as here you 〈◊〉 fasely you woulde not haue fathered those wordes on mee that I wrote not For I haue not saide that the papistes holde the pope to be very God c. For I am assured that a great sorte that fauour the popes religion doe not beleeue or holde nay rather that none at all doe holde the pope to bee very God Hoping there are fewe so fonde or any so madde and yet a great sort are fonde and madde enough And nowe that the indifferent reader may perceiue your craftie iugling and howe you haue foisted in your owne words in stead of mine here will describe mine owne woordes that they may answere for themselues And for that you haue displaced my woordes besides your adding too much in some place and saying too little in an other place I will set them nowe agayne among their owne fellowes And these they are that followe The Popes Canonistes say I say not the papistes holde that the pope may dispence agaynst the law of God The pope may dispence agaynst the lawe of nature The pope may dispence against Saint Paule the Apostle The pope may dispence agaynst the newe Testament The pope may dispence with all the Commaundementes both of the olde and also of the newe Testament These are my wordes in my sayde booke with their authorities quoted in the margent whereby the reader may perceiue that you haue both left out much of my matter and wronged my wordes The pope had neede to haue a large commission to dispence with all these And then on the next page or side following being the 99. page it followeth thus Who would thinke that these proude popes woulde suffer themselues to bee called God or that any woulde bee so beastly or wicked to call them so The popes Canonists haue moued questions whether the pope be God or not I said not that the papistes hold the Pope to be very god as you haue misreported mee And one saide thus presently before his face in the Councill of Laterane without rebuke Thou art another God in the earth And the popes godhead is published abroad to the whole worlde in printed bookes Our Lorde God the pope These are my very woordes which you haue not onely displaced but also defaced whereby the indifferent reader may also perceiue that I saide not as you falsely haue alleged That the papistes holde the pope to be very God But here they may see plainely that I haue prooued without your reproouing that one sayde to the pope and he gentlie tooke it vpon him Thou art another God in the earth And that he is called Our Lord god the pope in a booke printed at Lions in the yeere of our Lorde 1555. which is not past xxvi or xxvii yeeres since It had been better you had not recited these words for thereby you are proued to haue falsified my wordes and that your pope was called another God on the earth And that hee was published our Lorde God the pope in a booke printed not long since Which if it be not to muche for any earthly man to take vpon him let the indifferent reader be iudge You 〈◊〉 seeme to ieast out the matter with reciting my woordes falsely as though it were sufficient for your reader to thinke they were Luptons lies beecause you haue written 〈◊〉 lies in your margent without any other reproouing or confuting But howesoeuer you 〈◊〉 me to lie it appeareth manifestly by the Popes Canonistes as is before written that the pope may dispence against the lawe of God against the lawe of nature against Saint Paul the Apostle against the Newe Testament and against all the commaundements both of the old and newe Testament All which dispensations you haue cleane left 〈◊〉 except the last and yet you haue falsified the same in two poyntes for whereas I sayde The Popes Cannonists say that the pope may dispēce you sayd that I say he dispenseth And whereas I sayde the Popes Canonistes say that the Pope may dispence with all the commaundements both of the olde and new Testament You affirme that I say he dispenseth both against the olde and newe Testament Whereby you woulde fayne proue me a lyer for if this pope that is nowe doth not dispence both against the old and newe Testament I shoulde haue lied if I had saide so So that heereby you showe your selfe to deale falsly and meane crafcely But if there were no more but that that you write and if it were none otherwise but euen as you haue written yet you haue not confuted my wordes nor proued me a lyer but rather affirme them by holding your peace for quitacet consentire videtur The pope that taketh vpon him to dispence with all these though hee were not called our Lorde God the pope as hee hath been maketh him selfe more like a God then a man Christ the Sonne of God that is a litle better then the Pope did neuer claime authoritie to dispence against the worde of God as the Pope here manifestly doth You Iesuites being in the popes fauour neede not care what sinnes you commit for the pope may dispence with them whatsoeuer they bee Here you may see that these are not Luptons lies as you haue written in the margent of your booke for I haue plainely tolde you where they are written and where you may finde them But the indifferent reader may easely perceiue that a Iesuite hath lyed most manifestly 〈◊〉 a Christian. The 49. part YOu haue also chopt in after your sayde falsified wordes w t are that the papists hold the pope to be very God certayne other wordes of mine recited almost two leaues before that not altogether as I spake them affirming therby that I say the papistes also holde the Pope to bee the light of the worlde and the Sauiour of mankinde In deede in the 95. and 96. page or side of my sayde booke I haue recited these wordes That the pope is the light that is come into the worlde that hee is the Sauiour of mankinde but you haue left out the rest of the sentences before whiche should haue opened my meaning therein and the right sence of the same And therefore to discredite mee and to make mee seeme a lyer according to your woordes in your Margent which are Luptons lyes you haue deuised and inuented most vnhonestly and vnchristianly wordes of your owne making all the woordes that followe to hange on the same Whose suttle dryft was thereby to prooue mee a lyer thoughe the wordes I recited agaynst the Pope were true For though the Pope hath been called an other God on the earth and though hee bee called in printed bookes our Lorde God the Pope as before I haue prooued and if hee haue been called the light that is come into the worlde and the Sauiour of mankinde with the rest as herein I shall prooue the same God willing yet if I shoulde according to
reasonable For if in worldly affayres witnesses are thought best when they be liuing shall witnesses then be thought best in heauenly causes when they bee dead Antiquitie is no credite to an cuill writer neither late yeeres can bee any discredite to a good writer Time ought not to be preferred before truth but truth before time Christes and his Apostles words were as true and good fifteene hundreth yeeres since as they bee nowe Therefore the long continuance of the time since maketh not their wordes the truer or their authoritie the better So that if a mans wordes or writings are worthie to bee alleadged for authoritie a thousande yeeres after hee is dead then they may bee alleadged in his life time or soone after his death Wherefore if master Iewell late Bishop of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the reuerende and learned Doctor Cowper nowe Bishop of Lincolu and the godly zelous and learned master Foxe haue written wisely faithfully and truly as most assuredly they haue doone whose worthie workes you may well disprayse but neuer confounde or confute then they deserue nowe as well to bee alleadged for authorities as though they had written them a thousande yeere since And to tel you truly thes their learned workes procured mee to produce them for witnesses and to quote their sayings in my saide booke the rather thereby to allure mo to esteeme their writings and to reade their saide bookes So that if you consider all thinges well you ought neither to disdaine nor discredite my booke for alleadging authorities out of master Iewell Doctor Cowper and master Foxe who were and are famous godly and learned writers The 47. part AS you say I doe it without all modestie or limitation of lying whether I doe lye without all modesty it is very manifest that you haue falsified my woordes with no great modestie And as my lyes are without limitation so they are without number for that you are not able to prooue mee so much as with one lye for if you coulde your Reader shoulde haue beene sure to haue hearde of it But whereas you say without any further proofe that I lye without limitation I haue plainely prooued before that you haue lyed with limitation and so your lyes are limited and mine vnlimited My lyes are so farre hence and that is because they are without limitation that you cannot finde them but your lyes are so nigh hand because they are within limitation that I quickly spied them Well though to my remembraunce I haue not made any 〈◊〉 lye in all my saide booke yet I must needes confesse that I made a very foule ouersight in taking one syllable in steede of another which was in the intitling of my booke naming it a persuasion in steede of a disuasion But for your iust reproouing mee therein I haue I trust sufficiently set foorth mine owne negligence with the due commendation of your intelligence not doubting but that your gentle instruction shall bee a sufficient warning for mee euer hereafter for vsing persuasiō in steede of disuasion When you shall chaunce to make any moe lyes you were best let them bee made without limitation as mine were and then it will bee harde to finde them for yours were limited within such a small compasse that they were espied and catcht at the first The 48. part THen after you come to shewe my lyes but it had beene better for you I thinke not to haue vttered them for surely they will rather shame your selfe then credite your cause And these are your wordes that followe For hee saith that the Papistes holde The Pope to bee very God The light of the world the Sauiour of mankinde That they print him in their bookes our Lorde God the Pope That the Pope also acknowledgeth the thing taking himselfe in deede to bee a God That hee dispenseth both against the olde and new testament That hee biddeth vs not to forbeare swearing any day That hee alloweth all priestes to haue harlots That hee giueth licence for money to keepe as many concubines as a man will That his fast is to cramme in as many banquetting dishes as men can That all papists are worse and deserue more death then drunkards theeues murtherers and Pyrates This is Luptons charitable doctrine with many thinges more which I omit You haue gathered diuers of my words written in sundrie places couched them altogether at your pleasure here in one place And you haue further more cutte and curtalde them farre otherwise then I wrote them whereby you haue marred my method and drowned my sence making my woordes to hange together as feathers doe in the winde and all to discredite my booke Thus you doe not onely deface and falsifie my woordes but also you fetch them out of their due places where I did set them and doe place them in such crooked corners that they neither reprooue falshood nor yet defend truth And whē you haue done so you neither confute nor reproue them vnles you do it with these words This is Luptons charitable doctrine with many things more which I omit or els perhappes your wordes in the margent which is Luptons lyes haue confuted them If I shoulde haue gone about to confute you onely with false repeating and vnorderly displacing of your woordes without any more a doe then I had not takē halfe the paines I haue done I haue not delt thus with you as the indifferent reader may iudge for I haue not left out one woorde of yours neyther haue I added any words to yours nor yet haue I displaced anye woordes of yours But you when you haue falsified my woordes you leaue them at randon committing the confuting thereof to your reader whose misliking thereof who can not well like them as you haue vsed them is all the confuting that you desire If you did loue the doctrine of Iesus as well inwardly as hypocritically you professe his name outwardely you woulde deale plainely and truely as Iesus did But because you deale fraudulently and falsly you are rather of the feloshippe of Iudas than of Iesus Yet for all your falsifiyng of my woordes suppose that I had written the selfe same woordes before mentioned 〈◊〉 had placed them euen in such order as you haue done you seeme by your silence without further reproouing or confuting them that they are true For if they had been false why haue you not particularly declared howe and in what sorte they are false as I haue done yours Truely if they had beene lyes as they are not you woulde haue certified your reader wherein I had lied For you that woulde discredite me for mistaking of a sillable as you thought no doubt you would haue proued me a lier in all this if you could At the first beginning of which your falsified woordes you affirme that I say that the papistes holde the pope to be very God c. If you had ment as truely
but a booke of small importance and very light though it bee the weightiest worke of all other then it is no maruell though you count my booke to be a very light worke But I feare if you turn not to the Gospell from the Pope as my saide booke doth 〈◊〉 persuade you that it as light as you make it will proue heuie against you at the last day and then ryse as a witnesse against you Iesuites as the people of Niniuee that repented at the preaching of Ionas and the Queene of Saba shall ryse and witnesse against the Iewes that repugned or withstoode Christe For if the dust that the Apostles did shake from their feete shall bee a witnesse against the vnbeleeuing and wicked Iewes then it is not vnlike but that my said booke which doth 〈◊〉 persuade you to imbrace the Gospell shall be a witnesse against you obstinate and incredulous Iesuites Though my said booke be fortie sheetes of paper yet you haue not confuted any one worde thereof neither approued y t there is any lye in the same though in pour margent you write Luptons lyes and whereas you haue written scant the fourthpart of one sheete in deriding discrediting my said boke of fortie sheetes without confuting or reprouing any one part of y t same I haue now writtē aboue twentie sheetes of paper against you for deprauing and slaundering the same wherein I haue most manifestly reproued diuers partes of your 〈◊〉 booke of Discouerie besides the defence of mine owne booke If I had left my name out of my boke as you haue done yours you could not so rightly haue hit of the same But as they that haue a true and iust cause in hande neede not feare to vtter their name as I am most sure I haue So they y t deale vniustly take partiu a vile and noughtie cause are glad to hide their name as nowe you haue doone Which cōcealing of your name doth not a litle discredit your cause The 37. parte BEcause I haue intituled my said booke A persuasion from papistrie therefore it seemeth you iudge that the 〈◊〉 is vtterly disgraste and for that you would haue it knowne that you are able to teach or rather cōtroule mee you say I would haue saide a diswasion but that papistry and persuasion begā both with a letter Who would haue thought that it had lyen in a Iesuite to knowe what a Christian woulde haue said your name doth import that you shoulde bee well learned but I would neuer haue iudged vntill I did heare it of your selfe that you had beene so deepely learned as to knowe a mans thought you say as shall appeare heereafter that it seemeth I haue been some Musicion but whatsoeuer I haue beene it is not vnlike but that you haue beene or are some fortune teller for you that can declare a mans thought can easily tell folkes their fortune It seemeth to mee that as the Pope hath a heauenly iudgement in his breast so you haue worldly mens thoughtes in your bosome But least you shoulde take too deepe a conceite in your knowing of mens thoughtes to put you out of doubt you haue myste of my thought it was neuer in my minde to say a Disuasion I know not your age no more than I knowe your name but it may bee y t before you euer knew any letter of the booke y t I knewe the difference betweene persuadere and disuadere And now that you haue myst my thought I will not sticke to tel you 〈◊〉 thought Because my whole drift in my saide booke is to persuade you and all other to Gods worde from Papistrie 〈◊〉 for that in my iudgement the title woulde haue beene too long if I shoulde haue saide A persuasion to Gods worde from papistrie I thought it good for the shortnesse of the title to leaue out Gods worde as a thing to bee vnderstanded and to intitle it a persuasion from Papistrie as I did in deede thus I haue not onely shewed you that you haue myst of my thought as good a Clarke as you are but also my very intent and thought in intitling my saide booke as it is And though I coulde not sufficiently proue the contrary but that there had beene some errour in this woorde Persuasion and that the sense did require this word Disuasion whereby it ought to haue beene a disuasion from Papistrie yet you knowe this worde Disuasion is seldome or neuer vsed especially among the common people for whose sakes I made my said booke as wellas for the learned And as I wrote it to allure Papists to Gods worde so I made it to make protestants the simple people to shun papistrie For euery one saith commonly vpon occasion I persuaded him frō play I persuaded him frō drunkennes I persuaded him from stealing I persuaded her from folly and such like and not I disuaded him from play I disuaded him frō drunkennesse I disuaded him from stealing or I disuaded her frō folly so that this is to be considered that Loquendū scribendum cum multis Sapiendum cum paucis Therefore if I had vsed persuasion which the most doe knowe and vse in steede of disuasion which fewe doe vnderstande and vse though there had beene some small errour by ouersight as by good foresight there was none as before is well proued yet mee thinkes you being a Iesuite and a professour of Iesus shoulde rather haue borne with an ouersight or an vnwilling errour then to write and publish that for a faulte which is no fault at all But if you had not contrould me thus in the intiteling of my booke rather of malice then of matter and of curiosity than of cause to the disabling of my learning the more to extoll your owne knowledge you your selfe woulde not haue offended in the like yea and that so manifestly that by no meanes you are able to excuse it For in the 110. page or side of your said discouerie being the seuēth leafe of G. the second side second line you haue discouered your own vnhonest dealing in these wordes that follow Therefore haue the noble matrones of Rome procured an other house called Casapia behinde Pantheon where these women may come for a time to proue what they will resolue vpon in which time the said matrones doe omit no 〈◊〉 to persuade them frō all dishonestie for the time to come c. Heere a Christian hath taken a Iesuite napping for you say that the matrones do omit no meanes to 〈◊〉 them from all dishonestie I knowe not what law you haue amongst you but I wolde thinke it is as lawfull for a Christian to say a persuasion from Papistrie as for a Iesuite 〈◊〉 say a persuasion from dishonestie Therefore where you write I woulde haue saide a disuasion but that papistrie and persuasiō began both with a letter now do I write that you shoulde haue said disuasion because dishonestie and disuasiō begin both with a
haue curtald my writing and haue 〈◊〉 out and foysted in what it pleaseth you Wee must thinke this honest dealing because a Jusuite hath done it but if a Christian had done so you woulde haue called it impudencie the mother of desperation But if mine owne wordes woulde haue proued me so vneloquent as you woulde make mee and that the same had beene so without sence as you woulde fayne haue had them I am out of doubt that then you woulde haue written mine owne woordes as they were But for that you thought they were too true to serue your turne Therefore to discredite me you displace and deface mine and trust in your own as though they were mine But though mine eloquence be small yet I trust the indifferent reader when hee hath throughly vewed my woordes and likewise weyed yours will as well iudge that my matter hath some method and my sentences some sence as you by corrupting them woulde haue made thē both without method and sence If the first part of my booke as you say be nothing but such argumentes as you before haue written for mine the reader had a good occasion rather to rende the whole booke than to reade the rest But they that shall thinke good to reade the rest of the first part of my saide booke what the argumentes are I will leaue it to their consideration trusting that the matter thereof is more meete to bee market then to bee mockt The 42. part VVHere as you say I haue made no first parte of my said booke at all yet there are such distinctions of euery matter as I thought sufficient But if you had been nie mee if you had had a name as you haue not I woulde haue come to you that you might haue taught me howe to haue parted my booke But nowe because you are namelesse it may beseeme my booke as well to bee without partes as you to bee without a name And if it bee lawefull for you to make a booke without putting your name vnto it then it is as lawefull for mee to make a booke without putting your partes vnto it Perhappes you woulde haue had mee deuide my booke into chapters I am sory I did not if you therfore would haue liked it the better Yet for all the Bible is in chapters you haue not the greater deuotion vnto it but though y e Bible is nowe deuided into partes and chapters it is harde for you to proue that the bookes of the same were at the first writing in chapters as they bee nowe For Christ when he alledged any text out of Moses or the Prophets yet he neuer mentioned any part or chapter where it was neither did S. Paule nor any other of the Apostles Notwithstanding when I am throughly perswaded that the bookes in the Bible when they were first written were deuided in such parts and chapters as they bee nowe 〈◊〉 to pleasure you withall I will deuide my saide booke into such chapters and partes But vntill then I 〈◊〉 desire you to bee content with my distinctions And nowe for that I did not parte my saide booke as I shoulde haue done wherein I was fouly ouerseen therefore I haue deuided this booke into parts to please you 〈◊〉 The 44. part THen you goe further with me and do say as foloweth In the seconde part hee wandreth by certaine controuersies but as without all witte and learning like an English doctoure citing all his matter out of lewels defence of Apologie Foxes martyrologe and Cowpers Epitomie of the Cronicle so without all 〈◊〉 or limitation of lying It is not for a Christian I perceiue to compare in witte and learning with a Jesutte You haue so much that I must needes haue the lesse but for that small portion of witte and learning that I haue I thanke my heauenly father for it What I haue therein I haue receiued And he that gaue Salamon his wisedome is able to 〈◊〉 mine I reioyce that I knowe Christ for that is witte and learning enough for mee And though you may excell mee in witte and learning yet the more you corrupt mens writinges and 〈◊〉 their wordes the lesse will your witte and learning be esteemed especially with the godly and wise All is 〈◊〉 witte or wisedome that you call so and all 〈◊〉 not foolishnes that you accompt foolishnesse your earthly wisedome is heauenly follie And Saint Paul saith the wisdome of this worlde is foolishnes with God Then contrary I may say that many take Gods wisedome to be mere foolishnesse I pray God that you bee not one of them And therefore though you say that I wander in the seconde part of my saide booke without all witte and learning I wandered so as it pleased God to directe me For though my learning as I must needes confesse is but small yet my prompcer in the making of that booke had learning enough for vs both For God I am most sure was my director and the holy ghost was my instructor For if the holy ghost will instrucc the godlie in their speeche that are witnesses of the Gospell then I am sure hee will instruct and guide their pennes that take his cause in hande and doe write against his enemies in the defence of his woorde And if a Sparrowe light not on the grounde without Gods prouidence then I am most certayne that I wrote that my booke which is a greater matter then a sparrows lighting on the the grounde not without the prouidence and helpe of God And if my learning bee small or if I bee without witte or learning then it is the more shame for you to professe and maynteyne suche a religion as an vnlearned man is able to disproue Which I am sure I haue done through the help of God by the scriptures Ancient doctours and naturall reason in my saide booke as the godly and indifferent reader may easely iudge Though you discommende and discredite it is as much as you may But I am most sure which before God I speake vnfaignedly the profoundest papist and the learnedest Jesuite of you all shall neuer bee able to confute or conuince it vnlesse you confute it with burning of it or killing of me Which are your chiefest argumentes to confute withall If you had as muche wisedome as you pretende to haue learning you coulde not haue been taken tardie and in such trippes as I haue taken you Therefore bragge not too-much of your witte and learning for the weake you see many times do confounde the learned and wittie If the cause you wade in were as true as it is false you shoulde with lesse learning then I thinke you haue gette a great deale more credite by writing than you doe But if you had tenne times more learning then you haue and my witte and learning were lesse then it is hauing the trueth on my side I woulde not feare to confounde you For seeing a brute beast and an Asse did reprooue the