A09453:468
A Reformed Catholic
A reformed Catholic: or, A declaration showing how near we may come to the present Church of Rome in sundry points of religion: and wherein we must for ever depart from them with an advertisement to all favourers of the Roman religion, showing that the said religion is against the Catholic principles and grounds of the catechism.A reformed Catholike: or, A declaration shewing how neere we may come to the present Church of Rome in sundrie points of religion: and vvherein we must for euer depart from them with an advertisment to all fauourers of the Romane religion, shewing that the said religion is against the Catholike principles and grounds of the catechisme.
Cambridge: printed by John Legat, 1598Cambridge: printed by Iohn Legat, 1598
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
It is a carnal service standing of innumerable bodily rises and ceremonies, borrowed partly from the Jews, and partly from the heathen: it is divided between God and some of his creatures; in that they are worshipped both with one kind of worship: let them paint it as they can. Thus then, if by their manner of worshipping God, we may judge how they conceive of him, as we may: they have plainly turned the true God into a fantasy of their own. For God is no otherwise to be conceived than he hath revealed himself in his creatures & word, & specially in Christ: who is the engraven image of the person of the father.
It is a carnall seruice standing of innumerable bodily rises and ceremonies, borrowed partly from the Iewes, and partly from the heathē: it is diuided betweene God and some of his creatures; in that they are worshipped both with one kinde of worship: let them paint it as they can. Thus then, if by their manner of worshipping God, we may iudge howe they cōceiue of him, as we may: they haue plainly turned the true God into a phantasie of their own. For God is no otherwise to be cōceined thē he hath reuealed himselfe in his creatures & word, & specially in Christ: who is the ingrauē image of the persō of the father.
The second sin is Idolatry: and that as gross as was ever among the heathen. And it is to be seen in two things. First that they worship the Saints with religious worship, ⟨p. 343⟩which without exception is proper to God. Yea they transform some of them into detestable idols, making them in truth mediators of redemption, specially the virgin Mary, whom they call a Lady, a goddess, a queen whom 1Christ her son obeyeth in heaven a mediatress: or life, hope, the medicine of the diseased: and they pray unto her thus: Prepare thou glory for us: defend us from our enemies, and in the hour of death receive us, loose the bon•s of the guilty, bring light to the blind, drive away all devils—. •HEW THY SELF TO BE A MOTHER, let him receive the prayers. Again their idolatry is manifest, in that they worship God in, at, before images: having no commandment so to do, but the contrary. They allege that they use and worship images only in a remembrance of God. But this is all one, as if an unchaste wife should receive many lovers in to her house in the absence of her husband: and being reproved, should answer: that they were the friends of her husband, and that she kept them only in remembrance of him. Thirdly, their Idolatry exceeds