either in the knowledge or aid of the affairs or actions of their dearest survivors? How do we say, that God provides mercifully for them, who die before the evils come; if, even after their death, they are sensible of the calamities of human life, &c.? How is it, then, that God promised to good King Josiah for a great blessing, that he should die beforehand, that he might not see the evils which he threatened to that place and people?" Thus that divine Father.

With whom agrees St. Jerome: Nec, enim, possumus &c : "Neither can we,' "saith he **, "when this life shall once be dissolved, either enjoy our own labours, or know what shall be done in the world afterwards."

But, could the Saints of heaven know our actions; yet our hearts they cannot. This is the peculiar skill of their Maker: Thou art the searcher of the hearts and reins, O righteous God: God only knows abscondita animi, the hidden secrets of the soul +. Now, the heart is the seat of our prayers: the lips do but vent them to the ears of men: Moses said nothing, when God said, Let me alone, Moses. O, therefore, thou that hearest the prayers, to thee shall all flesh come. Solomon's argument is irrefragable: Hear thou in heaven, thy dwelling-place; and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest: for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men; 1 Kings viii. 39. He only should be implored, that can hear: he only can hear the prayer, that knows the heart.

Yet, could they know our secretest desires, it is an honour, that God challengeth as proper to himself, to be invoked in our prayers: Call upon me in the day of thy trouble; and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me; Ps. 1. 15. There is one God, and one Mediator betwixt God and man, the man Jesus Christ; 1 Tim. ii. 5: one, and no more; not only of redemption, but of intercession also: for, through him, only, we have access by one Spirit unto the Father; Eph. ii. 18: and he hath invited us to himself, Come to me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.

SECT. 3.

Invocation of Saints, against Reason.

How absurd, therefore, is it, in Reason, when the King of Heaven calls us to him, to run with our petitions to the guard or pages of the court! Had we to do with a finite prince, whose ears must be his best informers, or whose will to help us were justly questiona. ble, we might have reason to present our suits by second hands; but, since it is an Omnipresent and Omniscious God with whom

Hier. in Eccles, iii. ad fin.

† Ps. vii. 9. xliv. 21. cxxxix. 1. &c. Prov, xv. 11. xvii. 3. xxiv. 12. Jer. xi. 20. xvii. 10. xx. 12.

we deal, from whom the saints and angels receive all their light and love to his Church, how extreme folly is it, to sue to those courtiers of heaven, and not to come immediately to the Throne of Grace! That one Mediator is able, and willing also, to save them to the utmost, that come unto God by him; seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them; Heb. vii. 25.

Besides, how uncertain must our devotions needs be, when we can have no possible assurance of their audience! for, who can know, that a Saint hears him? That God ever hears us, we are as sure, as we are unsure to be heard of Saints. Nay, we are sure we cannot be all heard of them: for, what finite nature can divide itself betwixt ten thousand suppliants, at one instant, in several regions of the world; much less impart itself whole to each? Either, therefore, we must turn the Saints into so many Deities; or, we must yield, that some of our prayers are unheard: and, whatsoever is not of faith, is sin.

As for that heavenly glass of St. Gregory, wherein the Saints see us and our suits, confuted long since by Hugo de Sancto Victore*, it is as pleasing a fiction, as if we imagined, therefore to see all the corners of the earth, because we see that sun which sees them. And the same eyes, that see in God the particular necessities of his Saints below, see in the same God such infinite grace and mercy for their relief, as may save the labour of their reflecting upon that divine mirror in their special intercessions.

This doctrine therefore and practice of the Romish Invocation of Saints, both as new and erroneous, against Scripture and Reason, we have justly rejected; and are, thereupon, ejected, as unjustly,

CHAP. XI.

ON SEVEN SACRAMENTS.

SECT. 1.

The Newness of Seven Sacraments.

THE late Council of Florence, indeed, insinuates this number of SEVEN SACRAMENTS; as Suarez contends †: but the later Council of Trent determines it ; Si quis dixerit aut plura &c: "If any say, that there are either more or fewer Sacraments than

man shall

Hugo de Sancto Vict. de Sacr. 1. ii.
Concil. Trid. sess. 7. Can. 1.

+ Summa Caranzæ, &c.

Seven, viz. Baptism, Confirmation, &c. or that any of these is not truly and properly a Sacrament, Let him be Anathema."

It is not more plain, that in Scripture there is no mention of Sacraments, than that in the Fathers there is no mention of Seven. Cardinal Bellarmin's evasion, That the Scripture and Fa thers wrote no Catechism, is poor and ridiculous: no more did the Councils of Florence and Trent; and yet there the number is reckoned and defined.

So as the word Sacrament may be taken; for any holy, signifi cant rite; there may be as well seventy as seven: so strictly as it may be and is taken by us; there can no more be seven, than se

venty.

This determination of the number is so late, that Cassander is forced to confess*, Nec temerè &c: "You shall not easily find any man, before Peter Lombard, which hath set down any certain and definite number of Sacraments."

And this observation is so just, that, upon the challenges of our writers, no one author hath been produced by the Roman Doctors, for the disproof of it, elder than Hugo, and the said Master of Sentences.

But, numbers, are ceremonies. Both Luther + and Philip Melancthon profess, they stand not much upon them. It is the number numbered, which is the thing itself mis-related into that sacred order, that we stick at. There we find, that none but Christ can make a Sacrament; for, none but he, who can give grace, can ordain a sign and seal of grace.

Now it is evident enough, that these adscititious Sacraments were never of Christ's institution. So was not Confirmation; as our Alexander of Hales, and Holcot. So was not Matrimony; as Durand. So was not Extreme Unction; as Hugo, Lombard, Bonaventure, Halensis, Altisiodore, by the confession of their Suarez §. These were ancient rites; but they are new Sacraments. All of them have their allowed and profitable use in God's Church, though not in so high a nature: except that of Extreme Unction; which as it is an apish mis-imitation of that extraordinary course which the apostolic times used in their cures of the sick, so it is grossly mis-applied to other purposes than were intended in the first institution. Then it was, Ungebant et sanabant : the oil miraculously conferring bodily recovery: but now, Non nisi in mortis articulo adhibetur; "It is not used, but upon the very point of death;" as Cajetan and Cassander confess, and all experience manifests; and, by Felix the Fourth, drawn to a necessity of address to eternal life ¶.

Cassand. Consult. Art. 13. de Numero Sacr.

† Luther. de Captivit. Babyl.

In Loc. Com. Cassand. ibid. Thus all Antiquity runs upon two. Clem, Recognit. 1. i. Justin. Apol. 2. Tertull. de Coron. Milit, et ad Scapulam. Cypr. 1. ii, Epist. 1. Cyril. Hierosol. in Catech. Ambros. August. &c.

§ Suar. Tom. 4. Dis. 39. s. 2. Vid. Mort. Appell. 1. ii. c. 26. sect. 5.

SECT. 2.

Seven Sacraments, beside Scripture.

NOT to scan particulars, which all yield ample exceptions, but to wind them all up in one bottom; whosoever shall look into the Scripture shall find it apparent, that, as in the time of man's innocence, there were but Two Sacraments, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge; so, before and under the Law, however they had infinite rites, yet, in the proper sense, they had but Two Sacraments; the same, in effect, with those under the Gospel: the one, the Sacrament of Initiation, which was their Circumcision; paralleled by that Baptism, which succeeded it: the other, the Sacrament of our Holy Confirmation; that spiritual meat and drink, which was their Paschal Lamb and Manna, and water from the rock; prefiguring the true Lamb of God, and Bread of Life, and Blood of our Redemption.

The great Apostle of the Gentiles, that well knew the analogy, hath compared both: Moreover, brethren, I would not have you ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea and all were baptized in the cloud, and in the sea: and all did eat the same spiritual meat; and all did drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual rock, that followed them, and that rock was Christ; 1 Cor. x. 1-4.

What is this, in any just construction, but that the same Two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which we celebrate under the Gospel, were the very same with those, which were celebrated by God's ancient people under the Law: they two; and no more? Hoc facite, Do this, is our warrant for the one; and, Ite, baptizate &c. Go, teach and baptize, for the other. There is deep silence in the rest.

SECT. 3.

Seven Sacraments, against Reason.

IN Reason, it must be yielded, that no man hath power to set to a seal, but he, whose the writing is.

Sacraments, then, being the seals of God's gracious evidences, whereby he hath conveyed to us eternal life, can be instituted by no other, than the same power, that can assure and perform life to his creature.

In every Sacrament, therefore, must be a divine institution and command of an element, that signifies; of a grace, that is signified; of a word, adjoined to that element; of a holy act, adjoined to that word. Where these concur not, there can be no true Sa

crament: and they are palpably missing, in these five adjections of the Church of Rome.

Lastly; the Sacraments of the New Law, as St. Austin often, flowed out of the side of Christ. None flowed thence, but the Sacrament of Water, which is Baptism; and the Sacrament of Blood, in the Supper: whereof the Author saith, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you. The rest, never flowing either from the side or from the lips of Christ, are, as new and misnamed Sacraments, justly rejected by us; upon, as unjustly censured.

and we, there

CHAP. XII.

ON THE ROMISH DOCTRINE OF TRADITIONS.

SECT. 1.

The Newness of the Romish Doctrine of Traditions.

THE chief ground of these and all other errors in the Church of Rome, is, the over-valuing of TRADITIONS: which the Tridentine Synod professeth to receive and reverence*, with no less pious affection, than the Books of the Old and New Testament; and that, not in matter of right and history only, but of faith and manners also t.

Wherein, as they are not unwilling to cast a kind of imputation of imperfection upon the Written Word; so they make up the defects of it, by the supply of Unwritten Traditions to which, indeed, they are more beholden, for the warrant of the greater part of their super-added Articles, than to the Scriptures of God.

Both which are points so dangerously envious, as that Antiquity would have abhorred their mention.

Neither is any thing more common with the holy Fathers of the Church, than the magnifying the complete perfection of Scripture, in all things needful, either to be believed or done.

What can be more full and clear, than that of St. Austin : In his, quæ apertè &c: "In these things, which are openly laid forth in Scripture, are found all matters, that contain either faith or man

Concil. Trid. sess. 4.

↑ In his rebus, de quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura Divina, mos populi Dei vel instituta majorum pro lege tenenda sunt. August. Epist. 86.

Aug. 1. ii. de Doctrina Christ. c. 9. In his, que apertè posita sunt in Scripturâ, inveniuntur illa omnia, quæ continent fidem morésque vivendi,