LETTER XXXV.-TO THE REV. ROBERT CLAYTON, M. A REVEREND SIR OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. I LEARN by a letter from our worthy friend, Mr. Brown, as well as by your own, that I am to consider you, and not him, as the person charged to make the objections which are to be made on the part of the Church of England against my theological positions and arguments in future. I congratulate the society of New Cottage on the acquisition of so valuable a member as Mr. Clayton, and I think myself fortunate in having to contend with an opponent so clear-headed and candid, as his letter shows him to be. You You admit, that according to my explanation, which is no other than that of our divines, our catechisms, and our councils in general, we are not guilty of idolatry in the honor we pay to saints and their memorials, and that the dispute between your church and mine upon these points, is a dispute about words rather than about things: as Bishop Bossuet observes, and as several candid Protestants, before you, have confessed. and Bishop Porteus agree with us, that "the saints are to be loved and honored:" on the other hand, we agree with you, that it would be idolatrous to pay them divine worship, or to pray to their memorials in any shape whatever. Hence, the only question remaining between us is concerning the utility of desiring the prayers of the saints; for you say, it is useless, because you think that they cannot hear us, and that, therefore, the practice is superstitious: whereas I have vindicated the practice itself, and have shown that the utility of it no way depends on the circumstance of the blessed spirits immediately hearing the addresses made to them. Still you complain that I have not answered all the bishop's objections against the doctrine and practices in question. My reply is, that I have answered the chief of them and whereas they are, for the most part, of ancient date, and have been again and again solidly refuted by our divines, I shall send to New Cottage, together with this letter, a work of one of them, who, for depth of learning and strength of argument, has not been surpassed since the time of Bellarmin.* There, reverend sir, you will find all that you inquire after, and you will discover, in particular, that the worship of the angels, which St. Paul condemns in his Epistle to the Colossians, chap. ii. 18, means, that * The True Church of Christ, by Edward Hawarden, D.D. S.T.P. The author was engaged in successful contests with Dr. Clark, Bishop Bull, Mr. Leslie, and other eminent Protestant divines. of the fallen or wicked angels, whom Christ despoiled, ver. 15, and which was paid to them by Simon the Magician, and his followers, as the makers of the world. As to the doctrine of Bellarmin concerning images, it is plain that his lordship never consulted the author himself, but only his misrepresenter, Vitringa: otherwise he would have gathered from the whole of this strict theologian's distinctions, that he teaches precisely the contrary to that which he is represented to teach.* You next observe that I have said nothing concerning the extravagant forms of prayer, to the Blessed Virgin and other saints, which Dr. Porteus has collected from Catholic prayer-books, and which, you think, prove that we attribute an absolute and unbounded power to those heavenly citizens. I am aware, reverend sir, that his lordship, as well as another bishop,† who is all sweetness of temper, except when Popery is mentioned in his hearing, and indeed a crowd of other Protestant writers, has employed himself in making such collections, but from what sources, for the greater part, I am ignorant. If I were to charge his faith, or the faith of his church, with all the conclusions that could logically be drawn from different forms of prayer, to be met with in the books of her most distinguished prelates and divines, or from the Scriptures themselves, I fancy the bishop would strongly protest against that mode of reasoning. If, for example, an anthropomorphite were to address him: You say, my lord, in your creed, that Christ "ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God," therefore it is plain you believe, with me, that God has a human shape; or if a Calvinist were to say to him: You pray to God that he "would not lead you into temptation," therefore you acknowledge that it is God who tempts you to commit sin: in either of these cases the bishop would insist upon explaining the texts here quoted; he would argue on the nature of figures of speech, especially in the language of poetry and devotion; and would maintain, that the belief of his church is not to be collected from these, but from her defined articles. Make but the same allowance to Catholics, and all this phantom of verbal idolatry will dissolve into air. Lastly, you remind me of the bishop's assertion, that "neither images nor pictures were allowed in churches for the first hundred years. To this assertion you add your own opinion, that during that same period, no prayers were addressed by Christians to the saints. A fit of oblivion must have overtaken Dr. Porteus, when he wrote what you have quoted from him, as he * See De Imag. L. ii. c. 24. The Bishop of Hereford, Dr. Huntingford, who has squeezed a large quantity of this irrelevant matter into his Examination of the Catholic Petition. could not be ignorant, that it was not till the conversion of Constantine, in the fourth century, that the Christians were generally allowed to build churches for their worship, having been obliged, during the ages of persecution, to practise it in subterraneous catacombs, or other obscure recesses. We learn, however, from Tertullian, that it was usual, in his time, to represent our Saviour, in the character of the good Shepherd, on the chalices used at the assemblies of the Christians:* and we are informed by Eusebius, the father of church-history, and the friend of Constantine, that he himself had seen a miraculous image of our Saviour in brass, which had been erected by the woman who was cured by touching the hem of his garment; and also different pictures of him, and of St. Peter and St. Paul, which had been preserved since their time. The historian Zozomen adds, concerning that statue, that it was mutilated during the reign of Julian the Apostate, and that the Christians, nevertheless, collected the pieces of it, and placed it in their church. St. Gregory of Nyssa, who flourished in the fourth century, preaching on the martyrdom of St. Theodore, describes his relics as being present in the church and his sufferings as being painted on the walls, together with an image of Christ, as if surveying them. It is needless to carry the history of pious figures and paintings down to the end of the sixth century, at which time St. Augustin and his companions, coming to preach the Gospel to our pagan ancestors, "carried a silver cross before them as a banner, and a painted picture of our Saviour Christ." The above-mentioned Tertullian testifies, that at every movement and in every employment, the primitive Christians used to sign their foreheads with the sign of the cross;T and Eusebius and St. Chrysostom fill whole pages of their works with testimonies of their veneration in which the figure of the cross was anciently held; the latter expressly says, that the cross was placed on the altars** of the churches. The whole history of the martyrs, from St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, the disciples of the apostles, whose relics, after their execution, were carried away by the Christians, as more valuable than gold and precious stones,"†† down to the latest martyr, incontestibly proves the veneration which the church has ever entertained for these sacred objects. With respect to your own opinion, reverend sir, as to the earliest date of prayers to the saints, I may refer you to the writings of St. Irenæus the disciple of St. *Lib. de Pudicitia, c. 10. + Hist. 1. vii. c. 18. § Orat. in Theod. Deo. Coron. Milit. c. 3. ++ Euseb. Hist. 1. iv. c. 15. 66 His. Eccles. 1. v. c. 21. || Bede's Eccles. Hist. 1. i. c. 25. Polycarp, who introduces the Blessed Virgin praying for Eve;* to the apology of his contemporary St. Justin the martyr, who says: "We venerate and worship the angelic host, and the spirits of the prophets, teaching others as we ourselves have been taught ; and to the light of the fourth century, St. Basil, who expressly refers these practices to the apostles, where he says: "I invoke the apostles, prophets, and martyrs to pray for me, that God may be merciful to me, and forgive me my sins. I honor and reverence their images, since these things have been ordained by tradition from the apostles, and are practised in all our churches." You will agree with me, that I need not bring down lower than the fourth age of the church, her devotion to the saints.-I am, dear sir, &c. DEAR SIR JOHN MILNER. LETTER XXXVI.-TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ., ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION. It is the remark of the prince of modern controvertists, Bishop Bossuet, that whereas in most other subjects of dispute between Catholics and Protestants, the difference is less than it seems to be, in this of the holy eucharist or Lord's supper, it is greater than it appears.§ The cause of this is, that our opponents misrepresent our doctrine concerning the veneration of saints, pious images, indulgences, purgatory, and other articles, in order to strengthen their arguments against us: whereas their language approaches nearer to our doctrine than their sentiments do on the subject of the eucharist, because our doctrine is so strictly conformable to the words of Holy Scripture. This is a disingenuous artifice; but I have to describe two others of a still more fatal tendency; first, with respect to the present welfare of the Catholics, who are the subjects of them, and secondly, with respect to the future welfare of the Protestants, who deliberately make use of them. The first of these disingenuous practices consists in misrepresenting Catholics as worshippers of bread and wine in the sacrament, and therefore as idolaters, at the same time that our adversaries are perfectly aware that we firmly believe, as an ar ticle of faith, that there is no bread and wine, but Christ alone, true God, as well as man, present in it. Supposing, for a mo. ment, that we are mistaken in this belief, the worst we could be * Contra Hæres. 1. v. c. 19. Epist. 205, T. iii. edit. Paris. † Apol. 2. prope Init. § Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church, Sect. XVI.. charged with is an error, in supposing Christ to be where he is not; and nothing but uncharitable calumny, or gross inattention, could accuse us of the heinous crime of idolatry. To illustrate this argument, let me suppose, that being charged with a loyal address to the sovereign, you presented it, by mistake, to one of his courtiers, or even to an inanimate figure of him, which, for some reason or other, had been dressed up in royal robes, and placed on the throne; would your heart reproach you, or would any sensible person reproach you, with the guilt of treason in this case? Were the people who thought in their hearts that John the Baptist was the Christ, Luke iii. 15, and who probably worshipped him as such, idolaters, in consequence of their error? The falsehood, as well as the uncharitableness, of this calumny is too gross to escape the observation of any informed and reflecting man; yet, in order to keep alive their prejudices against us, it is upheld and vociferated to the ignorant crowd, by Bishop Porteus* and the Protestant preachers and writers in general; while it is perpetuated by the Legislature, for the purpose of defeating our civil aims † It is not how. ever true, that all Protestant divines have laid this heavy charge at the door of Catholics, for worshipping Christ in the sacrament; as all those eminent prelates in the reigns of Charles I. and II. must be excepted, who generally acquitted us of the charge of idolatry, and more especially the learned Gunning, Bishop of Ely, who reprobated the above signified declaration, when it was brought into the house of lords, protesting that his conscience would not permit him to make it. The candid Thorndyke, Prebendary of Westminster, argues thus on the present subject: "Will any papist acknowledge that he honors the elements of the eucharist for God? Will common sense charge him with honoring that in the sacrament which he does not believe to be there?"§ The celebrated Bishop of Down, Dr. Jeremy Taylor, reasons with equal fairness, where he says, "the object of their (the Catholics') adoration in the sacrament is the only true and eternal God, hypostatically united with his holy humanity, which humanity they believe actually present under the veil of the sacrament. And if they thought him not *He charges Catholics with "senseless idolatry," and with "worshipping the creature instead of the Creator." Confut. P. ii. c. 1. + The declaration against popery, by which Catholics were excluded from the houses of Parliament, was voted by them during that time of national frenzy and disgrace, when they equally voted the reality of the pretended popish plot, which cost the Catholics a torrent of innocent blood, and which was hatched by the unprincipled Shaftesbury, with the help of Dr. Tongue and the infamous Oates, to prevent the succession of James II. to the crown. See Echard's Hist. North's Exam. + Burnet's Hist. Own Times. § Just Weights and Measures, c. 19 |