A14227:281
An answer to a challenge madeAn ansvver to a challenge made
An answer to a challenge made by a Jesuit in Ireland Wherein the judgement of antiquity in the points questioned is truly delivered, and the novelty of the now romish doctrine plainly discovered. By James Usher Bishop of Meath.An ansvver to a challenge made by a Iesuite in Ireland Wherein the iudgement of antiquity in the points questioned is truely delivered, and the noveltie of the now romish doctrine plainly discovered. By Iames Vssher Bishop of Meath.
Dublin: printed by the Society of Stationers and Eliot's Court Press, 1624Dublin: printed by the Societie of Stationers and Eliot's Court Press, 1624
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.
By these things we may see, what we are to judge of that which our Adversaries press so much against us out of Epiphanius: that he nnameth an obscure fellow one Aërius to be the first author of this heresy; that prayers and sacrifice profiteth not the departed in Christ. For neither doth Epiphanius name this to be an heresy: neither doth it appear that himself did hold, that prayers and oblations bring such profit to the dead as these men dream they do. He is much deceived, who thinketh every thing that Epiphanius findeth fault withal in heretics, is esteemed by him to be an heresy: seeing heresy cannot be but in matters of faith, and the course which Epiphanius taketh in that work is not only to declare, in what special points of faith heretics ⟨p. 237⟩did dissent from the Catholic doctrine, but in what particular observances also they refused to follow the received customs and ordinances of the Church. Therefore at the end of the whole work he setteth down a Brief, ofirst of the faith, and then of the ordinances and observances of the Church: and among the particulars of the latter kind, he rehearseth this: pFor the dead, they make commemorations by name, performing (or, when they do perform) their prayers and divine service and dispensation of the mysteries, and disputing against Aërius touching the point it self, he doth not at all charge him with forsaking the doctrine of the Scriptures, or the faith of the Catholic Church concerning the state of those that are departed out of this life: but with rejecting the order observed by the Church in her Commemorations of the dead; which being an ancient institution, brought in upon wonderful good considerations, should not by this humorous heretic have been thus condemned. qThe Church, saith he, doth necessarily perform this, having received it by tradition from the Fathers: and who may dissolve the ordinance of his mother, or the law of his Father? and again. rOur mother the Church hath ordinances settled in her, which are inviolable and may not be broken. Seeing then there are ordinances established in the Church, and they are well and all things are admirably done: this seducer is again refuted.