whether he designed this his so peremptory a Charge, as an Obelisk, with GRATITUDO POSUIT, to his thereby deluded Benefactors; or to be a new Dioclesian Column, with NOMINE CHRISTIANO DELETO, for this Age too; he knows best, who framed it; sure it is his fundamentals are such, that they subvert all Christian Monarchy and Obedience, without which, not only Christianity, but neither any Church, consisting of more than one member, can long preserve its self from mouldering into Divisions and Desolation.  
The truth is, if ever any Opposer of our Catholic Faith, has betrayed his own Cause, this Doctor is notably guilty of it: for his Imputations upon Us are so evidently slanderous, and the Principles of his own Religion so leaky that they have rendered the whole Reformation suspected of a Notorious Cheat, in its growth and progress, to all unprejudiced Judgements; who by the sober ways of our Religious Worship, our many great encouragements to piety, our zeal in observing Evangelical Counsels, and our wonderful Unity in the groundsills of our Christianity, are clearly convinced of the holiness of our Catholic Truths, and Maxims of Morality; and (notwithstanding, our Adversaries loud declaiming against Us, even from the Infancy of Christian Religion, to this Age when the Reformation was Ushered in by unclean licentiousness, much different from the subtle Errors of Primitive Dissenters,) that neither Wit nor Malice of Man can overthrow the Faith and Moral Precepts of the Roman Church, conveyed unto Us in her sacred Canons; whereas her Impugners still, like Ionas Gourd, whither in their blossom; for the counsels of Men shall fail, according to the good Gamaliels' Rule, but God and Truth have their Date everlasting.  
Had the Doctor as carefully perused the large Records of our Church Histories, which treasure up, and continue to Us, the Body of our Christian Belief and Rules of manners, unchanged through all its Ages, by the Vigilancy of her Apostolical Governors, by whom Primitive Truths have been unanimously conserved, and conveyed unto Us in their Original Purity; as he has been in Rakeing over the foul ashes of ambitious Schismatics. Sceptics, and Libertines, (the Cockle, that still grows up with Christ's best corn); and in frameing his Creed by the Square of his Truth discerning Reason, that which Holy Scripture forbids to our utter peril; he had discovered, our Catholic Doctrine to be the very Image of her Divine Architype, who IS, and changes not; and who has accordingly laid the Foundation of, and built up, this our Impregnable City of the Pilgrim Saints; still guarding It with his own sacred Spirit, and assisting her Visible Pastors, in the Government of that his Catholic Body, that as he hath promised, Hell may not prevail against it; Nor may the Doctor's severe Account hope other success herein, than the more powerful Swords of Pagan Caesar's, the Edicts of Senates. and the wrath of Flamens of the Old Heathen Rome; upon whose Ruins, our glorious Lord hath by S. Peter, built up this his everlasting Church; in Communion wherewith only, we can pretend to the Title of Christianity, or to the promises which Jesus Christ has thereunto annexed; if either Christ's promise, or gift to, or prayers for S. Peter, may be allowed, to have either power with God, or any credit with Mankind.  
Hence Sir, the Doctor's Book, as it has bred admiration at his confidence, and contempt of his Malice, amongst all Catholics, who are better acquainted with their own Faith and practices, then to be instructed in them, or misled from them, by any prevaricatours sounding brass or tinkling Cymbal: so hath it raised up an amazement, in some of the more learned Clergy, of Protestants, at that his boldness; and caused them to suspect too, their own cause; which, after so oft plaistring over their breach from Us, with manifold Untruths at length needs buttressing up with so palpably incredible calumnies, therein inserted. His Account indeed seems chief designed for Vulgar Capacities and therefore he mainly endeavours to captivate their attention and belief, with much sophistry, and many smooth stories, of some Doctors amongst Catholics, whose different Opinions about the Moods of Christian Doctrine (which they believe simply, as it is delivered them plainly, though they Vary in their Explications of Divine Mysteries) he makes pass for disagreeing in Articles of Faith; of others some, who schismatically affected speak the stile of their predominant passions, not according to the Religion they received from their Catholic Teachers, and are therefore censured by the great Overseers of Christiant●y; whom nevertheless the Doctor makes to speak the pure sense of the Roman Churches Faith and Piety; And of some too, whose Judgements guided by the compass of their ambitious and unclean affections, driving at great Names and Places, cause division in the outward Hierarchy and Government of the Church, for which neither the Canons of our Faith and Manners gives them any authority; nor may it be hoped, that either the care or power of our chief Pastors, may wholly avoid such Wolves, since according to Christ's prophecy, scandals will still arise, though our Catholic Bishops still oppose themselves against them; and yet the Doctor will have these either to be our Church Governors, or their actions to be destructive of our Catholic Unity. But all these slights of his are to so little purpose, that many sober Protestants has been startled at th●se his Canting, and Imputations upon so ancient and grave a Body of Christians, whom their former Teachers ever allowed to be members of Christ's Mystical Body and capable of salvation, in their own way of Christian observance Whence as the Cruelty of the old Roman Emperors and Precedents, against the Primitive Christians moved many unbelievers of those times, to embrace the Roman Faith; so has the severe Accusations of the Doctor against Catholics, moved many of their Adversaries, to a more steady enquiry into our Catholic Truths, to confer more reverently with the Dispenser's of the Doctrine of that defamed Religion; and oft to conclude, somewhat more than ordinary of truth and honesty to be found in that Way, which being long since banished this Nation, by very severe Laws, is still so eagerly arraigned, so clamorously cried down, in Press and Pulpit; and at any Rate exposed to the severity of those, whose Interest, passion or dulness, has ever since engaged them in its suppression.  
The Doctor's whole Account amounts to a pulling down, and a setting up; first he pulls down the Church of Rome, than He sets up his Own; he makes Use of four formidable Engines to overturn that our Catholic Church, which your TO KATHOLICO amply examines; But surely, if the Church of Rome falls, all Churches, which either received their belief from her or now communicate in faith with her, must fall too; and thus the Catholic Church, and the Communion of Saints, an entire Article of the Apostles Creed▪ is on a sudden canceled. Indeed it is so proper to all Church Reformers, to pull down Churches, and such like Monuments of our forefathers Christian piety, sucked in with that faith they originally received from their Roman Apostles, that our Nation has cause enough to bewail the power of th●● Sword of Gospelers, in whose sense we may confess, The Roman Church, in some measure, to be no sound Church; even no Church at all, were their Swords as keen as their Pens and Tongues, and as close-laid, as Nero once wished His▪ to an Imaginary Neck; for we are ever bound to believe, each one speaks and writes his own thoughts and hearty wishes.  
The Doctor having endeavoured to levelly our Roman Church, and not finding One principled according to his own Acephalick passion, wherewith to close, lays the foundation of his Own, properly His, Stillingfleet Church; Not Roman, nor Protestant nor indeed any Church at all; for where he leaves neither any constant Rule, whereby to square our faith or observance, in necessaries not clearly revealed in holy Wrist; nor any power to oblige to a conformity in Belief and Practices; nor any One Visible Head, for our Direction and Communion, there can be no Church of Christ, but a Babel and Confusion; that which evidently follows from the Doctors Own Principles; whereunto he pretends, the faith of Protestants must be reduced, as to the only true Test, of its being Christian and Catholic. And thus, after our long reproaching, that Church as Vnprincipled, the Doctor in a full Council of his own thoughts, assembled in Virtue of his all-truth discerning Spirit, synodically pronounces his anathemas against Us, and publishes Canons of faith to all the Churches of England, and will prove it to be One, Holy, Apostolical and Catholic, by such Rules, as neither Scripture, nor Counsels, nor Fathers, nor any Church ever mentioned before, nor will ever be solemnly canonised by any Synod of our English Prelate's, however he pretends them to be Protestant, (wherein we may admire at their silence); even by those Rules, by which, a●●●elief built on them (not borrowed from the Roman Church) may be contradictory, and will be clearly resolved not to have One Mark of the true Christian Church, even to be no Church at all, but a pure Stillingfleet an phantosm.  
His design in forging these his Principles was, thence to show, the Protestant Church, as Protestant, or as it is by Schism separated from the great Catholic Body of Christians, to be Positive, uniform and Principled; whereas by them, it is clearly Negative, Confusive, and Begs the question in the root of all. Briefly thus: As for the first, the Dr aims directly, at the subversion of all traditional Revelation, and of an external visible and infallible proponent of divine credibles, and of all power obliging to acceptance of them as such and consequently, at the overthrow of all Articles, by the Church of Rome allowed and Canonised as truths revealed upon those grounds. As for the next his Canons for the interpreting God's written Revelations, are of that Latitude, that whoever admits them, if he please, may disagree with the Doctor and all others, and with himself too, at different times, by virtue of a pretended Personal infallible-all-truth discerning-faculty which he allows all, in all fundamentals and superstructures depending on the controverted sense of Gods written Word, after a sober enquiry and sincere endeavours; however necessary those credibles be to salvation, or the framing one Church of many truth-discerning members; whether this their enquiry be performed by the working of reason only, which in supernatural Truths, revives Pelagianism; or by a pretended personal divine assistance, in regard of each Believer; to which every one may as legally pretend, and appropriate it to himself, by pretence of having used his best means to understand Scripture, as the Dr. himself, or any other Teacher, which is to erect an Acephalick Enthusiasm or Fanaticism. And as for the last, if it be a legal proof, that there is no traditional Revelation▪ or that God has used fraud, or that his scribes have been unsincere with us, because there are some divine Revelations written; or again, that there is no external infallible proponent or obliging Authority, as to matter of faith and manners, necessary, because every one is an infallible proponent to himself, and can use his best endeavours to discern the true sense of Scripture in necessaries to Salvation▪ or also that the Church of Rome is not the Catholic Church, nor any sound part thereof because the true believer must sincerely endeavour to discover the true meaning of written Revelations, according to the intention of God's holy Spirit; if I say, these of such like discourses of the Dr be first principles, we need not fear begging the question, in any discourse whatsoever.  
But I purpose not here Sir to give you a special report either of the Drs. account of our Calick Religion, or of his Principles of his own, intending not to exceed the limits of a preliminary Epistle, or to forestall your TO KATHOLIKO, or the labours of others, who have already entered the field, or perhaps will hereafter appear there, to help on the Doctor's Itch of writing against the Roman Church, or for his own (as he makes it his Profession) though to as little purpose as if he had forbid his beard to grow, or the Sun to walk his usual rounds, for God will preserve the work of his own hands should the Dr. scribble or babble till his doomsday. However it will be worth the while, if he thinks his cause deserves it, to consider his own contradictions; his own Fanaticism; his misrepresentations of our Catholic Devotions & of our doctrine of repentance and Indulgences, his Principles considered, a●d this your Friends KATHOLIKO TO wherein he may find diversion enough for the ex●●cising his truth discerning faculty and sober enquiry. And since he now has so notoriously injured the, Catholic Church, by Infamations and Novelties, and has confidently provoked the Doctors thereof, to appear in the Field; We may in all justice expect, he will not, as hitherto set guards upon all approaches; nor shall be then want wherewith to employ his admirable talents, in those his dear Fields, which lay so open for himself to ramble in.  
Now Sir, as for any Answer to these our replies, you must be sure to arm yourself, with a large store of Resignation; either to be told by the Doctor, of his many more important employments abroad, and necessary Occupations at home for propagating the Gospel; or to hear of some new desperate Piece against Popery, which some considerable Person expects from him; or that he is sick of some disease, much like Demosthenes his Quinsy; for 'tis usual with Persons of his opportunities, in this case, still to answer besides the purpose; nor to heed whatever has been often said unto them; but ever to crow and caper, as if each of them were a Conqueror, so true is it, That although thou shouldest bray a Fool in a Mortar, amongst Wheat with a Pestle, yet will not his foolishness departed from Him. So unwilling to detain You any longer, from the perusal of this your KATHOLIKON, I remain  
SIR, Your devoted Servant, J. C. June 25. 1672.   

TO THE READER.  
Courteous Reader,  
FOr preventing mistakes, thou art desired to take Notice, that some few Copies of J. V C. his Third Letter, speaking to the pretended Fanaticism and Divisions of the Church of Rome, stole abroad without, either the review or allowance of the publisher, and therefore they are not owned as the true and genuine Work of that Author; that which is here presented unto Thee; together with his first Epistle, which refutes Image Idolatry imputed to that Church, formerly Printed, now reprinted with addition; and likewise his Second Letter replying to Dr. Stilling fleets Host Idolatry and Saint Idolatry; and also to his Hindrances of good Life and Devotion. Which make the whole Posthume Work of that Worthy Author, answering to that Doctor's Account.   

Most considerable Errata Corrected.  
[Image Idolatry.] Page 20. Line 13. Beads.  
[Host Idolatry & ●.] Pag. 30. lin. 8. do take, pag. 37. l. 5. for all.  
[Hindrances, etc.] Pag. 14. l. 22. he may not. Pag. 18. l. 8 how the Sacraments. p. 19 l. 23. oft, no ways.  
[Fanaticism.] Pag. 11. lin. 11. propagation. pag. 12. l. 9 peace and. p. 23. Acab. p. 16. l. 18. Feast of the.   

ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ Stillingfleeton.  
THe Book, Sir, which taken up with better affairs, you sent unto me, that I might, after I had read it over, draw an Abridgement of it for you, with my own thoughts superadded in the close, by way of a short Comment thereon, is the second production as it seems, of Doctor Stillingfleet against Popery. Less displeasing it is I think to a Reader, and nothing so tiresome, as some other Books which have issued forth on that Side against the ways of Catholic Religion. For there is some Truth in his Citations, a seasoning of Salt and comical Wittiness sprinkled all over; and no such thick gross venom of maliciousness, wherewith other Books of that kind are overcharged, appearing, though much of it lie hid, throughout his Book. Indeed he perverts all things by his various subtlety: But that is no more, but what his own fame and interest, here principally aimed at, would require. And we must give him leave to deride also, and play and sport himself in his Book, as a Leviathan in his own waters. It is his pasti●ue and pleasure, and a sweetness esteemed perhaps necessary to his life. And who would be so ill-natured as to envy it him? Besides, it is a pretty piece of Rhetoric, both fit and very efficacious to create in his Protestant Readers an opinion of his unerring confidence, which is the one great end of his Labours. And if we be thus kind, he will, in recompense of that our civility, give leave I suppose to Catholics, who see him so jocund and supinely careless in his errors, thence to conclude the strange inconsiderate security of the merry man.  
But we must know, Sir, that this his elaborate Book against the Church of Rome, as he speaks, although it be his second, yet is it not intended to be his last: For, If Catholics have any thing to say, quoth he, either against our Church, or in defence of their own, let them come into the open Field, from whence they have of late so wisely withdrawn themselves, finding so little success in it. Thus he speaks in his Preface, threatening (if I understand him right) another Knocker, as stout a one as this can be, if any one dare to appear against him, or say so much as Boo to a Goose. And these words of his, import I think a Challenge, called commonly a Defiance; which Catholics as soon as they had read, thought it as much their duty, as it sounded to be the Doctor's desire, to fit their Slings unto their Arms, and meet him. But the thing proved alas to be but a Copy of the Doctor's Countenance, quite differing from his heart. For the Presses, guarded enough before against Catholics, was presently within a month after his Book came forth, so stoutly beset, so frequently invaded, so violently searched night and day, especially by the industry of one of them, who entering into the Printing-houses, cried out aloud, And what! have ye here any thing against the Doctor Stilling fleet? hah! that what before was difficil, and extremely dangerous, was now become impossible. So that I believe not Catholic in England can do him the favour which the Doctor thirsts after so earnestly in his Lips. He challenged the Pap●sts for his Credit, and stopped up their way for his Security: He would first make the world believe they cannot answer him, and then provides that they shall not. This seems to be his mind.  
And yet I think, Sir, there be few Protestant Gentlemen in England who desire not as earnestly as any Catholic, to see some Reply to his Book: So little do they think themselves concerned in a Scroll which neither defends their Religion, nor hurts or touches ours; wherein nothing is said, but what might as well be spoken by a Mahomet an, Jew, or Pagan; and the most part of that which is put to disable Catholic Religion, diminishes Christianity itself. Some of them offered themselves to print a Reply for us: But they offered but words. For they found that the Bishop durst not give a Licence to any of our Catholic Books, only so far as to secure the Printer from danger; although the Doctor be a Foe to their Rank and Order, and Catholic Religion a Friend. This is, truly Sir, a very sad case, that they can freely give one a Licence to defame men, and yet dare not give others a Licence to clear themselves. Doctor Cousins when he was in Paris, spoke up and down so freely against Catholic Religion that their Clergy hearing of it came to him, and told him plainly, That if he had aught to say against their Religion they would both get him a Licence from the Bishop to print his Book, and themselves pay the whole charges, and then answer him when they had done, for his satisfaction. But we poor Creatures can obtain no favour in our own Country, no leave to speak or justify ourselves, no Licence to print a Book for our defence, when we are both scurrilously libelled, and falsely slandered, and imperiously challenged to answer: Nor is there any open field for our poor Men to come forth into, that I know of, but Tyburn; and that is perhaps the Doctor's meaning. It does mightily amaze our Catholics all over the Land, to have their Ears thus beaten with slanders, which are both of a high nature, and still notoriously false, year by year, without any end; thereby to make us odious to our Neighbours, and them to God. Our blessed Lord have pity on us; and either open, if it may be thy will, our Magistrates hearts towards us, or stop the Ministers mouths against us; that our good Name and Peace may return unto thy great Glory. We are, if we be silent, proclaimed guilty: and if we speak, insolent. What can we do, Sir, here, but still commend ourselves unto our heavenly Lord, who miraculously preserves us. We do either subsist after this life, or not. Our Protestant Country men must needs believe one of these two things: Either some Religion is true, or it is all a fiction. If it be all affliction, and there is no life to come, then are they as guilty as we; nay, something more; for they have taken away our Churches from us, for themselves to dissemble in. If there be a life to come, and this everlasting, then can there certainly be nothing of greater importance in this world, than to know, when many ways are pretended to it, which of them is the most authentic and truest, wherein we may be both happy and safe for ever. Why then are we, who are the first not permitted to speak, while all others are permitted to blaspheme us? If we prove to go amiss, the danger is our own: and if we be in the right, it cannot be any danger unto them to know it. All the positive things of Religion which any of them do keep, they have them all from us, we borrow nothing from them. And the negative points which separate them from us, seem to us as false and impious, as they can possibly appear true to them. They have as many Articles to believe as we, only some of them which made the separation are affirmative to us, and negative to them: And one Affirmers word is to be taken in Judgement before ten Deniers. And yet will they neither read our Books, nor suffer us to print any, when we are falsified, and misinterpreted, and challenged and obliged to do it, for fear I think our Religion should prove true. All rejoice when a Book is written against Popery: but no man seeks to be informed. They will have it by all means to be esteemed false, be it in itself what it will or can be. And in that strange prejudice men venture to die, only for the pleasure of a Minister and his Wife and Children, who must needs have it so.  
The occasion of this his present book, entitled, A Discourse concerning the Idolatry, etc. was, it seems, a question or two propounded unto Mr. Stilling fleet, by I know not what Gentlewoman, who having heard the Doctor say, That Protestants if they turned Roman Catholics, would lose their Salvation; told him, That if Protestants say so, then are they full as uncharitable as Papists themselves, who aver the like of Protestants: She therefore consults some Catholic Gentleman in the business; I do not know whom neither. But he, it seems put into her hand two questions, to show to Doctor Still, in her next encounter. First was, Whether the same motives which secured one born and bred in the Catholic Church to continue in it, might not also serve to secure a Protestant, who convinced by those motives should embrace it. The second was, Whether it suffice to be a Christian in genere, or it be also necessary to adjoin to some Church of Christians in particular? These be the two questions.  
The second of these two questions the Doctor resolves affirmatively; I affirm saith he, that a Christian by virtue of his being ●o● is ●ound to join ●e the Communion of some Church or Congregation in particular. Thus he resolves it, and speaks not a word more of that business. Yet here we may take notice that the said Resolution of his, is quite contrary both to a book of his called Irenicon, written in the times of our late Anarchy, and also to his first work written more lately against Popery. For all the whole scope of both these books, is to show that a Christian by virtue of his being so, is not bound to join in the Communion of any one Church in particular, or any Organical Body, as he calls it. And that because every such body, either that is or has been in the World, is liable to error, falsehood, and corruptions. And what necessity in ●eed can there be in me to join in any Communion, which may go astray and misled me, since I cannot do worse if I remain free and all alone, and may perhaps do better? But these contradictions are small matters. So long as the Doctor opposes the Catholic Church, out of which they are all fallen, he is a Protestant good enough, whatever he hold in particular, either contrary to himself or any others.  
The first question, which is the occasion and subject of this his present book he resolves negatively; averring, that the same motives which might secure one born and bred in the Catholic Church to continue in it, cannot secure a Protestant, convinced by them to embrace it. And this his Assertion he discourses at large, and confirms by various Syllogisms; because invincible hindrance may perhaps excuse the one, but not the other: because the Protestant is safe in his own Church, and therefore has no necessity to leave it: because there is imminent danger in the Roman Church; where there is so much Idolatry, so many hindrances of good life and devotion, so much divisions, so much uncertainty of faith in it. Unto these resolutions and argumentations of his, the Catholic Proposer adjoined presently his own reply, a very rational me thinks and good one. Hereupon the Doctor wrote and set forth this his present book, called A Discourse against the Idolatry, etc. both to enlarge his own arguments, and to disable the Catholic Gentlemen Reply. And this was the occasion, purpose, and subject of the book you put in my hand to peruse, and write to you the substance of it, with some few brief thoughts of my own upon it.  
Indeed the whole book is a kind of Academic Act or Commencement: such a one as we have once a year in our famous Oxford & Cambridge, written and printed for peoples deligh: and pastime; and if so it please the Stars, for his own honour and preferment by our Doctor. And it came forth very seasonably about a fortnight before the Oxford Act. to save the wits living here abouts, the great charges and some kind of pains of a Journey thither, being now furnished well enough aforehand with as subtle and good an Act, as that may haply be, at our own doors, and which may please the Women somewhat better, in our Mother tongue.  
The conclusions defended in this Holborn Act▪ are these three. 

1. Popery is idolatrous. And this is accomplished in two of his positions which he calls Chapters.  
2. Popery is a hindrance to a good life and devotion. And this is dispatched at one other breathing, named his third Chapter.  
3. Popery is divided and disunited in itself.   And this puffed out in his fifth Chapter, which concludes his Book; And in midst of this great Act, rises up a prevaricating Tripos, to refresh our wearisomeness, and make a little sport. And he takes up the whole Scene of his fourth Chapter. And his Theme is, Fanaticisme: the Church of Rome's Fanaticisme; or the Fanaticism of the Roman Church. And upon my word, it has made many people merry, not the softer S●x only, but the rougher and more serious mankind. And all do so c●ap and commend the man, that one may well bel●eve he has received his reward, Idolatry, ill life and divisions of the Roman Church, which are h●s three less wild conclusions, we have in part already heard of; even as we have heard talk of Europe, Asia and Africa. But Fanaticisme, his merriment is, I think, the proper and peculiar discovery of Dr. Stillingfleet himself: And he may deserve either to give or take a surname from it; as Scipio Africanus took from Africa, and Vesputius Americus gave to America his new found Land. What is it, that wit and industry cannot bring to light, if they be jointly bend both of them upon the search? And a new discovery especially of a rich pleasant Country full of curiosities is so pleasant to the Discoverer himself, so naturally pleasant that I cannot but think that D●ctor Stillingfleet, at his invention of Fanaticisme, wherewith he hoped to make many others merry, laughed hearty himself.  
He gins his Book with the Roman Idolatry: and he does wisely in it. For Idolatry is such a terrible thundering charge; that in all Readers judgements that Church is half condemned already, which hath that crime so much as laid upon it. Men therefore choose rather to be accounted Atheists than Idolaters. For the first argues wit, with other stupidity. Nor will one man of a hundred trouble himself to read over a Book written on any purpose of clearing from that enormous crime either himself or religion professed by the Author of it. Be the imputation never so false, yet is it still ablasting imputation; which kills and overthrows, not so much by proving as by naming it. He must needs be impious who is an Idolater; and he must be an Idolater who is called so. Be it never so unjust, it is still a witty trick to cry out against him as an Idolater, whose honour and livelihood we would here in England undermine. Sad experience has proved this to be true too too often. And the Great God of Heaven's anger lies I fear heavily upon us for it. This thus far. Now forward.  

IMAGE IDOLATRY.  
The Church of Rome worships God by Images, and is therefore guilty of Idolatry by giving to the Creature the worship due only to the Creator. For God having forbidden any such sort of worshipping him by his own law and commandments given by Moses, wherein he forbids his people to make day kind of image, pesel themunah eikon glyp●on, sculptile, any thing represented either by carving tool or pencil, cannot own that worship, nor can any such worship terminate upon God. And the reason of that law of Moses is unchangeable, which is that God's infinite and incomprehensible Deity cannot be represented For which reason the wisest of Heathen both particular Men and Nations judged all such representations of the invisible Godhead to be incongruous and unbecoming his glory; And if this were inconsistent with God's nature and will in the old Law much more in the new, where we are taught to worship God in spirit and truth, and to have no low unworthy thought of God. It might therefore seem more rational to worship God in the Sun, and Moon, which have more of God in them, and to say our prayers to the Sun and Moon them to any image or shadow; the same argument which excuses the one will justify the other much more. For this reason St. Paul teaches that the Godhead is not like to gold or silver or stone, and blames those who change the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of corruptible man. And the Heathens in doing this did ill: although the wiser sort among them testify that they did not hold their statues to be Gods, but that they worshipped God in them. And yet some ancient Fathers disputed notwithstanding against that heathen practice, and counted it idolatry. Wherefore Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople says expressly that Christians make no representation of the invisible Deity; and Damascene that it is madness to go about it. Wherefore the Synod of Constantinople and that of Frankford pleaded hard against the making of any images amongst Christians however the second Council of Nice vainly went about to defend them as innocent and useful helps. Finally, Moses himself explicates by his deeds the meaning of his own Law when he was so highly displeased with Aaron for the golden Calf he had made the people in his absence. And yet Aaron did not make it to bring the people into heathen idolatry, but to give them only a Symbol of the Angel who was to go before the people: As also the two Calves set up by Jeroboam in Dan and Bethel were set up only to keep the people from going up to Jerusalem, and not to bring them to the idolatry of heathens. And therefore Primitive Christians never used any images, as the learned of the Church of Rome acknowledge.  
§ 1. This is the sum of the Doctor's discourse in this his first Chapter. And he cannot but expect his Reader should have a mighty conceit of either his most high or most deep Divinity, who hath conversed so much with the learned sort of the Church of Rome, the graver sort of Philosophers, and wiser sort of Heathens. Nothing does he here deliver, that was so much as thought of by the common sort, the vulgar sort, the ordinary sort of Mankind. And O what pleasure and content of heart will it be unto him, if he could meet with an adversary of his learned sort too, who viewing his airy subtleties should oppose him seriously, as if he were serious himself; and then distinguish as if he were dealing with some solid Divine; and then ply him with proofs and testimonies, refel him by shorter enthymems and longer syllogisms; subtly search in what Mood and Figure he speaks; and then tell him how his consequence flags, or antecedent is ambiguous, till he have learnedly consumed a hundred pages in refutation of a trifle. Then surely will the Doctor be judged by all parties to be as he would be thought to be, an able man.  
§ 2. The Catholic Church uses indeed both in their public and private oratory's, some pious representations of our holy Lord, either in his passion, or birth, resurrection, or ascension, or miraculous working of some divine miracle: And these holy figures of his are accompanied commonly with some others of his blessed Virgin Mother, the renowned Apostles, valorous Martyrs, holy Confessors, chaste Virgins, or other happy followers of our Lord, who through many tribulations and a constant exercise of Christian virtues have passed hence to a blessed life. All which do mightily avail, unto our retiredness and recollection; when we enter into the house of prayer, a holy place separated and sanctified for God's service, from our own houses or the streets. And the respect or esteem we have for such figures, is nothing but what we bear either unto the sacred histories recorded of the same Persons, or to those good rules of life and promises of Gospel, which those Worthies have embraced, for the encouragement and imitation of us, who are now struggling in that wicked world, which they overcame before us. For example, as we reverence the history of Christ's incarnation, sounding in our ear; so do we look upon the figure of it represented to our eye: As we love the story of St. Mary magdalen's conversion; so do we like her Picture. As we honour St. Paul's life and Martyrdom; so do we respect his Image. And St. Lawrences most cruel passion upon the hot burning Gridiron, when it is represented to us in a Picture, we are in the self same manner affected towards it, as we are to the invincible virtue and patience there shown for the Love and honour of Jesus our Lord, whose steps he followed. So that, what authentic history records to us in words, of the virtue and valour of any of our Christian Ancestors; or what holy Gospel tells us, of the glory and crown to be rendered unto the good works of sobriety, charity, chastity, purity, patience, and the like: the same is without words painted unto us by these compendious hieroglyphics, serving more speedily than words can do, to fasten us unto a strict recollection in our Prayers by one short glance about us; and to a fear and awfulness of God's presence in that place where we are met together for his Service, accompanied with the sigures of so many of our pious Ancestors who are gone to Heaven before us; and also to a dissipation of any worldly thoughts, that may, as they are apt enough to do, at that time come along with us there unto our hindrance. All this benefit we have by our Pictures, when we have haply no book to look upon, or know not by our ignorance to read, or cannot by darkness or other lettance attend unto that labour. And this is all the whole business of Images, as to Religion. In the Road of Philosophy trodden by School-Divines, where thousands of conclusions over and above faith are advanced and opposed by one another unto the sharpening of their wits, many things are said about every thing, as the creation, resurrection, and the like, which faith in the same things is silent of; Nor are we in our defence of faith concerned at all in them. And it may be easily discerned by our Catholic practice what use we make of our Images, when of a hundred people entering into a Church, nor one of them ever casts his eye wistly upon them, but contented with a general glance, compose themselves presently unto their prayers and meditations they keep silently in spirit towards God. And when our Pictures are so sullied and spoiled, that they will no more serve our use, we put them into the fire, as we would do also a page of sacred Scriptures utterly obliterated and fouled.  
§ 3. Indeed all the whole business of the use of Images at all, is but a matter of discipline and government, for the help of people in the great work of recollection and prayer; as is the use of Churches, and the music used in them, with the Harp, Viol., & other Instruments, the Use of Beads and Prayer-books. All which our Religion could spare, and yet be not at all impaired, as to any its essential or substantial parts. Nay there be inconveniences in any one of these things. Nor do I know any good thing in this world without some inconvenience or other. It is enough for us, that the conveniences and benefits of any good we have or use, are more and greater than the inconveniences be. Many worthy Prelates in Christianity have at times excepted very strongly against Organs, as some hindrance of the great work of spiritual contemplation which Christian people meet to practice together in their holy Assemblies, the great paramount work of Christianity, especially at Mass. But these men, although moved unto that their exception by a Zeal not evil, yet were they fain to yield at last unto the prevailing reasons of other Prelates which over bore their lesser ones. Some other of our Catholic Doctors and Prelates would have had us to have used no Pictures; that Jews and Pagans might not catch at that pretence to cavil against our Christianity as they did. But all these submitted at last, unto the prevailing part; by whom they were made to understand that the inconveniences they urged were but imaginary and small, the conveniences great and real. There have been not a few who have excepted against much vocal Prayer; because it took up too much of the time which would be better employed in the more principal work of prayer in spirit. But yet could they not carry it, although their reasons were very plausible and good; because that high and Angelical prayer in spirit, agreed not equally to all men, or to any one consisting of flesh and blood equally at all times and places, as vocal prayer does. Some have disliked even our material Temples, built up so sumptuously as they are; because God immense and incomprehensible, dwells not in buildings made by man's hands; Heaven is his Seat, and Earth his Footstool; Yet could they not obtain▪ that our Churches should be therefore pulled down, or not built up. Prayer-books were nothing at all in use amongst Christians in primitive times; when they prayed almost altogether in spirit, and used no other vocal prayer but that our Lord taught us. And yet this hinders us not, either to make such books, or use them in following times. Instead of our beads in wood or metal, they used in ancient times a bag of little stones, by the emptying whereof they knew that they had said over our Lord's prayer a hundred or perhaps three hundred times, according as any one in his devotion had prefixed to himself every day of his life to do for God's glory and service. And there might be inconveniences pretended against our present heads, especially those of gold and pearl. But they will not be thrown away for that. Our Church-music has been more than once opposed, and that by Prelates most holy and renowned men, who deemed it an unsufferable lettance to the spiritual recollection which Christians ought above all things to a tend unto, that they may have our Lords good Spirit, and his holy operations in them, especially when they meet together at their holy Synaxis. But Church-music is kept up to this day, notwithstanding their reason against it, which is very good, for other reasons no less good and great than it; specified and urged by the far greater number of pious Prelates for it. And yet if all or the greater part of Catholic Prelates meeting together should take away all these outward helps from us, beads and books, singing and Church-music, pictures, and Churches, and all, finding the inconveniences to be now greater than they have been, and weightier than any convenience we have by them: though the thing would seem very strange to us, yet ought we I think to obey them resignedly, and attend wholly unto our spiritual meditations, either alone, or in our Eucharistian meetings, and to the other good works commanded orcounselled us in Gospel, in expectation of our future bliss and eternal happiness in God, which can never be taken from us: though all things of discipline or helps in government be alterable.  
§ 4. And now it is time to turn back and view the subject of this Chapter; that we may see if any one period in it be true and pertinent. He tells us first, that Papists worship God by Images, which logically is not true; Then that a representation of the invisible Deity cannot be made; which is impertinent; Then that the worship given to God by an Image does not terminate upon God: which is neither pertinent nor true. And so he proceeds on to the very end of his Chapter, with sounds either empty or false, or both; neither heeding or caring what he says, so he do but mention learned Papists, and wiser Heathens, which may help to butterress up his reputation. I cannot but remember here, the shadow or Ghost in Virgil which Juno made of Aeneas, to draw her beloved Turnus out of the field; It seemed to fight and threaten, and press on, and give back. But nothing at all was done really.  

Tum dea nube cave tenuem sine viribus umbram.  
In faciem Aeneae, visu mirabile monstrum,  
Dardaniis ornat telis, clypeumque jubasque  
Divini assimilat capitis, dat inania verba,  
Dat sine ment sonum gressusque effingit eunti●  
Morte obita quales fama est volit are figuras  
Aut quae sopitos deludunt somnia sensus.  
Ac primas laeta ante acres exultat imago  
Irritatque virum telis ac voce lacessit.   
And such a shadow of controversy is all this present Chapter, and his whole book also: a foaming face and feeble force: big, but empty words: rumbling, and yet insignificant sounds: qu●ck proffers, and no progress: a daring shadow or armed Ghost, without either body or bones. And yet such a thing as defies the whole Catholic Church; steps out from the rest of his Camp, and defies them all alone; defies them both in letters syllables & words. And this is all. For he touches no body. Because Catholics by the advice and allowance of their Prelates do keep amongst them the representation of the divine Founder of their Religion, who appeared amongst us by his unspeakable Love in form of a Man; and of some of his holy followers in the way he chalked out for us; therefore he talks of Moloch and Milcom, Osiris and Isis, Chemosh and Astaroth, Baal Peor and Rimmon, golden Bulls and Remphan, the Calves of Dan and Bethel. And what is all this for? Why to overrun Papists, and beat us down; How can it do that? These Idols were set up by Heathens, in opposition to the true God, and in the very place of God, as darkness in the night time is in the place of light. This is true, What then? and therefore I must not forsooth keep the figure of Jesus Christ, or of S. Paul, or other domestic of my own religion for my own encouragement therein. What likeness, what consequence is there in all this? Which is Remphan, and where is Moloch? Which is the Calf, and where is the Bull? Nay, and here it is worth our observing too, that Protestant Gentlemen and Ladies of England, Ministers and Bishops too, have all pictures in their Chambers as well as Catholics; even those of our holy Apostles and Martyrs, as well as others. And there they are good and lawful figures, but in our Chambers they are Bulls of Basan, and Calves of Bethel among us. Catholic Pictures are against Moses his Law; but theirs are not so; Although they be representations both in Heaven above and Earth below, and Waters under earth, expressly by the same Law forbidden; for example, Moon and Stars Dogs and Cats, Whales and Dolphins. The Picture of Martin Luther in their Chamber is the lawful effigies of a man. But Saint Stephen in our Closet is a Calf. Can any man who talks at this rate, be thought to be one that has conversed either with the learned sort of Papists or the wiser sort of Heathens: or one rather that had never any conversation at all either with reason or men, O but Catholics worship God by their Images, which Protestants do not. I marry, this is a huge fault indeed, that Catholics take thereby occasion to think of God and his manifold mercies, and bless his name, and trust in him. For they no other way worship God by Images: This is the mortal sin which Catholics commit. And if that illogical speech of the Doctor, Catholics worship God by Images, be drawn into any kind of sense, it can be no other than this, that Catholics take occasion by the pious faces of their Martyrs to think of God's manifold graces and mercies towards them, and thereupon trust in him afresh and bless his name: which great error the Doctor, it seems, does carefully avoid. The ancient devout Christians thought of God and worshipped him by any thing any good thing they enjoyed; the verdant fields and sweet flowers, comfortable air, and pleasing light, mountains, valleys and liquid streams; Plumbs, Pears, Apples, and cheerful Grapes; by the virtue, charity and devotion of men, the ministry of Angels, etc. But now we must take heed of that. We may taste a Plumb or a Cherry, we may eat a Venison Pastry and drink good Wine if we can get it; nay we may have fine Pictures in our Chambers, even the Picture of Jesus Christ crucified, or any of his followers: we may have all this, if we be such good Protestants as Mr. Stillingfleet, and never think of God, or worship God by it. But if we worship God by it, if we think of God by it, than it is all poison to us. All is suddenly turned to Moloch, to Remphan, to B●al Peor, to Ashtaroth, to Aaron's golden Steer and the Calves of Bethel. If we do but eat a custard thinking of God, or worshipping God by it, presently it becomes a Ramphan or Chiun, the Idol of the Arabians. Walking upon Hamstead hill, as people use innocently enough to do, if casting our eyes about the prospect we think of God by it, as Catholics are wont, the hill before innocent is now become a Baal Peor the Idol of the Moabites. A Citizen walking to the Tower, may look harmlessly enough upon the Crown and royal Robes there. But he must take heed then, that he fall not into a meditation of Heaven, or the glory of its great King, to worship him in his heart by it, For than it becomes to him an Adramelech, the idol of Sepharva●m. And he must beware of the like abuse when he sees the Chamber and Table where his Majesty sits in Council with his Peers, lest it become a Moloch to him, the idol of the Moabites. The very Flags and Banners often seen in London-streets, make some simple soul to think of Jerusalem above, the peace and happy company there, and the God of all: but then O how suddenly is the Streamer metamorphosed and t●rned into Nesroch, the idol of Senacherib. Some are so bold, when they either see or hear of any corrupted by the French-pox and lechery, to thank God who has preserved them, and worship God by it. And thereby sin no less grievously than Maacham the Mother of Asa King of Judah in worshipping her idol Priap or Nimphleseth A Gentleman called upon God not in words only but very hea●t●ly when a troublesome Fly got into his Eve, and much afflicted him: but he little thought that by that piety of his he had sinned as deeply as they that worship Baalzebub the idol of Acaron. Nothing is more ordinary with Country Gentlemen, when walking abroad they behold a goodly fair Flock of Sheep in pasture of their own, than to thank God and worship God by it; but little do they think good men, they are guilty of idolatry thereby, as much guilty as they that worshipped Ashtaroth, the idol of the Philistines. Nay a very Cow or Calf in the Meadows, if we take occasion by it to thank God for his benefits, or to worship God by it, is the same thing then, as Aaron's Moulten heifer, or Jeroboams Calves set up in Dan and Bethel. And as it is for substance, so for the figures of things. St. Paul's picture so long as we do not think of God by it, is a lawful picture. But if we come once to think of God, to worship God by it, O then that is a Calf too, Aaron's Calf, one of Jeroboams Calves, etc. This thinking of God, this worshipping of God by any thing, this is the pestilential blast, that spoils all. It turns sweet into bitter, lawful into unlawful, things innocent into sin, and good things to death. The representation of our blessed Lord crucified for us, so long as we think not of him may pass for a good innocent or at least indifferent thing; but if we once think seriously of him, if we worship God by it, then, O Mr. Stillingfleet, what is it then? And yet answer me not. For I will not have those blasphemous words here repeated. Speak them to a Jew in order to Jesus Christ and he will embrace and love you. But a Christian cannot endu●e to hear them.  
§ 5. Papists saith he worship God by images, and so are guilty of idolatry, Catholics may hear this, but can never understand what he means. They are never taught in any of their Catechisms to worship God by Images. None of their spiritual books wherein all religious Duties are importunately urged and pressed upon them ever mention it: and their practice does not infer it. For if it did, they would easiliest understand it who best know what themselves do. They are taught, and do in their practice endeavour to worship God in their heart and soul, and ardent affections streaming forth thence towards him. They worship him with bended knees, lips & voice, hearts and eyes lifted up unto him. They worship him with the assistance of God's good Spirit, the Priest's Sacrifice, and help of mutual Prayers. They worship him by mortifying their sensuality and carnal appetites, by giving alms and relieving the poor and needy for his Love, by observing his Laws and Counsels, by resigning to his good will and pleasure in all things, especially in time of afflicting persecutions, when they suffer all manner of reproach, lies and calumnies, loss of goods and sometimes life it sell for his name sake patiently. They worship him in Closets, in Church-assemblies, in the fields, as they are walking, on Land or Sea, where they have oppportunity to do it. Thus doth their religion teach them to worship God, as with the right causes and instruments; as by the true effects and operations; as in the times and places seasonable for worship and devotion. But how they should worship God by images, or (as he speaketh oftener in the context of his discourse) in images; this they do not easily understand. When he lays any thing to Catholics charge, he ought to speak I should think as Catholics do, and then he will be understood by them. It is not to be conceived how any one can worship God by images, and in images, but either for the real presence there; or ideal imitation; or some sort of occasion of worship arising thence. And so God must be worshipped by them and in them, either presentially, ideally, or occasionally. And it cannot be presentially. For so God is no otherwise present in a picture than in the wall it hangs upon: nor yet ideally; for the picture for example of St. Mary Magdalen or St. Paul, is no idea of that invisible and glorious Godhead; nor yet is any other, as the Crucifix for example or Christ our Lord in his Birth or Resurrection; for all these figures are representations of his humanity, and no ideas of his Deity at all. And Mr. Stillingfleet must needs mean one of these two ways. For otherwise he could not charge them with idolatry for it. And therefore I say that his charge is false and slanderous. But if he mean that they worship God by images & in their images, occasionally; which is a moral interpretation, and the only true one: Then is such a work so far from Idolatry, that it is a sublime piety. For what can they better do, then to give God thanks for so great graces, mercies, helps, and comforts bestowed in Jesus our Lord upon his Apostles. Martyrs, Confessors, and Virgins, when they look upon their Figures and Pictures either in their contemplations, or patience of Martyrdom, or conversion of the world, subduing and bringing flesh, Satan and the World under their feet: especially if Catholics conceive thereby some pious resolution, as well they may, of doing something the more and patiently suffering for God, in imitation of those pious Heroes our Predecessors in Religion, and yet naturally but flesh and blood as we ourselves are. I say all this is signal piety, and our Christian duty. And according to this moral meaning Catholics if they do worship God by their Images, and in their Images; do well, and like good Christians. But the Doctor will not charge them I suppose with a matter of so much truth and great piety as this is, although his words cannot make out any other sense that is true, but only this moral one. And the more logical sense of worshipping God by images, and in images; ideally or presentially is false. Let him even take wh●ch sense he pleases, either what justifies Catholics or what falsifies his own assertion; It is all one to me, whether we stand, or he fall.  
§ 6. He adds, That the worship of God by Images does not terminate upon God; because God has forbid it, and so gives God's honour to the Creature. This is strange gibberish. An act that tends to nothing is no act. If it be some act, it tends and has already tended to something; and it terminates upon that thing unto which it tends, and whose act it is denominated. This is clear enough even to a young sophomore, or one who indeed never yet came into the Air of Philosophy, if he do but understand the terms and words here used. For example, I cannot see a man in the street, except my vision terminate upon him; nor can my vision terminate upon him, but I must see him. And it is all one whether I see him close by me, or by my Window, or in a Looking-glass at home. For I cannot see him any way, but my sight must terminate upon him, and if it do not, I see him not. And this course of nature is not hindered, nor yet altered at all, because that Person may haply have forbidden me to look upon him, either this way or that. For our acts or actions are accomplished within ourselves, independently of any acceptance or disacceptance of them. Acceptance or disacceptance, commanding or forbidding is another thing,  and quite differing from the substance of the act or action. For they specify only, either the motive or event which may make the act either good or evil, either grateful or displeasing, but not make it an act or no act, or not to tend where it has tended. And so must my act of worshipping God by images, terminate upon God, or else it is no act of worshipping God by them; however God may have either commanded or forbidden it. God has forbidden blasphemy; and yet the act terminates upon him, otherwise it could not be a sin against him. And if God's worship by Images do not terminate on God, whither on God's name does it tend; and how is God worshipped by them? This he does not tell us here, unless he insinuate it in those following words o● his, but gives the honour due to God unto the Creature. But how can that be? If God should have forbid us by his law to see a star through a tube; should we not therefore see it but the tube only, or should not our sight then be terminated upon the Star. So it seems by this Doctor's philosophy, who hath conversed with the learneder sort of Papists, and the wiser sort of heathens, but very little with himself. Holy Fathers and Doctors have often said, that the honour of an Image redounds to the Prototype: but never thought or said, that the honour of the Prototype redounds to the Image, as it is here affirmed against both art and experience. But let us hear him proceed in his discourse. He will surely let fall some sense or truth ere long.  
§ 7. God's infinite and incomprehensible Deity, saith he, cannot be represented. O here it is. This is very true. What a comfortable thing it is to meet with a draught of truth sometimes, when a man is dry and thirsts after it. But to what purpose is this spoken here? Catholics have no representations of that invisible Deity, nor none they look after. Figures they have of our Lord Christ, born as man amongst us and made flesh, and crucified, and ascending into Heaven. Figures also of his holy Followers and Martyrs: but representations of the invisible Deify they never yet saw nor heard nor thought of. On then. The wisest of Heathens judged any such representations of the Divine nature incongruous and unbecoming his glory, Indeed they were wise heathens, and their judgement very right and good. Nor did I ever hear of any Christian wise or unwise any otherwise minded: O how would this Doctor prevail, if this wise Discourse of his, were as pertinent as it is true. But he trusts and hopes well, that his good fate will so accompany his Reader, that he shall not doubt at all that every word that is true in his book is also to some purpose. And to some purpose indeed it is: namely to have it thought, that he is victorious in his main design: although indeed and truth it belong nothing at all to it. But let me not stop his career. If any such figure of the Deity were inconsistent in the old Law much more in the new where we are commanded to worship God in spirit and truth. O  consequence, arising from premises most true. No man can or dare deny all this. Methinks I love him here for his reason, and cannot but grieve it should be all spilt in vain; so pure it is and precious. A little more of this, while he is in a good mood. It seems more rational to worship God in the Sun and Moon which have more of God in them than a Picture has, and to say our prayers to the Sun and Moon than to any Image. Seems so Sir? It is certainly more rational: what should we doubt of? And what a pity is it, there should be none to be found, who worship God in a Picture either ideally or presentially; none who say their prayers to a picture that this great blow of his might not beat the Air to the endangering of his elbows. Saint Paul testifies that the Godhead is not like either to gold or silver or stone. Good St. Paul always said well; and his testimony is good at all times; and especially now, when it hits so pat with the wiser Heathens. There be many Churches now in England which have since our reformation, the Tetragram name of God written upon the walls within side in golden letters. Unto those men who did this, it would not seem altogether impertinent, to tell them, that the Godhead is not like to gold, silver or stone. But to such as use only the effigies of our Lord according to his humanity, and his holy Apostles and Martyrs, what a pity it is it should be impertinent and wholly lost. Let him speak on some more of his truths. Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople says expressly that Christians make no representation of the invisible Deity: and St. Damascene affirms it madness to go about it. Marry, God have mercy o'their souls for this their express saying, Catholics would desire no better a testimony for themselves if they wanted any, than this of those two great Catholic Doctors; that no such representation entation they have, and none they go about to have. O but he hopes, that all this being true will make strongly against the Church of Rome. And will it so? I have heard say, there be a thousand Churches in Rome, which are all Churches of Rome equally. Which of them all are concerned in this talk, that their walls may confute him? But he means Catholic people perhaps, oh, O, than all is well, they are safe enough and unhurt by all this, which is but their own doctrine, and faith. At least he has by these fair shreds of truth farced up a dozen pages in his book; And he hopes that his protestant reader will believe it all to be most pertinent and apposite discourse against papishes, though it be nothing less. And if they do so think, he has his end, a happy Man no doubt.  
§ 8. Moses forbade saith he, the making of any graven thing, and the word which Moses uses in that his law for a graven thing is general and signifies not an idol only as Papists say, but any picture, likeness, image or representation, as Moses himself speaks, either in heaven above or in earth below or waters under the earth, pesel, themurah, eikon glypton, sculptile, any kind of thing that may be expressed either with the pencil or graving tool. Believe me Sir if this be true it will undo all our Painters, who come flocking hither into England as the only thriving place for them out of Holland, Germany, France and Italy too; and here fill the Land with pesels, themunahs, eikons, g●yptons, sculptiles, and any things they can express with their pencils for our delight; Dolphins, whales and other fish of the Sea; bi●ds of the Air, Beasts, Flowers, Woods, gallant men and fair women, all that ever Moses forbade to be expressed. Nay, I have seen myself in a Protestant Church Moses himself painted on the walls with glittering horns on his head, and a pair of law tables in his hand. But it may be Lawmakers do exemp themselves: at least some Protestants may interpret as they seem to do, that Moses forbade to make the figure of Jesus Christ but not his own. No man in England scruples to have any of these eikons, no not the Doctor himself, notwithstanding this law of Moses so expressly contrary to them all; no man doubts to set any painter or graver on work. And yet must still this Law be cast in the teeth of Catholics as transgressors of it. For God's sake why is St. Mary Magdalen in her penitential weeds upon her knees, with beads in her hand, and eyes all blubbered and swollen with tears, more against the law of Moses; than one of our delicate Paragons of beauty, in her shining dress, lips of coral and sparkling eyes, O but Catholics worship them. S●r this word in the sense and meaning of protestants is as great a falsehood as was ever uttered by man. For Catholics neither have nor can have any other relative esteem of any Picture, than what they have to the penitential works they represent, or to the worth and piety of the Persons. And an absolute esteem of the Picture, this is measured out only by the Materials, and artifice of the Painter; according to which one Picture shall be worth five hundred pounds, and another representing the same thing, not worth five shillings. And can we believe that our Protestant young Gentlemen have no veneration at all to our beauties set thus in their Majesty, nor no kind of affections rising in their hearts towards them? Yea ten to one more of ill affections, and god wots greater, than any good ones we can have to our crucified Jesus in our way of piety. And the difference indeed is only this, that our reverence and affection is towards holy persons, and unto an imitation of their piety, hope, patience, constancy, and charity: Their's to a concupiscence of flesh and eyes. This and nothing but this if truth may be spoken, makes them so wrathful and furious against our Catholic pictures. Satan hates Jesus Christ, and therefore inflames them to tear down his memories and representations: but he loves pride of life; and those portraitures must stand that advance this. He is pleased with that which feeds concupiscence of eyes: and concupiscence of flesh brings him in the disciples which Jesus Christ loses.  
Moses did forbid Jews who were travelling with him towards Palestine and idolatrous Nation, to make to themselves, that is to say on their own heads, without warrant of the Synagogue, or in imitation of the Pagan rites, any of the idolatrous images there and elsewhere to be met withal, or any similitude at all, lest seduced thereby, they leave their own God and religion to cleave unto false gods and idolatry. This law of Moses and purpose of the law is so clear, that he must be obstinately blind who sees it not. And what does this concern our holy Catholic figures of St. Paul for example or Christ crucified, more than Protestant sigures of young Lords and fine Ladies; save that the one moves us to the love of moritification, prayer, patience, chastity, the other allures us from it; the one confirms Religion, the other weakens it. Besides our holy Pictures are allowed by the Church, the others forbidden And this indeed is the only aim of Moses, when he forbids the people to make to themselves any graven images whatsoever; to themselves, that is on their own fancies, and upon their own authority: For such only were unlawful, and not those they were commanded by just authority and allowed to make. See, saith God by Moses, I have called and named Besaleel, and I have filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and all knowledge of all amnner of workmanship, to devise cunning works to work in gold and silver and brass, and in cutting of stones and in graving of wood, to work all manner of workmanship. And I have appointed Aholiab with him; and in the hearts of all the wise I have put wisdom, that they make all that I have commanded. And by virtue whereof the said men and others after them move and graved pomgranets and lilies, and placed Cherubs upon the Propitiatory, between which graven Cherubims God himself gave out his Oracles to Moses: as he did also heal the people by the figure of a Serpent which Moses commanded to be set up. So that here is a vast difference betwixt figures graven and set up by authority, and those which People make to themselves. The one is commanded, the other forbidden. Aaron's Calf of gold destroyed the people, but Moses his Serpent of brass healed them. These things are not now said afresh. They have been told to Ministers over and again, but they are never the better for it. Indeed they love not to hear of it, because it spoils their sport.  
I add yet withal, over and above what is yet said, that neither that law of Moses, nor any of his Ten Commandments, nor any other of his Precepts, either ceremonial, judicial or moral, does any way oblige Christians at all, as it comes from Moses, who is not our Lawmaker or master, but ruler and leader of the Jews. Nor do we Christians believe that theft, adultery, homicide or blasphemy, is a sin, because Moses for bad it, but because we have received from Jesus our own Leg slator who justified Moses law and ratified it in all the said particulars, that so it is. And it is here to be observed that one of the most solemn laws contained in those two tables, that I mean, which ordains the seventh day to be kept holy day, unto which Moses adjoins an irrefragable and unchangeable reason, namely because God rested that day when he made this visible world, beginning his work saith Moses on the Sunday wherein he created light, and the Friday following finishing the whole; even this law of his most solemn and importunely urged by Moses, is annulled and abrogated amongst all Christians even from the beginning of Christianity, for want of ratification of it from our Lord and Master Jesus who is our Lawmaker and Prince. And the same thing do I say of this his present Law about figures, images and representations of things by sculpture or pencil, which was only of temporal concernment to the then present Jews, against the danger of idols, which then filled the earth, and as mere a ceremonial law as the other, and equally concerning a ceremony of worship. If our own Prelates whom Christ our Lord instituted to oversee his flock should for reasons best known to themselves take from us those little small helps we have by the Images of some of our Ancestors, Martyrs, Apostles, Virgins, Confessors, than would we be without them, and yet not think ourselves to lose one jot of our Religion for that. But we will not forfeit them for any Law made by Moses, except it be established and ratified by our own Lawmaker or his Prelates watching over us under our Lord unto our good, if Moses should have made any law against them, which indeed he did not, but only against Heathen-Idols. And if any one should endeavour to have or Christian representations to be abolished, because he thinks and believes that Moses forbade them, than is that Man say I, bound to observe all the whole law of Moses, as it is literally expressed by him, even to the least apex or iota thereo●. For the authority of a Legislator being the same in all his whole law, must oblige equally in all its parts: and the distinction then between jadicial, moral, and ceremonial law, signifies nothing; seeing that Moses his commands are equally peremptory, and press as strongly in the one as in the other. This is no imaginary Opinion of mine own, but what reason and the Spirit of God moved St. Paul to aver as stoutly in the case of circumcision, which is another of Moses Laws, as I do here. I testify to every Man, saith he, who is circumcised, that he is bound to keep the whole Law. And this must needs be true, most certainly true for by observing circumcision, because it was commanded by Moses he subjects himself to the Law and Authority of Moses as his Prince and Legislator; and consequently is bound to observe him equally in all things which he commands with the same authority and will to be obeyed, which is no less than all his whole law. And cursed is every one, saith the same Apostle, who is under the law, and continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to fulfil them. Although then it should be granted that Moses by his law prohibited all kind of figures and representations, even those used by Christians, which he did not, yet if our Lord ratified it not, it does not touch us at all. And that he did not renew or ratify it, is sufficiently clear to Protestants, because no such law of his is found among the Evangelists: and unto Catholics not less, because there is neither Gospel nor Tradition for it. And if all men would separate themselves from prejudice, which blinds and hardens them in their conceits, they might easily believe that neither Christ's immediate Disciples nor any Christians that succeeded them after our Lord's departure, would have either feared or hated the figure of our Lord's countenance, if by chance they would have met with it. But if any one notwithstanding, fully persuaded that Moses made a law against all sort of Images and representations, should upon that authority of his abolish ours, he is bound also upon the same authority to sacrifice an Ox, and observe all the whole law in all and every particular, under the penalty of sin.  
Since therefore by the order of God and Moses many graven things were made; representations and similitudes both in Heaven and Earth, notwithstanding the said law; as the Serpent of brass (which must either be made by melting or graving) pomegranates, lilies, and various suchlike things both graven in stone and interwoven in silks. Cherubins or Angels in the Propitiatory, even in Moses time, and afterwards more fully and plentifully in Solomon's Temple; it is not rationally to be doubted, but that this law of his was intended only to keep those People close and constant to their own God and to their own Religion, which was inconsistent with the idols of the Nations; and not for any purpose of keeping Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, either out of their chamber hang or ours. I know the Jews do urge this Precept of Moses very eagerly against Christians ever since Jesus Christ our Lord was rejected by them, whose image and figure they cannot abide to see. But we must have patience with all men.  
§ 9 Moses saith he, grounded this law of his upon a reason unchangeable, namely that Gods infinite and incomprehensible. Deity cannot be represented. O profound invention! This is such a law and ground of a law, as was never before thought of. The ground and reason of making a law must be this, an impossibility of breaking it. They must not make any representations of God, because God cannot be represented. And the same motive or reason will be equally proper for all the rest of the Commandments: They must keep the seventh day of the week a holy day. The reason and motive; because there is not an eighth day to keep holy and sanctify. They must honour their Parents. The ground and reason of this; because none of the whole Camp had any Fathers or Mother's alive to dishonour. They must not kill. The motive and reason is: because they were all shot-free, and so firmly enchanted that none could hurt them. They must not commit adultery. The ground and reason is; because there was never a Woman in the Camp, which any man though provoked with the highest lust could possibly come near or touch with a pair of tongues. They must not steal. The great cause thereof is, that there is nothing at all in the Camp for any man to take away. Thus the Doctor imagines Moses to forbid any representations of God because God cannot be represented. And such another discreet Mounsieur was he who solemnly commanded his Bowyer not to make him any shafts at all of a Pigs tail: and he gravely gave him the reason for it, because quoth he of a pigs tail no shaft can be made. Truth is, Moses never thought of any such Law, nor any such reason of it much less; but provided for the security of the Hebrews Religion, that it might remain unchangeable and firm in the mids of those many Nations round about them who worshipped false Gods and idols: as Moses very frequently interprets himself and all the Prophets after him. Therefore saith God by Moses, thou shalt have no other Gods but me, thou shalt not make to thyself any figures, as the Gentiles do, nor worship them. For I am a jealous God, and will have no intermingling of devilish idolatry with my service; And all the reason given by Moses is gods jealousy not enduring any divine worship but his own. This is the very truth and all the truth of this business, which this Doctor would turn another way, thereby to make Moses seem as simple a man as himself. And those idols forbidden by Moses did so involve an opposition to the true God and his divine worship, that People could not possibly betake themselves to one, but they must leave the other. Therefore did Moses forbid both other Gods besides their own one God, and all idols together: which was by ancient Christians very rationally and wisely reckoned all one and the same Commandment: whereof no less a Man, then St. Austin himself is witness. But the memories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob could bring no such danger with them. And that is our care, for we are not in danger of losing the faith of Jesus Christ by keeping the Image of him our crucified Lord among us; or forsaking the communion of Saints by retaining their portraitures before our eyes. We should ipso facto renounce our Lord and all his whole Religion, should we set up Moses his forbidden Idols, and make it our religion to worship them as heathens did. But we are heartened, encouraged and confirmed in our Christian Religion by looking on the faces of so many our glorious Martyrs, holy Anchorets, and Hermits, pious Virgins and Confessors, who professed this our Religion before us, bravely triumphing by the power of Christ's love and divine faith, over sins allurements, and death's ugliest terrors; though encompassed themselves with the like passions and infirmities we are ourselves environed round about. And when we are entered into a Church amongst so many of our worthy Predecessors, we compose ourselves more hearty to our devotion then otherwise we should do, in imitation of them; remembering now that we are come up to Mount Zion, to the City of our living God, to celestial Jerusalem, and society of Angels, to the Church of Primitive Christians conscript in the Heavens, to God the Judge of all, to the Spirits of just men perfected, to Jesus the Mediator of a new Testament, and to the aspersion of blood speaking better things than Abel.  
§ 10. The Heathens, saith he, did ill in their idol worship, and yet the wiser sort among them testify that they did not hold them to be Gods but worshipped God in them. Our acute divine having now by his fine wit so clarified Moses law, that it might not so much concern Idolaters as our vulgar Painters; he now gins so to purify idolaters practise too, that they may seem but in the same condition with our Catholic and best Christians. And who would not give his penny to hear him act and speak. The heathens all in general are so excused in their idolatry. Aaron in his act of apostasy, and Jeroboam in his great sin; that they are all and each of them no otherwise faulty than the Church of Rome in his books. Thus doth Mr. Stillingfleet convert idolatrous Nations, while he sits dreaming in his Closet. Here he diminishes and there he exaggerates, here he blacks with his Pen, and there he whitens; and then he cries out all is one, all of the same measure, all of the same colour. And truly I believe the great Giant Goliath and little David might thus be made equal, if the Giant were beheaded and cut off by the knees, on one side; and David on the other side, set upon a high pair of stilts. While Catho●icks are made to do what they do not, and Heathens not to do what they do, on a supposal that all this is true, there can be no great difference. Let us then hear him what he tells us of Heathens in general. The wiser sort among them testify quoth he, that they worshipped not the idols as gods, but worshipped God in them. O very good? Thus the wiser sort among the Heathens say. But first who are these wiser sort? It behoved him to let us know this. But yet for his own procket-reasons he does not. But 2ly what says he himself to it? O that is needless: for his Reader will understand well enough what he ought to think, when such a Doctor as Stillingfleet tells him what the wiser sort have thought. No body would think with fools, but with the wiser sort always. And his whole discourse proceeds on this supposed knowledge of the wiser sort, and according to it concludes. we cannot therefore doubt of his mind. But have we no wise sort of ancient believers who lived among the Heathens, to testify unto us what the heathens did? Have we no Apostles and Prophets to hearken to, no renowned and infallible persons to inform us? Surely we have, and those so many, that we need not have recourse either unto persons unknown amongst the heathens for their testimony, or to Mr. Stillingfleet the ingenious trifler. He tells us, that the Heathens did not worship their Idols as Gods, but worshipped God in them. But our Apostles and Prophets tell us contrary things. Hear Moses speak, who lived among the thickest of the Heathens; To whom did they sacrifice, O Moses, whom did the Heathens worship? Immolaverunt Demoniis & non Deo, Deut. 32. They worshipped not God but devils, they sacrificed to devils saith he, and not to God. The Nations change their gods, and indeed they are no Gods, saith Jeremy ch 2. but my people have changed their glory unto an Idol. Baruch another Prophet brings in his testimony, chap. 4. You have provoked him who made you, saith he, even the eternal God, sacrificing to Devils and not to God. The holy Psalmist he tells us no less peremptorily. That they immolated their Sons and Daughters to Devils, and sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, Ps. 105. and that all the gods of the Heathens are Devils, Ps. 95. Saint Paul our own Christian Doctor is bold, and expressly, testifies both against Stillingfleet and his wiser heathens; That the things which Gentiles immolated, they sacrificed to Devils and not to God, 1 Cor. 10. And yet after all this our Doctor is not ashamed to justify those his clients the heathens. They did not worship their Idols, saith he, for Gods, but worshipped God in them. And whom shall we here believe? Moses, Jeremy, Baruch, david, St. Paul and all our Christian Doctors, or Stillingfleet rather and his wiser Heathens unknown to himself? They sacrificed to Devils and not to God: they changed their glory into an Idol: they irritated the eternal God, immolating to devils and not to God; they sacrificed their sons and daughters to devils not to God. Thus speak our Prophets and Apostles. But Mr. Stillingfleet affirms, they sacrificed to God, they imolated to God, they worshipped God and not devils, they worshipped not the Idols but God in them. But I discern well enough the cause of his mistake. Because they abstracted the general notion of God, and applied it, each one to his own idols; therefore he thinks he may say they worshipped God in them. But this is a gross mistake. For to worship God in a thing, and to worship a thing for God who is no God, are two very differing cases Christians worship God in Christ, and they do well; Heathens who worshipped their Idols for God did ill. Cromwell our late Usurper after he had murdered our good King, and set the Crown upon his own head, would have taken it well, if his Army had told him they honoured him for their King, but not, if they had said they worshipped the King in him. The first word had sounded in his ears as a grateful flattery, the other as treason to himself. To abstract the Deity and apply it to another subject unto whom it does not belong, is as far as we are able to behead the true God and set his Crown upon the shoulders of usurping devils. And because the true real Deity cannot be removed, either by the pleasure of the Usurper or worshipper, therefore are these idols devils and false Gods. God cannot be worshipped in them, because he is not in them; and if they be worshipped as Gods it is Idolatry; or else there is no such thing as idolatry upon Earth.  
Aaron, saith he, made the golden Calf, not to reduce the People unto heathen idolatry, but for an emblem of the good Angel who was to go before them. Here is another excuse of Aaron his small fault; which drove Moses his brother and Prince into as great a passion of wrath as perhaps he ever felt; even so prevalent a grief and anger, that it dashed in pieces the very tables of the Law he had in his hands; though he was by the testimony of holy writ the mildest of men: and all this it seems for an emblem: And why that emblem? since they had such an emblem before in the pillar of cloud by day and sire by night; which was a more significant emblem of the angel who went before them, than any Calf of gold could be. The holy Prophets testify of those People and Aaron, that in Moses absence this figure was melted and founded by them to be set up in place of the God, who had hitherto conducted them with Moses now as they thought vanished, out of Egypt into Arabia; and to lead them on the rest of their way, as their supreme conduct after the manner of Egyptian Deities. They made a calf in Horeb and adored the figure, they changed their glory into the likeness of a Calf eating hay and forgot their God, Psal. 125. Now if they forgot their own God, and slighted him, and cast him from them, and changed his glory into a Calf, and worshipped the very figure: then must that sculptil or statue be now accepted for their God. The like testimony gives St. Stephen, Act. 7. They made saith he, a Calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the Idol, and made themselves merry in the works of their own hands. What can this import, but that they had now altered their religion, renounced their former God, and made to themselves a new one after the manner of Egypt. It is pity Mr. Stillingfleet had not been with Aaron; his confidence would have pleaded for him a little more handsomely than he did for himself. But the excuse perhaps being hypocritical and false would have more offended Moses, than his former fault. Aaron knew well enough what he had done. And although he somewhat minced his fault, yet would he not tell a lie. I cast a little metal into the fire, saith he to Moses, and there came out this Calf. The Doctor adds two pretty reasons, why neither he nor the people, could ever think of declining then to any heathen idolatry, First because they had no pretence of doing so. As though the very absence of Moses, whom they had long expected and now thought lost, were not pretence enough, unto some leading men in the Camp to raise a sedition and thereby force Aaron to make them such idols, as they were acquainted with in Egypt. It is well enough known, that by the contagion of those leading men, the Camp was ever and anon in such like tumult and ready disposition to apostasy. His second reason is, because no intimation is made that they fell into heathen idolatry. What intimation is given thereof by the Prophet and St. Stephen he takes it seems for no intimation at all. When they fell, saith he, into heathen idolatry, mention is made of their Gods, as Baal Peor, Moloch, Remphan; but here Aaron is said to make a feast to the Lord: As though there were not Egyptian idols as well as Syrian; and Osiris and Isis, as well as Moloch and Remphan. And a feast made in honour of this their new God and Religion, might well be said a feast to the Lord. It was a policy in Aaron, thus to speak, that the common people might not suddenly discern the alteration. And we may easily believe that the leading men, who brought him by persuasion and force unto this apostasy, suggested the said stratagem; first to get the people more universally on their side without commotion: and then to put something into their mouths for to say to Moses, if he should chance to come upon them suddenly and take them beyond expectation in the fact. For that it was a mere pretence of policy is evident by this; that they gave to Moses no such account of any feast made unto their ancient true God; and secondly because their principal Leaders had no purpose to make any, for they had now forgot and put away their own true God and cast him out of their mind, as holy text speaks, obliti sunt Dei sui.  
The Calves set up by Jeroboam in Dan and Bethel, were only to keep the People from going up to Jerusalem, and not to bring them to any idolatry of the hearthens. Here is another excuse for Jeroboam and his peccadillo. Who would not take Mr. Stillingfleet to be a very charitable man, who can cover such a multitude of sins? and yet is it all no other but a secret prodigious malice against Catholics, who must bear the more and hear the worse for it. Jeroboam saith he did not alter the divine worship, or give any occasion of idolatry; No, no. He only kept the People, saith he from going up to Jerusalem, whither they used once a year to resort. And this could be no such great matter; since they had the same service, the same sacrifice and adoration at home. But why then is Jeroboam charged with idolatry in holy Scripture, as one that had done evil above all that went before him, and made him other gods and molten images to provoke God to anger, and to cast his own God behind his back, 1 Reg. 14. O, ho, thence we conclude saith our Doctor that an image set up for God's honour is idolatry; as it is among Papists. And is not this a pretty nimble legerdemain of a slight man. First who taught him that Papists set up images for God's honour? I have learned amongst them that they are set up for our encouragement and imitation, and for an honourable memory of their holy Martyrs and Apostles. But what honour can one of those images be to God? none at all I think, except indirectly, because God is the blessed author of all good, whence the said Apostles and Martyrs received their strength and grace. Secondly where does this confident man find, that Jeroboam set up his images for God's honour? Even no where at all. His own boldness is so strong in him, that he says what he l●st; without any ground or occasion at all any where, either among sacred writers or profane. Thirdly whence doth he gather his negative word, that Jeroboam acted none of the heathen idolatry, nor brought the People to it? Even from his own confident brain whence he has the other, expressly contrary to the testimony of holy Writ which speaks, as it were passionately and very emphatically of his notorious idolatry, wherein he did evil above all that were before him, wherein he made him other gods and molten Images, to provoke God to anger, and cast his own God behind his back. Can he be justly charged with all this, only because he kept the Israelites from going up to Jerusalem, and made them do those devotions at home which they were wont to do in that mother City. Can only change of place suffice for the criminous imputation of idolatry, where is the same adoration, same rites, same sacrifice, same Priests, and same God. Is it possible that the same service and Common-prayer-book read by Ministers of the same kind of London and Highgate, be God's service in one place, and idolatry in the other, all other things agreeing but only the circumstance of place? No indeed, it is not possible it should be so. But it is very possible it should be said so. Mr. Stillingfleet here speaks it, and speaks it stoutly, on his own head, even against all Divine authority and upright reason. People may sin against ecclesiastical obedience indeed, by not coming up to their parochial Church when they are commanded. But they cannot, only upon that ground, be charged with idolatry, or making strange gods, or casting their own God behind their back. He must be a very passionate Prelate, and extremely unjust and sinfully injurious, who lays that imputation upon people, upon no other ground or motive then that one circumstantial neglect of place. And yet holy Scripture several times thus charges Jeroboam; and puts such a blot upon his scutcheon both for his own idolatry, and that into which he induced all the people, that he is seldom or never mentioned without his black surname; Jeroboam who made Israel to sin. If it were true at least, as Mr. Stillingfleet here speaks, that Jeroboam and Israel's sin were only a circumstance of place, and that they and he did in their own tribes but what was done in Jerusalem, then must it needs follow, that there were in the Temple of Jerusalem such like representations, as those Calves set up by Jeroboam in Dan and Bethel, and indeed the very same with them. And thence we may gather for our learning, if this be all true, an axiom of great truth and concernment; namely, that one and the same piece of worship which pleases God in the Catholic Church, is an abomination to him in the ways of heresy and schism. The very same thing which in Jerusalem and the tribe of Judah were called Cherubims; in Samaria and all the rest of Israel apostatiled from them, was but a Calf.  
§ 11. Charles the Great a noble Emperor caused Books to be set forth against the Council of Nice where images had been established, called Carolin Books, and assembled also a Council at Frankford, wherein both the said Nicen Council was condemned, and all their reasons for images confuted, etc. That there were both in the Council of Frankford and Nice too, some Catholic Prelates who propounded difficulties against images cannot be denied. For when ever any Council meets together about any affair, they dispute pro and con, both for and against it; that the Prelates having all things set before their Eyes that can be said on both sides, might be the better enabled to determine. So doubtless it was done by the Apostles themselves in their great Council held in Jerusalem about Circumcision, where inquisitio magna facta est, great inquisition, disputation, and examination was made about it. All this is certain enough. But yet, that either in Frankford or any where else, were made after this their dispute any final or conclusive declaration against the ●se of images amongst Christians; or that Charles the Emperor should either write Books or cause any to be written, either against images or the Council of Nice wherein they had been then established; or summon that Council of Frankford to withstand that other of Nice unanimously concluded by the Prelates, and confirmed by the general Pastor; this is a thing so apparently false and fictitious, that there needs no more but the knowledge of those very Persons and times to prove it so. Charles the Great was one that adored the Roman Church whereof he was himself a member, above all Emperors that ever was before or since his time. The Council of Frankford, wherein were little less than three hundred Catholic Prelates, was peaceably concluded, and no commotion followed upon it; which must needs have risen, if they had condemned another Council lately celebrated and confirmed by all pastoral authority. Nor was that Frankford Council ever annulled or any way censured either by P. Adrian or any after him. Add to this, that the said Council was both begun and finished under the same Pope Adrian, and his Legates Theophilact and Stephanus, who had presided lately in the said Nicen Council, where the lawful use of images was established. It cannot possibly be imagined that the same Pope and Presidents should conclude in Frankford quite contrary to what they ordered in Nice but seven or eight years before. It is also certain, that the said Council of Frankford, was summoned and assembled, not about images only as the Doctor imagines, but about the question of our Lord Christ his filiation, as all ancient histories testify, against Foelix and Elipand two Spanish Bishops, and Claudius Taurinensis, who teaching that our Lord is rather to be called an adoptive than natural Son of God raised much commotion in Spain and France: and this novelty of theirs was first condemned at Ratisbone, and afterwards at Frankford. For Foelix after his first condemnation, repaired to the Emperor Charles his Court who then wintered at Rheginum; and there submitting to the Prelates, was sent thence to the presence of Pope Adrian, where in the Cathedral of St. Peter, he revoked his Error. Elipand hearing of his submission grew more violent, and by his books both regained Foelix again, and disturbed all Germany, as he had France and Spain before. And now to prevent the infection, the Pope and Charles the Emperor agreed to bring together a conciliar Assembly of Prelates in Frankford, wherein presided Theophylact and Stephanus, who had lately concluded the second Council of Nice. Whence it clearly appears that Doctor Stillingfleet quite mistakes the business. Now if the same Pope and his very selfsame Legates presided first in the Nicen Council, and then in Frankford, as the Doctor acknowledges, we may rationally enough conclude, that the Nicen decrees about images, lately finished in the East, were made known to the West by their acceptation and promulgation at Frankford, where the business of filiation was decided: For this is indeed very true. But no way can we think that the same Precedents would now undo, what they had done a little before. And that this is indeed the whole truth in this business, may be yet confirmed by the authority of the Council of Senon kept not long after, which in their 14. decree thus speaks, Carolus magnus Francorum Rex Christianissimus in Francorum furdensi conventu ejusdem erroris iconomachorum suppressit insaniam quam infelicissimus quidam Faelix in Gallias & Germanias' invexerit. By this testimony it appears, that Felix over and above his capital error about Christ our Lord's adoption, was an iconomachus too or adversary of images, and suffered at Frankford for both his errors: which is not unlikely by the testimony of Platina and Paulus Emilius: For Platina in the life of Pope Adrian, Bienni● post, saith he, Theophylactus & Stephanus Episcopi insignes Adriani nomine, Francorum & German●rum Syn●dum habuerunt, in qua & Synodus quam septimam Graeci appellabant, & haeresis Feliciana de tollendis imaginibus abrogata est. And P. Emilius in his second book de gestis Francorum speaking of that Council of Frankford, Et imaginibus, saith he, suus honor restitutus est. The like may be proved out of Blondus, Sabellicus and other historians. So that all these things rightly considered and put together, will sufficiently convince his relation of the Frankford Council to be fictitious and groundless. If the Council were assembled by the agreement of the Pope and Emperor, than not of the Emperor against the Pope. If to suppress Elipand, Claudius, and Felix; than not the Nicen Prelates. If under the same Pope and Precedents which presided lately in Nice, than not against any thing determined and concluded in Nice. If upon the motive of Elipands' error against our Lord's filiation; then was not an image the principal occasion of it. If Felix were there condemned for his opposition to images, than were not images condemned. If Charles the Great, one of the devourest to the Roman Church that ever reigned, so much swayed in that Council, then would he not suffer the Roman Church to be there affronted and censured. If an upright Catholic, he would not in spiritual affairs gainsay the Prince of Prelates, who had so lately set his hand and seal to Nicen definitions. In a word, if Charles the Great called that Council at Frankford, as the Doctor affirms, then without all doubt was that ratified there, which was established at Nice a little before. For Charles was as much a Roman Catholic as either Stephen and Theophilact, or the Pope himself, and knew as well as any man, what obedience is due to the definitions of a Council rightly consummated and confirmed, as that of Nice was, Binius the great Collector of the Councils proves at large, that all this story of the Carolin books and Frankford Synod assembled against that of Nice, is a groundless fiction. And so do Alanus, Surius, Vasquez, and several other Doctors. And they are all amazed, whence the rumour should arise, and by whom, and in what age or time. But I cannot wonder much at it, since I heard lately of a French Gentleman, who affirms and shows in a Book of his, that the English never conquered France, nor ever gave them any one overthrow in battle. And when he was told by a neighbour, of this his notorious falsehood; O, quoth he, my book two hundred years hence may pass for an authority as good as any that speak otherwise. And so I think there may possibly be such impious men, who out of their present malice may furnish out a lie to insect posterity, in after times. But he must be an unconscionable wicked man who can do such a deed.  
§ 12. Primitive Christians never used any Images, as the learned of the Church of Rome acknowledge. He had done well to let us know who are these learned of the Church of Rome. But he will not do us that favour. And we must still take his word for the judgement of the learned sort always. Nay, we must believe too, that he is ever on the learned sorts side. It is indeed unlikely that figures of those holy Persons, who first spread our Christianity in the World, and made it good both by their lives and death, should be frequent in primitive times. First, because those same figures, although they be honourable memories both of their persons and pieties, unto whose zeal and goodness we are so much indebted; yet are they not so necessarily requisite unto any such purpose, but that the Church can be without them. Secondly, because primitive Christians had not amongst them any such plenty of Artists, as we have now a days to make them. Thirdly, because Pagans would have misinterpreted the end and meaning of such figures, as this our Doctor does in the midst of day light. But that in those primitive times there was never any Christian so ill affected towards those pious representations as is Mr. Still. appears sufficiently by the testimony of those ancient Doctors, who mention incidentally the customs of those primitive times; especially about the figure of the Cross, which they made continually on their forehead and breasts, as a preservative against evil, and kept it all over their houses, particularly in their Bed chambers and closerts, either framed in wood or stone, or painted in colours. There be, notwithstanding the deluge of time which swallows up all things, some monuments yet left among us of the respect which those Christians than bore both to the relics and figures of their Saints. The very Chair of St. James the Apostle and first Bishop of Jerusalem, Eusebius in the seventh book of his history attests, that it was had in great esteem and veneration in all times, even to his own days. Accordingly S. Clement in his sixth book of apostolical constitutions gives this general testimony of that kind of piety in those primitive Christians, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The very relics, saith he, of Saints now living with God are not without their veneration. Some remainds there be also of an apostolical Council at Antioch, gathered out of S. Pamphilus and Origen, wherein caution is given both against the Jews malice and Gentile idols, by opposing the Images of Jesus and his holy Followers against them both: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ignatius also that worthy apostolical Prelate, the third from St. Peter the Apostle in the Chair at Antioch, thus signally speaks of the sign of the Cross in his Epistle to Philadelphia, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. The Prince of this World, saith he, rejoices when any one denies the Cross: for he knows the confession of the Cross to be his own ruin: this is the Standard against his power, which so often as he either sees or hears it spoken of, he shakes and trembles: thus speaks that glorious Prelate. The  Eusebius testifies also in the same book of his history, that he saw even in his time the brazen Statue of our Lord Jesus, which was set up in Paneada in Palestin, unto his honour by the woman cured by him of the bloody flix; so notable for miracles, that they were spoke of all the World over. This Statue of our Lord when Julian the apostate caused it to be thrown down, and his own to be set up in place thereof, a strange sudden fire from Heaven consumed the Statue of Julian, as Zozomenus in his fist book witnesses. And of the same brazen Statue of Christ our Lord write also Theophilact, Damascenus and several others. And here we may take notice by the way, that charity and devotion set up statues to our Lord, but apostasy & malice pulls them down. And whether Doctor Stillingfleet, who busies himself so much to cast down the Images of Jesus our Lord and his holy followers, would refuse to have his own set up for his great pains, either in Guildhall or Cheapside, he knows best himself. Truly if that were done, I do not believe that any of his neighbours or Countrymen would take him then for a Calf of Bethel. Of the Images of the Virgin Mary made by St. Luke, there is much fame amongst the ancient writers, in particular Theodorus, Simeon Metaphrastes and Nicephorus: The last of which does also attest in his second book, that the said precious Relic was carried up and down the whole habitable World of Christians, who looked upon it with a most greedy and unsatisfied devotion. The same Nicephorus adds moreover, how Constantius the Son of Constantine translated the Relics of St. Luke from Thebes, of St. Andrew from Achaia, and of St. Timothy from Ephesus, unto Constantinople, with a vast concourse and joy of Christian People: and there with all honour and reverential respect enshrined them in a Cathedral Church dedicated to the Apostles. Of the Image also of Christ our Lord imprinted by himself in a Handkerchief applied to his own face, and sent to King Abagarus who requested his Picture, writ Evagrius, Metaphrastes and ot●ers. Of another Image of Jesus Christ made by Nicodemus, which being ignominiously crucified by the Jews wrought many wondrous miracles, we have a solemn testimony of Athanasius cited in the fourth action of the seventh great Synod. And all this testifies that Christians in primitive times were affected towards holy Pictures and Relics as Catholics are at this day: at least not such haters and vilifiers of them as is Dr. Stillingfleet. Nor can I conceive how any of the learned in the Church of Rome should be ignorant of these things. Nay, the very Church of England, which this Doctor pretends to defend, hath lately put the Images of the Apostles and Primitive Saints into their Common-prayer-book and Primers printed by authority. So that if the Doctor had opened his eyes he might have seen clear enough, that all this talk of his is now unseasonable, however it might have passed well enough in the beginning of the furio●s reformation: when they pulled down all sacred figures, and suffered none to be set up either sacred or common. When Husbands broke their Wife's pictures, and Wives their Husbands, lest they should give ill example to St. Peter and Paul, or encourage any of the twelve Apostles to creep up again upon their Walls. When children in obedience and duty to their parents, spitting upon their effigies, said as they were taught to say, I renounce the Devil and all his works. When all the People flocked together in all places to tear down Churches and Chapels, and private Oratories in Houses, with a Now boys, we are free men, let us eat, drink and play, for to morrow we shall die. No more duty of any our daily Prayers, no more fasting, no more vows, no more troublesome adoration upon our Knees, no more pining meditations, no more penance, no more restitution, no more Priest, no more Altar, no more Cross or holy Rood, no more Peter and Paul to be seen, no more languishing memories of Saints, no more obedience to the erring Church, no more self-examination, no more conscience scruples, etc. Those times indeed were mad enough. But now People, as newly awaked from Wine, begin to be wiser and look more soberly about them. Even Denmark and Holland consider now in cold blood the many sad mischiefs they acted in hot: nor is our own Country wholly ignorant of the irreparable ruins of those mad times. However, our Doctor will not have his sport spoiled, nor yet his game stopped. Punchienella, though Bartholomew fair be ended, may be acted still either in Lincolns-Inn-fields or Chairing cross or any where else, both now and then and seven Years hence. It will be still new to some body. But Sir, you are to take notice, that nothing being so opposite to Jesus our Lord, or his holy law; or even to common reason, than Idolatry; the Doctor has craftily placed it, in the very front of his forlorn hope, thereby surely to affright silly Catholics from their old station, and to deter all others from Communion with them, as Persons grievously guilty of abominable, Pagan, even worse than Pagan Idolatry; verily Sir Mandevil's Giant in the enchanted Valley of Python, cannot be more terrifying to a Night-Walker; nor Sir Hudibras his Squire, mounted on the outside of his soft-footed steed, to the diffiding Fiddler; then this Sir Doctors Monstrous Idol, to one who claims part with Christ in God. True it is, some of the prime Reformers, and others who since have thrived in the World thereby, through a bitterness of spirit, against the zealous Prelates of the Catholic Church, who opposed their Ambition, or Lust, or both, did cast this scandalous Assertion of Idolatry upon Us, for our Veneration of Images; heedless, as the old Pagans they imitate were, what Accusations they charge against us, or by what sleeuless arguments they prove them; so they may thereby make their Apostasy from our holy Church, somewhat colourable amongst Vulgar Spirits; who still, like the men of Athens, are intent upon Novelties, ignorant of the Nature, motive and design of divine Worship, a mistaking wherein only, can beget a just imputation of Idolatry on the Worshipper; surely his Doctorship may not be ignorant hereof, and therefore, his charging us therewith upon those his soft grounds of a Termination of our Worship on Pictures, obscurely and fraudulently worded argues an unexcusable Malice, passion or dulness. Did he ever read, a Divine Worship ultimately terminated upon figures, to be allowed by any Canon of the Roman Church? Did any of our Catholic Doctors or Schoolmen, whom he seems to have swallowed by shoals, ever assert that termination? Did he learn that Doctrine from any professor of the Catholic faith? I am sure he did not. But we must give the Doctor leave to walk in his own Maze, and to think, and speak, and write too, what he pleases; Worship of its self, is of a great latitude, therefore to speak to the purpose, he should set down what he means by Divine Worship, as distinct from other inferior Worships, Religious and Civil, whereby it becomes proper to God; then, he should appoint the formal End to which that Worship tends, according to the nature of the act, and the duty of him that gives it; but thus concealing, what alone would have cleared Us from his grand calumny, he endeavours to puzzle and delude his greedy Readers, into a belief of our Idolatry, and to a great Veneration of his Reverend and Worshipful Doctorhood; knowing them to be weathercock-like, easily whirled about with every grave blast of his, if it blows but in the teeth of Popery. He again discovers his own real or wilful Ignorance, of what Relative Worship is, and whether it tends; every termination of a Latreutical affection or action, wherewith we honour God, as the Author of life and death, signified by the sacrifices of the Old Law, makes not that Worship relative, otherwise the Worship of God immediately in spirit, would be Relative too Relative Worship imports a reference of one object to another in our Worship, which therefore looks not upon the former, either as the motive, nor yet as the ultimate term of its tendency, but only as it does occasionally awaken our spirits confined to sensible objects in their first motion, and oft distracted about them, to think on God, by reason of some connatural, or arbitrary connexion they have, according to the common esteem of mankind, with Him; and consequently terminates not our Worship, without an indispensable reference to God, the latter object, whence our Divine worship takes its first Rise, and whereupon it finally rests; And thus, not only Divine Relative Worship, but other Religious, and civil too, are, and aught to be allowed in any Church or State, which hath any thing Worshipful in it. Thus the good Saint Paul, will have us bow at the Holy Name of JESUS, and why not at the Name of GOD or JEHOVAH; and that, whether it be imagined, spoken, printed or painted? sigh God is equally ineffable by any of them; and what One represents to the Mind, the other to the Ear, the latter does to the Eye. Their Rubrics too requires a Worship of their figurative Bread, and their graver Clergy will still bow to, and be uncovered before, their Communion Board; and who not, when the Parson prays? I have seen Images of the Saints, even of Christ at the right hand of his Father, bound up in their Common-prayer-Books, and Used by Protestants, without fear of Idolatry; and K. James a wise and learned Prince, in the Year 1617. ordered pictures of our Saints to be set up in his Chapel of Haly-Rudd House in Edinburgh, as Spoteswood tells us. Thus good Subjects, for the love they bear their gracious Prince, will ever be uncovered before his Throne; and had the High and Mighties paid their Relative Homage to his Majesty's Ships, by sticking their Flag, and lowering their Topsails, they had not deserved to be cancelled the Roll of Free-States; nor, though they hate Papists and their Images, did they ever plead that Recognizance, to be Idolatry; had they, I believe, it had made them yet more Ridiculous than they are, even in our own courts. All this Dr. Still, might have considered, But his tongue is hot, and he must speak although it be against himself, and the very Church he justifies, as much as it is against the Church he arraigns. Indeed his whole Discourse is so frivolously subtle and subtilely frivolous, that no Church needs much to heed what he says. This I know and am certain of, that although he should be confuted at large, and confounded for ever by any Catholic Writer, yet shall we be never the nearer to any quietness and peace. For the next Man that wants a rich Benefice, will if he have but this Man's Confidence, Collect another Book of Popish Idolatry out of this Book of Doctor Stillingfleet, as he ga●er'd this of his out of Henry More, Jeremy Tailor, and sundry others his Predecessors; not heeding at all any answer that has been given by former Catholics to the talk, any more than Dr. Stillingfleet does here. They will ever write● one out of another, and never regard what has been said to any one of them in defence of that which they oppose, abecedarian Scribblers. Nor can there be any end, so ●ong as there is a bishopric or fat benefice to hope for: and Catholic hands so tied up, that they can print nothing unto their own justification without insuperable difficulties and hazard.  
I have read in London the Defiances of one Fencer to another, both of them in Print. Who accordingly do meet in Bear-Garden without any control there to baste one another lustily for the People's pleasure And it would be a pastime I think equally delightful, not less profitable, and somewhat more civil, to see two Men reason down one another. We poor men should esteem it a great favour to us, if our adversary might read his charge and we our defence, even in Bear-garden. Since neither in Churches. Halls, Universities, or Schools are we permitted to speak; or Print any thing to speak for us. And Doctor Stillingfleet who hath made his Defiance already, may, which he hath not yet done, appoint the Day. Not men and fencers only, but bulls and bears, cocks and dogs, all are permitted to defend themselves when they are invaded, but only we poor old Christians, whose Religion hath blessed our Land Fifteen-hundred Years. As if it were agreed on all hands that we should never be rightly understood.  
Mr. H. Thorndike a grave Divine and learned Doctor in our present English Church both affirms and strongly proves in his Book called Just Weights and Measures, that Roman Catholics are Idolaters no way: Adding also, That they who separate from the Church of Rome as Idolaters, are thereby Schismatics before God. Thus speaks that learned Man, the Phoenix of divines, who only dares to be honest. And the mere authority of this eminent Protestant may suffice to evacuate all the sophistry of this whole Chapter of this Doctor's book: as also of that which follows in the next place about our holy Host and Saints.  
Now Sir, I must bid you farewel. And that you may not think me either idle or neglective of my duty and respects to you, pray give me leave to tell you, that what you see here printed but now, was written and ready for the Press in August last. And before October ended I had finished all my work upon Dr. Stilling fleet's Book, suchlike familiar Commentaries, as these upon his first chapter be. But in all these Six Months I could get no more Printed for You either at home or abroad, than this poor Fifth Part of the whole, after my many travels, vexations, expenses and dangers. Such obstructions are made about the Presses, and so many violences offered here continually, far above any used since we were born, that I can see no possibility for any whole Book of ours to shoot that gulf, be our cause never so innocent and good. Nay, they will here Print our Catholic Books themselves, as if they were their own, as Thomas a Kempis, Granada, Parson's Resolutions, Drexelsius, and the like. But if we be taken Printing them, the PRESS is broken, PRINTER punished, and we, if we be found, in danger of our Lives. And therefore I beseech you, Sir, be content with thus much, or rather this little. The rest you shall have in written hand. In the mean time let Dr. Still. triumph and crow as he pleases. He is made and has made himself sure enough. Although he hath defied the whole Catholic world, and all that know of it, having something to say, are both willing and ready, yet will no Man come forth into the open field against him, because they cannot. He thinks himself wise no doubt; wiser than millions of men: and may do so still. For my part, Sir, I find him as wise as one man; and no more. Farewell.    

TO KATHOLICO.  
SIR,  
I Am glad you have received my first Packet, lately and indeed too late transmitted to you: and yet more, that you rest contented with my brief Postill upon so small a parcel of Dr. Stilling fleets Book, after so long an expectation. Sooner than I did I could send you nothing: and although I could have said more upon the first Chapter which I sent you, yet since you are satisfied with it, I am now content that I said no more. Sir, by that his beginning you may well suspect, that the Doctor means to deal insincerely with us. And this you shall see so plainly in each parcel of his Book, that you will grieve at his wilful and studied insincerity. For as to the abovesaid business of Images, first he knows well enough, that to set up the Statues and Images of renowned persons after their decease, of magnificent Kings, just Judges, learned Philosophers, valiant Captains, illustrious Historians, powerful Orators, flourishing Poets, great Inventors of Arts and Sciences for a Nations good, has been, and is still, and ever will be the custom of all Nations upon earth; not wholly excepting the very Jews themselves, who keeping so honourable memories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by Tradition of words, long before they traveled from Egypt into Palestine, where they were by the way forbidden to make to themselves, or worship any Idols of the Nations amongst whom they might converse, cannot be thought to have had any aversion from the figures or faces of t●o●e their Ancestors, if any they had, or could have had amongst them. Secondly, the Doctor knows or aught to know, that three very great and good effects are apt to be wrought in posterity, by means of such figures of their worthy predecessors. For those Images do both prolong their memories upon earth, which is some honour to them; and create a thankfulness in posterity for their virtue and worthy deeds; and also enkindle in them an earnest emulation of doing the like noble actions in succeeding ages. And thirdly, as little can he deny, that all these three both innocent and commendable effects are as apt to follow upon the sight of our Lord and his holy Saints, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, whose Images only are regarded by the Church. Catholics not only believe, but experimentally perceive, that such representations do quicken in them from age to age the beloved memory of our crucified Lord and all his blessed followers; that they incite in their hearts a thankfulness for so many their good deeds still redounding to our good; and that they kindle a desire of imitating them so often as they behold those virtuous faces, once Pilgrims as we now are, and Believers with us; even as they imitated our Lord, by a strange force and courage trampling Sin and Satan under their feet. And thus by Images we do reverence and honour Christ our Lord, and his holy Saints, with a respect and veneration due unto them, each one in his place and dignity. Nay one yet further good use do we, guided by our Faith and Religion, still make of those pious representations: For being assured that our Saints in heaven do offer up their incense of prayers in behalf of their Brethren on earth, we seldom cast our eyes upon their figures, but desire in heart at least, to reap some benefit thereby, partakers of their heavenly intercession: Thus we do. But does Dr. Stilling fleet speak of these things, or unto these things, or against any of these things? no not one word. Nor would any custom of ours, or belief or doctrine of the Church, have brought in any of the contents which make up his first Chapter, wherein our Image-idolatry is declared and confuted by him. Wherefore laying out his charge against us in a phrase of ambiguous words industriously contrived, he brings in thereby all that talk of his, which nothing at all concerns us, a●● yet sounds a● if it did. This, Sir, is his in●●nce●●cy. Papists, saith he, worship God by Images, the Church of Rome worships God in Images, and therefore are they Idolaters. This is his charge, very ambiguous, as all men may see, and of an uncertain interpretation. It sounds in a direct sense, as if Catholics had some representations of the eternal Deity either made by themselves, or some other way con●●●ghed unto them, by which and in which they worship God. Thus chief Magicians p●●cking their finger, let the blood drop in a pan of ●urning coals, and when the sinoak ●rises, down they fall and worship th●ir w●ck●d Familiar, whose face then appears be●ore them in a Looking-glass set aforehand for that purpose on their Altar. And some such way ●●ay the Reader conceive, that we worship God in Images, as they do their Familiar Demon. And again, when it is said that we worship God by Images, he may as well imagine, that se●ting our Images a fire, we offer them to God as a Burnt-offering, or some other such like way worship God thereby: For this is the direct and connatural meaning of the words. And in this direct ●ence the Doctor proceeds, and brings in thereby all the contents of that his first Chapter. Papists, saith he, worship God by Images and in Images, which is idolatry and a fond idolatry too. For such a worship cannot terminate upon God, because he hath forbid it. For can any representation of the invi●●ble De●y be made, as even the wiser Heathens have acknowledged. An Image of God must needs be below God, and unbeseeming his glory. For which cause Moses forbids it, S. Paul disowns it, learned Christian Doctors abhor it. This was the fault of Aaron, the fault of Jeroboam, the fault of all the Heathens who worshipped God in their Images or Idols. Thus our Doctor speaks: and this is all he speaks, quite besides his business and our Catholic custom. For our Images are the representations of our Lord Christ born and crucified for us; and of his holy Apostles and Martyrs, and other his renowned followers. And although we believe Christ our Lord to be God, yet the Image of Christ and the Image of God are two different things, as all men know. This then is the reason, why he words his charge against us in that manner he does, with much insincerity. For if he had only charged us with that which we only do; namely, that we make Images of Christ and his blessed Saints; or that we worship and honour them thereby; this would not have brought in those many materials of his long discourse, nor would he have had any thing thereof to have said against us. And surely we can only honour them by Images, whose Images we set up for our use; as 〈◊〉 men know well enough. And if he will inf●●● upon another reflected act, because 〈◊〉 think we do well thereby in order to God, th●● 〈◊〉 therefore worship God by them 〈…〉 them; this is merely to trifle. For thus w●●ay be said, and that more properly 〈◊〉 ●●ly too, that we worship God by the K●●● 〈◊〉 in the King, or other Magistra●● 〈…〉 us by God Almighty for our go● 〈◊〉 which in that sense is most certainly true. Nay we may as well be charged to worship God by and in our Bread and Butter, Beef and Mutton, which we eat giving God thanks thereby. This I say is the Doctor's inun●●●ity; totally  in Treatises of Controversies that concern Religion, which exact a proper, direct and plain expression. And it is in vain for him to reply, that we use also the representations of Father, Son and Holy Ghost: For we have none of these as they are in themselves, but as they have appeared unto us; the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove, the Son in the form of man, and Father as he found'st to us under that notion in our ear: which are still no representations of the invisible Deity, of which the Doctor speaks. And he may remember too, that the present Church of England, which he pretends to defend, allows and uses all these Images also; even that of God the Father, which many of our Catholic Prelates have excepted against and endeavoured to suppress, however some others amongst them have thought withal, that such a figure might well enough be permitted: because what may be represented to the ear, may in the same manner be represented to the eye also. Thus much Sir of the Doctor's insincerity hitherto. And what pretty Sophistical tricks he uses afterward, you may see in due time and place. You may note only for the present, that after his imagined overthrow of our Christian Images, he now in his second Chapter invades our ancient Sacrifice typified by Melchisedek his bread and wine, which he calls the Host: just according to the first method of the furious Reformation, which first battered our Church-windows, and then slurred down the Altar-table.  

Host-Idolatry and Saint-Idolatry.  
The adoration of the Host is a grand piece of Idolatry in the Roman Church: Nor will it suffice them here to plead, that they believe Christ to be in the Eucharist on the same divine motives they believe Christ to be God, and that they may therefore worship him there: for if there were a revelation of his presence there, yet is there not the same command of worshipping him there, as is of his person. Let all the Angels of God adore, and again, all must honour the Son as they do the Father, but no news of worshipping the Host. But secondly, there are not the same grounds to believe Christ's presence here, as that Christ is God; and if that presence be not, then is it idolatry without excuse. It is here granted, that the person of Christ visibly appearing to us in any place, may be worshipped: but there is not the same reason of believing and seeing. And if any reply, blessed is he who hath not seen and believed, he may know, that that word is here impertinent, relating not to this matter, but to the Resurrection. It is also granted, that in the celebration of the Eucharist, we are to give a spiritual worship to Christ, as well as to the Father; performing that Religious Act with a due veneration of his majesty and power; with a thankfulness for his goodness, a trust in his promises, and a subjection to his supreme authority. We grant also, that external reverence may be shown in the time of receiving the Eucharist, in signification of our humble and thankful acknowledgement of his benefits. But we deny, first, that Divine worship is to be given to the Elements on the account of a real presence, or that the same adoration is to be given out of Communion as in it: And this is the only Controversy. For how can one be sure, that the object is such in itself as deserves worship, sine it seems Bread still? The Scripture that says This is my Body, may be otherways interpreted; and then the words will not make it out: and the sense of them given by Fathers is hard to seek, and harder to find, the world being full of disputes about it. The sense of the present Church can stand in no stead; For is it enough that the Pope say so? No. If he define it? No. If a General Council concur with him? No; unless they proceed in a right way: and who knows that? Besides, how can we tell that he who consecrates is a Priest, or hath any intention to do it? And as we cannot be sure of the object of worship there; so neither that we have yet sufficient reason to worship. For Divines are not resolved, whether the humanity of Christ, taken abstractively from the Divinity, be capable of Divine worship: so that if the humanity be present with the Divinity, it is uncertain whether I may worship it; and as distinct from the Divinity, it is certain I cannot: And though out of the Sacrament we may worship Christ safely enough, yet not so in the Sacrament, where his corporal presence is the cause of our adoration, and perhaps without the Divinity at all which is unto no purpose of Christ's institution. But suppose Christ's Divinity be present, yet this gives not ground enough of worshipping the thing wherein he is present: For how and why should it be? Here are their Doctors puzzled mightily, to show how their worship is terminated in this case, and how God is united to the Sacrament more than to the Sun and Moon; and whether there be any hypostatical union in one place more than another: What can they urge for any sufficient authority of this their worship? The authority of the Roman Church? That is nothing worth. Catholic Tradition? Let them show it. Scripture? That cannot do it alone, without Council and Fathers, as some of their own learned men acknowledge. For the words, This is my Body, may stand with a Metaphorical, as well as a real sense. But if they chance to be mistaken in the belief of this Doctrine, then can they not certainly be excused from Idolatry, as their own men, Bishop Fisher, and others do acknowledge; no more than the Manichees and some others, who said Christ was the Sun, and therefore worshipped it. Veneration and Invocation of Saints is another piece of Idolatry, etc.  
§. 1. The Author having prosecuted in one long Chapter the first piece of our Catholic Idolatry, he bestows upon us another here as long as it, about two other our Idolatrous parcels, the Eucharistian Host, and Saints. For Idolatry is such a rumbling sound, that he thinks not fit to confine it to one Chapter, as the other three subjects, Indevotion, Fanaticisme and Division; but we must hear of it on both sides our head, unto our double confusion. But it is here to be noted, that he changes now the mode of his Sophistry in to a new kind, I suppose for his Readers refreshment; Before he cast beams, now he throws motes into our Eyes. Our Images he confounds by the Logs of Heathen Idols; but our Eucharist by the dust of Philosophical curiosities; which he so spreads abroad that he loseth his own eyesight.  
§. 2. And as he changes his Logic, so does he alter his phrase also. And he has a reason for that too. In his first Chapter he charged us with worshipping God by Images, and in Images: now he does not say in the like phrase, that we worship God in the Host, or by the Host. And of this his sudden change of phrase, I believe every Reader does not take notice, or perceive a reason, though the Author have one, and that a good one for it, and I think a couple. For first a waggish wit must so provide, that he impose upon his adversary, not that which is true, or sounds true, but what is, or sounds false. To worship God in Images sounds false: but to worship God in the Host sounds true: and therefore he imposes that upon Catholics, but not this. Secondly, This his diversity of phrase brings him in all the materials of that his first and this present Chapter, which he could never by any force have haled into his paper, unless he had carefully so placed his words, as here he does. The charge of worshipping God in Images, gave him occasion to talk how such a worship cannot terminate upon God; how that the invisible Deity cannot be represented; how the Heathens worshipped God in their Idols; how that Aaron and Jeroboams sin was no other, etc. which materials till up his first Chapter; and had all failed him, had he spoke singly of the respect which Catholics bear to their holy Apostles and Martyrs, represented either to their ear or eye: which is all they do. On the other side, his charge of worshipping the Host, and not God in the Host, opens him a passage for all the talk of this his second Chapter: how that we have no command in Scripture of worshipping the Host, though we be commanded to worship Christ: how that we have no ground to worship the Elements; how that we cannot be sure that the Host is an object of worship: how Schoolmen are puzzled to declare the union with the Elements and Symbols; etc. which are his materials against this second parcel of our Idolatry: and had all failed him too; had he fairly imposed upon Catholics a worship of God in the Host, as before he did a worship of God in Images. For these two great reasons he warily imposes upon them in choice phrases of his own; that people may hear and read in both places, not what Catholics do, but what they do not: and yet so confidently charged upon them, as if it were their right. And thus he makes sport for himself but mars none; very careful, not to obstruct, but set open a way for his prattle; which is a pretty piece of wit, if it had a little honesty to make it relish.  
§. 3. I do not perceive the Author to be so jolly in this his second Chapter, as in his first. Nor does he argue so positively against this great work of Christian Religion, no less solid and certain then Christianity itself; as he did before against the ceremonious use of an Image; which Catholics heed no otherways than ornaments of their Religion, fruitful in so many sweet fragrant Roses and Lilies of their Martyrs and other blessed Saints. And therefore Dr. St. winks himself, that his reader may think here is no truth to be seen. Full of doubts he is, that Catholics may be thought doubtful. What can they show, what can they urge for this their worship? The authority of the Roman Church? that is little worth. A speedy, quick and dextrous dispatch. Catholic tradition? where is it? why do they not show it? who ever heard of it? Poor man, he cannot see wood for trees, nor London perhaps in the midst of Cheapside, except some body point at it. The numerous volumes that have set forth this Catholic tradition, as eminent, as clear, as universal as Christianity itself, he now remembers them not; no not any one of them can he now call to mind, to lead him out of the maze he is in. Will they pretend Scripture? all that is disputed, that is otherwise intérpreted. If he continue in this his perplexity, he will turn Atheist by and by. For there is no one Article of Christian faith, or Scripture that speaks it, but has been disputed, denied and otherwise interpreted. What can Scripture, saith he, do without Councils? and what are Councils but fallible mistaking businesses? A sad plight the man is in: but it is on his own accord and free will; that his reader may imagine Catholics who are all the world over in a peaceable possession of this their faith, to be in the same pickle too. He simply conceits Catholics to have their faith to pick up some where; and he cannot possibly tell where they should glean it, with any assurance or quiet: at least he would have it thought they cannot. Bellarmin, saith he, declares by convincing arguments, that Christ is God and to be worshipped: but what Church, what tradition, what Counsel, what Fathers tell us any such thing of the Host? Alas poor dark man! we must not then ever think to pick our Religion out of Bellarmin it seems. And so must needs be in the same case with those Christians who lived before Beauties' time; that is to say, either to have our Religion already without Beauties' help, or to seek it. But where had Bellarmin yet a Child, where had he his Faith before he wrote any thing? surely not out of Beauties' books. It is a wonder the Dr. thinks not of this, to help him a little to his sound senses. But he is in his ecstasy, and will be in it still; And he tells us in this his rapture, that Bellarmin proved by convincing arguments, that Christ is God, and to be worshipped; but who ever said the like of the Host? We know, and remember well enough that the same Bellarmin, who proves so laboriously that Christ is God, declares also no less effectually in a whole treatise of the same volume of controversies, both our Lords Divine presence in the Eucharist, and our supreme veneration, love and honour there due unto him. This we know; and this the Dr. did himself know also, before he drove himself into these his feigned Apoplexies; wherein he has indeed some imperfect glimpses of it, even now, that we may give him his due; but the whole treatise in Bellarmin seems to him now at this his distance, but as a small black mote, such as an Eagle may haply appear to us flying in the Clouds five miles high above our heads; an atom, a little on this side nothing; and therefore not worth speaking of. And by this means he goes on glibly in his extacies, and exclamations unto the end. What ground have Papists, what ground have they for this their worship? Scripture? Tradition? Counsels? Fathers? Church? Reason? where are they? what are they worth? who ever saw them? why are they not shown? Thus the good man raves. Although all people before this last and worst age, who ever in any place bore the name of Christians, both Latin and Greek Bishoprics, who filled up Europe; and all the rest every where; Armenians, Habassins, Maronites, Jacobites, Muscovites, Melthites, had all of them this one solemn adoration of God in the Eucharist, as the great work of Christianity; although ancient Fathers, especially the Grecians have left more record of it, than any other parcel of Christian belief and practice; although many great, laborious, and learned volumes have been set forth in this last age, both in France, Germany, and England, whereby that Catholic piety is so demonstrated, that none who considers things in earnest, can refrain to acknowledge it; yet does Dr. St. in his deep ecstasy forget all this, and cries out, who ever said it? who ever proved it? who ever professed it? And he hopes his Reader, who is seldom wiser than his book, will answer to his question, and say, No body, No body Sir, you are in the right; and Papists are mere Fools and Blockheads.  
§ 4. The drift of this Chapter is to show that we can neither believe our Lord's presence in the Eucharist, nor do any homage to God in him, there figured according to his own solemn Institution, as Crucified among us unto our reconciliation and peace. And truly his discourse here tending thereunto, is all of it so extraordinary slight, that one cannot tell whether himself be serious, or that he do indeed take us all for Mushrooms, so soft and foolish, that we will be carried away at his pleasure by any thing, or indeed by nothing. Suppose, saith he, we have the same Divine Revelation of Christ's presence in the Eucharist as of the Divinity of his Person; yet can we not possibly worship here as there; because there it is said, let all the Angels adore him, but we have no command to worship the Host. As though one and the same command, Let all the Angels adore him, would not serve indifferently both in Heaven and Earth, both for Angels and men, where ever he is present. The Divine revelation of his presence needs no further command to engage our worship; nor is that said command, Let all men honour the Son, as the Father, and let all the Angels worship him, determined to any one place, or to any one mode of his presence. St. Paul worshipped our Lord in the fields of Damascus, where he met him after his Resurrection. And yet he had never any command to worship him in those plains, either of Damascus or Libanus. The particular Revelation of his presence there, was a Monitor sufficient of his duty. The person of Christ, saith he, visibly appearing to us in any place, may be worshipped; but there is not the same reason of believing and seeing. All other good Christians before Dr. Stillingfleet, judged revelation and believing to be a surer testimony in matters of Faith and Religion, than our seeing is. Let us hear one of our Christian Doctors speak, whose testimony will serve for all the rest. We have not declared unto you, saith St. Peter, the virtue and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, in any fabulous mythology; but as we have seen with our eyes his own Majesty. For he received from God the Father, honour and glory, by a v●yce conveyed unto him from that glorious magnificence, saying thus, This is my well beloved Son, in whom is my sole content. And this voice we ourselves heard derived from Heaven, when we were together with him in the holy Mount. And yet have we more firm Prophetical words, unto which while you attend as to a light shining in an obscure place, ye shall do well, until the d●y dawn, and the morning Star arise in your hearts. Thus speaks St. Peter, our Lords great Apostle, who, though he beheld our Lord's Glory in the Mount, and heard there a voice from Heaven unto his honour, yet he prefers before both these private testimonies, the one general Authority of Divine Revelation, as firmer and more authentical than either, or yet both of them put together, as the sole standing unextinguishable general light, set up in the obscurity of this our dark life, for the assured guidance of all men. As if he had plainly told us, that our private senses may be deceived, especially in matters of Apparitions and transitory Visions, imparted unto some one or other apart. But prophetic speech and revelation, this is general and the same to all; this is unerring and firm; this stands for ever. Here have we plainly good St. Peter's mind in this affair. But our Doctor resolves otherwise. Divine revelation, although we have it, will not serve his turn. But if he could see Christ appearing to him any where, he could worship him then, and would perhaps do it. There is not the same reason with him, in believing and seeing, and that is indeed true, St. Peter says so like wise. But St. Peter says, that believing is firmer than seeing: Dr. Stillingfleet avers, that seeing is firmer than believing. He would be afraid to act that upon mere Divine Revelation, which he will not fear to do upon sight. Can he see Christ appear to him, he would worship him; but he cannot by any means worship him, where Gospel testifies his presence, and he sees it not. Nay, he avers a little afterward, that he can kneel down and worship Christ any where, excepting only in the Eucharist, where his corporeal presence is the cause of adoration. He can do it where no cause obliges him to it, no peculiar cause exacting it. But in no wise will he be brought to it, where his presence known by Revelation stands to claim it. Gospel & the custom of Christianity quite spoils his Devotion, and keeps him from doing that homage to our Lord in the Church, which he could freely give him in a Marketplace. And if any should reply, quoth he, that blessed is he who hath not seen, and yet believed; he may know that this saying of his is impertinent to this present purpose, because it relates only unto the Resurrection. This he speaks, not considering that the said assertion of our Lord, Blessed is he who sees not, and yet believes, is indefinite and consequently general, equally appliable unto all things our Lord ever acted or taught us either to believe or hope for. And as our Lord used it to his Disciples in the business of the Resurrection, so must it hold good equally in that of his Incarnation, Ascention, or any thing else he either spoke or acted for us. And though it be applied unto one thing, it doth not therefore follow that it relates to nothing else, nor is pertinent to any other mystery but that. We may well and properly say, according to Dr. Stillingfleet, Blessed is he who hath not seen, and yet believed the Resurrection. But we must not say, Blessed is he that hath not seen, and yet believed the Incarnation, Ascention, Christ's miracles in curing the Deaf, Dumb, Lame, and Blind; in raising the dead, and preaching eternal happiness to his followers. Unto all this, that saying is impertinent with him, it relates to nothing at all but the Resurrection. And have we not here a solemn and peculiar wit, and one that may well challenge the whole world to come forth into the open field against him? But we must note here, that the Doctor does not grant any such Divine Revelation, which may either clearly speak our Lord's presence in the Eucharist, or justify our worship in it, only he permits it to pass for disputation sake; and avers, that if there were any such Revelation, yet would it not suffice to free us from Idolatry: and this he does to give us an experiment of his wit. And that experiment we have had, and must be content with it till more come.  
§ 5. It is here granted, saith he, that in the celebration of the Eucharist, we are to give a spiritual worship unto Christ, as well as to the Father; performing that religious Act with a due veneration of his Majesty and power, with a thankfulness for his goodness, a trust in his promises, and a subjection to his supreme Authority. We grant also, that external reverence may be shown in the time of receiving the Eucharist, in signification of our humble and thankful acknowledgement for his benefits. Here be a great many good things granted us here, and I take them thankfully. In his first Chapter he was so Zealously hot, that he would grant us nothing, no not so much as to hang up such pictures in our Chambers as he has himself looking upon him in his own; but can we get this grant of his ratified and sealed by all the Protestants in England? If it were, the Church of England would look the better for it. Nay, will not be himself, what he has granted us to day, revoke again to morrow? The Doctor should do well to read over now and then his own grants and denials. For he is not so fixed in them, that one dare take his word, as I could easily specify both in this and other particulars; But I refrain from that work now, as needless Sir to you; at least we have as much here granted, as adoration requires. But I cannot perceive he will have any of it relate to aught subsisting in the Eucharist; but only to the Author of it, who is in Heaven, upon a consideration of his benefits, which is some part of Catholic truth, though not entire.  
§ 6. But we deny, saith he, that Divine worship is to be given to the Elements, upon the account of a ●●●l presence. This denial also, as the words ●and, is good enough. For none that I know worship Elements. Secondly, We deny that the same adoration is to be given out of Communion as in it; and this is the only Controversy. I had thought he said before, that he could worship Christ any where but only in the Eucharist, where the corporeal presence determins a worship. Now he seems to say, that he can worship him in Communion, and not out of it, and this the only controversy. But we must take his grants and danyals singly, and not stand to tie them one to another, lest we anger our Benefactor. What he gives, we must take thankfully, and not look a gift horse in the month; and what he denies in one page, he may grant us in another, if we can but have patience.  
§ 7. They cannot be sure, saith he, that the object deserves worship, appearing still bread; Scripture, that says, This is my Body, may be otherwise interpreted, the sense of the Fathers is hard to find; the present Church stands in no stead. For is it enough, the Pope says it? No. If he define it? No. If a General Council concur? No. Unless they proceed in a right way; and who can be sure of that? Now he throws about his Philosophy-dust, to persuade us we can be sure of nothing: It still appears bread. So it does. Even Christ our Lord appeared a mere man, but the eye of Faith apprehended him the Son of the Living God; a Child newly baptised appears, but the same it was, and yet is believed to be now regenerate and born again; all that is in man, appears mortal, but is not believed so. Mul●a videntur quae non sunt. This divine Majesty hath words of life and power, and call, the things which are not, as those that are; and by his naming them, makes them to be what he says they are. And in those words of life do Ca●holicks believe and trust; when taking bread he solemnly and seriously said, at his last hour, (instituting then an Oblation and Sacrament, most sovereign and venerable to remain in his Church for ever) This is my Body: and all Christians hitherto have lived and died in this Faith. Scripture, that says, This is my Body, may be otherwise interpreted. Considering they were the last words of our Loving Lord departing from us, and his final Legacy bequeathed his believers, they cannot be rightly interpreted, but as they sound. And any other interpretation, that has been yet given by any against our Catholic Faith, amounts only unto thus much, This is not my Body, which is a strange mad interpretation. The sense of the Fathers is hard to seek, saith he. But who seeks after it? writers of controversies may take pains to cull it out, and demonstrate it to unbelievers for their Conversion. But Catholics have their Faith already, wherein they are educated and bred up from their youth, united to their immediate Pastors, as these are to the rest of the Catholic Body. The present Church stands in no stead, why so? that is all in all, as the body is to the finger, hands, and other members, in which they all move: Is it enough, the Pope says it? No, etc. This man here imagines, first, that Catholics have their Faith to seek, which is his feeble imagination. Secondly, That Scripture cannot help them for his reason above specified, as feeble as it: And Thirdly, That the present Church can avail as little, because the Pope's word is not assured, as though the Pope's word were the present Church. And is not all this a strange raving talk? All men know, I think Sir all men, excepting only this spiritual H●ctor, that as Catholics have their Faith and Religion by Tradition, from one Generation to another; so in it they have ever lived unanimously under their immediate Priests and Pastors united altogether in the great Catholic Body, the present Church, and never look further. Nor is there any need at all, either of the Pope's word or Counsels, unless some great sedition or scandalous Apostasy arise in some one or other particular Diocese. For then the Bishop of the place calls for help of his fellow Bishops, and the supreme Pastor in particular, and conciliar Assemblies, as Governors extraordinary in a tempest which may endanger the ship. And Catholics thus keeping close together in one body, united with their Pastors whom the Holy Ghost hath set over them for their safety and peace, cannot but remain steady and , by the assistance and blessing of that Lord who hath promised ever to be with them, even to the world's consummation. Nor do they ever seek for their Faith any where; for they have it sufficiently already; and all their ●are is to conform their lives to it as they ought, that they may get Gods good Spirit, and his holy operations in themselves, which is the end of their Religion, and all they do in it. And what a pretty piece of ignorance is it in Dr. Stillingfleet, to persuade us that they cannot be certain of their Faith, who are certain, and know themselves certain, and declare so much before the face of the Sun, and all the eyes of Heaven, by their stability, fixedness, and immovability in Faith, even this particular Faith of our Lord's presence in the Eucharist, so many ages together, and such vast distant places, not only against the dictamen of their own senses, but even against all the violence and subtlety of mankind, conspiring to shake all the very nerves and bones of their holy Faith out of joint. Dr. Stilling fleet has more need to consider in God's fear, how Catholics do arrive to this strange assurance, rather than emptily to tell us they cannot be sure.  
§ 8. Their own Schoolmen puzzle, and are unresolved how the whole Humanity can be present, how united, how terminate a worship, etc. Here is another handful of his dust, his curiosity-dust, to lessen our assurance. If our Schoolmen puzzle, and are puzzled, we must needs be thought unresolved. But what do these Schoolmen puzzle, what are they unresolved in? Not in their Faith, which says that our Lord is present with us in his holy Eucharist; but in the Philosophical Quomodo, or how this thing, or that thing is. And as they cannot disagree in Faith, which they received all alike one and the very same; so can they not agree in Philosophy, which they invent and contrive very divers, every one to himself, according to his genius and capacity. And what is all this unto us believers, or to one and another among themselves as they are all Christians? even just nothing. I say just nothing can the assurance of our Faith be prejudiced, by any supervening curiosities of men disputing afterward in their maturer age about the Quomodo of it, or the possibility of the contrary to it, or the ways of Gods working in it or conclusions deduced from it, or a hundred such like things introduced by learned and subtle Schoolmen, for the sharpening of wits, and advancement of learning. The Doctor dreams I think, that what ever Catholic writers speak, is Catholic Faith: and consequently, that they puzzle, and are unresolved in Faith, where ever they are unresolved: which although it be a pitiful piece of Childishness to think, yet is not he the only man that rides upon this Hobby-Horse. Taylor, Poole, Moor, Hammond, Pierce, Whitby, Owen, all of them mount upon the same Steed, and one cannot tell which of them is the wisest. Faith is before and antecedent: Faith is the Revelation of Jesus Christ conveyed unto us by his Church, uninterruptedly succeeding from generation to generation: Faith is plain and single, and equally common to all. But School-learning is ambiguous, doubtful, various, intricate, invented by men, divers and contradictory, and a mere stranger in our Christianity, which is a thousand years older than it, and may in all probability subsist yet a thousand years more, after that School-learning is quite vanished out of the world. Are all our Anti-catholick adversaries so blind, that they cannot see this? It is strange to me, that they should not consider, that all the said Popish Doctors and their Disciples remain peaceably together, in the same profession of Faith all the world over, notwithstanding these their clashing Philosophies. For how could they otherwise call them all Popish Doctors. Faith is one thing, and the declarations of it may be many. One single truth revealed to us by our Lord and his Church from him, may give Philosophical wits occasion to raise up a hundred questions about the modes, circumstances, and inferences of it. And these various conclusions of men, both those which declare Faith, and those which superadd other new things over and beyond it, are Philosophies commonly called theology, exposed in the Schools unto the trial of wits; where they are so sure to suffer opposition, that not one conclusion in a hundred escapes it. So that their puzzling about curiosities of their own, doth nothing at all concern either faith or faithful men. Those that love it, let them take their pastime in that puzzling work: but they do not think to be saved by it. And they who never know or hear of it, may haply be the better Christians for that, but never the worse? I believe Jesus our Lord to be present in the Eucharist, and worship him there, and offer up unto Almighty God all my necessities with Jesus my Lord, there figured by his own institution, as crucified before us; all this my Faith teaches me; and all this I do, and can do well enough, though I never either conceive or consider, how his humanity is united, how it is present, how it terminates our worship; all which concerns me nothing. Let the curious speculate such like things, and be never the wiser, but only in a few uncouth words. I am satisfied, if I do my duty in simplicity and innocency; that duty that is before all these speculations one and the same, and remains the same after them. By a vulgar and familiar example, I may haply be better understood. The Doctor both sees, and walks, and sleeps; and so do I myself. And yet our Schoolmen are puzzled, and mightily unresolved about all these things, how they are done, and cannot possibly agree. They cannot conclude, whether our seeing be wrought by introreception or extramission of rays; some say the one way, some the other, some both. They cannot tell assuredly, whether vision be effected in the crystalline humour or nerves; they agree not what thing this sight or vision is, nor how it is conveyed or lodged within for future dreams, etc. They are unresolved how we think or how the world without us gets so strangely within us, or how it lies there couched, or how it circle's so wonderfully in our spirits, or what physical thing our thinking is, whether appearances or only motion, and what, and where those appearances, and what the mover: They cannot with any uniformity declare how we walk, how the various strings lie for this motion; where they are knit together; what command, impulse, or impression sets the members to move; and how that impulse is conveyed, and whence it comes; and where sits the director paramount, whose beck is so , that each member does suddenly his duty according to command. They could never yet agree in the ways of sleep, whence it comes, and where it resides; what is that thing which so strangely silences all the senses? where those spirits retire, who keep daily Centinal in those Cinque-Ports; and which are their Bedchambers? what do they when they thus retire; and how they rest; how they issue next morning each to his own place, without any director, etc. Here Schoolmen puzzle, here they are unresolved, here they dispute and differ. But what then? Cannot I therefore see, nor walk, nor think, nor sleep? No, it seems, till the Schoolmen resolve: say you so? Let them never resolve them, and I will try whether I can sleep at my time, and walk, and think, and look about me. Even just so it is here, for the dictates and axioms of Faith were before School-mens doubts and resolutions, and will be ever the same, what ever they resolve or doubt of.  
§ 9 The sense of those words, This is my Body, is doubted of, and interpreted now another way, and several disputes arise. What have Papists to rely upon, sigh the Fathers are themselves as fallible as other men; neither are they assured that they have any Priests amongst them for to consecrate, etc. If we can now but save our eyes, we are well. For we have but two or three motes more to trouble us. All is doubtful he says; doubtful, whether we have any Priests or no; doubtful, whether we have any certain sense to our words; doubtful whether we have any men to make sense of them: doubtful whether we have any trust and assurance upon those men. And what shall we do now? Surely he would have us either do, or not do something or other, but I know not what. We cannot heed holy Fathers, for they are fallible and doubted men. We cannot believe Protestants, for they are doubtful men, and divided, and unsettled in their opinions of this point. We cannot regard Dr. Still. for he is a doubt-making man, and blunders and settles upon nothing, and not certain himself, according to what he speaks here of Priests out of Chillingworth, whether he be a Minister or no, or a Clerk, or a Christian, or so much as a Stillingfleet. I think we had best keep ourselves where we are, who doubt nothing at all, and leave the Doctor to play at his Blind-man-buff all alone. If Infidelities and Cavils of men, disputes and difficulties, surmised doubts, and vain sophisms must annul our Faith; then can we not possibly in this world either keep or receive any Faith in God at all. And Christ our Lord must needs then have appeared among us on this our Earth in vain. For both himself, and all the whole truth he delivered us, was in his time, and all following ages contradicted round about, and opposed, and rendered thereby doubtful by Jews and Pagans; and no less by those people, who Apostatised from that Catholic Society, than any other their outward and foreign Adversaries. And I suppose the Giantly wits of former ages amongst the Rabbis and Philosophers, did with somewhat a more stronger shot from s●nce and reason, invade our Christian assurance, than any is here discharged out of his Elder potgun by our doubt-making Doctor. This is uncertain, Church is slighted, Fathers are otherwise interpreted, there are now who deny it, etc. What news in all this can trouble me, who could not but foresee, if I did but use my common reason, that all these things would happen. It is not to be expected, that all men should believe at once. And he that believes not, will both conceive doubt●, and urge them▪ both hare a believer and persecute him too, perhaps to death, without any doubt at all. These doubts and oppositions, and 〈◊〉 raised against Faith, can have no other effect in a true believer, but to strengthen, and spread the roots of it more wide and deeper in his heart. There was a notable Prophe●ie of our Lord uttered by St. Si●●●on, a worthy great Personage at his birth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Jesus is set both for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign to be contradicted. Both Christ and his whole Faith delivered by him is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sign and eminent Trophy, set up in the eyes of the whole world, by all grumbling unbelievers to be enviously glanced at, maliciously traduced, and all possible ways opposed and persecuted. O but what if this Faith of Papists should prove to be false, saith he, than cannot Papists be excused from Idolatry, as their own learned men acknowledge. This is even wondrous true, whether our own learned men, who are still brought in by him for the embellishment of his own Clarkship, do acknowledge it, or no. And so, if Jesus Christ himself should prove not to be what he is believed by Catholics, then would the Doctor also, who is ready to worship him upon the account of that our Faith, declared and maintained by the Catholic Council of Nice, be an Idolater too. A false consequence may easily flow from a false and impossible supposition. But wise men, are more apt to consider their own danger, than other men's. And the Doctor, if he were indeed in earnest, and heeded rather his own Salvation then vain glory, should rather ask his own soul, I should think, what if this Catholic Faith should be true? Catholics have for it clear Gospel, universal tradition, all Christian Churches in the world believing it; and that in all ages the Doctor has nothing but his own sense, and John Calvin who fell from that Church, to plead for him. Were not the Manichees censured as Idolaters, for worshipping the Sun in the Firmament, believing it to be God. They well deserved to be censured. For that was a fancy of their own, grounded upon that word, he hath set his Tabernacle in the Sun, drawn unto a fond sense by their private interpretation, contrary to the Authority of the Church and Pastors, whom they would not obey, when they checked and reproved them for it. Even as now our present Protestants do put their various fanciful interpretations of sign and figure upon the words of Gospel, This is my Body, which the whole Church of God, out of which they fell, ever loved and reverenced, as the most clear evidence of a Heavenly Legacy, the truest and realest that was ever made to man, and of highest concernment to him. Only the Manichees judged by their erring, surmise that our Lord's Body was really there, where the Church taught them it was not. Protestants think it not really there, where the same Church teaches them it is. And thus have we passed through those handful of doubts which the Dr. casts before our eyes to persuade us we are not sure, where he knows we are . And we may worship our Lord in the Eucharist still, as we did before, for Stillingfleet.  
§ 10. The residue of this Chapter bewrays our third Catholic Idol. Saints namely, and their invocation. There be but three or four words in it of substance (if a falsehood may be said indeed to subsist at all) dilated so by his pretty rhetoric, as if he had a mind to teach young Lawyers how to plead in a false cause. The Heathens, saith he, were not blamed by Christian Doctors, for their ill choice of worship, Venus for example, or Vulcan, who were wretches; but for giving divine honour to any but the true God, as Papists do. Here are two untruths, and both notorious ones. For neither do Catholics give divine honour to Saints, their fellow Servants and Domestics of Faith; neither is it true, that ancient Christian Doctors did not blame the Heathens for their ill choice of worship; as monuments yet extant, various and weighty monuments do witness, both in St. Augustine's Civitate Dei, and elsewhere. Wise Heathens worshipped one God supreme, heeding the rest as inferior powers under him, as Papists do their Saints. These be two more falsehoods, as is already declared in part. For neither are Saints, any inferior powers to help us from themselves, as the Sun, Moon, or Mercury; but friends of God in Heaven, and wellwishers to their Brethren on Earth, ready as Onias, Job, Abraham, and Daniel, and all the good Angels, both to desire and rejoice at their conversion and peace. Neither did the wise Heathens worship one God supreme, as St. Paul expressly testifies in his Epistle to the Christians at Rome; where he tells them, that even the Pagan Philosophers whom Dr. Stilling fleet calls the wiser Heathens, held the truth in injustice, that they did not glorify nor worship the supreme God; that they became as vain in their thoughts and deeds, as any, even the unwiser sort of them, that pretending to be wise, or wiser Heathens, they became stark Noddies; that they transformed God's truth, discerned even by his works of Creation into a lie; and that they worshipped and served the Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not the Creator. I know well enough that Varro, with some others of the Heathens about Rome, where all sorts of Idols were brought together for the renown and pomp of that conquering City, began to plead thus, and excuse their Idolatry, as the Doctor has learned by him here to do. But did St. Austin admit that plea? or was there ever any Christian, who opposed it not, together with all our holy Prophets and Apostles? What subordination was there amongst the Egyptian, Cyrian, and Chaldean Idols; or what Country ever was there among the Heathens, who looked not upon their own Idol-God as Supreme? Papists build Churches to Saints, offer Sacrifice to Saints, as Heathens to those deities. Two more falsities. Papists do neither of these. And the Doctor might be ashamed to talk thus. Have not Protestants, St. Paul's Church, St Peter's Church, St. Dunstan, St. Steven, St. John's Church, and the like, even as Catholics have? And did ever any Catholic in the world, say, or write, or profess to offer Sacrifice to Saints? They use a formal invocation of them. One more: Formal invocation, is only an invocation of the cause, who is to give the blessing, grace, or favour petitioned, and from whom all good things do flow, and not of him who requests it. Popish Hymns and Anthems in honour of Saints, are not only Rhetorical Apostrophees, used by some of the Greek Fathers, or poetical flourishes, as those of Damascus, Prudentius, Paulinus, Ambrose, or only general wishes, that Saints would pray for us, of which are some instances in good Authors, or any devout Assemblies, at the Monuments of Martyrs, which were usual in ancient times. They are indeed not only this, because they are also and principally formal invocations of the most glorious God, as any one may perceive, who will please to read over our Catholic Hymns, for Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, in the Breviary, as the Doctor (more shame for him thus to talk) hath done himself. St. Augustine's example when he says, Blessed St. Cyprian help us in our Prayers, avails not Papists at all; for that of St. Austin was but a pious Apostrophee. It avails as much as we need; call it Apostrophe, or what you please: Nor does it avail Papists, that Faustus, the Manichean Calumniates Catholics living in St. Augustine's time, with their honouring the memories and shrines of Martyrs, and turning the old Idols into Martyrs, which those Catholics worshipped with like Vows; for St. Austin's excuse of that fact does not agree with the Papists that are now adays. It so well agrees with them, and justifies so punctually all that ever they do in this affair, that they need not either to change or add one word to it. I will only se● down that excuse of St. Austin, as Mr. Still. has been pleased here in his book to give it us, without addition, or change of any word. All the worship, saith St. Austin, which we give to Saints, is that of love and society; which is the same kind with that we give to holy men of this life, who are ready to suffer for truth of Gospel. Sacrifice is not only refused to Saints and Angels, but any other Religious honour which is due to God; as the Angel forbade St. John to fall down and worship him; The Heathens indeed built Temples, erected Altars, appointed Priests, and offered Sacrifice to their Idols. But we erect no Temples to Martyrs, as to Gods, but memories as to dead men, whose Spirits live with God. We raise no Altars, on which to Sacrifice to our Martyrs; but unto our one God only, the God of Martyrs as well as ours; at which, They as men of God, who have overcome the world by confessing him, are named in their place and order, but are not invocated by the P●iest who Sacrifices. Whatever Christians do at the memories of Martyrs, is for Ornament to those memories, and not as any sacred rites and sacrifices belonging to the dead as Gods: Nor do we worship our Martyrs with divine honours, nor with the faults of men, as the Gentiles did their Gods. Thus speaks St. Austin to Faustus for the Catholics then living, as Dr. Still. himself reports. And the Catholics now alive need no more to be said for them. And thus his Idolatry. Romance, which fill up two of his Chapters, is now happily ended. And methinks Sir, that he hath behaved himself herein somewhat like our Country Gypsies, who meeting with people in the way, under pretence of telling them their Fortunes, ask them many odd uncouth Questions about things past, not easily to be remembered, and speak unintelligable ambiguous words, which put them into so deep a muse, that the Gypsies get thereby a fair opportunity to pick their pockets.    

ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ.  
THe Doctor pretends, Sir, in his third Chapter to descend unto some parcels of our morality: persuading us that five pieces of our belief and practice are main hindrances of a good life and devotion: namely, our Doctrine (as he calls it) of penance, of purgatory, of prayers in an unknown tongue, of the efficacy of sacraments, and of our prohibition of scripture. His reasons for all this, or his cunning leiger ways of perverting all these things, his insincerity therein, and notable dissimulation, you shall hear by and by. For perceiving now, that after I have set down the sum of his text in gross, I am forced to repeat it all again by retail, spending thereby both time and paper needlessly, I must content myself to give you his text only in parts, with my short comment adjoined to each parcel as I go. But give me leave to tell you, Sir, thus much in general aforehand, that all this his whole Chapter is so palpably uncharitable and unjust, that no honest understanding Reader, what pleasure soever he took himself in writing it, can read it over without disdain and grief. What is this world come to? and where are we? and what strange things do we see and hear daily? This one book of Dr. Still. is to me such a world of wonders, that I shall not hereafter ever marvel any more at any lie or slander, that I shall know imposed by any whatever wicked man, upon his neighbour. Has the fool said in his heart, there is no God, no providence at all, no care or respect to be used towards men? Are all things lawful that any one shall lust to do or say against his neighbour? no compassion, no truth any more? God help our innocent Catholics. And sure I am God will help them, and justify their cause in his own good time, and preserve them always.  

Hindrances of a good Life and Devotion.  
§. 1. Their Sacrament of Penance with contrition, saith he, is sufficient in the Church of Rome for Salvation, without any more ado: No mortyfying of passions, no forsaking of sin is requisite; who would not be of this fine easy way, where all the precepts of holiness are insignificant? But what one Catholic man upon the face of the earth, ever thought or said this, which he imposes here upon them all, as their religion and faith? Holy Gospel, and all our spiritual books, wherein our substantial religion is contained, both those of ancient times, and of our later writers, as Granada, Thomas a Kempis, S. Bonaventure, Parson's Resolutions, Bishop Sales, Drexellius, Stella, and others, do all of them press and urge this Catholic duty of interior renovation, sanctification, and conformity to our Lord Jesus as the main end of his appearance amongst men. And Catholics themselves know, that it is their only care and fear, their desire and study so to do; such men to live, and such to die, as our Lord would have us. For this end we say our daily prayers, with our hymns and canticles, for this end we meditate; for this end we fast and chastise our bodies, for this we do penance, make restitution, give alms, frequent sacraments, and all that we endeavour according to our poor abilities, Gods good counsels and holy grace assisting us. He who shall please only to peruse the writings of Dr. Eckius, and his fellow Catholics, who opposed Martin Luther and his Protestant-reformation, when it first risen up; may there clearly see that this interior sanctity and renovation and holiness of life, is the one great Catholic point, stoutly maintained against those wild and dissolute Reformers, who began now to corrupt the world with that cursed opinion of theirs, that faith alone is sufficient to salvation. And what a strange man is this Dr. Stillingfleet! If any one indeed of our men, had objected to Protestants; that in their reformation-way, neither penance, nor contrition, nor satisfaction, nor renovation of life is needful, according to the first Masters of the Reformation, who taught and maintained openly, and in the eyes of this very Sun, that nothing is necessary to salvation, but only to believe, and by that naked faith to apply Christ's merits to themselves, all interior sanctification being both impossible and needless; he had said no more than truth, and what he might easily have proved out of the first Reformers principles; however I hope not maintained now by many of our wiser Protestant's in England, who notwithstanding remain still in that reformation which was chalked out for them by such wicked Leaders. But now to lay upon Catholics that wicked doctrine of Reformers, opposed now a whole hundred years by our Catholic Divines, is a desperate confidence, befitting none but men wholly unconscionable. Let them keep their own dirt to themselves, and not throw it into our faces, however they begin now to be weary and ashamed of it. The precepts of holiness, sobriety, and justice, are insignificant to them, who have hitherto even from the very cradles of this unlucky reformation publicly defended them to be insignificant; and not to us, who have still maintained, that they are the very all in all of Christianity. I have troubled myself some while to think, what should move Dr. Still▪ to invent this slander. Some word or other he must pervert; but I cannot conclude what it should be. Perhaps he may take occasion from hence: that whereas there be several things concurring to our purification after sin, as God's grace, and our dislike of our own ill deeds, fear of God's wrath and punishment, grief for his love and favour forfeited, an humble confession, purpose of amendment, and renovation of life; some Schoolmen have amongst their other curiosities, considered into which of these many things may our justification be principally attributed, as the principal virtue and cause of it under God. For God who created us without ourselves, will not redeem us without ourselves. And if any one in his philosophy have said, that confession and sorrow have the chiefest influence on our fide, that may be enough for Dr. Still to say as here he does, that we make confession and contrition all in all, and renovation of life nothing. Or perhaps because Catholic Doctors have taught, that confession, together with contrition, may sometimes be so great and cordial at the last hour, that evil men may thereby find mercy with God, as the good thief did, although they have no further leisure to mend and renew their lives; therefore does this man conclude, that with us confession with contrition is sufficient, without any more ado. Whence soever he concludes or gathers it, he knows best himself. But this I know, that it is an abominable slander. And if all his readers were as skilful in our Catholic religion as we ourselves who profess it, he would not have dared to speak these things, despairing then of finding any credit either with man, woman, or child.  
§. 2. They of the Church of Rome need little to heed a good life, who can have their sins expiated in Purgatory by the prayers of the living, which is a doctrine very pleasing to rich men, but uncomfortable to the poor. Pretty stuff! And need not then any man heed either to have patience in afflictions, or do his duty, because another prays to God either that he may do so, or find mercy if he have done otherwise? Or must he needs be negligent of himself to day, because he hopes good people will pray for him to morrow, when he cannot help himself? Souls departed are by our Christianity believed to be now out of the place and way of merit: for there is neither art, nor industry, nor any good work to be done in the grave, whether we all hasten. And if friends on earth, where God's favour may by our dutiful compliance be obtained, do commend their dead to God's mercy and goodness; this surely cannot make those friends careless of themselves while they remain here living. All men know that it is not enough for our entrance into heaven to cry, Lord, Lord; which is the voice of those who think that only faith saves; but the will of God who is in heaven is to be fulfilled by every one that shall enter there. And yet it is good and pleasing, and profitable notwithstanding to cry and supplicate unto our Lord God, with all earnestness of heart, both for ourselves and friends. But the poor are then in a sad condition, and the rich man may easilier enter into the kingdom of heaven, than a camel through a needle's eye, by procuring Masses for their Souls. Who told this man, that the Souls of the poor are not prayed for in the Catholic Church? He only thinks so. And he thinks amiss therein, as he loves to do. Whence doth he gather that the rich go to heaven so easily in our esteem by Masses? This he thinks too: Perhaps he does: For I am much deceived, if he do not utter many a falsehood which he knows to be such, before he utters it. At lest none of ours ever told him the one nor the other: and what we believe or do ourselves he may easily mistake, and we have had already sufficient experience of his ignorance therein, or some worse misdemeanour. Prayer or whatever good work of Christianity, although it may do some good; ye● does it not therefore do all: and what does not all good, must not therefore be denied to do some. Poor Lazarus' may by their cold, hunger, and nakedness, here on earth patiently endured, satisfy for their humane frailties so far with God here, that after this life, having no utmost farthing to account for, they may chance not to need any farther help. But the rich men of the world will not easily be brought unto those many voluntary penances and mortifications, which their sensualities exact, unto their expiation and peace with God. It were a happy thing, if they would be persuaded in their life-time, to distribute part of their goods unto the poor of God, the orphans and widows, their lame, old, decayed, feeble neighbours, as they used to do formerly in Catholic times. But if infected by the contagion of sin and sinners, they will not be moved to this: yet a charitable distribution at their death, though it be a late offering, it is better than none at all. And several prayers poured forth to God for them after they are departed hence, though they may not perhaps equal their condition to the Soul of a poor believing Lazarus, yet will alms-deeds plead their cause before God, and prayers will not be in vain. Make yourselves friends, saith our Lord, of the mammon of iniquity, that when you fail, they may receive you into eternal tabernacles. And although it be surer, and a more certain way to make those friends betimes, and continually, all our whole life time; yet are not they excluded from some benefit thereof, who make them late, and at their last hour. For they who receive temporal good things out of charity in God, are obliged now in the same charity to repay spiritual; and all other spiritual recompense is now out of season, save only prayer and hearty good wishes, which are never in vain before God. And it were much to be wished that Mr. Still. would cease at length to make jests of sacred Gospel, and apply it seriously to his own heart and soul, as it is intended by our holy Lord. Perhaps he would not then endeavour any more to enrich himself, or court promotion by this wicked trade of defaming his innocent neighbours, Gods ancient and renowned servants: It is neither impossible to God that a camel or cable rope should pass through a needle's eye, nor yet that a rich man should be saved, if he will bend himself to his duty.  
§. 3. Prayers in an unknown tongue hinder all sincerity of devotion among Papists. Here the Author wriggles and winds himself, like a snake in a bush; speaking sometimes as if people knew not what their Priest says; and sometimes again, as if they knew not what themselves pray, confounding all things that he may more freely sport himself. It is better, faith he, to know what we pray, than not. Christian prayers are not to be used like charms. God understands more than one language. The more people understand, the better they pray. Why some pray and not others, if some understand and not others? Why should any pray, but he that understands? All this is very true, but what and whom does it concern? People may as well pray at the chiming of Bells, as at the jargon of Priests words. What does he mean by praying at the jargon of words, and how at them? Is not this a merry conceited man? And what harm is it if a Christian do pray at the chiming of Bells? Hundreds of good Catholics pray at the striking of the clock daily: and what then? what harm is this? But his chiming jargon put together makes the merriment. If a Catholic priest appearing among the Christian flock met together to pray and meditate, and offer themselves and all their friends to God, join himself with them, and place himself between them and God, to offer to him his own and their necessities, to sacrifice for their peace, as our Lord in his last supper appointed, to meditate and pray with them for himself, and all the people, placed in their humble and silent posture in the Church, what chimes or jargon is there here? But when a man speaks against he knows not what, he must needs say he knows not what against it. For Catholics, whose devotion he here derides, pray and meditate both privately all alone in their own closerts or oratory's, and publicly in their Synaxis or assembly at Liturgy. Their private devotions take them up an hour or two every day in the week, wherein they keep peculiar prayers and meditations, about the creation, and God's providence, the incarnation, passion, mysteries of grace, the duties of life, vice and virtues, Gods mercies and judgements, man's misery and weakness, punishments and rewards eternal: And all these prayers made either in their own tongue or no words at all, cannot be concerned in any of this our doctor's talk. And their conventual converse with God in their Synaxis or Mass, is no otherwise. For there met all together, they do but meditate and pray as they did before, but now in a community, either without any words, as was most familiar in ancient times, or with words, as now is more usual; understanding well enough, both the thoughts and aspirations of their own hearts, and the words of their lips, if they utter any. Only there is required here, a little more instruction; that they may conceive both what the Priest does with them and for them: and also how to comply and join their hearts with his; that they may all unanimously endeavour in this their silent, and yet busy and earnest commerce with God, to offer up themselves with the div●ne sacrifice, unto their own reconciliation and peace. For the Priests great work there, is rather visible actions than audible words: and whether he speak english or latin, it is all one to them who can seldom hear him, and attend not so much to his words, as deeds, whenever they cast their eyes that way. And that this is the capital devotion of all ancient Christians in their Synaxis, and not any few prayers read in our ears by a Minister in a Pew, has been amply demonstrated by Catholic Doctors, in all the languages of Europe at this day. Their Synaxis was never any hearing or fitting business; but such a posture of humiliation, where every heart submits, every tongue confesses, and every knee bows to God in Jesus our only hope and refuge. And if the doctor is ignorant of all this, let him turn Catholic that he may understand it better.  
§. 4. The efficacy of sacraments in the Church of Rome, depending upon bare administration without any preparation of mind, is another great enemy to Piety. For their Sacraments confer grace ex opere operato, as the Council of Trent has defined. This being so, what need is there of any preparation of mind, by the exercise of faith, prayer, repentance, any strict examination, or endeavour of raising ourselves unto any worthy use of Sacraments. Devotion will never be more easily banished out of the world, than by a persuasion that grace and its comfortable effects may be had without it, without prayer, without endeavour of a holy life, without mortification, and watchfulness after the benefits which Christ's life and death obtained for us. This is a goodly and very plausible harangue, if it had any foundation or truth in it. D●d ever any Council, or Doctor, or Catholic man, either say or believe that our Lords Sacraments do confer grace unto the receiver, without any of their preparation, or disposition of heart towards them? Never any one. But all the whole world of Catholics prepare themselves for them, with all their whole utmost care and endeavour, believing all they can possibly do, is yet too little; unless God's mercy and goodness interposing accept freely their poor pitiful endeavours. And of the multitude of their Priests in the Catholic world, there is hardly one of a thousand so desperate, but he spends one hour in prayer, recollection, and examination of himself, before he dare approach the Altar. And that one, if any such there be, who shall neglect this his due preparation, so that he communicate unworthily, if by timely and serious repentance he do not recover himself, will harden by degrees, and be lost irrevocably. Thus some do fall away, either openly or occultly; and these occult apostates are easily known by this, that they are wholly taken up in worldly affairs and sensual pleasures, not relishing now any spiritual employments in their closet. Thus affairs stand with Catholics in this business. And what can we then think of this Doctor, who tells the world such a notorious untruth against them. But is it not defined that the Sacraments of the new law confer grace ex opere operato? This is very true, indeed it is so defined. But what is the english of these latin words, ex opere operato: not surely this, without disposition, without any preparation, or examination, or devotion. This is not the english of that latin: but this, By the very work done; which gives us quite another s●nce and meaning. That thing avails by the very work done, which carries with itself a power and virtue, if the work be done, to avail and profit us. Our corporeal meat sustains our bodies ex opere operato, or by the very work of eating, done, and completed in all its operations: we all know this. And yet none of us think, that we need not therefore have any appetite or disposition in our bodies, when we eat; or that we need not keep our bodies clean, or sound, or healthful, that our food may be unto us the savour of life unto life, and good nouriture and strength. And the Doctor if he had not studied rather to misconstrue all things, than interpret any thing right, might easily have discerned the true and connatural meaning of the words, by their very place and posture in the canon cited by himself out of the Tridentine Council. For there it is defined and openly declared against the Protestant Reformers, who exalted faith, only and solitary faith, unto the exclusion of all other good works and use of sacraments; that our Lords sacraments instituted for our sanctification and comfort, are both profitable and necessary unto that end of conveying grace and sanctity into us, and that by a virtue conferred upon them by the divine Author and Institutor of them. This the Council there defines; opposing the virtue of sacraments, showing itself, and streaming into the heart of the worthy receiver, in the very thing done, unto the bare and naked faith of those lewd reformers: even as the sad Council still up and down in all their Sessions did maintain the necessity of prayer, alms-deeds, mortification, penance, justice, truth, satisfaction, sobriety, continence, purity of life, meekness, and all Christian virtues, against that wicked Solifidian heresy, which they with all their force endeavoured utterly to root out Siquis dixerit, saith the Council there, per ipsa novae legis sacramenta ex opere operato non conferri gratiam, sed fidem solam divinae promissionis ad gratiam consequendam sufficere, anathema sit. Who can be so blind as not to see here plainly declared, that our Lords sacraments have a sanctifying power either in them or with them, and therefore not to be contemned or neglected, under any pretence of faith, which although it be good and lively with the concurrence of other good works and graces, yet is it without them unprofitable and dead: And amongst those good helps and quickners of our faith, are the sacraments by our Lord himself instituted, none of the least or meanest; and therefore to be received with all love and reverence, as the very conduits of divine grace ex opere operato derived into our souls from thence. Here than we cannot prudently imagine, that our Catholic Prelates in the Council exclude our devotion, disposition of mind exercise of faith, prayer and repentance, strict examination, endeavour of a holy life, mortification and watchfulness, all which they had elsewhere established; but to suppose rather and include them all: because all these are opposed unto faith alone, as necessary preparatives for the receiving of that virtue which sacraments confer. And the Council rather chose to express themselves, when they would speak of the powerful operation of sacraments, rather in this general way, ex opere operato, than any other more particular manner, that they might declare themselves in words acknowledged and indifferent unto both the great schools in the Catholic world, whereof though both of them agree that grace is conferred by the thing done, yet one teaches that the said grace or virtue is inherent and intrinsecal, the other that it is  only and assistant to the sacraments: And therefore would not the Council say, that sacraments contain grace, but that they cause it ex opere operato, by their sacramental application unto the faithful and worthy receiver.  
It is a long received opinion among schoolmen, saith the doctor, that sacraments of the old law in conferring grace, depend upon opus operantis, the faith and devotion of the receiver; but those of the new confer grace ex opere operato, without any disposition, internal motion, or preparation of mind. O shameless ignorance! very fain would this man be thought a deep schoolman, who never penetrated any one schoolman in his life, as it appears sufficiently by his simple talk, nor yet understands them, either what they say, or who they are. Insomuch that I am half persuaded that he takes Lilies Grammar for one of the schoolmen. Is that an opinion, a long received opinion among schoolmen? How long for God's sake? and among how many of them? All of them for certain. Nay name ten: for there are many hundreds of schoomen, and all masters, although not all institutors or sounders of the chair; and as simply as I sit here, I have been a piece of one myself: which I now speak, Sir, that this doctor, if he come by any chance to hear of this my little postil, might not fear that he has got some petty abecedarian Commentator, who largely explaining his easier texts, should pass by his more grave and harder ones, untouched. Nay let him name only one, and it shall suffice. The margin of his book over against this his school-assertion, was bare, and able to hold one man's name at least: and yet he leaves it quite empty. He does not quote so much as any one schooman, for the justification of this his assertion most unconscionably false. And although it nothing concerns us in our defence of faith, what opinion is amongst schoolmen, who have raised an art of their own, an art of talking, defending and proving things never revealed unto us, or any ways edifying to our salvation; yet if there had been any such opinion among schoolmen, than had not Dr. Still. been unconscionable, however he had been impertinent. Schoolmen do indeed agree unanimously, that the sacraments of the law of Moses conferred no grace at all. So the whole four schools of S. Thomas, and Scotus. Aureolus and Darandus: and all the many Doctors of them teach; however some of them speak otherwise of circumcision, which was from the fathers. But this simple talk, that sacraments of the old law conferred grace by the disposition of the receiver, the new without it: as I never heard it before, so does not he know where to find it, except it be in some writings of Mr. Farnaby a late Schoolmaster in London.  
Schoolmen are much puzzled, and cannot agree how sacraments confer grace, whether as a moral or physical cause, whether as inherent or assistant, whether as an instrument or a sign, etc. I care not if I help the Doctor a little, not in the schoolmen's puzzling, but his own. The schools of St. Thomas, and all the Doctors of it, in declaring the efficacy of Sacraments (which all Christians equally believe) teach, that they work grace as a physical cause, and as inherent, and as an instrument of it under God. The whole school of Scotus teaches, that they work it as a sign only, as assistant, and moral cause. And if the Doctor please either to dispute for St. Thomas his way in Scotus his school, or for Scotus his way in the school of St. Thomas; he will find that they do not fumble, or puzzle, or stand unresolved what to say; but that they struggle stoutly, and maintain incessantly, and defend invinceably, both of them their own proper ways and opinions, without ever yielding one inch of ground to the opposer. And though the matter be of small importance, yet the glory or shame of overcoming or being overcome, is thought by them all to be no small matter. Never did Aeneas and Turnus rush with a more violent shock and and resolution, than sometimes they do; Rumpuntur nescia vinci Pectora; and all for an opinion amongst themselves, affirmed by one, and gainsaid as resolutely by the other. Dr. Still. utterly unacquainted in these affairs, may say as he pleases, that they fumble, and puzzle, and are wholly unresolved. But all this signifies no more, but that he is wholly ignorant of what he speaks. Cassander and Arnoldus, both Catholics, do hold it to be a Catholic doctrine, that Sacraments do no good without the devotion of the receiver, and condemn the other opinion of some amongst them, as wicked. Here the man names us two of our Doctors who hold it to be a Catholic doctrine, that Sacraments do no good without the devotion ●f the receiver; which we all believe. But he names us not any one, who ever said it was a Catholic doctrine, that they do all their good without any disposition or devotion of the receiver; which is the opinion he has put upon us all this while, without any fear or wit. Did Cassander and Arnoldus hold right or wrong? Were they with us or against us? If against us in faith, then were they not Catholics themselves: if with us, then is all Dr. Still's discourse against us here, both impertinent and false. But I perceive well enough he neither knows what faith means, nor what it is to be a Catholic. A most certain truth it is, that Sacraments do no good to the receiver without a congruous disposition and devotion in him. And all food, whether spiritual or corporal, if it do no good, must needs do some harm. And this is something more than he tells to be said by Arnoldus and Cassander.  
§. 5. Another enemy to piety is their prohibition of Scripture, and keeping from people God's holy word, which might direct and comfort them. This charge bears something more of colour and appearance, than any or all the other four. And yet, things rightly understood, it is nothing else but a mere colour and appearance. For all the whole fourteen hundred years before PRINTING was found out, in all which time those sacred writings were so rare, that not one of a thousand could get them, it was the labour and obligation of a Priest still night and day to read and study those books, and not for himself one●y, and his own edification, but to gather out thence such holy words as might direct, encourage, and comfort people in the many occurrences of life. For which reason the Bible was then called Liber Sacerd●tis, the Priest's book: but especially and above all, to collect from thence what he thought might best conduce unto devotion and piety towards God. And this was not hard for them to do, after they had once by their united industry gathered out of the said Bible a complete Breviary for themselves. For this lying now by them, easily could they turn unto any thing they should have need of on any occasion. Thus they did before PRINTING was found out. But no such thing is ever done by Ministers, who leave their people both to buy themselves a book, and use it when they have it as they please. And now since the Invention of PRINTING, people's hands are so filled with holy gospels, psalms, hymns, canticles, holy histories, prayers meditations, manuels and the like contents of holy scripture, drawn out more amply for them in spiritual books; that nothing at all is there in faith or good manners, wherewith they are not as fully acquainted as their Clergy. And all this, as it is nothing else but God's word, so is God's word nothing else but this. Therefore is not God's word prohibited or kept from people in the Church of Rome, as the doctor affirms. Indeed the whole letter of scripture as it lies, is permitted to none, but such as have abilities to use it. But what then? Even our ordinary people have more now, than they had in the best ages of Christianity, who digesting well, what they had, saved their souls by it, and that is enough. And the little they had, was all that is to be had for that purpose. I have, Sir, often had occasion to speak of this subject: and must be fain now in this my speedy haste, to borrow some help from my words elsewhere delivered, whose sense, though it be perfect enough in my mind, yet if I do not help myself thence, I shall spend time which I cannot now spare, in thinking how to word and express it to you. Thus than it is written of this business in one place Catholics have the sum of scripture both for history and dogm, delivered them in their own language, so much as may make for their salvation, disintangled from the tropes and schemes. and ambiguous phrases, wherein it was first written, good orders being set and instituted for their proficiency therein; the sum of all divine truths belonging to Christianity, and the whole counsel of God for their direction and comfort; this have Catholics full and clearly delivered them out of holy writ, and all their whole duty both towards God and their neighbour, in their own language. Nor are they ignorant of any thing that may appertain either to sobriety, justice or piety. The whole sacred story of our Lord's incarnation, passion and ascension, all his sacraments, all the whole counsels and precepts of God, which may concern salvation, all his promises and threats, they have them all made known unto them, clear and disintangled from the various tropes and schemes of rhetoric or logic, so interwoven in the sacred author's writings, that it puzzles the greatest clerk with all his literature and science to understand the connexion's, transitions of discourse, objections, ambiguous phrases, hebraisms, and grecisms, and suchlike obscurities that occur; or to find out the drift and purpose and meaning of places: which things do and have too too often caused mistakes and heresies in the world. And all the sacred truths which it concerns them to practise, the people have still been put in mind of by their priests both in private and public, to their daily edification. Nor was it ever the fashion in Christianity to throw the bible among people, and so leave them to themselves, as the Reformers have done. Most certain it is, that the word and will and counsel of God, consists not in letters and syllables, much less in the tropes and modes of rhetoric and logic, which do variously obscure the sacred writ above all books that have ever been penned by man; but in the sense and meaning, which, is easily and securely conveyed. It is no hard matter, for example, to understand, that all men, both Jews and Gentiles, who have ever come to the knowledge of Christ, were beholding to God's mercy, merely to God's mercy for that their conversion and the life of grace they had by it; which is the scope of S. Paul's epistle to the Romans: although to give an account how S. Paul deduces and proves this truth in that his epistle, what arguments he doth either establish or refute, what modes and figures he uses, what tropes and rhetorical schemes be in his expressions, how he passes from one thing to another in his discourse, and by what art of ratiocination the context of his whole letter is knit together, this is neither easy to understand, nor necessary to any man's salvation to discern. And yet the epistle without all this knowledge cannot be understood, or rightly apprehended. And if it be conceived falsely, mistakes and heresies will rise. The will and mind and word of God, this all people are to know, what he hath commanded, what counselled, what threatened, what promised, what our Lord did and suffered for us, and what we are to suffer and do for him, that we may be partakers of his glory. But the humanity and philosophy that lies couched in holy writ, vulgar people neither can nor have need to dive into it. Nor was the holy scripture ever penned or intended for the people immediately, but for the bishops and priests of God, who are to watch over them for their good; and from their lips they are to receive knowledge. Christians were ever fed like pigeons, by the mouth, until they were so fledg, that they could now fly & feed themselves. Once come to maturity, they may read what they please on God's name, and the more they attend to lection of holy scriptures, the better it is, so they apply all unto action and sanctification of their lives. And again, in an epistle of mine its written thus: I have heard many great protestant divines ingeniously acknowledge that divine comfort and sanctity of life requisite to salvation, which religion only aims at, may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the customs of the Roman Church, which gives the sense life and meaning of God's word unto people, without the husk of the formal letter; than by the way of Protestants, which exhibits it to people hidden under the hard shell, able to break people's teeth Religion consists not in reading but doing; to be had by heart, and not in the lips: that way is tedious and barren, this fruitful and easy Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine duties into two words, the great apostle into one: and both of them made all to consist in practice. If the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all Catholics, the chief particles of divine epistles, those I mean which are of general concernment, books of sacred instructions and meditations upon the mysteries of salvation, and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberless, adjoined to the rites of examination of conscience; continual and daily use of prayer and fasting, and an orderly commemoration of the things our Lord hath wrought for us throughout the year, which all men by law are tied to observe, may not give sufficient acquaintance of what concerns salvation, and enough to promote people towards it, I am to seek what it is that can. Sure I am that the world was first converted without any books at all, and many millions of good Christians both lived piously and died happily, who never saw the Bible. What further good may it do to read the letter of S. Paul's epistle to the Romans for example, or Corinthians, wherein are treated questions and cases that are now quite vanished out of the world, and other theological discourses, which vulgar people can neither understand, nor are at all concerned to know. What more of good can accrue to any by the translated letter of a book, whereof nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to practise, or so much as heat of, than by the mere substance of Gods will and my own duty once well understood, and daily applied unto action & answerable good deeds? What is there now in England when the said scripture letter is set open unto every eye, any more of peace or charity, piety or justice, than in former Catholic times when the substance of God's word and will was given people in short, and the observance of their duty prolixly pressed upon them? What did they do in those ancient Catholic times? They flocked every day to their Churches, there to pay, meditate, and renew their good purposes: they sung psalms, hymns, and canticles day & night all over the land; they built all our churches which we have remaining at this day amongst us, and as many more now razed & pulled down; they founded and endowed our Universities, established our laws, set out tithes & glebe land for the clergy, built hospitals, erected corporations; and in a word did all the good things which we find done by our forefathers for our good in this our native kingdom. But what do we now? what have we still been doing since the reformation? quid agitur in Angliâ? consulitur de religione. Continually are we making and unmaking our religious rites, still building and pulling down our opinions. Former Catholic Christians practised, and we dispute. They had a religion fixed, we are still seeking one. They exercised themselves in good works by the guidance of their holy faith, which led them towards them, and pressed their duty; all these works we by our new way evacuate. They had the substance of religion in their hearts, we the text in our lips. They had nothing to do but conform their lives to Gods will; all our endeavour is to apply God's word to our own faction. Let there be no longer a mistake: the question is not, whether people are to have God's word or no; but whether that word consist in the letter left to the people's disposal, or in the substance and meaning of it, urgently imposed upon people for their practice. And we must still and ever remember, that it is not Gods will or word, but the letter of scripture only, which makes heretics: this may be depraved by men unto their own destruction, that cannot.  
So that when we come to a conclusion of these things; there is no such Catholic doctrine, faith, or religion amongst us, which prescribes any of these thing put here in his third chapter upon the Roman Church. For first, our Catholic way is so far from keeping God's word from the people, that it has been the only great endeavour of our Church and pastors in all times and places, to derive God's word and will in such a manner unto people, that they may observe and keep it: however they will not permit the letter promiscuously unto all hands without a knowledge of their ability and stayedness; even as they do not suffer all sorts of men to come to holy communion without a licence and assurance of their lives and persons. Secondly, that our efficacy of sacraments depends upon mere administration without any preparation of mind, is so false, that every Catholic boy and girl, arrived to years of discretion, will hiss at it. Thirdly, that we pray in an unknown tongue, and know not what we say, is a calumny only proper for the wise men of Gotam. Fourthly, that prayers for one another after this life ended, do hinder our own holiness and devotion in this present life, is a paradox fit only for discourse in a tavern or coffeehouse over cups. Fifthly, that our sacrament of penance with interior contrition sufficeth us without any amendment of life, or purpose towards it, is a slander which the doctor could not have vented with applause on any other ground but Billingsgate. He took it seems more pleasure to show an evil wit, than a good candid nature, which is a perfection more becoming him, and if I be not mistaken by too much charity, more apparent in his courteous conversation with his neighbours, than in his written Romances, or books made against the Church of Rome; which are so false and injurious, that they cannot but hurt as well our Protestant neighbours who read and believe them, as poor innocent Catholics, who dislike and suffer them. And now, dear Sir, I bid you farewell the second time.  
FINIS.    

ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ.  
FANATICISM.  
I Am now, Sir, arrived to the Doctor's merriment, a merriment peculiarly profane, which has gained him much applause. He endeavours in his 4. Chapter to declare and prove, that the Church of Rome is fanatical; founded and supported on fanaticism. A merry theme and fit for a terrae filius. And I suppose here, that he means by the Church of Rome, not any material building of stone and mortar, either the floar or walls, windows, pillars, steeple or weathercock; nor yet any men or women, boys or girls in England, Ireland, France, or other countries'; but the Catholic faith and religion protest all over the world, by such as we now in England call Papists. For his readers both Catholic and Protestant, do understand him so to mean. And this religion and faith, he proves by such arguments to be fanatical; as might infer fanaticism indifferently upon all Kingdoms of the earth, and all mankind; thus he speaks. There were two men and as many more women in distant times and places, who pretended revelations about the unspotted purity of the blessed Virgin Mary: Therefore is the Catholic Church and faith fanatical. Secondly, one St. Catherine of Sena is said to have had shining wounds in her body, and to smell the stench of lecherous men: therefore is their faith and Church fanatical. Thirdly, St. Gregory and St. Bede write of some apparitions: therefore is their religion and faith fanatical. Fourthly, one Bishop appointed a day to be holiday, another built a Church; and both were done by revelation: therefore is their faith and religion fanatical. Fifthly, St. Bennet, St. Francis, St. Dominick, St. Romewal, and St. Bruno founder's of chief religious orders among them, had many symptoms of madmen, as to prophesy, to see angels, to neglect their bodies, to be beaten and scoffed at by men: therefore is their religion and Church fanatical. Sixthly, about four hundred years ago, there risen a pernicious heresy, which spread far, and caused much disturbance, before they could silence and suppress it 〈◊〉 therefore is their Church and religion fanatical. Seventhly, St. Ignatius founder of the Society of Jesuits was such another fool as St. Francis, and laboured and suffered much, before he could get his order and rule approved by the Bishop: therefore is the Roman Church fanatical. Eightly, one man among them of late printed a spiritual book wherein were some words and phrases unusual and hardly intelligible: therefore is the religion and Church of Rome fanatical. Ninthly, three men amongst them in this last age, uttered blasphemous words against the honour and prerogative of Kings, who are Gods Vicegerents upon earth: therefore is Catholic religion fanatical. All these hollow voices are to be heard and seen in this his Bartholomew Booth, for the recreation of such as love it, issuing unto our great wonderment only from the belly of one man, breaking wind in the midst of it.  
§. 1. Let us see then how all this put together does prove the Church of Rome, whose emblem it is intended, to be fanatical. It is an easy thing to act upon a stage the gravest and soberest man alive, in a drunken posture. Wit without honesty, and confidence without conscience, can pervert and turn things upside down at pleasure. But a little reflection will set all strait again. The Catholic Church and religion here represented as fanatical, first, it has subsisted by the confession of our first reforming Protestants even from the Apostles days, or very little after, spread all over Europe, Asia and Africa. Secondly, it has been embraced and owned by Kings and Princes, honourable Lawyers, learned Physicians, stout Captains. subtle Philosophers, people innumerable, as the very sands on the sea shore. Thirdly, it made and framed the Laws both of our own Country, and every Christian Kingdom. Fourthly, it built the many goodly Churches all over the world, even those here, wherein now Protestants, the right owners excluded by violence, do preach. Fifthly, it set out the glebe land and tyths whereon they live. Sixthly, it founded our Corporations, raised our famous Universities, and furnished their Libraries with books. Seventhly, it has preicribed and delivered us the forms, not of the Sacraments only, but of any sort either of ecclesiastical or civil instalments. Eighthly, it has triumphed over Jews and Pagans, notwithstanding their power and furious opposition, by God's blessing and her own innocence, prudence and constancy; and laid asleep the very heresies that have risen up against her in all ages out of her own bowels. All these things, that I may speak no more, are not the works of fanaticism, they are not the properties, power or gestures of fanatics. Fanaticism rises up suddenly, and dies like a mushroom; utters a fond defiance, and so vanishes; destroys, but builds nothing, chatters a little like a moon calf, and is seen no more.  
§. 2. That our Doctor may proceed somewhat doctor-like, he tells us in the beginning of this his Chapter, what he means by fanaticism. By it, saith he, I understand an enthusiastic way of religion, or resisting authority under pretence of religion. This is his desiartion of it. But whether it be one definition or two, it is not easy to say. Indeed and truth, it is no definition at all; but only an obscure dark wording of things, so purposely ordered, that he may put what he pleases in the circle of fanaticism, besides himself. It is, saith he, an enthusiastic way of religion. But what is enthusiastic? what does way mean in these our affairs? and what is a way of religion? A definition ought to be plain and familiar, without either amphibology or trope; and more intelligible than the thing defined. This is not so. Enthusiasm in Greek is but the same thing as Inspiration: Were then the Apostles and Prophets, who were inspited, and taught that their inspired way of religion, the fanatics here spoken of, or no? Secondly, what is meant by way? Is it a way chalked out for a man, by his just and legal guides; or a way invented by himself? This is a main business, and perhaps the very essence of fanaticism; and yet it is not here expressed. Thirdly, what is a way of religion? Is it religion itself, or some certain fanciful gestures in the exercise of it, or some odd mode in defending it, or some peculiar manner of applying it unto the conduct of our lives? A clergy man may either in a pulpit or at an altar have many simple wild gestures, and yet be a sound Christian for all that. But is such a one to be understood here to have an enthusiastic way of religion? He who makes it a part of his religion to defame his innocent neighbours wrongfully, persuading people that he does God good service therein; is this man a fanatic? and yet he practices a very mad way of religion. To side first with our English prelacy, and when it is overborne by unlawful violence, to turn unto them who overthrew it; and as soon as it is reestablished, to come back again to it; is this fanaticism? I am sure it is a mad way of religion. He that disables his own Protestant Bishops in one book, being a Protestant himself, and in another inveighs heavily against some Jesuists for resisting their Papist Bishops, whom himself also does not approve; is this man a fanatic yea or no? And yet he follows and treads a very strange mad way of religion. So that obscure general and tropical words are so far from keeping him out, that they include rather, and hem in Dr. Still, himself, and wholly enclose him in his own circle of fanaticism. Again, his other part, or other whole definition of fanaticism, A resisting authority under a pretence of religion, is obscure enough too. For there be many sorts of resisting, and many sorts of authority, and many sorts of pretences, and many religions pretended: and yet not all of them fanatic. All Protestants in their first reformation resisted all authority of the whole Catholic world, both ecclesiastical and civil, and that under pretence of religion, a new way of religion invented by themselves, opposite to the Catholic way, wherein they had all been born and bred: Are all these and their successors unto this very day fanatics or no? He will say no perhaps, because they had good reason to do it. But do not Quakers, whom Dr Still. speaks openly to be fanatics, say also that they have good reason to withstand and desert our Protestant English Church. O but no body says so but themselves: Neither did any but those first Protestant's say they had any reason at all: but the whole Catholic world risen up and condemned them. So that we have got but little light by this definition of his; left wholly in as much obscurity as ever he was himself, after he had been puzzling among the Schoolmen. Truth is, we are neither to seek into logic or into dictionaties, for the mea●ing and signification of fanatics, or fanaticism. For the word, as it relates to religion here in England, is of voluntary imposition; never before applied unto any Sects of Christianity, till my Lord General Monk used it in Parliament some few years ago, to express those men who under pretence of their new invented doctrines contemned and risen up against all authority, and waged war and overthrew both Church and State before them, unto the utter impoverishing and desolation of the Land. These our great General, never to be mentioned in England without honour, called fanatics, that is to say, mad foolish blasted men, who preferring their own instable conceits (for they had now fallen and shivered into many Sects) before solid obedience unto Church and State, rooted up what ever was fixed for the general good of all men, and contenting themselves with the pillage of the Land, could settle nothing at all themselves, either of religion or government in the end. These he called fanatics. And in his great prudence he made choice of that new word, upon hopes that every one of these several sects would lay the epither upon his neighbour: as indeed they did. And amongst these men, yea the very chief and ringleaders of them, did Mr. Still. our Doctor join himself. And yet does he here in his own little subtlety lay the whole ignominy now upon the Quakers, as a burden for the younger brothers to carry. And yet were they hardly born, when the work of fanaticism in England was accomplished. By all this we may easily discern what fanaticism means. But yet we must notwithstanding content ourselves with the definition he has given us; so far as it can bear any fixed or certain sense; and so proceed.  
§. 3. The Church of Rome, saith he, is both ways fanatical, both in an enthusiastic way of religion and resisting authority. A man would wonder how this charge should be made good, of a Catholic Church whose religion is ever settled, and delivered by tradition from generation to generation, still one and the same; and has no other superior Church on earth, either to resist or observe. But yet does this man go nimbly about his work, without either fear or scruple. For, first, revelations have been countenanced in that Church. One of an Abbot in a storm, another of St. Norbert. of St. Gertrude, of St Bridget, St. Joan, St. Catherine of Sena, about the Conception, and these revelations were contradictory to one another, one affirming the immaculate conception, the other denying it. Oho is this the first proof of fanaticism in the Church! A very pretty one surely. He has already forgotten his own definition of fanaticism. For here is no mention made either of any new way of religion invented, or of resisting authority under pretence of it. But all that he esteems whimsical or fanciful stuff, must it seems be called fanatical. But can any vain fancies, dreams or visions of two or three, who profess a religion, prove that religion to be fanatical? Yes, will he say, if they be countenanced. But, first, they might be countenanced, and yet not as any part of their religion. Secondly, how does he prove they were countenanced? because some Doctors maintained one of those contradictory revelations, and some the other; till the whole business was silenced. Thus he tells his story. But is this to countenance any thing? I think not, nor yet can any one in reason think it. It is moreover certainly believed by all Catholics in the world, that the blessed Virgin Mother of our Lord Jesus, was ever most pleasing to God, and immaculate in all her ways, even from her first Being; and this is not questioned by any. The dispute in Schools yet undecided, is only about the Mood & Tense of it; whether that her Sanctity were in her from the beginning, by way of preservation from the blemish of sin, for every conceivable Instant of her being, in her passive Conception, as Scotus teaches in his School? or whether it were by way of Sanctification, after the first real instant of her Being, wherein, as other Children of Adam, by natural progation, she was liable to Original sin, as the followers of St. Thomas affirm? And this was the matter of those their Revelations or Dreams, according to the pious opinion They conceived of our Lady's purity, These of their Angelical Doctor's contemplations. But how does this prove, that our general Faith, wherein they all lived and died, is Enthusiastic? There be Dreamers in England, good store; and those that dream waking too; and yet may not the Church of England be called Fanatic for that. Fond contradictory fancies of some, make not the general Religion, unto whose guidance they are to submit, when they come to be questioned, any ways in fault. Indeed, the Doctors of these Schools, as they have been too earnest in the maintaining their School. Curiosities, to the admiration of innocent Believers, not at all concerned in their subtleties: So were some of them strongly persuaded about the said Revelations or dreams, for the honour, each of their Schools, and the positions they teach; but our Catholic Bishops, who heed Religion only, concern not themselves in School Niceties, but in plain and solid Faith. It is the property of such as are mere Schoolmen, to reverence their School- dictates oft to the prejudice of grace and charity. That these women should pretend Revelations about a School point, was either the strength of their own fancy, working on the way they had heard, or the weakness of their guides; It matters not whether, for Saints are not Saints in every point of their lives; flesh and blood will sprout Imbecilities, until their perfection comes; And how hard it is to discern the Original of Visions, which of them is divine, which humane, and perhaps an evil Motion, we have examples enough in holy Writ, amongst the Prophets and Sons of Prophets. When Josaphat and Achal, Kings of Judah and Israel, were to make War on Ramoth Gilead all the chief Prophets were called together, even four hundred of them, to give their Counsel; All of these pretended revelations from God, and yet speak contrary things, especially Micheas, & Zedechias were at open defiance one with another, about the truth of their Visions. And yet all this made not any proof that the Religion of the Hebrews was Fanatic. But he that will read more of these theological subtleties, may see it, if he please, in the works of that learned Divine Franciscus à Sancta Clara a Catholic Doctor; especially in his book De Schismate, his other called Paralipomena philosophica, and a third called Religio Philosophi, in a more ample and solid manner there discussed. I have now said enough of this business; and something more may chance to add by and by, when occasion offers.  
§. 4. Saint Catherine had her five shining wounds in her bands, feet and side: insensible of all pains in her ecstasies, and could smell stinking vicious souls, as St. Philip Nerius did afterwards; which is one degree above the enthusiasm of a Quaker. I know not, how many degrees it is above the enthusiasm of a Quaker; sure I am it is far below the fanaticism of Doctor Stillingfleet, who talks at this wild rate. What is all this, if it were true, to the definition of fanaticism? and where does the fanaticism lie? is not this man strangely frantic himself, who cannot distinguish between people's religion, and the acciden●● that do befall them. Were these wounds and Noses any part of their Creed? Although the Doctor have no such nose, yet may he have such a stink; and though he want the wounds, he may have fairy nips, that are as bad. If St. Catherine were so estranged from sensual things, and so absorbed in God, as is here related, God be thanked for it: if she was not, I can believe in God nevertheless; and my religion is still the same. I did once read a story of a young man in Hungary, who flying for fear, at the coming in of the Turks, into the adjoining woods, lived there so long estranged from all human diet, that all his friends and neighbours after the Turks departure could not take him; till he chanced to slip into a deep pitfall set on purpose to catch him: The reason was, as he afterward related, because his smell became so refined and pure by his living in the woods on the wild and thin provision there, that he smelled men a mile or two off, before they could come near him. And this story I judge to be true, as well as that of St Catherine, who had heavenly helps beside. And if Dostor Still. unacquainted with such things, esteem them whimsical, let him think so. What them? I do not. It is but the various judgement of two petty Doctors. My religion however is still the same solid faith it was: unless the pain I have now actually in my side, must give the Church of God a pleurisy.  
§. 5. Visions and apparitions have been made use of by them; to prove Doctrines that were before; as those related by S. Gregory and S. Bede to prove purgatory; appearances of a child to prove transubstantiation; of a black man blotting sins out of a book, when a thief did penance, to prove confession. Very good. Then were not those parcels of faith brought in by those visions. And a whimsical proof by any Minister, to declare and justify his text, does not infer that divine text to be therefore Enthusiasm. He told us before, like a Doctor, that fanaticism was some new enthusiastic way of Religion, or resisting authority under pretence of it. Where is all this here? Is fanaticism now some other thing? nothing but a weak proof? whether Dr. Still. himself hath ever used in his Sermons any such proof as this is, when he hath discoursed of the souls superviving after this life ended, I cannot tell. But I am confident that if he hath, he did not therefore think himself a fanatic; nor yet any others who heard him speak it. I should, if he had either reason or apparition for any thing he utters in this Book of his, think the better both of him and it. The best is, that all these apparitions here related, were first written by venerable and grave men, whose words are of greater authority than Stillingfleet-derisions.  
§ 6. They not only prove Doctrines, bus even define things merely by private revelations. Do they so? What are these things so defined? What is the reason he changes his phrase, and says not, as we might have expected he should, that they not only prove doctrines that were before, but define doctrines also, upon private revelations. He is wary in this, and calls them things, not doctrines. But yet hopes still that his Reader will so understand, as if they defined doctrines as well as proved them upon private revelations. He has a multitude of these little tricks; which I must let pass. But what things do they define? Let us hear them. Pope Vrban the fourth determined the festival of corpus Christi day, upon a revelation made to some Nuns in Leeds. Pope Boniface the feast of the archangel Michael upon another made to the Bishop of Siponto. And why, saith he, should we be told of fanaticism so often? Do we found our religion upon any such visions? Here we have now the things defined upon private revelations; only a couple of holy days; or rather one holy day; and one Church built upon a hill; and neither of them upon private revelations. The appearance of an Angel, which caused the building of the Church, was solemn and public. But corpus Christi day was instituted apart, or rather transferred from Maunday thursday in holy week, until the Paschal festival were ended; because in the holy week, other affairs of piety towards the passion of our Lord, unknown to Dr. Stillingfleet, do so take up all that time, that people cannot then sufficiently celebrate the institution of the Eucharist, as they would and ought to do. This is the known reason why corpus Christi day was instituted to be kept apart, the thursday after Trinity. And if some Nuns had any vision that so it ought to be, what then? It only follows hence, that the vision they had proved true: and not that any part of Catholic religion was built upon such visions. For all the religion or faith that is in this business, was before that institution of the holy day. A circumstance of time or place for the exercise of religion, though it be defined, is not to define religion itself. The real presence or corpus Christi was believed and loved and reverenced long before Pope Urban; and the Angels of God honoured before Pope Boniface was born. Why, saith Mr. Still. should we hear so often of fanaticism? Do we found our religion upon any such visions. And who, gentle Doctor, does found any relgion upon them? Do you call the building of a Church or institution of a holy day, a founding of religion. And who tells you so often of fanaticism? You cast it indeed upon one another here in England, Presbyterians, Anabaptists, and other such like: I know no body else who tell you of it. But if you will have me speak what I now think; all the whole protestant reformation is fanaticism to me, even in the most rigorous and strictest sense.  
§ 7. Their religious orders, even the chief among them, Benedictins, Carthusians, Dominians, Franciscans and Jesuits were all instituted by enthusiastic persons, upon the credit of their visions and revelations: so much hath fanaticism contributed to their support. Now this man blows upon us a little more nearly than hitherto: and yet he blasts but his own soul thereby. For first the Catholic Church is truly and properly supported by Jesus Christ, her founder and divine Master. Then, by the innocence, purity and powerfulness of her faith. Next to this, by the care and vigilancy of Apostles, venerable Bishops, and holy Priests, who made unblameable thereby in themselves, are industrious to teach and exhort, and see this holy religion observed and put in practice by others committed to their charge. And then also, by religious people and all those good Christians, who do earnestly heed those heavenly dictates of our Lord, to fulfil them; so distributing the time of this their short life, that now they practise one good thing, and then another, as occasion offers, till all justice be fulfilled; keeping themselves unspotted of the world. So that religious people do not otherways support the Church, but by their studious observance of her holy laws and counsels: unless the venerable Bishops do call forth some virtuous choice men amongst them for their help. This is most certain. Secondly, no less certain it is, that the founders of religious orders were both pious and wise persons, and several ways proved to be so, by their miraculous and innocent lives, before their rule was allowed of. Nor were any of them accepted, as this man speaks of, by the credit of their own visions. Thirdly, although the Benedictins and others here mentioned, were very eminently religious in the West part of the Church: Yet it is not so certain that they are the chief of all religious that either are or have been in Church in any place or age. Very eminent were the orders founded by St. Austin, that venerable Doctor and Bishop in Africa; the Monks of St. Martin a Bishop in France; those of St. Malachy in Ireland; the religious of St. Basil, of St. Pacomius, of Cassianus, St. Jerom, and several others in the East and South part of the Church. Very eminent without all doubt, were those many religious Societies, whom St. Jerom and others testify to have spread themselves all over Syria, Armenia, Persia, Ethiopia, Asia, and all the northern parts, even amongst the Goths and Dacians, before the fourth age of the Christian Church. Very eminent were the religious institutes which were all over the country we now inhabit, in the Britons time, long before our forefathers the Saxons came in upon them, under the rule of St. Columba, the rule of St. Brendan, the rule of St. Columbanus, the rule of St. David, the rule of St. Martin, the rule of St. Austin, the rule of St. Patrick, the rule of Lyrinum, the rule of St. Regulus, the rule of St. Ninian, the rule of Floriacum, the rule of St. Joseph. Very eminent were the episcopal Monasteries, all over the Christian world in primitive times; especially for the first six hundred years of Christianity, wherein Bishops themselves led a monastical life with their clergy, in a community together. And out of this clergy were selected still the choicest men for virtue and learning, to oversee the parishes; amongst whom they still lived by the said rule, as far as it could be accommodated to their occasions, unto the edification and comfort of the people. And although our clergy is not ordinarily educated now adays in so str●ct a course, yet is it no ways handsome for all that, in my judgement, that these men of God, Priests of our Lord Jesus, and venerable dispensers of his mysteries, should any of them be called Seculars: especially sigh their state and condition requires, that they live in chastity, under an obedience to their Bishops, and perhaps without an absolute dominion of their own goods: and all of them prescribe to themselves some good rule or other for the government of their lives. Very eminent were the religious of ' Saint Mark in Alexandria, where thousands of them lived more like Angels of God than men. Very eminent were the religious orders instituted by the Apostles; amongst whom all things were common, and none had any thing which he could call his own. For they all made a voluntary abdication of their goods, that they might serve God uniformly in a community together. Amongst whom Ananias pretending to enter, as dispropriated of all his goods like the rest, which indeed he was not; suffered a corporal death for his dissimulation. So that teligious institutes are as ancient as Christianity itself. For it is not to be thought that St. Peter and the other Apostles, would exhort any to a greater perfection of life, than they professed themselves, by their education under Jesus the great Master, whose words and counsels must still be professed by some in his Church: while others, whose condition of life cannot reach so high, conform themselves to the rules and precepts of sobriety, justice and piety, that are common to all, loving the rest of their Catholic body, which may serve God better than they can do in their worldly entanglements. And I am very clearly persuaded, that the true real Church of God, wherein Christ's good Spirit dwells, as it never has been, so never can it be without religious orders. And it is hard to say which of them all from the beginning of the Church to this day is the chiefest; or what founder of them was most enthusiastical.  
§. 8. It is a fair way towards the proof of St. Bennets fanaticism, as also of St. Romwall, St. Bruno, St. Francis and St. Dominick, that Bellarmine confesses those orders to be instituted by the inspiration of the holy Ghost. Here the author shows himself a Typhaeus or terrae filius indeed. If this be a fair way, I know not what is a foul one. Is the inspiration of the Holy Ghost the fanaticism here spoken of? or is one of them a fair way to infer and conclude the other? What a kind of desperate talk is this? is the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and fanaticism all one with Bellarmin? or is it all one and the same thing with Mr. Stillingfleet? He does not express himself here, any further in this business: but leaves us in our amazement, to think what we please. But could good St. Bennet ever expect to hear such words spoken of him in our island of England, so much illustrated by his children, for so many ages together; in which time have resorted to his Monasteries millions of pious souls, leaving father and mother and all pleasures, honours, dignities and pride of this weak and short and sinful life, unto their more sincere and endless bliss. Mu St. Romwal and St. Bruno those retired Baptists, and fathers of the renowned Camaldulensians and Chartreux Monks; must St. Dominick that patriarch of piety and zeal towards all men's salvation; must St. Francis full of God, Francis the meek, the poor beadsman and intercessor for all mankind, in whom Jesus himself our blessed Lord seemed again to live and breath and bleed afresh; must these and such like men, whom former protestants themselves have so much honoured, that in their very heat of controversy against the Church, they have upon consideration of so many shining stars, as it were stopped their career to give them their due respects, be boldly and without fear now surnamed fanatics, in these our last and worse days? what will become of Gospel? if such words as these be not permitted only, but applauded, farewel all Christianity. But how does this man prove in general, that both themselves, and their orders were fanatical? because Bellarmin confesses that they were instituted by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Abominable stuff! who can hear it? Let us see then how he fastens fanaticism to each of them in particular. And we may expect here to find some mention of their extreme mortification and penitential life, their chastity and warching, their patience and abnegation of their wills, their prayer and incessant praises of God, their retiredness and silence, their humility and punctual obedience, their sweet and edifying conversation, their profound meditation, ecstasies and love of God, and pious consummation of their lives at their last hour; and other such like graces which tradition and writings have left unto after ages for our encouragement and pattern.  
§ 9 St. Gregory, saith he, writes of St. Bennet, that he was a hater of all human learning: that he lived in a cave; that he conquered lust by rolling himself among thorns and nettles, that he drove away by the sign of the Cross a black devil that disturbed a Monk at his prayers; that when any Monk did eat out of his sight he perceived it, that he discovered Riggo in a King's habit to be no King; that he knew the secrets of the Divinity; and beheld his sister Scholasticas soul going to heaven. This is all he says of St. Bennet, and he tells it us out of the writings of St. Gregory, one of the best and learnedest prelate's that have ever sat in St. Peter's Chair. But what St. Gregory delivers in a sober grave discourse, he speaks in a mock phrase, and brings no more of his life unto light, than what himself can laugh at. But first, this is not the hundredth part of St. Bennets life. Secondly, all this put together infers not fanaticism, which is the business we look after. For here is no resisting authority under a pretence of a new way of religion. The Religion of St. Bennet was our Catholic religion, the precepts and counsels, hopes and promises of Gods holy Gospel, wherein he lived himself and bred up all his followers, inviolably. I think Dr. Still. notwithstanding his own definition, which he does not himself heed, calls all those fanatics, who do not, as he does; or do practise that, which he cannot; or have had those gifts from God, which he has not. Otherwise, how should living in a cave, subduing lust by nettles, a power over devils, the spirit of discerning at a distance, knowledge of God's divine mysteries, and the like, seem to him any properties of a fanatic. All this if it be true, makes for St. Bennets glory; and no part of it to his disparagement. His retirement into rocks and caves, his mortification of lust, and all the rest are good and glorious. And he hath no less a man than St. Paul the great Apostle, a companion with him also in his dislike of human learning; who both vilifies it, and gives us as great a caution against it, as ever St. Bennet did: the same blessed Apostle, as dusty and dirty in his travels, and careless of his outward man, as ever St Bennet could be; however taken, as Dr. Still. here tells us, by country people for a beast. But let the beast be where it will. God sees not as man sees. And what is comely in our eyes, is an abomination to that holy one who regards the heart. Saint Bennet is content with his own company of Apostles and Prophets, who did the same things with him, and had the like gifts; and heeds little any derision of Stillingfleets long finger.  
§. 10. Petrus Damianus reports of St. Romwal, that he was hard to learn in his youth, that he took ugly birds to be devils and chased them away; that he was converted by a vision of St. Apollinaris, that he had devils lying upon his legs, and sometimes bruising him in his prayers, that he wept bitterly, when he said Mass; saw Monks going up to Heaven on a Ladder of light: And that St. Bruno and Hugo built the grand Chartreus upon a vision. This is all he can pick out against St. Romwall and St. Bruno, to prove them fanatics; that is to say mad men: for I cannot tell what else he should mean. Nor can any one perceive by his phrase of speech, whether he relates these few things of them (or those of St. Bennet) as things he believes to be true, or which he thinks to be false. If false, than Peter Damian Writer of their Lives is the fanatic, and not St. Bruno or Romwall: If true, than Dr. Still. is the fanatic, and not Peter Damian. For what blame is it in any, either to be hard to learn in youth, or to see devils if he did see them, or to be converted by a vision, or to weep at Mass, or the like: where lies the fanaticism of this business? Here is no news of any new religion invented, or any resisting Authority under pretence thereof. He that walks all his whole life in the ways of Christian piety, may have such things as these happen to him, partly in his youth, and partly in his maturer age. None of these things are unusual or impossible, where Christianity odious to evil Angels is practised, and professed in earnest. The Religion of these men is the same one Catholic Faith, that is common to all; though all do not keep so strict rules to observe it, as they did; nor are all block heads, or hard to learn in their youth; nor have all men devils lying upon their legs, or bruising them in their prayers; nor do all weep at Mass, or see Ladders of light, or the like. And whether these oppressions and apparitions in any one Catholic young or old, be true or false, imaginary or real, this cannot make his religion either better or worse; however the man may be otherwise affected, than others of the same religion, who are free. If Dr. Still. could but see the daily lives of the Camaldulensian Monks or Carthusians, from their first Founder's time, in profound silence, austerity and prayers, he would find there is some other thing there to do, then to scare Crows.  
§ 11. St. Francis & St. Dominick were the persons, whom Pope Innocent the third saw in a vision, to support the Lateran Church; hence therefore called the two Lamps, etc. Surely these two men will prove no fanatics, but grave solid Orthodox Christians. For fanatics pull down Churches but support none. And yet our Doctor will not have it so. They must by all means be fanatics too; nay, the chiefest of fanatic and enthusiastic men. For Cardinal Vitriaco, saith he, calls St. Francis an illiterate man; and St. Bonaventure describes him no otherwise. His first conversion to that strict course of life was by visions, wherein he was swallowed up in God: as St. Bonaventure will have it, and his soul melted at the sight of the Crucifix. So tender hearted was he to the poor, that sometimes be rend off his , to give them, and sometimes unripped and divided them amongst them: in all this having no teacher but Christ, whose voice when he heard from a Crucifix he was besides himself, so that people flocked about him as a mad man, and cast dirt at him; and his own father renounced him before the Bishop; upon which St. Francis rejoiced now, that he could better say Our Father which art in Heaven. In this height of fanaticisme he made crucifixes in mortar, and preaching to the people pierced their hearts. Then opening the Gospel thrice, he took the first three Sentences for the rule of his Order. He had many ecstasies and raptures; and in one of them had a full assurance of his sins remitted. His rule confirmed afterwards by the Pope, he called the book of life and marrow of Gospel. St. Dominick comes not much behind him. For he had a vision also that God had chose him and St. Francis, to reform the world and the evil manners of men. This is what he can cull out of St. Francis and St. Dominicks life, to prove them both fanatics and enthusiastic men. And he interlards his narration with much jesting girds of his own, to make it have the more fanatic relish: but all in vain. For though he omit here in a manner all the whole life of those holy and blessed men, as he did before in others; and picks out thence only such few passages, as he thought he could lash, as he went, with the Scorpions of his bold derision: yet will not this serve his turn. For all that is here reported of St. Francis (the scurrilous manner of his relation excepted) is only his voluntary poverty, his neglect of humane learning and worldly wealth, his divine visions and entertainments with God, his charity to the poor, his efficacious preaching unto the reformation of evil manners, his rule of life drawn out of Gospel, and confirmed by the chief Christian Prelate: All which things are so far from fanaticism, that they are quite opposite to it. Here is no news of any new invented enthusiastic way of Religion, but on the contrary, a tenor and rule of life drawn out of Gospel, and confirmed by his own Prelate and Ecclesiastical Superior. The ways of fanatics & fanaticism are quite contrary to this. Much less have we here any resistance of Authority, but a submission to Authority and an humble expectation of their approbation and licence. He must surely think our Kingdom of England to be much alienated from the Kingdom of God, if he hope to persuade them, that love of poverty, neglect of worldly wealth and humane literature, charity to the poor, divine revelations, powerful preaching against sin, melting affections towards God, and a rule of life drawn out of Gospel is fanaticisme. He will be a very dull reader, who will not hence conclude, that our twelve Apostles were the first and chiefest fanatics in the world. And this our wits too much prone to looseness and atheism will greedily enough, and nimbly infer: and perhaps rejoice that they have an Atheist in Print, to propagate their infidelity. Atheism loves not loneliness; but is then most secure when the company is greatest.  
But it will be here objected, why then did St. Bennet, St. Francis, and St. Dominick make themselves new rules? Is not this a new religion? Sir, although a Catholic cannot easily be so ignorant, as to ask any such question as this is; yet because it may be the straw, at which Dr. Still. stumbles, who as in this his whole book he speaks like a Child, so, for aught I know, he may understand like a Child; I say therefore, that a new rule is so far from a new religion, that the Gospel can do little good without it: For the counsels and precepts of Gospel, whereby our souls are to be sanctified, and ordered to our final end, are all general and abstracted from any circumstance of time, or place, or measure, or manner; to the end, they may be indifferent to the many conditions, professions, and employments of mankind, in their several states and ages. Watching, fasting, works of charity, mortification of sensuality, continence, repentance▪ administration of Sacraments, and the various like good things, commended to us in our holy Gospel, are so prescribed and counselled us, that the manner▪ the when, the where, how often, how long, and other such like circumstances, without which those rules and counsels cannot be brought down to execution and practise, are not specified. Therefore hath the Catholic Church brought down some of these things unto individual circumstances, when she appointed rites and times for Sacraments, set holy days for people to meet together in their meditations and prayers, set times for fasts, others for confession, others for Communion, some for rejoicing in our Lord, some for mourning and doing penance, so much and in such a manner, as might well consist with the generality of the Catholic world. But because neither is this sufficient for our daily progress, unless people, considering their own particular occasions, and the lettanees which may occur more in one hour of the day than another, either set themselves a further rule, for their daily piety and particular ordering of their houses, or follow the direction herein of some wiser and better man: Hence it is that so many rules have issued forth in the Christian world; by which some people have governed their own private houses, accommodating them in the best wise they could unto their affairs; and others have quite retired out of the world, to serve God more perfectly all their life, according to this or that approved rule, in a more full observance of it under Monastical obedience. This is the motive nature and end, of so many rules in the Church of God; whereof some suit best with one complexion, and some with another. And all of them tend unto the bringing down of Gospel unto a constant practice. And what Christian soever sets himself no such rule, nor follows any, must needs live a lose and careless if not a wicked life, although he should have the whole Gospel by heart, and be able to speak it all without book.  
If the exact lives and pious rules of St. Bennet, St. Francis, St. Dominick, St. Basil, St. Brun●. St. Romwall, and such like men, were printed together in our English tongue, with the pictures of their Religious men, met together either in their Refectory, Schools or Choir; this one sight would I am confident more move my good Protestant Countrymen, who are daily abused with Ministerial lies against us, than any one book of controversy can do. I will only set down here the one rule of St. Francis, according to which his religious disciples are regulated all their life time throughout the world; whereby either yourself, Sir, or any other may judge whether he be worthily called either fool or fanatic.  

St. Francis his Rule.  
Chap. 1. THe rule and life of Friar minours is this; To observe the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord; living in obedience, without property of goods, and in chastity. Brother Francis doth promise obedience and reverence unto Bishop Honorius his Lord, and to his Successors Canonically installed, and to the Roman Church. And be other Friars bound to obey Brother Francis and his Successors.  
Ch. 2. If any shall be willing to take this life, and shall therefore present themselves to our Brothers, let them be sent to the Provincial Ministers, who may only, and none besides them, have power to admit them. The Ministers must be diligent to examine them about Catholic Religion and Church Sacraments. And if they believe these things, and will faithfully confess them, and firmly observe them to the end, and either have no Wives, or those Wives if any they have, are entered into Monasteries, or by the authority of the Bishop of the Diocese are dismissed, a vow of continence now solemnly made, and their said Wives be of that age, that there can arise no suspicion of them: let the Ministers than speak unto them the word of holy Gospel, that they go and sell all their goods, and bestow them upon the Poor. Which thing if they cannot be able to do, their good will in this part may suffice: And let the Brothers beware, and their Ministers too; that they be not solicitous about the temporal goods of these men: that they may freely dispose those things of their own as our Lord shall inspire them. And if Counsel be required the Ministers have leave to send them unto some men fearing God, by whose advice they may bestow their goods upon the Poor. After this they may grant them their vest of probation; namely two tunicks without a capuce, and a girdle and drawers, and a caparoon down to the girdle; unless the Ministers shall otherwise think fit according to God. After the year of probation is ended, let them be received unto obedience, promising ever to observe this life and rule. And in no wise shall it be lawful for them to go out of this religion, according to the command of my Lord our chief Bishop: because according to Gospel, no man putting his hand unto the Plough, if he look back is fit for the Kingdom of God. And those who now have promised obedience, let them have one tunic with a capuce, and another without a capuce, such as will have it. And those who are urged by necessity may wear shoes. But let all our Friars be clothed with course Garments, and they may mend them with Sackcloth, or other pieces on God's blessing. All whom I do exhort and admonish, that they neither despise nor judge men, whom they shall see clothed in soft and coloured raiments, to use finer meats and drinks, but let every one of them judge and despise himself.  
Ch. 3. The Clarks must say the divine Office according to the course of Roman Church, the Psalter only excepted, out of which they may have Breviaries. But Laymen are to say four and twenty times, Our Father, etc. for their Matins, for laud's five; for prime, tierce, sixth & none, for each of those hours seven; for Vespers twelve: for Compline seven: and pray for the dead. And all are to fast from the Feast of all Saints unto Christmas day. But as for the holy Lent, which gins from Epiphany unto forty days after it, which our Lord by his own holy fast hath consecrated, those who voluntarily will fast it, God's blessing be upon them: and they who will not, let them not be tied to it. But the other Lent, from Ash-wednesday unto Easter day, let them all fast that. Other times, excepting Friday, they need not fast. And in times of manifest necessity, let no brother be tied to corporal fasting. And I counsel admonish and exhort my brothers in our Lord Jesus Christ, that when they chance to walk through the world, they do not wrangle nor contend with words, nor censure other men; but be meek, peaceable, modest, gentle and humble, civilly speaking unto all men, as becomes them. And they ought not to ride, but in a manifest necessity and urgent weakness. In what ever house they enter, let them first say, Peace to this house: and let them according to holy Gospel eat what is set before them.  
Ch. 4. I do firmly command all my brothers, that in no wise they receive Money or Coin, either by themselves immediately, or by another person interposed. And for the necessities of the sick, or the clothing of brothers, the Ministers only and the controllers may by their Spiritual friends take special care, according to places and times and coldness of countries, as they shall find expedient for their need: this still provided, that as it is already said, they receive no money nor coin.  
Ch. 5. Those brothers whom our Lord hath given the gift and strength to work, let them labour faithfully and devoutly; yet so, that idleness our souls enemy being kept out, they extinguish not the spirit of holy prayer and devotion, unto which all other temporal things ought to be still subservient. And for reward of their work, they may take the necessaries of body, both for themselves and brothers, besides coin or money, and that humbly, as becomes the servants of God, and followers of most holy poverty.  
Ch. 6. Our brothers may appropriate nothing to themselves, not house, not place, not any thing, but as strangers and pilgrims in this world, in poverty and humility serving our Lord; let them confidently go for Alms. Nor must they be ashamed, for our Lord for us hath made himself poor in this world. This, this is the high towering spire of our sublime poverty; which hath installed you my dearest brothers, heirs and Kings of that Kingdom of the Heavens. It hath made you poor in pelf; but in virtues it hath raised you up on high. Let this be your portion, even this poverty which will conduct you unto the land of the living, unto which my dearest brothers remaining close and wholly fixed, no other thing for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may you wish to have under Heaven for ever. And where ever my brothers are, or meet with one another, let them show themselves towards one another as domestics: and let each one open to the other his necessity freely. For if a mother nourishes and caresses her carnal child: how much more carefully ought each one to support and love his spiritual brother. And if any of them fall into sickness, other brothers ought to serve him, as they would be served themselves.  
Ch. 7. If any of our brothers by the instigation of Satan shall sin unto death, for such sins as it has been appointed among our brothers that recourse should be had only to our Provintial Ministers, let the said brother be bound to have recourse unto them, as soon as possibly he may, without delay. And the said Ministers if they be Priests must enjoin him a penance with mercy: if they be not Priests, let them cause it to be enjoined by other Priests of the Order, as they shall according to God think fittest; and they must take heed they fall not into wrath, and trouble for the sin of another; for anger and disturbance in ones self and others hinder charity.  
Ch. 8. All our Friars universally must still have one of the brothers of this religion for the Minister general, and servant of the whole brotherhood: and him they must constantly obey; and when he goes out of office, an election of a successor must be made by the Provincial Ministers and Controllors, in the Pentecost Chapter; wherein the Provincial ministers are bound to meet, where ever it is by the minister general appointed: and this once in three years, or in some other term of time either greater or lesser, as by the said Minister it shall be ordained. And if at any time it should appear to the universality of the ministers Provincial and Controllers, that the said general elect is insufficient to the service and common good of the brothers, the said brothers, unto whom the election does belong, may in the name of our Lord choose themselves another for a custos; and after the Pentecost Chapter, the Minister and Controllors may all, if they please, and it seem good unto them, in the same year convocate their brothers unto a Chapter in their custodies.  
Ch. 9 Let not our brothers preach in the Diocese of any Bishop, where it is forbidden them by him. And let no brother presume at all to preach unto people unless he be first examined and approved by the Minister general of this Fraternity, and have by him that office of preaching deputed to him. I do also admonish and exhort all our brothers, that in any preach they make, their expressions be well examined and chaste, unto the profit and edification of people, denouncing to them vice and virtue, punishment and glory, with brevity of speech, for an abbreviated word hath our Lord made upon earth.  
Ch. 10. Those brothers, who are Ministers and servants of their other brothers, must visit and admonish their other brothers, and charitably reprove them; not commanding them any thing, that may be contrary to their own soul and our rule; and the brothers who are subjects, must remember that for God they have denied their own wills; and therefore do I strongly command them that they do obey their Ministers in all things, which they have promised our Lord to observe, and are not contrary to their own soul and our rule. And where ever our brothers be, who shall perceive and know, that they are not able to observe the rule punctually; unto their Ministers ought they and may they have recourse, and the Ministers must charitably and cheerfully receive them, and show so great familiarity towards them, that they may speak to them, and act as Masters to their servants; for so it ought to be, that ministers be the servants of all the brothers. And now I admonish and exhort in our Lord Jesus Christ, that our brothers beware of all pride, vain glory, envy, covetousness, care and solicitude of this world, & of detraction also and murmuring. And let not the illiterate care to learn letters, but let them heed, what they ought to desire above all things, to have the spirit of our Lord and his holy operation in them, to pray always unto God with a pure heart, and to have humility and patience in persecutions and sickness, and to love those who persecute us, for our Lord saith, Love your enemies, pray for such as persecute and slander you; blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven, and he who persevers to the end shall be safe.  
Ch. 11. I do strongly command all our brothers, that they keep no suspicious company or talk with women: and that they enter not into the Monasteries of Nuns, excepting only such unto whom a special licence is allowed by the See Apostolic: nor that they be Godfathers to men or women, lest by this occasion any scandal arise, either of the brothers or amongst them.  
Ch. 12. What brother soever by God's inspiration shall have a will to go amongst the Saracens and other infidels, let him demand licence of his Minister Provincial. And let not the Ministers give licence to any, but such as they shall see fit to be sent. Moreover I do enjoin the Ministers by obedience, that they ask of my Lord our Pape, a Cardinal of the Roman Church who may be governor, protector and corrector of the Brotherhood: that always subject to the feet of the same holy Roman Church, we may stable in Catholic faith, observe poverty, humility, and the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we have firmly promised.  
This is the rule of St. Francis, and his grey Friars, wherein are apparently all the perfect lineaments of a good sound Catholic Christian; but of fanaticisme nothing at all. Nor can I possibly tell, why he should ascribe fanaticisme to persons wholly Evangelical, resigned, humble, meek, spiritual men; unless perhaps because some one vision or other is written, to have happened to one or other of them in their life. And this may seem strange and incredible indeed to carnal men, who do never really and hearty converse with God: but to others who are as much spiritual as they are carnal, it is no such great a novelty; witness our holy Apostles and Prophets, who had them frequently. I cannot tell whether our English fanatics, such I mean as are called so, do ever pretend any of these visions; if they do, they are not fanatics because of their visions, but because they are pretended only and false, and Dr. Still. does neither say nor go about to prove that these visions were false, or so much as that they were frequent and familiar in their life. And if one or other such peculiar visit from God, either by vision or revelation may conclude a man to be fanatical, farewel all religion, both Hebrew and Christian; for the sounders and teachers of both were familiarly absort in God, which Dr. Still. derides here in St. Francis, and visited by him in apparitions, revelations, and visions continually.  
§. 12. Let me, Sir, in this paragraf acquaint you; that when I first at your request undertook this work, not much pleasing to my hand, which uses a pen with much difficulty, my m●nd and thoughts were in a manner wholly then taken up, with this one Chapter of the Doctor's book, wherein I intended to be most copious; not thinking to meet with such a multitude of impertinences and falsehoods, as have now stopped me at every turn, I must therefore be shorter than I intended; and do like Whittingtons' cat, which set down in a house swarming with mice and rats, could do no more than crush the heads now of one, and then of another, all day long, for want of leisure to eat up any. Some things I thought to say of these religious founders; and some of the orders founded by them. Concerning the founders, I meant first to set down the miraculous lives of these Saints, their profound humility, patience, continence, and poverty, their contempt of this vain transitory world, consisting notwithstanding with a most cordial affection, respect and love, which they bore to all mankind, their continual converse with the God of spirits; their strange joy in contumelies and other injuries, which is a perfection very few can arrive unto in this life; their earnest aspirations after the fight of Jesus and his Heavenly Kingdom; with their glorious triumphing death. Of all which we have as clear and certain tradition, as if they had lived but yesterday. And Dr. Still. hath been picking, as it seems, amongst those fragrant relics, not with any spirit of a Christian, either to love or imitate them; but to fill up, like an adder, the venom of his own breast, and then to disgorge himself into a book.  
2. I had it then in my heart, to discover at large the various growth of Saints; neither uniformly answerable to one another, nor yet to themselves in the several ages of their life: and yet all of them friends of God, and acceptable to him in the course and consummation of their lives. Nor is to be expected, that men encompassed with the like infirmities we be ourselves, should in all the parts either of their whole life, or any one year or month therein be still alike, either devout, or joyous, or indisturbed. What is born of flesh is flesh, inclining to sensual things, and unwilling to be restrained, subject to cold, hunger, and several infirmities; and therefore averst from kneeling, fasting, contemplation, especially if it be long and frequent, and still leaning towards its own delight and satisfaction. On the other side, what is born of spirit, is spirit; still flying upwards towards the God of spirits, in whom is most permanent and solid bliss. And these two must be allowed sometimes in us, to struggle and get the mastery, at least to come to such equitable conditions, that the balance may hang strait. No man is suddenly made naught: neither is holiness the work of a day; there appears in Corn first a slender green sprig like grass, than a stronger blade, than an ear promising grain, which comes up at length, if it be helped and not hurt, cherished by sweet showers and the the Sun's vital warmth, and not blasted with mildew, nor lodged by winds, nor trod down by beasts. And what is good Corn in the fields, the same thing are Saints in the Church: though not one of a thousand of them is put in the Calendar. When any one of them is a child, he speaks like a child, and thinks like a child, and does like a child; and his main perfection then, is obedience, fear and observance of his parents, who if they be careful of their children after baptism, as ancient Christians were, might set them in the right way of a blessed life without much trouble. In their youth, they have various properties; some , and others innocent, some imitable, and some to be corrected. St. Austin was perverse in his ways, St. Francis gallant in his conversation, St. Laurence charitable, St. Bennet pious, St. Romwall fearful, St. Bruno pensative, St. Do. minikin rigorous, St. Martin devout, St. Gregory studious, St. Nicholas addicted to abstinence, St. Hilary bend against heresies, St. Anthony inclined to deserts, St. Thomas to reading, St. Vincent to preaching and the like, with infinite variety. And all of them by light of Gospel, and rule of life drawn out thence, and accommodated to their occasions, went on still mending, pruning and perfecting themselves, for God's favour and further presence, even in their mortal bodies as a Temple upon earth, proceeding still from virtue to virtue, till they all met united at length, in one contemplation, one spirit, one peace and joy in God for eyer. And he who thus persevers unto the end is safe; and no saint, till his voyage be wholly ended. Nor is any imperfection in their life, to be attributed unto other original, than their earthly tabernacles, as all ours are. Some of them also, which I must not here omit to speak are fanciful, fearful and scrupulous; as probably was St. Romwall in his youth, and very many good women, amongst whom I may well reckon St. Bridget, Gertrude, Joan of the Cross, and Catherine of Sena, not as if their whole life were so, but because they were once in their life taken notice of, for a notable working of their imagination, about the conception. Those religious women that were governed by Franciscans, fancied Scotus his way truest, the other a D●minican Nan, saw St. Thomas his school was in the right. Whereas indeed they saw perhaps nothing at all in it, nor understood where the difference lay. And all of them were equally then lest to themselves in punishment of their business about affairs, that did nothing at all concern them; it was not perhaps their own fault so much, as those men's, who put these impertinent things into their heads, though not perhaps unto any offence to God, yet unto some disturbance, neither useful to themselves nor others. And if those Divines and Doctors, who went about to have the visions and revelations of the said good women approved, had been truly wise, they might have easily understood, that God's good Spirit, which inspires, inlightens and strengthens us in the ways and will of Christ our great Lord, never interposes in subtle curiosities of men. I will send you my Spirit, saith our Lord; and when he comes he will put you in mind of all things which I have told you. We are then of that good spirit to learn, not what Scotus, Aureolus, Aquinas, or Durandus have imagined, but what our souls Lord and master the eternal Wisdom hath revealed, and no more; but men are not usually so earnest and zealous for God, as they are for their own fancies: they talk and think and contend more now adays, about the thin imperceptible curiosities which they learned in schools, than Gods saving wisdom; however, be those schoolmen and school-women who they will, even the best that any one can make of them; sure I am that all actions of saints are not saintly action. Those men and women were not dropped out of the Stars, but flesh and blood as we are, and ●●able to our infirmities; yet are we to admire▪ and love our saints tenderly, because they struggled so bravely through all the many encounters and oppositions of this mortal life, till they came to enjoy the God of Gods in Zion. And what was good or perfect in them, is recorded for our imitation: what was imperfect, they washed away by penance, Divine contemplation and austerities; and some also by their precious blood, freely and plentifully shed, for the sake of Jesus, whom they loved unto the end, God's grace still assisting them in all their ways of holiness and truth.  
3. It was then in my thoughts to show in an ample manner, how all the men renowned for sanctity in the world, Elias, Elisha, saint John Baptist, and all the Prophets, our own twelve Apostles and the first preachers of Christ upon earth, were not others than such men as St. Bennet, Romwall, Bruno, Francis, Dominick, even in those very things, whence Still. concludes them all to be fanatics and fools. Saint Paul saw in a vision the secrets of God, which he could never express by humane words; which thing is derided here in St. Bennet, who is said to have known the secrets of the Divinity. St. Peter had a vision of a sheet let down from Heaven by the four corners of it: and such a vision was that of St. Francis and Dominick supporting the Lateran Church. St. Paul was buffeted by an Angel of Satan, which is mocked at as fanatical in saint Romwall bruised by evil angels. Saint Peter discovered Ananias, that he was not what he pretended, dispropriated of his goods: which is marked as fanatical in St. Bennet, discovering the dissimulation of Riggo, who appeared before him as a King, and was not. Saint Paul melted so much with the love of Jesus, that he no more lived now, but Jesus lived in him; which is laughed at here in saint Francis, said to melt away at the fight of the Crucifix. The same Apostle was abused all manner of ways, nay even scourged and whipped by the Jews his own countrymen; which is noted here as a sign of fanaticism in saint Francis, when the people derided, and threw dirt at him. Jacob saw a Ladder let down from Heaven: flouted here in saint Romwall; who saw Monks ascending upon such a thing. Eliseus' discerned the secrets contrived in the King of Syria's chamber: which is here vilified in saint Bennet, said to perceive his Monks when they drunk or eat out of his sight. Abraham and Daniel, saint John Evangelist and others, had frequent revelations and visions of good and bad Angels; the least part whereof is here esteemed ridiculous in saint Romwall and saint Bennet; nay our holy Lord and Saviour tells us many of his own visions, of Nathanael for example seen under his figtree; of Dives and Laz●rus perceived in distant places and conditions; of the Angels falling from Heaven like lightning. And we are here to observe, that whatever grace or virtue our Lord had himself, should be dispersed among those who follow him, with a true and upright heart, for of his fullness we all receive, even grace for grace. Whence we may well conclude that saint Francis, Bennet, Romwall, Bruno, and Dominick, were Jesus Christ's true servants, by the graces and visions they had like himself; and not that they were fools and fanatics: except we intent that others, more forward men should by the same topic conclude the like of Jesus Christ himself: and what I pray you Sir, would a profane Rhetoric what sport would it make upon several words of the Gospel concerning our Lord; for example, Marc. 3. where it is said of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that he was beside himself. Is not this in our Doctor's english to be a fanatic? saint Francis with the rest slighted the world left their patrimonies, went poorly attired, beaten, reviled, scoffed at by the world. Were not all the Apostles such men? in a mind piously disposed these things would seem glorious, and transcending the power of flesh and blood, either to do or suffer constantly, through our whole life, without some special assistance from Heaven. But where God once inhabits, he raises above earthly things those holy tabernacles of his, now wholly conversant in Heaven. And so much indeed as any man hath of God, so much is he he like to saint Francis and Bennet, to the Prophets and Apostles of our Lord, however these may appear to carnal eyes contemptuous and vile. Flesh and blood left alone seeks ease, wealth, fullness, honour, and whatsoever is gustful to our outward senses or more interior imagination, reduced into concupiscence of flesh, concupiscence of eyes and pride of life. And he that laughs at the lives of St. Bennet or St. Francis, and the rest like unto them, can have but little of God's Spirit in him, if any thing at all. The stile of the holy Ghost concerning such men is Diametrically opposite unto the jeering phrase of Dr. Stilling fleet. By faith, saith holy Writ, Abraham as soon as he was called obeyed, to march forth into a place he should inhabit, not knowing whither he went. By faith he removed towards a land promised him, into a strange country, and dwelled in tabernacles, and so did Isaac and Jacob heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a City having a foundation, whose builder and maker is God. Thus speaks the holy Scripture, and is not this St. Bennets case as well as Abraham's. Did not he thus march forth out of his father house, thus dwell in the tabernacles of rocks and caves, looking after a City built above in Heaven: and both St. Bennet and Abraham did both of them die in that their faith, and never returned again from whence they came. Again, by faith, saith holy Scripture Moses, when he was great, refused to be called the son of pharao's daughter, choosing rather to suffer adversity with the people of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; preferring rebukes and taunts, before the treasures of Egypt. Thus did Moses, and is it not the same thing which St. Francis did? St. Francis preferred rebukes and taunts for Christ's sake whom he loved, before the pleasure of his father's house; nay to suffer adversity with God's peculiar people for that name, he rejoiced to be disinherited by his own father. Moses then and St. Francis were both of them either wise and holy men, or a couple of fools. Holy Scripture goes on thus; others were tortured and racked: others mocked and scourged, bound and imprisoned; stoned and murdered; cast out from amongst men and banished; walking up and down in Sheep's skins and Goats skins, in need and want, in tribulation and affliction, wandering in wildernesses, in mountains, dens and caves of the earth: of whom the world was not worthy, and all these men through faith obtained a good report. Thus speaks holy Writ; but Dr. Stilling fleet has no good report for them; they are all in his phrase and judgement, madmen and fanatics, and unworthy of the world, whom the holy Ghost, judges beloved and divine Heroes, of whom, the world is not worthy. And our great Lord at the sight of these exulted in Spirit and said. I confess to thee O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth; for that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes. So O Father, because it so seemed good before thee.  
4. Another thing also did then much run in my thoughts, and it is this, that all the whole History of our Lord's incarnation passion, ascension, is liable to the same kind of derision here used by this Doctor. Nay the whole Gospel, and all the precepts and counsels of Christianity, together with all its threats and promises, are as mere a folly unto a carnal man, that will presume ●o sport himself with them, as any thing here derided. Few of those who live in this present age are ignorant of this. Our ears are beaten with such talk familiarly in all places. And the bearer does generally but laugh, and applaud the wit of this profane orator. For this reason St. Paul to prevent the cavil, acknowledges himself a fool aforehand. Ye do willingly bear with fools, saith he to the inhabitants of Corinth, and take me, if you please, for such another. We are all fools in Christ. And if any one doth seem to be wise among you, let him become a fool too, that he may be wise indeed. I know, saith he again, that the word of the cross is but folly unto desperate forlorn men. But God's folly is wiser than man's wit. The foolish things of the world these hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise: and so hath that holy one ordered his ways and counsels, that by folly he might save the world, which carnal wisdom had undone. These and other things to this purpose speaks that holy man. And what, I pray you, Sir, is greater folly with carnal men, than to pass by injuries insensibly, and suffer ourselves to be abused in patience; to divide our goods among poor people, neither of kin to us, nor perhaps known; to disdain this present life; to fly with all caution the delights and pleasures of it; to pant and breath after our last hour; so to manage all our affairs, as if our Soul were but a pilgrim in our mortal body, to meditate daily on our latter end; still to abstract our mind from visible and corporeal things ready to fly hence out of this prison unto our God invisible, our bodies either slenderly regarded or wholly neglected, or perhaps chastised and kerbed; that living here we may express our Lord's death, and dying obtain part of his resurrection and glory, which yet our eye never saw, nor ear heard, nor can our heart conceive what it is. All this which is but evangelical rules and counsels, acted by good Catholics unto each one's ability, and preached and talked of sometimes by Protestants themselves, are derided now by wits of this age as folly and madness. And if Dr. Still. do well, they must do well too  
Fifthly my purpose then was to prove, that St. Bennet, St. Francis, and the rest here derided for fools, were all of them profound judicious men, as any perhaps ever was: and this too, whether they be weighed in the balance of the Sanctuary, wherein for certain they will carry it; or whether they be compared to the great heroes of the world, who wrought so many great things both at home and abroad, in war and peace, without reading any books of pedantic men, looked upon on by those worthies as things far below them. All the books of the world will never make a fool wise, nor will a wise man want any thing by the loss of them, besides a little pastime. Substantial wisdom is implanted in the spirit of man by his first Creator; and this alone in its great latitude of degrees discerns men's excellences. And what comes by reading of books is but like the outward colouring of a wall, which will never make it sound, if it be rotten before. The holy Gospel indeed is needful to the world; because it turns the faces of poor misled mankind from false unto true and permanent felicity. But this also, if it be used only as other books are, to quote places in latin, greek or hebrew, or repeat sentences without book, or maintain dispute and talk, makes no man truly either wiser or better any one jot, than he was before. Gospel's so far polishes, so far sanctifies, so far makes us wise, so far happy, as we put it in practice and no farther. Human learning, that is philosophy and languages, which is all that can be understood by it, this might these Saints both neglect themselves and dissuade it also with all their endeavour unto Christians, who looking after a world to come, ought no more in true wisdom to entangle themselves in this, than any other vanities of this transitory life. And St. Paul himself who understood true wisdom well enough, inveighes as strongly against it, as any of these above named Saints, calling it a windy puffing business, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the first ruin of mankind, who was therefore carefully forbidden the insipid tree of knowledge, whose fruit fills us up only with wind and sin. And this old mystical precept, St. Paul renews in plain words, when he counsels us, to beware of vain, philosophy, that we be not led away and deceived by it, according to the constitutions of men and elements of this world; such as is the philosophy of Aristo●le for example, of Plato, Democritu●, Pythagoras and such like men, now crept god wots into our Christian Schools, and there dominereing unto our much loss of time, hindrance of devotion, and prejudice of mutual charity. I know they do some good unto the sharpening of our wits, if men could be content with that. But many will not rest here but even wear out their lives in those empty shadows, that have nothing at all in them either of solidity or substance, nor tend to any thing but discourse. There is other learning for Christians, more solid and edifying, more comfortable and useful, more illuminating our hearts, than all this vain literature, which puffs us up, as if we were some great ones, and yet God knows has neither savour in it nor sustinence. And that other was the learning and wisdom of these holy men, who knew how to act and speak like Angels of God. And truly so much judgement had St. Francis the veriest simplician of all the five, that men of those times would rather acquiesce to his opinion in any weighty affair or matter of conscience, than any now either to subtle Scotus, or any other of our Schoolmen. His very rule though it seem austere, is nothing but the very sublimity of Christian prudence. And some other monuments which he left behind him, kept yet amongst his children, although brief and few, are so solid and judicious as well as sweet and pious, that if he were a fool, I know not where to find a wise man upon earth amongst Christians. But it must needs add, I think, to his heavenly glory, what made him so much exult as yet a mortal on this earth, to be contemned, reviled and contumeliously treated here by Dr. Stillingfleet. And so let him live with joy in God for ever.  
St. Paul distinguishes a double sort of wisdom; one carnal, which is an enemy to God; another spiritual, which is at variance with the world. And both of these have a vast latitude of degrees in several men. Some are so carnal, that they have nothing of God's spirit in them: and some again so spiritual as if they had no body to look after. These are rare, and those frequent in this world. Others again have some part of both the one and the other: and this in a vast unspeakable variety. But he that hath nothing of God's spirit here, shall never see God hereafter. Who sows by flesh, of flesh shall reap corruption: and he who sows in spirit, of the spirit shall reap eternal life. Carnal wisdom is conversant in carnal things, and spiritual wisdom in things spiritual. And according as one walks in spirit, so he neglects the things of the flesh; on the other side, as he walks in fleshly desires, so he contemns and vilifies the spiritual. For flesh covets against the spirit, and spirit against the flesh: and these two are adversaries one to the other. The works of the flesh are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, wanton dalliance, idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, scolding, emulations, wrath, sedition, sects, envy, murder, drunkenness, banquet, and the like. The works of the spirit, Charity, joy, peace gentleness, bounty, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and such like. And accordingly we see men carnally wise, to be crafty, covetous, injurious, lecherous, malicious, envious, contentious, detractours, supplanters of their innocent neighbours, proud, contumelious, unheedful of their pacts and promises, uncharitable, unmerciful, bold, impious, contemners of God's Law, and fearless of him. But the spiritually wise are silent, peaceable, patiented, no contrivers of ill to any, ever thinking of God and their last end, charitable towards all men, suspicious of worldly prosperity, zealous and fervent in prayer, making friends daily of their outward mammon, still breathing after God and his heavenly Kingdom, neglecters of their own bodies, nor making provision for the lusts of it, haters of worldly excess●s, still examining and reflecting on their ways, that they be not unjust or evil, ever pruning their passions, and rectifying what they find amiss, humble minded and dying by little and little unto all sensuality, that they may live with God for ever. This is the wisdom of Saints, whom crafty worldly men looking upon as fanatics and fools make their prey of them, and eat them up as sheep prepared for their table. So that as this true and spiritual wisdom conforming us to our Lord Jesus Christ receives sometimes peculiar visits and privileges from God; so is it likely to meet with contempt, hunger, nakedness, scourges, and persecutions in this world. And these are the things which Dr. Stillingfleet h●re derides in these five Catholic Saints: which be either the  works of spiritual wisdom: or secondly some peculiar privileges conferred from heaven upon it; or thirdly some afflictions that do annoy it, either from evil Angels or men. That they fled from their Father's house, mortified their flesh and carnal concupiscence, retired to rocks and caves, wept at their devotions, neglected human literature; that they were swallowed up in God, melted at the sight of the crucifix, tender hearted towards the poor, covering them sometimes with their own , those texts of holy Gospel for the rule of their life; these and such like things are but the connatural operations of divine wisdom and Gods good spirit in them. Secondly, that they perceived angels or drove them away by the sign of the cross; that they seemed to be besides themselves after they had conversed with God in prayer, and unlike unto other men; that they pierced their hearers hearts when they preached and exhorted them; that they discerned the dissimulation and fraud of people who appeared before them, and sometimes the evil deeds and counsels of men out of their sight; that divine visions were made either to themselves, or to other men concerning them and their peculiar friendship with God; all such things as these are but peculiar privileges of heaven granted unto some special friends and lovers who are wise to God. Thirdly, that they were taken for beasts, derided, scoffed, pelted with dirt or stones, whipped, renounced by their parents, buffeted and bruised by angels of Satan, walking in extreme hunger and dirty attire, reviled and contumeliously treated; these are but afflictions falling upon them by evil angels and men: and all of them either voluntarily undertaken or voluntarily accepted and entertained, when they fell upon them, for his love and respect, who so suffered and so entered into glory. And the doctor if he were honest and truly wife, would never dare to lay fanaticisme unto Saints, because some men here in England, who are according to his own definition fanatics indeed, pretend some of those things, for which ancient Saints were much renowned. He might and ought to remember that these good things bear no part at all in the definition of fanaticisme, but are the very lineaments of evangelical perfection; nor is all evil, which such men do. It is neither wisdom nor honesty, nor so much as a manly behaviour, to deride good or innocent things even in those men, we may by custom and education dislike, Papists, Quaker, or how ever they be called. By these proceed atheism spreads its roots in the hearts of those who read such flouts and contumelies, perhaps further than the gibeing author of the libel himself intended. If the doctor, who by his little parcels of story endeavours to render these five great persons contemptible, do believe those relations of them to be true; then must he needs believe also, that the Patriarches and Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, and all the Saints of God so esteemed hitherto, were all mad men and fanatics. If he believe them not, but judge them false relations, then is he a mad man himself, to conclude them fanatics by that which never was. So that be the stories true or false, the doctor will be thought either unwise or impious, which he pleases,  
These worthy Sir are the five thoughts, wherewith my mind was then wholly taken up, before I put my Pen to paper: which now, too much tired already with his many impertinencies and falsehoods, I can but only mention. And I wish with all my heart, that the doctor had so moderated and guided his words, that neither his own Prelates, nor other grave People of the Land, who cannot but foresee the dismal event of such wild talk as his is, might not take offence or be scandalised thereat. All our Bishop's mouths are now stopped against fanatics, if the said enthusiasts do derive their pedigree from renowned Saints who by the Bishop's authority are put every Year into the Calendar.  
§ 13. The things I had to say concerning the Orders and families of these Saints, were yet more and greater, than any I could speak of the men themselves, who lived but a short time in this world. And all this I must also now omit. Only I wish with all my heart, that my countrymen would first think in their mind, what a comely and blessed Land this was, when it was inamelled up and down with so many beauteous tabernacles of religious men, in their several rites and habits chanting the praises of God night and day, with Hymns, Psalms and Canticles perpetually, living in common, chastely and obediently all their days; After this, if they please to consider, the hourly employments of all these families throughout the day, while they now worked, now prayed, now subdued their bodies with hard disciplines, now wrote out books for the use of posterity, now chanted out God's praises, met all together seven hours a day in the Choir, and thus ended their lives in the arms of one another, they cannot but applaud that happy society of men thus dedicated to God, and think the Country wherein they live the happier for them. All the many books both greek, latin and hebrew, historians, orators, and works of ancient Fathers, had never possibly been deduced unto our times, had they not been renewed age by age still in several kingdoms by the labour of these religious men, before Printing was invented. Nor had England seen any of these goodly Churches that remain in it to this day, nor yet enjoied those wise and equitable laws, by which this land is still governed, contrived all of them by Catholic Princes, Monks and Bishops. Nor is Catholic religion against the law, as some now think, but with the law and the law with it and for it, and by it, however some superadditional statutes have been contrived of late against that holy ancient faith, since the reformation. Thirdly they may consider if ●●ey pleas the wondrous convenience of these general granaries in a land, religious foundations I mean, not only in spiritual things, wherein we have good helps and examples all the land over at our own doors; but even in our temporals also. For no sooner was a child born to any man, but he had choice of occasions to provide for him, without any further cost or charges both for his soul and body: which is a benefit so wanted now, that neither high nor low know well now adays how to dispose of their children. Fourthly, they may call to mind and admire the great love and respect the Christian world ever had for those holy orders and their founders, unto whose company they flocked continually with exulting hearts. And happy he who could be thought worthy to be admitted into their society, even of all ages, states and conditions of men, wherein they profitted some of them unto admirable sanctity and glory: and even the worst and veriest truant among them was yet better, than the wide world would have made him. The one order of St. Bennet received into it twenty Emperors and ten Empresses, forty seven Kings and above fifty Queens, twenty Sons of Emperors, and forty eight Sons of Kings, about a hundred young Lady's daughters to Kings and Emperors, a hundred other Princes and Princesses, Dukes and Duchess'; Marquesses Earls and Countesses well near two hundred, fifteen Bishops who left their Mitres to live in that happy retired life; and others of the inferior Gentry innumerable. And thus hath this holy order continued, thus lived and flourished now a thousand Years in the Christian world, the resting place of the rich and refuge of the poor. So that all people who lived in those good days and beheld religious orders, had a contrary judgement of them unto Dr. Stillingfleet who was born but yesterday, and never saw any. Fifthly, the eminence of learning in all these orders, and the books of all sorts and kinds, that have issued from them, who is able to recount them? No sort of knowledge, no kind of literature has escaped them. The one order of St. Bennet has brought forth fifteen thousand seven hundred. Monks, eminent writers and compilers of books. The Academies were all anciently in their Monasteries. At one Abbey in France called Fleury were brought up at once four thousand Students. Their Rabanus set up the School of Germany. Their Alcuinus founded the University of Paris. Their Bede advanced our Oxford University, first renewed by Theodore and Adrian benedictin Monks also. Their Dionysius Exiguus perfected the Ecclesiastical computation. Their Guido made the scale of Music. Their Silverster invented the Organ. Theirs were Anselmus, Ildephonsus, Bernardus and Rupertus, the four Marian Doctors: and what not? Sixthly, if we please to consider the multitudes of glorious men in these five orders, who had received a double portion of their Father's spirit, as Elizeus is said to have got of Elias above other Sons of the Prophets; who will then be able to recount the eminent Saints, Confessors, Martyrs, Apostles and Converters of Countries, that have issued out of these divine Sanctuaries. The one order of St. Bennet has brought forth forty thousand blessed Confessors, above three thousand Martyrs; Missioners and Apostles, so many and powerful, that they have converted no less than thirty Provinces unto Christian faith. St. Bennet himself converted Campania, which had remained Pagan even to his days; St. Leander part of Spain; St. Boniface and his companions much of Germany and Hassia; St. Amand, Willebrord, Wilfred, Switbert, with their fellow Monks, Belgium, Holland, Friesland and South Saxony: St. Willehade, Dacia, Gothland and Groonland: St. Kilian and Lambert, the Taxandrians and other Germans: St Lugdurus, Adalbertus and other Monks out of the Monastery of Corbey, Pannonia, Sarmatia, Poland and Muscovy. St. Steven Suec●a, St. Bruno Lituania, St. Albo Gascony, another St. Boniface Sclavonia, St. Otho Pomerania, St. Winkelin Wandalia, and St. Austin with his good Monks sent hither by St. Gregory made all our England Christian, wherein we now l●ve. For though our learned and reverend Antiquary Mr. Broughton doth think that St. Austin and his holy Monks brought hither with them the rule of St. Gregory, distinct from that of St. Bennet, yet that is of small concernment to my purpose now in hand; especially since that rule and all the former rules in our Britain, did unite at last in St. Bennets rule, as lesser lights in the body of the Sun. And should I mention the holy Confessors, learned Writers, valiant Martyrs, and vigorous Apostles, all those glorious men in the orders of St. Francis, St. Dominick, St. Bruno, and other such like founders, bright stars now out of our sight, yet shining in a higher heaven the day would fall me. My voyage is now bend another way. And therefore great Servants of God, spirits enkindled from heaven, brave virtuous hearts raised up even in your mortal pilgrimage above mortality itself, let it suffice I love you. Time will bring forth a better Pen to recount your names in a character more worthy of you than mine is. I must go hence.  
By this little Sir we may discern, if the God of this world hath not utterly blinded our eyes, that these holy orders were founded in the wisdom of God and power of God, and not in Stillingfleetisme. For counsels of men come to nought; but what is of God is lasting: as wise Gamaliel discoursed in a council of the Jews The order of St. Dominick, St. Bruno, Romwall and St. Francis have been six hundred years in the Christian world; St. Bennet almost twice as long; and yet live. What is of God is powerful of itself, without any worldly helps of force or subtlety. What is of God is servant and vigorous. What is of God, however it may seem distasteful at the first, becomes daily more delectable, attractive, and pleasing. What is of God is zealous of God, loves and bends towards God, thinks nothing hard, nothing tedious, nothing heavy, that is undertaken for God's cause. All time is well spent in his service, all difficulties easy, all labour pleasant, all mortification comfortable, all our members too few for his employment, all the blood in our veins too little to shed for his love. And all this fervour and constancy, love of God and amiableness to men, zeal and vigour, purity and perseverance were looked upon and approved and imitated to their power by such as lived here in England in the days of holy Catholic religion with all heavenly comfort: however now out of sight it be all out of mind too; so much out of mind, that Dr. Stillingfleet calling it fanaticisme expects an applause for his labour. The grand Turk a great enemy of Christians, when he looked upon poor humble St. Francis (who having come a long journey unto his conversion, made his way unto him by the very majesty of his countenance and power of GOD that went along with him, through all his Guard and Nobility about him) the grand Seigneur had so great a reverence for the man, that dismissing all that were about him, he took him into his closet and there conversed with him many hours in private several times. And thence at last he dismissed him with so much peace and honour, as if he had been not a man but an Angel of God rather, appearing upon earth. And this thing was never done to any in that Court, either before that time or since. But the doctor never saw either St. Francis, or St. Dominick, St. Bruno, or St. Bennet, or any of their orders: and therefore speaks of things utterly unknown to him according to the malice of his own heart, be the truth what it will. It was once a Christian lesson in England, that we should speak of the dead nothing but good; and of the living nothing but truth. But he does neither.  
§ 14. From hence the author proceeds to a new argument fit as he thinks to prove the Church of Rome's fanaticisme, which indeed so exalts her honour, that it proves her the only powerful Judge that does suppress it. He tells us then a long and punctual story of some disturbances and heresies that risen about three hundred Years ago in the Christian world, who were the chief authors, when and where they first appeared, how far they spread, what tumults they caused, what Catholic Doctors opposed them, and what Pope at last censured and silenced them. And this was the heresy of the Fratricelli, Begwini, and such like others. And he is so exact in his narration, that he spends almost forty pages in it, thereby to daz'e the Reader, and lead him on so far that he may not reflect upon the impertinence of it. For heresies will rise, and the first uprise of them must needs be amongst some who lived thitherto in the Catholic Church. And if they will not hear and be quiet as the rest are, they will be censured in the end; And this was all the business here. But the Doctor twits at the Pope, for that he delayed his censure so long, still favouring the Friars, amongst whom there were some great sticklers in that madness. Surely Sir it is a part not of prudence only but justice too in any judge, to hear all parties speak, and to defer an extreme sentence, till he see where it is most due. And sometimes the commotion is so disorderly, wild or ambiguous that true prudence will doubt, wh●ther punishment be to be infl●cted on this or th●t side, or perhaps on either; until a● lest it appear so seasonable, that it may do good. But thus I say; If the●e men ●ere named, Almarious, Parma, Oliva, Peter John, Geraldus, Sagarellus, Dulcinus, Hermanus, and other Fratricelli were fanatics, or their opinions fanaticisme; then did the Church justly and prudently so to silence them, that they are now no more extant in the world. If they were not fanatics; then all the Doctors narration is but a tale of Tom Thumb. I can tell the Doctor of another fanaticisme far greater and of more dismal consequence than this, which risen up in the Catholic Church, but one hundred Years ago, begun, promoted and spread over half Europe, by Martin Luther an Augustin Friar, John Calvin a Priest, and as I think a Cannon too, Swing in's who I am sure was both, Carolstade an  in Wittenburg, Bucer a Dominican Friar, Lismanin a franciscan, Richerius a Carmelite. Alciat and David George from Transilvania, Valentin Gentile from Italy, Castalio from France; Peter Martyr and Ochyn from Florence, Alasco from Po●and, B●za from Burgundy, Servetus from Spain, Melanchton from Germany as if the whole earth had conspired to cast forth her dead, unto the infection and ruin of mankind. These had been all Catholic hitherto, and Catholic Priests too; And what d●d they now hold forth, and what did they pretend and teach? a perfect fanaticisme, here described by the Doctor; and both the ways of it: both a new enthusiastic way of Religion; and a resisting of authority under pretence of it. They would have now no more obedience to their Prelates; which is the very essence of fanaticisme; no obligation to the religious duties, wherein they had hicherto been trained, no respect to Church laws, or rules of discipline, fasts, or other observances. The best works were sins. Restitution superfluous. Monasteries and religious retirement superstitious. God's law impossible to be kept. No oblation, no altar, no priesthood any more: And such negatives innumerable. This was their new religion; the maddest that ever was broached upon earth, and far short even of Pagan honesty. And how did they go on? Even with point of pen and force of arms; defying and defaming all Superiority upon earth. They razed and threw to the ground hundreds of fair Monasteries and Churches, filled all Germany, where the fanaticisme began, with ruins, perverted England, Ireland, Denmark, Swethland, and all the Islands here abouts; and pillaged the whole Kingdoms. This fanatic heresy was opposed by all the learned Catholics in Christendom, and censured, not by the Pope only, but by a general council of Bishops gathered together round about, to apply their helping hands; and stop the ruin. And yet has this one dangerous infection been yet too strong for all endeavour. Other lesser fanaticismes have yielded to the incessant care and vigilance of Catholic Prelates. But this of Protestant's holds out as yet, and so will still, till the temptation be removed by the hand of heaven, which turns all men's hearts, when the Hour is fittest for it.  
§ 15. After this, the Doctor gives us the story of St. Ignace Founder of the Society. So contumeliously related; that his conversion to a stricter life, by reading the lives of former Saints; his backwardness to human literature, his patiented sufferings, and travels to and fro, as his pious purposes led him, his fasting and meditations, the examinations made of his rigorous course of life, and various oppositions, his gathering Disciples and endeavour to have his rule confirmed by the Supreme Bishop, are all made to sound conformably either to Don Quixots Romance, or the esteemed madnesses of Quakers, who are, saith he, at least grandchildren to the founder of the Jesuits. Truly these Quakers either are, or must it seems be thought, an odd kind of people. They are Benedictins, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits; and all within the compass of one Chapter. And yet they profess none of all this, nor know nothing of it. But here Sir, you may perceive at least, how easy it is to make a pious and serious matter to sound ridiculous or wild by the mere manner of relating it; which is a great and necessary caution against the poison of slanderous tongues. What M●ffeius, Ribbadanira, and Orlandius learned Jesuits write seriously of that holy man, if not all to his honour, yet no part of it to his disparagement, this by profane irony is travested into mockery. Thus do Jews tell the story of our Christianity and its ●oly founder unto their Children, in such a Stilling fleetian way, that they are made to hate and scorn it all their life after. But Jesuits have too much gravity and wisdom in them, to be la●●ght out of countenance by a trifling prevaricator. Let St. Ignace be as great a fool as St. Francis, or yet as great as t●is Author can speak him, yet can he not deny but he has wise and grave and learned children, whose books have helped him many a t●me to make up his Sermon. When King Saul began to prophecy, the people wondered at it, and asked one another, Is Saul also among the Prophets? unto whom another replied, How came he there, Quis est pater cjus, who is his father? giving the rest thereby to understand, that his prophecy was not , nor likely to be fixed and constant, because he was not a Prophet of prophets nor had his spirit from them. So may we contrariwise think of this worthy society of Jesuits, that such a stable gravity and fixed wisdom, as is in them all, must needs be derived unto them from the spirit and statutes of their founder. That is I think a true moral physiognomy which is given us by the Lyric poet, especially in a continual succession of men. Forts creantur fortibus & bonis. Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum Virtus, nec imbelles ferocem Progenerant aquilam columbae. But let St. Ignace be never so simple, yet did he ever submit unto his Superiors and Pastors, walking all his days in Catholic religion, and had his rule of life confirmed by his Prelate; and therefore could be no fanatic, according to the Doctors definition of it. He neither invented any new way of religion, nor yet resisted authority under pretence of it. But I think the doctor gave us that definition of fanaticisme, in the beginning of this his Chapter, only to keep his discourse far enough off, and never to touch it.  
§ 16. The Doctor proceeds now to declare how the very Catholic way of devotion doth promote enthusiasm. And what think you Sir, doth he speak of here? not one word of our daily psalms, hymns, canticles, anthems, sacred lessons, doxologies, our Lord's prayer or any other devotion prescribed by the Church, and almost hourly in the hands and eyes of Catholic people: not a word of our examination of ourselves upon our knees, penitential petitions, or other our obsecrations, thanksgivings deprecations or interpellations for ourselves and all other good Christian people, for Kings and prelate's and all constituted in authority over us, that we may live a peaceable and quiet life with all piety and decent behaviour. No mention of all this, which he knows as I perceive by his talking of our Manuels and Breviaries, to be our Catholic devotion; no not one word. What is it then he calls the Catholic way of devotion? Only one spiritual book set forth by Mr. Cressy about twenty Years ago out of Father Baxers works, wherein the Doctor finds some uncouth hard words which he cannot understand: this is that which he calls Catholic devotion: and this is all the way he shows that Catholic devotion promotes enthusiasm. Have not I reason Sir to be weary in following after such a butterfly?  
§ 17. He tells us at last, That Papists are guilty of resisting authority under pretence of religion, which he proves first by the principles of the Jesuitical party which are destructive to government, and Secondly by this that the said party are most countenanced in the Court of Rome. But he never tells us what are these principles of the Jesuitical party, nor what this Jesuitical party is. He only names Mariana and one or two others who should say that a Prince excommunicated loses his Sovereignty; For which boldness they suffered worthily both by their own body and others. Now how this discourse of our Doctor agrees with his purpose all this while pretended here I cannot see. For it has not so much as the colour which appeared in some sort hitherto. His book is entitled A Discourse of the idolatrous fanaticisme of the Church of Rome: but now he tells us of a Jesuitical party and the Court of Rome. The Society of Jesuits, a religious grave prudent family in the Catholic Church of God, this I have heard of: and the Church of Rome, or Catholic Church I know. But what is this Jesuitical party, and what this Court of Rome I understand not at all. The Doctor pretended to speak of the Church and her religion, though indeed he hath never come near it yet. But now he speaks that which hath not so much as the sound of it. A Jesuitical party and a Court, what are these to our purpose now in hand? There be parties and as many designs, signs, as there be men in this world, although they should be all of one religion; and not all of them, nay not perhaps one in a thousand directed according to Gospel or right reason at all times, but for avarice rather, solicitude of this world, or sensuality. Who can mend this? Or whose part is it to justify such things? No man that defends a religion, can conceive how they may concern him; and he that opposes a religion, if he were wise or honest, would never object them. And as for the Court of Rome, I know no more of it then I do of the Court of France, Spain or Constantinople. I have long since been told, that the designs of Courts and Courtiers, are politic, high, ambitious, and close. And I have heard again that they are of one and the same opinion all over the face of the earth, a high elevated secret mysterious way, unknown to us peasants who are born in sin, although it go under the name still of that rural religion which is countenanced in their respective Kingdoms. How true these things be, and what this way of theirs is I know not, nor do I love to speak of them at all. One part of our duty I think and respect towards our Superiors is silence, and not to speak at all of them. For we may conclude that God subjected all other Creatures un●o man, because he created them dumb. And certainly enough may we imagine that the opinions of Courts and Courtiers are very high, since one can hardly meet any ordinary man, who would not have the whole earth under his command and power, if he could get it: It is not long since we had here threescore thousand of our own Protestant Countrymen armed in the field who held all of them an opinion that the King's Crown was at their disposal. So they wrote, so they talked, and so they acted. And it is hard to say in what head are the most presumptuous, ambitious, and lofty opinions. And our Doctor himself who so contemptuously treats King Pepin, Charlemaign, and other renowned Kings of the earth, nay all the Catholics in the world at once, cannot be one of the humblest and modestest of men. Court of Rome, and Jesuitical party, sounds in my ears like a thorough Bass, and triple Violyn playing together; the one striking three long humming Notes about the double Gamut; the other descanting thereon in short and quicker graces. The Court of Rome I something perceive methinks what it should be, but not what it is: But the Jesuitical party with all its graces, I neither know what it is, nor what it should be. That worthy Society of Jesuits may be considered either according to their religion, or Schools, or personal designs. According to their religion they are as other Catholics be, in the same worship, same Sacraments, same Altar, same Priesthood, same faith, same hope to come. As to their Schools, although they have I believe five hundred Readers of the Chair, and perhaps as many public defensions in every three years' space: yet did I never hear of any such thing either taught or defended in their Schools, which is here put upon the Jesuitical party: And yet it is nothing to our purpose if it were. But as to the personal designs of them or any others we can no more dive into them, then into the several wandering thoughts and purposes of men, museing daily in London-streets about their affairs. And one man or other thus museing amiss amongst the Jesuits, can no more be called the Jesuitical party, than such a one here in England be termed the English party. Mariana I am sure has been sound checked amongst them and other Catholics for his fault here spoken of. And if the Court or Courtiers of Rome have any fancy, that they are higher than Kings, and by their excommunication can render them Kings no more, as this Doctor here speaks, this may argue indeed that they are a high minded people. But Courtiers do not walk so exactly according to our Christian religion, that this can prove that vanity of theirs, to be any part of it. Catholic Kings who have been here in England well nigh twenty since the Conquest, more among the Saxons, and others not a few amongst our ancient Britain's; and the present Catholic Kings of France, Spain, the Emperor, Germane Princes and others have and do all know well enough, that such a fancy is no part of our Catholic religion. Nor did our King Henry the Eighth who first left it off, express any such cause or reason for it: The times would be very good and happy if all the words and actions of every particular man were answerable to his holy faith. But this is not to be expected in this evil world. And to call that religion which is done or spoken contrary unto it, is a very great injury and injustice. Our holy religion teaches us to observe and obey our Kings and Superiors, as God's Vicegerents upon earth, though they be Infidels and Pagans, and rather to lay down our lives for them, then suffer them to be hurt. And this is nothing but the very law of Nature antecedent to any religion whatsoever; and holds good although there were neither heaven nor hell, nor any reward or punishment to come. And what power can any man upon earth have to take that away which he never gave, nor ever had. He that creates can only annihilate. So long as kings are Catholics, the Pope prays for them. And if they cease to be so, he is nothing to them any more. And yet are they the same they were, in all their royalty and power uncontrollably. If the King of France should receive the Garter from our King of England, he is thought to be so long his friend, as he is pleased to wear it. But if he throw it off, he is King of France still, as much as ever he was. I know not what the Court or Courtiers of Rome may think or say in this business: For what the Doctor here tells us about the Irish remonstrance, is a personal business, and not so circumstanced that one can draw any general conclusion or position from it. But if they be only so much as said either to have conceived or countenanced any such opinion looked upon by all Catholics and good Christians upon earth, as ungrounded, falls and impious, it behoves them I should think, both for the public good, honour of Catholic religion and their own credit to see it censured with all speed, that the progress of Christianity be not stopped by it. For no Pagan King will venture at a promise of everlasting felicity with the hazard of his Crown at the pleasure of one man whom he never saw nor knows. Sure I am if any such opinion had been heard of when Christianity was first planted in Kingdoms it had never found footing in this world. And if it be now countenanced, the progress of Christianity is at an end.  
I doubt not, but that a Cotholick writer may in his controversy about religion, if so he pleas, defend an opinion also of any one or other who has professed the Catholic religion which he maintains. But this is more than any one needs to do. For religion is quite another thing, derived from another, author and original, established in another manner, no less differing from an opinion, than a fixed star in the firmament from the mist or fog ariseing from the earth. Faith is one known thing, but opinions are innumerable and endless. If the various opinions, entertained in men's minds but one only day in any City of England were all faithfully recorded at night, they would exhibit to a Reader a most prodigious spectacle. Opinions are infinitely various, infinitely changeable, infinitely contradictory and absurd in the world. Nor may we doubt but that thousands of them are contrary both to religion and law. Angry raging men and wanton women, unfaithful servants, and di obedient children, thiefs and murderers, cheats and liars, can we think when they act according to their own disordered passions, that they hold not then an opinion, that in such circumstances it is expedient for them so to do? Wicked sinners hold wicked opinions, be the religion what it will. Gainsay and blame them in their heat; and it will soon appear, that they are stiff and resolved in that their opinion by the very fury of their wrath. And what will not sycophants and flatterers either say or write, to pleas the mind of those on whom they depend, even against their own. Rules of law and religion are fixed and stable and ever the same. But opinions are movable as water: and never right but when conformable to a right rule of some good law: and how far they are conformable, so far are they right and no more. And therefore it is a madness in any one who undertakes to write against the standard of a religion, to object instead of that, opinions of men. For first one man may have an opinion to day and write it also in a book; and yet few years after, nay perhaps very few days, change his mind. Secondly the opinion of one man may be gainsaid by a thousand as wise as he, who live under the same law and religion. Thirdly an opinion in a book is indeed nothing at all in the world, but a mere platonic idea, till it be reduced to some real existence by circumstances which actuate it and make the action really to be: and some opinions are worse than nothing. For which reason all the multitude of opinions which fill up the books of learned Casuists may be exercises of wit indeed; but no guides can they be unto action. The direction of a living Oracle and Counsellor who can penetrate all present circumstances, and prescribe by his wisdom on which side is then most of good and least of evil; which is the only rule that directs a wise counsellor what to determine, this only is our guide in doubts. Wherefore the great Princes of the earth recurre not to books in their difficulties, but use the wisdom of their counsel, wise and grave men who must hear all things that can be said on both sides, hic & nunc, and ponder them deeply before a judgement can result. And it often happens amongst them, that they will determine in one year that action to be rejected, which was in another time expedient and good, only upon change of circumstances. It is in my mind a vain labour to write long discourses about probable opinions as some do. For if we speak of an opinion in a strict sense, an opinion tending to action, and yet separated or abstracted from all circumstances of person, time, place, means, motives, events, and connexion's with ill or welfare, which no writer of a book can see; such an opinion is nothing at all in the world but a mere phantom, more apt to misled then secure any action of life. And he that goes to a book to learn there, how he is to act in any business he is about, goes like one blind man to another blind guide to lead him. For this reason all ancient good Christians ever had their consciences g●ided by living Oracles of men; who laying the general rule of religion before them, still gave that for safest counsel, which all circumstances considered came nearest to the intent and scope of Gospel. Truly I cannot but grieve to see men talk so much as they do now adays, about opinions. For we are to hold nothing but Gospel and our holy Christian tradition, and no opinions at all in religious affairs. And if opinions do rise therein, as needs they must sometimes, by variation of circumstances, that is still to be rejected, which most swarves from the intent of holy Gospel, or, (which is all one) hath least in it of good and most of ill. Let not only three men but three millions of men hold any thing to the breach of this rule, it is not to be heeded. They who writ books of moral actions and conscience, can know nothing either of the person actually concerned, or of the various circumstances which must bring this action into a just existence (let them in their abstracted airy problems say what they please) nor innumerable events thereof; although there be some opinions that no circumstance can justify. Nor do Catholic Kings and Princes ever heed at all, what people talk in their Schools and Academies, unless it proceed to action. If any do act well, he has peace: and if any do ill, death is at his door, however opinions go. But of this enough. Doctor Still. threatens us here with a more accurate examination of these things from the author who wrote against the Apology for Catholics. I know not who that Author is. But I can tell him thus much, that the right honourable Author of that charitable Apology stands now actually ready with his Pen in hand to entertain him as he hath once already done. And that Protestant writer will find him still a main strong Castle not to be blown down, or so much as shaken by his impertinent waves. All after ages shall make honourable mention of that noble man, when his adversary shall be swallowed up in the deep of oblivion Not only Catholics but many worthy Gentlemen even amongst our Protestant countrymen have grieved in their hearts to see us lie open to so many grievous defama●ions of men. But this noble Person ventured to speak and write an Apology for us. And if no man should be valorous, truth ●ow kept under lock and key for a whole hundred years, would never appear, as it is, and in its own shape.  
§ 18. Sir one mistake of mine committed in my first packet, wherein I told you that this piece of Fanaticisme was Doctor Stillingfleet's own proper invention, I must here revoke. For it is not so. I wondered indeed, that in his arguments against the Church of Rome, set down in the beginning of his book, wherein is mention made of that Church's Idolatry, hindrances of a good life, and divisions, there was not there any one word of Fanaticisme which here fills up a whole chapter in his book, compiled as himself speaks in defence of those arguments. But I was enlightened in this my doubt by a mere chance. For meeting with a Protestant Stationer, I asked him if he ever heard of an Author called Foolis or Foulis, who is quoted once or twice by Doctor Stillingfleet. O quoth he presently, Foolis is an ass; he printed last year an ecclesiastical history, wherein he says that Papish Saints were fanatics. I had the book, but threw it out of my shop: It is sold now up and down the streets for waste paper. I considered then with myself, that the Doctour's arguments were made as himself speaks, two Years ago: this his book in defence of them is but now printed, and Foolis his book a Year ago came forth. My riddle is now out. The Doctor never dreamt of fanaticisme, till he learned it of Foolis. And yet does he not quote this Foulis in all his Chapter of Fanaticisme, though he does in another; ambitious it seems to have the honour of the invention ascribed to himself alone. Nor is it hard, since Foolis his book is become waist paper, to find out, not the Master only from whom our Doctor learned his lesson of fanaticisme, but the very chair also whereon he sat, when first he learned it; sith bookish men are very apt to peruse the waste paper they are then to use. But it was a lucky chance for Doctor Stillingfleet. He applied therefore his waste paper; and saying in his heart, Here is a gallant matter for a whole new Chapter in my book, he risen and tied up his breeches.    

ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ.  
DIVISIONS.  
UNto this fifth Chapter I shall speak Sir very little: because it is wholly parergicall, and besides his or what ought to be his purpose. A Reader who looks upon his book conceives him to speak of divisions which are contrary to their unity of faith. And yet the Doctor by a multitude of stories, which make up this chapter, exemplifies only and declares divisions that have been in several times and places, contrary to the unity of affections; in matter of honour, wealth, and power; some in Italy, some in France, some in England, some in America, some about their School conceptions, some about power and jurisdiction, liberty and freedom, and the like. So that all that has happened in the Catholic world the space of a thousand years, contrary to that peace, humility, love, tenderness, justice, mercy, patience, prudence, which religion requires, so much of it as he found related in Catholic authors to his hand, is the miscellan hodge podg of this his fifth chapter, called Divisions, not ever intended by any of those Catholics authors unto Dr. Still. purpose, unto which the said stories are wholly improper.  
1. The story of the wars and differences in Italy nine hundred years ago about Church-lands, managed on one side by Charles Martell, King Pepin, Charlemaign, Ludovicus Pius, Lotharius and others, for the Pope's right against Emperors and their Lieutenants on the other. And here by the way we may note that Charlemaign or Charles the great, was a notable champion not for the faith only but for the temporals also of the Roman Bishop▪ even to his death; which I gave the Doctor notice of, when I spoke of the Council of Frankford, and himself now here acknowledges it.  
2. The story of the quarrels between Henry fourth Emperor, and Pope Gregory Hildebrand, about an age afterward, and the various troubles inferred upon the said Emperor thereby.  
3. The story of P. Vrban and Paschall and others then sitting in the See apostolic; and Emperor Rodulphus, Lotharius, Conradus; and the great wars and feuds between them unto the great affliction and misery of mankind.  
4. The story of the Schisms that happened in the ninth age about the election of Popes, wherein successively they deposed, contradicted, judged and censured one another, unto the unexpressable scandal and grief of the whole world. And all these above named histories are gathered out of Alphonsus Ciaconus, Baronius, Luitprandus, Morinus, Papirius Massonus, Onuphrius, Sigonius, Nauclerus, Sigebertus, Otto Frisingensis, Conradus, Rubeus, Valesius, Sirmondus, Sabellicus, Blondus, Nithardus, Hincmar Guicciardin, Platina all Catholic historians, not one, that I know, excepted.  
5. The story of Friars and Monks exemption from Episcopal jurisdiction, and the troubles caused thereby amongst the Clergy, and the instability of Roman Prelates, sometimes confirming and then again recalling those their privileges. This happened in the thirteenth age about four hundred years ago: some Doctors defending the said Religious exemptions and privileges, as St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, Jacobus, Abbas, Cluniacensis; and some opposing them, as Dr. Saint Amour and the University of Paris, Armacanus, Durandus, Mimatensis, Petrus de Vineis and Aegidius Romanus.  
6. The story of two or three Priests here in England about threescore years ago, who having boarded together at Wisbich with some of the Society very peaceably for a time, at last fell out and parted with much scandal and heats one against another.  
7. The story of Richard Smith Bishop of Chalcedon opposed here in England about forty years ago by some religions.  
8. The story of a bitter contest between some regulars and their bishop in the Philippin Islands, and again in Angelopolis in America about twenty years ago.  
9 The story of the many differences amongst the Schoolmen, not to be ended either by Pope or Counsels, although one of the contradictories must needs be false.  
These are his stories, some of them dismal enough, and yet all of them I think as true, as I am certain they are impertinent. And ever and anon the Doctor cries out where is their unity here, where is now their infallibility so much talked of! whereas indeed the stability of religion and Gods infallible protection of his Church never appeared in greater splendour, than it did in those dismal dark times, when such as should have been Pastors, proved wild beasts rather and wolves to destroy the flock. For even in those worst times, did the Catholic Church most flourish in unity and Christian piety all over the world. And through all these tempests, and many more yet greater, hath this ship of the Church passed on now almost seventeen hundred years; and yet continues. To keep it safe and whole, not only from outward opposition of Infidels, but even from the many inward & domestic scandals, strong enough to crack asunder the very sides of it, and dissipate it into dust, is a power and virtue truly divine, which can proceed from nothing but Gods great favour and love and blessing upon it. We had never heard so much of the power of our Lord Jesus nor known it so well, if a tempest had not rose and endangered the ship. And all that I think can be judiciously gathered from these many dismal stories and miserable scandals, is only this, that in all such distresses and ever we are still to trust in God, and in the virtue of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has promised to be with us even to the world's consummation. And if he be with us, we shall be well, be what will against us, whether it rise within the Church or fall upon it from without. The Catholic Church must taste all the trials and temptations which may render her conformable to her Lord and head, both from friends and foes. And it is enough that he watches over us who never sleeps, and suffers no more to befall us then will redound to his own glory in the end.  
But I wonder much, how the Doctor amongst the many differences and broils here recorded, could omit to relate the differences betwixt the Kings of France and Spain now daily sounding in our ears, unto the sad and woeful ruin of so many thousand people. But he is subtle, and thinks perhaps, if he should speak of such public things now in present action, that every one would be able to tell him presently, that the said discourse is nothing to the purpose, for that the said Kings and their whole Kingdoms are all in a perfect unity of their Catholic faith for all that. And therefore he judges it a wiser part, to hunt farther from home, as foxes do; where ordinary Readers cannot so easily discern his impertinency. If he do speak any thing near our own times, it must be the wranglings of some obscure men unknown to us; if he relate the differences of greater men, they must be such as are far removed off, four, five, nine hundred years ago; and then he hopes that his Reader may not so easily discover his fraud. For the same reason he omits also to speak of the great wars and differences between the house of York and Lancaster here in England, which brought with them as dismal effects, as any here recorded by him; as also the Wars of England with France unto the utter depopulation in a manner of that whole Kingdom. And yet did their unity of faith stand all the while inyiolable. And this truth, because it is known to every Reader, therefore will not the subtle Doctor make any mention of these things. But I cannot so well tell, why he should omit the story of the Arrian heresy, which disturbed not one Kingdom only, but all the whole Christian world, Europe, Asia and Africa, so far as the very Sun in the Firmament looked upon it. And those differences were indeed about a point of faith (which nothing is here in all the differences related by the Doctor) Secondly, they brought with them unspeakable molestations and damages all the world over, far further than these his related differences ever reached: Thirdly, they lasted four hundred Years, whereas most of these his differences were little and light, and personal or national, and none of them so lasting as the troubles of Arrianism. So peevish, obstinate and self-willed are men, even against all rules of Christian piety and moderation, when concupiscence and passion are once engaged. And yet was that Arrian dispute so acquaint and subtle, that the world hardly discerns, where the difference lay, which so much incensed all the Catholic Prelates in the world, and set in such a deadly feud so many great and holy men on both sides, who had guided their Flocks before in all tranquillity and peace. But what reason soever the Doctor had for his omission of this Arrian heresy, which is more pertinent than any of all his stories put together; yet might he not methinks have utterly forgot the famous and renowned story of Robin Hood, who was a noble person and well beloved of his Country: and yet outlawed by his King who professed the same Catholic religion with him, was forced to confine himself to woods and deserts, in much hunger and distress, and daily dangers of his life. If he had bethought himself well, he might have printed here the whole History of England and France, Spain and Italy, Germany, Poland and Greece. And it would have made him a fine long chapter. Especially if he had inserted all the wranglings and law-suits, that have happened amongst Christians in all the said Kingdoms from their first conversion, for above a thousand years, unto this last age, when Protestancy first showed its head. But in all that time, there is not an Author upon earth, who mentions any wars, any wranglings, any division of Protestants. For neither Cesar nor Pompey, however mischievous made any troubles, before they were born: nor did any writer take notice of those turbulent warriors from the time of Picus first King of the Latins unto their days; which was little less than the same space of time that Protestants were in a deep silence and peace, all over the whole Christian world, fifteen hundred years. I have no more now to say but dear Sir farewell, and continue still to love and pray for  
Your friendly Postillator, J. V C.  
FINIS.