order to the making it good; but how short their proofs fall of it, will be made evident by these following particulars. 1. Those that have taken the most pains to seek for testimonies, have not been able to produce any tolerable one out of the genuine writings of the Fathers, within the first three hundred years after Christ: they cite indeed the Hierarchy of Dionysius Areopagita, Origen's Comments on the second Chapter of Job, and the twenty-first of Numbers, the works. of St. Ephræm, and Athanasius's of the most holy Mother of God; but these have been sufficiently proved by many of our learned men, * and acknowledged by some of no obscure fame amongst them, to be spurious, and falsely fathered on them; and then for their proofs out of Irenæus, Eusebius, and St. Ambrose, it is easy to shew, that the first is grossly misunderstood, the second corrupted, and the third retracted by that Father. Irenæus indeed is an ancient Father, and of sufficient authority; but his words are little to their purpose; they are these: "Sicut Eva seducta est ut effugeret Deum, sic Maria suasa est obedire Deo, ut Virginis Evæ virgo Maria fieret advocata :" wherein the blessed Virgin Mary is termed the Advocate of Eve. Now to make this a pat proof for their invocation, they must put this sense upon it, that the blessed Virgin being a glorified saint in heaven, did, at the request and desire of Eve living upon earth, represent her case to God, and intercede with him on her behalf; but how could Eve alive, request this of the Virgin Mary, when Eve died about three thousand years before Mary was born! Or how could Irenæust think the blessed Virgin in a capacity to do this, whose opinion it was, with the generality of the Fathers in that age, that her soul, as all others of departed saints, were in an invisible place, and not admitted to the beatific vision? Or, how could Eve stand in need of her advocateship, who, if it be true, as the Romanists§ hold, that our Saviour at his resurrection freed the saints of the Old Testament from their limbus, and carried them up with him into heaven and the presence of God, was a glorified saint in heaven, whilst she was living upon the earth, and so was in a better state to be an advocate for the Virgin Mary,|| * Mons. Dal. Coc. Censur. Patr. in D. Areop. Rivet. in Crit. Sac. Bellar. de Scrip. Eccl. + Irenæus adv. Hær. 1. 15. c. 10. [1. 5. c. 19.] [p. 316. Venet. 1734.] than the Virgin Mary for her? Thus you see, as clear a proof as Bellarmine thinks this to be, nothing can be more ridiculously and impertinently quoted; some other meaning then of the words must be found out, and the most obvious and natural is this, that the Virgin Mary is here, by a figure, put for Christ her Son, according to the flesh, and said to do that, as she was the happy mother of a son who did it; and thus indeed she is advocate for Eve, and all Eve's posterity, instrumentally, not by herself personally, but by her Son, she being that vessel made choice of by the Holy Ghost, to bear him in her womb, who by taking flesh of her, became the Saviour of Eve and all mankind. For the testimony of Eusebius, it as Bellarmine reports it, runs thus:* "We honour those heavenly soldiers, as God's friends; we approach unto their monuments, and pray unto them as unto holy men, by whose intercession we profess to receive much help and assistance;" but it is apparent, as many learned men have shewn, that Bellarmine took this allegation not out of Eusebius's original, but a corrupt translation made by Trapezuntius, and afterwards followed by Dadræus, a doctor of Paris, who set forth Eusebius; there being no such words "as praying to them as unto holy men," to be found in him speaking his own language: his words are these;t öder καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς θηκὰς αὐτῶν ἔθος ἡμῖν παρίεναι, καὶ τὰς εὐχὰς παρὰ ταυταῖς ποιεῖσθαι, &c. "It is our custom to come to their tombs and monuments, and to make our prayers," not avтois, to them, to those martyrs, as the translator and Bellarmine would have it, but waρà ravτaïs, i. e. Iŋkais, “at or before their tombs and monuments, and to honour those blessed souls." I might now pass over St. Ambrose, he living beyond the time I undertook to answer for, anno 374, but whatsoever he said of this nature, was said when he was but a young Christian, and recalled and contradicted by him afterwards: in his book of Widows, he exhorts them "to pray to the angels and martyrs, whom he calls beholders of our lives and actions :"+ but Baronius himself confesses (as Bishop Andrews proves it out of his life of St. Ambrose) that this book was written presently after his conversion, when he was but a raw divine, and had not thoroughly learned the Christian doctrine; and this appears by some other mistakes he was guilty of, besides * Bellar. de Sanct. Beat. 1. 1. c. 19. [Ibid.] + Evang. Præp. 1. 13. c. 7. [c. 11.] [p. 663. Colon. 1688.] Speculatores vitæ actuumque nostrorum. [vol. 2. p. 200. Par. 1690.] this, that are of as dangerous a nature; when in the same book he asserts, "that the martyrs either had no sin at all, or what they had, they did themselves wash away with their own blood."* But that St. Ambrose changed his opinion concerning this point of invocation, we are as sure as that once he held it, since we find him afterwards plainly asserting the contrary doctrine, in such words as these: "That to procure God's favour, we need no advocate but a devout mind:" and again, speaking with relation to the two young sons of Theodosius, "Thou only, O Lord, art to be invocated, and prayed unto," namely, for a blessing and protection upon them. 2. They make the rhetorical flourishes and apostrophes of the Fathers in their panegyrics of the martyrs, to be solemn forms of invocation of them. The Fathers, about the latter end of the fourth century, observing piety and devotion to decay and wax cold, as the Church increased in riches and prosperity, thought themselves obliged, by all the wit, and art, and rhetoric they had, to retrieve, if it was possible, the pristine heat of devotion that was formerly in it; to that purpose they spake high and large in commendation of their martyrs, and sometimes in their orations directed their words to them, as though they had been there present; not with an intent to teach the people to pray unto them, or to rely upon their merits, but to signify the mighty favour they were in with God, and the more effectually to excite them to an imitation of their virtues many such strains of rhetoric occur in the writings of St. Jerome, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nyssen, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and others. So St. Gregory Nyssent speaks to Theodore the Martyr, in his oration, "Gather together the troops of thy brother martyrs, and thou with them beseech God to stay the invasion of the barbarians." So St. Gregory Nazianzen, § in his oration, calls unto St. Cyprian, St. Basil, St. Athanasius, to each after this manner, "Do thou favourably look upon us from on high." After the same manner does St. Jerome conclude his funeral oration on Paula, "Farewell, O Paula, and help the old age of thy honourer with thy prayers." Now what is there in all this, but what is usual in all authors, both sacred and profane? * Proprio sanguine. [Ibid.] + Amb. in Rom. c. 1. tom. 5. Tu tamen, Domine, solus es invocandus. De obitu Theod. tom. 3. [Ibid. p. 1207.] Orat. in Sanct. Theod. [vol. 3. p. 586. Par. 1638.] § Orat. in Athan. [vol. 1. p. 286, 373, 397. Par. 1630.] The design of the Fathers was, to raise the people to as high an opinion as they could, both of the persons of the martyrs, and their virtues that made them so illustrious; and might they not make use of their best art and rhetoric to do it? What is more in this than those apostrophes frequently found in the sacred writings, even to insensate creatures? "Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy! Praise the Lord, ye dragons and all deeps!" And who will infer from hence, that the insensate creatures were hereby invoked and addressed unto? 3. A great part of the testimonies they produce out of the Fathers, are to prove the intercession of saints in heaven for us, and not our invocating of them; and so they change the question, and are at a great deal of pains to prove that which nobody denies; such sayings as assert the saints praying for us, are frequent among the ancient Fathers, and that not only for the Church militant in general, but in particular for those whose persons and conditions were well known to them on earth; and these are cunningly shuffled in by the Romish doctors, as proofs of invocation for them, with a design to impose on the unwary vulgar who are supposed not to take notice of the difference (but it is a wonder if they should not, for it is wide enough) betwixt their praying for us, and our praying to them. Neither is this the only instance wherein those cunning sophisters play this game; first alter the nature of the question, and then where they have no adversary, to triumph in demonstrating the truth of it. If the question be, whether the Bishop of Rome be the supreme head of the Church, and has an absolute jurisdiction and monarchy over all other bishops and Churches ;* they shall bring you a number of testimonies out of both Greek and Latin Fathers, to prove St. Peter had a primacy of honour and authority. If the question be, whether the bread and wine in the sacrament be substantially turned into the body and blood of Christ; they will write a whole volume to prove the truth and reality of Christ's presence in it, which we own as well as they, but after a spiritual manner, not corporally, and by the way of transubstantiation. If the question be about purgatory, a place prepared for the purification of those souls that depart hence not quite cleansed ;‡ * Bellar. de Rom. Pont. 1. 2. c. 15, 16. [vol. 1. p. 359, &c. Prag. 1721.] Bellar. de Euchar. 1. 2. St. Ambr. Hil. Orig. Hierom. &c. they shall allege you Fathers, and those not a few, of unquestionable name, to prove the utter consumption of all things by fire, at the end of the world. So here, when the question is, whether we ought to pray to saints departed; they bring innumerable Fathers to prove, that the saints departed do pray for us; hence we hear of that of St. Ignatius,* "My spirit salutes you, not only now, but will also when I enjoy God;" and of St. Chrysostom, in his oration to those that were to be baptized, "Remember me when that kingdom receives you." 4. They produce the sayings and practices of some few in the Church, for the general and allowed doctrine and practice of the whole Church. If the story should be true, that Justina, a Christian virgin, did in great distress jointly supplicate the blessed Virgin with God and Christ, does it follow that it was the practice of all to do so? It cannot be denied but that many of the Fathers let slip, in the heat of their affection and oration, many unwary speeches to this purpose, and that many, otherwise good men, were guilty of this excess of devotion to the martyrs: the many miracles God was pleased to work at the memorials of the martyrs, for the honour and confirmation of the faith, reasonably begat a custom amongst Christians to resort to those places, and there to offer their prayers to God; and thinking, it may be, they could not easily honour those too much, whom God was pleased, after so wonderful a manner, to declare his esteem of; from praying to God at their tombs, they began to pray to them themselves. But now, We are to distinguish betwixt the speeches of some particular Fathers, and the general doctrine of the Church; betwixt what they express in rhetorical strains to move affection, and what they lay down in plain terms to inform the judgment; betwixt what comes from them in the heat of their discourses and popular orations, and what in cool and deliberate debates they set down for the truth of Christ: it is generally confessed that the Fathers ofttimes hyperbolize, particularly St. Chrysostom, and we must not take their flights of fancy for the doctrine of the Church. We are to distinguish also betwixt what the Church did teach and allow, and what she only tolerated and was forced to bear with; the bishops and governors of the Church being * Epist ad Tral. [p. 78. Lips. 1699.] |