apparently seen at this day may it please the Divine Goodness to give us grace to lay them to heart as is meet 'T is true in their opinion and as they have confidence to say Filia devoravit Matrem The Daughter that is the Protestant Congregations have over-reached the Mother-Church in perfection of wisedome and hath been able to reform Her in some parts yet certainly they ought not to pretend Her to be so foulely apostatized as that Antichrist should govern there Institut lib. 4. c. 2. Sec. 11. where Calvin himself confesseth even in the deepest of her supposed Errours there hath ever remained inviolabile Foedus Dei The Covenant of God inviolate Beside the Apostacy of that great Antichrist must be a publike thing notorious and visible to all men not secret nor creeping on by degrees and unperceived till after some long tract of time He is Stella cadens de Calo and drawing a third part of the Stars with him so strangely as it shall astonish and amaze the world to observe it Whereas to suppose the worst that can be The departure of the Roman Church from the purity of Christian Faith and that Apostacie which should make her become of the Church of Christ the Synagogue of Antichrist was so obscure so invisible such a long time of drawing on that as the greater and better part of Christendom doe not perceive it unto this day so of them which pretend they doe there is scarce any one couple among them can agree upon the time of his Appearance Many Ages ago sayes Calvin but when he dares not speak Napier a Scot and a great Traveller in this pretended search of Antichrist is of opinion that he hath reigned ever since the time of Pope Sylvester and the year 313. and so very wisely makes all the Christian Emperors Kings Queens c. that succeeded Constantine yea and Constantine himself who dyed not till the year 340. in stead of being Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers of the Church and Defenders of the Faith of Christ as by the Prophesies of Scripture concerning them they were to be Psal 72.11 Isa 49.23 to have been the supporters of Antichrist and advancers of his Superstitions Beza assigneth Pope Leo and the year 440. Doctor Fulk Willet and Dounham seem to name Boniface and the year 607. Bullinger and some other with him are content to stay longer and expect some hundred of years more viz. untill the time of Hildebrand that is Pope Gregory the seventh the year 763. yet Doctor Whitaker sayes Pope Gregory the first was the last true Bishop of Rome and all that followed after him Antichrists Perkins thinketh Antichrist appeared about 900 years since Hospinian 1200. Danaeus about the year 574. It were infinite to relate their jarring and contradicting of one another in divers other very material circumstances touching this question as whosoever please to see may finde in such Catholike Writers as have handled this controversie but especially in cardinal Bellarmin Now seeing Lutheâ—s pretended Calling proves so unjustifiable and hard to be made good we must of necessity take some liberty to look further into the business and to examine what his True Calling was and who it was indeed that set him on work to play such odd pranks in the Church of God Of this there goeth a black Story which divers men labour to palliate and disguise as well as they can divers wayes but Luther himself telleth the plain truth viz that it was the Devil that first set him on work to write against the Mass which all men know is the Principal and most Divine Office of Christian Religion and whereunto whatsoever else is done in Religion in one way or other relateth In his Book de â—brogandâ Missâ thus he writeth Contigit me sub mediam noctem subito expergefieri ibi Satan mecum cepit hujusmodi disputationem At midnight such a time saith Luther I happened to be suddenly awaked out of sleep and presently the Devil fell a disputing with me and so he proceeds in his Narrative wherein all all those Arguments are formally producâ—d and urged by the Devil upon which Luther afterward resolved to abrogate Mass as any man may see in the Book it self above cited which is commonly extant with the rest of his Works This with Doctor Fulk Charke and some others is onely a spiritual combat in minde which they suppose Luther might have with the Devil as many other good men have had in spirit but not any real or personal conflict But we reply whether those reasons came from the Devil by bodily and outward conference or onely by way of inward suggestion it is not so material that they came from the Dâ—vil in the opinion and apprehension even of Luther himself is confessed But Secondly Luther in that Narrative describeth the very voice and accent of the Devil in the disputation which he saith was a great yet a base and hollow voice and which so affrighted him that he sweat again although as himself confesseth against the Swenkfeldians upon other occasions such encounters were not unusual with him but rather familiar Thirdly the Devil knowing his humour flatters him with Titles and calls Doctor very learned Doctor up and down the disputation Fourthly Luther affirming elsewhere that Empser and Oecâ—lampadius two Preachers of Reformation but not of his strain were strangled by the Devil confesseth here that this encounter was like theirs though he had the good hap to come off alive perhaps because he yeelded as neither Job Saint Paul nor ever any good man ever did See Hospinian also a Calvinist in his Historia Sacramentaria Fifthly Jo. Manliuâ— a great Lutheran Preacher and Luther himself Epist ad Patâ—em Tâ—n 2. Witteb fol. 269. confesseth that he was frequently haunted by Spirits and that Satan used personally to affright and molest him he maintaines that Zuingliys â—arolstadius c. had their several Expositions of the words Hoc est corpus meum from the instruction of the Devil why may it not then be as probable that they had all one Master Sixthly Baldwinus another Lutheran writes a Book purposedly upon this Subject and confesseth in plain termes That it was a real Truth no fiction or dream but a matter of fact and a true Story His onely excuse of it is this It happened saith he after Luther had abandoned the Mass and thinkes the Devils intent was onely to bring to Luthers remembrance his old errours that he had been a Priest and said Mass fifteen years together and so to drive him to despair But truly if that were all the design The Devil was but an Ass To attempt such a tried souldier as he was armed cap a pe with a confidence invincible and the Doctrin of only Faith with such a blunt and feeble weapon as despair Luther was a man out of his reach for that He that teacheth nothing can hurt a Christian but onely unbelief Supr Sec. 2. med That
if a man should commit adultery or murder a thousand times a day it could not divide him from Christ That the greater sinner a man is the neerer he is to Gods grace could such a man think we be brought to despair onely by being told that he had said Mass in his time and this too as himself confesseth somewhere with a very pious intention and thinking that he had pleased God and done very well in so doing Neither is there any passage in the whole disputation to insinuate such a purpose The Devil only plies his arguments against Mass against Priesthood and nothing else And therefore if it must needs be granted that the disputation happened after that Luther had abrogated the Mass it may be much better thought that he began to stagger in his enterprize and to repent perhaps of what he he had done and that the Devil saw it necessary to re-inforce his former and but private suggestions which yet had misled him by a second and more solemn encounter However 't is clear he was so far from pretending to make Luther despair that he apparently tempts him to presumption while he blames him and the Papists for not having more confidence for making as if Christ were unmerciful by their flying to the Mediation of Saints and Angels And this by the way is another argument that the business fell out before Luther had abandoned Mass and not after as this Author pretendeth For that it is now onely related viz. when Luther wrote his Book de Abrogandâ Missà Sur. Chron. which was aboâ—t the year 1521. and perhaps after he had abolished Mass yet it proves not but the Conference might be some yeares before For 't is well known and himself professeth it often that Luther fell by degrees into Heresie and not into all at once and that he maintained Paradoxes at the last which at the first he did not so much as think of So that having out of the vanity and pride of his heart given the Devil advantage over him by his contesting in the business of Indulgences in the year 1517. he lay open to any further temptation afterward Add hereunto that in the procedure of the dispute the Devil sayes thus to Luther Haec Vnctio tua vanior est quà m Baptizatio saxi This thy Anointing saith he meaning that of his Priesthood is a vainer thing then if thou shouldst baptize a stone Which plainly insinuates that Luther was look't upon by his Adversary at that time as a Priest and one that used to say Mass and therefore it was before he had renounced either the one or the other Master Chillingworth in his answer to his own Motives hath a conceit beyond all these He denieth not but that the Story is true the disputation real nor but that it was while Luther was a Priest and said Mass But supposing Mass to be evil he thinketh the Devils design was thereby indirectly to keep him closer to it viz. to saying Mass as knowing that any man and consequently Luther would be shye of imbracing that which the Devil should so apparently tempt him unto But doubtless it were to engage our selves in a wilderness of uncertain thoughts if leaving the certain Rule of Faith and the no less clear evidence of fact which in all cases of this nature are the best grounds to frame a right judgment upon we should give our selves liberty to conjecture and suppose whatsoever may come in our minds It is far better and more safe to stick to the Rule such arbitrary conjectures having commonly more of prejudice and private Interest not to say passion in them then of sound and unbyassed reason Now doth not the Scripture tell us that the Devil is the Father of lyes a lyar from the beginning Is he not the Enemy of God and the great enemy and deceiver of Soules Are we not commanded to resist his Temptations to beware of his wiles not to hearken to his suggestions why doe we not so why will we deceive our selves by pretending even in our compliance to his suggestions as it were to over-reach him who is a Spirit yea the quintessence of deceit and infinitely more crafty I say not then we can be but then we can imagine You will say shall we not hearken to him when he perswades us to good I an wer He is a Spirit tantùm non Essâ—ntially malicious that is immutably and unchangeably so he is confirmâ—d in evil through the act and demerit of his own perverse will as the Blessed Spirits are in all good by Grace And therefore though by the permission of God he can sometimes depose his own natural and ugly shape of Evil and Transform himself as the Apostle speaketh into an Angel of Light yet he can never perswade us to good but out of some evil design and that obligeth us to stand well upon our Guard whensoever we perceive him to suspend our consent to deliberate to take all good advise and to beware though the thing which he perswades were never so apparently good and honest lest I say we be caught by his wiles which are many and so intricately woven many times that they are not easily perceived at first As in this very case and combat with Luther surely he was not so dull as to think that Luther should be directly perswaded by him to any thing or that he would take any thing directly upon his word argument or perswasion onely who can imagine this in reason But this I suppose we may viz. That he might think Luther upon this disputation and seeing the Devil so earnest against Mass might be apt to have many apprehensions in himself and cast in his minde This and That and probably enough that very thing in particular which Master Chillingworth pitched upon viz. That he should think The Devil does but prevaricate with me all this while and seemingly tempts me from that to which he would have me stick close which apprehension alone considering how much wavering and unsetled in his minde he was already the Devil knew wel enough would be able to carry him cleerly to the point whither he most of all desired to bring him which was to renounce his Orders and to abrogate Mass As the event most unhappily shewed to be true yea and as Luther himself in the sequel of the Discourse doth seem more then to intimate answering an objection which some body made in these words An ignoras Diabolum esse Mendacem c. Know you not that the Devil is a Lyar why then would you be perswaded by him why would you beleeve him Thereupon he enters a discourse of the various fetches and stratagems which Satan useth to deceive soules and sufficiently shewes how much he deceived himself by thinking to be too cunning for the Devil Lib. 2. Part. 2. Doctor Morton in his Apology hath the last Plea but it is the most impertinent of all For by telling a Story out of Delrio his
the Boors who made such havock for a while in Germany by their conspiracies and especially against the Clergy did not onely pretend the Gospel and the Liberty of the Gospel for their doings but did even appeal therein to Luther himself Ad Lutheri judicium prâ—vocaverant They appealed saith he to Luthers judgement Not to urge what Erasmus hath to this effect Hyperaspist advers Lutherum nor what Menno Simonius an Anabaptist acknowledgeth in his Book De cruce Christi Quà m sanguinolentas seditiones Lutherani c. What bloody Riots and Murthers the Lutherans have committed for some years past to maintain theâ—r Doctrine And as to that part of the Objection that Luther did reprove yea write against the Boors it is the poorest fallacy of all He did it but how With such calumniating and taxing of the Princes themselves as they could be little secured by his writing and the Boors as little discouraged He did it but when When it was too late when he could forbear no longer when he found himself generally censured and murmured at by the Nobility and better sort of people as an occasion at least if not an Instrument and Fautor of those mischeifs Lastly He did it but when When he saw the Boors go down that they were not likely to maintain their quarrel nor to go through with their work then indeed he left them in the Bryers wisely enough though they appealed to him though they used yea alledged his own Homilies and Sermons for what they did though they were all for Reformation all for Liberty all against the Church of Rome and against Bishops yea and that their very word in the Field was Vivat Evangelium Let the Gospel flourish Hitherto we have discoursed cheifly of Luthers doctrinal extravagancies and touched upon the evil practises or fruits thereof onely in such men as either for the privateness and meanness of their condition being all of them Boors Peasants and rude Country people or for the unsuccessfulness of their designs are generally disclaimed Such as neither Luther nor any of his followers will readily own I come now to give a further instance of the mischief which the doctrine and doings of this man brought upon Germany in a business which was publikely owned not by Luther onely but by many of the Princes themselves who for the defence of his new Doctrine and protection of his wretched person bandied themselves against the Emperor their Sovereign Lord and against the general body of the Empire of which they were both Members and Subjects and by the Publike Laws whereof themselves in that relation ought to have been governed The beginning proceedings and issue of which confederacy was briefly thus Old John Frederick Elector and Duke of Saxony the Landsgrave of Hessen with some others already caught with the Liberty and other advantages which they made of Luthers new doctrine besides an old and inveterate emulation in most of them against the House of Austria which then was and still is Imperial first enter a League at Smalcald which is a Town of Hessia upon the Frontiers of Saxony onely as they pretended for their own defence and to maintain their Religion and Liberties against such men as would invade or persecute them We must observe here first That the Religion spoken of was a Religion but then newly and privately taken up of themselves contrary to that which was publikely received and acknowledged in the Empire and by vertue or rather pretext whereof they were obliged to do and suffer to be done many things which were expresly contrary to the Constitutions of the Empire which Constitutions the Emperor together with themselves were by oath solemnly bound to observe and see observed In this League were also comprehended the Duke of Wittemberg and some of the Imperial Towns They renewed it again at Franckfort and after that again at Auspurgh confirming it with a general and solemn Protestation of what their opinions were in matter of Religion which Protestation being then exhibited unto the Emperor in their names the Title or Sirname of Protestants became thenceforward appropriate to that party After this viz. Anno 1536. Suspecting some opposition would be made against them by the Emperor and other States of Germany for such proceedings and not willing to be taken at unawares by him they bring viz. themselves first of all an huge Army into the Field commanded by the yong Duke of Saxony John Frederick his Father being dead and the Landsgrave of Hessen with resolution by force of Arms to finde or make themselves right as they called it The Duke of Wittemberg the Imperial Towns Auspurgh Vlm Strasburgh and Franckfort sent them aid The Count Palaâ—ine of the Rhine had levyed Two hundred horse for them but upon better thoughts revoked them when they were upon their march The Duke of Brunswick and his sons the Duke of Luneburgh the yong Marquess of Baden the Prince of Anhalt the Counts of Furstenburgh and Mansfield joyned with them either in person or power Surius in Chron. Their Army consisted of about Seventy thousand fighting men and among them Seven thousand and seven hundred at least were Horse they had an hundred and twelve Cannon and Field pieces with such an infinite quantity of all sorts of Provisions as gave them an assured hope and confidence of Victory The eyes of all Princes were upon this action and Germany it self trembled in expectation of the event and success of such an Army prepared as they saw to swallow up the Emperor if they could and to subvert the whole Government and Religion of the Empire I mean that Religion and Government which was then established and had stood so established many hundred years before the Fathers or Grand-fathers of any of those Princes now in Arms to destroy it were born The Emperor had onely God and a just cause on his side for his friends those I mean who openly and avowedly appeared for him were few viz. The King of the Romans his Brother the Duke of Bavaria and the Duke of Cleve For though Duke Maurice of Saxony followed him yet in regard of his affinity with the Landsgrave whose Son in law he was as also for his Religion being a Lutheran he could not but be suspected However it pleased God notwithstanding this huge Army of the Princes that the Emperor became Master of the Field with a most compleat and signal Victory yea which was an accident more rare the two Generals Saxony and Hessen both of them became prisoners and their whole Army was defeated The yong Duke of Saxony a person much honored and pittied had his life given him with some connivence for his Religion yet his impregnable Fort at Gotha was demolished and the Electorate with all the Lands thereunto belonging were bestowed by the Emperor upon Duke Maurice The like mercy for life was shewed the Landsgrave who after some time obtained his liberty also The Duke of Wittemberg for Two hundred