Penance and Absolution The antient course as Cassander and Lindanus truly witness was that Absolution and Reconciliation and right to the Communion of the Church was not given by imposition of hands unto the Penitent till he had given due satisfaction by performing of such penal acts as were enjoined by the discreet Penitentiarie yea those works of Penance saith he when they were done out of Faith and an heart truly sorrowfull and by the motion of the Holy Spirit preventing the minde of man with the help of his Divine Grace were thought not a little available to obtain remission of the sin and to pacifie the displeasure of God for sin Not that they could merit it by any dignity of theirs but that thereby the minde of man is in a sort fitted to the receit of God's Grace But now immediatly upon the Confession made the hand is laid upon the Penitent and he is received to his right of Communion and after his Absolution certain works of piety are enjoined him for the chastisement of the flesh and expurgation of the remainders of sin Thus Cassander In common apprehension this new order can be no other then preposterous and as our learned Bishop of Carlisle like Easter before Lent But for this Ipsi viderint it shall not trouble us how they nurture their own childe CHAP. XIV The Newness of the Romish Invocation of Saints OF all those Errours which we reject in the Church of Rome there is none that can plead so much shew of Antiquity as this of Invocation of Saints which yet as it hath been practised and defended in the later times should in vain seek either example or patronage amongst the Antient. However there might be some grounds of this Devotion secretly muttered and at last expressed in Panegyrick forms yet untill almost 500 years after Christ it was not in any sort admitted into the publick service It will be easily granted that the Blessed Virgin is the prime of all Saints neither could it be other then injurious that any other of that Heavenly Society should have the precedency of her Now the first that brought her name into the publick Devotions of the Greek Church is noted by Nicephorus to be Petrus Gnapheus or Fullo a Presbyter of Bithynia afterwards the Usurper of the See of Antioch much about 470 years after Christ who though a branded Heretick found out four things saith he very usefull and beneficial to the Catholick Church whereof the last was Ut in omni precatione c. That in every Prayer the Mother of God should be named and her Divine name called upon The phrase is very remarkable wherein this rising Superstition is expressed And as for the Latine Church we hear no news of this Invocation in the publick Letanies till Gregorie's time about some 130 years after the former And in the mean time some Fathers speak of it fearfully and doubtfully How could it be otherwise when the common opinion of the Antients even below Saint Austin's age did put up all the Souls of the Faithfull except Martyrs in some blinde receptacles whether in the Center of the earth or elsewhere where they might in candida exspectare diem Judicii as Tertullian hath it four severall times And Stapleton himself sticks not to name divers of them thus fouly mistaken Others of the Fathers have let fall speeches directly bent against this Invocation Non opus est patronis c. There is no need of any Advocates to God saith S. Chrysostome and most plainly elsewhere Homines si quando c. If we have any suit to men saith he we must fee the porters and treat with jesters and parasites and goe many times a long way about In God there is no such matter he is exorable without any of our Mediators without money without cost he grants our petitions It is enough for thee to crie with thine heart alone to powre out thy tears and presently thou hast won him to mercy Thus he And those of the Antients that seem to speak for it lay grounds that overthrow it Howsoever it be all holy Antiquity would have both blushed and spit at those forms of Invocation which the late Clients of Rome have broached to the world If perhaps they speak to the Saints tanquam deprecatores vel potius comprecatores as Spalatensis yields moving them to be competitioners with us to the throne of Grace not properly but improperly as Altissiodore construes it how would they have digested that blasphemous Psalter of our Lady imputed to Bonaventure and those styles of mere Deification which are given to her and the division of all offices of Piety to mankinde betwixt the Mother and the Son How had their eares glowed to hear Christus oravit Franciscus exoravit Christ prayed Francis prevailed How would they have brooked that which Ludovicus Vives freely confesses Multi Christiani c. Many Christians worship divâ—s divasque the Saints of both sexes no otherwise then God himself Or that which Spalatensis professes to have observed that the ignorant multitude are tarried with more entire religious affection to the Blessed Virgin or some other Saint then to Christ their Saviour These foul Superstitions are not more hainous then new and such as wherein we have justly abhorred to take part with the practicers of them Sect. 2. Invocation of Saints against Scripture AS for the better side of this mis-opinion even thus much colour of Antiquity were cause enough to suspend our censures according to that wise moderate resolution of learned Zanchius were it not that the Scriptures are so flatly opposite unto it as that we may justly wonder at that wisdome which hath provided Antidotes for a disease that of many hundred years after should have no being in the World The ground of this Invocation of Saints is their notice of our earthly condition and speciall Devotions And behold thou prevailest ever against man and he passeth thou changest his countenance and sendest him away His sons come to honour and he knows it not and they are brought low and he perceiveth it not saith Job The dead know nothing at all saith wise Solomon Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the Sun No portion in any thing therefore not in our miseries nor in our allocutions If we have a portion in them for their love and Prayers in common for the Church they have no portion in our particularities whether of want or complaint Abraham our Father is ignorant of us saith Esay and Israel acknowledges us not Loe the Father of the Faithfull above knows not his own children till they come into his bosome and he that gives them their names is to them as a stranger Wherefore should good Josiah be gathered to his Fathers
running Circumstances may make it sinful The wanton gesticulations of a Virgin in a wild assembly of Gallants warmed with wine could be no other then riggish and unmaidenly It is not so frequently seen that the child follows the good Qualities of the Parent it is seldom seen that it follows not the evil Nature is the soyle good and ill Qualities are the herbs and weeds the soyle bears the weeds naturally the herbs not without culture What with traduction what with education it were strange if we should miss any of our Parents mis-dispositions Herodias and Salome have what they desired The dance pleased Herod well those indecent motions that would have displeased any modest eye though what should a modest eye doe at Herod's Feast over-pleased Herod Well did Herodias know how to fit the tooth of her Paramour and had therefore purposely so composed the carriage and gesture of her Daughter as it might take best although doubtless the same action could not have so pleased from another Herod saw in Salome's face and fashion the image of her whom he doted on so did she look so did she move besides that his lavish cups had predisposed him to wantonness and now he cannot but like well that which so pleasingly suted his inordinate desire All humours love to be fed especially the vicious so much more as they are more eager and stirring There cannot be a better glass wherein to discern the face of our hearts then our Pleasures such as they are such are we whether vain or holy What a strange transportation was this Whatsoever thou shalt ask half a Kingdom for a dance Herod this pastime is over-pay'd for there is no proportion in this remuneration this is not bounty it is prodigence Neither doth this pass under a bare Promise onely but under an Oath and that solemn and as it might be in wine serious How largely do sensual men both profer and give for a little momentany and vain contentment How many censure Herod's gross impotence and yet second it with a worse giving away their precious Souls for a short pleasure of sin What is half a Kingdom yea a whole World to a Soul So much therefore is their madness greater as their loss is more So large a boon was worthy of a deliberation Salome consults with her Mother upon so ample and ratified a promise Yet so much good nature and filial respect was in this wanton Damsel that she would not carve her self of her option but takes her Mother with her If Herodias were infamously lewd yet she was her Parent and must direct her choice Children should have no will of their own as their flesh is their Parents so should their will be They do justly unchild themselves that in main elections dispose of themselves without the consent of those which gave them being It is both unmannerly and unnatural in the Child to run before without against the will of the Parent Oh that we could be so officious to our good and Heavenly Father as she was to an earthly and wicked Mother not to ask not to undertake ought without his allowance without his directions that when the world shall offer us whatsoever our heart desires we could run to the Oracles of God for our resolution not daring to accept what he doth not both license and warrant Oh the wonderful strength of malice Salome was offered no less then half the Kingdom of Herod yet chuses to ask the head of a poor Preacher Nothing is so sweet to a corrupt heart as revenge especially when it may bring with it a full scope to a dear sin All worldlings are of this diet they had rather sin freely for a while and dye then refrain and live happily eternally What a suit was this Give me here in a Charger the head of John Baptist It is not enough for her to say Let John's head be cut off but Give me it in a Charger What a service was here to be brought into a Feast especially to a Woman a dead mans head swimming in blood How cruel is a wicked heart that can take pleasure in those things which have most horrour Oh the importunity of a galled conscience Herodias could never think her self safe till John was dead she could never think him dead till his head were off she could not think his head was off till she had it brought her in a platter a guilty heart never thinks it hath made sure enough Yea even after the head was thus brought they thought him alive again Guiltiness and Security could never lodge together in one bosome Herod was sorry and no doubt in earnest in the midst of his cups and pleasance I should rather think his jollity counterfeited then his grief It is true Herod was a fox but that subtile beast dissembles not always when he runs away from the dogs he means as he does And if he were formerly willing to have killed John yet he was unwillingly willing and so farre as he was unwilling to kill him as a Prophet as a just man so farre was he sorry that he must be killed Had Herod been wise he had not been perplexed Had he been so wise as to have ingaged himself lawfully and within due limits he had not now been so intangled as to have needed sorrow The folly of Sinners is guilty of their pain and draws upon them a late and unprofitable repentance But here the act was not past though the word were past It was his misconceived intanglement that caused this sorrow which might have been remedied by flying off A threefold cord tyed him to the performance The conscience of his Oath the respect to his guests a loathness to discontent Herodias and her daughter Herod had so much religion as to make scruple of an Oath not so much as to make scruple of a Murder No man casts off all Justice and Piety at once but whiles he gives himself over to some sins he sticks at others It is no thank to lewd men that they are not universally vicious All God's several laws cannot be violated at once there are Sins contrary to each other there are Sins disagreeing from the lewdest dispositions There are Oppressors that hate Drunkenness there are Unclean persons which abhorre Murder there are Drunkards which hate Cruelty One sin is enough to damn the Soul one leak to drown the Vessel But oh fond Herod what needed this unjust scrupulousness Well and safely mightest thou have shifted the bond of thine Oath with a double evasion One that this generality of thy promise was onely to be construed of lawful acts and motions That onely can we doe which we can justly doe Unlawfulness is in the nature of Impossibility The other that had this ingagement been so meant yet might it be as lawfully rescinded as it was unlawfully made A sinful Promise is ill made worse performed Thus thou mightest thou shouldest have come off fair where now holding thy self by an irreligious
undertake it without noise without ostentation I hear thee not say I will give them to eate but Give ye as if it should be their act not thine Thus sometimes it pleaseth thee to require of us what we are not able to perform either that thou maiest shew us what we cannot doe and so humble us or that thou majest erect us to a dependence upon thee which canst doe it for us As when the Mother bids the Infant come to her which hath not yet the steddy use of his leggs it is that he may cling the faster to her hand or coat for supportation Thou bidst us impotent wretches to keep thy royal Law Alas what can we Sinners doe there is not one letter of those thy Ten words that we are able to keep This charge of thine intends to shew us not our strength but our weakness Thus thou wouldest turn our eyes both back to what we might have done to what we could have done and upwards to thee in whom we have done it in whom we can doe it He wrongs thy Goodness and Justice that misconstrues these thy commands as if they were of the same nature with those of the Egyptian task-masters requiring the brick and not giving the straw But in bidding us doe what we cannot thou inablest us to doe what thou biddest Thy Precepts under the Gospel have not onely an intimation of our duty but an habilitation of thy power as here when thou badest the Disciples to give to the multitude thou meantest to supply unto them what thou commandedst to give Our Saviour hath what he would an acknowledgement of their insufficiency We have here but five loaves and two fishes A poor provision for the family of the Lord of the whole earth Five loaves and those barley two fishes and those little ones We well know O Saviour that the beasts were thine on a thousand mountains all the corn thine that covered the whole surface of the earth all the fouls of the aire thine it was thou that providedst those drifts of Quails that fell among the tents of thy rebellious Israelites that rainedst down those showrs of Manna round about their camp and dost thou take up for thy self and thy meiny with five barly loaves and two little fishes Certainly this was thy will not thy need to teach us that this body must be fed not pampered Our belly may not be our master much less our God or if it be the next word is whose glory is their shame whose end damnation It is noted as the crime of the rich glutton that he fared deliciously every day I never finde that Christ entertained any guests but twice and that was onely with loaves and fishes I finde him sometimes feasted by others more liberally But his domestical fare how simple how homely it is The end of food is to sustain Nature Meat was ordained for the belly the belly for the body the body for the Soul the Soul for God we must still look through the subordinate Ends to the highest To rest in the pleasure of the meat is for those creatures which have no Soules Oh the extreme delicacy of these times What conquisition is here of all sorts of curious dishes from the furthest seas and lands to make up one hours meal what broken cookery what devised mixtures what nice sauces what feasting not of the tast only but of the sent Are we the Disciples of him that took up with the loaves and fishes or the Scholars of a Philoxenus or an Apitius or Vitellius or those other monsters of the palate the true sons of those first Parents that killed themselves with their teeth Neither was the quality of these victuals more course then the quantity small They make a But of five loaves and two fishes and well might in respect of so many thousand mouths A little food to an hungry stomack doth rather stir up appetite then satisfie it as a little rain upon a droughty soil doth rather help to scorch then refresh it When we look with the eye of Sense or Reason upon any Object we shall see an impossibility of those effects which Faith can easily apprehend and Divine power more easily produce Carnal mindes are ready to measure all our hopes by humane possibilities and when they fail to despair of success where true Faith measures them by Divine power and therefore can never be disheartned This Grace is for things not seen and whether beyond hope or against it The virtue is not in the means but in the agent Bring them hither to me How much more easie had it been for our Saviour to fetch the loaves to him then to multiply them The hands of the Disciples shall bring them that they might more fully witness both the Author and manner of the instant Miracle Had the loaves and fishes been multiplied without this bringing perhaps they might have seemed to have come by the secret provision of the guests now there can be no question either of the act or of the agent As God takes pleasure in doing wonders for men so he loves to be acknowledged in the great works that he doth He hath no reason to part with his own glory that is too pretious for him to lose or for his creature to embezel And how justly didst thou O Saviour in this mean to teach thy Disciples that it was thou only who feedest the world and upon whom both themselves and all their fellow-creatures must depend for their nourishment and provision and that if it came not through thy hands it could not come to theirs There need no more words I do not hear the Disciples stand upon the terms of their own necessity Alas Sir it is too little for our selves whence shall we then relieve our own hunger Give leave to our Charity to begin at home But they willingly yield to the command of their Master and put themselves upon his Providence for the sequel When we have a charge from God it is not for us to stand upon self-respects in this case there is no such sure liberty as in a self-contempt O God when thou callest to us for our five loaves we must forget our own interest otherwise if we be more thristy then obedient our good turns evil and much better had it been for us to have wanted that which we withhold from the owner He that is the Master of the Feast marshals the guests He commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass They obey and exspect Oh marvelous Faith So many thousands sit down and address themselves to a meal when they saw nothing but five poor barly loaves and two small fishes None of them say Sit down to what Here are the mouths but where is the meat We can soon be set but whence shall we be served Ere we draw our knives let us see our chear But they meekly and obediently dispose themselves to their places and look up to Christ for a miraculous purveyance It
this sense can be no other then figurative and commemorative Is it really propitiatory Without shedding of blood there is no remission If therefore sins be remitted by this Sacrifice it must be in relation to that blood which was shed in his true personal Sacrifice upon the Cross and what relation can be betwixt this and that but of representation and remembrance in which their moderate Cassander fully resteth Sect. 3. Missal Sacrifice against Reason IN Reason there must be in every Sacrifice as Cardinal Bellarmine grants a destruction of the thing offered and shall we say that they make their Saviour to crucifie him again No but to eat him for Consumptio seu manducatio quae fit à Sacerdote The consumption or manducation which is done of the Priest is an essential part of this Sacrifice saith the same Authour For in the whole action of the Masse there is saith he no other real destruction but this Suppose we then the true humane flesh blood and bone of Christ God and man really and corporally made such by this Transubstantiation whether is more horrible to crucisie or to eat it By this rule it is the Priests teeth and not his tongue that makes Christs body a Sacrifice By this rule it shall be hostia an host when it is not a Sacrifice and a reserved host is no Sacrifice howsoever consecrated And what if a mouse or other vermin should eat the Host it is a case put by themselves who then sacrificeth To stop all mouths Laicks eat as well as the Priest there is no difference in their manducation but Laicks sacrifice not and as Salmeron urges the Scripture distinguisheth betwixt the Sacrifice and the participation of it Are not they which eat of the Sacrifices partakers of the Altar And in the very Canon of the Mass Ut quotquot c. the prayer is That all we which in the participation of the Altar have taken the sacred Body and Blood of thy Son c. Wherein it is plain saith he that there is a distinction betwixt the Host and the eating of the Host Lastly sacrificing is an act done to God if then eating be sacrificing the Priest eates his God to his God Quorum Deus venter Whiles they in vain studie to reconcile this new-made Sacrifice of Christ already in Heaven with Jube haec praferri Command these to be carried by the hands of thine holy Angels to thine high Altar in Heaven in the sight of thy Divine Majesty we conclude That this proper and propitiatory Sacrifice of the Masse as a new unholy unreasonable Sacrifice is justly abhorred by us and we for abhorring it unjustly ejected CHAP. X. The Newness of Image-Worship AS for the setting up and worshipping of Images we shall not need to climbe so high as Arnobius or Origen or the Council of Eliberis Anno 305. or to that fact and history of Epiphanius whose famous Epistle is honored by the Translation of Hierome of the picture found by him in the Church of the Village of Anablatha though out of his own Diocese how he tore it in an holy zeal and wrote to the Bishop of the place beseeching him that no such Pictures may be hanged up contrary to our Religion though by the way who can but blush at Master Fisher's evasion that it was sure the Picture of some prophane Pagan when as Epiphanius himself there sayes it had Imaginem quasi Christi vel Sancti cujusdam the Image as it were of Christ or some Saint Surely therefore the Image went for Christs or for some noted Saints neither doth he finde fault with the irresemblance but with the Image as such That of Agobardus is sufficient for us Nullus antiquorum Catholicorum None of the ancient Catholicks ever thought that Images were to be worshipped or adored They had them indeed but for history sake to remember the Saints by not to worship them The decision of Gregory the Great some 600 yeares after Christ which he gave to Serenus Bishop of Massilia is famous in every mans mouth and pen El quidem quia eas ador ari vetuisses c. We commend you saith he that you forbade those Images to be worshipped but we reprove your breaking of them adding the reason of both For that they were only retained for history and instruction not for adoration Which ingenuous Cassander so comments upon as that he shews this to be a sufficient declaration of the judgement of the Romane Church in those times Videlicet ideo haberi picturas c. That Images are kept not to be adored and worshipped but that the ignorant by beholding those Pictures might as by written records be put in minde of what hath been formerly done and be thereupon stirred up to Piety And the same Authour tells us that Sanioribns scholiasticis displicet c. The sounder Schoolmen disliked that opinion of Thomas Aquine who held that the Image is to be worshipped with the same adoration which is due to the thing represented by it reckoning up Durand Holcot Biel. Not to spend many words in a clear case What the judgement and practice of our Ancestours in this Iland was concerning this point appears sufficiently by the relation of Roger Hoveden our Historian who tells us that in the year 792. Charls the King of France sent into this Isle a Synodal Book directed unto him from Constantinople wherein there were divers offensive passages but especially this one that by the unanimous consent of all the Doctours of the East and no fewer then 300 Bishops it was decreed that Images should be worshipped quod Ecclesia Dei execratur saith he which the Church of God abhorres Against which Errour Albinus saith he wrote an Epistle marvellously confirmed by authority of Divine Scriptures and in the person of our Bishops and Princes exhibited it together with the said Book unto the French King This was the setled resolution of our Predecessours And if since that time prevailing Superstition have incroached upon the ensuing succession of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let the old rules stand as those Fathers determined away with Novelties But good Lord how apt men are to raise or believe lies for their own advantage Urspergensis and other friends of Idolatry tell us of a Council held at London in the days of Pope Constantine Anno 714. wherein the worship of Images was publickly decreed the occasion whereof was this Egwin the Monk after made Bishop had a Vision from God wherein he was admonished to set up the Image of the Mother of God in his Church The matter was debated and brought before the Pope in his See Apostolick there Egwin was sworn to the truth of his Vision Thereupon Pope Constantinus sent his Legate Boniface into England who called a Council at London wherein after proof made of Egwin's Vision there was an act made for Image-worship A figment so gross that even their Baronius
this knowledge and obedience as cannot admit of any defect or any supplement This Rule can be no other then his written Word therefore written that it might be preserved entire for this purpose to the last date of time As for orall Traditions what certainty can there be in them what foundation of truth can be lai'd upon the breath of man How do we see the reports vary of those things which our eyes have seen done How do they multiply in their passage and either grow or die upon hazards Lastly we think him not an honest man whose tongue goes against his owne hand How hainous an imputation then do they cast upon the God of Truth which plead Traditions derived from him contrary to his written Word Such apparently are the worship of Images the mutilation of the Sacrament Purgatory Indulgences and the rest which have passed our agitation Since therefore the authority of Romish Traditions is besides Novelty Erroneous against Scripture and Reason we have justly abandoned it and are thereupon unjustly condemned As for those other dangerous and important Innovations concerning Scriptures their Canon inlarged their faulty Version made authentical their fountains pretended to be corrupted their mis-pleaded Obscurity their restraint from the Laity we have already largely displai'd them in another place CHAP. XVII The Newnesse of the universall Headship of the Bishop of Rome THose transcendent Titles of Headship and Universality which are challenged to the Bishop and See of Rome are known to be the upstart brood of noted ambition Simple and holy Antiquity was too modest either to require or tolerate them Who knows not the profession of that holy Martyr in the Councill of Carthage Neque enim c. There is none of us that makes himself a Bishop of Bishops or by a tyrannous fear compels his underlings to a necessitie of obedience but perhaps at Rome it was otherwise Heare then with what zeal their own Pope Gregory the Great inveighs against the arrogance of John Bishop of Constantinople for giving way to this proud style His Epistles are extant in all hands so clear and convictive as no art of Sophistry can elude them wherein he calls this Title affected by the said John and Cyriacus after him a new name a wicked profane insolent name the generall plague of the Church a corruption of the Faith against Canons against the Apostle Peter against God himself as if he could never have branded it enough And lest any man should cavil that this style is onely cried down in the Bishops of Constantinople which yet might be justly claimed by the Bishops of Rome Gregorie himself meets with this thought and answers beforehand Nunquam pium virum c. That never any godly man never any of his Predecessors used those Titles and more then so That whosoever shall use this proud style he is the very fore-runner of Antichrist If in a foresight of this Usurpation Gregory should have been hired to have spoken for us against the Pride of his following Successors he could not have set a keener edge upon his style Consonant whereto it is yet extant in the very Canon Law as quoted by Gratian out of the Epistle of Pope Pelagius the second Universalis autem nec etiam Romanus Pontifex appelletur Not the Bishop of Rome himself may be called Universall Yet how famously is it known to all the World that the same Gregorie's next Successor save one Boniface the third obtained this title of Universall Bishop from the Emperour Phocas which the said Emperour gave him in a spleen against Cyriacus Patriarch of Constantinople for delivering Constantina the Wife of Mauritius and her Children or as some others relate it upon a worse occasion And accordingly was this haughty Title communicated by the same power to the See of Rome and by strong hand ever since maintained This qualification their Register Platina confesses was procured not without great contention And Otho Frisingensis fully and ingenuously writeth thus Gregory departed hence to the Lord after whom the next save one Boniface obtained of Phocas that by his authority the Romane Church might be called the head of all Churches for at that time the See of Constantinople I suppose because of the seat of the Empire translated thither wrote her self the first Thus their Bishop Otho Now if any man shall think that hence it will yet follow that the See of Rome had formerly enjoyed this Honour however the Constantinopolitan for the present shouldred with her for it let him know the ground of both their challenges which as it was supposed by Otho so is fully for the satisfaction of any indifferent judgement laid forth in the Generall Council of Chalcedon The same say those Fathers we determine of the priviledges of the most holy Church of Constantinople called new Rome For the Fathers have justly heretofore given priviledge to the Throne of old Rome because that City was then the Governesse of the world and upon the same consideration were the hundred and fifty Bishops men beloved of God moved to yield equall priviledges to the Throne of new Rome rightly judging that this City which is honoured with the Empire and Senate and is equally priviledged with old Rome the then Queen of the world should also in Ecclesiasticall matters be no lesse extolled and magnified Thus they And this act is subscribed Bonifacius Presbyter Ecclesiae Romanae statui subscripsi I Boniface Presbyter of the Church of Rome have so determined and subscribed Et coeteri c. And the rest of the Bishops of divers Provinces and Cities subscribed What can be more plain This Headship of the Bishop was in regard of the See and this headship of the See was in regard of the preeminence of the City which was variable according to the changes of times or choice of Emperours But Binius wrangleth here Can we blame him when the free-hold of their Great Mistresse is so nearly touched This Act saith he was not Synodicall as that which was closely and cunningly done in the absence of the Popes Legates and other Orthodox Bishops at the instance of Anatolius Patriarch of Constantinople an ambitious man by the Eastern Bishops onely How can this plea stand with his own confessed subscription Besides that their Caranza in his Abridgement shews that this Point was long and vehemently canvassed in that Council between Lucentius and Boniface Legates of the Romane Church and the rest of the Bishops and at last so concluded as we have related not indeed without the protestation of the said Legates Nobis proesentibus c. The Apostolick See must not in our presence be abased Notwithstanding this act then carried and after this Pope Simplicius succeeding to Hilarius made a Decree to the same purpose not without allusion to this contention for precedency that Rome should take place of Constantinople Yea so utterly unthought of
is too late to learn Let that old age blush that cannot mend it self It is not the gravity of years but of manners that deserves praise It is no shame to goe to the better And when Symmachus urges Majorum servandus est ritus We must observe the Rites of our forefathers Dicant igitur saith Saint Ambrose Let them as well say that all things should remain in their own imperfect Principles that the World once overcovered with darknesse offends in being shined upon by the glorious brightnesse of the Sun And how much more happy is it to have dispelled the darknesse of the Soul then of the body to be shined upon by the beams of Faith then of the Sun Thus he most aptly to the present occasion whereto did that blessed Father now live he would doubtlesse no lesse readily apply it Nec erubescas mutare sententiam Never blush to change Ruffinus never blush to change your minde you are not of such authority as that you should be ashamed to confesse you have erred Oh that this meek ingenuity could have found place in that once-famous and Orthodox Church of Christ how had the whole Christian World been as a City at unity in it self and triumphed over all the proud hostilities of Paganism But since we may not be so happy we must sit down and mourn for our desolations for our divisions In the mean time we wash our hands in innocence There are none of all these instanced particulars besides many more wherein the Church of Rome hath not sensibly erred in corrupt additions to the Faith so as herein we may justly before Heaven and earth warrant our disagreement of judgment from her The rest is their act and not ours we are mere patients in this schism and therefore goe because we are driven That we hold not Communion with that Church the fault is theirs who both have deserved this strangenesse by their Errours and made it by their Violence Contrary to that rule which Cato in Tully gives of unpleasing Friendship they have not ript it in the seam but torn it in the whole cloth Perhaps I shall seem unto some to have spoken too mildly of the estate of that debauched Church There are that stand upon a mere nullity of her Being not resting in a bare depravation For me I dare not goe so far If she be foul if deadly diseased as she is these qualities cannot utterly take off her Essence or our relations Our Divines indeed call us out of Babylon and we run so as here is an actuall separation on our parts True but from the Corruptions wherein there is a true confusion not from the Church Their very charge implies their limitation as it is Babylon we must come out of it as it is an outward visible Church we neither did nor would This Dropsie that hath so swoln up the body doth not make it cease to be a true body but a sound one The true Principles of Christianity which it maintains maintain life in that Church the Errours which it holds together with those Principles struggle with that life and threaten an extinction As it is a visible Church then we have not detracted to hold Communion with it though the contemptuous repulse of so many admonitions have deserved our alienation as Babylon we can have nothing to doe with it Like as in the course of our life we freely converse with those men in civil affairs with whom we hate to partake in wickednesse But will not this seem to savour of too much indifferency What need we so vehemently labour to draw from either part and triumph in winning Proselytes and give them for lost on either side and brand them for Apostates that are won away if which way soever we fall we cannot light out of a true visible Church of Christ what such necessity was there of Martyrdome what such danger of relapses if the Church be with both Let these Sophisters know that true Charity needs not abate any thing of zeal If they be acquainted with the just value of Truth they shall not enquire so much into the Persons as into the Cause Whatever the Church be if the Errours be damnable our blood is happily spent in their impugnation and we must rather chuse to undergoe a thousand deaths then offend the Majesty of God in yielding to a known falshood in Religion neither doth the outward Visibility of the Church abate ought of the hainousnesse of mis-opinions or the vehemence of our oppositions Were it Saint Peter himself if he halt in Judaizing Saint Paul must resist him to his face neither is his fault lesse because an Apostles yea let me say more Were the Church of Rome and ours lay'd upon severall Foundations these Errours should not be altogether so detestable since the symbolizing in many Truths makes grosse Errours more intolerable as the Samaritan Idolatry was more odious to the Jewes then merely Paganish If the dearest daughter of God upon earth should commit spirituall whoredome her uncleannesse is so much more to be hated as her obligations were greater Oh the glorious crowns therefore of those blessed Martyrs of ours who rather gave their bodies to be burnt to ashes then they would betray any parceâ—l of Divine Truth Oh the wofull and dangerous condition of those Souls which shutting their eyes against so clear a light either willingly sit down in palpable darkness or fall back from the sincerity of the Gospel into these miserable enormities both of Practice and Doctrine It is not for me to judge them that I leave unto that high and awfull Tribunal before which I shall once appear with them But this I dare say that if that righteous Judge shall punish either their obstinacy or relapses with eternal damnation he cannot but be justified in his judgements whiles in the midst of their torments they shall be forced to say Thou O God art just in all that is befaln us for thou hast done right but we have done wickedly For us as we would save our Souls let us carefully preserve them from the contagion of Romish Superstition let us never fear that our discretion can hate Errour too much let us awaken our holy zeal to a serious and servent opposition joyned with a charitable endeavour of reclamation shortly let us hate their Opinions strive against their Practice pity their mis-guiding neglect their censures labour their recovery pray for their Salvation AN APOLOGETICAL ADVERTISEMENT to the READER Reader Nothing can be so well said or done but may be ill taken Whiles I thus sincerely plead for Truth the well-meaning ignorance of some mistakers hath passed as deep as unjust censures upon me as if Preferment had changed my note and taught me to speak more plausible language concerning the Roman Church then I either did or ought Wherein as I pity their Uncharitablenesse so I earnestly desire to rectifie their Judgement lest their prejudice may turn more
Religion But alas poor souls we are mistaken all this while it is nothing else but pure Piety forsooth which we ignorantly condemn for Cruelty 't is the zeal of Gods house wherewith Good Prelate thou art so inflamed that thou hast hereupon both wished and importuned the utter extirpation of all those Hereticks stabling in the French Territories O forehead O bowels For us we call God Angels Saints to witness of this foul calumniation I wis those whom thou falsly brandest for Hereticks thou shalt one day hear when the Church shall imbrace them for her children Christ for the spiritual Members of his mystical body For what I beseech you do we hold which the Scriptures Councils Fathers Churches and Christian Professors have not in all Ages taught and published To say the truth All that which we professe your own most approved Authors have still maintained whence then is this quarrell Shall I tell you There are indeed certain new Patches of Opinion which you would needs adde to the ancient Faith these we most justly reject and do still constantly refuse They are humane they are your own briefly they are either doubtfull or impious And must we now be cast out of the bosome of the Church and be presently delivered up to fire and sword Must we for this be thunder-strucken to Hell by your Anathemas there to frie in perpetuall Torments Is it for this that a stall and shambles are thought good enough for such brutish animals Good God! See the justice and charity of these Popelings This is nothing but a mere injury of the Times it was not wont to be Heresie heretofore that is so now-a-daies If it had been our Happinesse to have lived in the Primitive times of the Churches Simplicity before ever that Romish Transcendency Image-worship Transubstantiation Sacrifice of the Masse Purgatory single or half-Communion Nundination of Pardons and the rest of this rabble were known to the Christian world surely Heaven had been as open to us as to other Devout Souls of that purer Age that took their happy flight from hence in the Orthodox Faith of Christ Jesus But now that we are reserved to that dotage of the world wherein a certain new brood of Articles are sprung up it is death to us forsooth and to be expiated by no lesse punishment then the perpetuall torments of Hell-fire Consider this O ye Christians wheresoever dispersed upon the face of the whole earth consider I say how far it is from all Justice and Charity that a new Faith should come dropping forth at mens pleasure which must adjudge Posterity to eternal death for Mis-believers whom the ancient Truth had willingly admitted into Heaven These new Points of a politick Religion are they indeed that have so much disturbed the peace of Christendome these are they that set at variance the mighty Potentates of the earth who otherwise perhaps would sit down in an happy Peace these are they that rend whole Kingdomes distract people dissolve Societies nourish Faction and Sedition lay wast the most flourishing Kingdomes and turn the richest Cities to dust and rubbish But should these things be so Do we think this will one day be allowed for a just warrant of so much war and bloodshed before the Tribunall of that supreme Judge of Heaven and earth Awake therefore now O ye Christian Princes and You especially King Lewis in whose eares these wicked counsels are so spightfully and bloodily whispered rouse up your self and see how cruell Tyranny seeks to impose upon your Majesty in a most mischievous manner under a fair pretence of Piety and Devotion They are your own native Subjects whom these malicious foreigners require to the slaughter yea they are Christs and will you imbrue your hand and sword in the blood of those for whom Christ hath shed his yea who have willingly lavished their own in the behalf of You and your great Father Hear I beseech thee O King who art wont amongst thine own to be instiled Lewis the Just If we did adore any other God any other Christ but thine if we aspired to any other Heaven embraced any other Creed any other Baptisme lastly if we made profession of a new Church built upon other foundations there were some cause indeed why thou shouldest condemn such Hereticks stabling in France to the revenging sury of thy flames If this thy people have wilfully violated any thing established by our common God or lawfully commanded by thee we crave no pardon for them let them smart that have deserved it is but just they should But do not in the mean time fall fiercely upon the fellow-servants of thy God upon thine own best Subjects whose very Religion must make them loyall suffer not those poor wretches to perish for some late upstart superfluous additions of humane invention and mere will-worship who were alwaies most forward to redeem Thine thy Great Fathers Safety and Honour with the continuall hazzard of their owne most precious lives Let them but live then by thy gracious sufferance by whose Valour and Fidelity thou now reignest But suppose they were not yours yet remember that they are Christians a title wherewith your style is wont most to be honored washed in the same Laver of Baptisme bought with the same price renewed by the same Spirit and whatsoever impotent malice bawle to the contrary the beloved Sons of the Celestiall Spouse yea the Brethren of that Spirituall Bride-groom Christ Jesus But they erre you will say from the Faith From what faith I beseech you Not the Christian surely but the Romish What a strange thing is this Christ doth not condemn them the Pope doth If that great Chancellour of Paris were now alive he would freely teach his Sorbon as he once did that it is not in the Popes power that I may use his owne word to hereticate any Proposition Yea but an Oecumenicall Council besides hath done it What Council That of Trent I am deceived if that were hitherto received in the Churches of France or deserved to be so hereafter Consult with your own late Authors of most undoubted credit they will tell you plainly how unjust that Council was yea how no Council at all It was only the Popes act whatsoever was decreed or established by that pack'd Conclave envassalled to the Seven hills Consider lastly I beseech you how the Reformed Christians stand in no other terms to the Papists then the Papists do to the Reformed Heresie is with equall vehemency upbraided on both sides But do we deale thus roughly with the followers of the Roman Religion Did we ever rage against the Popish Faith with fire and sword Was ever the crime of a poor misled conscience capitall to any soul You may finde perhaps but very seldome some audacious Masse-priest some firebrand of Sedition and contemner of our publick Laws to have suffered condign punishment But no Papist I dare boldly say ever suffered losse either of life or lim merely for his Religion