The Catholic Christian instructed in the sacraments

Front matter

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Preface

The design of the following sheets being to explain the Doctrine and Ceremonies of Catholic Church, and to vindicate the same from the misrepresentations of our adversaries, the Reader, whether Catholic or Protestant, may reasonably expect that I should not send them abroad into the world without taking some notice of a late performance of Dr. Conyers Middleton, entitled, " A letter from Rome, showing an exact conformity between Popery and Paganism; or the Religion of the present Romans derived from that of their heathen Ancestors." This being a work directly levelled against some part of the ceremonies of the Church, and having been received with great applause by many in England, so as to have passed through three editions in the space of a few years ; it is to comply with so reasonable an expectation that I have determined to employ my Preface in making some animadversions upon this Letter of the Doctor; to which, though consisting of seventy pages in quarto, I hope, with the help of God, in one short sheet to give a full and satisfactory answer.

The chief particulars which the Doctor objects against in the religion of modern Rome, and upon which he grounds the parallel which he pretends to make between Popery and Paganism, are these: first, the use of incense and perfume in Churches: secondly, the use of holy water: thirdly, the burning of lamps and candles: fourthly, offerings or votive gifts: fifthly, images which he jumbles together with the veneration of the saints: sixthly, chapels on the way-side for the devotion of travellers, crosses and sometimes chapels upon hills: seventhly, processions: eighthly, miracles, with which, it seems, he is very much offended v/hereever he meets them, and therefore he dwells longer upon that subject than any other. All these ihmgs he pretends to discover in the religion of the old Pagans; and therefore imagines he has a right to conclude, that the modern Komans have derived their whole religion from them.

Before I proceed to examine these particulars, and to answer the Doctor's objections against ihem, I cannot but take notice of a piece of foul play in him, unworthy of thai candour of which he makes profession, and which he acknowledges he met with in all those whom he had the honour to converse with at Eome, which is, that having undertaken in his title-page to show an exact confuiniity between the religion of the present Ron.ans and that of their Pagan ancestors, and in the body of his book having more than once given the preference to the latter, yet in drawing his paiallel he has been so disingenuous as to dissenjble on the one side, all the grosser superstitions of the Pr.gans, and for the most part only to take notice of certain observances, which were no otherwise criminal than in being applied to the worship of false gods; and. on the other side he has quite passed c\er in silence the most substantial parts of the religion of the present Romans, and only cavilled ai some ceremonies or matters of less importance. For can the Doctor really think, that the belief of the scripture, and of the creeds, is no part of the rcligion of Rome? Is not the one, true and living God worshiped there in three Persons, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost? Do not the people universally believe in Jesus Christ? Is not the eucharistic sacrifice offered in all their churches, in memory of his death and passion*? Is not the word of God preached amongst them; the divine Office, consisting of psalms, scripture-lessons, &c. daily sung; the sacraments frequented, &c.? And which of all these things has been derived to the modern Romans from their heathen ancestors? But it was not for the Doctor's purpose to take any notice of any these things, not so much as even of the articles of the profession of faith, published by Pope Pius IV. which he very well knows to be the standard of what he calls Popery, and yet has not so much as offered to show any conformity in any of them (excepting the article of saints and their images, which he grossly misrepresents) with the doctrine or practice of the Pagans. To such shifts as these, are persons unhappily driven, who are resolved to maintain a bad cause.

But let us see what these gross superstitions are, upon which the Doctor grounds his charges against the modern Romans, and would have his readers believe they are no better than Pagans. In the first place, he instances the use of incense in churches; and we may presume he is too well acquainted with the rules of rhetoric not to rank in the front some of those which he esteems the strongest arguments: so that he looks upon this as one of the most notorious instances of heathenish superstition. But has he any thing to urge against it from scripture, the only rule of a Protestant's faith? Not one single word. On the contrary, if he had been as well read in the scriptures, as he

1*

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would seem to be in the heathen poets, he would have found the use of incense in the temple. of God, and that by God's own ordinance,* in records of a far more ancient date than any he can produce for the use of it among the heathens; who in this, as in many /Other things, did but mimic the sacred ceremonies prescribed in the law of God. And certainly a person that has been but moderately versed in the sacred writings, will be surprised to find the use of incense ranked by the Doctor amongst heathenish rites, since it is so frequently mentioned with honour in God's holy word; as when the psalmist desires that his prayer may ascend as incense in the sight of God, Ps. cxli. 2. as when the prophet Mai achy (as his words are rendered in the Protestant Bible) foretells, chap. i. 11. that in the Church of Christ, incense shall be offered in every place to God's holy name; as when St. John in the Revelation, chap. v. 8. and chap. viii. 4. 6:,c, represents to us odours and incense burning before God in the heavenly Jerusalem. For, allowing these texts to be figurative, yet we are not to suppose that the sacred pen-men would describe to^ us the service either of the militant or triumphant Church, by figures borrowed irom heathenish superstition. As for what the Doctor has' alleged against the use of incense out of the acts of the martyrs, who chose rather to die than to offer incense to false gods, and out of the law of Theodosius, which confiscates the places in which the Pagans had oflered incense to their deities, he could not but know, that all this was utterly foreign to his purpose: but if he had a mind to be informed of the antiquity of the ceremonial use of incense

n * See Exod. xxx. 7, 8. xl. 27. Levit. xvi. 12, &c.

amongst the Christians, he might have found it in the most ancient liturgies, and even in the very canons attributed to the Apostles, can. 3.

The next thing the Doctor objects against as heathenish, is the use of holy water, which he pretends to derive from the heathens, because he finds in his poets that the Pagans of old in entering into their temples, used to be sprinkled with water; and he thinks he has discovered in some scraps of old Greek verses, that there was salt mingled with this water; and which is still a more wonderful discovery, in poring upon old medals, he imagines he has found out something not unlike a sprinklingbrush amongst the things used by the Pagan priests. But what a pity it is, that amongst all these great discoveries, he has not met with any account of the heathens ever making use of water sanctified by the word of God and prayer, in the name, and by the virtue of Jesus Christ: for this is what we call holy water, and this the Pagans never used. As for the rest, we find mention of holy water, that is, water sanctified for religious uses, in the most sacred records of the divine law, long before the heathens abused it to their superstition: see Numb. xix. And the Doctor might with full as good a grace have proved the sacrament of baptism to be a heathenish practice, from the Pagans' use of water in their temples, as have alleged it against holy water; which is with us a memorial of our baptism, as that in the old law was a figure of it. As for the yearly festival, which the Doctor says is celebrated with great solemnity in the month of January, and is called the Benediction of Horses, I never yet met with it in the Roman Calendar; and though 1 have spent the greatest part of my life abroad, never saw nor heard of any such ceremony as that which he pretends is practised upon thai day by the monks of St. Anthony, near St. Mary Mujor, in Rome. But however this be, we may hope there is nothing heathenish in this ceremony, since the Doctor, who is so good a Christian, procured, though it was, as he says at the expense of eighteen-pence, his own horses to be blessed by these good monks, p. 20.

I The third thing which the Doctor quarrels with, as derived from the heathens, is the burning of lamps before the altars, and setting up wax candles to burn in the time of divine service. This, he says, was first introduced by the Egyptians: for which he quotes in the margin, Clement of Alexandria, Stromat, 1. I.e. 16. But this author sava no such thing, and the true original of setting up lights or burning lamps in temples, is to be found in the law of God, Exod. xxv. xxxvii. and xl. And as the devil affected to have his temples, altars, priests, sacrifices and all other things which were used, in the worship of the true Gud, so no wonder that he procured also to have lamps set up in liis temples in imitation of those, which by the the law of God were appointed to burn before the sanctuary. The Doctor therefore is very much mistaken, when he too hastily concludes that every ceremony used by the heathens, in the worship of their false gods, is consequently heathenish, and as such ought to be banished from the worship of the true God; since the greatest part of these ceremonies were indeed borrowed by the heathens from the worship of the true God.

Next to the lamps or wax-lights burning before the altars, he falls upon the number of offerings or votive gifts hung up, in testimony of cures or deliverances, around the altars, or the shrines of the saints; all which he takes for downright heathenism, because he finds the footsteps of the like offerings hung up in the temples of the heatliens. But here let him take notice, once for all, that practices in themselves innocent are not rendered unlawful, by having been abused by the heathens to their superstitions; that all that was heathenism in this case was the referring and dedicating these things to the honour of their false deities; and that it cannot be disagreeable to the true and living God, that such as believe they have received favours from him, by the prayers of his saints, should make a public acknowledgment of it.

The Doctor could n.ot but be sensible, that the things which he has hitherto objected against had nothing heathenish in their nature, and that not one of them was ever condemned or prohibited by the law of God: and therefore, since truth would furnish him w^ith no arms in order to make out his charge of idolatry and heathenish superstition, in which he pretends that modern Rome equals or exceeds her Pagan ancestors, he is forced to call in to his assistance misrepresentation and slander. For what is it else but the grossest misrepresentation and downright slander to charge the Church of Rome, as he does, p. 29. of the finishivg act and last scene of genuine idolatry^ in crowds of bigot votaries, prostrating themselves before some image of wood or stone, and paying divine honours to an idol of their own erecting? The Doctor should have remembered here what he promised in his preface, viz. to produce, for what he should charge upon us^ such vouchers as we ourselves would allow to be authentic. Instead of which we are, it seems, upon his bare word, without either proof or witness, to believe a charge which in itself is highly improbable, and which every one, that is acquainted with the doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church, knows to be absolutely false. The second Council of Nice, to which the Council of Trent refers in the decree concerning images, declares that divine honour, Latria, is not to be given them, Acts vii; and the Council of Trent, Sess. 25. declares, that we are not to believe there is any divinity or virtue in them, for which they are to be worshiped ; that we are not to pray to them, nor put our trust in them.

And every child among us knows, that if we keep with respect the images or pictures of Christ and his saints, it is not to make them our gods, as the heathens did their idols, nor to give them the honour that belongs to God; but by the honour we show to the memorials, to express our esteem, love and veneration for the persons represented by them, and to use them as helps to raise our thoughts and affections to heavenly things. But, to make out the easier this charge of idolatry against us, the Doctor has made an important discovery, which he fathers upon St. Jerome, though indeed it is a brat of his own; which is, that all images of the dead are idols, and consequently are liable to all those censures which in the scripture, in the fathers, and in the laws of Christian emperors, arc pronounced against idols. An important discovery indeed! by which it appears, that, after all the pretences of his own church to a thorough reformation, she has not yet got rid of idols, but has them everywhere standing, and new ones daily erected, in spite of the law of God; and that not only in every private house, inhabited by her children (scarce one of which is found without some image or picture of the dead) but also in her public places, and in her very churches, out of which though she has generally removed the images of Christ, (which it is hoped the Doctor will not look upon to be idols, if he believes the resurrection of his Redeemer) yet she has brought in in their stead the images of Moses and Aaron, who are certainly dead ; and, what is worse still, has introduced dead lions and unicorns into the sanctuary, in place of the cross of Christ; though this also of late has been erected upon the top of the chief church of the kingdom, surrounded with many other of the Doctor's idols to the great offence of the Puritans, who are the only people that will thank the Doctor for the pains he has been at to furnish them with arms against the established church. Though it is to be feared, if they take for good the Doctor's definition of an idol, their zeal against idolatry may raise some scruple in them, with relation to the images of kings deceased, which they carry in their pockets, or hoard up in their bags, and which, it is thought, they worship more than either their living king or any deity whatsoever.

What then is the real difference between idols (Lat. Simulachra) and those images or pictures which we have in our churches? It is this, that idols, according to the ecclesiastical use of the word, adopted by the holy fathers and all antiquity, are only such images as are set up for gods, and honoured as such; or in which some divinity or power is believed to reside by their worshipers, who accordingly offer prayers and sacrifice to them, and put their trust in them. Such were the idols of the Gentiles, and such were those images of the dead, of which St. Jerome speaks (in cap. 37. Isaioe) viz. the gods of those nations which Senacherib and his predecessors the Assyrian kings had destroyed; which, having been no better than the images of men doubly dead, were by Scnacherib and his servants foolishly and impiously compared to the true and living God. So that it is true enough that these idols were images of the dead, which is all that St. Jerome, asserts;^ but it is not true, that all images of the dead are idols, which is what Dr. Middleton would infer. I shall only add, with relation to St. Jerome, that he expressly affirms, that the saints are not to be called dead, but living; and therefore their images are out of the question. E contra Vigilant, Sancti non appellantur mortui sed viventes,

"But our notion of the idolatry of modern Rome (says the Doctor, p. 31.) will be much heightened still and confirmed, as oft as we follow them into those temples, and to those very altars which were built originally and dedicated by their heathen ancestors the old Eomans to the honour of their Pagan deities; v/here we shall hardly see any other alteration than the shrine of some old hero filled now by the meaner statue of some modern saint." There is another trifling difference, which he does not think worth while to take notice of; which is, that all these temples are now dedicated to the service of the true and living God; that the word of God is there preached, the divine praises sung, and the great eucharistic sacrifice, the memorial of the passion of Jesus Christ, daily celebrated; whereas before they were dedicated to the worship of the devil.

But, besides this the Doctor cannot be ignorant, that the modern Roman altars, are not the same as

those the heathens made use of for their sacrifices; that the image of Christ crucified is placed upon all our altars not to be worshiped as a God, like those idols, which he calls the shrines of his old heroes, but as a memorial of Christ's passion; that the Churches, though called by the names of the saints whose relics are there reposited, or memory celebrated, are not erected to the saints, much less to their images, but to the God of the saints; that our devotion to the saints goes no farther than the desiring their prayers; and that their pictures or images are no more with us than their memorials, which we respect for their sakes.

But the Doctor, it seems, is offended that the Pantheon and other temples of the Pagans have been changed into Churches of the blessed Virgin and the saints; and thinks that the old possessors (the heathen deities) had a better title to them than the Mother of Christ or his martyrs; and declares, that he should be much more inclined to pay his devotion to a Romulus or Antonine, than to (the illustrious martyrs) Laurence or Damian, p. 33, 34. I suppose, by the same rule, he must take it very ill to find so many Popish Churches, nigher home, changed into Protestant temples, without so much as taking the pains to new christen them: so that without going to Rome we may find a Laurence, an Albian, and a great number of other Romish saints in the very heart of London. For since he openly declares, that the Pagan deities had a juster title to religious veneration than any of these saints, consequently a Church of St. Laurence must needs give more offence than a temple of Bacchus.

But some may possibly apprehend, from the way that the Doctor speaks of the martyrs of ChrisJ^ that he is no greater friend to Christianity in general than he is to Popery: for though some ancient heretics have objected of old to the Catholic Church, as he now does, that we had but changed our idols in worshiping the saints instead of the Pagan deities (which was the objection of Vigilantius and of Faustus the Manichsean, as we learn from the writings of St. Jerome against Vigilantius, and of St. Augustine against Faustus, I. 20. c. 21.) yet no one, that pretended to the name of Christian, ever ventured to prefer the Pagan deities before the martyrs of Christ. This was an extravagance that none but Julian the apostate was ^capable of, from whom the Doctor has copied it. See St. Cyril of Alexandria. 1. 6. contra Julianum. . As to what he tells us upon hear-say, that some ^f the images of the saints were originally statues ^of the Pagan deities, and others, designed by the sculptors or painters for the representation of their own mistresses; till he brings some better authority for it, than an i/ is said, we shall not think it worth while to take any notice of it. For if, in things that he positively asserts, he makes no •scruple of advancing notorious untruths, as when ■he tells us, p, 33, that many of the Eomish saints were never heard of but in our legends; and that many more have no other merit but that of raising rebellions in defence of their idols, and throwing whole kingdoms into convulsions for the sake of some gainful imposture: if, I say, in such things as these, which he affirms to be certain, he advances such falsehoods, who will venture to believe what he tells only. upon hear-say?

His pretending to derive the name of St. Orestes from Mount Soracte is ridiculous beyond measure: and his suspecting that some who are honoured as i martyrs, were originally no other than the heathen deities, by reason of some affinity which he discovers in their names, is a groundless suspicion, as any one will be convinced, that is not entirely a stranger to ancient Church History; in which we find, by innumerable instances, that as a great part of the primitive saints and martyrs had been converts from paganism, so a great many of their names had no small affinity witb those of the heathenish deities; and sometimes were the very same, as in the New Testament itself we find a Dionysius. Acts xvii. 34. which is the Greek name of Bacchus, and a Hermes, Eom. xvi. 14. which is the Greek name of Mercury.

As to what he writes of Julia Evodia, no such saint was ever honoured in our Church, much less any saint Viar, so that those pretty stories, like the inscriptions which he alleges, which are the works of private persons without any authority, are not worth our notice, no more than Usher's conjecture concerning St. Amphibalus, or Mabillon's concerning St. Veronica: for allowing them both to be as well grounded as the Doctor can desire, it will only follow that there has been a mistake in the name of the ecclesiastic harboured by St. Alban, and that of the pious woman, on whose handerchief our Saviour imprinted the image of his face. But after all, neither the one nor the other was ever canonized by the Church, nor are their names found in the Roman martyrology.

I cannot comprehend why the Doctor, p. 44. should bring in the adoration of the host, which he calls the principal part of worship, and the distinguishing article of faith in the creed of modern Rome; of which he confesses he cannot find the least resemblance or similitude in any part of the

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Pagan worship; unless it were to disprove thai exact conformity, which in his title page he had promised to prove betwixt Popery and Paganism; or rather to make way for alleging against us the authority of Tully, which he prefers before that of the Apostles and Evangelists, of the absurdity of believing that to be God which we receive under the sacramental veils: an absurdity, which the Doctor could have had no room to» have objected to us, had he not forgotten his own catechism, which informed him, that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper. For if the faithful in this system may not be said to feed upon their God, neither can they in the system of Transub- 8tantiation.

But now the Doctor is pleased to leave the Churches, and make an excursion into the country, the whole face of which he is pleased to tell us, p. 44. has the visible characters of Paganism upon it; because of the little Chapels which frequently occur upon the way, where travellers often kneel down to say a prayer, and because of the many crosses everywhere erected. And who will dare presume after this to open his mouth in favour of ropery, when he understands that the Doctor has demonstrated, by what he has discovered in his travels, that all Papists are Pagans; because their very travellers are so superstitious as sonetimes to kneel down and say a prayer before a country Chapel, where they find some memorial of Christ's passion; and because they have every where erected that Anti-christian standard the cross of Clnistt But what is still more heathenish in the Doctor's rjes, is that these little oratories or crosses are lometimes under trees, and sometimes upon \he top of hills, which he ingeniously interprets to be the high places condemned in the Old Testament. But the truth is, and all Papists are convinced of it, what a place is neither better nor worse for divine worship, because it is on a high place or low; near trees or at a distance from them: and what was condemned of*old in the high places mentioned in the scripture, was not their being upon hills, for God is no less the God of the mountains than of the vallies; and his temple in Jerusalem was built upon a hill, viz. on Mount Moriah, 2 Chron. iii. 1. but they were condemned because the worship there exhibited was either heathenish or schismatical, that it was either given to strange gods, or if to the God of Israel, was given contrary to his appointment, who had forbidden sacrifice to be offered in any other places but in his temple at Jerusalem: see Deut. xii. 5, 11, 13, 14.

From the country the Doctor returns again to the towns, and there quarrels with the images and altars which he pretends to meet with every where, and which he takes to be visible marks of Paganism: but were the old Pagans to come to life again, and to understand whose images these are, viz. of Jesus Christ, of his blessed Mother, of his Apostles and martyrs, by whose preaching, labours and blood paganish superstition was banished out of the world, and who upon that account are now honoured, they would be far from being of the Doctor's mind, and would look upon these images as evident proofs of these people being Christians, who show so much regard to Christ and his saints.

But in the towns the Doctor is also offended with orocessions, which, as he is pleased to say, are

2* seen on every festival of the Virgin, or other Romish saint, which he supposes to be the ihusiri ai tomtai kai choreiai, sacrifices, pomps and dances, mentioned by Plutarch in Numa, p. IG. and concludes that these processions must needs be heathenish, the more because he finds in Apuleius an account of som.ething like a procession performed^' by the heathens in honour of their gods. But the Doctor might have found an account of a religious procession in an author much more ancient than Apuleius, amongst the worshipers of the true God, if he would have consulted 2 Sam. vi. I fear the Doctor has no great opinion of this kind of monuments of antiquity; the less, because he finds therein frequent mention of miracles, which are things he never can digest, wherever he meets them.

But the Pagans, it seems, pretended to miracles, and therefore the Romanish religion which pretends to miracles must needs be Paganish. It is a pity the Doctor did not here speak out in favour of his friends the free-thinkers, and argue thus, the Pagans pretended to build their religion upon nf>iracles.; therefore the Jewish religion of old, and the Christian now, both which appeal to miracles, as their first and chief foundation, are no better grounded than Paganism. But even in the instances which the Doctor alleges (and we may be sure he has picked out suoh as he thought most for his purpose) it is easy to take notice that the miracles pretended to by the Pagans had no probable grounds to support them, no number of witnesses to attest them, no contemporary writers to vouch for them, but, as in the case of the victory supposed to have been gained over the Latins by the assistance of

Castor and Pollux, all was built upon a popular opinion, or the testimony of one or two that pretended to have seen those deities; which was greedily swallowed by the general and the senate as a token of the divine favour, who thereupon erected Ji temple to thjem. Whereas, in the case which ^the Doctor supposes to be parallel to this, of the victories gained against the infidels in tlfe holy wars, by the assistance of the martyrs, these saints, as appears by what he has in the margin, were seen bv both the Christian and infidel armv: and the history of it was written, as we learn from the Doctor himself, by an eye-witness.