to be grandement suspicious of new coynage and if for no other cause yet for this alone they give a just occasion and jealousie when such poore shifts and evasions are devised by your Pope and his adherent to make them good for it is a true saying of a renowned Bishop and it is the faith of all reformed Catholiques B. Morton Grand Impost cap. 2. sect 2. He can onely make an article of faith who can create a soule and after make a Gospel to save that soule and then give unto that soule the gift of faith to beleeve that Gospel I proceed to your doctrine That is onely to bee called a new faith say you which is cleane of another kind that is differing or disagreeing from that was taught before Thus you I will not take advantage of your first Assertion that your faith is grounded upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles which you can never prove but wil joyne issue with you upon your last Assumpsit That is only to be called a new faith which is cleane of another kind and is different disagreeing from what was taught before but such are many of the Articles of Pope Pius the fourth extracted from the Councell of Trent as shall appeare by proofes at large in their proper places In the meane time let me tell you your Church teacheth not onely Novê but Nova not onely Praeter but Contra even besides and contrarie to that which she first received from the ancient Church so that howsoever you seeke to darken truth by faire and specious pretences yet in truth your Trent Additions are forraine to the faith as neither principles nor conclusions of it And that you may know and acknowledge with us that your Trent faith is differing and disagreeing from what was taught before I pray call to mind your owne confessions touching these particular Articles of your Roman Church Your doctrine touching Lay-peoples communicating under one kind namely in bread onely is an Article of the Roman faith and now generally taught and practised in the Roman Church but this practice by your owne confession is different and disagreeing from what was taught before for you say pag. 253. touching the Authors which you bring for proofe That it was the common practice of the Church for the Laytie to communicate in both kinds I allow of their authoritie Your Prayer and Service in an unknown tongue as it is now used in the Roman Church by your owne confession is different and disagreeing from what was taught before for say you pag. 270. It is true that Prayer and Service in the vulgar tongue was used in the first and best ages according to the precept of the Apostles and practice of the Fathers In the beginning it was so Your doctrine of Transubstantiation which at this day is generally received de substantia fidei for an Article of Faith yet by your owne confession is different and disagreeing from what was taught before for say you pag. 167. Transubstantiation might well be said not to have beene de substantia fidei in the Primitive Church as Yribarne speaketh because it had not beene so plainly delivered nor determined in any Councell till Gregorie the seventh his time and this was above a thousand yeares after Christ Your private or solitarie Masse wherein the Priests doe daily communicate without the people is by your own confession different and disagreeing from what was taught before and practised for say you pag. 191. They say speaking of divers Authors it was the practice of the Primitive Church to communicate everie day with the Priest I grant it These points of controversie which are so eagerly pursued by your men against the members of our Church the strength and force of truth hath extorted from you and therefore I may truly conclude Exore tuo from your owne confession that your Trent faith is new because it is different and disagreeing from what was taught before You that have taken an oath to maintaine the Papacie and are so ready to teach others you I say have either violated your oath or at leastwise have forgot your old lesson Oportet esse memorem c. for verily it behoves him that speakes lyes and contradictions to have a good memorie But it seemes you did conceive the Reader might easily passe by many such contradictions being in severall passages and farre distant pages For otherwise it would seeme strange that you which so bitterly inveigh against our reformed religion should confesse the antiquitie of our Articles and the noveltie of your owne with flat contradictions to your owne Assertions I will say to you therefore as sometimes St. Hierome spake in his Epistle to Pamachius and Oceanus Hieronym ad Pamach Oceanum Tom. 2. Thou who art a maintainer of new doctrine whatsoever thou he I pray thee spare the Romane eares spare the faith that is commanded by the Apostles mouth why goest thou about now after foure hundred yeares I may say foureteen hundred yeares to teach us that faith which we before never knew why bringest thou forth that thing that Peter and Paul never uttered Evermore untill this day the Christiam world hath beene without this doctrine To pursue the rest of your Allegations The Church of England say you admitteth of divers Books of the New Testament for Canonicall whereof there was doubt of three or foure hundred yeares to gether in the Church of God as the Epistle to the Hebrewes the second Epistle of St. Peter the Epistle of St. Jude the Apocalyps of St. John and some others which were after admitted for Canonicall 〈◊〉 I would know of him whether upon the admittance of them there were any change of faith in the Church or whether ever those books have received any change in themselves Thus you It seemes you begin to feare that your Trent faith would be discovered to be different and disagreeing from what was taught before and thereupon you would seemingly illustrate the antiquitie of your new Articles by the authoritie of the ancient Books of Canonicall Scripture But I pray where doe you find that the Books of the New Testament as namely the Epistle to the Hebrewes the Epistle of St. Peter and St. Jude and the Apocalyps were not received for three or foure hundred yeares for Canonicall It is true there was some doubt who were the right Authors of those Books but their divine authoritie was ever generally approved by all Christian Churches and allowed for Canonicall The Epistle to the Hebrewes was therefore doubted of by some because the difference diversity of the stile made them think it not to be St. Pauls and by others because the Author of it seemed to them to favour the error of the Novatian heretikes in denying the reconciliation of such as fall after Baptisme The second Epistle of St. Peter which you speake of some doubted of because of the diversitie of the style The Epistle of St. Jude was doubted
Spiridion that famous Bishop of Cyprus Eccles Hist l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they lived in wedlocke and had many children without any disparagement at all to their Sacred function As the Rod of Aaron in these brought forth fruit in Holy Matrimony so it budded also in others in our Church who followed virginall chastity and lead a single life as Iewell Reinolds Andrewes Lakes and many other reverend Prelates and Doctors who for eminent learning and examplary life may compare with any of the Romish Mitred Prelates or late Canonized Saints Neither can they pretend that any Eve gave these an Apple whereby their eyes were opened but on the contrary we can produce many a Lucretia who have given Apples to their Popes Lucretia nomine sed re Thais Alexandri filia sponsa nurus whereby their eyes have beene blinded and their reputation for ever blasted See Picus Mirandula his oration extant in Fasciculus rerum expetendum fugiendum and Mantuan his Poem Sanctus ager scurris venerabilis ara cinaedis Servit honorandae Divûm Ganymedibus aedes As for Olivereus Manareus his Legend of Buxhorne if the Reader will be pleased to peruse an apologie for this Buxhorne written to the Chancellor of Lovan wherein the true cause is related for which this licentiate Divine abandoned the Papacy he shall finde in that treatise printed in the yeare of our Lord 1625 a Rowland for his Oliver or Oliverius Manareus the Iesuit to whose relation as much credit is to be given as to Cocleus his History of Luther and Bolsecs of Calvin The Devill the grand Calumniator hath suborned in all ages men of prostituted consciences and corrupt mindes and mouthes to staine with their impure breath the golden and the silver vessells of the Sanctuarie but Illi linguarum nos aurium dominsumus their tongues are their owne they may speake what malice dictateth our eares are our owne and we will hearken unto and assent onely to what truth confirmeth As for their Lutheran baits he mentioneth aurum gloria dilitiae veneres gold glory delights and Venus if these things abound any where it is in the Roman Church where the Pope who pretends himselfe to be the successor of Peter the fisher fisheth with a golden hooke and baits it with fleshly lusts what so pompeous and glorious as his Holinesse triple Crowne and his Cardinals Hats and his Bishops Miters and Croziours for what sence hath not the Romish Religion baits for the eyes they have gawdie shewes for the eares most melodious musicke for the smell sweetest incense and perfumes for the taste feasts without number for the touch whole streets of Curtezans not onely in Rome it selfe but in all the Popes Townes which are commonly knowne by this fowle Cognizance Concerning our adversaries their blasphemous exceptions against the Scripture Spectacles Chap. 14. à page 447. usque ad 463. THough Catholikes hold for most certaine that the Scripture is not the sole rule of faith nor that out of it alone all controversies can be decided as for example in particular which bookes be Canonicall Scripture which not yet for most things now a dayes in controversie many Catholikes have offered to trie the matter onely by Scripture Though Catholikes ground many points upon tradition and practice of the Church yet they ground others upon plaine and expresse authority of Scripture from which Protestants are faine to flie running to this or that corner of I know not what figurative or tropicall interpretation Though the Pope question not much lesse condemne Scriptures of obscurity and insufficiency yet his Apostles and Evangelists have left some things in writing of which some are hard even by the judgment of Scripture it selfe for so saith Saint Peter of the Epistle of Saint Paul which saith he the unlearned and unconstant doe abuse as they doe other Scriptures to their owne perdition If any condemne the Scripture of insufficiency it is St. John in saying that all things are not written and St. Paul in willing the Thessalonians to hold the traditions which they had learned whether by speech or letter Whereas the Knight chargeth us with ranking the Bible in the first place of prohibited bookes wee say it is false for it is not in the Catalogue of such bookes onely in the rules which concernes the Index there is mentioned how the free use of vulgar translations is not to be permitted but for the Latine vulgar translation there is no manner of restraint though if there had beene we might very well have warranted it by the authority of St. Jerome who did no way admit such free use even of the Latine Bibles It is no such crime to forbid the reading of Scripture to some sort of people as may appeare by the testimony of this holy Father who in the same place saith moreover that the beginning of Genesis and the beginning and end of Ezekiel were not to be read by the Iewes till they came to thirties yeare of age A kinde of forbidding of reading the Scripture is no derogation but a great commendation of it for they are forbidden to be read out of reverence and honour due unto them and in regard of the danger which may come by them not of themselves but in regard of the weakenesse of the Reader for want of necessary learning and humility For Cornelius Agrippa it maketh no more matter what he saith then what the Knight saith for it is but aske my brother if I be a theefe Not to answer the places objected by the Knight out of Lindan Lessius Turrian and Pighius I say in generall that those things are spoken not of the Scripture as it is in it selfe that is consisting of both words and meaning but of bare words and letters only which Haeretikes still do and ever have abused as the Devill himselfe did to our Saviour and in this sense it is a wood of theeves Our Authors say no more then St. Jerome doth in effect Marcion Basilides and other plagues of Haeretikes have not the Gospell of God Comment in 1. ad Gal. because they have not the Holy Ghost without whom it becommeth the Gospell of man which is taught nor let us thinke that the Gospell consisteth in the words of Scripture but in the sense not in the superficies or barke but in the pith not in the leaves of speech but in the roote of reason so that if the Knight will say any more of this matter he must undertake the quarrell against St. Ierome Lessius in particular whom the Knight most up braideth to us is farre from saying that the Scripture is uncertaine in it selfe that is that the doctrine thereof is doubtfull but onely that our rule will be uncertaine or rather wee uncertaine of the rule because wee cannot know the Scripture by it selfe It is not all one to say that Scripture alone is no sufficient Rule and to say it is imperfect For although the Knight imagineth that the
to shew the visibilitie of the Church by persons in all ages Then you demand of me where the Church was which S. Paul called the house of God and pillar of truth and thus you prescribe mee my weapons and teach mee how to fight Touching the visibilitie of the Church it is not to be confined within the narrow compasse of an Epistle and therefore I will answer you and your Jesuites challenge at large in place convenient and as touching your demand where the Church was which is called the pillar of truth I answer in briefe not in Rome but in Ephesus for otherwise it might seeme incongruous that the Apostle should exhort Timothy to walke circumspectly in the Church of God because the Church of Rome was the pillar and firmament of truth And therefore the Turke may better alledge this place to prove Mah mets religion being now subject to his power than you to justifie the Romish religion because Ephesus was the pillar of truth You proceed and by way of prevention you tell me the controversie is not so much of the doctrine as of the persons and then you conclude simply in the very same page The question is not of the doctrine but of the persons Oportet esse memorem I will but let you see your contradiction I quarrell it not onely I pray you tell mee in the words of sobernesse and truth did ever any wise man except your selfe undertake to prove the true Church by the visibilitie of the persons May not Jewes and Heretiques by the same reason claime a true Church because they had visible persons in all ages But say you this hath beene the way which the holy Fathers have taken either in proving the Catholique faith or disproving of heresies and for your Assertion you cite Tertullian Irenaeus Cyprian Optatus and Augustine give me leave to examine your Authors for as yet you have produced but one ancient Father and him you have falsified in the Frontispice of your booke Touching your first Author Tertull. prescript c. 32. lib. 3. Car. advers Marcion Tertullian in the first place cited by you hee demonstrates two wayes how to discerne the Church first by shewing some Apostle or Apostolicall person to have founded it next by the conformity of the doctrine to the Apostles and in his third book against Marcion which is your second citation hee hath nothing at all for your purpose Touching your second Author Iren. l. 3. c. 1 2 3. l. 4. c. 43 45 46. Irenaeus hee is expressely against you for in the first chapter and third booke cited by you he saith By the will of God they have delivered the Gospel to bee the pillar and foundation of truth In the second hee saith that when Heretiques are convinced by the Scriptures they fall to accuse them as if they were not right or of authoritie and that they are ambiguous and doubtfull In the third hee proveth the truth of the Church by the conformitie of doctrine to the Apostles not by the visibilitie as you pretend In his fourth booke cited by you he shewes that bare succession is no note of the Church and in his 45. chapter which you quote there is nothing that maketh for your question And lastly in the 46. chapter he proveth that the New Testament is as severe against fornication as the Old or rather more and this may touch the free-hold of that Church which dispenseth with Stewes but of the point in question he speakes nothing at all Touching your third Author S. Cyprian Cypr. Ep. 52. 76. in the 52. Epistle cited by you he perswades Antonianus rather to adhere to Cornelius than Novatianus and in his 76. Epistle alledged by you hee shewes that Novatianus succeeding none in that See was ordained by himselfe and therefore could bee no true Bishop but as touching the controversie in question Ne gry quidem Touching your fourth Author Optatus Optat. advers Parmen lib. 2. he handleth not the question neither maketh any thing at all for you Lastly August Psal 2. part Don. Ep. 165. de Utilit credendi c. 7. touching S. Austin you cite the second Psalme and there is nothing handled of the question you cite likewise his 165. Epistle wherein hee declares a succession of Bishops from the Apostles time to Anastasius Si ordo Episcoporum succedentium considerandus est Ep. 165. p. 751. Preculdubio ab Ecclesiâ Catholicâ sumendum exordium De Utilit credendi c. 7. Idem contr Cresc l. 1. c. 33. If saith he an orderly succession of Bishops is to be considered Yea but S. Austin say you particularly proves the question where he tels his friend Honoratus he must begin his enquirie from the Catholique Church Hee that told the Manichees wee must take our Exordium from the Church told the Donatists likewise wee must resort to that Church for the resolution of our faith which the sacred Scriptures undoubtedly demonstrate to be the true Church for in them saith he we have knowne Christ Idem Ep. 166. in them wee have knowne the Church If you can derive your succession in person and doctrine from Christ and his Apostles we will answer you as sometimes S. Austin answered Petilian the Donatist Idem contr l. Petil. l. 2. c. 85. Whether of us be Schismatiques we or you aske you not mee I will not aske you let Christ bee asked that hee may shew us his owne Church After these severall passages you returne againe to your first Author Tertullian Tertull. prescript c. 19. and with him you conclude where it shall appeare that there is the truth of Christian discipline and faith there shall bee the truth of Scriptures and Expositions And from hence you inferre that we are first to seeke the persons that professe the faith that is the Church Whereas in truth his testimony doth rather prove the persons by the doctrine than the doctrine by the persons and this is most agreeable to his owne Assertion in the third chapter Idem c. 3. Ex personis probamus fidem an ex fide personas As if hee should say wee plainly prove the persons by the doctrine not the doctrine by the persons Now put on your Spectacles and take a review of your Authors The first maketh nothing for you the second is expressely against you the third speakes not to the point in question the fourth and fifth handle the question but not at all to your advantage or our prejudice and thus you have produced foureteene severall places out of the ancient Fathers in one page and all either impertinently or falsly or directly against your selfe by which the Reader may conjecture what is like to bee the issue of your whole worke who have so grossely falsified so many authorities in your Epistle and before the entrance into the body of your booke From your lame proofes of the Churches authoritie you proceed to the justification of your maimed commandements
doct Fidei Tom. 1. l. 2. Art 2. c. 22. p. 203. viz. that the Church could not create a new article of faith How can any such article saith he framed after many yeares be catholique and universall when as it was unknowne to our fore-fathers for foureteen hundred yeares before It was not beleeved because not heard of when the Apostle tels us faith commeth by hearing Such an article therefore although it be of faith yet it cannot be catholique and this hee proves directly from Fathers and Councels And whereas you affirme that your Church can no more make an article of faith than shee can make a Canonicall Booke of Scripture Canus loc Theol. l. 2. c. 7. p. 38. Canus your Bishop of Canaries will joyne with you That the Church of the faithfull now living cannot write a Canonicall Booke of Scripture and hee gives the reason for it There are not now any new revelations to be expected ither from the Pope or from a Councell or from the universall Church and from hence it will follow of consequence by your owne Logick Therefore the Church can create no new article of faith Thus farre I have waded in your behalfe that you may the better justifie your owne Assertion for you wil find your Church is like a house divided against it selfe and therefore cannot stand long I say that Quere which was made in Waldens dayes was resolved above two hundred yeares before by your profound Schoole-man Thomas Aquinas in your Churches behalfe that the Pope had power Condere articulos fidei to create new articles of faith to remove therefore these fig-leaves with which you would cover the naked truth This learned Doctour well understood that there were many new articles of religion crept into the Church in his dayes he knew well that albeit he were the prime Schoole man of his time yet with all his sophistrie hee could not make them comply with the ancient Catholique faith and thereupon he thought it the surest way to give the Pope an absolute and independant power over faith and religion and accordingly resolved Ad solam authoritatem summi Pontificis pertinet nova Editio Symboli sicut alia omnia quae pertinent ad totam Ecclesiam Thom. 2.2 q. 1. Art 10. It belongs onely to the authoritie of the Soveraigne Pope to make a new Edition of the Creed and all things else that concerne the universall Church Then he concludes the question and gives this reason for it The publishing of a new Creed belongs to his power who hath authoritie finally to determine matters of faith and this saith he belongs unto the Pope Upon which passages Andradius a chiefe pillar of your Trent Councell confesseth that the Bishops of Rome Romanos Pontifices multa definiendo quae anteà latitabant Symbolum Fidei augere consuevisse Andrad Def. Concil Trid. lib. 2. in defining many things which had beene formerly hidden have been accustomed to increase their Creed Now what thinke you of your Aquinas position and your Andradius confession I hope you perceive that your learned Schoole-men are of another opinion And that you may know that your Church doth not approve your pretended Tenet for Catholique doctrine hearken and consider what your holy Father the Pope declareth touching this question and then consider in what case you stand Pope Leo the tenth sent out his Bull against Luther and amongst other articles Certum est in manu Ecclesiae aut Papae prorsus non esse statuere articulos fidei Tom. 4. Conc. Par. 2. in Bulla Leon. 10. in fine Lateran Conc. novissimi p. 135. he chargeth him in particular with this that Luther should say It is certaine that it is no way in the power of the Church or Pope to ordaine articles of faith This you see is Luthers Tenet and this is yours Now what exception think you might the Pope take at this your Assertion Behold for this and the like Tenets he thundereth Anathema against him hee declareth this with the rest of his Articles to be a pestiferous pernicious scandalous and seducing errour to well-minded men he protesteth it was contrarie to all charitie contrarie to the reverence of the holy Church and mysteries of faith and in conclusion condemnes all his Articles as hereticall Inhibentes in virtute sanctae obedientiae ac sub majoris excommunicationis latae sententiae Ibid. p. 136. forbids them to be received by vertue of holy obedience and under paine of the graund Excommunication You have heard the sentence of your Lord Paramount and by it you may know your owne doome If you hold with Luther you are in danger of Excommunication and stand as a condemned heretique by his Holinesse with the Lutherans If you forsake your hold you have lost your faith And thus you have a wolfe by the eares you stand in danger whether you hold him or let him goe I wonder that you having taken so long a time to answer so poore a Work and having many Assistants for the composing of it they and you could be all ignorant of the Popes infallible Bull. Your Cardinall Bellarmine Quasi Ecclesia posterioris temporis aut deserit esse Ecclesia aut facultatem non habeat explicandi declarandi constituendi etiam jubendi quae ad fidem mores Christianos pertinent Bell. in Barcl who in these latter times hath laboured more than any other to uphold your new Articles of faith yet in obedience to the Pope and saving all advantages to his cause when in the question of deposing Kings he failed of antiquitie and proofe out of Scriptures and Fathers at last returnes this peremptorie answer As if the Church of these latter times had ceased to be a Church or had not power to explaine and declare yea to ordaine and command those things which appertaine to faith and Christian manners and that you may know that you and your Co-adjutors stand single in opinion against the Pope and his Cardinals your Jesuite Salmeron will shew you Doctrina fidei admittit additionem in essentialibus Salm. Tom. 13. Disp 6. Par. 3. §. Est ergo Idem Disp 8. that it stands with great reason to make additions in essentiall points of faith and hee gives this answer for it Because nature is not capable of all truths at one time and from this and the like reasons he concludes therefore there may be new traditions concerning faith and manners though they were never created or declared by the Apostles Thus you see the unitie amongst your selves and howsoever these positions may seeme strange to you and others of your opinions yet your Schoolmen and Lawyers have played the Popes Midwives yea Pope Leo the tenth hath put to his helping hand to deliver your Pope Pius the fourth of that issue I meane those new borne Articles of which your Church hath so long time before travailed Briefly let mee tell you your Articles are detected by your owne men
present Binius ibid. in his Annot. on the other side Peter Lombard and Gratian Pet. Lomb. l. 4. Sent. Dist 6. Grat. Can. Mulier de Consecr Dist 4. they have put in their exception nisi necessitate cogente except it be in case of necessitie so that in the absence of the Priest and in case of necessitie women may baptize by the authority of your Church notwithstanding the Councels decree And this is according to Bellarmines confession Although saith he those words of exception nisi necessitate cogente be not found in the Tomes of Councels Bell. de Baptis l. 1. c. 7. yet Peter Lombard and Gratian cite the Canon in that manner And thus by your owne Cardinals profession your Priests have added that exception to the Canon to dispense with women for Administration of the Sacrament which is not found in the Councell Againe the same Councell is razed both by the compiler of the decrees and publisher of the Councels for the Councell saith in the 44. Canon a Clericus nec comam nutriat nec barbam radat Concil Carth. Can 44. Let no Clerke weare long hayre nor shave his Beard The decretals and your late Councels published by Binius have left out the word Radat and have quite altered the sense of the decree and so your Church hath gone directly against the meaning of the Councell in shaving of Priests S. Austin Bishop of Hippo is both purged and falsified in favor of your doctrine First for the purging of him your own men make this declaration b Augustinus nuper Venetiis excusus in quo praeter multorum locorum restitutionem secundum collationem veterum exemplarium curavimus removeri illa omnia quae fideliū mentes haeretic â pravitate possent inficere aut a Catholica orthodoxa fide deviare Praefat Ind. lib. prohibit ad Lectorē Genevae impress an 1629. St. Austin was lately printed at Venice in which Edition as we have restored many places accerding to the ancient Copies so likewise we have taken care to remove all those things which might either infect the mindes of the faithfull with Heresies or cause them to wander from the Catholike faith This publike profession your men have made and accordingly the c In hunc modū est repurgatus ut in libri inscripsione testātur qui editioni praefuerunt Ibid. p. 6. Booke was purged as those who were present at that Edition doe witnesse in the Inscription of the Booke but let us returne to the corrupted Editions in our view St. d De Civitate Dci lib. 22. c. 24. Austin in his 22. booke of the Citie of God and 24. Chapter is cyted by e Bell. de Purg. l. 1. c. 4. Bellarmine for the proofe of Purgatory yet in that Chapter saith f Lud. Vives in lib de Civit. Dei c. 8. Vives in the ancient Manuscript Copies which are at Bruges and Colein those ten or twelve printed lines are not to be found And in the 22. booke and 8. Chapter he tells us there are many additions in that Chapter without question foysted in by such as make practise of depraving Authors of great Authority Touching forgeries and falsifications in particular The humane nature of Christ is destroyed if there be not given it after the manner of other bodies a certaine space wherein it may be contained In your Edition of Paris printed by Sebastian Nivelle An. 1571. this passage is wholly left out This is observed by Dr. Moulin but the Authour so printed I have not seene But when neither adding nor detracting could make good your Transubstantiation Fryer Walden thought it the surest way to forge a whole passage in the name of St. Austin which indeed strongly proves the very name and nature of it The words are these Wald. Tom. 2. de Sacram. c. 83. p. mihi 141. No man ought to doubt when Bread and Wine are consecrated into the substance of Christ so as the sabstance of bread and wine doe not remaine whereas we see many things in the workes of God no lesse marvellous A woman God changeth substantially into a stone as Lots wife and in the small workemanship of man hay and ferne into glasse Neither must we beleeve that the substance of bread and wine remaineth but the bread is turned into the Body of Christ and the wine into his bloud the qualities or accidents of bread and wine onely remaining This fo gery was judicially allowed by Pope Martin the fist and his Cardinals in their Consistorie and yet it savours rather of a Glasse-maker than an ancient Father but what answer maketh Walden to this invention * Egoenimreperi trāscripsi de vetustissimo exemplari scripto antiquā valdè manu formatâ Idem Ibid. I found it faith he and transcribed it out of a very ancient Copie written with a set hand Thus one while you adde another while you detract another while you falsifie the ancient Fathers if either they make for us or against you and yet you tell us that we are guiltie of corrupting the Fathers But above all Gratian hath most shamefully and lewdly falsified St. Austin whom he hath made to say Inter Canonicas Scriptur as decretales Epistolae connumerantur Dist 29. In Canonicis fol. 19. A. The decretall Epistles of the Popes are accounted in the number of Canonicall Scriptures The truth is St. Austin in his booke of Christian doctrine informes a Christian what Scripture hee should hold for Canonicall and thereupon bids him follow the greater part of the Catholike Church Amongst which those Churches are which had the happinesse to injoy the seates of the Apostles and to receive Epistles from them Gratian in the Canon Law altereth the words thus Amongst which Canonicall Scriptures those Epistles are which the Apostolicke See of Rome hath and which others have deserved to receive from her and accordingly the title of the Canon is Imer Canonicas Scripturas c. The decretall Epistles of Popes are counted by St. Austin for Canonicall Scriptures Now judge you what greater forgerie nay what greater blasphemie can be devised or uttered against Christ and his Spirit than that the Popes Epistles should bee termed canonicall Scriptures and held of equall authority with the Word of God especially since by your owne men they are censured as Apocryphall and counterfeit Epistles Your owne Bellarmine as a man ashamed of such grosse forgeries would seeme to excuse it Bell. de Concil Author l. 2. c. 12. Primo That Gratian was deceived by a corrupt copie of St. Austin which he had besides him and that the true and corrected copies have not the words as himselfe reporteth Thus Walden excuseth his forgerie by an ancient Manuscript the Cardinall by a corrupt copie and yet by your Cardinals leave this and many other such like forgeries stand printed in the Canon Law no Index Expurgatorius layes hold on them Idem de script Eccles An.
may your Proselytes beleeve you another time when you say Wee alwaies translate it or rather falsifie it into Ordinances For a conclusion of this Section you say that the three Creeds the two Sacraments the foure Generall Councels the two and twenty books of Canonicall Scripture We had them from you Let it be your comfort then that you had something in your Church which was worth the gleaning after the devill had sowed the Tares amongst the good Corne. But I would not have you overmuch confident of that neither for originally wee had them from the Church Catholike before there was a Roman For the Gospell was preached in England before it was in Rome and we had in England a Christian Church and King before Rome had a Christian Emperor yea long before Poperie or the name of Pope was heard of in the Christian world in the sense you now take it And in after Ages when the Gospell of Christ was rooted out by Heathen persecutors where it was first planted it was afterwards replanted by Preachers partly sent from Rome partly by the Greeke Church but by neither was the Faith preached and restored which your present Church now teacheth and maintaineth at this day And lastly if wee had the three Creeds the two Sacraments the 22. bookes of Canonicall Scripture and the first foure Generall Councels from you then you cannot deny that we teach the Ancient Faith first given to the Saints and that we had a Church visible long before Luthers dayes for those Tenents were sufficient of themselves to make a glorious and a visible Church in the first and best ages they were received by succeeding Christians in all the later Ages and are now become the Positive and Affirmative Articles of our Beleefe which for the greater part were ever taught and received in the bosom of your owne Church To shut up all your bitter Aspersions of Corrupting of Falsifying of Lying of Lynding and I know not what reproches cast upon me in these first 8 Sections I will shut up all I say which hitherto hath beene delivered by you with that answer of Socrates to his accusers before the Judges Plato in Apologia Socratis My Lords saith hee in what sort your affections have been stirred with mine accusers eloquence which you heard them speake I cannot tell But well I wot for mine owne part I my selfe whom it toucheth most was almost perswaded to beleeve that what they said was true yea although it were against my selfe so handsomly they can tell their tale and so likely and so smoothly they convey their maters every word they spake had appearance of Truth and yet in good sooth they have scarsely uttered one word of Truth The Titles of the severall Chapters and Sections in the ensuing Treatise Chap. 9. Alphab 1. Sect. 1. Of Iustification by Faith onely Pag. 2. d Sect. 2. Of Transubstantiation Pag. 12. Sect. 3. Of Private Masses pag. 42. Sect. 4. Of the seven Sacraments pa. 69 Sect. 5. Of Communion in both kinds pa. 127 Sect. 6. Of Prayer in an unknowne tongue pa. 145 Sect. 7. Of the Worship of Images pa. 176 Sect. 8. Of Indulgences Alphab 2. pag. 8. Chap. 10. Of the certaintie of the Protestant and uncertaintie of the Romish Faith pag. 44 Chap. 11. Of the greater safetie and comfort in the Protestant Faith then in the Romish pa. 68 Chap. 12. Of respect due to the Ancient Fathers pa. 84 Chap. 13. Of razing Records and clipping Authours tongues by the Roman Indices Expurgatory pa. 92 Chap. 14. Of the perfection and perspicuitie of Scripture and our Adversaries blasphemous Exceptions against it pa. 104 Chap 15. Concerning Bellarmine his subscription to Protestant Doctr in the main point of Iustification pa. 122 Chap. 16. Of Martyrs and particularly that the primitive Martyrs were not Papists pa. 128 Chap. 17. Concerning the Protestants charitable opinion of Papists pag. 137. And in what sense some affirme the Romane a true Church pag. 148 Chap. 18. Concerning the Confession on all sides for the Safetie of the Protestant Religion pa. 154 A Sermon preached at the Funerall of the Right Worshipfull Sir Humphrey Lynde at Cobham in Surrey p. 171 Errata in the second Part. PAge 5. lin 7. reade authors in marg l. 15. reade gloriamur p. 17 l 8. r. eat ye p. 22. l. 8. in mar r. fieri p. 40 l. 1. dele of p. 98. l. 28. in marg r. alleviationem p. 109. l. 2. in mar r. de pecc mer. p. 148. l. 10. r. at the first in p. 151. l. 9. r. Of. p. 191. l. 12. in mar r. perhibeat p. 202. l. 12. dele visible p. 203. l. 6. r. Miracles l. 14. wonders shew p. 218. l. 6. dele the. Alphab 2. pag. 39. l 12. in mar r. hic p. 51. l. 5. add hee p. 58. l. 16 r. et l. 26. r. her p. 62. l. 19. r. Of. p. 92. l. 8. r. Caietans p. 134. lin 5. r. the. Errata in the Sermon Pag. 181. l. 12. in mar r. vertit p. 184. l. 14 in mar r. Condemnant p. 191. l. 1. r. menacing p. 192. l. 35. in mar r. illaqueet l. 36. oblectet p. 195. l. 27. r. conseruare p. 202. l. 8. in marg r. puteum p. 204. l. 16. in mar r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 17. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pa. 211. l. 6. in mar r. volentibus l. ult r. his p. 212 l. 3. r. dores l. 8. in marg r. Christo pa. 214. l. 7. in marg r. obdâ—citur l. 11. in mar r. Epitaphii l. 14. in mar r. laâ—rymis implentur CONCERNING IVSTIFICATION BY FAITH ONLY Spectacles Chap. 9. Sect. 1. THE Knight faileth in the proofe of his first point of Iustification producing but one only place out of a booke intituled Ordo baptizandi visitandi and that of no speciall good anthoritie as hee alledgeth it out of Cassander and Author placed in the first Classis in the first index librorum prohibitorum and even in that which he alledgeth there is nothing that doth not very well stand being rightly under stood with the Catholique faith which wee now professe L. 1. de Iustific c. 7. prop 3. for there is nothing but that which was shewed before out of Bellarmine to wit that in regard of the uncertaintie of our owne justice that is whether wee bee just or no and for the perill of vaine-glory it is most safe to put our whole confidence in the sole mercy and benignitie of God Which word sole doth import confidence in that and in nothing else with which it may stand very well that men in the favour and grace of God may doe workes meritorious of encrease of grace and glory which is the controversie betweene us and heretiques The Hammer AS David cut off Goliahs head with his owne Sword a Eras Apoph Laconum and Brasidas ranne through his Antagonist with his owne Speare and Iustine Martyr refuteth the Philosophers out
agener all Councell may erre the Church may erne if the Church may erre the faith which that Church teacheth may faile and consequently there can bee no certaintie How easily are these leaves plucked away and torne in pieces 1. Though such a Councell as the Councell of Trent consisting of a few Bishops swaied by the Italian faction may erre it would not from thence follow that the whole representative Church might erre 2. Though the whole representative Church in a free and generall Councell lawfully called might erre yet many millions in the Catholique Church may hold the orthodox beliefe and consequently the faith of the Church not totally faile Yea but saith the Iesuit take away the infallibilitie of the Church there is no rule of faith This assertion of his is open blasphemie as if God would not bee true though all men were found liars though the Roman Church and Pope erre a thousand times yet the rule of faith remaineth unvariable in the holy Scriptures Yea but S. Gregorie equalizeth the foure first generall Councels to the Gospel and saith in effect that they could as little erre as the 4. Gospels and that upon the deniall of their authoritie the Christian faith might be shaken as well as by the deniall of the Gospels and the like authoritie giveth your Parliament unto them I answer S. Gregorie equalizeth the foure first generall Councels to the foure Gospels not in respect of authoritie but in respect of the veritie of the articles defined in them he saith not they could as little erre but they did as little erre in their decisions or to speake more properly that their doctrine was as true as Gospell because the determinations in those first generall Councels against Heretiques are evidently deduced out of holy Scriptures Our Parliament alluding to the words of S. Gregorie speaketh in the same sense as hee doth Yea but saith the Iesuit your Parliament lawes acknowledge that for heresie whatsoever is condemned for such in any of those Councels which is in other words to acknowledge them for a rule of faith and consequently to bee of infallible authoritie and to joyne them in the same ranke with the Canonicall Seriptures Idem jungat Vulpes by the like reason the Iesuit might say we joyne the booke of Articles of Religion and Homilies in the same ranke with the Canonicall Scriptures because we condemne for heretiques all that obstinatly maintaine any doctrine repugnant to them which wee doe not because we hold the Decrees of a provinciall Synod to bee of in fallible authoritie but because wee are able to prove all the Articles there established to be consonant to the holy Scriptures Yea but further saith the Iesuit in the same statute P. 203. you give power to the Court of Parliament with the assent of the Clergie in their Convocation to adjudge or determine a matter to be heresie which is the very same as to give it power to declare faith or to be the rule thereof I answer the statute giveth power to the Convocation to declare faith and determine heresie out of Gods word and by the sentence thereof and no otherwise In such sort to declare faith is not to be the rule of faith but to judge and measure things by the rule There is a maine difference betweene these two which yet the Iesuit here confoundeth as if they were coincident to declare faith and to bee the rule of faith every Iudge declareth the Law yet is he not the rule of the Law The Inquisitors in their jndices expurgatorij and the Sorbonists in their censures declare what is heresie yet the y are not Itrow the Rule of popish faith every meater in the market declareth that such or such is the measure of corne and graine yet is not every or any corne-meater the Winchester standerd It is one thing to be the rule and another to measure by the rule and declare what we have measured But to retort the Iesuits phrase upon himselfe hee is not capable it seemes of this discourse which yet every market-woman or boy is Well let the authoritie of generall Councels bee great in the Church and of the foure first Councels greatest of all quid hoc ad Rombum what maketh this for the infallibilitie of the Trent conventicle much saith the Iesuit every way for what saith hee can you say more against the present Church and present Councell of Trent then against the Church and Councels of those times What can we say nay what can we not say what have we not said or what could all the Papists in the world answer to what wee have already said After hee hath taken away the legall exceptions made against this conventicle by the Authour of the historie of the Councell of Trent and of the litterae missivae and Iewel his Treatise affixed to that Historie and Chemnisius his Examen and Doctor Bowles his latine Sermon preached to the Convocation and lately printed after hee hath proved which hee will never bee able that the Assemblie at Trent was a free and generall Councell and called by lawfull authoritie and all the proceedings in it according to ancient Canons yet it will still fall as short of the Councell of Nice in authoritie as in antiquitie that consisted of most eminent learned and holy Bishops and Confessors this for the most part of hungrie animals depending on the Popes trencher as Dudithius a Bishop present at that Councell declareth at large in his letter set before the Historie of the Councell of Trent to which I referre the reader To the second The testimonies alledged by the Knight for the sufficiencie of holy Scriptures are ponderous and weightie and the Iesuits exceptions to them are sleight vaine and frivolous To the testimonie out of the Acts I have kept backe nothing that was profitable unto you and I am pure from the bloud of all men Act. 20.20.27 for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the Councell of God hee saith that S. Paul speaketh of the doctrine by him preached not of the written word of God as in like manner our Saviour saith that what hee heard from his Father hee made knowne unto them Iohn 15.15 and yet delivered not one word in writing It is true S. Paul speaketh of the doctrine which he preached but it is as true that the doctrine which he preached hee confirmed unto them by testimonie of Scripture For S. Luke saith Acts 17.2 that S. Paul as his manner was reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Iesus whom hee preached unto them was Christ and they that received the word with all readinesse of mind searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so Act. 24.14 and again I confesse that after that way which they call heresie so worship I the God of my fathers beleeving all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets If the Iesuit had read the verse immediatly following testifying
are not written And of S. Chrysostome all things that are needfull are manifestly set downe in holy Scriptures And againe in the holy Scriptures wee have a most exact ballance and rule of all things And of S. Ierome who maketh the Scripture a two edged sword cutting heresies on both sides both in the excesse and in the defect We beleeve saith he because were ade in Scriptures we beleeve not what were ade not And of S. Austine among those things which are openly set downe in Scriptures all such things are to bee found as appertaine to faith and manners And so of S. Cyril all things which Christ spake and did are not written but all are written which the writers of the Gospell thought to bee sufficient for doctrine of faith and manners And of S. Vincentius Lyrinensis the Canon of the Scripture is perfect and over and above sufficient for all things And of the prime of the Schoole-men Gabriel Biel The Scripture alone teacheth us what we ought to beleeve and to hope for what things are to bee done and what to bee shunned and all other things that are necessarie to salvation And of William Pepin Dom. 2. advent sala haec scriptur adocet perfectè planè quid credendum c. The holy Scripture alone teacheth perfectly and plainely what wee ought to beleeve as the articles of our Creed what wee ought to doe as all divine precepts what wee ought to desire as heavenly joyes what we ought to feare as eternall torments And of Scotus In prim sent prol q. 2. sacra scriptura sufficienter continet doctrinam necessariam viatori The holy Scripture sufflciently containes doctrine necessarie for away faring man that is in his travell to heaven Howbeit because Cardinall Bellarmine beareth downe all before him the more to convince this Iesuit and nonplus all Papists I will examine what the Knight alledgeth out of him to our present purpose All thing are written saith he by the Apostles which are necessarie for all men to know If all things which are necessarie for all men to know then all things which are necessarie for all Priests Bishops Cardinals yea and the Pope himselfe to know unlesse the Iesuit will prove them to bee no men Assuredly the Apostles and the Fathers assembled at Nice and Constantinople set not downe a different Creed for the Priest and for the people but one for all Christians Yet I grant that as the measures of the sanctuarie were double to the common so the learning of a Priest ought to bee double at least to that of the common sort a more exact full and exquisite knowledge of all both the principles and conclusions of faith is required in thom then in the other yet nothing is required of them as necessarie to salvation which may not bee drawne out of holy Scriptures in which are contained all the treasures of wisdome and knowledge 2 Tim. 3.16.17 Oecum Chrys in huno locum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lit. ad Phil. Hisp reg Nam quod ad Theologiam attinet quae summa Philosophia est his libris omnia nostrae religionis divinitat is mysteria explicantur quod verò attinet ad eam partem quae moralis nominatur hinc quoque omnia ad omnes virtutes praecepta colliguntur quibus quidem duabus partibus omnis nostrae salutis falicitat is ratio continetur Banes in 1. p. Tho. q. 1. art 8. conclus 1. omnia quae non consonant judico eorum gravioribus censuris inurunt idque tanta facilitate ut meritò irrideantur The Apostle saith not only they are able to make wise unto salvation indefinitely but that the man of God that is the minister of God may be wise not only wise unto salvation but furnished to every good worke that is as S. Chrysostome and Oecumenius expound it fully accurately and exactly instructed And for ever to seale the Iesuits mouth thus much Gregorie the thirteenth Pope of Rome in his letters to Philip King of Spaine freely confesseth thus expatiating in the praises of holy Writ as for Theologie which is the prime Philosophie or metaphysick in these bookes speaking of the Bible all the my steries of our religion and divine knowledge are unfolded and as for that part which is tearmed morall from hence all precepts to all vertues are gathered and on these two parts depend all the course or meanes of our salvation and happinesse 3. To the third What Dominicus Banes wrote of certaine Divines in his time that were so free in their censures of other men that they became a laughing stook to all men of judgement may bee truly applyed to the Bishops assembled at Trent who are so free in casting their thunder-bolts of anathemaes against all that differ from them in judgement that the learned and judicious account divers of their Canons no better then Pot-guns As arrowes that are shot bolt upright fall downe upon their heads that shoot them unlesse they carfully looke to it so causelesse curses fall alwayes upon the cursers themselves and hurt none else This made the Knight so much sleight the bruta fulmina of your Trent Councell Yea but saith the Iesuit It is a heavie thing to have the curse of a mother Apo. 17.5 and such a mother which doth not curse without cause The Church of Rome I grant is a mother but mater fornicationum as shee is tearmed the mother of fornications and abominations of the earth but shee is none of our mother Ierusalem or to speake more properly the catholike christian Church is our mother the Roman Church must speake us very faire if wee owne her for a sister even this sheweth her to bee no Mother that shee is ever cursing us the true Mother would by no meanes suffer her child to bee divided This cruell Stepdame not only suffereth those whom shee would have taken for her children to be cut in sunder but her selfe as much as in her lieth by her curses divideth them from God and all the members of Christs mysticall body yet wee spare to apply the words of the Psalmist unto her shee loved not blessing and therefore it shall bee farre from her Ps 109.17.18 shee delighteth in cursing and therefore shall it enter like oyle into her bowels and like water into her bones Howsoever wee are not scared with the bugbeare the Iesuit goeth about to fright us withall Maledictio matris eradicat fundamenta the curse of a Mother doth roote out the foundation For first the booke out of which he citeth this text is not Canonicall Next we denie that the text any way concerneth us who are blessed and not cursed by our Mother the true Catholike Church as for the Roman Church shee can in no sence bee tearmed our mother For we had Christian Religion in this Island before there was any Church at Rome at all as I have else-where proved at large Lastly the text the Iesuit
vpon S. Iohn that out of the side of Christ the Sacraments of the Churchissued he would seeme to answer something First he quarrelleth at the quotation saying I doe not thinke you will find in Chemnitius your good friend S. Ambrose and Bede cited Whereunto I answer that though the Knights good friend Chemnitius cite not Ambrose and Bede yet the Iesuits good friend Card. De Sacram. in gen l. 2. c. 27. Amb. l. 10. in Luc. Bed c. 19. Ioh. intelligunt per sanguinem qui è latere effluxit redemption is pretium per aquam baptismum Bellarmine citeth them both his words are Ambrose in his tenth booke upon S. Luke and Bede in his comment upon the 19. of S. Iohn understand by blood which issued out of our Saviours side the price of our redemption by water Baptisme Next the Iesuit endeavoureth to untwist this triple cord by saying that these three Fathers speake of Sacraments issuing out of Christs side but no way restraine the number to two Whereunto I reply that though the word Sacramenta for the number may bee as well said of seven as two Sacraments yet where S. Austine alludeth to the same text of Scripture and falleth upon the same conceite he restraineth the number to two saying there issued out of Christs side water and blood quae sunt Ecclesiae gemina Sacramenta Now I would faine know of the Iesuit where ever hee read gemina to signifie seven or more then two Were the Dioscuri which are commonly knowne by the name of gemini seven or two only to wit Castor and Pollax As for S. Ambrose and Bede though they say not totidem verbis that the two Sacraments of the Church issued out of Christs side as S. Austine doth yet they can bee understood of no more then two Sacraments for there were but two things which issued out of our Saviours side to wit water and blood whereby they understand Baptisme and the Lords Supper Had there issued out of our Saviours side together with water and blood Chrisme or balsamum or had a rib beene taken from thence the Iesuit might have some colour to draw more Sacraments out of it but now sith the Text saith there issued onely two things water and blood and the Fathers say the Sacraments of the Church are thereby meant it is most apparant that by Sacramenta they meant those two only which they there name in expresse words Baptisme and the price of our redemption that is Christs blood in the Eucharist To the seventh The authoritie of S. Ambrose is as a thorne in the Iesuits eye for it cannot but bee a great prejudice to their cause that so learned a Bishop as S. Ambrose writing six bookes professedly of the Sacraments omitteth the Romish five and spendeth his whole discourse upon our two If the Church in his time beleeved or administred seven Sacraments hee could no way be excused of supine negligence for making no mention at all of the greater part of them it were all one as if a man professing to treate of the elements or the parts of the world which are foure or of the Pleiades or the Septentriones or the Planets which are seven should handle but two of that number Bellarmine therefore and after him Flood pluck hard at this thorne but cannot get it out saying that S. Ambrose his intent was to instruct the Catechumeni only as the title of one of the books sheweth For first S. Ambrose hath no booke of that title viz. An instruction to them who are to bee catechized or are beginners in Christianitie The title of that booke is De ijs qui initiantur of those who are initiated or entred into holy mysteries Secondly this is not the title of any of the six bookes de sacramentis alledged by the Knight but of another tractate Thirdly admit that S. Ambrose as S. Austine and Cyrill wrote to the Catechumeni and intended a Catechisme yet they were to name all the Sacraments unto them as all Divines usually doe in their Catechismes because the Sacraments are alwayes handled among the grounds and principles of Christian religion And though the Catechumeni are not presently admitted unto all yet they are to learne what they are that they may bee the better prepared in due time to receive them Fourthly it is evidently untrue which the Iesuit saith that S. Ambrose writeth not to the beleevers of that age but only to some beginners The very front of his booke proves the Iesuit to bee frontlesse For S. Ambrose his first words are I will begin to speake of the Sacraments which wee have received c. In Christiano enim viro prima est fides for the first thing in a Christian man is faith And as hee writeth to all beleevers not beginners only so hee speaketh also of the chiefe Sacraments of the New Testament and not of those only which the catechumeni received as is apparant out of the fourth chapter of the first booke De sacramentis Wherein hee proveth according to the title of that Chapter Quôd sacramenta Christia norum diviniora sint priora quà m Indaeorum That the Sacraments of the Chrìstians are more ancient and more divine then those of the Iewes and hee instanceth especially in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Lastly the Iesuit in this answer apparantly contradicteth himselfe first saying that S. Ambrose intent in that Worke was only to instruct the catechumeni in those things that were to be done in the time of Baptisme p. 210. and within a few lines after he saith Bud. deasse Veritas nonnunquam invitis erumpit as fallens inter mendacia ab audientibus demuns agnoscitur cum interim loquentes adbuc se habere in potestate putent that he writeth of the Sacraments whereby they were so initiated which are three Baptisme Confirmation and the Eucharist So true is Budaeus his observation That lyes dash one with the other and truth breakes out of the mouth of the lyar ere hee is aware Who ever heard of the Eucharist to bee administred in the time of Baptisme or that the Eucharist was administred at all to the punies or catechumeni whilest they were such certainly if the catecumeni or younger beginners to whom hee saith S. Ambrose wrote were capable of the doctrine of the Eucharist containing in it the highest mysteries of Christianitie they were much more capable of Penance Matrimonie and Extreame Unction which are easie to bee understood by any novice in Christian religion To the eight That it may appeare what was the judgement of S. Austine in this maine point of difference betweene the Reformed and the Roman Church I will weigh what is brought on both sides first what the Iesuit alledgeth for seven and then what the Knight for two S. Austine having written divers Catechisticall treatises in which hee had occasion to name and handle the Sacraments yet no where defineth the number of them to bee seven
to which we owe absolute consent and beliefe Vid. August supr cit without any question or contradiction To the two and twentieth Saint Austine defends no point of Faith against Heretikes either onely or chiefly by the Tradition and practise of the Catholike Church but either onely or chiefly by the Scriptures For example in his booke of Baptisme against the Donatists after hee had debated the point by Scriptures hee mentioneth the custome of the Church and relateth Stephanus his proceeding against such as went about to overthrow the ancient custome of the Catholike Church in that point But hee no where grounds his Doctrine upon that custome though hee doth well approve of it as wee doe Againe in his booke against Maximinus and his 174 Epist to Pascentius hee confirmeth the faith of the Trinity by the written Word against those Heretikes his words Ep. 175 Haec siplacet audire quemadmodum è Scripturis sacris asserantur to the same Pascentius are Here thou maist heare if thou wilt how these points of our Faith are maintained by Scripture So farre is hee from founding those or any other points of faith only or chiefly upon unwritten Traditions What the Iesuit alleageth out of his tenth booke De Genes ad literam cap. 23. Consuetudo matris Ecclesiae in baptizandis parvulis nequaquam spernendus est neque ullo modo superflua deputanda no whit advantageth his cause for there Saint Austine saith no more but The custome of the Church in baptizing Infants is no way to be despised or to be accounted superfluous Wee all say the same and condemne the Pelagians of old and Anabaptists of late who deny Baptisme to be administred to children or any way derogate from the necessitie of that Sacrament The Iesuit saith hee will say nothing of Prayer for the dead yet hee quoteth Saint Austine de curâ pro mortuis as if in that booke hee taught Prayer for the dead and grounded it upon unwritten Tradition Whereas in that booke hee neither maintaineth Prayer for the dead nor maketh mention of any unwritten Tradition for it but on the contrarie solidly out of Scriptures proveth Esaias Propheta dicit Abraham nos nescivit et Israel non cognovit nos si tanti patriarchae quid erga populum ex his procreatur ageretur ignoraverunt quomodo mortui vivorum rebus atque actibus cog noscendis adjuvandisque miscentur et paulo post ibi ergo sunt spiritus defunctorum ubi non vident quecunque aguntur aut eveniunt in istâ vitâ hominibus Ep. 118. Si quid hocum sic faciendum divinae Scripturae praescribat authoritas non est dubitandum quin ita facere debeamus similiter si quid per orbem tota frequentat Ecclesia that the Saints departed have no knowledge of our affaires upon earth the Prophet Esay saith Abraham knoweth us not and Israel is ignorant of us If so great Patriarchs knew not what befell their posteritie after their death how can it be defended that the dead intermeddle with the actions or affaires of the living to helpe them onward or so much as to take notice of them A little after he concludes flat upon the Negative The Spirits therefore of the dead there remaine where they knowe not what befalleth to men in this life To what end therefore should wee call upon them in our troubles and distresse here Neither hath this Father any thing in his 118 Epistle for the Iesuit or against us for there hee speaketh of Ecclesiasticall Rites and Customes as appeares in the very title of that Epistle not of Doctrines of Faith and yet even in these hee giveth a preheminence to the Scriptures If saith hee the authoritie of divine Scripture prescribe any Rite or Custome to be kept there is no question to be made of such a Rite or Custome and in like manner if the whole Church throughout the world constantly useth such a Rite or Custome The Iesuites next allegation out of this Fathers booke De unitate Eccles cap. 22. falleth short of his marke hee saith there that Christ beareth witnesse to his Church that it should be Catholike that is spread over the face of the Earth and not to be confined to any certaine place as the Province of Affrica Wee say the same and adde that the bounds of it are no more the territories of the Bishop of Rome than the Provinces of Affrica Wee grant that Whosoever refuseth to follow the practise of the Church to wit the Catholike or universall Church resisteth or goeth against our Saviour who promised by his spirit to leade her into all truth and to be with her to the end of the World Which promise may yet stand good and firme though any particular Church erre in Faith or manners as did the Churches of Asia planted by the Apostles themselves and the Church of Rome doth at this day Cont. lit Petil. l. 3. c. 6. Now because that testimonie of Saint Austine wherewith the Knight concludes almost every Section If wee or an Angell from heaven preach unto you any thing whether it be of Christ or of his Church or any thing which concerneth Faith or manners besides that which you have received in the Legall and Evangelicall Scriptures let him be accursed is as a beame in all Papists eyes therefore they use all possible meanes to take it out but all in vaine for the words of the Apostle on which Saint Paul commenteth are not as the Iesuit would have them If any man preach unto you Contra against but if any preach unto you Praeter besides Ep. ad Galat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neque enim inquit si contraria solum predicaverint intulit anathema esto sed si evangelizaverint preter id quod ipsi evangelisavimus hoc est si plusculum quidpiam adjecerent as Saint Chrysostome and Theophylact accutely observe The Apostle saith not if Chrysostome rightly understand him if they should preach any thing contrary but if they shall in their preaching adde any thing be it never so little besides that which wee have preached unto you let him be accursed And Theophylact is altogether as plaine as Chrysostome in his Glosse upon the words The Apostle inferreth not if any man preach contrarie to that yee have received but if any preach besides that which wee have preached unto you that is if they shall presume to adde any thing though never so little let them be accursed Neither doth Saint Austine in his tractate upon Saint Iohn upon which Bellarmine and after him Flood so much beare themselves any whit contradict the former interpretations of Saint Chrysostome and Theophylact. For his words in that place carry this sense The Apostle saith not if any man preach more unto you than you have already received that is perfectly conceived and apprehended for then hee should goe against himselfe who saith that hee desired to come to the Thessalonians to supply
by condignitie meane no otherwise than the Iesuit interpreteth them we shall all soone shake hands for who ever denied that God rewarded our good workes but here either wittingly or ignorantly the Iesuit concealeth the conditions required to every meritorious Act ex condigno First that the worke be properly ours and not his of whom wee pretend to merit Secondly that it be opus indebitum a worke to which otherwise wee are not bound Thirdly that it be some way profitable and beneficiall to him from whom wee expect our reward Fourthly that it have condignity to the reward expected or as Vasquez speaketh Be worthy of the reward and have an equall value of worth to the obtaining thereof Vpon all these conditions wee contest with Papists and consequently deny any merits of condignitie yet freely acknowledge a reward of good workes and this reward to be due unto us but a reward of grace and free bounty and due to us by his promise no way by our deserts Concerning the Fathers whether Protestants or Papists attribute more unto them Spectacles chap. 12. a page 405. usque ad 434. IT cannot be unknown to any man of learning or that hath but any the least acquaintance with the Controversies of this age what great advantage wee Catholikes have by the writings of the ancient Fathers how highly wee esteeme them what confidence wee place in them and how wee appeale to them for decision of our Controversies and how small respect on the other side Heritikes shew either to their persons or writings as being in their opinions but men and subject to errour Or rather how contemtibly they speake of them for proofe whereof a man need not goe no farther than that little Treatise of Campian's ten reasons the fift of which is of the Fathers In the thirteene Instances by which the Knight will prove that Bellarmine and Stapleton and Senensis and Gregorie de Valentia and Sanders and Ribera and Canus and Salmeron either elude or reject the Fathers the Knight dealeth not squarely For though hee quote the words for the most part truly yet hee concealeth their reasons which they give of their answers Neither doe those Writers insist onely upon those answers to the places objected out of the Fathers but adde many other unto them to give the Reader better satisfaction as will appeare by the particular examination of each passage The Hammer ALthough in this Chapter the Iesuit lye as open to the lash as in any of the former yet partly because hee is like him in the Poet that was so tawed and fleade with rods that there was no skin left on his body for a new stroke to fetch off partly because Page 406 hee confesseth hee cannot tell what to say to the Knight but especially because the Argument of this Chapter is most fully and accurately handled by Dr. Humphrey and Dr. Whitaker in their answer to Campian his fift reason and in a singular Treatise lately set forth by Laurentius intituled Reverentia Ecclesiae Romanae erga sanctos patres I will forbeare to examine the severall Paragraphs in this Chapter wherein whatsoever is materiall is refuted in the answers to the former Sections onely I will point at some notorious falsities and absurdities if not to rectifie the Iesuits judgement yet to disabuse the credulous Reader First hee denieth not that the Romane Doctors above mentioned utter those disgracefull speeches of Saint Austen Origen Theodoret Cyprian Tertullian and the rest but he addeth that they gave other answers to our objections out of those Fathers What is that to the purpose or against the Knight who denieth not that Popish writers have other shifts and evasions to our arguments drawne from the testimony of ancient Fathers besids those which are here set down in this chapter which are refuted by Chamierus Iunius and for the better part of them by me in the former Sections but he produced these passages onely to shew the Romanists disrespect and sleightening of the ancient Fathers if in any thing they crosse their Trent Faith Secondly to touch upon some particulars how ridiculously and absurdly doth the Iesuit speake Pag. 417. Epiphanius saith in plaine manner that the Image which he saw hang in the Church at Anablatha and tare downe the vale in which it was drawne was not the Image of Christ or any Saint but the Image of a man he knew not whom which if it had bin Christs or any Saints he would have knowne whose it was neither would he have called the Image of Christ or any Saint the Image of a man Why I pray you is not Christ a man were not Saints men What should Epiphanius have said else who saw there the representation of the feature and liniaments of a man but knew not what man that was he saith he saw a vaile having on it the Image as if it had beene of Christ or some Saint for he knew not whose it was If he knew not whose it was for ought he knew it might be made for the Image of Christ or any Saint Vpon what ground then doth the Iesuit say that it was neither the Image of Christ nor of any Saint P. 423. Thirdly he saith it is evident that Saint Chrysostome did say Masse every day whereas neither in that place quoted by him neither in any place in all his workes can it be gathered that he ever said Masse or administred the Sacrament without communicants the Romish Masse is of a farre later date then the age of Saint Chrysostome P. 425. Fourthly he most shamefully and falsely traduceth the Protestants whom he tearmes the Haeretikes of this age that they speake generally very meanely and contemptibly of the most sacred Virgine I marvaile his heart did not smite him when his hand wrote these words so directly against the truth and his owne conscience For he cannot be ignorant that King Iames in his admonition to all Princes set forth in Latine French and English and our Church in the booke of Common Prayer speake most honourably and reverently of that most Sacred and blessed Virgine religiously observing the feasts of her Annuntiation and Purification and rehearsing at every Evensong her Magnificat P. 427. Fiftly he saith that Saint Ierome alloweth the the booke of Judith to be Canonicall Scripture whereas in the place quoted by him the preface to Iudith he saith onely that it is read or that he had read somewhere that the Nicene Synod did reckon the booke of Judith among the holy Scriptures but for himselfe he saith in that very Preface that this booke is not fit to be alleaged for the confirmation of those things that are in controversie And in his Preface to the booke of Proverbs he saith expressely that the booke of Judith is not accounted by the Church for Canonicall Iudith Tobie P. 430. Machabeorum libros legit quidem ecclesia sed cos inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipit Sixtly he affirmeth that
of Baruch and the second booke of the Macchabees and the booke of Nehemiah which the present Romane Church receiveth for Canonicall Secondly Gelasius with his Roman Councell freely give their censure of all Theologicall bookes then extant but they clip not the tongues of any Authors nor burne their bookes If the Romish Inquisitors had done no more if they had let the Records and Evidences remaine and onely censured them at their pleasure wee would not so much have blamed them for using the freedome of their judgements wee would only freely have censured their Censures Lips Epist Critica nostra non effugêre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and left all to the judicious and intelligent Readers judgement An errour in Criticisme is pardonable but the making away of the evidence of Truth Advers Gentes l. 3. Intercipere scripta publicatam velle submergere lectionem non est Deos defendere sed veritatis testificationem timere and defacing authenticall Records is a damnable practise and an undoubted Argument both of an evill conscience and a desperate cause as Arnobius layeth the Law to the Gentiles To the third Gelasius his testimonie of the Romane Church whereof hee was then Bishop can be of no great moment It seemeth at that time the Church of Rome wanted good neighbours that the Pope was faine to blazon his owne armes and guild his owne Diocese not thinking of the old Proverbe Laus propria sordet in ore Howbeit wee grant in Gelasius his time the Romane Church had not many spots and wrinkles for then shee was young in comparison now she is old and decrepit and all full of wrinkles and after the manner of crooked old age boweth downe to wit to rood-lofts Images and Pictures But neither then nor now hath shee any power to forbid the use of any Books through the whole Church but onely within her owne jurisdiction To the fourth This Plaister is a great deale too narrow for the Sore of the Romane Church to which the Iesuit applieth it For it is not their admonitions to the Children of their owne Church which we here complaine of but their cutting out of the tongues of learned Authors when they witnesse the truth not the censuring their own Writers but the mangling of some of them and utterly abolishing others Vnder colour of taking away Rats-bane out of the way they take away Sugar from their Children and which is worse debarre them from the sincere Milke of the Word I meane the Scriptures in the vulgar language Yet were there Rats-bane in some of the Writers with whom the Inquisitours have to deale they should have onely given notice thereof or prescribed some Antidote against it considering that Physitians and Apothecaries and Housholders also make good use of Rats-bane sometimes To the fift The Iesuit doth well not to undertake justifying of the Inquisition which hee well knoweth hee is not able onely here and there hee nibleth at some Author or other that hath falne into their hands as Bertram in this place whom the Knight long agoe rescued and gave unto him the wings of the Presse to flie abroad whereby hee hath received no disgrace but many thankes from all that love the Truth in sinceritie For the translation thereof which the Iesuit imputeth to the Knight as a great disparagement to him the truth is the Knight translated not Bertram but published the translation of another by re-printing it and gracing it with a learned and elegant Preface of his owne Which I marvell not that the Iesuit kicketh at because hee and his fellow Iesuits are sore Galled with it When the Iesuit shall prove any falsification in the translated Copie or any errour inserted into it hee shall receive a further answer Till then let the brand remaine upon the Romane Index for damning the originall and upon the Iesuit for defaming the true translated Copie of so learned and orthodox a Writer as Bertram was To the sixt In citing the Councell of Laodicea and detecting the Inquisitours foule dealing with it by turning Angels into Angles to gaine a starting hole for their Idolatrie the Iesuit by recrimination objecteth to the Knight errour in Chronology and corruption of the Councell To the first I answer that the Primate of Armath and other learned Antiquaries have set this Councell about the yeare mentioned by the Knight your Binius ingeniously confesseth quo anno celebratum fuit incertum est It is uncertaine in what yeare of our Lord this Councell was held hee saith it was celebrated before the Councell of Nice but hee brings no proofe of it If wee should grant him that this Councell were elder by 40 or 50 yeares than the Knight accounteth it it would be more for our advantage and against him sith Councels the more ancient they are caeteris paribus the more authority they carrie with them To the second I answer that the translation which the Knight followed agreeth verbatim with the originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which words two of the Romish Translators set in Columnes one against the other by Binius render as followeth The first thus Quod non oporteat Christianos relictâ dei ecclesiâ abire Angelos nominare The other thus Quod non oporteat ecclesiam dei relinquere atque Angelos nominare That is that Christians ought not to leave the Church of God and goe their wayes and name Angels that is mention them in our Prayers or take their names in our lips as the Psalmist speaketh of Idoll-worshippers Psal 16.4 Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer nor take their name in my lips And thus Theodoret in his Comment upon the second Chapter of St. Paul to the Colossians vers 18. alleageth the Canon of this Councell Because saith hee they commanded men to worship Angels Saint Paul enjoyneth on the contrarie that they should send up Thanksgiving to God the Father by him that is Christ and not by the Angels The Synod of Laodicea also following this rule of the Apostle and desiring to heale that old disease made a Law that they should not pray unto Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here the Iesuit hath both the Canon and the Report the Canon of the ancient Councell held at Laodicea thundring against their Invocation of Angels and the learned and ancient Father Theodoret his Report of it To the seventh Those men whom the Iesuit nameth were not Fathers of our Religion but Brethren onely of our profession neither was their motive for the change of their Religion carnall love as the Iesuit like impure Nero judging others by himselfe conceiveth but a voyce from Heaven saying unto them goe out of Babylon my people Apoc. 18.4 lest you partake of her Plagues It is true those instruments of Gods glory were married as the Apostles St. Peter and St. Phillip and many of the chiefe Bishops and Pastours in the Primitive Church were of whom it may be said as Sozomen spake of
us of supernaturall truth but Scripture as is abundantly proved by Saint Austine If any thing be confirmed by perspicuous authority of Canonicall Scriptures we must without any doubt or haesitation beleeve it but to other witnesses or testimonies we may give credit as we see cause and in his 97. Epistle to St. Ierome I have learned to yeeld that honour and reverence onely to the Canonicall Scriptures that I most firmely beleeve that no Author of them could erre in any thing he wrot and in his booke de natura gratia I professe my selfe free in all such writings of men because I owe absolute consent without any demurre or staggering onely to the Canonicall bookes of Scripture To the same purpose he writeth against Faustus the Manichee l. 11. c. 5. and ep 48. But what neede I presse St. Austine when the evident letter of Scripture is for this truth Titus 1.2 Rom. 3.4 God cannot lie and let God be true and every man a lier that is subject to error and falsehood Againe the Scriptures are sufficient to instruct us in all points necessary to salvation therefore every article of divine faith is evidently grounded upon Scripture The Antecedent I thus prove 2 Tim. 3.15.16 whatsoever is profitable for doctrine for reproofe for correction for instruction in righteousnesse in such sort that it is able to make a man wise unto salvation and perfect to every good worke is sufficient to instruct in all points of salvation but the Scripture is so profitable that it is able to make wise unto salvation and perfect to every good worke Ergo It is sufficient to instruct in all points necessary to salvation The major is evident ex terminis the minor is the letter of the text and that the adversary may not except that this is my collection onely L. 3. Advers haer c. 1. Non per alios dispo sitionem salutis nostrae cognovimus quam per cos per quos evangelium ad nos pervenit quod quidem tunc preconiaverunt postea per Dei volun tatem nobis in Scripturis tradiderunt fundamentum columnam fidei nostrae futuram Aug. l. 3. cont Lit. Petil. c. 6. Sive de Chrlsto sive de ejus ecclesia sive de quacunque re quae pertinet ad fidem vitamque nostram non dicom si nos nequaquam comparandi ei quid dixit si nos sed omnino quod seturus adjecit si Angelus de Coelo vobis annunciaverit praeterquam quod in Scripturis Legalibus Evangelicis accepistis anathema sit I will produce to him impregnable testimonies of the ancient Fathers Irenaeus We have not knowne by others the meanes which God hath appointed for our salvation then by those by whom the Gospell came unto us which at the first the Apostles preached by word of mouth but afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to be the foundation and pillar of our faith The second is Saint Austine Whether concerning Christ or concerning his Church or concerning any thing that pertaineth to our faith and life I will not say if we but even as he going forward addeth if an Angell from Heaven shall preach unto you any thing but what you have received in the Scriptures of the law and the Gospell accursed be hee Yea but the Iesuit objecteth against us and these Holy Fathers that by the Scriptures we cannot prove which bookes of Scripture are Canonicall and which are not I answere first our question here is not of the principles of Divinity but of Theologicall conclusions Now that Scripture is the word of God and that these bookes are Canonicall Scriptures are principles in Divinity and therefore not to be proved according to the rule of the great Philosopher in the same science It is sufficient to make good our Tenet that the Canonicall Scriptures being presupposed as principles every conclusion de fide may be deduced out of them Secondly that such bookes of Holy Scriptures are Canonicall and the rest which are knowne by the name of Apochrypha are not Canonicall is proved by arguments and testimonies drawne out of Scripture it selfe by Whitaker Disputatione de sacrâ Scripturâ controversiâ primâ by Reynolds most copiously in his Censura librorum Apochryphorum Thirdly I retorte the Iesuits argument against himselfe when they teach tradition is part of Gods word how prove they it to be so by Scripture or Tradition by Scripture they cannot prove that unwritten traditions are Gods word if they prove it by Tradition then they begge the point in question and prove idem per idem To the second The Romanists ground some doctrines of their faith upon the letter of Scripture but it is that letter which killeth as for example they ground their carnall presence of Christ in the Sacrament upon those words in the sixt of St. Iohn unlesse yee eate the flesh of the Sonne of God and drinke his blood you have no life in you which words if you take according to the letter this letter killeth saith Origen but it is the spirit saith our Saviour that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words which I speake unto you they are spirit and they are life Iohn 6.63 He that pierceth the barke and commeth to the sap runneth not from the tree of life but rather runneth to it so doe we when we leave the barke of the letter upon necessary occasions and pierce into the heart and draw out the sap of the spirituall meaning To presse the letter of Scripture against the spirituall meaning and analogie of faith is not onely Iewish but Haereticall For example The Anthropomorphites ground their haeresie upon plaine and expresse words of Scripture from which to use the Iesuits owne words All Orthodox Divines are faine to flie to figurative and tropicall interpretations To the third First Saint Peter saith not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in which Epistles of St. Paul but in which points and heads of doctrine many things are hard to be understood Secondly though some points be hard to be understood in themselves or are obscurely set downe in Scripture it followeth not from thence that all things necessary to salvation are not plainely delivered therein For as before I proved out of Saint Austine and Saint Chrysostome Among thuse things which are plainly delivered in Scriptures all such points are found as containe faith and manners all things that are necessarie are manifest Thirdly those things which are obscurely set downe in Saint Pauls Epistles may be and are elsewhere in holy Scriptures more perspicuously delivered Lastly Saint Peter saith not that those things are hard to be understood simply and to all men but to the ignorant and unstable who wrest all Scripture to their owne destruction Among which number the Iesuit must reckon himselfe and his associates before they can fit this text to their purpose To the fourth First this passage out of Saint Iohn hath beene discussed
published by Pope Pius the fourth were never anciently received pag 25. The 39 Articles of the Church of England justified pag. 30. Papists teach that the Pope hath power to create new Articles of Faith pag. 33. Many Doctrines of Poperie are new by the confession of Papists themselves pag. 38. Protestants have a certaine rule of Faith Papists have not pag. 45 The Roman translation of the Bible is most corrupt pag. 51. Three sorts of corruptions and abuses of ancient Fathers 1. By foysting bastard Treatises entitling them to the Fathers 2. By falsifying their undoubted Treatises by additions detractions or mutations 3. By alleaging passages and places out of them which are not extant in their Workes and of all these three kinds Romanists are proved guiltie pag 64. Corruptions and falsifications of ancient Writers by Papists In the first Age. pag. 65. In the 2. Age. pag. 67. In the 3. pag. 68. In the 4. pag. 73. In the 5. pag. 77. In the 6. pag. 89. In the 7. pag. 90. In the 8. pag. 92. In the 9. pag. 105. In the 10. pag. 109. In the 11. pag. 110. In the 12. pag. 111. In the 13. pag. 112. In the 14. pag. 114. In the 15. pag. 115. In the 16. pag. 122. Of implicit Faith and blind Obedience maintained by Papists pag. 143. CHAP. II. Papists their bitternesse against reformed Churches is causlesse pag. 148. The definition of Heretikes agreeth to Papists but no way to Protestants pag. 151. Rome confessed to be Babylon by learned Romanists pag. 157. CHAP. III. Cassander and Caesenus are justified pag 164. Corruption in Faith as well as manners are confessed to have been in the Roman Church by the learned of that partie pag. 165. The Councell of Trent intended a reformation of Faith as well as manners pag. 173. CHAP. IV. The Catholike Faith is not so indivisible but that a man may renounce it in part though not in all as many learned Romanists have renounced the Trent Faith in part pag. 178. Priests marriage is lawfull pag. 181. CHAP. V. Romanists prefer their own interpretations of Scriptures before the ancient Fathers pag. 188. CHAP. VI. Many errours have crept into the Church whose first Authors cannot be named pag. 191. The difference between Heresie and Apostacie pag 196. CHAP. VII The petty degree of the Romish Faith is drawne from the ancient Heretikes namely the Osseni Helcheseite the Capernaites the Manichees the Aâ—gelici the Collyridians the Tacians and the Cathorists pag. 219. CHAP. VIII The Antiquitie and Vniversalitie of the Protestant Faith in generall is proved by the testimonies of our learned Adversaries pag. 253. There are but 22 Canonicall books of the old Testament as is proved by the testimonies of the ancient Fathers both of the Greeke and Latine Church pag 276. Errata in the first Part. PAge 42. line 8. reade his lin 17. r. authority in marg l. 2 r. ad Dard. p. 57. lin 11. r. their foreseene p. 66. l. 4. r. the deepe p. 75. l. 20. r. Angles p 92 in mar l. 8. r. alius in text l. 29. r. rejected p. 93. l. 16. r. serve p. 109. l. 23. r. making him speake p. 131. in mar l. 12. r. veniali p. 138. l. 25. r. very corruptly p. 139. l. 25. in marg 1. repurgata p. 153. l. 22. r. homoousians p. 164 in marg l. 25. r. vicesimi terrii p. 173. l. 23. r. operierunt p. 189. in mar l. 17 sequuntur p. 218. l. 2. r. Vitalian p. 219. l. 18. in marg r. regnum p 224. in marg l. 10. r. minus p. 248. in marg l. 12. r. curvat l. 14. r. pronus l. 18. r. iudico p. 251. l. 6. r. argument p. 255. l. 3. r. ingenuously p 257. l. 12. r. true body l. 21. r. is l. 22. dele and. p. 270. l. 4. r. looke p. 271. l. 29. r. of the. p. 273. l. 3. dele to the p. 279. l. 22. r. when To J. R. AUTHOR OF THE BOOKE CALLED A paire of Spectacles I Received a Treatise from you Mr. J. R. not long since published against me by the title of A paire of Spectacles or An Answer to a booke called Via tuta The safe way wherein you say the booke is shewed to be a Labyrinth of Errours and the Author a blinde Guide To what end your Spectacles were made for a blinde man I cannot tell for sure I am if I were blinde a paire of your Spectacles could not make me see howsoever if the indifferent Reader will look but upon the Frontispice of your own book he shall easily discerne that your glasses are deceitfull and do justly occasion a Writ of Error to be brought against your selfe for making that to seem in S. Austin your first Author which is not Your words are these Qui autem praetergreditur regulam fidei non accedit in viâ sed recedit de viâ Aug. in Joh. Tract 98. Tom. 9. p. 487. He that goeth besides the rule of faith which is the Catholique Church doth not come in the way but goeth out of the way wherein you have added these words of your owne viz. which is the Catholique Church in the same character with S. Austin and in lieu of Scripture you pretend the Church to be the rule of Faith whereas that ancient Father assures us Civitas Dei credit Scripturis Undè fides ipsa concepta est ex quâ justus vivit Aug. de Civit. Dei l. 19. c. 18. Tom. 5. Sancta Scriptura nostrae doctrinae regulam figit Idem de bono Viduitatis Tom. 4. c. 1. that from the holy and canonicall Scriptures that faith is formed and bred by which the just doe live Nay more hee expressely professeth with us that the holy Scripture doth fix or settle the rule of our doctrine And thus in your first citation you falsifie S. Austin and go besides the rule of faith and good manners also and by stumbling at the threshold you shew your selfe to bee the blinde guide you speake of in the first page and the first place I proceed to your Dedicatorie Epistle first you begin to descant upon my name in paralelling the words Lyend and Lye howsoever say you The title of Sir will be left for you These bee the first flowers of your eloquence and they savour sweetly Now if I should repay you in your owne language and shew you what men are branded with the letter R which stands for your name if I should shoot backe I say your arrowes even bitter words into your owne bosome would it not shew rather want of matter than proofe of doctrine If you delight to sit in the seat of the scornefull it shall be my comfort to tread in the steps of my Saviour who when hee was reviled reviled not againe To let passe your bitter reproaches of my learning and breeding I will come to the matter You have not stated the question say you fully and truly for you were
true though the things there spoken be not understood in a proper sense but in a metaphoricall sense onely Nay more your Jesuite Suare Suarez Tom. 3. disp 46. confesseth that this Cardinall in his Commentary upon this Article doth affirme that those words of Christ This is my body doe not of themselves sufficiently prove Transubstantiation without the authoritie of the Church and therefore by the command of Pope Pius the fifth that part of his Commentary is sponged out of the Romish Edition Thus one while you correct your Authors another while you purge them for delivering the truth in our behalfe Look upon your Cardinall Bellarmine although he will not allow that sense which the Lutherans give Bell. de Euch. l. 2. c. 19. yet hee granteth that those words This is my body may imply either such a reall change of the bread as the Catholiques hold or such a figurative change as the Calvinists hold And although hee would seeme to prove that the words of Scripture are so plaine that they may compell a refractorie man to beleeve them yet having well weighed the reasons and allegations of other Schoole-men Bell. de Euch. l. 3. c. 23. at last concludes It may justly be doubted whether the text be cleere enough to inforce it seeing men sharp and learned such as Scotus was have thought the contrary How therefore your Church should ground a point of faith upon a doubtfull opinion or on such words as by the testimonies of your best learned Divines may receive a double construction I leave it to be judged But farther in proofe of Pope Pius Creed I could urge Sr. Humfrey say you with the 39. Articles appointed by the authoritie of the Church of England to be uniformely taught by all Ministers which they are to sweare unto which Articles though they be indeed new coyned as the foundation of a new Church yet Sr. Humfrey being his mothers Champion will not I suppose yeeld her or her doctrine to bee new Thus you It is true as you say there are 39. Articles appointed by our Church to bee uniformely taught by all Ministers and it is as true that they are published and received with unitie and consent which your men acknowledge for a proper marke of the true Church And withall let me adde this one thing for your observation and indeed it is a thing remarkable whereas all your Trent Articles have beene questioned and confuted by Chemnitius Chamierus Gentilletus and other Protestant writers yet there was never any Papist could goe farther than to tell us as you doe I could urge you with the novelty of the 39. Articles I say never as yet did any Romanist attempt much lesse was able to confute and overthrow our Articles which stand like a house built upon a rocke immoveable and cannot be shaken Let me tell you further your comparisons betwixt our Articles and yours doe not hold for all your Articles are fundamentall points to your Trent beleevers and the deniall of any of them makes them heretiques and damned persons as your Popes Bull expressely declareth Bulla Pii quarti On the other side some of our Articles concerne the discipline of the Church and are not essentiall to salvation others concerne the ancient and latter heresies wherein we teach the negative and those are not properly Articles of faith which we beleeve but points of doctrine which wee condemne and beleeve not And that you may know our Articles are not new nor newly coyned by our men if you will put on your spectacles you shall finde that most of our prime Articles are taught and received by your owne Church as well as ours and therefore I hope you will confesse they are not coyned and built upon the foundation of a new Church Briefly touching our 39. Articles The first sort are in the Affirmative both ours and yours and all those are uniformely received by both Churches The second sort are ours onely which we affirme and you deny and those are very few in number and are evidently deduced from the Scripture The third sort are yours which we deny and you affirme and for that cause you terme our religion negative and those remaine for you to make good Joyne therefore those negative Articles which are wholly yours to those positive Articles which you hold with us and you shall easily discerne if the denomination followeth the greater part those Articles may most properly bee termed Articles of your faith for I dare confidently avow that of the 39. Articles there are above 35. yours that is either such which you hold with us which are at least twentie or such wherein the affirmative is yours and not ours which are at least fifteene take therefore your owne libertie either confute ours or make good your owne herbam porrigemus and I will give you the bucklers You proceed and upon a false supposall that our Church hath created new Articles you proclaime in the name of your owne Church these words We teach that for Articles of faith the Church can make none as she cannot write a Canonicall booke of Scripture Thus you When Diogenes saw a supposed Bastard casting stones in a presse of much people he gave the boy this caveat Take heed lest thou hit thy father This is like to bee your case for by this Tenet you will wound the Church your Mother and amongst others you will surely hit your holy Father the Pope It appeares first that you endevoured to shew that your Church hath created no new Articles of faith but for want of solid proofes you begin to faint and thinke it the safest way to turne Protestant in this point and say the Church can create none but I wonder how you dare pronounce in the name of the Church we teach whereas in truth your Church teacheth it not This is therefore but a cunning device of yours to dazle the eyes of the ignorant with your false glasses and to make them beleeve it is the generall Tenet of your Church and then you thinke they will conclude according to your Assertion Ergo The Church hath created none when as your saying makes more strongly against you if either your Articles prove new or the Pope and his Agents professe the contrarie Mr. Heigham who first answered my Book Mr. Heigham in his answer called Via verè tuta pag. 199. 200. was a member of your Church and he cries aluod that the Church hath power to decree and promulgate new articles of faith But your third Replyer Tom Tell-troth in his Whetstone of Reproofe thought it the wisest way to decline the question for hee knew well when you were both at odds and taught flat contrarie doctrine each to other the Whetstone of necessitie would belong to one of his fellow writers But to let passe such differences amongst your selves bee it spoken to your comfort Friar Walden about two hundred yeares agoe affirmed the same that you doe Waldens
this is inviolably to be observed You see then that howsoever your Pius Pope gave a dispensation for the reading of the Scriptures yet Pope Clement his Successor declared that license to be void and of none effect and that which concludes your Assertion for an untruth it was by him decreed to bee kept without any dispensation or violation Inviolatè servandum Thus touching the sacred Bible you have severall Translations upon severall paines to be received and both different each from other in many hundred places you have ranked the sacred Bible amongst the Bookes prohibited and lastly you seemingly grant a license for the Ignorant to reade the Scripture and by another decree you abridge that license so granted I proceed from the forbidding of Scriptures to your purging and falsifying of the ancient Fathers As for Fathers say you it is most grossely false which the Knight after the ordinary Ministeriall tune stands canting that we blot out and raze them at our pleasures What is it then that these men would have What is it they can carpe at Nothing but that they themselves are stung in that hereby they are kept either from publishing their owne wicked workes or corrupting the Fathers at their pleasure and to wipe away this blemish from themselves would lay it upon us Thus you It seemes you have beene well acquainted with Rogues and sturdy Beggers who have taught you the Terme of Canting a word proper for such kinde of people but whereas you say it is grossely false that you blot and raze the Fathers and that therein we seeke to wipe away the blemish from our selves and lay it upon you for the better manifestation of the truth first looke I pray upon the place where the corrupted Fathers were printed see by whom they were licensed then heare your owne men witnessing their owne confession of purging them and lastly peruse the places which I shall produce razed and corrupted and then tell me if the Mysterie of Iniquity doth not closely worke in your Roman Church and that the ancient Fathers are grossely falsified and notoriously corrupted by your owne men even in the principall points of Doctrine controverted betwixt us First then wee must observe that corruptions and abuse of ancient Fathers may be of three sorts either by foisting into the Editions bastard Treatises and intitling them to the Fathers or by falsifying their undoubted Treatises by additions detractions or mutations or lastly by alledging passages and places out of them which are not extant in their workes and of all these three kindes your men are guilty Expurgari emaculari curâsti omnium CatholicoruÌ„ scriptoruÌ„ praecipuè veterum Patrum scripta Sixt. Senens in Ep. Pio 5. as it shall appeare by instances in their severall Ages for the first 800. yeares First concerning the purging of Fathers your Sixtus Senensis in his Epistle dedicated to Pope Pius the fifth amongst his many and famous deeds recounts this for one of the greatest That he caused the writings of all Catholike Authours but especially those of the ancient Fathers to bee purged And Greâ—zerus your Jesuit proclaimes it by way of justification Gretz l. 2. c. 10 If it be lawfull to suppresse or inhibite whole Bookes as namely Tertullian and Origen then it is lawfull likewise to suppresse a greater or lesser part of one by cutting out razing blotting out or by omitting the same simply for the benefit of the Reader And Possevine your Jesuit tells us Adistos enim quoque purgatio pertinet Possev l. 1. Bib. lioth select c. 12. that Manuscript Books are also to be purged as well as printed which shewes your good intention to the ancient Writers I may adde to these that you doe not onely purge and corrupt the Fathers as shall appeare in matter of fact in severall Ages but you forge Bastard Epistles in the names of ancient Bishops and you thrust counterfeits into the Chayre of the true and Catholike Doctors Peter Warbeck is taken for Richard Duke of Yorke and obscure Authors as namely Dorotheus Hormisda Hermes Hypolitus Martialis and other counterfeits for famous Writers and all to supply your defects of doctrine in the Orthodox Fathers Severinus Binius hath published certaine decretall Epistles in the names of Clemens Anacletus Evaristus Sixtus and many others to the number of thirty one all Bishops of Rome Insomuch as their Epistles are cited by Bellarmine by Peresius by Coccius by Baronius by your Rhemists for severall proofes of your Trent Doctrine Gratian saith Grat. Dist 20. Decretales they are of equall Authority with Councels nay more he labours to prove out of St. Austin Distinct 19. in Canonicis that those decretall Epistles were reckoned by him amongst the Canonicall Scriptures and yet by the severall Confessions of your learned Writers are adjudged to be all counterfeit and without doubt their leaden-stile their deepe silence of Antiquity concerning them the Scriptures alledged by them after St. Hieroms Translation being long before his time doe easily convince them of falshood Antoninus Contius the Kings Professor of Law in the Universitie of Bruges tells us that he brought many reasons in his Preface An. 1570. and notes upon your Canon Law which was printed at Antwerp by which hee proved and shewed manifestly that the Epistles of the Popes Silvester An. 314. who were before Silvester were all false and counterfeit The Preface with the reasons alledged against it is now razed and purged and Plantin the Printer gives this answer for it Raynold Hart. Cap. 8. Divis 3. p. 451. The Censor who was to oversee the printed Bookes would not suffer it to passe and what became of it he remembred not nor knew how to procure it Thus your men are not onely ashamed to publish their Bastard Epistles and equall them to the Word of God in behalfe of your new doctrine but you censure also and purge your owne men for condemning such lying inventions Whether to forge a false deed or to raze a true one be the greater fault it is not greatly materiall for your owne men are guilty of both And lastly when neither purging nor falsifying will serve the turne which you have practised in Bookes set out the first 800. yeares you bring a Prohibition against all Authors Priests and Professors in the bosome of your owne Church which testifie the truth of our doctrine and injoyne them silence by your Index Expurgatorius by cutting out their tongues and refining them with a new impression and this hath beene your ordinarie practice for the last 800. yeares I will give you instances in both and so I come to the second Age. In the second Age Ignatius Bishop of Antioch witnesseth the antiquity of our Doctrine he shews that our Communion in both kindes was practised in his dayes There is one Bread saith he broken for all and one Cup distributed to all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat Ep.
ad Philadelph In your Edition printed at Colein you have quite altered the sense by a corrupt Translation saying One Cup is distributed for all and in the Margent Unus Calix qui pro omninibus nobis distributus est Bibl. Pp. Tom. 1. Colon Agripp An. 1618. p. 85. Bell. de Euch. l. 4. c. 26. Una Eucharistia utendum And that your corruption may not want an Advocate your Cardinall Bellarmine tells us There is not much credit to be given to the Greek Copies for the Latine reades it otherwise by which reason a man may appeale from the Originall to a Translation which is a thing unheard of Again whereas he saith in the same Epistle Ignat. ibid. ut suprà Oh yee Virgins in your prayers set Christ onely before your eyes and his Father being enlightened by his spirit hereby teaching that we ought to directour prayers to the Trinity only and not to Saints Angels your men in their late Edition printed at Lyons by their corrupt translation have left out the word Precibus Ignat. Lugdun impres An. 1572. and thrustin Animabus soules for prayers by which change of words the sense meaning of the Father is cleane perverted It followeth further in the same Page in speaking of Peter and Paul and other Apostles who betooke themselves to a married life Severinus Binius in his Annotations upon this place tells us that those words viz. Peter and Paul and other Apostles betook themselves to a married life ought to be razed out The third age An. 200. to 300. because saith he it is probable the Grecians in honour of Marriage corrupted the Text A faire warning for us to take notice that in after Editions that passage may also be cleane left out In the third Age Tertullian paraphrasing upon the words of Christ a Caro nihil prodest ad vivificandum scilicet Tert. de Resurrect carnis c. 37. Caro nihil prodest sed ad vivificandum Tertul. Parisiis apud Michaelem Julianum An. 1580. p. Mihi 47. The flesh profiteth nothing saith It is the Spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing namely to quicken your Tertullian printed at Paris hath quite perverted the meaning of the Father and causeth him to speake flat contrary both to himselfe and to the sense of Christ in these words The flesh profueth nothing but to quicken St. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage is falsified and corrupted for the circumgestation of your Sacrament and the Popes Supremacie In his Tract of patience he tells us b Nec post gustatam Eucharistiam manus gladio cruore maculentur Sic Cypr. Parisiis apud PetruÌ„ Drovart in vico Jacobaeo An. 1541. fol. 89. Nec post gestatam Eucharistiam c. Cypr. de bono Patientiae Impress Partsiis apud Claudium Chapelet Via Jacobaet An. 1616. p. Mihi 316 Post gustatam Eucharistiam c. After the eating of the Eucharist the hands are not or ought not to be defiled with bloud In your Cyprian printed at Paris and Colein your men have wittingly altered the words saying Post gestatam Eucha ristiam and so by transmutation of one letter doe cite this place for the circumgestation of the Sacrament whereas the Ceremonie of carrying about the Eucharist was not knowne in many hundred yeares after Cyprians time But Pamelius a Canon of the Church of Bruges and Licentiate in Divinity returnes this answer in defence of it Cum manu non gustetur Eucharistia sed olim gestari consueta sit prorsus illud ex Cambrensi Codice substituendum duxi pro eo quod erat gustatam Annot. in lib. de bono Patient pag. Mihi 321 Forasmuch as the Eucharist cannot be tasted with the hand but was wont anciently to be carried with the hand I thought it best to change the word Tasting into Carrying which I borrowed from an ancient Copie in Cambron Abbey The word then we see was changed by his owne Confession and the Cambron Copie is brought for the defence of this forgerie which differing from all other Copies may be justly suspected For his reason that we taste not with our hand it is frivolous For St. Cyprian saith not gustatam manu but simply gustatam which taste yet was not without taking the Sacrament into the hand You have heard Pamelius confession Now let us heare what Manutius hath done in publishing of St. Cyprian for Pamelius tells us that St. Cyprian printed at Rome by Paulus Manutius Indiculus Codicum in Cypriano in the yeare 1563. is a much more bettered and corrected Edition than any other and accordingly your learned Priest Mr. Hart assures us that Pope Pius the 4th Hart Raynolds c. 5. Divis 2. p. 167. being desirous that the Fathers should be set forth and corrected perfectly sent to Venice for Manutius a famous Printer that he should come to Rome to doe it and to furnish them the better with all things necessary he put foure Cardinals wise and vertuous in trust with the worke and for the correcting of Cyprian especially above the rest singular care was taken by Cardinal Baromaeus a Copie was gotten of great antiquity from Verona and the exquisite diligence of learned men was used in it These Testimonies make a faire shew of sincere and plaine dealing and no doubt if there were not double diligence used by them the Roman Cyprian doth exceed all the rest and is freest from corruption That the truth thereof may appeare let us looke into St. Cyprian in his booke touching the Unity of the Church De Veritate Ecclesiae Whereas the ancient and true Cyprian sayth The rest of the Apostles were equall unto Peter both in honour and power the Roman Cyprian printed by Manutius and your late Paris Cyprian Cypr. Parisiis apud Claudium Chapelet An. 1616. hath added these words The Primacie is given to Peter And whereas the ancient Cyprian saith Christ did dispose the Originall of unitie beginning from one the Roman and Paris have added Unam CathedraÌ„ constituit p. 254 He appointed one Chayre And whereas the ancient Cyprian sayth The Church of Christ may be shewed to be one the Roman and Paris have added Cathedra una constituitur ib. and the Chayre to bee one And because the Chayre may bee as well applyed to the Bishop of Carthage Cathedram Petri Ibid. as to the Bishop of Rome the Paris Cyprian hath added Peters chayre And whereas it was in Cyprian even in the Roman print too Hee who withstandeth and resisteth the Church doth he trust himselfe to be in the Church the Paris Cyprian addeth Qui Câ—thedram Petri supra quam fundata est Ecclesia deserit in Ecclesia se esse confidit ibid. He who forsaketh Peters chayre in which the Church was founded doth he trust himselfe to bee in the Church Now as you have heard that Manutius hath added and forged much in his Roman Edition for the Popes Supremacie so
hands who doe not onely raze and falsifie Evidences touching the greatest mysteries of Salvation who I say not onely doe the same but have pleasure in them that doe them Thus much touching the razing and corrupting of the Fathers for the first 800. yeares Now I proceed to your Index Expurgatorius your purging and blotting out the moderne Authours for the last 800. yeares Forasmuch say you as concerneth the late Catholike Authors of this last age for this our Index of which is al the difficultie beginneth but from the yeere 1515. whatsoever needeth correction is to bee amended or blotted out yet for others going before that time it is expresly said that nothing may be changed unlesse some manifest errors through the fraud of Heretikes or carelesnesse of the Printer bee crept in Thus you From your corrupting the ancient Councels and Fathers which I have showne wee are at last come to the correcting of moderne Authors and as I have led you through an Hospitall of maimed Souldiers so now I will send you to the house of correction where I will leave you without Baile or Maine-prize till you have cleared your selfe and your associates for wounding and cutting out the tongues of your owne Authors in speaking truth against the corruptions of the Church But your correcting Index say you began but from the yeare 1515. P. 24. 144. and nothing is changed of Catholike Authors before that time I assure you I have not heard as yet one sentence nay scarce one word of truth fall from your pen wherein you dissent from us and this your assertion will prove as true as the rest Yea but fay you it is expresly declared by the Church that nothing may be changed and if this be true as true it is indeed the lesse credit is to be given you or your Church-men who make decrees and breake them at their pleasure for it shall appeare that your Index doth extend it selfe to the time of the Apostles and howsoever you pretend to purge the Fathers onely in the Index and Table of their Bookes yet I say some you have purged in the Text it selfe others you have corrected in the Index in the expresse words delivered in the bodie of those Bookes And as touching your Assertion that you purge the latter writers onely from the yeare 1515. and not beyond that time this is most false and you had said more truly if you had confessed that for 1515. yeares together your Church spared no Authours ancient or moderne if they speake not Placentia agreeable to your Popes faith and doctrine For the better manifestation of this truth looke first upon your Correctorium for so Lucas Brugensis termes it your worke of correction upon the Bible and tell me if you have not altered by your Popes command above three thousand severall places in the Scripture even in your vulgar Translation which you call St. Hieromes and although you dare not lay a Deleatur upon the sacred word of God yet upon the Commandements upon the Lords Prayer upon severall places of Scripture as I have shewed there is a Deletur a leaving out and a detracting from it Looke upon your Index Expurgatorius printed at Madrid by Cardinall Quiroga and tell me if you have not purged certain places in the Index of the Bible which are ipsissima verba the very words to a letter in the Textit selfe as for instance a Justificamur fide in Christum Galat. 2.16 We are justified by faith in Christ b Justitia nostra Christus 1. Cor. 1.30 Christ is our Righteousnesse c Fide purificantur corda Act. 15.9 By faith our hearts are purified d Justus coram Deo nemo Psal 143.2 No man is righteous before God e Uxorē habeat unusquisque 1 Cor. 7.2 Let every man have his wife c. All these passages I say are the very word of God in the Body of the Scriptures and yet they are commanded f Ind. Hisp Madr. f. mihi 15. B. tanquā propositiones suspectae for so are the words of your Index as if they were things questionable to bee blotted out Againe when your glosses or marginall notes agree not to your doctrine you cause your Index Expurgatorius to lay hold on them as for instance in the 26. of Leviticus we reade in your owne Translation You shall not make to your selves an Idoll or thing graven Deleatur illud Sculptilia prohibet fieri Idem fol. 7. when the glosse in the Margent saith God forbiddeth graven Images Let that passage say you be strucken out And whereas Samuel saith Prepare your hearts unto the Lord and serve him onely Ibid. fol. 8. b. the glosse upon the Text which is the same in substance viz. wee must serve God onely you command to be blotted out These and the like places relating to the Scriptures being contrary to your Trent doctrine you have excluded from your late printed Bibles in the places aforesaid as being too obvious to the eye of every Reader Ind. Hisp Madrid p. 6. 7. f. 138. Mihi 62. Crakenthorp adv Spal p. 66. Bell. de verbo Dei l. 4. c. 11. c. Ind. Madrid fol. 62. a. Deleantur ex Textu illa verba Sed ubi non habuerit Dei timorem in seipsis nec Jesum per fidem incolam c. Ibid. Eam verò solūmodò naturam quae increata est colere venerari didicimus Ant. Meliss serm 1. Bell. descript Eccl. p. mihi 184. Looke upon the Fathers and tell mee if your Index Expurgatorius doth not correct both St. Chrysostome and Austin and Hilarie and Hierome in their Index touching the prime points of controversie betwixt us Nay more St. Austin saith Vives is purged ten or twelve lines in the body of his workes St. Chrysostome in his 49. Homily is purged 70. lines by Bellarmines confession other places are razed out of him and other Fathers as I have shewed before Looke upon St. Cyrill Bishop of Alexandria who was living above 1200. yeares agoe and tell me if your Inquisitors have not commanded a Deleatur upon his words in the very Text it selfe Looke before his time upon Gregory Nyssen and tell me if through the sides of Antonius Abbas who was living by Bellarmines accompt neare 900. yeares agoe you doe not wound that ancient Father in the body of his workes in commanding this golden sentence to bee blotted out Ind. Belg. p. 270. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nissen in Orat. 4. Tom. 2. Edit Graeco-lat p. 146. We have learned to worship and adore that nature onely which is uncreated * Parsōs warn-word to Sir Fran. Hastings wast-word Enc. 2. c. 9 p. 69. your F. Parsons takes great paines to little purpose to excuse it one while he tells us that the sentence is not to bee found in Gregory Nissen which is most false another while he confesseth that they cannot stand to give a particular reason
of every censure or expurgation that is made which is most foolish But tell mee in good sooth if those places of Scriptures and Fathers did make for your Religion would you purge them Or must we beleeve that your Inquisitors would take such infinite care and paines to review all Authours for 1600. yeares and spunge them onely in the Index Without doubt that man who doth willingly deface the Kings picture stamped in his coyne would if he durst attempt it upon his person the Tables of Authors and Glosses were especially intended for the benefit of the Reader both for his better understanding and his more speedie searching of the truth They resemble the Phylacteries of the Jewes which had a Ribband of Blue upon the borders of their garments that by them they might the better remember the Commandements of God he that would have cut the fringes of those garments in those dayes to prevent the remembrance of Gods law would no doubt have offered violence to the Tables on which God himselfe had written if hee durst attempt it The truth is the words imprinted in the skirts and tables of your Bibles and Fathers are thornes in your eyes and goades in your sides and from hence we may easily discerne why you leave out the second Commandement and alter the fourth in your Psalters and Breviaries which you dare not alter in your Bibles And that your Assertion may more particularly appeare to bee most untrue viz. that you purge no Authours before the yeare 1515. I will begin from the ninth age where I last left and shew your owne Authours purged and forbidden in all the succeeding ages for this last 800. yeares First therefore the Reader shall understand that your Roman Inquisitors have published an Index of prohibited Bookes and in that Index they have divided the Authors into three severall Classes or orders Classis 1. In the first they ranke all those Bookes which are adjudged by your men for Heretikes as namely Berengarius Wickliffe Luther Cassander Erasmus Raynolds and divers others whose Bookes not onely now written but whatsoever shall be published in their names hereafter are prohibited as Hereticall Classis 2. In the second Classis they have ranked all those whose doctrine is not very sound but suspected and offensive although the Authors themselves never forsooke the Church and therefore not personally to bee noted and of this sort are Charles the great Agobardus Bertram Huldericus Cajetan and divers others whose Bookes are now purged and some of them lived 800. years since Classis 3. The third is of namelesse Authors which say they deliver pernitious doctrine and are condemned by the Roman Church and those onely which have beene published without a name since the yeare 1584. These three rankes of Classicall Authors according to our Adversaries doome may be destinated to these three severall places The first sort to Hell which containes the Heretikes and damned persons never to be redeemed The second sort to Purgatory which are suspended and restrained upon suspicion of false doctrine or veniall sinne and must not be freed till they be purged and have payd the utmost farthing to the Pope The third to Limbus Infantum and those are Anonymoi such as were unbaptized and have beene published without a name from the yeare 1584. Of these three sorts I will produce onely the Authors of the second Classis which lived and died members of your Church such as were never condemned for heresie but touse you own words have Suspectam Doctrinam that is to say in plaine English Protestant Doctrine whereof some you have purged in your new Editions others you have forbidden to be read till they be purged The ninth age An. 800. to 900 See Crakenthorp p. 56. Carolo magno falsò adscriptū de Imaginibus cujus Titulus est Opus illustrissimi c. Ind. l. prohib p. Mihi 18. and this as shall appeare was many ages before the time prefixed 1515. I proceed In the ninth age Charles the Great wrote foure Bookes concerning Images he professeth that hee began the worke in his owne Kingdome and your owne Ecchius and Luzenburgus both witnesse that this Emperour wrote all those Bookes yet your Index Expurgatorius layes hold on him and forbids the worke pretending that it is falsely ascribed to him when as the true reason is because he condemned Image-worship and forbids the 7th Councell to be called either agenerall or lawfull Councell for otherwise your owne Hincmarus Archbishop of Rhemes Hinckm Rhē contr Hinchm Jandun Episc c. 20. who was living when these things were fresh in memorie professeth that a generall Synod was kept in Germany by the convocation of the Emperour Charles and there by the Rules of Scripture and doctrine of the Fathers the false Councell of the Grecians was confuted and utterly rejected of whose confutation there was a good bigge Booke sent to Rome by certaine Bishops from Charles the Great which in my younger yeares I read in the Palace Now admit that Charles were not the Authour of those Bookes although your owne men witnesse he was yet the Authour you see was ancient and living in that age hee condemned your Image-worship hee confuted the reasons of the Nicene Councell and by this it appeares that your Church hath transgressed her limits above 700. yeares and therefore your Trent decree was made sutable to your Spectacles which makes that seeme to be which is not Agobardus Bishop of Lyons An. 840. is purged propter non sanam suspectam doctrinam because he delivers our Protestants doctrine which you account non sanam in these words If the workes of Gods hands be not to be adored and worshipped Sioperd manuum Dei c. Bibl. Pp. Tom. 9. p. mihi 590. no not in honour of God how much more the workes of mens hands are not to be adored and worshipped in honour of those whom they represent Titulo de Imaginibus expurgantur omnia quae sub hoc titulo continentur usque ad titulum 2. Classis Ind. lib. prohib pag. mihi 711. This passage is yet extant in your late Bibliotheque of Fathers under the title of Images but your Spanish Inquisitors have commanded all the things which are contained under that Title to bee blotted out usque ad Titulum to the very title Papirius Massonus the publisher of Agobardus workes delivered the argument touching Images and Pictures in this manner Detecting most manifestly the errours of the Grecians that is the Fathers of the second Nicene Councel touching Images and Pictures he denyeth that they ought to be worshipped which opinion all wee Catholikes doe allow and follow the testimony of Gregory the Great concerning them This passage together with more ample authorities are already purged according to command by the Divines of Cullen in their late corrupt Edition of the great Bibliotheque of the ancient Fathers Bibl. P P. Tom. 9. par 1. edit Colon. Anno 1618. p.
gloriam pervenire c. Ind. lib. prohib p. 696. Dost thou beleeve to come to glory not by thine owne merits but by the vertue and merit of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ Dost thou beleeve that our Lord Jesus Christ did dye for our salvation and that none can be saved by his owne merits or by any other meanes but by the merits of his Passion then for a conclusion it followes fol. 35. b NoÌ„ erit desperandum vel dubitandum de salute illius c. Ordo baptizandicuÌ„ modo visitandi Imp. Venet. Ind. Belg. p. 419. 1575. Ind. Madrid p. 149. Ind. lib prohib p. ut supra We ought not to doubt or despaire of the salvation of that man who beleeveth with his heart and confesseth with his mouth the forenamed propositions These severall passages are commanded by three severall Indices to be blotted out Nay more the Booke which containes this Doctrine you thrust it into the third Classis amongst those namelesse Authors which deliver Doctrine say you in some sort pernitious to the Catholike faith as if the foundation of all comfort in Christ were pernitious to the Christian faith But let me tell you your Inquisitors have much forgot themselves for they forbid that Booke which say they was printed at Venice 1575. when as by their owne rules they professe openly that they never meant to condemne any namelesse Authors but such onely as have beene published since the yeere 1584. nor any Author whatsoever by their Trent Decree but from the yeere 1515. Howsoever this namelesse Author was both printed at a See Bishop Ushers answer to the Jesuites Challenge cap. Of Merits p. 513. Venice at Antwerp at Coleine at Paris juxta ritum S. Romanae Ecclesiae for so be the words according to the rites of the Romane Church b Cassan in Append ad opusc Jo. Roff. de fiducia misericordia Dâ—i Cassander tells us the Book was to be had in all Libraries and particularly was found inserted among the Epistles of Anselme who was commonly accounted to be the Author of it and the like is confessed by Cardinall c Hosius in confessione Petri cap. 73. Hosius himselfe But this was the time wherein the Dâ—vill was let loose and wherein your Pope Hildebrand did not onely d Non solum fabulas comminiscitur annales corrumpit res gestas invertit sed etiam coelestia oracula adulterat Aven Annal. l. 4. pag. 455. invent Fables corrupt Chronicles and inverted things that were done but did also adulterate the Scriptures themselves and therefore Cardinall Beno who wrote of the life of Hildebrand and was living in that age is e Ind. lib. prohib p. 11. vide Illyric de vita Hildebrand p. 1322. forbidden also to be read because he toucheth to the quicke your Caput fidei the head of your Church In the twelfth age a Sigeberti liber contra Papam Gregorium contra Epist Paschalis Papae Ind. lib. prohib p. 85. Sigebertus Monachus Gemblacensis wrote a Booke against Pope Gregory The twelfth Age An. 1100. to 1200. and against the Epistle of Pope Paschalis hee lived and dyed a member of the Roman Church yet his Booke is prohibited because it complaineth of the state of your declining Church b Sigebertus Ab. ep p. 188. in lib. Goldasli Replio Hactenus interpretatur ideo docuisse PetruÌ„ per Babylonem siguare Romam quia tunc temporis Roma confusa erat Idololatriâ omni spurtitie At nunc dolor meus mihi interpretatur quòd Petrus prophetico spiritu dicens Ecclesiam in Babylone collectam praevidit confusionem dissentionis quâ hodie scinditur Ecclesia Ibid. For what greater confusion saith he was there in times past in Babylon than there is now in the Church In Babylon there was a confusion of languages among the Gentiles in the Church of Rome the tongues are divided and the minds of the faithfull Saint Peter saith the Church which is Babylon salutes you hitherto hee did interpret that Peter by Babylon did signifie Rome because Rome at that time was confounded with Idolatry and all uncleannesse But my griefe doth now interpret unto mee that Peter by a propheticke spirit by the Church at Babylon foresaw the confusion of dissention which doth now rent the Church of Rome If this testimonie had made for our Church as it doth against yours certainly you would never forbid the Record to be read nor to be blotted out but this shewes that there was a revolt a defection from the faith after the loosing of Sathan which were proper for your men to permit to bee read and seene in after ages that the truth might appeare in all and every age of the alteration of the Church c Arnol de villa Novaopera nisi repurgâ—ntur Ind. lib prohib p. 5 36. 37 Arnoldus Carnotensis Abbas bonae vallis his workes are forbidden till they be purged and for no other reason as I can conceive but because he discovers the errours of your Church He tells us that Cloyster Monkes are damned because they falsifie the doctrine of Christ and leade soules to Hell He tells us that your Clergie-men did most perfidiously mingle Philosophicall dreames with the sacred Scriptures He tells us that Masses did neither profit the living nor the dead and for these and the like Protestations against the abuses of his time he is now condemned by your expurgatory Indices In the thirteenth Age Anno 1215. Urspergensis in Anno 793. Urspergensis Abbas is both corrupted and purged by the Inquisitours The Synod saith he which not long before was assembled under Irene and Constantine his sonne at Constantinople called by them the seventh generall Councell was there in the Councell of Franckford rejected by them all as voyd and not to be named the seventh nor any Councell at all This Councell was assembled at Nice and not at Constantinople but the word Constantinople is forged in stead of Nice that the honour of that Councell for Images might not seeme to be impeached or condemned when as the Synod at Constantinople banished Images Now what answer I pray is made in defence of this forgerie August Stench de Donat. Constant l. 2. numero 60. Behold your Augustine Stenchius Keeper of the Popes Librarie tells us that wee have forged those Bookes and conveyed them into the Popes Library where they lye written in ancient hands How probable this answer may seeme that wee should forge Authours in defence of your cause and convey them into the Vatican at Rome I leave it to be judged sure I am it stands corrupted in your Copie printed by command of your Inquisitours and Superiours Againe there be certaine additions to the Historie of Urspergensis which treate of divers memorable things from the time of Fredericke the second Ind. lib. prohib p. 94. unto the time of the Emperour Charles the fifth that is from the yeare 1230. to the yeare 1537.
all which are forbidden to be read wherein are contained the proceedings of the Councell of Constance against Hierome of Prague and John Husse where the decree is mentioned for the 19. Session of the Councell of Constance viz. a Sess 19. decernitur Haereticis non esse servandam fidem quam vocant Salvum conductum Paralip p. 378. That faith is not to bee kept with Heretikes which is wholly omitted and purged in your printed Councels Honorius Bishop of Anthum in France Anno 1220. Honorio Angustodunensi falso ut creditur adscriptus liber de praedestinatione libero arbitrio Ind. lib. prohib p. 47. wrote a Booke of Predestination and Free-will but so different from your doctrine that your Inquisitors forbid him to be read untill hee be purged What good soever the Elect doe it is God that workes it in them as it is written God doth worke in us both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure if therefore God doe worke in us what reward is imputed to man God doth worke and the Elect do worke God doth worke his Elect by his preventing Grace to be willing and by his subsequent Grace to bee able and both co-operate by Free-will by consenting with a good will this good will is rewarded in them as it is written We have received Grace for Grace wee have received Grace when God prevented us to be willing and followed us to make us able Looke into his forbidden Dialogues Turne thee saith he to the Citizens of Babylon consider the principall persons there and thou shalt finde the See of the Beast for they neglect the service of God pollute his Priesthood seduce his people and reject all Scriptures which belong unto salvation Vide Illyr p. 1426 in Dialog d. Praedestin lib. arbitrio For these and the like discoveries of the corruptions in your Church he is forbidden and under this pretence also that the Booke of Dialogues is falsely ascribed to him In the fourteenth age flourished William Ocham a Fryer Minorite and a learned man saith Bellarmine An. 1320. Bell. de script Eccl. p. 269. de Gulielmo Ocham but being too earnest a favourer of Ludovike the Emperour by that meanes hee fell into some errours and therefore deserved to have his name registred amongst the Bookes prohibited Now observe those errors Ocham Compend Error Joh. 22. He complained that many in his dayes perverted the holy Scriptures denyed the sayings of the holy Fathers and rejected the Canons of the Church and civill Constitutions of the Emperours He professed according to St. Hieromes and the doctrine of Gregory the Great that the Bookes of Judith Idem Dial. par 3. Tract 1. l. 3. c. 16. Tobit the Machabees Ecclesiasticus and the Booke of Wisdome were not to bee received for confirmation of any matter of faith He professed that the Pope and Cardinals were no rule of faith Idem Tract 2. part 2. c. 10. Dial. part 1. l. 5. c. 25. p. Mihi 494. He professed that a Generall Councell although it be a part of the militant universall Church yet is not the universall Church and consequently saith he It is rashnesse to say that a Generall Councell cannot erre against the faith Idem Dial. l. 3. prim Tract 3. part c. 8. He professeth that it cannot be proved manifestly by Scripture that Peter was Bishop of Rome or that he removed his seat from Antioch to Rome or that the Rishop of Rome succeeded St. Peter Idem Dial. part 1. l. 2. c. 3. p. 413. or that the Church of Rome hath the Primacie or that hee governed the Church of Rome or any thing touching the Papacie thereof He professeth with us Idem Dial. l. 2. c. 1. part 3. p. 788. that though it be expedient there should be one Bishop over some part of the Church and People of God yet there is not the same reason there should be one over the whole Christian world And lastly touching Pope John the 22. he reports from the mouthes of them that heard it that in the yeare 1333. on Munday being the third of January Idem 2. part proem p. 740. Guliel Ocham opus 90. dierum Item Dialogi script omnia contra Johannem 22. Ind. l. prohib p. 4. Pope John held a publike Consistorie wherein by word of mouth with great earnestnesse he indeavoured to prove that the soules of Saints being purged see not God face to face till after the day of judgement These are the supposed errors which caused his Dialogues and other of his workes to be prohibited In the fifteenth age Anno 1420. Nicholai Clemangis opera quamdiu expurgata non prodierint Ind. lib. proh p. 71. Clemangis de corrupto statu Ecclesiae Nicholas Clemangis Doctor of Paris Archdeacon of Bayeux so long as his works remaine unpurged saith your Index are forbidden Now observe the reasons why hee is put to silence The truth is he wrote a Booke Of the Corrupt estate of the Church he declared that the Pope was the cause of all the calamities and disorders of the Church he shewes that he was not contented with the fruits and profits of the Bishopricke of Rome and St. Peters Patrimonie Idem c. 4. though very great and Royall he layd his greedie hands on other mens flocks replenished with milke and wooll Cap. 5. 7. and usurped the right of bestowing Bishoprickes and livings Ecclesiasticall throughout all Christendome Cap. 5. and disannulled the lawfull elections of Pastors by his reservations provisions and advowsons Cap. 6. Cap. 7. Cap. 8. and oppressed Churches with first fruits of one yeere of two yeeres of three yeeres yea sometimes of foure yeeres with tithes with exactions with procurations with spoiles of Prelates and infinite other burthens Cap. 9. and ordained Collectors to seize upon these taxes and tributes throughout all Provinces with horrible abusing of suspensions interdictments and excommunications if any man refused to pay them Cap. 10. Cap. 11. Cap. 12. and used such merchandise with suites in his Court and rules of his Chancery that the house of God was a denne of Theeves Cap. 13. and raised his Cardinalls as complices of his pompe from Clergie men of low estate Cap. 14. to be the Peeres of Princes and enriched them with his dispensations to have and to hold Offices and Benefices not two or three or ten or twenty but a hundred or two hundred yea sometimes foure hundred or five hundred or more and those not small or leane ones but even the best and fattest To bee short in that he filled the Sanctuary of the Lord with dumbe dogges Cap. 19. 20. Cap. 7. 14. Cap. 29. Cap. 42. Cap. 18. Cap. 3.4.5.9 and evill beasts even from the highest Prelates to the basest hedge-Priests through usurpations exemptions compositions symony prostitution and fornication committed with Princes of the earth and all to maintaine the pride and
beyond exception who spake as it were prophetically of the Church of Rome in her most flourishing state St. Hierome writing to Marcella a noble Lady exhorteth her to depart from Rome which he compares to Babylon Hier. ad Marcel Ep. 17. Tō 1. p. mihi 156. Reade saith he the Revelation of St. John and consider that which is there said of the woman clothed in purple of the blasphemy written in her forehead of the seven Mountaines of the great waters of the fall of Babylon Goe out from thence my people Babylon is falne and is become the habitation of Divels and the hold and cage of every foule spirit Now that wee might understand this was not spoken by him of heathen Rome he adjoyneth these words following Est quidem ibi sancta Ecclesia There is a true or holy Church there are the Trophies of the Saints and Martyrs there is the true confession of Christ published by the Apostle Ludovicus Vives your very friend in commenting upon this place tells us that St. Hierome thinketh there is no other Babylon described by St. John in the Revelation than the City of Rome But now saith he it hath put off the name of Babylon Lud. Vives in August de Civ Dei l. 18. c. 22. there is no confusion now you cannot buy any thing now in matter of Religion without a faire pretence of holy Law for selling it yet may you buy or sell almost any kinde of cause holy or hellish for money In D. August Annot. Ludov. Vives prohibentur nisi corrigantur Ind. l. prohibit Class 2. For this and the like passages your Vives is forbidden till hee be purged I must confesse I doe not thinke that the Rhemists would have interpreted Babylon for Rome if it had not beene to prove Peters being at Rome It is happy therefore for you that Peter wrote his Epistle from Babylon for otherwise your succession from Peter had beene questioned and it is as well for us that you are contented to allow Babylon for Rome for by this meanes your Antichristian Doctrine is discovered and your succession of Peters faith is quite abolished But say you if you meane as you expresse your selfe that a true Church may bee depraved I know not what to say but to stop my eares against that mouth of blasphemie And is it blasphemie to say a true Church may be depraved Sure I am it is not blasphemie against the holy Ghost for the mouth of St. Paul hath spoken it in parricular to the Roman Church even at that time when she was a most incorrupt Church Towards thee goodnes Rom. 11.22 if thou continue in his goodnesse otherwise thou also shalt be cut off And may not a Church thinke you be depraved that is in possibility of being cut off What thinke you of the Church of Hierusalem Psalm 48.19 Did not the Prophet David terme it the City of God and was it not afterwards termed a Harlot by the Prophet Esay What say you to the Temple of Solomon was it not termed by him 1 Kings 8.20 the house of Prayer and in Christs time was not that house of Prayer become a denne of Theeves Mat. 21.14 He that sayes Antichrist shall sit in the Temple of God doth plainely intimate that the true Church may be depraved and that before his comming there was a true Church In his answer to Card. Peron p. 9. Eng. What Babylon is saith learned Casaubon thus much the matter it selfe doth plainly shew that whether some private Church be understood in that place by the name of Babylon or the greater part of the whole it was before this a true Church with which the religious might religiously communicate but after it was more depraved the religious are commanded to goe out and to breake off communion with her And as touching the authority you cite that he would be with them to the worlds end that the Church is built upon a Rocke that the gates of Hell should not prevaile against it these promises I say concerne no more the particular Roman Church than the seven Churches of Asia that are falne away The blasphemie then you lay to my charge if any such be is but against your Roman Church and of such blasphemie many of your best learned are guilty in acknowledging a depravation of their faith notwithstanding all the promises of Christ to the Catholicke and universall Church Your Bishop of Bitonto by way of prevention cryes aloud in your Councell of Trent Cornel. in Concil Trident. Would to God they were not wholly with generall consent gone from religion to superstition from faith to infidelitie from Christ to Antichrist I could bring you a world of complaints against the falling away and depravation of your Roman Faith but that your eares will not endure such blasphemie Howsoever since your best learned have acknowledged Babylon to bee meant by Rome and that Rome is falne from her first faith Jerem. 51.6.9 I say with the Prophet Jeremie Fly out of the midst of Babylon and deliver every man his soule we would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her and let us goe everie one into his owne Country for her judgement reacheth unto Heaven and is lifted up even unto the skies CHAP. III. The summe of his Answer to my second and third Sections IN the second Section he saith I labour to prove the contention betwixt the Churches to proceed originally from them The third Section is to prove the corruption both in faith and manners Both which are easily answered First by asking what is this to the purpose for the visible Church Secondly with the contradiction of a former lye he telleth a new one for the Reformation was sought for manners onely and not for doctrine This is the substance of your third Chapter in answer to my second and third Sections The Reply You have answered two Sections almost in two words the first in denying it to be to the purpose the latter in giving me the lye And thus like another Caesar you have briefly expressed the expedition of your victory in few words Veni vidi vici I came I saw I overcame First you demand what is this to the purpose of a visible Church But I rather wonder to what purpose you make such a demand For my Booke is entitled The Safe Way not the visibility of the Church Yet let me tell you the Authors which I cite are for the most part members of your Church and their authorities tend much to the proofe of a visible Church if your Index Expurgatorius did not spunge them and cause their testimonies to be often invisible For instance in our behalfe I cite Cassander To Cassander you answer he is like your selfe an Hereticke or next doore to them and yet elsewhere you say with much adoe he may passe for a Catholike Pag. 21. Oportet esse memorem I cite Cecenas Generall of the
deliros senes sed qui magis quà m Phormio deliraret vidisse neminem I will leave the application to your selfe and the interpretation to the Reader because you say I cannot translate Latin Some truth or modesty I should gladly heare from you but this is such an impudent Calumny as Bellarmine himselfe would have beene ashamed to have heard it fall from the Pen of any learned Papalin heare therefore what your owne men confesse of Calvin and others and what we professe in the name of our Church Your F. Kellison saith of Calvin Kellis Surney lib. 4. cap. 5. p. mihi 229. That if hee did meane as hee speaketh hee would not dispute with him but would shake hands with him as with a Catholike And then hee repeats Calvins words I say that in the Mysterie of the Supper by the signe of Bread and Wine is Christ truly delivered yea and his Body and his Blood And a little before those words hee giveth the reason Because saith he Christs words This is my Body are so plaine that unlesse a man will call God a deceiver hee can never be so bold as to say that hee setteth before us an emptie Signe This is likewise Bellarmines confession of him Bell de Euch. lib. 1. cap. 1. Non ergo vacuum inane signum It is no vaine and empty signe Thus you see your fellowes and you agree like Harpe and Harrow you say it is an empty peece of Bread they answer in Calvins behalfe and ours that it is not an empty signe Idem ibid. c. 8. Nay saith Bellarmine both Calvin and Oecolampadius and Peter Martyr doe teach the Bread is called Christs Body figuratively as being a signe or figure of his body but they adde withall it is no bare and empty figure but such as doth truely convey unto them the things signified thereby Bilson in the difference betwixt Subjection and Christistian Rebellion Part. 4. p. mihi 779. for which truthes sake Christ said not this Bread is a figure of my body but it is my body To give you an instance in some of our Church God forbid saith our learned Bilson wee should deny that the flesh and blood of Christ are truly present and truly received of the Faithfull at the Lords Table It is the Doctrine that wee teach others and wherewith wee comfort our selves Wee never doubted but the Truth was present with the Signe and the Spirit with the Sacrament as Cyprian saith Wee knew there could not follow an operation if there were not a presence before Neither doe I thinke you are ignorant of this but that you have inured your selfe to falsities and reproaches For it is apparently true that the question in these dayes is not of the truth of the presence but of the manner that is whether it be to the Teeth and the Belly or Soule and Faith of the Receiver And therupon our learned and Reverend B. Andrews returned his Answer to Bellarmine Wee beleeve the presence Wee beleeve B. Andrew ad Bell. Apol. Resp c. 1. p. mihi 11. I say the presence as well as you concerning the manner of the presence we doe not unadvisedly define nay more wee doe not scrupulously inquire no more than wee doe in Baptisme how the blood of Christ cleanseth us From the Sacraments you procceed to our two and twentie Bookes of Canonicall Scripture and indeed wee allow but two and twentie But will any Catholike say you allow this to have been Catholike Doctrine Yes without doubt Scil. Orig. in Exposit Psal 1. many good Catholikes did follow the Hebrew Canon of the Iewes which saith Origen compriseth but two and twentie bookes of the old Testament according to the number of the letters among them Melito Bellar. de verbo Dei l. 1. c. 20. Bishop of Sardis was a Catholike and saith Bellarmine hee did follow the Hebrew Canon of the Iewes Hilary Hilar. in Prolog in Psal explanat Bishop of Poictiers was a Catholike and he told us The old Testament was contained in two and twentie bookes according to the number of the Hebrew letters St. Cyril Cyril Catechis 4. Bishop of Hierusalem was a Catholike and hee gave us the like Lesson Peruse the two and twentie books of the old Testament but meddle not with the Apochrypha Athanasius Anthanas in Synops Bishop of Alexandria was a Catholike and affirmes that the Christians had a definite number of books comprehended in the Canon which were two and twentie equall to the number of the Hebrew letters Ruffinus was a Catholike Bellar. de verbo Dei l. 1. c. 20. and Bellarmine confesseth hee did follow the Hebrew Canon which conteined our two and twentie books Gregory Nazianzen was a Catholike Naz. Carm. Iamb ad Seleucum Iamb 3. and hee shewed to Seleucus a Catalogue of the Canonicall bookes and hee cites the bookes in order from Genesis to Malachie the last of the Prophets and leaveth out all the Apochrypha The Fathers of the Councell of Laodicea were Catholikes Concil Laod. cap. 59. and in the 59th Canon they allow onely those two and twenty bookes for Canonicall which wee receive There are others whom you terme Catholikes as namely Damascene Hugo de Sancto Victore Lyranus Hugo Cardinalis Tostatus Waldensis Driedo and Cajetan all which differ from your Tenet of the Apochryphall bookes which are canonized by your Trent Councell such agreement is there amongst your best learned touching the greatest point of your Beleefe and yet forsooth your Church cannot be depraved But here is one thing say you which giveth mee much cause of wonder which is that you talke of Traditions as distinct from Scripture I ever tooke you to be so fallen out with them that you made the deniall of them a fundament all point of your Religion that you would not indure the word Tradition but alwaies translated or rather falsified it into Ordinances Thus you It is a true saying of the Heathen Orator Cicero Hee who once goeth beyond the bounds of Modestie had need to be lustily impudent I protest I onely termed your Additions Traditions and you question our Church for false translating of the word And cannot wee indure the word Traditions Doe not we allow of all the Apostolicall Traditions which agree unto the Scriptures Nay more doe wee not translate the word Traditions in the Scripture when the Text will beare it according to the Greeke originall Looke upon the fifteenth of Matthew Matth. 15. v. 2 3 6. and in three severall verses 2 3 6. wee use the word Tradition Looke upon the seventh of Marke Marke 7. v. 3 8 9 13. and in foure severall places of that chapter you shall find likewise wee translate Traditions Looke upon Saint Paul to the Colossians Galatians and upon Saint Peter Colos 2.8 Galat. 1.14 1. pet 1.18 and in all these in the Translation joyned with your Rhemish Testament you shall find the word Traditions How
Anselme and his words Gospell the Knight gaines nothing by it or we lose for though it bee the safest way to cast anchour at the last in the bottome of Gods mercie and put our whole confidence in Christs merits it doth not from hence follow but that men may doe workes meritorious of increase of grace and glory First why doth he lispe here and not speake plaine out the Romish tenet which is that our Workes doe merit not only increase of grace and glorie but remission of sinnes and h Concil Trid. Sess 6. c. 32. Si quis dixerit hominis justificati opera non verè mereri augmentū gratiae vitam aeternam ipfius vitae aeternae si tamen in gratià decesserit consecutionem Anathema sit eternall life Next I would faine know how mercy and merit nay sole mercy and merit can stand together Certainly as mercy excludeth merit so sole mercy all merit Can those workes which is S. Anselmes judgement will not beare scale in Gods ballance weigh downe super-excellens pondus gloriae a super-excellent weight of glorie Certainly the Spectacle-maker put in a burning glasse into his Spectacles which hath much impaired his eye-sight or else hee could not but reade S. Anselmes words in this place in which he renounceth all merit and that in most direct and expresse tearmes I beleeve that none can bee saved by his owne merits Vid loc sup cit p. 4. or by any other meanes but by the merit of Christs passion I set the death of Christ betwixt ' mee and my bad merits and I offer his merits in stead of the merits which I ought to have and have not Concerning Transubstantiation Spectacles chap. 9. Sect. 2. à pag. 132. ad 187. THE Knight and the Protestants commit a great sinne in administring the Sacrament of Baptisme without those Ceremonies which were used in the Church from the Apostles times Elfrick was not the Authour of the Homilie and Epistles the Knight citeth against Transubstantion in which notwithstanding there is nothing against Transubstantiation but much for it if the Knight had not shamefully corrupted the Text by false translating it in five severall places The difference of Catholique Authours about things not defined by the Church maketh nothing for Protestants because they vertually retract all such opinions by submitting their writings to the censure of the Catholique Church Cajetan is falsely alledged by putting in the word supposed and Transubstantiation he denied not the bread to bee transubstantiated into Christs body though hee conceived that those words This is my body doe not sufficiently prove the reall presence of our Saviours body for which he is worthily censured by Suarez and the whole schoole of Divines Biel affirmeth that it is expresly delivered in holy Scriptures that the body of Christ is contained under the species of bread c. Which former words the Knight leaveth out because they made clearely against him and in the latter set downe by the Knight he denieth not that Transubstantiation may bee proved out of Scriptures but that it may be proved expresly that is in expresse tearmes or so many words Alliaco his opinion maketh nothing for the Knight being a Calvinist though hee seeme to favour the Lutherans tenet and though hee thought the Doctrine of consubstantiation to be more possible and easie yet therein hee preferred the judgement of the Church before his owne B. Fisher denieth not that the reall presence can be proved out of Scripture for the fourth chapter of the booke cited by the Knight is employed in the proofe thereof against Luther but that laying aside the interpretation of Fathers and use of the Church no man can be able to prove that any Priest now in these times doth Consecrate the true body and bloud of Christ Durand B. of Maundy doth not deny Transubstantiation to bee wrougnt by vertue of the words This is my body For though in the first place hee saith that Christ then made the bread his body when he blessed it yet hee after addeth that wee doe blesse illâ virtute quam Christus indidit verbis Durand rat c. 41. n. 14. by that power which Christ hath giuen to the words Odo Cameracensis calleth the very forme of Consecration a benediction both because they are blessed words appointed by Christ for so holy an end and because they produce so noble an effect or because they are joyned alwayes with that benediction and thankesgiving used both by our Saviour in the institution of this holy Sacrament and now by the Priest in the Catholique Church in the Consecration of the same Christopherus de capite fontium is put in the Roman Index of prohibited bookes and in the words cited out of him by the Knight there is a grosse historicall errour in this that hee saith that in that opinion of his both the Councell of Trent and all Writers did agree till the late time of Caietan as if Caietan were since the Councell of Trent and in citing this place the Knight is against himselfe for whereas hee maketh Cardinall Caietan and the Archbishop of Caesarea his two Champions against the words of Consecration as if they did both agree in the same here this Archbishop saith quite contrary that all are for him but onely Cajetan Salmeron relateth it indeed to bee the opinions of some Graecians that Christ did not consecrate by those words This is my body but by his benediction but this opinion of theirs is condemned by him as Chamier saith expressely in the place coted by the Knight l. 6. de Eucha c. 7. Bellarmine in the place alledged saith nothing but what is granted by all Papists De Euchar. l. 3. c. 23. to wit that though the words of Consecration in the plaine connaturall and obvious sense inferre Transubstantiation yet because in the judgement of some learned men they may have another sense which proveth only the reall presence it is not altogether improbable that without the authority of the Church they cannot inforce a man to beleeve Transubstantiation out of them Alfonsus à Castro affirmeth that of Transubstantiation there is rare mention in the ancient Fathers yet of the conversion of the bread into the body of Christ there is most frequent mention and the drift of Castro in that place is to shew that though there bee not much mention in ancient Writers of a thing or plaine testimonie of Scripture that yet the use and practice of the Church is sufficient bringing in for example this point of Transubstantiation and the procession of the holy Ghost from the Son The meaning of Yribarne and Scotus saying Transubstantiation of late was determined in the Councell of Lateran is only this that whereas the words of Consecration may bee understood of the reall presence of our blessed Saviours body either by Transubstantiation or otherwise so the substance of bread doe remaine the Church hath determined the words are to be understood in the former
them which is in other words to acknowledge them for a Rule of faith and consequently of infallible authoritie neither can any thing be said more against the present Church and present Councell of Trent then against the Church of that time and the Councels of those times The Knight impertinently alledgeth the testimonies of S. Paul You know that I have withdrawne nothing that was profitable v. 27. I have not shrunke to declare unto you the whole counsell of God Acts 20.20 and Bellarmine l. 4. d. verb. Dei All those things are written by the Apostle which are necessarie for all men and which they preached generally unto all For S. Paul speaketh not of the written word but of the doctrine of Christ by him preached neither doth Bellarmines saying helpe any thing because though those things which are necessarie in generall for all to know which are but few bee written there bee yet many more not written which are necessarie to bee knowne by some in the Church The Knight in praying that the Anathema decreed by the Councell of Trent might fall upon his head if any Papist could shew the number of seven Sacraments to have beene the beliefe of the Church for a thousand yeares after Christ is too forward to draw malediction upon himselfe it will come fast enough to his cost It is an heavier thing then he is a ware of to have the curse of a mother and such a mother as the Church which doth not curse without cause Ecclesiasticus 3.11 nor out of passion For as the Scripture saith maledictio matris eradicat fundamenta the malediction of a mother doth roote out the foundations The Knights definition of a Sacrament to wit that it is a seale witnessing to our consciences that Gods promises are true is senselesse and without ground largely refuted by Bellarmine Bell. l. 1. de sac in genere c. 14.16 and proved to bee most absurd For how can the Sacraments bee seales to give us assurance of his words when all the assurance wee have of a Sacrament is his word this is idem per idem Besides what promises are these that are sealed or if they be sealed what need we more seales and Sacraments then one if there may bee more why not seven as well as two Againe how doe wee see the promises of God in the Sacraments these are but foolish fancies bred in hereticall braines and so to be contemned The Knights Argument against five of our Sacraments that in them the element is not joyned to the Word or they have not their institution from Christ or they bee not visible signes of invisible saving grace is frivolous For confirmation and extreame Vnction have the element and the Word to wit oyle and the forme order and penance have institution from Christ as is confessed in order the patten with an Host and Chalice with wine in it is the outward element in penance humble confession with prayer fasting and almes-deedes are the outward element in Matrimonie the bodyes of a man or woman are as much an outward element as water in baptisme and though Matrimonie might bee a naturall contract before the Gospell yet was it exalted to the dignitie of a Sacrament by Christ and though it bee an holy thing as order is yet as order is forbidden to all women so upon good reason Mariage is forbidden to all Priests because it is good but of an inferiour ranke and not so agreeable to the high estate of Priest-hood That S. Ambrose Austine Chrysostome and Bede Aug. in Iohan. tract 15 de latere in cruce pendentis lanceâ percusso sacramenta ecclesiae profluxerunt teaching that out of Christs side came the Sacraments of the Church prove no more two then seven Sacraments For they say not that they were then instituted or that there were no more Sacraments instituted or that other Sacraments did not issue from thence Saint Ambrose maketh expresse mention of the Sacrament of confirmation L. 2. de sacram c. 24. and of penance as Bellarmine sheweth who also yeeldeth a reason why S. Ambrose in his bookes de Sacramentis mentioneth no more but three Sacraments because his intent in that worke is only to instruct the catechumenie in those things which are to bee done at the time of Baptisme For hee neither writeth to the beleevers of his age but only to some beginners as is manifest by the title of one of his bookes neither doth he there speake of the Sacraments which the Church hath taught and declared but of the Sacraments which those beginners that hee spake to had newly received S. Austine in those places where hee speaketh of two Sacraments restraineth not the number to two only Respice ad munera ecclesiae munus sacramentorum in baptismo in Eucharisliâ et caeteris sanctis sacramentis For in his first Sermon upon the 103. psalme hee saith cast thine eyes upon the gifts or offices of the Church in Baptisme the Eucharist and the rest of the holy Sacraments and in his Epistle 118. having brought in the two Sacraments Baptisme and the Lords Supper he addeth this generall clause and if there bee any thing else commended in canonicall Scriptures Neither doth the place the Knight citeth out of the third booke de doctrinâ christianâ availe him any thing for it is plaine by the word sicuti that he bringeth in Baptisme and the Lords Supper for example only which doth no way restraine the number Besides his word in this place is not sacraments as the Knight citeth him but signa signes which is therefore a corruption of the Knights S. Cyprian de ablutione pedum reckoneth but five Sacraments not that hee thought there were no more Cyp. doi ablut ped propter hoc benignissime Domine pedes lavas discipulis quia post baptismum quem sui reverentia iterari non patitur aliud lavacrum procurasti quod nunquam debeat intermitti but that it pertained not to his purpose to speake of more in that place his scope being only to speake of such Sacraments as had relation to our Saviours last Supper and by ablutio pedum that Authour meaneth the sacrament of penance as appeareth by the words following for this O most benigne Lord thou didst wash thy Disciples feet because after Baptisme which may not be iterated thou hast procured another laver which must never bee intermitted S Isidore in his sixt booke of Etymologies cited by the Knight doth not so much as intend to speake of any Sacrament at all but his only intent is to treat of the names of certaine feasts as the title of the chapter sheweth to wit of feasts and their names Among which he putteth Christs Supper Moreover to shew that S. Isidore held more then the three Sacraments the Knight speaketh of in his second booke de Ecclesiast offic c. 16. l. 23. c. 19. he mentioneth two more Penance and Matrimonie Alexander hales in the place
to the Iewes and Greekes repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Iesus Christ hee could not but have seene the absurditie of his answer wherein he denieth that S. Paul speaketh of the written word For who knoweth not that repentance towards God and faith towards Iesus Christ are written almost in every Sermon of the Prophets and chapter of the Evangelists What hee addeth for confirmation of his answer from the example of our Saviour who made knowne to his Disciples whatsoever hee heard from his Father and yet delivered not one word in writing no whit at all helpeth his cause For albeit we grant that our Saviour wrote nothing except wee give credit to a relation in Eusebius of a letter written by him to King Abgarus yet hee commanded his Apostles to write those things which they had heard and seene what thou seest write it in a booke Euseb eccles hist. l. 1. Apoc. 1.11 and send it to the seven Churches and S. Peter saith 2 Ep. 8.20 that no Scripture is privatae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as Cal vin well rendereth the words privatae impulsionis of private impulsion or motion for the prophecie came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the holy Ghost and therefore Irenaeus saith expresly Advers haeres .3 c. 1. non per alios dispositionem salut is accepimus quans per quos E vangelium ad nos pervenit quod primum praeconiaverunt posted secundùm Dei voluntatem in script is reliquerunt columnam firmamentum fidei futurum Euseb hist eccl l. 2. c. 14. fideles iterat is precibus impetrârunt à Marcout monumentum illud doctrinae quod sermone verbis ill is tradidisset etiam script is mandatum apud eos relinqueret Esay 8.20 that what the Apostles preached first by word of mouth by the will of GOD they afterwards delivered in writing to bee a pillar and foundation of our faith and S. Austine affirmeth that what Christ would have knowne of his words and deeds as needfull to our salvation that hee gave in charge to his Apostles to set downe in writing If this suffice not I will stop the mouth of this Iesuit with the free confession of a greater Iesuit then hee Gregorie of Valence in his eight booke of the Analysis of faith the fift chapter minimè in ipsorum arbitrio positum fuit scribere aut alio tempore aut alijs verbis scribere the penmen of the holy Ghost were so guided by the spirit that it was not in their power or at their choyce to write or not to write or to write at another time or to write in other words then they did To the testimonie of Bellarmine the Iesuit gives as sleight an answer as to the former out of S. Luke whereunto I need to reply nothing because in a case so cleere wee need not the Cardinals confession having such expresse testimonie of Scripture and Fathers as namely of Esay to the law and to the testimonie if they speake not according to this word Deut. 4.2 Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the booke of the law to doe them And Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the Priests which bare the Arke Gal. 1.8 2 Tim. 3.15 it is because there is no light in them of Moyses yee shall not adde unto the words which I command you which to bee spoken of the written law is apparant by comparing this text with Galathians 3.10 and Deuteronomie 31.9 And the words of Christ Iohn 5.39 search the Scriptures for in them you thinke you have eternall life And of S. Iohn his beloved Disciple Iohn 20.31 these things are written that yee might beleeve that Iesus Christ is the Sonne of God and that beleeving ye might have life through his Name And of S. Paul if we or an Angel from heaven preach unto you any other Gospel then that yee have received Advers hermog c. 22. adoro scripturae plenitudinem scriptum doceat Hermogenes Epist ad Pomp nihil innovetur in quit Stephanus quod traditum est unde est ista traditio Vtrum de Dominicâ Evangelicâ authoritate descendens an de Apostolorum mandatis epistolis veniens ea enim facienda quae scripta sunt Deus restatur siergo aut in evangelio praecipitur aut in Apostolorum epistolis aut Actibus continetur observetur haecsanctatraditio that is as S. Austine expoundeth it praeterquam quod in Scripturis legalibus Evangelicis accepist is if any preach unto you any Gospell beside that which is contained in the writings of the Law and the Gospell let him bee accursed And thou hast knowne the Scriptures from a child which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Iesus for all Scripture is given by Divine inspiration and is profitable for doctrine for reproofe for correction for instruction and righteosnesse that the man of God may bee perfect throughly furnished to all good workes And of Tertullian I adore the fulnesse of Scriptures let Hermogenes prove what hee saith out of Scriptures or otherwise let him feare the woe denounced against all such as adde any thing thereunto or take there-from And of S. Cyprian our brother Steven will have nothing to bee altered in the Church tradition Whence is this tradition is it from the Gospel or the Acts of the Apostles or their Epistles if it be so then let this holy tradition bee kept for God himselfe witnesseth that wee ought to observe those things that are written And of Athanasius Athanas. orat 1. cont Arr. Sufficiunt per se inspiratae scripturae ad veritatis instructionem Basil Serm. de side 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. 3. in 2. ad Tbess 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et in 2. ad Cor. Hom. 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ierom. advers Helvid c. 3. credimus quia legimus non credimus quia non legimus Augustin de doc Chris l. 2. c. 9. in ijs quae apertè posita sunt in scriptura inveniuntur illa amnia quae continent fidem mores Cyril in Evang. Iohan. l. 1.2 c. 68 ea conscripta sunt quae scribentes Sufficere put drunt ad mores dogmataque Vincen. Lyrin advers Haeres hic requirat aliquis cum sit perfectus scripturae canon sibique ad omnia sat is superque sufficiat Biel in can mis lec 71. quae agenda quae fugienda quae amanda quae contemnenda quae timenda quae audenda quae credenda speranda caetera nostrae saluti necessaria quae omnia sola docet Sacra scriptura the holy Scripturesare sufficient to instruct us in the truth And of S Basil it is a manifest falling away from faith either to refuse any thing of those that are written or to bring in any of those things which
integritie of corporall refection and the example of Christ it were more convenient to have the Communion under both kindes the Knight hearkeneth to him but where hee lispeth in the language of Ashdod saying that in consideration of the reverence due to this Sacrament it is ill and inconvenient to communicate in both kindes the Knight had reason to turne a deafe eare to him for it is cosin germane to blasphemie to say that is ill and inconvenient which Christ and his Apostles and the whole Church in all places for more then a thousand yeares practised the Knight might well say to Tapperus in the words of him in the Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will be sober with you but I will not runne madde with you To the twelfth For the statute made in the dayes of that Phoenix of his age King Edward the sixt the meaning is unlesse among the people there bee some that either by a naturall antipathie to wine or other infirmitie cannot receive the Sacraments in both kindes it is ordained that it be delivered to every one in both kindes cessante ferreâ necessitate obtinet haec aurea regula that all receive the whole Sacrament in which the Statute and the articles of Religion published first in the reigne of this blessed Prince fully accord For so wee reade Article the thirtieth both parts of the Lords Sacrament by Christs ordinance and command ought to bee ministred to all Christian people alike To the thirteenth That every article of faith ought to have sufficient proofe out of Scripture is proved by innumerable testimonies of antiquitie produced by Philip Morney in his Preface to his booke De Eucharistia Bilson of Supremacie part the fourth Abbot against Bishop chapter the seventh and Laurentius de disp Theolog Neither doth S. Ierome any way contradict them or us for wee beleeve that the consent of the whole Christian Church is an infallible argument of truth Albeit wee teach that any particular Church as namely the Roman or the French or the Dutch or the Greeke Church may erre yet we denie that the catholique Church universally hath ever erred or can erre in matter of faith necessarie to salvation and further I adde for conclusion that as the words of S. Ierome alledged by the Iesuit make nothing against us so if they bee applied to our present subject they make most strongly against him being propounded after this manner Although the authoritie of holy Scripture were wanting for the Communion in both kindes which is not so yet the consent of the whole world on this side testified by their uniforme practise confessed by Papists themselves ought to have the force of a divine Precept and so there would bee an end not only of this Section as the Iesuit speaketh but of this whole Controversie Concerning Prayer in an unknowne tongue Spectacles Sect. 6. a pag. 259. usque ad 283. THe Knight falsly chargeth the Councell of Trent with approving prayer in the vulgar tongue for though the Councell saith that the Masse containeth great instruction yet it doth not say that it ought to bee in the vulgar tongue nay contrarily it pronounceth an anathema against any whosoever shall say that the Masse ought to bee celebrated in the vulgar tongue It hath beene the generall practise and custome in the Church of God of having the Masse and the publike office in Latine all over the Latine and Westerne Church both in Italie Spaine France Germanie England Africa and all other places and so likewise in Greeke in the Graecian or Easterne Church though it were as large in extent and had as much varietie of languages in it as the Latine Church hath Vniformitie which is fit to be used in such things and unitie of the Catholique Church is excellently declared and also much maintained by this unitie of language in the Church office The use of vulgar tongues in the Masse or Church office would cause not only great confusion but breed an infinite number of errours by many severall translations The use of vulgar language in such things would breed a great contempt of sacred things with prophanenesse and irreligiositie besides the danger of heresie which commeth no way sooner then by misunderstanding of holy Scripture The place of Scripture alledged by the Knight concerning announcing our Lords death is not understood by words but by deeds as is most plaine by the circumstances The text of S. Paul where he asketh how hee that understandeth not the prayers shall say Amen is not of the publike prayers of the Church which no man can doubt of either for the truth or goodnesse and therefore he may confidently say Amen to them but of private prayers made by private and Laye men extempore in an unknowne tongue Haymo requireth not that all that are present at Divine service should understand but only that he that supplieth the place of the idiot or Laye-man in answering for the people should bee so farre able to understand as to answer Amen at the end of every prayer Iustinian the Emperour is ordinarily taxed for taking too much upon him in Ecclesiasticall matters yet all that hee saith may bee well maintained without prejudice to the present practise of the Roman Church for in the Decree alledged by the Knight hee requireth nothing more but that Bishops and Priests should pronounce distinctly and clearely that which according to the custome of the Easterne Church was to bee spoken aloud The Canon law capite quoniam in plerisque requireth only that where divers Nations are mingled that the Bishop of the Citie should substitute one in his roome to celebrate the divine Office and administer the Sacraments according to their ownerites and language for indeed it is a matter of necessitie in administration of some Sacraments to use the vulgar language as in Mariage and Penance but not so of other things Lyra Belithus Gretzer Harding Cassander and the rest of the Authours quoted by the Knight say indeed that in the beginning Prayers were in the vulgar tongue but the reason was because those three holy languages Hebrew Greeke and Latine dedicated on the crosse of Christ were then most vulgar none of them speake a word of any Precept There is no precept in the Scripture commanding prayers in a knowne tongue or forbidding in an unknowne whose authority or example can you bring for your selfe in this matter name him if you can It was more needfull in the Primitive Church that the people should understand because they were to answer the Priest which now is not so as Bellarmine noteth because that belongs only to the Clarke That the Knight contradicteth himselfe in one place saying That the alteration of the Church service was occasioned by certaine Shepheards who in the dayes of Honorius having learned the words of Consecration by heart pronounced them over their Bread and Wine in the fields and thereby Transubstantiated them into flesh and bloud and for this prophane abuse were strucken
that shining with theright faith and vertuous workes we may attaine to the kingdome of heaven To the ninth Were the grave authours the Iesuit speaketh of authenticall and these stories gospell yet the Adversarie would gaine nothing thereby nor we lose For we are none of the Iconomachi that bid battell to Images and knock them downe wheresoever they find them with battle-axes Forbeare the representation of the invisible Deity and blessed Trinitie and remove all scandall from the people and perill of idolatrie and let the images and pictures of Christ and his Saints stand where they doe for memorie historie and beautifying and adorning the walls and windowes Wee dislike it not as the Iesuit may reade in our bookes and see in our Churches and houses But the truth is neither are the stories of credit nor the authours of them of that account as the Iesuit would have them Comment in 2 Timoth. Of some of them wee may truly say as Espencaeus doth of Nicephorus that they are in these relations si non mendaces saltem audaces if not altogether fabulous yet very audacious for the image sent to King Abgarus it is of no more credit then the letter sent with it which the Romish Church as all other Christians hold to bee Apochrypha were it Canonicall it should make a part of the New Testament And for the second we cannot but wipe our eyes in bewayling their folly who beleeve that Christ by wiping his face as hee was carrying his Crosse should imprint his image in his handkerchiefe Yea but these images are confirmed by wonderfull miracles wrought by them I answer first out of Biel upon the canon of the Masse Dist in prophano cultu Diabolus plurimùm delectatur quantum valet cooperatur ac assistit apparentibus miraculis Cic. in Ver. act 6. multa prodigia vim ejus numenque declarant Strab. l. 8. Geograph Espenc loc sup cit daemonum spectris mulierum somnijs parum verecundè utchantur Edwin Sands discourse of his Travels Apolog Herodoti per R. Stev that the Divell is much delighted in prophane worship such is your worship of images and helpeth it forward as much as hee can by seeming miracles next that this was the heathens plea for their worshipping of images for Tully speaking of the image of Ceres in Sicily saith many wonders doe shew the divine vertue thereof and the Graecians as Strabo writeth used to set upin tables the diseases cured by Aesculapius in Epidaurius as the Papists at this day doe the diseases cured by the image of the blessed Virgin in Lauretto Thirdly that learned Papists finde much fault with the seventh generall Councell for founding the worshipping of images upon the delusion of Divels and old wives tales and dreames Lastly most of the Popish legendary stories in this kind may easily be proved to bee no miracles of God nor wrought by sorcerie or enchantment through the power of Satan but to be meere impostures wrought by their Priests who are the greatest juglers in the world in this kind To the tenth S. Austine maketh great account of this speech of Varro for hee twice maketh mention of it in this fourth booke First chapter the ninth L. 4. De civit Dei c. 9. Varroni simulacra ita displicuerunt ut cum tantae civitatis perversâ consuetudine premeretur nequaquam tamen dicere scribere dubitaret quòd hi qui populis instituerunt simulacra metum dempserunt errorem addiderunt Varro was so farre out of love with images that though hee were pressed with the perverse custome of so great a City as Rome was yet hee made no bones both to say and write that they who first brought in Images both tooke away religious feare of God and added errour to boote and in his thirtie one chapter he hath this memorable observation the Romans worshipped their gods more then a 170. yeares without images and if they had done so still saith hee the gods had beene more chastly or purely worshipped by them Yea but the Iesuit with a wet finger turneth over these passages as if nothing were said by S. Austine or Varro to the prejudice of their images shrines or Altars for S. Austine by Simulacrum meaneth not animage but an Idoll not the representation of the true but a resemblance of false and feigned deities The distinction of image and idoll I have before refelled nothing remaines for the refutation of this answer of the Iesuit but that I shew out of S. Austine De fide Symb. c. 7. nec id ipsum quod sedêre pater dicitur flexis po litibus fiert purandumest tale simulacrum Deo nefas est Christianoin Templo â—â— locare that by Simulacrum hee meaneth any image even of the true God And not to trouble the reader with many instances those words of his in his Treatise of faith and the Creed clearely convince the Iesuit Wee must not think saith he that God the Father who is said to sit sitteth in heaven-with bowed knees as a man sitteth in a chaire such a simulacrum or image it is not lawfull to set up in the Temple of Christians had the Iesuit but perused the chapter pointed to by the Knight to which he professeth to give a direct answer hee would have given himselfe the lye and checked his former interpretation of S. Austines words for immediatly after the former period the Father addeth that Varro in proofe of his assertion alledgeth the custome of the Iewish nation Hujus sententiae suae testem adhibet gentem Iudaeam Vnum Deum à quo mundum crederet gubernari sine simulacre colendum censuit and a little after he saith that Varro thought that God by whom hee beleeved the world was governed ought to be worshipped without an image by which words it is evident that by simulacra hee meant not only the images of false gods which alone the Iesuit calls Idolls but also of the true God For the Iewes whose custome hee bringeth in for himselfe abhorred all Images or Pictures even of the true God and Varro himselfe by that Governour of the world whom hee would have to bee worshipped without an image meant the true God as S. Austine himselfe testifieth of him Howsoever the title which hee there giveth him of anima mundi or soule of the world soundeth harshin a Christian eare yet S. Austine alloweth of Varro his assertion or opinion as comming neerer to the truth then other of the heathen Phiosophers in that hee taught but one God and him to bee not materiall or corporeall but of a spirituall and invisible substance and therefore not to bee drawne with pensill or counterfeited with colours without errour or impietie To the eleventh Eusebius relateth the storie of Veronica her statue dedicated to the memorie of Christs miraculous cure wrought upon her with approbation there of as being a lasting monument and standing testimonie of her gratitude to
fiery Serpent yet perinutile vitiabatur it was corrupted and made scandalous and unprofitable by the peoples abusing it to idolatrie and if that Image being a type of Christ and set up by Gods speciall command was yet broken in pieces by good King Ezekiah after the people began to worship it how much more ought those images to bee knocked downe and stamped to powder which are set up in popish Churches against GODS commandement and have beene abused to idolatrie above eight hundred yeares in such a grosse manner especially by the vulgar that as Polydore Virgill ingenuously confesseth many of the ruder sort of them magis ijs fidunt quà m Christo put more confidence in the image then Christ himselfe Concerning Indulgences Spectacles paragraph 8. a page 319. usque ad 345. THE Knight himselfe granteth the use of giving Indulgences to have been in the ancient Church and that Bishops had power to grant them Christs Merits lying in store for the need of all men may be fitly compared to a common Treasure and be called by that name So farre forth then as those Pardons were grounded on Christs merits or granted by application of them to the penitent there is no difference betweene theirs and ours Saint Paul forgave the incestuous Corinthian not onely in the person of Christ but for their sake also which importeth the prayer and deserts of Saints to have some place in the bestowing of that Indulgence and so likewise it was the practise of the Primitive Church and what was this but by applying the superabundant merits in the one to supply the want in the other That the merits of Martyrs were applied to others appeareth by Tertullian who being become now an Heretike did reprehend that custome saying that a Martyrs merits were little enough for himselfe without having any surplussage to helpe others withall Many a man continueth his great austerity of Fasting Watching Praying and other exercises of all vertues after hee hath obtained pardon for the fault it selfe by hearty contrition and by humble confession obtained also remission of the temporall punishment within the space of 1 2 3 7 10 or 12 yeares for example sake hee then leading the same life for 20 30 40 50 or 60 yeares as many have done what shall become of all that satisfaction which is over and above for that sinne or sinnes which hee committed before It doth not perish or passe without fruit though not of him yet of others and if they be not applied presently why may they not then be said to lye in deposito as money in a Treasurie Sith all grant Indulgences for the living why not for the dead so long as they pertaine to the Communion of Saints and have need thereof The authority which the Knight citeth to make Indulgences applyed to the soules in Purgatorie to be ridiculous out of the old Sarum booke of the houres of our Lady doth not mention Purgatorie but onely saith That whosoever shall say these and these prayers shall gaine so many thousand yeares of pardon which is no more for the dead than for the living It is false which the Knight averreth that wee give Pardons for thousands of yeares in Purgatory after death For wee doe not so neither doe wee understand those Pardons wherein are mentioned such number of yeares so as if men were without those Pardons to remaine so long in Purgatorie but wee understand those yeares according to the penitentiall Canons by which many yeares penance were due for one sinne and many mens sinnes being both very grievous and as a man may say without number according to the account of the ancient penitentiall Canons they may soone amount to thousands of yeares which though a man cannot live to performe here in this world nor even in Purgatory for the length of time yet hee may in Purgatorie in few yeares space nay few months or few weekes space suffer so much punishment as is answerable to all that penance of many thousand of yeares which a man should have performed here if hee could have lived so long The Authours alleaged by the Knight against Indulgences prove no more than wee grant that there is not so expresse mention in Scriptures or ancient Fathers of them as of many other points because there was not so much use of them in those dayes Though some Fathers mention them not wee prove the use of them out of others more ancient to wit out of Saint Cyprian and Tertullian as you may see in Bellarmine lib. de indul c. 3. and besides them the authority of certaine Councels as that of Nice Ancyra and Laodicea Though wee had not either the testimonie of these Fathers nor of those Councells yet would not that follow which the Knight groundeth thereon to wit that wee want antiquitie and consent of Fathers for them for it is a most strong argument of antiquitie that it is the practise of the Catholike Church time out of mind and of consent that no man is found to have spoken against them but onely knowne Heretikes In contrariuÌ„ est generalis consuetudo doctrina ecclesiae quae contineret falsitatem nisi per indulgentias dimitteretur aliquid de paenâ peccatori debitâ such as the Waldenses who were the first impugners of Indulgences Durand whom the Knight alleageth in the first place having propounded the question in 4. sent dis 20. q. 5. an aliquid valeant indulgentiae after the manner of the Schooles putteth two arguments against them in the first place and then commeth with his arguments Sed contra agreeing expresly with his conclusion On the contrarie saith he is the generall custome and doctrine of the Church which should containe falshood 13. De here sibus l. 8. tit indulg verum â—tsi pro indulgentiarum approbatione sacrae scripturae testimonium apertum de sit non tamen ideo contemnend e erunt quoniam ecclesiae catho licae usus a multis annoruÌ„ centuriis tantae est autboritatis ut qui illam contemnat haereticus merito cen seatur if something of the punishment due to a Sinner should not be forgiven by Indulgences and presently after hee nameth Saint Gregory and saith of him that hee did institute Indulgences at the stations in Rome Alfonsus a Castro though hee confesse the use of Indulgences not to have beene so much in those ancient times as since yet hee alloweth them so farre as to condemne any man for an Haeretike that shall deny them 14. The Knight prateth very freely of the Popes selling of Indulgences and bringing money to his owne coffers by them but to that I need to make no other answer but that it is such riff-raff-stuffe as their Ministers are wont to eeke out their bookes Sermons without being able to shew any Bull of Pope or testimony of good authour of any Indulgence so granted For the Knights prophane jeast out of Guicciardine of playing a game at Tables for an indulgence suppose that
were true might not a man thinke you tell as good a tale of some Protestants who in their pots have made so bold with Almighty God himselfe as to drinke a health to him and were not this a fine argument to prove that there is no God It is intollerable presiemption in the Knight to take upon him to censure so great a Councell as that of Trent Wherein the whole flower of the Catholique Church for learning and sanctity was gathered together the splendour of which Councell was so great that your night owle Heretiques durst not once appeare though they were invited to goe and come freely with all the security they could wish Whoreas the Knight saith that it is a senselesse and weake faith that giveth assent to doctrine as necessary to be believed which wanteth authority out of Scriptures and consent of Fathers I answer he knoweth not what he saith for all the Fathers agree that there are many things which men are bound to believe upon unwritten traditions whose authority you may see in great number in Bellarmine De verbo Dei l. 4. c 7. The consent of Doctours of the Catholique Church cannot more erre in one time then another the authority of the Church and assistance of the Holy Ghost being alwayes the same no lesse in one time then another Tertull. de prescript cap. 28. quod apud multos unum invenitur non est erratū sed traditum and Tertullians rule having still place as well in one age as another that which is the same amongst many is not errour but a tradition St. Paul thought he answered sufficiently for the defence of himselfe and offence of his contentious enemy when he said 1 Cor. 11. If any man seeme to be contentious we have no such custome nor the Churches of God It is false which the Knight againe repeateth that an article of faith cannot be warantable without authority of Scriptures for faith is more ancient then Scripture to say nothing of the times before Christ faith was taught by Christ himselfe without writing as also by the Apostles after him for many yeares without any word written As no lesse credite is to be given to the Apostolicall preaching then writing so no lesse credit is still to be given to their words delivered us by tradition then by their writings the credite and sense of the writings depending upon the same tradition St. Austine defendeth many points of faith De baptisme l. 2 c. 7. l. 5 c. 25. cont Maximin l. 3. c. 3. et Epist 174. de Genesi ad litteram l. 10. c. 23. l. de cura pro mortuis et Epist 118. de unit eccles c. 22. et tract 98. in Iohan. either onely or chiefely by tradition and the practise of the Catholique Church as single Baptisme against the Donatists consubstantiality of the Sonne the divinity of the Holy Ghost and even unbegottennesse of the Father against the Arrians and the Baptisme of children against the Pelagians to say nothing of prayer for the dead observation of the feasts of Easter Ascention Whitsontide and the like Nay this truth was so grounded with him that he accounted it most insolent madnesse to dispute against the common opinion and practise of the Catholique Church In his booke of the unity of the Church he saith that Christ beareth witnesse of his Church and in his Tractates upon John having occasion to handle those words of St. Paul If we or an Angell from Heaven c. wherewith the Knight almost concludeth every Section he thus commenteth upon them the Apostles did not say if any man preach more then yee have received but besides that which you have received for if he should say that he should prejudicate that is goe against himselfe who coveted to come to the Thessalonians that he might supply that which was wanting to their faith but he that supplieth addeth that which was lacking taketh not away that which was before these are the Saints very words in that place by which it is plaine that he taketh the word praeter besides not in that sense as to signifie more then is written as you would understand it but to signifie the same that contra St. Paul himselfe useth the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 para besides Rom. 16.17 for contra and you in your owne Bibles translate it so I beseech you brethren marke them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them The Hammer AS Erucius the accuser of Roscius Amerinus having little to say against him Cic. pro Rosc Amer. to fill up the time rehearsed a great part of an invective which he had penned in former time against another defendant so the Iesuit here failing in his proofes for indulgences for which little or nothing can be said to fill up the Section transcribeth a discourse of his which he had formerly penned concerning the necessity of unwritten traditions which hath no affinity at all with the title of this Chapter de Indulgentiis In other paragraphs we finde him distracted and raving but in this he turneth Vagrant and therefore I am to follow him with a whip as the law in this case provideth Touching the point it selfe of Indulgences which Rivet fitly termeth Emulgences but the Iesuit the Churches Treasury whosoever relieth upon the superabundant merits and satisfaction of Saints for his absolution for his temporall punishment of sinne after this life shall finde according to the Greeke proverbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of treasure Eras Adag Thesauri Carbones glowing coales heaped upon his head in hell For neither are there any merits or superabundant satisfactions of Saints Luk. 17.10 Christ saying when you have done all you are unprofitable servants nor were there any could they be applied or imputed to any other men 2 Cor. 5.10 the Apostle teaching that every man shall receive according to that which himselfe hath done in his body whether it be good or evill 2 Cor. 11.15 nor hath the Pope any more power to dispose of this treasury for the remission of sinnes our Saviour Matth. 18. v. 18. and Iohn 20.23 conferring the same power of remitting sinnes upon all the Apostles which he promised to S. Peter Matth. 16. Neither if the Pope had any speciall power of granting Indulgences could it extend to the soules in Purgatory quia non sunt de foro Papae because they are not subject to the Popes court Serm 2. de defunct 9 9. as Gerson rightly concludeth Neither lastly can it be proved that there is any Purgatory fire for soules after this life St. Iohn expresly affirming that the blood of Christ purgeth us from all our sinnes 1 Iohn 1.7 the fire therefore of Purgatory is rightly termed chymerica and chymica chymericall and chymicall chymericall because a meere fiction and chymicall because by meanes of this fire they extract much gold The Apostle saith there is
that which was lacking to their Faith to supply I say that which was lacking to their Faith not to the Gospell which Saint Paul preached hee saith not let him be accursed who further informeth you in the Doctrine of the Scriptures or delivereth you more out of them than yee have yet received within that Rule but hee that delivereth you any thing besides that Rule And that this is his meaning appeareth by the words immediately following which the Iesuit cunningly suppresseth to wit these Qui praetergreditur regulam fidei non accedit in viâ sed recedit de viâ Hee that goeth besides the Rule of Faith doth not goe on in the way but departeth out of the way Yea but the word in the Greeke translation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used is the same with that Rom. 16.17 which wee in our Bibles translate against not Praeter besides Yea but the Jesuits in their owne Latine vulgar translation to which they are all sworne as wee are not to ours render this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Praeter besides and not Contra against and that this translation is most agreeable to the Apostles meaning appeareth by comparing this text Rom. 16.17 with a parralell'd text 2 Thes 3.6 Withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the Tradition which you have received of us There is no necessity therefore of expounding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that text to the Romans by Contra against wee may as well or better expound it by Praeter that is besides yet if in one place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might signifie Contra it doth not follow that it must be so taken Galathians 1.8 for it is well knowne that the naturall and most usuall signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke is Praeter besides not Contra against and words are to be taken in their most proper and usuall signification unlesse some necessarie reason drawne from the circumstances of the text or analogie of faith inforceth us to leave it which here it doth not As for Saint Austines judgement in the point it selfe to wit that Scripture is the perfect rule of Faith hee plainely delivereth it both in his 49 tractate upon Iohn and in the ninth chapter of the second booke De doctrinâ christianâ and in the last chapter of his second booke De peccatorum meritis remissione and in his booke De bono viduitatis cap. 11. What words can be more expresse and direct for the sufficiencie of Scripture than those in his 49 tractate upon Iohn The Lord Iesus did Quae saluti credentium sufficere videbuntur In iis quae aperte posita sunt in Scriptura inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem moresque vivendi G. ult Credo etiam hâ—ic divinoruÌ„ eloquioruÌ„ clarissima authoritas esset si homo illud sine dispendio salutis ignorare non posset Sancta Scriptura nostrae doctrinae regulam sixit ne auderemus sapere ultra quam oportet and spake many things which are not written as the Evangelist testifieth but those things were chosen to be written which seemed to suffice for the salvation of Beleevers unlesse those in his second booke De doctrina christiana Among those things which are openly or plainly set downe in Scriptures all things are found which concerne or containe Faith or manners or those in his second booke of the remission of sinnes I beleeve that the authoritie of divine Scriptures would have beene most cleere and evident in this point if a man could not have beene ignorant of it without perill of his salvation or lastly those in his booke in the commendation of Widowhood What should I teach thee more than that which thou readest in the Apostle for the holy Scripture setleth the rule of our Doctrine lest wee should presume to be wise above that wee ought Concerning the infallible certainty of the Protestant faith and the uncertainty of the Romish Spectacles Chapter the 10. a page 346. usque ad 380. THE Knights failing in his proofes of our novelty is a sufficient proofe of our antiquity and his owne novelty The Jesuits may not be ashamed of the oath they take to defend the Papacy nay they may glory in it as an heroicall act whereby they binde themselves to the defence of that authority whereon the weight and frame of the whole Catholike Church and salvation of all soules from Christ his owne time to the very end of the world hath doth and still shall depend Catholike Doctors whom the Knight chargeth with division among themselves may indeede differ in opinion so long as a thing is undefined for so long it is not faith but when it is once defined then they must be silent and concurre all in one because then it is matter of faith The Knight can have no certainty of his Christianity because that dependeth upon his Baptisme or the faith of his parents which he cannot know He can have no certainty of his Marriage or the legitimation of his children because the validity of the contract dependeth upon the intention of the parties which marry and no man can have any certaine knowledge of anothers intention and so the Knight is in no better case then his adversaries in this respect It is cleane a different thing to dispute of the certainty of the Catholique faith which we maintaine and of every mans private and particular beliefe of his owne justification or salvation which we deny to be so certaine the one being grounded upon the authority of Gods divine truth and revelation the other upon humane knowledge or rather conjecture Howscever though we be not certaine by certainty of divine faith that this or that man in particular is truely baptized or ordained a Priest yet we are certaine by the certainty of divine faith that not onely there be such Sacraments but that they are also truly administred in the Catholike Church It might be good and profitable as Bellarmine noteth to invoke the Saints though they themselves should not heare us as the Knight would prove out of Peter Lumbard and Gabriel Biel who though they doubt of the manner yet they doubt not of the thing it selfe Gabriel saith the Saints are invocated not as givers of the good things for which we pray but as intercessours to God the giver of all good And Peter Lumbard saith that our prayers become knowne to the Angells in the word of God which they behold so also doe Saints that stand before God Though it be true which Caietan saith that it cannot be knowne infallibly that the miracles whereon the Church groundeth the Canonization of Saints be true yet it followeth not that we are uncertaine whether the Canonized Saints be in Heaven or no because the certainty of Canonization dependeth upon more certaine ground to wit the authority of the See Apostolique and continuall assistance and direction of the Holy-ghost the spirit of truth to whom it belongeth not to suffer Christs
Bishop of Rochester Gregorie the great and venerable Bede let the Iesuit therefore looke to the Consequent The Church of Rome commandeth every one upon paine of hell-fire to beleeve a temporarie purging fire after this life First upon what ground Scripture or unanimous consent of Fathers or Tradition of the Catholike Church no such thing But upon apparitions of dead men and testimonie of Spirits whether good Spirits or evill they cannot tell Next wee demand what soules and how long doe they contine there To this they must answer likewise Ignoramus Soto thinketh that none continueth in this purgation ten yeares If this be true saith Bellarmine No soule needs to stay in purging one houre Thirdly the soules that are supposed to be there till their sinnes are purged where with are they purged With fire onely so saith Sir Thomas Moore and proves it out of Zacharie 9.11 Thou hast delivered the prisoners out of the place where there is no water or with water and fire so saith Gregorie in his Dialogues lib. 4. Some are purged by fire and some by bathes and Fisher Bishop of Rochester proves it out of those words of the Psalmist Wee have passed thorow fire and water Fourthly admit they are purged by fire whether is this fire materiall or metaphoricall Ignoramus Wee know not saith Bellarmine lib. 2. de Purg. cap. 6. Lastly is there any mittigation of this paine in Purgatorie or no They cannot tell this neither For venerable Bede hist Ang. lib. 5. tels us of the apparition of a Ghost reporting that There was an infernall place where soules suffered no paine where they had a brooke running through it Neither is it improbable saith Bellarmine l. 2. de Purg. cap. 7. that there should be such an honorable prison which is a most milde and temperate Purgatorie Yea but saith the Iesuit Saint Austin is a firme man for Purgatorie and hee will prove it out of that booke of Enchiridion and place quoted by the Knight Resolutely spoken but so falsly Encharid ad Laurent c 69. Tale aliquid etiam post hanc vitam fieri incredibile non est et utrum ita sit quaeri potest et ut inveniri aut latere possit nonnullos fideles per ignem quendam purgaiorium salvari non tamen tales de quibus dictū est regnum Dei non posside bant that in this very booke chapter 69 Saint Austine speaking of a purging fire and commenting upon the words of Saint Paul Hee shall be saved as it were by fire addeth immediately It is not unlikely that some such thing may be after this life but whether it be so or no it may be argued and whether it can be found or not found that some Beleevers are saved by a purging fire yet it is certaine that none of them shall be saved of whom the Apostle saith they shall not inherit the Kingdome of God And in the same booke chapter 109. he resolves that All soules from the day of their death to their resurrection abide in expectation what shall become of them and are reserved in secret receptacles accordingly as they deserve either torment or ease These hidden Cells or Receptacles wheresoever they are scituated in St. Austins judgment C. 109. Tempus quod inter hominis mortem ultimam resurrectionem interpositum est animus abditis receptaculis continet sicut unaqueque digna est vel requiae vel arumnâ certaine it is they are not in the Popish Purgatory for St. Austine placeth in these secret Mansions all soules indifferently good or bad whereas the Popish Purgatory is restrained only to those of a middle condition being neither exceeding good nor exceeding bad Againe in St. Austines hidden repositories some soules have ease and some paine as each deserveth but in the Romish Purgatory all soules are in little-ease being tormented in a flame little differing from Hell fire or rather nothing at all save onely in time the paines are as grievous but not so durable Else where St. Austine is most direct against Purgatory and wholly for us as namely de peceat meritis de remissione l. 1. c. 28. There is no middle or third place saith he but he must needs be with the Devill who is not with Christ And Hypog l. 5. The first place the faith of Catholikes by divine authority beleeveth to be the Kingdome of Heaven the second to be Hell tertium locum penitùs ignoramus the third place we are alltogether ignorant of and in his booke de vanit seculi cap. 1. Know that when the soule is seperated from the body statim presently it is either placed in Paradise for his good worke or cast headlong into the bottome of hell for his sinnes Neither can the Iesuit evade by saying that there are two onely places where the soules remaine finally and eternally to wit Heaven and Hell but yet that there is a third place where the bodies fry in purging for a time for St. Austine speakes of all soules in generall both good and bad and saith that statim that is presently upon death they are receaved into Heaven or throwne into Hell and therefore stay no time in a Third place What then say we to the passage in which the Iesuit so triumpheth Enchirid. ad Laurenc c. 110. Neither is it to be denied that the soules of the dead are relieved by the piety of their friends living when the Sacrifice of our Mediatour is offered for them and Almes given in the Church We answer that where St. Austine is not constant to himselfe we are not bound to stand to his authority and therefore we appeale from Saint Austine missing his way in this place to the same Austine Nullum auxilium misericordiae potest preberi a justis defunctorum animabus etiamsi justi praebere velint quia est immutabilis divina sententia Qualis quisque moritur talis a Deo judicatur nec potest mutari corrigi vel minus dimia sententia hitting his way elsewhere namely l. 2. Quest Evan. c. 38. There can be no helpe of mercy afforded by just men to the soules of the deceased although the righteous would never so faine have it so because the sentence of God is immutable and Ep. 80. ad Hesich such as a man is when he dieth for such he is judged of God neither can the sentence of God be changed corrected or diminished As for Mr. Anthony Alcots confession that Saint Austines opinion was for purgatorie it maketh not for the Iesuit but against him for he saith it was his opinion not his resolved judgment and his opinion at one place and at one time which after he retracted and resolved the cleane contrary as Mr. Alcots there in part sheweth and Danaeus most fully in his Comment upon St. Austine his Enchiridian ad Laurentium To the tenth If all Papists did agree in this that all Images were to be worshipped but not as Gods yet are they at odds in other
there is no controversie betweene them and us concerning the immaculate conception of our Lady whereas both Chemnitius and Reynolds many other Protestant writers have overthrowne the ground of their feast of the immaculate conception of our Lady and all reformed Churches in generall have strucke that feast out of the Calender and the title of the 15. Article of religion of Christ alone without sinne sheweth to the world that we beleeve it to be the prerogative of our blessed Saviour among all the Sonnes of Adam that he alone was free from all originall and actuall sinne And now Master Flood sith you are taken in so many and fowle untruths in one Chapter I hope the Reader will not envie you that Guerdon which Aristotle bestowes upon a lewd and lowd Lyer not to be credited when he speaketh the truth Concerning Razing of Records and clipping Authors tongues Spectacles Chap. 13. a page 435. usque ad 446. BECAVSE there have beene many bookes published this last age by occasion of Haeresie and liberty which came therewith to the great prejudice of the Catholike faith there hath beene a course taken for the restraint of all such not onely writings of Haeretikes but even of Catholikes which have any tang of haeresie and this kinde of care hath beene ever used in the Catholike Church So wee see in Scripture it selfe some that followed curiosities becomming Christians confessed their deedes and burnt their bookes Gelasius in the yeare 490. maketh a Catalogue of haereticall bookes which he forbiddeth and I would know of the Knight or any man else that cryeth so bitterly against our Index Expurgatorius what he can say against it that he may not say against this Decree and Councell of Gelasius and against which we may not defend our selves by opposing it as a buckler against all their darts Sith all swarving from the rule of faith is a declining to haeresie it appertaineth to the Catholike Roman Church which as Gelasius saith hath neither spot nor wrinkle to prevent the danger that may come by such bookes forbidding the use of them It were a more dangerous and unnaturall part in the Church not to use this care then it were in a mother that should see sugar and rats-bane lie together and seeing her child going to taste thereof should forbeare to warne it I will not stand particularly to examine every Author and justifie the inquisition onely I cannot omit one Author called Bertram whom of all men living me thinkes the Knight should never so much as have named considering how much disgrace he hath sustained by translating that booke and ventring his owne credit and the credit of his Church upon the faith thereof Another thing I am to note concerning his quoting the Canon of the Councell of Laodicea wherein first is to be noted his error in Chronologie concerning the time of this Councell which he maketh to be in the yeare 368. forty three yeares after the first Councell at Nice whereas it was celebrated before that Councell Secondly his corruption in the translation and cutting off the Canon which is thus non oportet relictâ ecclesiâ ad angelos abominandae idolatriae congregationes facere quicunque autem inventus fuerit occulte huic idololatriae vacans anathema sit Now where in this Canon doth the Knight finde the word invocation of Angells which is the thing he pretendeth to be forbidden Whereas the Knight objecteth to us the recantation of Henry Buxhorne who was sometime appointed to put in execution the tyrannicall Decree of the inquisitors and had noted 600. severall passages to be spunged and blotted out which animadversions of his he wished he could have washed away with his teares and blood his heart being smitten and his eyes open by the mercy of God I answere if such matter will serve the Knights turne he may have enough neither neede I search corners to finde out such obscure fellowes as this Buxhorne he might bring the Fathers of the Knights religion for example Luther Calvine Zuinglius Beza Carolstadius and who not for though they might pretend severall causes yet there was one principall one which consisted indeede in the smiting of their hearts with a fiery dart of carnall love and when they found an Eve to give them an Apple then their eyes were opened and so it proved also with their friend Buxhorne as I shall shew by a briefe story of his life most authentically related by that grave and Holy man Oliverius of the society of Jesus Henry Buxhorne a licentiate of Divinity c. It was not the razing then of evidences that made Buxhorne fall from his faith but there were certaine Lutheran baites wherewith many of them were catched which were aurum gloria delitiae veneres gold glory delights and Venus of which some are catched with one and some with another The Hammer IN the former Section the Iesuit shewed himselfe a prevaricatour but in this a cowardly runnagate For to the mangling of authors and razing out of Records objected against him namely this marginall note out of Stephanus his Bible Deus prohibet sculptilia fieri This Glosse upon Gratian the Priest cannot say significatively of the bread This is my Body without telling a lie Cassanders observation upon the same words that setting aside the authoritie of the Church they prove not sufficiently Transubstantiation Cassanders whole Tract concerning the Communion in both kinds Vdalricus his Epistle touching the lawfulnesse of Priests marriage Anselmes Treatise concerning the visitation of the sicke together with divers passages in Cassander against merit in Polydor Virgil against Images in Langus against Transubstantiation in Ferus against the Popes supremacie The Iesuit answereth nothing at all in particular but onely applies Salves in generall which no way heale the wounds given by the Knight to the Inquisitors as the Reader shall see by taking them off one after another and viewing the Sores To the first The Iesuits instance is wide from the purpose For those Books were not burnt by any decree of the Church much lesse the Church of Rome which was not then in being but by the owners of them to testifie their unfeined Repentance for so wee reade Acts 19.19 Many also of them brought their Bookes together and burned them before all men and they counted the price of them and found it 50000 pieces of silver Secondly these Bookes which the owners burnt of their owne accord were Bookes of such as used curious Arts that is Books of Art-magick Necromancie Sorcerie and the like Whereas the Bookes which the Romish Inquisitours either mangle or utterly deface are Christian Treatises written for the most part by them that lived and died in the bosome and peace of the Church of Rome To the second This Decree of Gelasius which the Iesuit opposeth as a Buckler against all our darts is not altogether approved by the present Romane Church for in reckoning the Canonicall bookes of Scripture the Pope there excludeth the booke
subject unto in it selfe Lastly the Iesuit taketh himselfe by the nose in saying Heretikes in all Controversies run to the letter of the Scriptures leaving the true sense and spirituall meaning for so doe the Romanists apparantly namely in the Controversie of Supremacie Ecce duo gladii Loe here two swords therefore the Pope hath the temporall and spirituall Sword at command Peter rise up kill and eate therefore the Pope hath power to put Princes to death In the question about the number of Sacraments they alleage the letter of that text in the vulgar translation Hoc est magnum Sacramentum to prove marriage a Sacrament whereas the Apostle in the same place saith that hee speaketh not of corporall marriage of a man and his wife but of the spirituall marriage of Christ and his Church Likewise in the Controversie about the reall presence they run to the letter Except yee eate the flesh of the Sonne of man and drinke his blood though Christ in the same place expounding himselfe saith The words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and life the like may be observed in other Controversies For answer to all which texts wee tell him out of Saint Ierome whom himselfe quoteth in the next Paragraph That the Gospell consisteth not in the words of Scripture but in the sense not in the supersicies or barke but in the pith not in the leaves of speech but in the root of reason To the tenth How neere neighbours the Romanists are to Marcion who denied or by consequence overthrew the truth of Christs humaine nature as the Papists doe in the Sacrament vailing him under the outside or accidents of a round water and what affinitie the Iesuit hath with the rest of the ancient Heretikes the Knight shewed him before in his seventh Section and if hee desire to know more of his pedegree from them I referre him to an Appendix to Whitakers answer to Sanders his Demonstration page 801. As for the aspersion of old Heresies which hee casts upon us they are washed away by Bishop Morton and Doctor Field in their Treatises of the Church Ad notam sextam But why hee denies that wee have the Spirit arrogating it onely to himselfe I see no reason but the pride of his owne spirit together with the malice of the evill spirit who suggested unto him this uncharitable censure of us To the eleventh The Scripture is a Light Psal 119. and the nature of a light is first to discover it selfe and then all things else therefore Calvin to his fond question how know you Scripture to be Scripture answereth acutely by retortion how know you the Sun to be the Sun If hee say by his bright lustre and beames wee say the same of holy Scripture that it is discerned by its owne light Which if the Papists see hot the fault ought not to be laid upon the Sun-beames but upon their Owles eyes To the twelfth That rule which needeth any thing to be added to it is imperfect but all Papists teach that to the written Word unwritten Traditions must bee added to make a compleat and perfect rule of Faith all Papists therefore teach the Scripture alone to be an imperfect Rule We on the contrary stand for the perfection of Scripture and constantly and unanimously defend that not onely the whole Scripture is perfect but that every part also hath its owne perfection but not the perfection of the whole Because the eyes have not the perfection of the whole head or the head the perfection of the whole body a man cannot conclude that the eye or the head is imperfect no more can the Iesuit conclude that the Gospell of Saint Matthew Saint Marke or Saint Iohn are therefore imperfect because they containe not in them all doctrines in particular necessary to salvation It is sufficient that they together with the rest perfectly instruct us in all points of faith by themselves they perfectly informe us so farre as the Holy Ghost intendeth that we should be informed by each of them in particular and this is their perfection that they have no defect in matter or forme and that they concurre with the rest of the bookes of Scripture to the maine end of the Holy Ghost in committing the word of God in writing for the infallible and perfect instruction of the Church and every faithfull soule in all Doctrines needfull to salvation To the thirteenth Although many Protestants have written de Scripturâ judice and they have warrant our of Scripture so to stile it the words which I have spoken they shall judge you yet in propriety of speech which especially ought to be used in stating questions the Scripture is rather to be termed a rule and law or sentence of the judge then the judge himselfe the supreame and infallible judge of all controversies we teach to be the Holy Ghost speaking to us out of Scriptures and the subordinate or inferior Judge the consencient authority of the Catholique Church To the fourteenth The Iesuit shewed no such thing nor can shew out of Tertullian De praescrip advers haeret c. 17. who convinced the greater part of Haeretikes in his time by Scripture as appeareth in his writings In the place which the Iesuit quoteth he hath no such words as he alleageth out of him viz. that there is no good to be done with Haeretikes by Scriptures He saith indeede in that place that it was but in vaine to conferre with a certaine kinde of Haeretikes by Scriptures alone quia ista haeresis non recipit quasdam Scripturas et si recipit non recipit integras et si aliquatenus integras praestat c. That is This haeresie admits not of certaine Scriptures or not intire or if in some sort in ire it perverts them by divising divers interpretations In which words he no way disparageth the holy Scriptures or derogateth from their perfection but discovereth the wicked practise of Haeretikes and their evasions and tergiversations when they are most evidently convinced by Scriptures Will you say that if a Bedlam or willfull malefactor either by puffing out the Candle or shutting his eyes or looking another way will not reade or see the evidence that is brought against him that therfore the evidence is not able to convince him To the fifteenth Though it were granted the Iesuit that the Papists have written more upon the Scriptures then Protestants it will not from thence follow that they more reverence or honour the Scripture sithence in their very Commentaries upon Scripture they derrogate from the authority sufficiency and perfection of them by refusing to referre all points of faith in controversie to their decision by resolving their faith last of all not into them but into the Church by teaching that they are obscure even in points necessary to salvation and that unwritten Traditions are equally to be reverenced with them Secondly compare men with men and oportunities with oportunities it may easily be proved that
Heaven and Hell 19. That there are three holy Orders in the Church Bishops Priests and Deacons 20. That Confession to a Priest in case the Conscience be troubled with any grievous Sin is profitable and behoovefull To all these points and many more like unto these the Papists assent but in all their additions they stand single as namely 1. That a fourth Creed made by Pius the fourth is likewise to be received under paine of damnation 2. That religious worship is due to Saints 3. That Saints and Angels are to be called upon 4. That the Pope is the visible head of the Church 5. That Saints are our Mediatours and Advocates 6. That the Virgin Mary also was conceived without sinne 7. That wee are justified and saved in part by our owne Merits and superabundant satisfactions of Saints 8. That Tradition is a rule of Faith as well as Scripture 9. That besides those two and twenty there are other Books of the old Testament to wit Tobit Judith Baruch The Wisdome of Salomon Ecclesiasticus and the Maccabees to be admitted into the number of Canonicall Scriptures 10. That the vulgar Latin translation of the Scripture is most pure and authenticall 11. That besides Baptisme and the Lords Supper there are five other Sacraments Confirmation Order Penance Matrimonie and Extreme Vnction 12. That Gallies and Bels may and ought to be christened 13. That besides Water Creame Salt and Spittle are to be used in Baptisme 14. That Christ is present in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation and that his body and blood is not onely received spiritually by Faith but also carnally by the mouth 15. That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper may lawfully be administred to the Laity in one kind onely 16. That besides an historicall there is a religious use of Images and that they are to bee worshipped 17. That Peter had not onely a Primacie of Order but a power also and jurisdiction over the Apostles 18. That besides Heaven and Hell there is a third place of abode for soules to wit Purgatorie and a fourth also termed Limbus infantum 19. That besides those three holy Orders of Bishops Prists and Deacons there are others as namely Exorcists Acolyts c. 20. That confession of every knowne Sin to a Priest is necessarie Now because Negatives are not properly Articles of Faith but Positives or Affirmatives it appeareth evidently that the Faith of the reformed Churches is assented to by Papists themselves and all Christians in the world and therfore is most certain safe by the confession on all sides wheras the Popish additions wherein we stand onely upon the Negative and they are to make good the Affirmative are assented to by none but themselves and therefore by the Iesuits rule are weak doubtful and lesse safe This is Vulcaneum telum et argumentum palmarium the main and principall argument whereby the Knight demonstrateth the title of his Booke and hee is so confident of it that if that be to be accounted the safer way wherein different parties agree both in one as the Iesuit laid it downe in the former chapter hee will joyne issue with all Papists in the world in this very point and if in this hee make not good the title of his Booke that wee are therefore in the safer way because they agree in the principall and Positive points of Religion with our Doctrine hee will reconcile himselfe to the Roman Church and creepe upon all foure to his Holinesse for a Pardon At this the Iesuit is so mad that he fometh at the mouth and raveth saying Pag. 512. That to creepe upon all foure is a very fit gate for men so devoid of reason as to make such Discourses and to use such malicious insinuations as if men used to creepe upon all foure to the Pope Parce sepulto Parce pias scelerare manus be not so inhumane and barbarous in tearing the fame of the dead there is no cause at all given of such rage and furie The Knight doth herein no way blaspheme or falsly traduce Dominum deum Papam for those that ordinarily kisse the Popes toe unlesse his Holinesse be the more courteous to hold up his foot the higher must needs be neere creeping on all foure To say nothing of Dandalus King of Creete and Cyprus who was upon all foure and that under the Table before the Popes Holinesse as Iewell in his Apologie and the defence thereof undeniably proveth out of good Authors against Mr. Harding yet the Knight in this place chargeth not the Pope with any such imperious demand of Luciferian pride but onely professeth what penance hee would willingly enjoyne himselfe if hee should abuse the Reader and not make good the Title of his booke by the argument above propounded against which what the Iesuit here particularly Articleth and objecteth I will now consider To the first The words which the Iesuit would make seem so ridiculous are related by the Knight as their owne words not ours as any may perceive by the Preface to them therefore say they and by this that they are written in a lesser Character and is it not senslesse in the Iesuit and most ridiculous to laugh at himselfe and put his owne nonsense upon the Knight who taking the Iesuits words as he found them scorning to nible at syllables interpreted the Iesuits words at the best and taking his meaning joynes issue with him upon the point in this manner In a Church professing Christianity where the Scriptures of the old and new Testament are received and the two Sacraments instituted by Christ administred suppose we there to be two sorts of Professors either publikely allowed as in France or at least tollerated as in other Kingdomes both these entituling themselves to be members of the pure Orthodox Church and neither of them having beene particularly condemned in any generall Councell received through the Christian world the probleme then is whether of these two that party is not in the safer way who holdeth no positive Article of faith to which both parties besides all other Christians give not their assent unto then the other who maintaineth twelve Articles of faith at least wherein they themselves stand single and are forsaken by all Christians not onely of the reformed Churches in England France Germany Denmarke Swethland Norway Poland Transylvania but also in the Eastern and Greek Churches dispersed through the large Dominions of the Turke in Europe Asia and Africa But thus it standeth betweene us and Papists all the positive Articles which we hold necessary to salvation they themselves and all other Christian Churches in the world assent unto whereunto the Church of Rome hath added many other positive Articles in joyning all under paine of damnation to beleeve them in all which additions she standeth alone by her selfe therefore it is safer to adhere to the doctrine and faith of the reformed churches then the Pope his new Trent Creed The Iesuits exceptions against this argument
are very idle and all his instances in Turkes Iewes and Haeretikes nothing to the purpose for the unbeleeving Iewes and Turkes never were nor yet are members of the Catholike Christian Church the Arians Nestorians Eutychians and Marcionites have beene long agoe excluded out of the true Church of Christ and their Haeresies are by name condemned in ancient generall Councells approved by the whole Christian world These therefore come not within the verge of the Knights proposition which is restrained to Christian Churches and such whose Tenets have not in particular as yet beene cryed downe and censured as erroneous in any oecumenicall Councell among such doubtlesse those are in the safer way who hold nothing for an Article of faith necessary to salvation which is not clearely deduced out of Holy Scripture and assented unto even by the opposite part whose testimony saith the Iesuit Page 498. must needs proceede from evidence of truth To the second The Iesuit hath received answer already to the former of these demands where I shewed by twenty instances that we stand not single as they doe by affirming what they deny and denying what they affirme for the most if not all the affirmative Articles of our Creed are firmed and subscribed by Papists themselves whereas their additionalls to them are firmed by none but themselves and therefore herein our cause hath a great advantage on theirs For if their beliefe be true our beliefe in all the affirmative Articles thereof must needs be so but not on the contrary because they have many affirmative Articles which we give no credit unto To his second demand I answer that though a multitude of Professors is no perpetuall and infallible marke of the true Church Luke 12.32 Matth. 7.13 Apoc. 13.17 Apoc. 20.2 Apoc 1◠4 The woman arrayed in purple and scarlet called The Whore of Babylon had a cup of gold in her hand c. Apoc. 13.3 All the world wondered and followed the Beast ver 8. All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the Booke of Life for Christs flocke is but a little flocke in comparison and broade is the way that leadeth to death and destruction and though it is true that in the latter and worser ages of the Church especially after the yeare 666. which is the number of the name of the Beast and much more after the thousandth yeare wherein Satan was let loose the Romish Church was much more visible to the eye of the world then the Protestant as it is prophecied in the Apocalypse the 16. 6. that the false and malignant Church should be farre more glorious and pompous then the true Spouse of Christ yet in the first and best ages of the Church our adversaries have not so much as one single witnesse who can be proved to have given testimony to their Trent faith and since the happy reformation began by Martin Luther in King Henry the eights dayes the better part of Europe is fallen from the Pope adde we to them all those who in Asia and Africa professe the Christian faith and yet acknowledge not the Pope nor subscribe to the Trent faith and it will appeare we have neere a thousand for one in the Catholike visible Church scattered far and wide over the face of the earth as may be seene in the Mapps set forth in a booke printed the last yeare and intituled Christianographie or the Description of the multitude and sundry sorts of Christians in the World not subject to the Pope with their unity and how they agree with the Protestants in the principall points of difference betweene them and the Church of Rome To the third If the argument bee so weake let the Iesuit remember that it is his owne and that he confesseth as much in the first words of this Chapter which are these The substance of this Section is contained in the title and it is nothing but to turne the Catholike argument mentioned in the former Section the other way for the Protestant side The argument then is a Catholike argument of their owne and if it make for Haeretikes Iewes and Turkes as he saith it doth the blame and shame thereof must light upon the Iesuits that first framed it and not upon the Knight who retorteth it onely upon them for thus it mooveth upon their Axletree that wherein Professors of different religions both agree is safer to beleeve then that wherein they stand single but Iewes and Christians agree in the beliefe of the old Testament Christians and Turkes agree in the truth of Christs humane nature in other points the Christians are single therfore the beliefe of a Iew or a Turke is safer then the beliefe of a Christian The conclusion is here false and blasphemous the minor or assumption is evidently true and confessed on all sides the fault therfore must needs be in the major or ground of this argument but the major or ground is your owne as will appeare by reducing the Iesuits Argument propounded in the former Section into forme That Church wherein parties of a different Religion as Papists and Protestants agree is a safer way than that wherein one party stand single But Papists and Protestants both agree that salvation may be had in the Romish Church but the Protestants stand single in that they say salvation may be had in the Protestant Church therefore it is safer living and dying in the Papists Church than in the Protetestant In this Syllogisme the Knight and all Protestants though they answer to the Assumption by distinguishing as is expressed in the former chapter yet they simply absolutely deny the Major which is not universally true nor at all necessarie Secondly Dato non concesso that the Major is true the Knight nimbly turnes the mouth of the Papists owne Canon to batter their owne walls thus That position say you in which both Papists and Protestants agree is safer than that wherein one partie standeth single but in the eleven Points mentioned by the Knight Papists and Protestants agree in the twelve Articles coyned by Pope Pius the fourth the Papists stand single therefore the Protestant Faith is the safer To the fourth A strange Argument for the Iesuit to conclude other mens sight from his owne blindnesse because hee seeth not how the Knight can avoid the instances in Jewes Heretikes and Turkes whereby hee goeth about to disable the Knight his retorted Argument therfore will hee inferre that any man may see that the Knight is no good guide For pitty let some fit the Iesuit with a paire of Spectacles that he may better see the Knight his way and his own wandrings * How far the Romish Religiō is distant from Heresie Iudaisme and Turcisme or rather trencheth upon all three See P Croy his booke of Conformities and Sutcliffe his Turco papismus Iews and Turks are out of the Christian Church hold not all Positive Articles necessary to salvation and therefore they come not in the Knights way at all nor hath hee to doe with them in this Argument which proceedeth from professed Christians and not open enemies to the Faith For the Knight from his heart detesteth all pathes leading to any of those dangerous precipices and chaulketh to all men Viam vere tutam certam rectam regiam a faire and Safe Way and the very Kings High-way to his Pallace wherein wee have Christ and his Apostles for our Leaders the holy Spirit for our Guide the blessed Angels for our Convoy the ancient Fathers and Doctors of the Church for our fellow Travellers through the whole and the best learned of the Romane Popes Cardinals Bishops and Schoolemen to beare us companie the greater part of our way Wherefore I doubt not but that the indifferent peruser of the Knights Book and the Iesuits Answer and my Reply unto it will breake out into the Apostles exclamation and say to this Romish Sorcerer Acts 3.13 or rather if hee will so false Spectacle-maker Flood O full of all subtiltie and mischiefe thou child of the devill wilt thou not cease to pervert the right way of the LORD FINIS Laus DEO sine fine