of mans merites and praying to Saints c. And Franciscus Petrarcha florishing about that time in his ninteenth twentieth Epistle calleth the seate of the papacy the whoar of Babylon the temple of heresie and treachery and in such sort describeth it both at Rome and at Avinion where then the Pope sate that he as it ther seemeth coūted it the greatest euil that can befall a man to be made pope Iohannes de rupe scissâ about 10. yeares after in the yeare 1340 was so sore a rebuker of the abhominations of the cleargy that he was therefore imprisoned he also compared the pope to a bird richly clad with other birdes feathers yet so as that for the pride of that birde he prophecieth that the time would come when the other birdes would call for their feathers againe and so make him know himselfe Cōradus Hagar one of the city Herbipolis about this time preached 24 yeares as it appeareth in the Recordes of Otho bishop of that City that the masse was no propitiatory sacrifice either for the quicke or the dead And within three yeares after the booke called Paenitentiarius Asini was writen wherein the Pope is resembled to the Woulfe the Cleargy to the Foxe and the Laitie to the poore Asse In the yeare one thousand three hundred and fifty Gerrhardus Ridder wrote a book called Lachrima Ecclesiae wherein he vehemētly inueigheth against begging Friers Michael Chesenas before mentioned amongst other things preached that the pope was Antichrist and Rome Babylon Hee had many followers whereof I read some were burned as Iohannes de Castilone Franciscus de Arcatarâ and he himselfe beeing Prouincial of the Grey Friers was depriued and condemned in the yeare one thousād three hūdred twenty two or there abouts And in the time of Innocent the 6. 1353 I read that two Frāciscane Friers were burnt at Auinion whereof the one was one Iohn de Rochetalayda otherwise called Hayabolus witnes Premonstrat and Henry Herford Who as Henry of Herford writeth preached in the time of Pope Clement the 6 in the yeare 1345 that he was commanded by God to preach that Rome was Babylon and that the pope and his Cardinals were very Antichrist and beeing brought before the pope for it to his face he boldly did aduouch the same Brigit whom you your selues haue made a Saint about the yeare 1370 in her booke of Reuelations was a most bitter rebuker of the pope and his cleargy and so likewise was Katherina Senensis 2 yeares after as Antonine writeth in his 3 part of his story terming the pope a murderer of soules a spiller piller of the flocke of Christ saying that they were more abhominable thē Iewes more cruel thē Iudas more vniust thē Pilate worse then Lucifer himselfe And the former of thē plainly prophesied that their kingdō should be thrown downe as a milstōe into the deepe that the clergy had turned al Gods cōmandemēts into these two words Da pecuniā giue money Mathias Parisiēsis a Bohemiā about the year 1370 wrot a large book of Antichrist prouing him to be come that the pope was he the Locusts in the Apocalyps he saith are his hypocritical clergy About this very time Greg. the 11 sent a bul to the Arch-Bishop of Prage stirring him vp thereby to persecute one Melitzius and his followers who is charged in that bull to haue preached that the Pope was Antichrist and to haue had congregations following him As Brushius writeth in the yeare 1390. there were burned at Bringa 36. citizens of Moguntia for the doctrine of the Waldēses holding also that the Pope was Antichrists and Massens recordeth that there were burnt about the same time 140. for the same cause in the prouince of Narbon and the same authour testifieth that in the yeare 1210. 24 suffered at Paris and that the next yeare there were 400. burned for the like cause 80. beheaded Prince Armericus hanged and the Lady of the castle stoned to death Houeden also noteth that about these times there were great numbers put to death in France for this cause of Religion Trithemius writeth that Ecchardus a dominicke Frier was put to death at Hiddelberge in the yeare 1330 for withstanding the Popish doctrine There is an olde monument of processe against 44◠persons for the same cause in Pomerania Marchia and places there about in the yeare 1391. And certaine it is that if the recordes and statutes of all countries in these westerne partes should bee searched euen thereby would it appeare that the number of those that haue gainesaied the Pope his proceedings in the time of his greatest florishing and cruelty ' haue beene from time to time infinite how much greater then is it likely was the number of them that informer times when hee was not growen to that power to vexe the seruants of god as he hath beene for these last 300. or 400. yeares haue professed the trueth boldely against him Thus are we come to Iohn Wicklifes time who florished here in England about the yeare of the Lord 1372 and yet I haue for the auoiding of too too much tediousnes omitted the names of a number of famous men that haue also withstoode poperie and ioyned with vs in sundrypointes against them in those times that I haue run thorow as namely Alcuinus Archbishop of Canterburie directly with vs against them in the matter of reall presence Aelfricus Ioachim Abbot of Calabria Arnoldus Brixianus Almericus a learned Bishop in Innocents time the third iudged a◠heretique for teaching as we doe against images Beringaiius Reymundus Earle of Tolossa Lord Peter de Cogneriis Eudo Duke of Burgandie the Archbishop of Armah and infinite others I might also here againe haue remembred that with H. Mutius writeth of an 100 burnt in one day in Alsatia vnder Innocent the 3 in the yeare 1215 when Antichrist in the Lateran councell bringing in the new and monstrous article of Transubstantiation shewed himselfe to be euen growen to his highest degree of iniquity But to let these passe and to proceede Iohn Wicklife as it is famously knowen was with vs against you in the most and weightiest things betwixt you and vs in controuersie and therefore in your councell of Constance you condemned him and caused his dry and rotten bones to be taken vp againe and burned Whiles he liued he had many great learned men here in England that ioyned with him as namely Nicholas Herford Philip Repington Iohn Ashton and Laurence Redeman and so many followers had he and they and hee had such fauour and protection especially of the Duke of Lancaster that then was that though your prelates here in England vexed and molested them what they could yet they and their fauourers in short tyme grew to that strength and multitude that by the yeare 1422 Henry Chicheley then Archbishop of Canterbury certified the pope that they all could not be suppressed they were so many but by force of warre
they left in writtng by the ordinance of God to confute such heretiques as you are The XXXVII Chapter AT last it seemeth by your paines taken in this Chapter you be thought your selfe that forasmuch as hitherto onelie in bare and naked wordes you had vaunted and bragged your Religion to be the ancient Religion that it was needefull for you euē for shame before you made a full end of your booke to yeeld vs some reasons and grounds or at least some shew colour of your so lewd and bold boasting And therefore here now at last to that ende you haue mustered the bare names of a few ancient fathers very prouidently leauing your Readers to the examining of your quotations amōgst whom not one of an hundreth you knew either for lacke of skill or will leasure or bookes could and would turne to the places in the authours themselues You thought belike your credit to bee such that they must needes beleeue that you cite thē truely and faithfully and that because you so roundly haue huddled them togither that therefore also out of all question they spake and wrotefully for you in the points you alleadge them for What smal cause there is either for you to looke thus to bee trusted or for any to yeelde you such credit herein wee shall see anone when wee come to the examining of your quotations In the meane time what ment you by this thus onely when all commeth to al to countenance these 4 points your Ceremonies in baptisme confession before the sacrament praiers to the Saints departed and praier for the dead Are these the greatest matters of your religion in question Or doeth it especially depend vpon these 4 and the coūtenancing of these Or was your prouision ready for no more that but once in all your booke you seeming to set downe the authorities whereupon you ground your religion you would take the paines to go no further then to these 4 points Indeed in your next Chapter you excuse your selfe and say that you would haue gone likewise on to confirme the rest but for being tedious to your reader Truely he is much beholden to you for your discreet kindnes towards him that haue not spared to be tedious vnto him in al the rest of your book in troubling of him with such a number of proud brags of the antiquity and catholikenes of al your religion as you haue and with many needles and friuolous long discourses besides and now when you came to the point indeed which of all other was most materiall and wherein both for his satisfaction and your owne credit it stood you vpon most to enlarge your selfe then thus to shift him of with as good as nothing bearing him yet in hand that but for his ease you both could and would haue saied inough This is a common tricke amongst you thus to cozen and abuse your simple readers to weary them with things needles and then to slip ouer with some such shift as this matters most needful Wel concerning that which either you haue saied here for these 4 points or that which after you pretend if you had list you could haue easily saied for the rest this I would haue the reader diligently to note and marke that but for two places vainely alleaged to proue your confession that you neither haue alleaged any testimony of scripture at all for the proofe of these nor yet that you so much as say after you could or would for the rest Which argueth that euen in your owne conscience the best ground and countenance that your popish religion hath either in these points or in the rest is but from earth and not from heauen from men and not from the holy ghost For if you had beene able with any good colour to haue coūtenāced either these points or any of the rest out of Gods owne booke and writen word the reader may think that neither your zeale to your religion nor yet your boasting spirit which hitherto hath shewed it selfe ouerflowing in you either would or could haue suffered you thus much to the preiudice your whole cause cleane to haue forgotten so much as once to go about it But to say the trueth seeing it is confessed by your betters not onely that this but the most of all the rest of the points of your Religiō which we striue with you for are grounded but vpon tradition as I haue shewed out of Soto against Brentius Canisius fift Chapter of his Catechisme and Lyndans 100. Chapter of the fifth booke of his panoply before you are the honester man and the more a great deale to be liked for your thus secretly confessing the same with them Now yet by this the Reader may plainely vnderstand what hath indeede beene the reason why in all your booke hitherto you haue laboured so much as you haue to grace and countenance tradition and the exposition of the doctours and withall haue spent so much time in diswading the appealing to the Scriptures for the ending of the controuersies betwixt vs. You were wise enough it seemeth to see where your strength lay and from whēce would rise your bane and therefore who can blame you for leaning as you doe altogither to the one and shunning the other But then in reason yet you should call your Religion no more diuinity but humanity no more Theologie but patrologie and plainely confesse indeede from whence you haue all your figge leaues rags and clouts to couer your shame and nakednes Truely these you haue whatsoeuer in this respect you pretend not from the right and sound Apostolique tradition which alwaies was either expressed in Scripture or at least cōsonant vnto it nor from the ancient holy fathers rightly vnderstood and when they taught as it was of themselues acknowledged to be their duties with sound warrant from the scriptures as I haue sundry times shewed already but onely from forged or corrupt tradition and from the fathers either misunderstood or erring as men So that vnwriten verities or rather forgeries sentences of fathers mistaken or their verie errours whereof they would haue beene ashamed if they had had the meanes to helpe them to see them that you haue are the groundes pillers and bewties of your church and Religion And this we are alwaies ready to iustifie against you before the whole world by sound and inuincible proofe out of the vn doubted word of God interpreted according to the same rules of interpreting it that the holy and ancient fathers themselues haue followed in confuting all heretiques in their times by and which they haue likewise commended to others alwaies to be obserued and out of the vndoubted writings of the ancientest and best fathers them selues Wee are therefore verie well content to liue and die in that Church and Religion which we are sure we are able thus to iustifie and we enuy not you but rather heartely lament and pittie you that yours hath no better grounde then it hath But to
to John de Albines booke is extant vnder the tytle of a deliberate aunswere to a rash offer c. and it vvas printed by Iohn Charlewoode in London 1588. They both haue vvith their aunswere set downe the words of the offerer The trauels of these two men haue eased both me this booke of mine of medling any further then I haue sayed with that Chalenger and the rather because since hee had his first aunswere we neuer yet heard that hee had either skill or will to replie I might well ynough considering the largenesse and sufficiency of Master Crowleys answere thereunto haue omitted that vvhich I further haue sayed to aunswere his six signes not touched by Doctor Fulke but that vvhat I haue vvritten thereabout vvas written before I sawe Master Crowleys answere and that I thought it not amisse to let it stande that so betvvixt vs three the vvhole thus might bee tvvyse aunswered Though it were Master Crowley vvho as I noted before in the first leafe of his booke making aunswere to this offer that gaue that iudgement that Iohn de Albines booke had beene the cause of so much apostasy of late here amongst vs yet he as he there shows would not bestowe tyme in aunswering of it because supposing by the title it was written by a Frenchman therefore either in french or latine he thought that either Beza or some other french protestant had done it already sufficiently This when I redde first it caused me to be the slacker both in finishing and publishing this answere of mine Yet in the ende forasmuch as this was now amongst vs in English and therefore in his opinion had hurt so much and so many English persons and I could neuer learne of any certainty that in any other language it had beene directly answered by any I thought it needefull and the best way whether any such answere in any other tongue had beene made vnto it elsewhere or not to preuent as much as maie bee anie further such danger amongst vs by it to accompany such poyson with his fit counterpoyson that is such an English popish discourse with an English christian answere And the rather because howsoeuer by the title there is shew that the author was a Frenchman yet indeede I can hardly be perswaded that he was so For his publisher in English taking leasure as he hath to trouble his reader with a long tedious and friuolous preface hath not therein so much as secretly once insinuated vnto vs in what language the author wrote it yea he hath not once meÌ„tioned any traÌ„slation of it either by himselfe or any other the consideration whereof together with sundry phrases and matters conteined in the booke makes me rather thinke that some of our owne fugitiues English Iesuits or seminary priests indeede haue made it then any such Archdeacon of Tolosa in France as is pretended But howsoeuer it be in this respect it is not much materiall and therefore I haue not beene herein curious for these my reasons notwithstanding in all this my answere vnto him I frame my speech as to the author whose name it beares And howsoeuer I may doubt of his person and cuntrey of this I am certaine whosoeuer he were French or English the sonne of that bondwoman Ismael was neuer cunninger in persecuting the son of the freewoman Isaac with scoffes mocks then the author thereof was by the same meanes to doe what might be done to vex and grieue vs. Whosoeuer he was the right popish vaine spirit of writing he had For in so short a peece of worke I am perswaded by that you haue viewed him ouer together with this answer of mine your Lordship will be of opinioÌ„ that neuer any of that factioÌ„ weÌ„t beyond him in shameful begging alwaies the things most in questioÌ„ in subtle slipping froÌ„ the matters vndertakeÌ„ to proue into other more easy for him not in question in false quoting abusing the testimonies which he alleadges or in barrennes of matter or methode in such copy of swelling bragging and triumphing words Sure I am for my owne part though I know these be the common ornaments of popish writers that I neuer redde any whose book coÌ„sisted so wholy of these as this of his But to leaue him as hee is whosoeuer he was and to returne vnto your Lordship once againe I dedicate and offer this my poore labour vnto your honourable view protection which I doe not because the truth of god which I haue therein taught and defended standeth neede of the patronage of man For god the author thereof can and will defende and protect that though al the great meÌ„ in the world should band themselues against it but for diuers and sundry other reasons iustly me mouing thereunto One is which I haue touched already that of right the dedication hereof appertayneth to you because I had neuer taken it in hand but by your Lordships motion perswasion An other is that you since my comming to the place where I am for these eleuen years last past haue alwaies been yet are a most louing fatherly patrone to my ministry mee and mine by which right though that former reason had not beene your honour may worthily chalenge not onely in this but also in all other such poore fruites of mine growing from me thus nourished and cherished vnder your Lordshippes patronage greater interest then this which I offer you nowe herein But if neither of these two reasons had been yet you being the man you are that is by the grace goodnesse of God as far as you are knowen which is very farre amongst the godly and truly religious a man by birth honourable for martiall prowesse more and for giftes of sounde learning religion and vertue most of of all to be honoured and esteemed euen that would haue drawen me though otherwise I had been a meare stranger vnto you by this means to haue sought to haue testified my duetifull and hartie good affection towardes you For pietie ioyned with Christian nobilitie hath been the auncieÌ„t cause why the godly learned in auncient times haue dedicated their works to such as they haue iudged truly qualified therewith doubtlesse therby both the better to encourage them to whom they dedicated their labours to proceede and goe on in the good course they had begun and thereby to prouoke others to imiâ—ate their good exaÌ„ple that the like honourable opinion may by such also bee conceaued of them likewise when occasion should serue to their comfort testified publickely of them in the church of God What else mooued Ambrose to dedicate his bookes of fayth and the spirite to Gratian the Emperour What else caused Lactantius to dedicate his diuine instituâ—â—ons to Constantine or what else enduced the holy â—uangelist S. Luke to dedicate his historie of the â—ctes of the Apostles to noble Theophilus It was â—oubtlesse great honour vnto these men in their â—imes in the churches of Christ
conuinced as shall plainely appeare in the discourse heare folâ—owing Stande no more in the defence of that which you may easilie know and see with your eies if ye will not be wilfully and obstinately blinde â—o bee nothing but deceit d These titles do rightly fit the popish Religion What doe I call it deceit nay I call it a most venimous poison to the soule yea and an hellishe draught of endelesse â—eath e This part your papists play now in England in being recusants of all sound good meanes to reforme them Playe not the parte of a mad man of whome Horace vvriâ—eth in the second booke of his Epistles that he was angry with his frends â—or that they had caused him to bee healed of his phrensie and restored to his wittes againe Bee not angrye that you may if you will bee brought out of the fowle miste into the cleere ayre from darkenesse to â—ight from an horrible phrensie to godly wisedome Followe the wholesome counsel of Saint Paule in the fourth to the Ephesians Vt non simus amplius pueri qui fluctuemus circumferamur quouis vento doctrinae per versutiam hominum per astutiam qua nos adoriuntur vt imponant nobis That we be no longer children and fleete two and fro caried hither and thither with euery blast of doctrine by the wilinesse and craftinesse of men wherewith they set vpon vs to deceiue vs. There haue beene a great manie f In deed so many such Iesuites and Seminaries you haue sent vs such sprongeÌ„ vp in our Realme of late which haue taught vs wronge Lessons Emendemus ergò in melius Let vs amend therefore The thirde propertie is that the sheepe doe follow their Shephearde This property is of so great importance that without it the other two cannot auaile It is not Inough to knowe Christ to be our refuge our helpe and succour g This is true as long as the church retaineth the two former properties which youre long ago hath lost It is not inough with that also to heare Christ speaking to vs in his Church except we follow Christ his Church shew our selues willingly to doe that which the Church commaundeth vs We must fast when the Church commaundeth vs as it biddeth vs We must pray as the Church instructeth vs We must do those good works that the Church teacheth vs to doe In obeying the Church wee obey God if wee bee disobedient to the Church wee disobey God For as Chrysostome saieth vpon the first Epistle to the Corinthians vt corpus caput vnus est homo ita vnum est ecclesia Christus As the body and the heade is but one man so is Christ and his Church one thing Doe therefore as the wise man biddeth thee Audi disciplinam patris tui ne dimittas legem matris tuae Heare the discipline of thy father and forsake not the lawe of thy mother I meane thy mother the h Holy Church hold you there for so long you say nothing for your vnholy and filthie Churche holy church whom as many as forsake they forsake God also For as holy Cyprian writeth de simplicitate praelatorum Habere non potest Deum patrem qui ecclesiam non habet matrem He cannot haue God to be his father that knoweth not the church for his mother i Let this rule be followed for the questions betwixt vs your church shall bee found in those pointes to haue set a broch those things that those most auncient Churches neuer were acquainted withall Yee may see here euidently that this holy man would haue vs to be obedient vnto and diligently to keepe the ordinances of our fathers and not to institute euery â—â—y new fashions as men most vnconstant and full of new fangles The Lacedemonians are praysed that they suffered no straunge ware to be brought into their citty whereby the cittizens might be effeminated and corrupted in their maners and for the same cause they extoll greatly Licurgus which made the same law Now if the Lacedemonians were so serious obseruers of their olde lawes and customes what a shame shall this be to vs christian men which were not taught of Licurgus but of Christ himselfe daily to alter and change not content with those rites and ceremonies that were ord yned of auncient time out of memory Irenaeus teacheth in his third booke against the heresies of Valentine and such other whose wordes taken out of his fourth Chapter of the saide booke I will briefly rehearse Si quae de aliqua modica quaestione disceptatio esset nonne oporteret in antiquissimas recurrere ecclesias in quibus Apostoli conuersati sunt ab eis de praesenti quaestione sumere quod certum reliquidum est If any controuersie should be of any question were it neuer so little must it not be meete to haue our recourse vnto the most ancient churches in the which the Apostles were conuersant of theÌ„ to receaue the plaine certaintie thereof It followeth Quid autem si neque Apostoli quidem Scripturas reliquisleÌ„t nobis noÌ„ne oportebat ordineÌ„ se qui traditionis quá tradideruÌ„t his quibus coÌ„mittebaÌ„t ecclesias But what if the Apostles left k If indeed they had left no scriptures then that had beene a good course but nowe seeing they haâ—e what their tradition was is best lerned by them But the better to hide your folly in citing these wordes you subtily translate scriptures nothing written of that matter nothing writteÌ„ of that matter must we not follow the tradition of theÌ„ to whose gouernaÌ„ce they coÌ„mitted the churches Here haue you the minde of Irenaeus who was neere vnto Christ his time for as S. l Here againe the question is begged for you take for granted that your pâ—elates are lawfully called and ours not both which we deny Hierome testifieth in an Epistle to one Theodora he was Disciple to Papias who was S. Iohn the Euangelists scholler Hee would haue men to be taught of Christ of his Apostles and their successours and m Of the same minde are we therefore Christian men are not to listen to your prelates not of euerie one which rashly and without lawfull authority taketh vpon him to be a teacher Christian men should be obedient to christian ordinances and followe that doctrine that is allowed by them that are lawfullie called and haue the censure of doctrine committed to them Such were the Apostles called and put in authoritie by Christ Such were they n But such haue not beene your Romish teachers these many hundred yeares Witnesse your owne writers who shewe how vnlawfully many of them came by their places to whom these againe gaue the charge ouer any faithfull â—ongregation Such are all they which haue so from time to time â—eene lawefullie called by them that haue power to put others in authoritie and so succeeded in due order else Quomodo praedicabunt
word to trust them any more in their quoting or citing of the fathers But lest we should thinke that this was but a slippe of his by chance that hee was not his craftes-master in this kinde of dealing he hath plaide vs the very like trick againe with this same father pa. 18. where he alleadgeth the fourth chapter of the said Irenaeus third booke to iustify their traditions not warranted by the written word For in the beginning of the saide chapter not fiue lines before the wordes cited by him hee speaking of the scriptures written by the Apostles Euāgelists he saith that they into that rich treasury most fully haue brought all things that belōg to truth so that euery one that will may frō thence take the drink of life And that which he speaketh in the words alleaged by him of following of tradition it is spoken only by way of supposition to shew what course had bene best for the Church whē any questiō should haue arisen if they had not left vs scriptures For his words are these if the Apostles had not left vs scriptures must we not haue followed the order of tradition which they gaue to them to whom they committed churches In which case which is not our case nowe seeing they haue left vs scripture we grant we should haue beene in the deciding of all controuersies that could haue arisen ouerruled by that which they deliuered by word of mouth to such and therefore that being the case no better or readier way for the ending of controuersies should there haue been then to haue recourse to the most ancient Churches wherin they were conuersant and so by their tradition to haue learned the certainty therein But thus by way of supposition Irenaeus speaking of their tradition in the case supposed by him certaine it is that by their tradition he vnderstādeth that soūd form of doctrin which they deliuered by their preaching teaching which thē would should haue been the same forasmuch as they spoke wrot by one spirit that now they haue left vs in writing And therefore euē then the Romish Church should haue been as far to seeke as she is now for hauing any warrant from thence for those things that she holdeth either contrary or besides the word written And that by tradition he meaneth here no other thing it is euident for in the first chapter of that booke he saith plainely Quod tum praeconiauerunt postea per Dei voluntatem nobis tradiderunt in scripturis columnam fundamētum fidei futurum that is that which first they preached after by the will of god they deliuered vnto vs in the scriptures to be the piller and ground of faith And in the third chapter of that book hauing before spoken of the Apostolicke tradition he after sheweth what he meant thereby namely this that god the maker of heauen and earth c as he is described in the olde testament the Apostles haue taught to be the father of our Lord Iesus Christ contrary to the phantasticall franticke dreame of Valentinian so plainely shewing that they that would euen by the scriptures themselues might learne what the Apostolick traditiō was Now what is this for the authorishing the vnwritē traditiōs of the Romish church which are not ōly al beside the scriptures but whereof the most are contrary thereūto But this gentle reader is the right trick of all the crue of these Romanists thus by the ambiguity of words out of the fathers to seek to colour their absurd opinions so er thou be a ware to deceaue thee if thou take not heede As for example to perswade a mā to like of their beggerly vnwritten traditiōs whatsoeuer any father speaketh of traditiō though it be neuer so plaine in the author himselfe that thereby he meaneth nothing lesse then such traditions as theirs yet that must be confidently brought in as fit most pregnant for their purpose Likwise whatsoeuer any father hath said of any sacramētall chāge of the outward elements for that therein their name vse estimation are chāged though the same father in a thousād other places shew that his iudgemēt is that there is no change at all there in substance yet that must be quoted as a flat place for Popish trāsubstantiation And euen so if they find in a father speaking of the Eucharist any mention of a sacrifice as though there were no kind of sacrifice but that which they dream to bee there that must be vrged as a strong place to proue their blasphemous sacrifice for the quick the dead And this iugling with the fathers and cosening of their poore simple readers vse they in al their cōtrouersies But at this time thou must pardō this preface writer this fault because herein he doth but study to bee like him before whose book he hath set this his preface For chapter the fifth he himselfe most grosly committeth this same fault in the detection whereof I haue more at large discouered this lewde dealing of theirs In the meane time let vs not forget that Irenaeus hath taught vs what that church is who those pastours be what those traditiōs are that we must obey be ruled by namely onely that Church that hath the scriptures for the piller groūd of her faith lib. 3. cap. 1. those pastours that succeede the Apostles in truth of doctrine li. 4. cap. 43. those traditiōs which haue good warrant from the scriptures themselues lib. 3. cap. 3. whereof it must needes follow that all the places reasons quoted by him either out of the scriptures or fathers to binde vs to yeeld obedience to their churches ordinances their prelates cōmandements to the points warranted onely by their traditions their Church hauing another foundation of her faith then the worde written namely alwaies their popes will as it hath the commādemēts of their prelates traditions being not only beside but also often most grosly contrary to that word of God writtē as I shal shew in sundry places er I haue done with Albine in Irenaeus iudgemēt ar but so many abusings and corruptings of their holy good meanings And yet thus hauing to no purpose bestowed a great deale of idle paines as one that had said inough to proue that the authority of all the learned fathers the cōmon consēt of all Christiā regions prescriptiō of time were al ful fast of his side he lustily braggeth p. 22. that if their be any weight in any or al these together that his side hath the true gospell the true sence thereof That their Religion is the very Christian Religion their order of ceremonies the right order and that their fasting and praying is according to the scriptures and that therefore their church is the lawfull and true spouse of Christ from which who so seperates himselfe is in state of damnation This thus only said thereupō by and by as though there were no
councell testifieth of many authēticall exāples of such as maried after holy orders Moreouer in the daies of Iulian the apostata wee reade that Basilius a Priest of Ancyra and Eusichius a minister at the least of Cesarea of Cappadocia which had lately taken to wife a gentlewoman and was but then as a bridegrome both ended their liues in martirdome as writeth Zozomene lib. 5. cap. 10. and Balfamon long after vpon the 10. canon of the coūcell of Ancyra mentioneth a decree of Leo the Emperour whereby it was lawfull for thē within two yeares after they were ordered to mary And who can be perswaded that we reading of so many famous Bishoppes that were maried as namely of Demetrianus of Antioch of Spiridion in the councell of Nice of Gregory Nazianzen others and of infinite children of these Bishops of others of the ministry as we doe in all stories that they got none of these children after their ministry or that they left their wiues presently vpon their entring into their ministry especially seeing the stories that tels vs they were maried names vs their childrē mētioneth no such thing Howsoeuer it were with these it euidētly appeares in his 70. and 127. epistles that there was one Synesius an excellent learned mā Bishop of Ptolemais who was not only a maried mā and had children but that he begot children of his lawfull wife being and continuing still in the execution of his office And many more such examples might be remembred but these are sufficient to shew the impudency of their confident assertiō that there were neuer anie such and this which I haue faied I hope also is fully sufficiēt to shew not onely the vanity of his brag that made this preface that all is well with them and countenanced by fathers consent of regions c. but also to answere the demuande or obiection which I tooke vpon mee vpon that occasion to answere in this place concerning the beginning and proceeding of popery and how and by whom it was resisted For euen as I haue shewed they lacke all the countinance they brag of for those particular points that I haue here spoken of haue made it plaine that both their beginning and proceeding hath beene noted and withstoode euē so is it an easy matter to deale with them in all the rest of the points wherein they and wee differ as ere thou hast redde this my answere to Albine thorow I hope I shall make vnto thee full demonstration Wherefore thou maiest in the meane time hereby learne to arme thy selfe against such proud brags as notwithstanding thou hast hard the authour of this preface make For I hope euen by this whatsoeuer he hath saied to the contrary thou most plainely seest that neither scripture fathers consent of regions nor continuance of time can proue that they haue as he brags the true Gospell and the true sence of it the true Christiā Religiō the true Church spouse of Christ who haue in these maine principall points beene controled and condemned in all these as I haue shewed Whatsoeuer therefore he infers or buildes vpon this false principle or whatsoeuer after vpon the bare supposing the same to be true thou shalt reade Iohn de Albine railingly in his triumphant arrogant maner to speake in disgrace of vs our Church ministers or Religion I hope I say thou wilt esteeme of it as of vaine and foolish wordes of proud and yet malitious aduersaries Yet hauing thus answered in this sort his preface somewhat the better to prepare thee to iudge of Iohn de Albine and my answere vnto him giue mee leaue now to say somewhat concerning his booke and his maner of dealing therein Wherefore to proceede hauing perused and as throughly as I could considered of it gentle Reader I protest vnto thee vpon what occasion soeuer it hath got such credit amongst men of his owne consort that it hath not onely of them beene thought worthy to be published in English but also to be intituled A notable discourse against heresies I haue found it and so shall any indifferent Reader of this my answere vnto it not able at all to doe either good or harme but onely to such as are verie simple vnlearned and silly ignorant creatures For the principall questions in hand either alwaies he takes for graunted and so neuer goes about to proue them or subtlely suddainly seeming to haue vndertaken the proofe of them hee slippeth into another matter and therewith goeth on lustely as though he were busy about the point in controuersy when as indeede he hath left that quite and chosen to himselfe some other matter more easie for him to deale in either not at all in controuersy or howsoeuer to small purpose for the proofe of the thing intended And yet thus hee seemeth vnto himselfe and vnto his vnskilfull Reader to haue wonne the cause and to carrie all before him when indeede hee hath saied quite nothing to the purpose and hath busied himselfe onely about that which was needelesse which to the ende that thou maiest the better obserue thy selfe in the rest of his booke I will giue thee a tast of in the beginning thereof Vnderstand therefore that whereas his generall and principall scope is in his whole discourse to disgrace our ministry and the whole matter thereof our Religion that so hauing once perswaded his Reader that we haue neither lawfull ministers nor sound Religion hee might consequently boldely pronounce vs to bee heretiques and our whole Church schismaticall hereticall To effect this his purpose because hee soresawe that first it were necessarie that he should iustify their owne ministry and Religion before hee should so call ours into question first hee laboureth about that in the first eight Chapters then striueth about the other in the rest But marke now I beseech thee how he makes his entry into this so weighty and necessary a point Whereas indeede out of the fift to the Hebrewes wee obiect as hee confesseth that their calling to their Priesthoode Prelacies cannot be of God because their very offices themselues were neuer of Gods owne ordinance but onelie of mans owne deuising though to answere this obiection euery man might see and he himselfe saw as it appeares by his owne words ca. 1. that it was most necessary for him first to haue proued that their offices were of Gods institution and not of mans inuention onely like a cunning Sophister hee slippes from that promising after in some other place to proue it which yet though it stoode him in this his discourse neuer so much vpon he neuer so much as once remembreth or mentioneth againe And therefore thus onely supposing and taking this for graūted that their Priesthoode and Prelacies are of God which he knowes we will neuer graunt them hee takes vpon him to proue onely their comming thereunto to bee lawfull which he proues as slenderly also For to proue it hee onely saieth
and his Priests and by the rest to set vp themselues in the very seat of Antichrist They pretend the glory of Christ and of Peter and Paul in the doctrine of the supremacy but it is the feeding of their owne pompous tyraÌ„nous ambition that in trueth they seeke in it In their swarmes of Monkeries Frieries they pretend wilfull pouerty and an vtter forsaking of the world and yet all the world seeth that to maintaine themselues therein in idlenes belly-cheare and al kinde of worldly and carnal pleasure they had houses like Princes and reueÌ„nues maintenaunces like great Lordes of the worlde They haue pretended that they vvould haue Emperours and Kinges in no case to giue Bishoprickes and benefices to preuent Simony whereas their practise hath made it cleare that their Popes haue taken that into their owne hands but to make the clergy more to stand at their deuotion and lesse at their Princes and that they theirs might vse that occupation and trade of Simony as most proper vnto themselues They pretende charity and compassion in their pardons and indulgences deuotion and care to relieue soules by their masses dirges and trentals and an intent to fray meÌ„ froÌ„ sinne by their doctrine of Purgatory but euery maÌ„ seeth that it is onely money or money worth that hereby they fish for The vnity of the church is pretended when they seeke to establish most their owne tyraÌ„ny the honour and glory of the church they say they seeke when it is most plaine that it is onely their ovvne glory and honour they care for In the maintenaunce of their doctrine of transubstantiation they vvould seeme marueilous deuout and religious in vrging of the letter and in captiuing their ovvne sences and reason thereunto whereas indeede that course they take that so their Priestes may grovve to honour and vvealth vvhiles thereby the people are made beleeue that they can make and offer their redeemer for the saluation of quicke and deade Deuotion to the Saints they pretend in teaching that they are to bee prayed vnto and vvorshipped but therein their deuotion is like vnto Demetrius his for Diana of Ephesus for if it were not for the gaynes they get by offerings vnto their shrynes they vvould not bee so hoate therein Their doctrine of penaunce caries a shevv of mortification but it is but thereby to triumph ouer the people at their pleasures and in the ende to make a gaine by changing their penaunce or by making them to beleeue that they vvill relieue them by their prayers pardons and masses To conclude I dare bee bolde to say that there is neuer a proper point of popery but the practise and profession of it would quickly grow very cold if that the maintenance thereof made not either directly to aduaunce their wordly credit with their followers or their lucre and commodity And therefore thou maiest see euen by this whatsoeuer they bragge of their Church and Religion that euen for these three reasons they both of euery wise state consequently also of thy selfe Christian Reader ought to be shunned and auoided These things then that I haue saied well considered and remembred I will now no longer detaine thee from taking a view of that which this notwithstanding Albine hath writeÌ„ either in the defence of this his Religion or to the disgrace of ours requesting onely this at thy hands that as thou goest thou wouldest take the paines without partiality to reade and confer that which I haue writen to answere him withall Chapter by Chapter with his booke And thus hoping that thou wilt doe I commend thee and thy study therein to the direction and good protection of God my selfe vnto thy harty praiers vnto him in my behalfe Thine in the Lord THOMAS SPARKE A Notable discourse plainely and truely discussing who be the right ministers of the Catholique Church writen against Caluin and his disciples by one Master Iohn de Albine called de Seres Archdeacon of Tolossa in France Duaci per Iohannem Bellerum 1575 The first Chapter CALVIN your Patriarch doth lay to our charge a great and an outragious boldnesse saying according to his opinion that we haue introduced or taken in hand the ministery of Iesus Christ without being called to it by him that did institute Aaron in the saied estate And because that he himselfe can better then I expresse his coÌ„plaint or accusation I thinke it best to set forth his owne writings which according to his disciples opinions are of great force vertue His words as you may read are these Seeing that the Papists heare S. Paul say Jn his booke of Jnsti cap. 18. Art 58. Hebr. 5. that no person ought to take vpon him or vsurpe the name and the honour of Priesthood but he that is called to it as Aaron was And that Iesus Christ tooke it not vpon himselfe but did obey the vocation of his father either they ought to shew that God is the Author and institutour of their priesthood or els they must confesse that they are not called of God seeing that of their owne boldenes they haue taken it in hande These are Caluins wordes by the which the reader may gather that Caluin doth enioyne vs to render him an accoumpt of our vocation And although that it be so L Si quis ad si ad leg Jul. de nil publ c. that by the Ciuill law one ought to try the right of the possession before he come to demauÌ„de it the spoyle as we are to him and his fellowes as touching our Temples and reueÌ„nues in many places ought to be restored againe before the suite proceede Yet releasing this that the law doeth alowe vs we are content to answere to his demaunde adding this request thereto that both you that are his disciples and he doe make readie your papers to answere vs the like as touching yours But before I proceede in mine answere vnder correction of a man that thinkes to haue such good eies me seemeth that his argument is but very simple to say that if we cannot shew that God is the authour of our Priesthoode that we should be constrained to confesse that it is not of God a Sophistry in taking that as spoken of your maner of calling to your Priesthood which he spoke of the Priesthoode it selfe Numb 16. 2. Paâ—al 26. seeing that without being called we take it vpon vs. For what reason is there I pray you in this for although it were so that of our owne priuate power and authority without being called wee should take it vpon vs it should not follow by that that it is not of God For by that reason one might say that God was not the authour of the priesthoode of Aaron seeing that Dathan Abyron and Ozias tooke it vpon them of their owne boldnes the which is not true And as touching this that he sayeth that our order of Priesthood is not of God we will proue that false
according to the successioÌ„ of those Bishops vnto whoÌ„ only the Apostles coÌ„mitted the custody of the Church throughout the world the which saith he is come to vs. This saied Irenaeus doeth write in his third booke and second Chapter that he and his fellowes did withstand the Valentinians and the Marcionistes which were great heretiques by the traditions of the Apostles d A cursed glosse for it corrupteth the text for the tradition that he speaketh of had good warrant in the writeÌ„ word that is to say the doctrine not writen but receaued from age to age of the Apostles and so continued till their time He saith likewise vnto the Traditions which are of the Apostles and that by successioÌ„ of pastours haue beene vsed in the Church we doe persuade and prouoke those that speake against Traditions Hee writes as much more in the third Chapter of the saied booke Forasmuch saith he as it were to tedious to set forth in one booke the Successours of al the Churches and to tel theÌ„ one by one we doâ—â—â—â—â— throw those that for vaine glory doe seek to gather disciples togither touching them contrary to that that doeth appertaine vnto the traditions of the Apostles the which we doe shew to theÌ„ by the saied Traditions and by the faith that hath beene taught and is come to vs by succession of the Bishops of the great and ancient Church of Rome the which was founded by the two glorious Martirs and Apostles Saint Peter Saint Paul These are his words in his third booke aduersus haereses a The third you should say the fifth Chapter And at the beginning of the saied Chapter he saieth thus All these that will vnderstand the trueth may presently regard the traditions of the Apostles which are manifest throughout the world and wee cannot count the number of those that haue bene instituted and ordeined Bishops in the Church and their Successours till our daies which haue neither knowen nor taught any thing like vnto the fables and tales that these doe preach vnto vs. b If you say so you say it without cause and vntruely Not without cause we may now a daies say the like of the Lutherans Caluinistes other sects of our time After this he doeth set forth all the Popes of Rome c If the Popes euer since had beene like these you and wee should not haue needed to striue as we doe from Saint Peter vnto Eleutherius which was Pope in his time And he did affirme that that number did suffice to proue that the doctrine of Marcian and Valentinian was false very hurtfull because that it was vnknown or at the least not receiued or approued by the Church being vnder the gouernance of any of thâ—se Popes Then with greater reason ought prescription to take place against d True but such you shall neuer proue ours to bee a new doctrine which hath beene vnknowen this 1500. yeares or at the least if any body sought to publish it he was condemned as a false perâ—itious hereticke The V. Chapter YOu must remember that Vincentius liued 1000 yeares ago by your own coÌ„fessioÌ„ that therfore he speaketh of their time and of the Catholique Church and ancient faith that then was Whereof if you vnderstand him we say as he saied and are more willing to ioine and holde communion with that Church of Christ that he speaketh of then you but then his saying maketh directly against you For neither your Church nor faith was in his dayes We grauÌ„t you also that Irenaeus did vrge succession of persons to stop the mouthes of the heretiques as you shew in this Chapter out of him but withal then you must not forget that he liued not long after the Apostles times when as yet they whose Succession he alleadged continued in the sincerity of the Apostolique doctrine from which long ago your Roman Church as it is now hath fallen by antichristian apostacy For that hee calleth the principall succession and those bishops onely he teacheth are to be obeyed who togither with the succession of their Bishoprickes haue receiued the gift of trueth as I noted vnto you out of his fourth booke 43 Chapter in my answere to your first Chapter But Irenaeus no where prescribeth that his example of vrging hereticks to see their folly by Succession for a perpetuall rule to followe neither therein doeth he prophecy that for 1000 yeares after further those successiue lines of Bishops or any other would continue so in possession of the trueth of doctrine as that safely alwaies they might be ioyned vnto For he was not ignorant what was prophecied concerning the comming of Antichrist 2 Thess 2. and Reuel 17. and that Paul tolde to the Pastors of Ephesus Act. 20. that after his departure there would arise vp euen amongst themselues grieuous wolues not sparing the flock which must needs import that howsoeuer in his time he thought sometimes of succession of bishops that continued in the trueth that yet it was farre from his meaning to prophecy that so it would be alwaies You reason therefore in this point as one that to proue the stewes at Rome now to be pure virgins should alleadge for proofe thereof that they were so when they were yong children For euen like difference and ods there is betwixt the Church of Rome now and her bishops and pastours and that that was in the daies times that you and the authours that you alleage speake of For whereas vnto these times the Church of Rome her bishops pastours stoode and continued in the trueth since not only many of the bishops of Rome themselues whom you hold are freest furthest of of al other from erring as I haue shewed already most plainly fell into heresie but also al your Romish doctrine which we now count cal papistical was diuised found out since those times and is also not only beside but contrary to the doctrine then taught receiued by the ancient Church of Rome her pastours as ere I haue done with you I hope at least in great part sufficieÌ„tly to proue It should seeme therfore that either you in thus reasoning are very childish your selfe or els you thinke you haue to deale but with babes and fooles in that because Irenaeus that florished within two hundred yeares after Christ when the Church was yet pure and vndefiled in comparison of the tymes that followed could and did vrge Succession of persons ioined with succession of trueth therefore you may that liue 1500. yeares after Christ and more You must first proue that succession of trueth is vnseparable from personall succession that euer since and now also the Bishops pastours whose personall succession you bragge of haue continued in the trueth as well as they did whose names he reciteth Whereof neither shall either you or any of you be able to proue as long as the world standeth Fye therefore for shame that you
neuer hauing proued either of these nor yet being able to doe it you should cōclude that your prescription against our doctrine which you call newe at your pleasure though indeede it be most ancient witnesse the olde testament and the newe much rather ought to take place then his in his time against heretiques that then taught diuerse basphemous heresies directly against the scriptures You say our Religion hath beene vnknowen this 1500. yeares or at least if any body sought to publish it he was condemned as a false pernitious heretique But you doe but say thus you proue it not nor euer shall For it was both heard and knowen many 100. yeares before yours was hatched and if euery one were so condemned that taught it then was Christ and his Apostles so condemned For vnlesse by scriptures we can proue ours to be the same that theirs was wee aske no fauour at your hands And as long as we can doe so the more we and our predecessours haue beene condemned by you the more we knowe we haue beene blessed of God Now whereas you say in this Chapter further that Irenaeus did withstand heretiques by the traditions of the Apostles adding your glosse that is to say by doctrine not writen but deliuered from hand to hand and so receiued from age to age frō the Apostles to that time therein through the ambiguity of the word Tradition craftsly you seeke to deceiue your simple reader and indeede you giue a glosse that corrupteeh the text For let that place of Irenaeus in his third booke and second Chapter be perused and that also which followeth in the third Chapter of the same booke though either you or the Printer mistaking it send vs to the fifth Chapter where the wordes are not which you cite and most euidently it shall bee proued that though Irenaeus haue there the words by you cited yet by the traditiōs of the Apostles which he speaketh of there he meaneth no doctrine nor points of doctrine as you doe vsually by that word contrary or besides that which was also taught in the word writen For the question was of God the father of our Lord Iesus Christ which Valētinian Marcion denied against whō he there sheweth that he fought first with the scriptures wherewith when they were vrged he saith they are turned streight into an accusation of the scriptures as though they were not right had not authority might diuersly be takē saying further that trueth could not be found of them by those that are ignorant of traditiō For the trueth was not deliuered by them but by liuely voice that therefore Paul saied we speake wisedome amongst them that are perfect not the wisedōe of this world And this wisdome to euery one of them saieth he is that which he himselfe hath deuised Of which heretiques their wordes yours when you are called to the touchstone of the scriptures are so like vndoubtedly you haue learned to plead against the scriptures for your vnwritten traditions Now when thus he had shewed how the heretiques in his time shunned triall by the scriptures and appealed to tradition he goeth on and sheweth that when he was contented to come to the traditiō of the Apostles kept obserued in the church downe from the Apostles to those times by succession of pastours then they resisted tradition also saying that they were wiser then either those pastours or the Apostles themselues and so indeede neither by the scriptures nor yet by making demonstration vnto them that the same doctrine taught in the scripture was also deliuered by liuely voice first by the Apostles and so receiued from age to age and continued in by those pastors of whose successiō he speaketh could stop their mouthes And thus any mā of meane capacity may perceiue that in these places Irenaeus his drift only is to shew the heretiques that the doctrine which he taught concerning God the father of our Lord Iesus Christ first was warranted by the Apostles writings and then also taught by them by liuely voice and so deliuered and continued from hand to hand amongst the faithfull pastours succeeding one another euen vnto that time And that he calleth this the tradition of the Apostles and not as you falsly expound him doctrine vnwriten beside or contrary to that which is writen as the Popish traditions you striue for bee if you had beene disposed you might haue learned in the 1. Chapter of the same booke where he saieth That which first they preached after by the wil of god tradiderunt nobis they deliuered vs in writing to be the foundation and piller of our faith And indeede it is an vsuall thing with the fathers of the primitiue Church often by the tradition of the Apostles to vnderstand the very same doctrine which is conteined in their writings Herein therefore so likewise in all other points in controuersy betwixt vs it is a cōmon tricke with you papists to vrge the fathers wordes quite contrary to their true meaning But because you first and namely bring in Irenaeus for your vnwriten traditions which is the window indeede that you would haue faine left open vnto you for then thereby you hope you may thrust in and vpon the Church what you list and so countenance thereby your Antichristian doctrine when all other shifts faile let vs see whither this cannot yet further be made manifest out of him He as Eusebius reporteth Hist Eccles lib. 4. cap. 14. saied that Polycarpe taught that one and sole trueth which he had learned of the Apostles quae Ecclesia tradit which the Church deliuereth forth Where of necessity by those things which the Church deliuereth by tradition that he there speaketh of you may not vnderstand any other but those which haue warrant from the word writen and in no case those things that are besides that or cōtrary thereunto for then hee would not haue called that which Polycarpe preached the one and sole trueth for questionles those things are true that are conteined in the scriptures And this clearely appeareth if you marke the wordes as they are in Irenaeus himselfe in his 5. booke 20. cap. that Eusebius hath relation vnto which are these Polycarpe did mention or teach those thinges which he had heard of the Apostles that is all things agreeable to the scriptures Againe the same Irenaeus in his 3. booke and 3. cap. which is one of the Chapters by you before alleadged saieth that vnder Clement the Church of Rome wrought to the Corinthians shewing them quam traditionem what tradition of late they had receiued of the Apostles that is to say that God the father almighty and so forth as is expressed in Moyses is the father of our Lord Iesus Christ And that he is so taught to bee of the Churches saieth hee they that will learne may by the Scriptures and so they may vnderstand the Apostolique tradition of the Church Where it is most cleare that he telleth vs himselfe
that by the Apostolique tradition he vnderstandeth this same doctrin of God the father which before they wrote the Apostles deliuered vnto the church by liuely voice afterward as it appeareth they set down in writing Is this thē honest dealing in you to make your Reader beleeue that he meant of vnwriten doctrine such as the is for which you we striue seeing he telleth you himselfe that by the Apostolique tradition of the church you are to vnderstād this doctrine of God the father most plainely plentifully writen and set downe in the scriptures You might haue learned of S. Paul 2. Thes 2.15 that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tradition may as wel be referred to expresse doctrine in scripture as that which is deliuered by word of mouth where the Apostle as then very litle of the new testamēt being writen and as then therefore the whole Apostolicke doctrine therein not being expressed saith Hold fast brethrē the documēts deliuered you whither by word or by our Epistle But you are the lesse to be blamed the more to be borne withall for this your wilful thus abusing your reader because the making or marring of your church and Religion stādeth vpon vnwriten verities or rather forgeries which you call the Apostolicke or the holy churches traditions For there are few or none of those points of Religiō wherein we differ from you and striue with you about but your owne great champions haue confessed haue their ground from hence and not from the scriptures As any man that will take the paines to reade them may see in Peter Soto against Brentius in the 5. cap. of Canisius catechisme in the 5. booke 100. c. of Lindans panoply where they reckon vp almost all the points in controuersie betwixt them vs in Religion and when they haue done plainely cōfesse the ground thereof to be but tradition And therefore to countenance this onely bulwarke of your church Religion at least with those that either for lacke of leasure or learning cānot examine your quotations it is not your fault here alone but the cōmon fault of you all where you finde any mention in fathers of tradition though it be neuer so euident that thereby they meane nothing beside that which also hath warrant from the word writen to alleadge that place streight to countenance your vnwritē traditiōs To preuēt you therfore hereafter of thus abusing the simple I would wish thē all others to mark how flatly against your vnwritē vnwarāted traditiōs by the writē word the fathers with one consent haue writē for the absolute sufficiēcy of the scriptures Besides that which you heard out of Irenaeus Tertulliā to this purpose Irenaeus saieth further in his fifth book we must run to the Church be brought vp in her bosō nourished with the scriptures of god And Tert against Hermog writeth Let Hermogenes shew that it is writen if it be not writē let him fear that wo that is threatned or appointed to the adders or takers awaie As for Origen we haue heard him tel vs before that our senses and declarations without the witnesse of the scriptures haue no credit in his 1. Hom. vpon Ierem. And great and worthy Athanasius saieth The holy scriptures giuen by diuine inspiration are sufficient to shew the trueth against Idol Hillarie saieth it is wel that we are content with those things that are writen in his third booke of the Trinity Cyrill vpon Iohn in his 12. booke and 68. cap. graunteth indeede that all things that Christ did are not writen but hee saieth those things are writen which the writers thought sufficient both for maners and doctrine Chrysostome writing vpon the 2. to Timothie Homil. 9. saieth If there be anie thing needefull either to learne or to bee ignorant of we shall learne it in the Scriptures and in the commentary vpon Matth. commonly also fathered vpon Chrysostome wee read these golden words They that be in Christianity let them flee to the Scriptures because they can haue no other proofe of Christianity but by the Scriptures To this end read also Chrysostome vpon the 2 to the Thes Hom. 3. Basil also very sharpely writeth that it is a most euident argument of infidelity and a most certaine signe of pride if any man either doe reiect any thing of that which is writen or bring any thing not writen seeing the Lord saieth My sheepe heare my voice and they follow not the voice of a strāger in his treatise of true and godly faith Where also he noteth that Paul Galat. 3. by an example taken from men most vehemently forbiddeth that any thing be put out of the scriptures of God or which God forbid saith he be added thereunto And therefore he in Moral Reg. 26. saieth further Whatsoeuer we say or doe it must be confirmed by the testimony of the Scriptures Where likewise in his 80 rule he gathereth that seeing faith commeth by hearing and hearing by the word of God without doubt whatsoeuer is without the holy scripture seeing it is not of faith must needes be sinne and therefore he addeth in that rule let vs stand to the arbitriment of the scriptures and with whom doctrine is founde consonant thereunto let the sentence of all trueth bee adiudged of their sides Hierome vpon Agge cap. 1. saieth those thinges which of their owne heades they deuise as though they came by Apostolique tradition without the authority and testimonie of the holy Scripture the sword of God striketh who also vpon Math. cap. 23. saieth that which hath not authority frō the scriptures as easily is despised as approued And contra Heluidium he saieth we beleeue it because we reade it and we beleeue it not because we reade it not August against Cresconins the Grammarian in his 2. booke writeth That there is an Ecclesiasticall canon ordained whereunto belong the bookes of the Prophets and Apostles by which bookes we iudge of all other writings both of the faithfull and of the Infidels out of whom already wee haue heard diuerse plaine testimonies to this purpose especially that against Petilian in his 3. booke and 6. cap. set downe in the ende of the confutation of the 3. chap Damascen is as plaine as any of these in his 1 booke of right faith cap. 1. Cuncta quae tradit a sunt c. All thinges saieth hee which are deliuered vs by the Prophets Apostles and Euangelists we embrace wee acknowledge reuerence beyond those seeking no further For all things concerning faith and maners he confesseth are plainelie conteined in the scriptures de doct Christ lib. 2. cap. 9. Infinite such places might be cited out of the ancient fathers for they are full of them whereby it sufficiently appeareth that this was the vniforme and generall iudgement and opinion of them of the sufficiency of the scriptures If therefore in deede and trueth you made any reckoning of their generall consēt as often times you will
shewing by al lineal succession how you came to it from Christ his Apostles but thereby also you haue quite ouerthrown our claime This is easily saied wel bragged of you but it is more then either you can or meane to proue O yes saie you we can as it were going vp vpon the ladder of Iacob mount from step to step vntil in the top we come to those that first taught the Catholique faith in Tholossa Paris and Guienna as to S. Saturim Denice Martiall and Gratian and to the rest of the Saints It may be these were Saints you speake of and yet you haue not shewed vs that yea it may be also you can frō age to age euen frō that time to ours now name vs the persons that haue succeeded one another from those men you speake of but you shal neuer be able to proue that all these persons which haue succeeded haue continued in the sound Apostolique faith and so haue deriued it down frō the first to you that be the last which vnles you proue this climing vpō this ladder you talke of wil doe you smal pleasure But you are so confidently perswaded that the religion that you are in possession of now is the very same that was taught the Church of Christ in the beginning that you denounce him anathema be hee man or angell that preacheth against it Yet this is no proofe that it is the very same For you may be deceiued and if God would giue you grace to read and rightly to vnderstand the Scriptures sure I am that euen in thus saying you would finde that you haue as far as your authority reacheth cursed and excommunicated your own selues your whole Church So far of are we though it please you stil to cal our religion a new Gospel from being afraid to ioine with you in anathematizing them that preach any other Gospell then Christ and his Apostles preached at the first that withal our hearts we say Amen thereunto And therefore for all your supposed newnes of our religion we wish with all our hearts according to Iohns counsell 1. Epist 2. that that might abide which wee haue heard from the beginning We thinke Tertullian saieth most truely that cōmeth from the Lord is true that is first deliuered that is strange and false which is brought in after De praescrip aduersus haereticos Wherfore we say also most willingly with him in an other place in his 4 booke against Marcion Id est verius quod est prius c. That is truer that is former that is former that is from the beginning and that is from the beginning which is from the Apostles But then we conclude with him De praescriptione aduersus haereticos Vndè autem extranei inimici Apostolis haeretici nisi ex diuersitate doctrinae c. How are strangers and enemies to the Apostles knowen but by the diuersitie of doctrine which euery one of his owne minde hath brough forth and receiued against the Apostles therefore let deprauation of Scriptures and their exposition be accounted to bee where the diuersitie of doctrine is founde hitherto Tertullian and wee with him and therefore doe not charge vs any more with newnesse nor make your bragges anie more to deceiue the simple of antiquity vnlesse by the Scriptures wherein the simpliest knowe the Apostolique doctrine is contained indeede you can proue your doctrin to agree with theirs and ours to disagree For you may not thinke that you can cause them that haue any witte or discretion at al left them to beleeue that your doctrine is the same that was taught at the first by the Apostles because you can say so or because you can tel them their father grandfather and great grandfather tooke it so as long as they see you are loath to come to the triall with the learned whither it be so or no by Gods writen word Euen herein thundering out your Anathema though you would seeme therein stout and resolute in your religion yet if your words be wel marked it may euidently be perceiued that like a dastard you shunne the trial of your doctrine by the writen word For you say If any body come to teach vs any other doctrine then that which hath beene taught vs at the beginning I do not say writen in booke no take heed o◠that but printed in our harts let him be Anathema c. wherby you bewray your minde namely to be this that when it shal come in trial what that religiō is that was preached at the beginning you would not haue the Canonical books of the old and new Testament to determine the matter but that which was then writen in mens hearts whereby you meane your vnwriten traditions But I pray you how shal we know what was writen in mens hearts by the ministry of the Apostles better or more safely then by that which they wrote Especially seing as Irenaeus hath tolde vs that which they preached at the first after by the wil of God they committed vnto writing to be the foūdation piller of our faith in his 3 booke Chap. 1. As for your vnwriten word to speake most moderately you knowe the credit thereof is suspected and certaine it is it must agree with the word writen for God is one and selfesame both in writing and speaking or els worthily may it not be suspected onely but flatly also reiected as a false and counterfait word which but that you know it doeth not you would without any such correction or explanation of your meaning haue saied simply that you would haue him held Anathema that preacheth any other doctrine thē that which is writen in the books of the scripture But your owne conscience telling you that yours was another doctrin then had warrāt fro thēce before the curse should drop out of your pen you thought it wisdome least in your own knowledge you should haue cursed you selues to tel vs that you directed your sentence not against those that teach another doctrine then those bookes wil warrāt for of such you allow well enough or else you should disallowe your selues but against those that teach another doctrine from that which was writen in our harts so leauing to your selues liberty to make the poore people beleeue that that was whatsoeuer you would deuise O this is too too grosse paltry dealing in matters that so much concerne the souls of mē as this doth especially in this so great light that shineth now euery where amongst vs. As for your liues the liues of your pastors and great bishops though they be such as worthily you may be ashamed of yet if they had continued in the profession of the trueth therein we would haue held for al the other communion with them But seing their liues haue bene such a long time as there were neuer worse in Sodom nor any where els witnes your own stories Benno Cardin Platina Sabellicus Abbas Vsperg and others
by BertraÌ„ and others before named and their followers as we haue made it most euident in many bookes writeÌ„ to that purpose namely of late in a great booke called Orthodoxus coÌ„seÌ„sus the true catholick coÌ„sent of the holy Scriptures ancient Church of the trueth of the words of the Lords supper and of al the coÌ„trouersie thereabout printed at Tygure 1578 which booke al the swarme of you wil neuer be souÌ„dly able to answere coÌ„fute as long as you liue And therfore al the rest of this Chapter is needles wherein you suppose that betwixt Christ and his Apostles and vs there is none that we caÌ„ produce of our iudgemeÌ„t or otherwise against you But you take vpoÌ„ you to proue that we cut of theÌ„ al that haue bene betweene theÌ„ vs because Caluin hath writeÌ„ haÌ„dling this matter of the sacrament that he did find that they of old time had chaÌ„ged the fashioÌ„ of the administratioÌ„ therof otherwise theÌ„ Christs institutioÌ„ would beare c. wheruâ—oÌ„ your coÌ„clusion followeth not for diuers causes For an argumeÌ„t froÌ„ one to al holdeth not as Caluin hath done so ergo it is all out opion we al do so For though we accouÌ„t of him as of a rare singuler minister of the Lord yet wee doe not binde our selues to doe and say whatsoeuer he did and saied For we know him to haue beene a man subiect to error and infirmity for al his gifts neither wil you be coÌ„tented that such an argument should hold alwaies drawn froÌ„ any one of your greatest most famous learned writers to presse al the rest And a second reason of the weaknes of your argumeÌ„t is that there is more in your coÌ„clusion then is in the antecedent giuen you by him For you would conclude for those are your words to the proofe whereof you cite Caluin that we condeÌ„ne cut of al the ChristiaÌ„s that haue bene are betwixt Christ his Apostles and vs wheras Caluin speaketh not of al but of some of olde time The 3 reason Caluin himselfe giueth you in the eueÌ„ in the words set downe by you he sheweth plainly that though in theÌ„ that he spake of he noted some aberration froÌ„ the simplicity of Christs institution yet he did not therfore cut theÌ„ of froÌ„ the Church nor coÌ„deÌ„ne theÌ„ What are you such a cutter that you straight cut of al those froÌ„ coÌ„munioÌ„ with you in whoÌ„ you caÌ„ iustly finde any fault or errour in opinion or practise of life Surely then you must cut of most of your best frends That which we can foundly proue to be a fault in brethren either ancient or of later time we may safely note tel them of and labour to reforme yet as long as they ioine togither with vs in one God faith and Baptisme otherwise we can and ought to holde peace Christian communion with them or els where caÌ„ there at any time be any true concord or peace kept in the church For some differences of opinions vsages there haue alwaies yet beene and wil be betwixt one particuler Church and another and betwixt some members of the true church or other You needed not therfore I warrant you one whit haue beene afraide that Caluin his fellowes were so scrupulous that they would not ioine in fellow ship with some such as he speaketh of there and yet the letteth not but that he should couÌ„sel his readers to prefer Christs own simple institution before the vsage of them or any other differing from it The XI Chapter YOu doâ— verie wel that S. Paul doth coÌ„pare many times the mistical body of the church vnto a natural body seing that Iesus Christ is the head vnto whoÌ„ the body is ioined by ioints bones sinews If one should then demande of you how the feete are ioined to the head you will answere me by the legs which are next vnto the feete And if I aske you how the legs are ioyned to the head you will answer by the ioints and by the 〈◊〉 of the backe and so consequently from member to member I doe beleeue that we are all of one accord * 1 Cor. 10. that the ende of the world is at hand and so consequently that we are the lower most part of the body so that 〈◊〉 the feete or the legs Then my masters you that haue made so fâ—ne aâ— Anotomie of the Masse at my request make another of the ministrie of your congregation a You were a very pleasant man be like that could thus play your selfe a fit of mirth and when you had done daunce after your owne pipe it seemes you thought that the sport then would be so pleasant that no beholder could forbare laughter If you should see such another as Apelles that would paint a man and that he had drawen his head and without painting the rest of his bodie he had set his feete vnder his eares what would you saâ—â— to such a Table Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici Would you not thinke that he was a simple painter or else a great Iester Euen so doe you deserue that one should laugh at your ministerie b This is vntrue and a grosse slaÌ„der for we hold and teach that euer since Christ to our daies there haue bene both shepheards and sheepe ioyning with vs in the vnity of faith therfore you laugh at your owne shadow and vaine fansie For you will ioine your Church if it may bee so called vnto the church of the Apostles without setting forth anie members betweene them You take but scant measure when you will cut of all the Bishops Pastours and doctours that haue beene from the Apostles time till our daies they being the members that followe the head of the church This maie well be called a new Religion or to saie the truth it is a meere presumption to flie without winges or to climbe without a ladder And I saie to you againe that this is not the waie to followe the counsell of the great Sheepheard that I mentioned before who doeth saie vnto vs that if we will not misse the waie of the Catholicks we ought to follow the flocke of those sheepe that haue gone before vs that is to saie that we should reckon c But thâ—s in truth yours caÌ„not do therefore yours is not the Catholicke Church by your owne reason by succession the Pastours that haue succeeded in continuance of one kinde of doctrine the which as we haue shewed the Catholicke church doeth and hath euer done The XI Chapter As though you had most substaÌ„tially proued by Caluins words that we cut of all Christians betwixt the Apostles and vs in this Chapter you vrge the metaphor of a body whereunto vsually the church of Christ is compared whereupon you gather that as there is an orderly connexion and situation of members in a body so there must be in the church and that therefore our church must
needes be a monstrous mishapen thing in ioyning the Christians of these later daies with the Apostles without any betwixt and fosâ—â—ating as it were the feete of the body hard to the eares without any other members betwixt the one and the other And thus hauing framed this mery conceit in your owne heade you call vpon your frendes to laugh at it with you and so you proceede in telling vs that whiles we take this course we fly without wings and climbe without a ladder and despise the counsell of Salomon which after your maner you interpret that we should reckon by succession the pastours that haue succeeded in continuance of one kinde of doctrine the which you say you haue shewed you haue done To what purpose now is all this seeing in trueth neither we doe thus cut of all Christians betwixt them and vs neither haue you shewed any such succession of pastours downe from them to you continuing in your doctrine Truely to no other purpose can they serue but to expresse your owne ridiculous vanity Howbeit because you called in the former Chapter for the names of those that haue caught vs to deny your real presence in the sacrament and vpon a conceit in your owne fansie that you haue posed vs you haue growen to bee thus full of these swelling wordes of vanity and because I feare neither you nor many of your disciples will vouchsafe to peruse those books that I sent you vnto for answere in that point yet haue hope that for your sake some of you may chauÌ„ce vouchsafe to reade this I will not sticke with you particulerly to satisfie your request a little further First therefore vnderstand that we haue learned to deny your kinde of reall presence of Christ himselfe the institutour of this Sacrament because he hath flatly and vehemently affirmed without exception Iohn 6.54 that whosoeuer eateth his flesh drinketh his bloud hath eternall life Whereas by the meanes of your doctrine it followeth because all that receiue this sacrament haue not faith but manie lacke it that it shall bee eaten of manie that shal be neuer the better by it but the worse We haue also further learned it of him in that in the same Chapter speaking of the eating of his body drinking of his bloud he drew his hearers from a grosse conceit of eating drinking him by their bodily mouthes by vsing of the word beleeueth in stead of eateth and drinketh ver 40.47 and cap. 7.38 by mentioning vnto them his ascention Iohn 6.62 lattly by saying vnto theÌ„ It is the Spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speake vnto you are spirit life ver 63. This finally we haue learned of him saying If any shall say vnto you Lo here is Christ there is Christ beleeue it not Math. 24.23 by his continuing at the table when he first instituted and ministred it vnto his Apostles without alteration either of his place or forme Mat. 26. Mar. 12. Luke 22.1 Cor. 11. The Apostles euaÌ„gelists haue also taught vs to deny it in that they teach vs that he visibly asceÌ„ded into heauen that he shall so also come againe wheÌ„ he coÌ„meth froÌ„ thence c. Act. 1.11 especially seeing his comming to iudgement is called his secoÌ„d comming Heb 9.28 and vntil the restitutioÌ„ of all things it is saied by Peter the heaueÌ„s must coÌ„taine him Act. 3.21 The EuaÌ„gelists in laying downe vnto vs the story of his natiuity life death so prouing vnto vs that he was is a true and perfect maÌ„ encourage vs also least we should with the Marcionites other heretiques denie the trueth of his maÌ„hood coÌ„tantly to â—â—â—y your reall preseÌ„ce for the maintenance whereof you are driueÌ„ to fansy a nuÌ„ber of things quite contrary to the nature trueth of his maÌ„hood And lastly in that reciting the words of the institution they tel vs that Christ commanded that to be done in remeÌ„brance of him Luke 22.19 1. Cor. 11.24 there Paul saith v. 26. As often as ye shall eate this bread drink this cup ye shew the lords death till he coÌ„e which words plainly argu that though the sacrameÌ„t be both rightly ministresâ— receiued yet it inferreth not any such real preseÌ„ce as you ther imagâ—â— Now betwixt them vs we finde infinite places in writers of all ages that teach vs still to denie your reall presence but amongst many marke these for example TertulliaÌ„ in his 4. booke against MarcioÌ„ interpreteth these words Hoc est corpus meum thus that is to say This is a figure of my body Augustine against AdamaÌ„tus the Manichee c. 12. writeth that christ doubted not to say This is my body wheÌ„ he gaue a signe of his body vpoÌ„ the 3. Ps he saieth that Christ admitted Iudas to a baÌ„quet where he coÌ„meÌ„ded a figure of his body to his disciples vpoÌ„ the 98. Ps he saith yee shal not eat this body that yee see neither shall yee drinke that bloud which they shall shed that crucify me I haue coÌ„mended vnto you a certaine sacrament it being spiritually vnderstoode will giue you life In his 3. booke therfore of Christian doctrine he writeth thus This saying of Christ Except yee eate the flesh of the son of maÌ„ c. seemeth to coÌ„mand an heinous thing a wicked therefore it is a figure coÌ„maÌ„ding vs to be partakers of Christs passioÌ„ keeping in our minds to our great profit coÌ„fort that his flesh was crucified wouÌ„ded for vs. c. 16. he saith It is a miserable slauery of the soule to take the signes for the things signified in the same booke c. 5. And therefore in his 23. epistle he telleth vs that the similitude betwixt the signe the thing signified is the cause why the one beareth the name of the other in sacrameÌ„ts in his 57. questioÌ„ vpoÌ„ Leuitic he giueth vs this rule The thing that signifieth is woÌ„t to bear the name of the thing which it signifieth as Paul said The rock was Christ not it signified Christ but eueÌ„ as it had bene indeed which neuertheles was not Christ by substaÌ„ce but by signification So that his vsual doctrine is to teach vs in this sacrament to seeke christ in heaueÌ„ by faith thereby to make him present which otherwise is absent as you may read in his 50. tract vpon Iohn els where very often And with Augustine the rest of the fathers consent in this matter therefore nothing is more coÌ„moÌ„ with them then to call the outward part in this sacrament a signe figure similitude resemblance or representatioÌ„ as it appeareth in these places Chrysostom in his 83. Homil vpon Mat. Hierom in his 2. booke against IouiniaÌ„ Ambr. in his 4. booke of the sacraments c. 5. Basil in his lyturgy Ephr in his 4. booke against the impugners of Christs manhood by humane reason And Origen vpoÌ„ Leuit hom 7. teacheth vs that the letter
wil he deny before his father in heauē And S. Paul doth saie Ro. 10. f And so haue ours all wayes in due time and place though to the losse of thousands of their liues done that with the hart one doth beleeue to iustice with the mouth one must cōfes to saluatiō g This is but your cuckowes song conteining neither trueth nor honesty But to saie the truth your religiō was not thē foūd out the Grādfathers great Grandfathers of Caluin had neuer dreāpt of the heresies that now their reformed childe hath set so newly abroach And therefore thinke it not strange if that those people that are not light headed send you to preach in new found landes as one that hath here at home giuen manifestlie iudgement against himselfe h Are you not ashamed to ly so impudently and to reason so foolishly confessing as wee haue alleadged aboue that the Church of God hath vsed the imposition of hands yours hath not done so and therefore it doeth follow that it is not of God that that doeth follow consequentlie is that it is of the deuil For we know that you allow i Neither would you but that your belly is your God and that you mind earthly things vnto which purposes that doctrine serueth you fitly no purgatorie I mean no meane betwene thē both The XIIII Chapter HOw you haue answered Caluin and proued your vocation to be of God by that which now the reader hath heard both parts say let him iudge Our answere to the like demande I haue giuē you Chap. 9. when you first called for it But hauing demanded this now againe of vs insteed of pursuing your demād as one that had streight forgotten what you saied you are in hand againe with our saying to your charge your popes bishops il liues with twise or thrise you were in hād wtal before where you haue your ful answer Herein you say in railing you giue vs the preeminēce but you do so but in words for indeed trueth as al your late books fraught with nothing more then this kinde of Rhetoricke to bring the seruants of God vniustly into hatred doe proue none cā go beyond you herein And as for that which we say of your Popes bishops your own storie-writers and manifest experience doe iustifie to be true therfore cānot iustly be coūted railing But you find fault with vs that hauing writē the lewd liues of your bishops Popes on the one side of the leafe we set not down on the other side in the meane time the succession of those good ones that we had This law you nether haue nor cā alwaies obserue your selfe For though you haue had many good Popes bishops yet a great while your good ones haue bene as hard to finde as cole-black swans And yet you please your selfe and your frends that take pleasure in your giving scoffing in asking vs when your Popes behaued thēselues il at Rome who were the holy doctors at Geneua whē your doctors preached against God vnder what signe our ministers lodged al this kind of Rhetorick of yours is groūded vpō a false principle namely that the Church and ministers thereof haue bene alwaies must be so visible as that in al times demonstration may be made thereof cōtrary to these often alleadged prophecies 2. Thess 2. Reu. 12. 17. And the thing that deceiueth you nourisheth in you this errour is that you expoūd the places of scripture which are vttered concerning the continuāce spiritual beauty of the church of the elect the true heauenly Hierusalē spouse of Christ as spokē of the cōtinuance of particuler Churches or of the outward order state of the Church militant onely and that you either wilfully or otherwise cannot distinguish betwixt the being and continuing of the Church and her pastors and the maner of their being and cōtinuing and so you construe those places that proue her being and their continuing as though therupō followed your maner of visible and apparent being also as though there were no being or continuing of the Church but in your maner Whereas in Israel in Ahabs time you haue heard both the Church and ministers therof ther continued in that euen in that kingdōe Obadiah had hid 100 prophets and God had reserued vnto himselfe 7000. that had not bowed their knees to Baal yet not in your maner For Eliah was not able to make such demonstration thereof who they were and where they were as you require of vs for he thought himselfe alone 1. King 18. 19. O but you very like a diuine proue out of Mat. 10. Ro. 10. because Christ hath saied him that denieth me before mē wil I deny before my heauenly father and Paul requireth aswel confession with the mouth to saluation as beleife with the hart to iustification that therefore they could not be faithful beleeuers because they did hide themselues As though euery one were a denier of Christ that hideth himselfe frō the fury of the persecutour Or as though none confesse with their mouth to saluation that so hide themselues What think you then of the 100 prophetes before named And of Eliah himselfe who as it appeareth in those places hid themselues from Ahab and Iesebels furie Haue you forgotten that the same Christ saieth in the same Chap to his Apostles If they persecute you in one City flie to another And that the same Paul himselfe did sundry times by hiding himselfe from the hands of his persecutours saue his life As you may read Act. 17. and elswhere Who though he were assured in a vision by reuelation from God that with safety of life hee should come to testifie of Christ and his Gospel at Rome yet refused not al good and lawful means to haue himselfe conueied away and so to escape the hands of his bloudy persecutors the Iewes which had solemnly boūd thēselues with an oath that they would neither eat nor drinke til they had killed him Act. 23.11.12 Your diuinity is not so simple I thinke but that you vnderstand that as long as a Christian carieth that minde and purpose that wheresoeuer he is he will be ready boldly to yeeld a sound confession of his faith and therefore when he is called thereunto and iustly occasioned is ready to perfourme that purpose of his and doeth it indeed that man cannot bee saied to deny Christ or not to confesse him with his mouth though by flying and hiding himselfe as long as he may lawfully he seeke to keepe himselfe for the further good of Gods Church out of the handes of his persecutours And therefore you were much to blame by thus wresting of these places of Scriptures to seeke to abuse your Reader But our Religion you say was not found out then and Caluins great grandfather had not once dreamed of his Religion and therefore no maruell though they could not be found that were the
ministers either are the authours of any wronge to the Duke of Sauoy or that either they or their followers were the cause of the ciuil warres and troubles in France If the Duke of Sauoy haue any such right to Geneua as you pretend and that it be withholden from him it beeing a ciuil quarrell betwixt him and the states ciuil of those parts why should it be layed to the charge of the ministers who you cannot proue haue had any intermedling therein And as for the troubles in France it appeareth by the stories thereof that they haue proceeded first from your owne side and that the doings of the protestant Princes there haue oftentymes beene iustified euen by the Kings owne edictes and proclamations to haue beene done in all loialty and that their warres haue beene but defensiue against the oppressions offered them contrary both to the ancient lawes and present edictes of the Land by certayne ambitious persons and not offensiue either to the Kings person or dignity And as for your Bishops and Priestes of whose being driuen from their lyuings by our men you complayne so much in some sorte I confesse thorow their occasion indeed they haue beene dispossessed thereof but that seditiously or tumultuously by force they haue beene driuen there from by them we vtterly deny For in most places they haue beene dispossessed thereof by mature deliberation and consideration of the badnes of their titles thereunto in solemne and lawfull assemblyes of the estates of the countries by the lawfull authority of the same estats as namely here with vs in EnglaÌ„d in Scotland and in other kingdomes where the Gospell is receiued and established by publique authority and by the same authority orderly our men whose right thereunto in those assemblyes and Parliamentes haue beene founde to be the better haue beene put into possession thereof And in other places your Bishops and Priestes as not able to stand in the presence of the light of the Gospell when will they nill they they sawe it would take place in their territories forsooke their places and left them to those that had more right thereunto as for example they did in Geneua when the Gospell was first established there And no marueile though vpon the bare preaching of Gods trueth and the entertainment thereof many of your proude Bishops and superstitious Priestes can stand no loÌ„ger in their places For when the Arke of God came in presence Dagon could staÌ„d no longer though his frends set him vp againe neuer so often yea the more they stroue to haue him stand the more dangerous fall got he as you may read 1. Sam. 5. And it cannot be leâ—ted but Christes saying will take place and be verified one time or other Euery plant that my heauenly father hath not planted shall be plucked vp by the rootes Matth. 15.13 whereupon it commeth indeed that the proude prelates of your Antichristian Hierarchie hauing gotteÌ„ vnto themselues titles and offices through the ambitious and fond deuise of mens heads which God neuer allowed to be for his house must needes when God meaneth to reforme his house and to establish his owne orders therein auaunte their roomes and leaue their liuinges for the Lordes true officers and allowed seruantes indeede Blame therefore the badnesse of your foundation and title for leesing of your liuings and nothing else You bid vs shew our euidence that our right to them is better then yours out of the ancient doctours In the meane tyme you apply Tertullians wordes in his booke of Prescription against heretiques against vs and that of Paul How shall they preach vnlesse they bee sent Romans 10. I answere you not onely out of the ancient doctours but out of the Canonicall Scriptures also our ministers long ago haue made euident demonstration vnto the Princes and estates that haue driuen you out of possession and put them in that their title to your liuings was good and yours starke naught in that thereby they proued vnto them their religion to be ancient sound and Apostolique and yours to be but of a later Antichristian stampe though you according to your maner say we cannot deny but that your religion was planted throughout Christendome 1000. yeares before wee were borne which you shall neuer be able to proue true for wee most constantly deny both that antiquity and vniuersality of it And whensoeuer you will wee are ready againe by the same Scriptures and Doctours to proue our right by the same argument to bee good and sound and yours to be of no force come to the triall of it when and as oft as you will And therefore seeing it is a thing most euident that the reason why either you or we should pretend anie right to these or any other liuinges of the Church is that we feede the Church with wholesome and sounde doctrine wee hauing oft proued ours so to be by the grounds aforesaied and you being neuer able to doe the like for yours both Pauls saying and Tertullians must rather take place against you then vs. For I trust you will confesse that there Paul accounteth none sent of God to preach but those that preach the truth and questionles Tertullian vseth those words of his as by the wordes themselues as they are set downe by you it is euident not against those that were able to proue their doctrine sounde by the Apostles writings but against fantasticall heretiques such as had taught and did teach doctrine dissonant from the Scriptures deuised vpon their owne heades Against whom he being to prescribe both by the Scriptures and by the sounde testimony of those that succeeded the Apostles vntill his tyme he might lawfully and to good purpose say what are yee and from whence doe you come c. And truely when any man shall enter into a consideration of the state of the Church in Tertullians tyme both in respect of doctrine and gouernment and on the one side weigh the simplicity of the pastours and teachers then and the agreement that their doctrine had with the writen word and then therewith on the other side compareth the more then princely prelacy and Hierarchie that hath beene these many yeares and yet is in yours ioyned with doctrine not only manifoldly differing but in a number of points directly contrarying the word writen hee shall be enforced to thinke that if Tertullian were aliue againe and sawe notwithstanding how confidently you ruffle as though all were yours and no man had any right to any thing but your selues he would more vehemently vse these words here recited by you against your prelates then euer he did against Marcion Apelles or any other heretique in his time But you are so liberall vnto vs as to tell vs that though wee had commission from God yet he would haue called it backe euen for our noble actes and deedes in driuing you out of possession and taking possession though of our own before the sentence of the iudge was giuen Which you
saluation Act. 4. and that none are to be called vpon in whom we beleeue not Rom. 10. you teach vs to beleeue in many thinges and persons besides the Trinity so to be apostataes from our creede forme of baptism And besides whiles you teach vs this doctrine of inuocatiō of saints and Angels cōtrary both to the beginning and ende of the Lords praier you also teach vs to pray vnto them to whō we may neither begin nor ende our praier as thereby we are taught And therefore you dealing with vs in these pointes and diuerse others being so grosse as it is and was if we had had no better warrant to receiue these partes of the Catechisme then your worde we should haue had small courage to haue receiued them as from you But Caluin Beza and other of our famous ministers in the teeth with hauing their education and maintenance at their bookes first with you comparing them in that now they set themselues against your corruptions vnto Camels with reward their masters for their good keeping with yerking and biting Whereas in trueth if you had grace to see it they could no way shew themselues more thankefull vnto you for the same then by carefull and diligent labouring your conuersion and reformation as they haue done S. Paul you know was brought vp at the feete of Gamaliel a notable Pharisee was himselfe at the first by profession a Pharisee and so had his educatiō and maintenance at the first amongst such what then will you resemble him to your yerking Camels because after when it pleased God to open his eies and to conuert him to Christ hee preached and wrote against the errours of the Pharises laboured their reformation why should you then euen for imitating of S. Paul thus vnmanerly compare these men or any other whom it shall please God to stirre vp in like maner to seeke your good Still you call our Religiō new deuises now further you adde that though it haue beene in times past yet it was buried in the very depth of hell we haue raised it vp againe giuen it new colours All this cannot make vs ashamed of the Gospell of Christ which we know to be the power of God to saluatiō to euery one that beleeueth to the Iewe first also to the Greciā Rom. 1.16 For these are but bare words how spitefull malitious soeuer and we know that when it was preached by Christ himselfe and his Apostles it had as hard sentence oft giuen of it by the superstitious and blind Scribes and Pharises and yet for all that it mightily preuailed then and so doeth and will now Yet it is well that in some sorte now you will confesse it hath beene before for very confidētly before in your 4. chapter you set downe that none of vs cā deny but the Luther 1517. began it first but as you did well in this and spoke truely so in adding that it was yet buried c. you speake not onely malitiously and blasphemously as one day though I feare to late you shall be driuē to see but also vntruely For you cannot be ignorant but as it was before Luthers time professed and taught by Petrus Valdus Iohn Wickliffe Iohn Hus so therein they had their followers in Bohemia Calabria Angronia diuers other places and that in great nūbers euen vnto Luthers time and lōg after And as for colours we vse none to countenance this trueth but the natiue naturall colours which the scriptures allow it for we thinke it most sincerely preached when it is most simply set forth onely in these colours other colours we leaue to you to decke vp the garish whore of Babylō withall At last so earnest a procter or crier are you for miracles that you are contented to ioine with vs vpon this point that though our doctrine were not new but very old yet we must ought to confirme it by miracles And this you labour to proue because the doctrine that Moses the Apostles were sent to preach was not new but old yet they were furnished with power to worke miracles to cōfirme that old ancient doctrine For Moses wrought his miracles you say especially to this ende the Gods name might be knowen ouer all the earth that is to say that men should know that he is God the Apostles as you say at their first preaching preached not Iesus Christ vnto the Gētils but that there was but one God which by a number of testimonies you labour to proue was no new doctrin to the heathen Painims but a thing which by the light of nature left in them and by the view of Gods works many of them atteined vnto all might in such sort as that they are without excuse for that they worshipped not God as God This is I confesse directly to the matter and some shew these things cary I graunt of proofe of that which you toke in hande thereby to proue But if we examine well those things and weigh the weight of this argument wee shall finde small or rather no force at all therein to proue indeede the thing intended thereby For though God saie Exod. 9. not 19. as your quotation is that for this cause hee had set Pharaoh vp to shew his power in him and to declare his name throughout the whole world as in working of all miracles at all times that is an especiall ende that the Lord hath And though that bee no newe doctrine that hee is God and but one and that both Moses and the Apostles taught this yet this proueth not but that otherwise both Moses and they had newe and strange matters giuen them in commission for confirmation and effecting whereof it was necessarie for them to worke miracles For Moses especially was called and appointed by God as it appeareth Exod. 3.4 and 5. Chapters to this ende to signifie vnto Pharaoh that it was the pleasure of God that he should dismisse his people Which because the Lord had purposed notwithstanding the harde heart of Pharaoh to bring to passe therefore Moses was by his direction to worke the miracles hee wrought So that the next ende of working of them was to confirme this his newe and strange message to Pharaoh and to cause it to take place though therein the Lord had another further ende namely thereby to get himselfe a name for euer So in like maner though the Apostles preached the God that made heauen earth to be the only true God as it appeareth they did Act. 14. 17. which was no new doctrine indeede in it selfe considered yet it appeareth in the same places that it was newe there For in the one place they worshipped Iupiter and Mercurie for Gods and in the other an vnknowen God And besides it is euident that not onely their office was extraordinarie in that immediately they had their calling frō God and their charge without limitation but also
lib. 5. that he doeth omit nothing in his Historie but that that doeth go against himselfe and the professours of his religion I doe wish those that doe vnderstande the Latin to reade this answere of Luther in the Commentaries themselues and for the rest I vvill set it forth translated not by mee but by a minister of your ovvne sect called Robert Preuost vvho dvvelleth in a segnorie of Berne According to his translation the vvordes are b And Luther had reason so to aduise them first because he had no lawful ordinary calling and then because the doctrine which hee set abroach was contrary to the scriptures which is not our case these Luther was of opinion that the Senate of Milhouse should doe very wel and wisely to demaund of Muncer who had giuen him commission to teach and who had called him vnto it If hee say that it is God let him demaunde of him to shew some signe or miracle to proue his vocation and if hee coulde not doe it that they should banishe him for it is common to God to declare his vvill by some miracle at anie tyme when hee vvill haue the common custome and order changed These are the words of Luther We ought to yeelde that that is right to euerie bodie not depriue anie mā of the praise that he doth deserue And so I say al the Catholicke Church is bound to giue praise thanks to Luther for the memorable good wise coūsel that he hath giuē for he hath taught vs how we shal expel ouerthrow not only the heresies that he did preach vnto vs but likewise yours those of al the rest For if it be so that euerie time that God wil chaunge the ordinarie custome such as ours to an extraordinary such as yours there ought miracles to be shewed by those that come extraordinarily By this good godly aduise we know that Martin Luther nor none of you all vvhich doe come extraordinarily as he did doe come from God but rather from the prince of darkenes Caluin doeth confirme this opinion of Luther as touching the vocation of the ministerie for vpon the third Chapter of Saint Luke in his harmonie hee doeth saie thus None ought to attribute vnto himselfe by authority any office forasmuch as it is great temeritie such persons did nothing of them selues except it were being called to it by God Of this we gather we ought to enterprise nothing of our selues for if that the great Prophets haue attended to be called of God what are those that in these daies take it vpon them of them selues we ought to answere that they are presumptuous fellowes c. like vnto Caluin and his fellowes The XXI Chapter IN this Chapter to your purpose the onely thing you bring vs is the counsell that Luther gaue to the towne of Millehouse for the triall of Muncer the Anabaptist which you send vs by your quotation to seeke for in the 8. booke of Sleidon and there it is not but in the 5. but this is your happe with most of your quotations His counsell was that they should will him to proue his calling to be of God by some miracle because it is common with God to declare his will by some miracle when he will haue the common custome and order broken Proue that we either in our doctrine or gouernment of our church doe breake the common custome and order taught in the church for these in the writen word as Muncer did and then follow Luthers counsell and spare not It euidently appeareth in that booke that Muncer was a monstrous fantasticall Anabaptist and that in Luthers iudgement he taught not onely many absurde thinges contrary to the word but that also peruerting all good order and pollicie of Church and common weale he meant nothing more then force theeuerie and other such villanie and yet pretended for his defence extraordinary calling and reuelations and therefore no maruel though Luther gaue this counsell for the sifting of such a wretch In trueth the newnes of your doctrine considered in comparison of that taught in the word and the strangenesse of the order of your Church from that of Christes in the primatiue time thereof leade vs rather more iustly to followe this counsell of Luther against you then any thing in vs can truely moue you to vrge it against vs. Which if we should doe certainely either should we finde you as voide of miracles as you finde vs or at least you would be driuen to alleadge such monstrous vaine and lying miracles as that now I thinke you your selues would be ashamed to tell Indeede the time hath beene when you would bragge of the miracles set downe in your Legends amongst which S. Dunstans catching the Deuil by the nose in the shape of a woman with a paire of tonges and such like good store are reckoned vp and when we were told great wōders of the bloud of Hales which proued in the ende the bloud of a ducke and of great miracles done in this place or that place by the images of this Saint and that but this was in the night of deepe and black darkenes of ignorāce For now that the sunne of the Gospel shineth abroad we heare little noise of your apparitions and visions and other such antichristian miracles that there was so great talke of before It seemeth now that either your spirits are coniured into a dead sleepe or that you haue lost your old gift of working miracles Belike yet in that you make thus much of this counsel of Luther when they came from you so readily and your Church had such a dexterity and was so fruitful in bringing of thēforth it was because God would haue the world to vnderstand that indeed you were setting abroach a new doctrine and a fashion of Gouernment which neither agreed with the ancient and customable doctrine of his Church nor yet with the olde order of the same and that therfore you thought it needfull by such meanes to confirme your commission in so doing Wherfore make as much of this counsell of Luther as you wil it wil proue in the end to touch you more then vs. You cite also a saying of Caluin in his 3. Chapter of his Harmonie vpon Luke but to what purpose For who of vs euer either in word or deed contraried that speach or doctrine of his that is the thing that we obiect against you that of your own heads ye haue deuised a nūber of offices and orders in your Churches that God neuer gaue allowance vnto and besides that you haue set vp a number of pointes of doctrine forged but in the shop of mans vaine braine not onely not agreing to the word writen but diuersly and wonderfully disagreeing And as for vs we stand vpon that point with you that wee neither take office in hand without sufficiēt calling thereunto from God nor teach things that we haue not good warrant for from his writē word In the
by the Scripture ill vnderstood for * Mat. 10. 16. our Sauiour doth say that for to be his disciples we must forsake and renounce all that we haue in testimony of the which the first Christians at Ierusalem did sell all their possessions and presented the money of them to the Apostles to giue to the poore And that that is worse the Adamites did maintaine a greater errour then this and more brutish the which is that al mens wiues should be common and they did cal this the true Gospel and the pure word of God alleaging for it the first and eight of Genelis where God doeth say Increase and multiplie and replenish the earth If you doe say that this is a foolish opinion I confesse it to be so but that i This is false that Church condemneth popery for this heresie Zisca Hus and their followers coÌ„demned before you very Church which hath condemned this heresie of theirs doeth likewise condemne yours When the deuill determined to fight with Christ he thought he could no wise aide himselfe so wel as with the holy scripture perswading him that the best way for him to shew himselfe to be the sonne of God was to breake his necke casting himselfe downe from the pinnacle of the Temple And he did alleadge this text saying * Psal 90. as it is writen That the Angels of God should so preserue him that he should not hurt his foote against the stones following that Dauid saied And if I should go about to write al the places of Scripture that the heretikes haue alleaged to maintaine their horrible errours I thinke surely I might make a bigger booke then the Bible The XXIII Chapter YF a O you are your crafts master a man may see in wrong alleaging the Scriptures that the sonne doe hate the father or the father the sonne or if the wife doe hate the husband or the husband the wife they may take the word of God ill vnderstood to defend their cause for he doeth commaunde vs that we shall hate those that are nearest vnto vs as vnder the paine of not entring into Paradise if we doe contrarie But this ought to be vnderstoode that we ought not to prefer the loue of anie creature how neare soeuer they be to vs before the loue of God In like maner he that will saie that we should not eat of the bloud of those beasts that are smoothered he may soone alleadge the scripture for it which doeth saie that at the couÌ„cel that the Apostles held at HierusaleÌ„ beeing present the holie Ghost this ordinance was made as we read in the. 15. Chapter of the Actes And if that one should take in hand to bring al the places of scripture that the heretikes haue alleaged to maintaine their opinions I dare boldlie saie that he shal finde it an endlesse piece of worke For among so great a number of false Prophets there hath bene verie few or almost none but they haue sought to maintaine their opinions by Scripture drawing the places as it were by violence to a depraued and a corrupt sense beeing this the maner of interpreting of the Scriptures called at this daie the pure word of God by those that haue professed to be as long as they liue enemies to the trueth a You should haue saied in his first come 2 booke The learned and auncient Doctour Epiphanius in his first booke against heresies doeth alleage as touching this matter a verie familiar example saying that if some good Caruer had made the image of a king adorned with manie Iewels and precious stones and that another should come afterward and should take the same Iewels and precious stones and make vvith them the image of a Fox or a Dogge and that he should saie beholde here is the Image of a king would not euerie bodie laugh him to scorne and saie that he did it in mockerie or els that he were mad Yes surelie for although they bee the same Iewels and that verie stuffe wherewith was made the Image of the king yet because that this other vvorkeman hath taken them awaie and fashioned them after another sorte it ought no more to bee called the image of a king but the picture of a Fox or a Dogge Euen thus is it vvith the holie Scriptures vvhich were left vs by the Apostles and Prophetes for to paint in rich colours the Image of the great king of glorie b This is euen your owâ—e dealing with the scripture vp downe when you would confirme Popery therewith but seeing that you take those precious stones from the image of this king and doe appropriate them vnto the Image of a Foxe making them serue to cloake your heresies vvithal it ought no more to be called the worde of God nor the holie Scripture but the word of men false doctrine And therefore if you vvill haue it to beare the first name you must set it in the first estate that is to saie c This is certaine and therefore scripture trust interpret scripture and not your Romish spirit that it ought to be interpreted by him that did first indite it It is not by the will of man saieth S. Peter Epist 2. Ca. 1. That the prophecy was brought but by the inspiration of the holy Ghost that holie persons haue spoken c. I know wel that you attribute the intelligence of the scripture vnto your Sinagogue d This we doe not take vpoÌ„ vs. But how shal we beleeue that the holy Ghost doeth dwel more in you theÌ„ in al the vniuersal Church which hath continued froÌ„ the passion of Christ vntil this time I pray doe so much as answere me if you my masters be the lodging of the holie Ghost e Whither our alleaging of theÌ„ agree or not with the holie Ghost it selfe speaking in the scriptures we are contented to let alwaies the true Church of Christ iudge where did he make his residence before ye were borne I know already your answer the which is In the hearts of the faithful And where were those faithful Marie where the holy Ghost was Answer thus stil ye shal be sure that ye shal not be ouertakeÌ„ for it is as good as to play Handie dandie soye shal accomplish the olde Prouerbe the which sayeth It is as farre from Douer to Caleis as from Caleis to Douer But to the ende that all the world maie see the great hazarde of eternal damnation that those run into that are so readie to beleeue euerie bodie thinking that they are assured of their health forasmuch as those that seduce them saie behold there is the scripture it is the pure word of God the verie gospel I wil set forth some heresies that haue beene in times past condemned by the catholicke Church the which notwithstaÌ„ding haue bene a This you can neuer doe aswel yea more largelie confirmed by Scripture then you can confirme anie of yours
confute them and to confirme the trueth as it appeareth by Christes answere to Sathan Mat. 4. and by the writings of the ancient fathers against these heretiques And the hardnesse that it hath pleased God to leaue in the Scriptures is not such but as that notwithstanding the simplest may reade and trauell in the Scriptures with great profit howsoeuer it pleaseth you to insinuate in your taunting maner ca. 26. that artificers may not haue the spirit of God and bee profitable readers and vnderstanders thereof For euery one that would be blessed is to take delight in the lawe of god and to shew that his delight by meditating therein day night Psalm 1. and Christ hath commanded all his hearers indifferently to search the scriptures Iohn 5. And for all the hardnes that is in them we reade Psal 19. that the testimonie of the Lord giueth wisedome vnto the simple and his commandements giue light vnto the eies And therefore the holy ghost in Dauid speaking of the scriptures of the olde Testament which were then harder then they be now being so opened as they be now by the accesse of the new Testament saieth thus Thy word is a lanterne vnto my feete and a light to my paths Psal 119. Wherefore Peter in his 2. Epist 1. cap. calleth the writings of the Prophets a light that shineth in a darke place and therefore much more he accounted the scriptures of the new testament lightsome which it seemeth in the verie same place he had an eie vnto adding that they did well to attend to the former vntill the day dauned and the day starre arose in their harâ—â— which by meanes of the Scriptures of the newe Testament might bee though I forget not that the same Peter in the same Epist chap. 3. wrote also that amongst the things writen by Paul in his Epistles concerning the later daies there are some things hard to be vnderstoode For I remember also that yet he noteth to whom they are so saying which they that are vnlearned and vnstable peruerte as they doe the other Scriptures vnto their owne destruction for to such nothing is plaine inough to preserue or keepe them from thus doing Vpon which groundes howsoeuer you and your fellowes with such like discourses as this would discourage the simple and vnlearned from reading the scriptures Origen wisheth that al would doe as it is writen Search the Scriptures in his 2. Hom. vpon Esay And Hierom noteth vpon these wordes Colosse 3. Let the word of God dwell in you plentifully c. that euen laymen ought to haue the word of God not onely sufficiently but also abundantly dwelling in them And therefore Augustine in his 55. sermon de tempore saieth generally vnto his hearers It is not sufficient that yee heare the deuine scriptures in the Church but also in your houses either reade them your selues or els desire some other to reade them and giue you diligent eare to them And Chrysost likewise in his 9. Homil vpon the Coloss is verie earnest to perswade seculare men as you call them to get them the Bible or at the least the new Testament to be their continuall teachets and in his 3. Homil vpon Mat. he saieth plainely that this as a plague marreth or infecteth all that some thinke that the reading of the Scriptures pertaineth onely to monkes And these exhortations tooke such place in the ancient time that Hierom vpon the 133. Psalm saieth that both maried men and their wiues then had this contention and not monkes onely who could learne most Scriptures Whereof came such profit that howsoeuer your gibing spirit can not digest the like in these daies Theodoret in his 5. booke of the nature of man writeth that men in his time might commonly see that their doctrine was not only knowen of them that were doctours of the Church and masters of the people but also euen of Tailers Smithes Weauers of al artificers yea and not onely of learned women but also of labouring women as Sewsters Seruants and Handmaides yea he goeth further saying that not onely citizens vnderstoode the same but also cuntrie people and amongst them Ditchers Deluers Cowherdes and Gardiners and that in such sorte as that you should then heare them disputing of the Trinity and of the creation of all thinges And as for the obiection that you terrifie them so much withal of the hardnes therein the ancient fathers haue met with that also and would not haue them thereby in any case discouraged from following this counsell whereby they are stirred vp to heare 〈◊〉 them And therefore Origen in his 20. Homil vpon Iohn saieth It may be saied the scriptures are harde yet notwithstanding iâ— thou reade them they shall doe thee good and Hierom noâ—â—th that it is the fashion of the Scripture after harde thinges to 〈◊〉 other things that be plaine in his 19. Homil vpon Esay But Augustine belike meeting in his time with your forefathers of whom yee haue learned this obiection hath these wordes in his 5. books against Iulian yee enlarge and lay out with many wordes aâ— nothing is more vsuall with you how harde a matter the knowledge of the scripture is and meete onely for a fewe learned men and therefore in his 3. booke and 26. cap. of Christian doctrine hiâ— giueth vs this rule to expound darke places by more plaine places which saieth hee is the surest way of declaring the scriptures to expounde one scripture by another in his 2. booke and 3. chap. of the same matter he writeth that in those which are conteined euideÌ„tly in the scriptures are found al things that conteine fâ—â—th maners hope and loue But Irenaeus in his 1. booke chap. 3 â—â—â—teth simply that the scriptures are plaine And Chrysost in his first Homil vpon Math. and vpon the 2. Thess 2. writeth that the scriptures are easie to the slaue husbandman widow children and that all things be plaine and cleare therein And yet I 〈◊〉 needes adde with Epiphanius onely to the children of the holy ghost are the scriptures plaine and cleare in his 2. booke and with Solomon knowledge is easy to him that will vnderstand Prou. 14.6 For the naturall man perceiueth not the thinges of the spirit for they are foolishnes vnto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned 1. Cor. 2.14 Of whom that S. Peter 2. Epist 3. might giue vs to vnderstaÌ„de hee onely meant he calleth theÌ„ to whom those thinges in S. Pauls Epistles whereof he speaketh are harde and whose fashioÌ„ it is to misunderstaÌ„d not only those things but also the rest of the Scriptures how plaine soeuer both vnlearned also vnstable which is an argumeÌ„t of waÌ„t of the spirit of God of all true desire indeede to finde knowledge wheresoeuer it be And it may be this is the cause why the scriptures seeme hard vnto you of the church of Rome because you are led by the spirit of your Pope
disgrace Canus may tearme them a dead iudge which can neither heare nor speake in his Chapter booke before named in like sorte others in the following of this comparison with your good allowance shall may call them incken diuinity what else they list as we ofteÌ„ haue shewed you and them the onely rest vpon them scripture men or men whose Religion and diuinity lieth in rags skins of beasts because of such things the bookes are made wherein they are conteined Many beastly blasphemous speeches and assertions thus tending to the disgrace of the Canonicall scriptures any man that list may finde LyndaÌ„s three first bookes of his panoply Hosius booke de expresso Dei verbo his triple dialogue Cusans 2. Epist ad Bohemos 7. Andradius Florebellê° Priereas almost all your famous writers of these later daies euery where full oft where they haue any occasion to weaken those arguments that we vse against you either for that you are in your positions wherein we dissent froÌ„ you without warrant of scripture or that they are contrary to scripture And wheÌ„ we vrge you that of what credit soeuer the tradition of the church be that you so pleade for yet if it be the word of God aswel as the scripture then it must needes be that it agreeth with the scripture is not contrary vnto it for as much as God is alwaies one selfesame and therfore alwaies agreeing with himselfe therefore presse you with that which by the wordes circuÌ„stances of the text of the scripture we are sure is the true sence thereof therfore the vndoubted word of God theÌ„ you euen the greatest of you are driueÌ„ to these poore base shifts to cry out with Cardinal Hosius in his 4. booke against BreÌ„tius in his booke de expresso Dei verbo before named that scripture as it is alleaged of Catholiques it is the word of God but as it is alleadged of heretiques the expresse word of the Deuill or as he saieth also in the later booke if any haue the expositioÌ„ of the RomaÌ„ church of any place of scripture although he neither knowe nor vnderstand whither how it agreeth with the words of the scripture yet he hath the very word of God And when all comes to all though sometime you would make the pore simple people beleeue that in expounding the scriptures you will follow the vniforme consent of holy fathers and councels yet both this Cardinall Hosius in his triple dialogue and Cardinal Cusan in his 2. Epist ad Bohemos tell vs teach vs plainely to vnderstaÌ„d you that you meane no other sence theÌ„ agreeth with the present practise of the RomaÌ„ church when thaâ— sence is giueÌ„ not once blushing to confesse that according to the variablenes of the fashioÌ„ and practise of that church the scriptures must be vnderstood and therefore Cusan coÌ„mends that obedience that is yeelded thereunto simply without reasoning as the Oxe or Asse obeys his master For whatsoeuer sometimes you talke of Popes not erring of the not erring of generall couÌ„cels or of the authority of the fathers none that haue any thing craueiled in tracing you into your starting holes wheÌ„ otherwise you see you must needs be pinched takeÌ„ to your shaÌ„e but he easily seeth that in trueth none of these no nor all these togither with the scriptures themselues are of any credit and authority with you against the present practise of your RomaÌ„ Church One father or the present Pope if he speake hold with that though all the fathers beside are of another minde thogh neuer so many of his predecessors held otherwise yet farewell they in this case you will and must preferre this one before all the other These things being most true notoriously knowen to all men that with any indifferency haue traueiled in the controuersies betwixt you vs euery one hath cause to see howsoeuer somtimes you would seeme to yeeld some thing to the authority of the scriptures that you are at a flat point that neither they nor any authority els of maÌ„ or men old or new shall or may retaine any sence of force against the present practise and receaued opinioÌ„ of your sinagogue And as loÌ„g as you are at this point whatsoeuer you haue said of heretiques abusing of scripture as though you were the only men that had care rightly to vse them vnderstaÌ„d them euery simple body may see that of all men you are they by the variablenes of your Romish church practise which are most likely to make a nose of waxe and leaden rule both of the letter of the scriptures and sence thereof And therefore whereas in your 23. c. you boldly affirme that to draw the scriptures by violeÌ„ce into a wroÌ„g sence is the maner of interpreting the scriptures called at this day the pure word by those that haue professed as long as they liue to be enemies to the trueth most fitly may be vnderstoode of your selues for you are so in loue with the present practise fashion and opinion of your RomaÌ„ church that though that vary neuer so often euen so ofteÌ„ must the scriptures will they nill they vary and alter their sense Howbeit I am not ignoraÌ„t but that in so writing you meant vs though I am sure you shall neuer be able to proue vs either to haue professed at all any enmity with the truth or so to vse to wrest the scriptures But because this is a matter of great importaÌ„ce and therfore such as caÌ„not be determined either by your yea or our nay it shal not be amisse vpoÌ„ this occasioÌ„ to coÌ„sider what souÌ„d rules of interpreting there be that by the same it may be tried whither your interpreting of the scriptures or ours deserue thus to be called a drawing of the scriptures by violence to a corrupt sence The vniforme consent of doctors you would ofteÌ„ seeme as I haue saied in this case to make reckoning of as of a souÌ„d and Apostolicke rule of interpreting them by but this is but for a fashioÌ„ for you haue giuen vs doe daily manifest proofes that wheÌ„ but one or two against all the rest of theÌ„ hold with your curraÌ„t and present practise of your Roman church that now is that that one or two of them ouer wey with you al the rest And besides if this were a necessary rule then none could be interpreters of the scriptures but those that had all or the most part of the doctours to peruse few or none then ancient doctors writers there haue beene so many their names are so vnknowen to most could be sure when they had the consent of the most and best on their side and so neuer should be sure of the sence and for many places very little or nothing oftentimes haue they writen Though therefore we will not shunne the trial of our interpretations with you by this rule yet we account
these more certaine rules helps to finde out the true sence first that the true Grāmaticall sence of the words and speech vsed by the holy ghost bee soundly and rightly vnderstoode by sound knowledge of Grammer Rhetoricke for the natiue signification of the words and vse of the phrase whereunto much helpeth conference of translation with translation of all transtations if neede be with the originall tongues Secondly that diligent consideration be had of the circumstances of the text in hand as namely what is the matter scope thereof vpon what occasion it was vttered who vttered it to whom where when Thirdly that it be taken in such a sence as will agree best with these circumstances and stand well with all other places of scripture And lastly that no sence be admitted but that which will stand with the sound proportion and summe of Christian faith and good maners taught vs plainely elsewhere in the scriptures By these rules we doubt not but to iustifie approue that to be the true sence of the scriptures which we take them in either for the confirmation of the trueth which we holde or for the confutation of the errours which you defend And such rules they are as the ancient fathers in defending the ancient Catholique faith against heretiques haue alwaies vsed and no other as appeareth in their workes And such they are as Augustine in his bookes of Christiā doctrine doeth prescribe as most necessary in this case to be followed as no mā can or ought to make any exception against And yet such they are as would anone discouer the ridiculous vanity of your interpretatiōs in any controuersie betwixt vs and you For example let vs try here by your interpretation of Hoc est corpus meū which to be soūd you will liue and die in By what grammer or by helpe of what tongue or translation shall the word Est is be all one with transubstantiatur in is transubstantiated into Sure I am in no language nor in anie Dictionarie shall you euer finde the verbe Substātiue takē in that sense Secondly the matter in hand when those words were vttered was a sacrament Christ spake them to his Apostles at his last supper to the ende to institute a sacrament to continue a duetifull remembrance of his death vntill his second comming What reason is there then to the contrarie but that this speech should be taken as the like speech alwaies els hath beene and yet is in other Sacramentes Where Est is neuer taken coupling the signe and the thing signed togither whereof a Sacrament consisteth as you doe here for It is turned into but for signifieth which standeth also well with the nature of a Sacrament whereas yours ouerthroweth the nature thereof in so annihilating or transubstantiating of the signe that you leaue no signe to beare any analogie of the thing resembled which is the ground of such Sacramentall phrases Thirdly your sence agreeth not with the rest of the scriptures not onely in that in the whole bodie of the Scriptures you cannot finde Est Is placed as it is here betwixt two thinges of diuerse kindes as breade and body be taken in your sence and yet in such propositious you finde it vsually taken for it signifieth or representeth but also in that the scripture for all that speech calleth it bread still euen whiles it is in eating 1. Corin. 10. 11. cap. and expoundeth the eating thereof to bee a communion or partaking with or of the body of Christ and that spirituall not by corporall cōiunction 1. Cor. 10. Lastly your interpretation for the bringing in establishing of a corporall reall eating of Christ with the mouth of the bodie which is a thing neuer taught vs in the word but such a kinde of feeding on him as you your selues confesse Iudas and such may atteine vnto and be neuer the better shaketh yea subuerteth al those articles that concerne Christs true manhoode making him to haue euen for that needles presence sake a body without any of the essential and inseparable properties of a body yea at one selfesame time to haue a body visible sensible and locall in heauen yet inuisible insensible and without dimentions of place in earth Besides it is against good maners which forbiddeth eating of mans flesh and drinking of his bloud either openly or secretly couered vnder or in another thing And truely Auerroes had some reason of all men in the world to thinke such Christians as you the most sauage and foolish that first would fal downe worship a peece of bread for your God whē you haue so done eate him vp and deuour him Howsoeuer you please your selues in this interpretation and in your imagination grounded thereupon I am fully perswaded that this your multitude of images and idols are two of the principall causes whereby you haue hardened the hearts both of the Turkes and Iewes against Christiā Religion And as I haue read some of them haue to some of your fellowes being in hand to perswade them to turne frō their Religion to yours yeelded these two reasons why they thought yours worse then their owne and consequently as sufficient cause why they would not yeelde to yours Now if I should but barely recite a number of other your interpretations and collections of the scripture which yet with you go for very sound and Catholique interpretations collections I am sure it were sufficient to make euery reader thereof that hath anie witte or discrecion left him to thinke that there were neuer heretiques in the world that haue more fondly vainely interpreted the scriptures then you For example let the reader marke these for a tast God made two great lights the sunne the moone that is the Pope the Emperour therefore as many degrees as the moone is inferiour to the sonne is the Emperour inferiour to the Pope Innocēt de Maioritate obediēt Glossa Ibid. Peter saied he had two swords that is the tēporall spirituall sword therfore the Pope hath both powers Cornelius the Bishop of Bitonto in the councell of Trent blusheth not to apply to the Pope these words The Pope the light is come vnto the world men loue darknes more then light Euery one the euill doeth hateth the light commeth not to the light least his deedes be reproued Yea Paulus Aemilius in his 7. booke testifieth that the Pope suffred the Legates of Cicilia being prostrate before him to say vnto him Qui tollis peccata mundi Thou which takest away the sins of the world haue mercy vpon vs Thou which takest away the sins of the world graūt vs peace thus blasphemously applying that to the Pope which belongeth to Christ But you will say these were but the popes flatterers that made these expositiōs applications What then they were made vttered wtout checke yea to the liking of the Pope And a picture once
the like vnto the aboue named heretickes which haue fortified their caÌ„pe with as manie places more then you doe alleage Now if that notwithstaÌ„ding the scriptures by theÌ„ alleaged you doe condemne theÌ„ as hereticks because that they did interpret theÌ„ coÌ„trary to that that the l Vnderstanding by the Church the true Church that is one of our reasons but that is not al why we reiect them and their maner of alleaging them principally we reiect them because by the plaine euidence of the scriptures we can confute â—hem And to despise the iudgement of the popish Church is not to despise the iudgement of the true Church of Christ church doeth teach to saie trueth you can imagin no other excuse to what purpose doe you take vpon you the names of Catholickes seeing that you commit the like offence The diuersities of those olde heresies grounded vpon the Scriptures ill interpreted doe teach vs that vvee shoulde not permit the noise of your reformed Gospell that soundeth so shrill to make vs reele froÌ„ a Yours is but ancient as Ieroboams religion was when the 10 tribes were brought into captiuity our ancient faith without going so farre to seeke that that we haue so neere at haÌ„d Let vs talke of the present time how manie coÌ„trarie sects doth there raigne How manie heads of heresies b With variety of names you need lesly increase the number as your forfathers were woont to doe with those whoÌ„ they first called Waldenses Some are Lutherans some Anabaptists some PuritaÌ„s some ProtestaÌ„ts some PrecisiaÌ„s all these doe fortifie their caÌ„pes with Scriptures to fight one against another The ZuingliaÌ„s the Caluinists on the other side doe write that al these doe erre and they proue it by Scripture The Anabaptists laugh at al the rest The Prophets Celestes which is another sect doe no lesse grounding themselues vpon their reuelations because that Dauid saieth * Psalm 84. Heare what the Lorde doeth speake in me The Deists or Trinitaries which are come last of al crie out and saie that all they are heretickes and they proue it by the olde and new Testament I praie now tell me which of al these shall I receiue seeing that they doe all alleage the holie Scriptures If we receiue some and not all those that are refused will saie that wee offer them wrong for they haue c This is but your saying still for you shall neuer be able to proue this their shoppes stored with as good stuffe of the scriptures and aswell alleadged as all the rest If we receiue them all it will be a renewing of the olde confusion of Babylon through the neglecting of so manie Gospels If you saie that we ought to follow those that conforme themselues most vnto the pure vvord of God that will come to one ende for if I doe demaunde of you how we shall know which doe conforme themselues most vnto the trueth d Indeade we say and we are not ashamed of it that onely by the assistance direction of the holy Ghost in trying their interpretations by the scriptures it must be discerned who alleâ—geth them best you answere me that it must be done by the grace of the holie Ghost sent by the Lord if with a true heart he is inuocated of the faithful Seeing you know so wel the way how to agree togither how coÌ„meth it to passe that you haue not vsed it this fortie or fiftie yeares which are the precincts of the time since your ancient Church began seeing that you haue assembled so manie times togither e We haue done so and Gods name be praised for it so far we haue obtained our praier that we are able by the light of Gods spirit to discerne who amongst all these and all others amongst whom you papistes are the principall alleages them best with those we holde peace for the rest we morne yet comforting of our selues with this that necessary it is for the trial of the Lords that there be such sects why haue yee not praied vnto the Lorde to sende the spirit of trueth to make peace amongst his Apostles I thinke that you are not so vnshamefast that you will denie the quarels and debates that haue risen among you f The stirre betwixt these two though it hath bene more then should bee yet neither so much hath it bene at least for the followers of Caluin as you woulde seeme nor nothing comparable to the brawlings and furious contentions amongst your selues often I doe not say in light words but in great battailes in railing processes in horrible excoÌ„munications sent from the Churches of the Lutherans vnto the Caluinists froÌ„ the Caluinists vnto the Lutherans as I haue set forth at large in the booke that I made of the Sacrament therefore yee are greatly ouerseene that ye haue not inuocated the spirit of the Lorde as Caluin hath taught you in his Catechisme to the end that you may come to some accorde The XXVII Chapter FIrst here you aske vs whither it be good to beleeue al maner of people that alleage scripture We answere you no but with S. Ioh. 1. Epist 4. We wish all men to trie the spirits whither they be of God or no before they beleeue theÌ„ And we adde further with Iohn in the same place Hereby shall yee knowe the spirit of God Euery spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God and that spirit which confesseth not that is not of God but is the spirit of Antichrist By which wordes wee answere fullie your second demaunde also and giue you a proofe that our spirit is of God and yet neither these heretiques which you name nor yours any better then that spirit of Antichrist which Iohn speaketh of For I am sure you must needs graunt mee if you consider these wordes of Saint Iohn well that hee speaketh here onelie of confessing soundlie and rightly that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh which wee doe as wee are able to proue by the Scriptures truelie alleadged and neither they nor you are able to proue that and therefore this is a plaine proofe that ours is of God and neither yours nor theirs can be They confesse him not aright to be come in the flesh in that one way or other they erred not onelie in the doctrine of his office but also held some heresie or other against the trueth of his person And you confesse him not aright to be come in the flesh because not onely with some of the ancieÌ„t heretiques as namelie the Marcionites for the loue you haue to your fiction of TraÌ„substaÌ„tiation you hold him to haue such flesh as shall for your peeuish pleasures be without all the naturall properties of humane flesh and so a very phantasme and not flesh indeed but also most craftily you take from him that glorious office that the Scripture giueth him and translate it to what you list
are so ful fast of your side therin as you pretend I wil vouchsafe so much further paines as particulerly to examine al your quotations out of them The first man you name is Tertullian and in him you send vs to two places for your anointing and abrenuntiation to his booke de resurrectione carnis and for thrise dipping to his booke de coronâ militis Wherin it seemeth a little you mistooke your notes for there is no mention of abrenūtiation that I can finde in the former place in the later indeede there is but you quote the former for it not the later at all Whereby any man may see you tooke your quotations vpon trust and neuer tooke the paines to turne to the places in the authours themselues and that so it came to passe that that which you should haue fathered vpon the later place through ignorance you haue attributed to the former Anointing I find mētioned in the former place I grāt but neither the matter nor form of your anointing can I either find ther or in any other place quoted by you for it And in the other I cōfesse he mētioneth thrise dipping but to what purpose is that to iustifie your ceremonies or maner of baptizing seeing as I haue noted before out of your Tridētine cathechism in this point you are so indifferent whither it be ministred by dipping powring or sprinkling neuer once there prescribe this fashiō of thrise dipping as necessary Your second authour is Cyprian who you say in the second volume of his Epistles Epist the twelfth doeth write that the holy Chrisme was giuen vnto children that were baptized Wherein your note gatherer abused you For doubtlesse in that Epistle there is not one worde either of Chrisme or anie other Ceremonies about baptisme Indeed in the 12 Epistle of his first book of Epistles he speakes of anointing the baptized with oile but holy chrisme he calleth it not But to speake the trueth both Tertullian and he haue not onely in their workes sundry times mentioned Chrisme and anointing of the baptized but they went too farre both in vrging the necessity thereof and in attributing vnto it such diuine grace as they did insomuch that it is not without cause of the learned thought that therin they were both the schollers of Mōtanus But certaine it is of whomsoeuer they learned thus to vrge this ceremony to the obscuring preiudicing of the vse and effects of baptisme as too grossely they did in tying rather the gift of the holy Ghost to sanctifie and regenerate to it thē to baptisme they neuer learned it other of Christ nor of any sound Christian nor may any Christian more think himselfe bound to vrge it and vse it as they did because they did so then he is bound to be a Montanist because Tertullian was so or to holde rebaptization of them that before were baptized of heretiques because Cyprian did so Your nexte man is Origen to whose 12. Homilie without any further additiō and to diuerse other places of his workes without naming vnto vs any of these places you send vs for abrenuntiation and the signe of the Crosse to bee made in the baptised his forehead wherin it was your hap to shew as great negligence and ignorance as might bee For Origen wrote many times 12. Homilies as it is to be seene in his works whereas it should seeme by your kind of quoting of him that you thought he had done so but once and yet in none of these 12. Homilies that he wrote finde I these two ceremonies mentioned and as for the diuerse other places in his works that you speake of when you shall vouchsafe to name them your answere will bee as easily made Next is Chrysostome of whom you alleage two places his 12. Homily vpon the first Epistle to the Corinthians cap. 4. and his first Homilie vpon the first Chapter to the Ephesians and both these onely for renuntiation In the first whereof there is mention of the signe of the Crosse made in the forehead but not expressely in Baptisme and in the other there is mention of renuntiation indeede but so there is not at al in the former wherby againe one may see how you neuer turned to these places and read them your selfe and besides it is euident that either through ignorance or negligence or both you father that vpon your former noted place which you should attribute to the later as here that vpon Origen which you should haue left to Chrysostom and so shew your errour in both But what were all this if you had not beene at all thus ouerseene against vs or for you more then for vs seeing both these ceremonies or rites are reteyned and vsed amongst vs in farre better maner then with you Now followeth Augustine out of whom you quote vs in Psalm 31. Aug. lib. 15. contra Iulianum Pelagianum lib. 1. cap. 2. Item de nuptiis concupiscentiâ lib. 1. Cap. 20. In Iohannem tract 33. In Canonicam Iohannis tract 3. tra 6. de Ecclesiast dogmatibus Cap. 31. De Symbolo lib. 1. cap. 7. lib. 2. Cap. 11. libro de his qui initiantur sacris that is eleuen places in all wherein yet you haue more grossely shamed your selfe then in the former For first of all in these eleuen places there are but three wherein I finde any mention of any of your ceremonies and that is in his first booke and second Chapter against Iulian in his first booke and twentieth Chapter de nuptiis concupiscentiâ and in his thirty one Chapter de Ecclesiasticis dogmatibus and lay all these three togither and there are mentioned onely three that is exorcisme exufflation and abrenuntiation whereof we vse one aswell as you namely abrenuntiation and as for the other two thereof you your selues haue but the first and therefore why may not we aswell giue ouer both the other as you haue done the first of them Secondly you send vs indefinitely to his fifteene booke as you did before to Origens twelfth homily not telling vs what 15. booke you meane thinking belike that he had neuer wrote but once 15. books of one title wheras euery one that is acquainted with his works know the contrary If you say you meant his 15 booke against Iulian then therein you shew as much ignorance for against him he wrote but 6. Thirdly you father vpon Aug. two books de symbolo one de his qui initiantur sacris whereas indeed in al Augustines tomes there are no books that simply barely beare those titles to be found He wrote one book de fide symbolo 4 de symbolo ad cathecumenos but in no 7 nor 11 Chapters of any of these is there any thing for your purpose but none at al he hath writen that in title cōmeth any thing neare the other you father vpon him But I imagine that if your eie-sight or memory had not failed you you should
a pure and vndefiled Virgin but then errours as though they had conspired so to doe burst into the Church as into an empty house with naked and bare face and head But yet for any thing that either you haue noted out of Origen or that I can espy elsewhere in any of his vndoubted writings for this matter he can be charged no further but for setting abroach and a foote this question whither the Saints praied for vs or no Whereupon shortly after and by obseruing that sundry miracles were done men praying vnto God by the tombes of martyrs it began more strongly to be thought that the soules of such in heauen did much with God for men here in earth in so much that thereupon it grew to be an vse to go vnto martyrs in prison to request their praiers when they were departed to God So that by Cyprians time which was not long after these thinges began for he died Anno Dom. 249. as it appeareth in his lib. 3. epist epist 18. lib. 1. epist 1. it was taken for so resolute a trueth of him that they could and would remember their olde frends here that he in these places vse there exhortatiōs to the faithfull brethren aliue that in any ease they would remember out another when anie of them were dead But yet for all this finde I not that in any of these times or long after any teacher allowed and of credit in Gods Church was so bold as therefore either to pray vnto them when they were dead or to teach others so to doe And yet you confidently here further send vs to Chrysostomes 8. homily vpon the epistle to the Ephesians to Augustines to booke cap. 21. against Faustinus you say but you should haue saied Faustus and to S. Hier. against Vigilātius there to read prayer vnto them by them taught and iustified I wonder that you were not ashamed thus shamefully first to bee abused your selfe and then thus to seeke to abuse your Reader For let him reade and reade againe and againe all these places and I assure him he shall not finde one worde or sillable vttered in any of them in the allowance of praying vnto them In the first place Chrysostome according to his maner doeth sollace himselfe much about Paules cheine and imprisonment but not a worde is there vttered by him of praying either vnto Paul or to any other Saint nor yet of their praying for vs. And in Augustines twenty one Chapter of his twenty booke against Faustus if you had taken the paines to reade the Chapter you should not onely haue found no mention at all there of praying vnto them but very much there set downe by him directly against your fashions in honouring of them For there first he flatly condemneth as idolatrous dedicating altars vnto them offering sacrifices vnto them and their shrines and worshipping of them with any diuine honour sheweth that such as any of these waies honour them are either by sound doctrine reproued that so they maie amēd or shūned which are most notoriously practised by you in dedicating Churches and Chappels vnto them calling them by their names in running a pilgrimage not onelie to their reliques but to their pictures and there offering before thē what you thinke good and most grossely in praying vnto them which if it bee not a speciall point of diuine honour nothing can bee And then he sheweth what honour it is that is to be giuen them and no other namely the honour of loue and society as wee honour therewith holy men here aliue though then therewith so much the more deuoutly as their state is more blessed and the keeping of their memories to prouoke the better others to imitate them with religious solemnity and else where hee seemeth to like verie well that they should bee honourably both thought of and spoken of that they ought decently to bee buried and haue their tombes and sepulchers kept and preserued and that it was lawfull thereby to pray vnto God for such things as were lawfull that mē stood is neede of and lastly the furthest that euer he went either in this place or any where else was this that hee thought some good came by their praiers to such as thus honoured them or rather GOD in them And further then thus neuer went Hierom against Vigilantius So that all this while we cannot finde so much as praying vnto Saints either in Origen indeede or in Chrysost Augustine or Hierom once mentioned in these places you quote that they pray for vs and that their prayers may doe vs some good is the most wee finde in any of them which though it were graunted you yet thereupon it followeth not that we are to pray to them as I haue saied For if that be a part of their duety by God looked for at their hands such is their state of perfection there that we may bee sure that they neede not as mē here subiect vnto infirmities doe by vs to be put in remembrance of their duetie And againe seeing wee haue neither commaundement in Gods booke to direct vs example to leade vs nor promise to encourage vs to praie vnto them there especially prayer beeing as it is a speciall spirituall worship for the making whereof vnto God onely in his worde wee haue all these three whatsoeuer they doe or can doe for vs wee dare not without warrant from God yea contrary to the direction that we haue from him in this point take this honour of praying to him alone from him to giue it to them Yea wee cannot but see these thinges considered that if wee should therein wee should neither honour them nor GOD aright and that in very deede our doing so could not be obedience to GOD but disobedience not proceede of faith but rather of lacke of faith in him and so would be both a dishonour of GOD and then also indeede wee finde that GOD hath saied vnto vs flatly Call vpon mee in the daie of trouble so will I deliuer thee and thou shalt glorifie mee Psalme 50. And that hee is a Lorde so iealous of his owne glorie that hee will not giue it to another he hath plainely taught vs Esaie 42. And therefore seeing Christ of whom when he should come the very woman of Samaria had learned that hee should teach vs all things Iohn 4. teaching his Disciples to praie Matth. 6. and Luke 11. hath taught them no otherwise to praie but to him to whom when they prayed they might first say Our father which art in heauen then concluding their praies adde for thine is the kingdome the power and the glory for euer euer we being sure that without blasphemy we can neither beginne nor end our praiers thus we dare not direct our praiers to any Saint or Angell but onely to God We are sure he is able both to heare our prayers and to graunt our requestes because hee is almighty and that hee is willing so to
scriptures and all the ancient creedes grounded vpon the same togither with the very forme of our baptisme allowe vs onely to beleeue in God the father God the sonne and God the holy ghost vnanswerably thereupon it must needes followe that it is grosse idolatrie to pray vnto any other And so much in plaine tearmes hath Sedulius aboue one thousand yeares ago most flatly set downe vpon the first of the Romans saying Adorare alium praeter patrem filium spiritum sanctum impietatis crimen est that is to adore any beside the father the sonne the holy ghost is an vngodly wickednes Cyril also ad reginas de rectâ fide c. sendeth them that would obtaine their prayers to God the father in the name onely of Iesus Christ because solus naturâ verè est Deus he onely is by nature and in trueth God contra Iulianum lib. 6. he flatly saieth the holy martyrs neither doe we say to be Gods neue adorare consueuimus neither doe we vse to worship thē Yea Remigius who liued well nigh 900. yeares after Christ sheweth vpon the 96. Psalme that not onely images are not to be adored but he saieth plainely no nor an Angell is to be adored because of that warning of the Angell to the contrary in the Apocalips To conclude euen Hierom himselfe your owne fourth and last man whom I haue therefore kept to the last because many of you thinke that hee is much of your side against Vigilantius writing against the saied Vigilantius to one Ripacius cleareth himselfe to be farre frō this folly and blasphemy that you would make him an earnest procter for For there hee hath to shew his iudgement in this case writen thus non colimus adoramus we worshippe not and adore I say not the reliques of martyrs but neither sun moone Angels Archangels Cherubin Seraphin nor any name that is named either in this world or that which is to come beside the trinity for so he must be vnderstoode For immediately he addeth this reason least wee should serue the creature aboue the creatour who is blessed for euer We honour saieth he the relicks of the saints that we may adore him whose martyrs they be And good reason had all these fathers thus flatly to set downe their mindes against you For you know it is writen Dominum Deum tuum adorabis illi soli seruies that is thou shalt adore the Lorde thy God and him onely shalt thou serue Deut. 6. Matth. 4. and with this text Christ put the Deuill to silence when he would haue perswaded him to fall downe and worshippe him hee had nothing to replie against it I praie GOD you bee not growen in this point more obstinate and peeuish to withstand the doctrine of this text and more cunning and subtle to cauill against it for your owne defence then hee was I know some of you finding the Scriptures and fathers thus directlie to condemne adoration of the Saints though they maintaine still all your practise of praying vnto them yet haue not beene ashamed to write as it appeares in the censure of Colen printed there one thousand fiue hundreth sixty that amongst you it was neuer so much as heard that the Saints are to be adored for adoration is due onely to God Whereas they could not bee ignorant that their legends rosaries and other their bookes of deuotion publique and priuate are full both of the name and thing did they not knowe that the whole psalter is turned to the Virgin Mary and that therein it is writen venite adoremus eam come let vs adore her Howsoeuer they knew this or no they could not forget their olde saying of the Crosse beholde the woode of the Crosse whereon the saluation of the world hanged venite adoremus come let vs adore it If these will not serue to make them better to remember them selues let them reade their owne Antonin part 3. Tit. 12. cap. 8. and they shall finde him in plaine wordes to tell them that the Saints by the Pope by his canonizing of them are set forth vnto men not onely as an example of faith and holy life but also abomnibus adorandi in necessitatibus inuocandi that is of all to be adored and in necessities to be prayed vnto Wherein to say saieth he that the Pope erred were hereticall But this is like your other common shifts when you say you vse the Saints but as Mediatours of intercession and not of saluation which onely belongs to Christ and that you doe not giue them Latreian but Douleian that is as you expound the words not diuine honour but an inferiour honour not asking at their hāds that they should either giue you the good things you would haue or keepe frō you the euil that you would not haue the falshood and vanity whereof I haue both in my answere to the preface of your booke and also somewhat in this Chapter already bewrayed For let any man read ouer consider your praiers and practise and he shall finde that you make them mediatours of saluation and not onely of intercession though that onely if you did it being as it is a special part of the office of Christs mediatorship to be the very altar whereupon and whereby we must acceptably present these our spirituall sacrifices vnto his heauenly father hee being as he is of himselfe alone thorowly both able willing fully to execute his owne office you could not excuse cleare your selues of being guilty of high treason against Christ And he should further finde that you giue the diuinest honour that may bee that you doe directly beg all things euen at their hands that you can beg at Gods For it is vsual with you to sing to Mary salua eos quite glorificāt saue thē that glorify thee that succour the miserable help the weake refresh them that mourne you say to her Mary mother of grace mother of mercy protect vs frō the enemy receiue vs at the hour of death in the psalter now turned put forth by the deuout seruant of hers Bonauenture as some thinke you sticke not to vse all those speeches to her that in the psalmes are vsed to God himselfe and therefore you blush not to say vnto her Haue mercie vpon me O Lady according to thy great mercy according to the multitude of thy mercies blot out my iniquities But not onely thus haue you doubted about Mary but quite contrarie to your owne wordes when you would vse these shifts you deale with other Saints For you praie to Basil that he would looke downe vpon you from aboue change your whole life and you praie Athanasius to direct the holy people S. Cyprian to direct both your speech and life and who so readeth your speculum exemplonim your glasse of examples he shall finde there and in such other bookes of yours such stories tolde of things done by this Saint and that
testimony that he might haue such school masters as I haue saied to teach him herein somwhat to fauor you to speake of your side Irenaeus in his first book 24. chapter testifieth of the heretique Carpocrates that he was a great admirer of philosophy insomuch that to the images he made of Christ and of some of his Apostles he ioyned the images of Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle of whom hee learned to imagine that there was a purifying place after this life and so to proue purgatory out of that place of Matthew as you hearde before Montanus Paraclet did And the heretiques Heracleones as Augustine wryteth of them vsed ouer their deade oyle balme water and inuocation in the Hebrewe tongue Hereunto ioyne you Virgils 6 book of his Aeneidos lying visions you haue the right scholemasters that haue taught you al that fauour you in this point But concerning the places in Tertullian which you quote we need not thus answere you for they are not so pregnant for you as you imagined For the words you ground on in the first place are these spoken by him to the wife to teach her how in this point to behaue her selfe towards her dead husband pro animâ eius oret refrigerium interim adpostulet ei in primâ resurrectione consortium offerat annuis diebus dormitionis eius that is let her pray for his soule and in the meane time desire refreshing for him and felowshippe in the first resurrection and let her offer alwaies when the yeare day commeth for his sleeping which are the words as Beatus Rhenanus confesseth that he hath so set downe acknowledging that he found it far otherwise in all examples before Againe not onely this obscurity of Tertullians wordes and the vncertainety what they were disableth this place from being of any force for you to ground vpon but also vnles you must haue it granted that euery womans husband to whom he gaue this counsel was in purgatorie wherof there is no ground at all in his wordes in that booke but rather the contrary whereby it should seeme that he spake of such as were gone before in peace to the Lord his words if they were these proue not your praying to relieue soules there And the offering that he lastly speaketh of was either the offering of thankes to God for his quiet rest and sleeping or an offering or giuing of almes to the poore in token of ioy for the same and to prouoke them to be thākeful therfore also as you heard me before note the fashion was when the tracts of Iob fathered vpon Origen were writen out of the third tract of the same and not as you woulde haue it taken an offering of your propitiatory sacrifice in your masse for his sinnes For hee saieth for his falling a sleepe and not for his sinnes and hee willeth the woman to offer and not that she should get the Priest to doe it And in answering of this place your other is also answered for there onely he saieth oblationes pro defunctis pro natalitiis annuâ die facimus that is wee offer oblations for the dead for their birth daies euery yeares day For in that he expresly saieth pro natalitiis for their birth daies it is euident that he cannot nor may not be vnderstood of any other oblation but of thankefulnesse and reioicing But this offering for their birth daies Beatus Rhenanus vpon this place in his notes saieth was heathenish and afterwards was condemned and abolished by the Nicene councell and others And yet for any thing that these words of Tertullian enforce in this place he speaketh of no other oblations for the dead but for their birth daies so that long ago the date and credit of this testimony and fashion was abrogated And lastly it is not to be forgotten that he himselfe within few lines after these words speaking of this fashion of sundry others that there also he had spoken of plainely confesseth that these thinges had no grounde in the scriptures but onely by tradition That which other of your fellowes alleadge to this purpose out of Tertullian in his exhortation to charity may receiue the same answere with these for it is euident that booke also was writen in his Montanisme for there hee is against second marriage as in the first and so against Paul Romans 7. 1. Cor. 7. and with Montanus and the words are no more pregnant to ground praier to relieue soules in purgatory then the former were Now next is Cyprian who was a bishop in that City wherein sōetimes Tertullian had liued in him for your praier for the dead you would haue vs read his Epistle ad plebem Furnensem in his first booke I am sure you meane the ninth Epistle of that booke writen as it appeareth there ad plebem Furnilanorum though either you could not or would not to put your reader to a little more paines to seeke it out tell vs so much But hauing found it and read it howsoeuer you were perswaded of it we finde little or nothing there that can doe you any good for onely there of a decree made in some Africane Synode before his time he groundeth his perswasion to that people forasmuch as one Victor had contrary to that decree made one Heminius Faustinus minister executour of his wil and testament therefore to stay others from daring any more so to violate that decree to the calling away the ministers from attendance of their ministry that they should execute that decree against that their brother Victor departed which was that for this cause there should be no offering for him nor sacrifice for his falling a sleepe For saieth he he is not worthy to be named in the praier of the Priest that wil so cal away the ministers or Priests from the altar therefore seeing this is Victors fault let there be no oblatiō with you for his sleeping nor in his name any deprecatiō frequēted in the Church Doe you thinke in good earnest Master Albine that if Cyprian had thought that his brother Victors soule had bene in such paines in purgatory as you teach are there and that these were the ordinarie meanes to ease soules there that for so small a matter as this the breaking of this positiue law which with you is vsually broken if in your sence these things were to be vnderstoode of oblation sacrifice and praier for the ease of the party so departed from vnder the punishment vpon him for his sinnes that Cyprian either might lawfully could without too too much cruelty or would so without all mercy and charity perswade to depriue a brother departed of these things You cannot be so without reason as once to thinke so The execution of this Canon against Victor was but onely a note of some disgrace ignominy laied vpon him the better to make others after to regarde that Canon and not any denying of his soule any thing so necessary
wee onely are saued or they al condemned For I haue shewed how a nuÌ„ber yea infinite numbers of them might be saued this notwithstanding As for your iudgement that they neuer erred so much as our disciples it is not material For you are no competent iudge in this matter And the reason of your iudgement that we condemne the faith that the Catholique Church hath held this 1500. yeares and maintaine the olde rotten condemned heresies is a thing which by begging after this sort at our hands though therein you be neuer so impudent and shamelesse a begger as that way in this your book your greatest skill hath appeared you shall neuer get And therefore set your hearts at rest your words though they be neuer so lowde stout shall neuer make vs yeelde you this for an almes You must therefore proue your words true and so make vnto vs euident demonstration thereof which you shall neuer be able to doe before we may yeeld vnto you that you haue any right at all to this The XXXIX Chapter IF that by a good and a right title your disciples cal themselues the children of God this maketh me beleeue that the saying of our Sauiour is fulfilled in them the which is * Luc. 16. The childreÌ„ of this world are wiser in their generation then the children of light To proue this true wee see this dailie experience for a wise worldly man when he doeth put out his money to gaine he vvill not trust the promise so soone of one or two or three as hee vvill doe the bondes of a vvhole Towne or Cittie that should warrant or assure his gaine But you nor your disciples haue not done thus but rather the contrarie It had beene better for you to haue first put your faith and trust in God beleeuing that he hath giuen his holie spirit and declared the meaning as touching the Scriptures vnto the Catholique Church a We build not our faith religion or hope of saluatioÌ„ of these meÌ„s credits but vpoÌ„ the credit of the vndoubted worde of God set down in the scriptures which is for credit to be preferred before the credit of all men speaking beside or contrary vnto them and not to hazard the hope of your saluation putting it into the hands of Luther Zuinglius Oecolampadius and three or foure other such pelting merchantes vvhich haue newlie set vp shoppes at Wittemberge Geneua Losane vvhich one of these daies we shal see bankeroutes as their predecessours haue beene before them the vvhich after that they had deceiued the poore simple Catholiques b Beware of dogs Phil. 3. ergo take heed of this Romish barker the best is hee is but one that barketh to bite hurt he hath small or no power and gained some of their soules for the deuill they haue at the last sold al their honestie and credit so that at this daie except that it be those that reade the ancient histories no bodie else doeth remember that euer they liued in the world You are come now last of all to make vp their merchandise but your credit can hardlie be good before God c Will you neuer haue done with this bare vaine brag Shew this but once to bee true and then we yeelde and then brag and spare not for you shall haue against you all the ancient Catholicke Church which hath continued visible since the comming of Christ vnto this day all the Doctours of all the vniuersities all the Empires Kingdomes and priuate state thoroughout al the worlde which haue receiued and honoured this doctrine that you call Papisticall And if you saie that you will not trust meÌ„ but the verie word of the Lord we agree to the like that we ought al to beleeue the Scripture but we varie about the interpretation for you interpret it after one sort and we after another you expound it after a new sort and the Catholicke Church doeth follovv d When it commeth to the trial it will be found that our interpretation rather then yours hath continuance froÌ„ all the sound ancient Doctours and the vndoubted Apostolicall â—raditions the olde exposition of the ancient Doctours traditions which you haue forsaken or to saie the trueth your Ministers haue led the sheepe astraie froÌ„ the old flocke at the departing froÌ„ the which they haue beene al scattered abroad some following Luther some Caluin some the Anabaptists so forth for the which the Popes kings others that haue had the gouernment of the Church shall answere at the last daie of iudgement for as much as while e Ergo you haue had sleepy Popes they slept you haue come sowedweeds among the good corne Then seeing you are the sheepe that rome astraie what excuse can they make before God that wilfully follow your steps We confesse that we are the poore sheepe of God that haue continued with our old flocke stedfast whole as touching our religion but very weake and sickely f Amend them for shame as touching our maners that is to say g But your wounds sores sicknes is grown so desperat that you will account none such but them that wil tel you you are sound and in health where you are most sicke full of sins vices attending some sage phisitions to heale vs good pastors to keepe vs casting out the chaffe froÌ„ the corne I meane cutting off those abuses that are offensiue not to such scrupulous consciences as you haue but vnto him that doeth threaten theÌ„ for the carelesse liues of their sheepe so to continue in that h Proue this once some of you or else for shame neuer say it almost in euery leafe for lack of matter as you doe ancient faith that by succession of pastours we haue receiued from the Apostles The XXXIX Chapter In this Chapter there is nothing but your old great words stout begging the maine questioÌ„ that your Church is the true ancient Catholicke Church that al the ChristiaÌ„s great small since Christ haue bene flat on your side that you are the only men that follow the sound sence of the scriptures deliuered vnto you by the ancient doctors and true pastors of the Church that we are but two or three in coÌ„parison of you sprung vp yesterday such as you prophesie wil shortly grow banckerout both of credit and honesty This bladder ful of nothing but winde is sufficiently I hope prickt and let out already by that which I haue saied in sundry places before Howsoeuer I hope the reader is not so simple as that seeing in you neuer so great store of these swelling wordes as long as he knoweth your aduersaries denie them as stoutly of the other side and he seeth you bring nothing but bare wordes without proofe he wil any whit be mooued therewith And yet as not able a discourse as this booke of yours is accounted the greatest stuffing that it hath is onelie
of such vayne wordes as these aboue twenty times I am sure without any proofe at al therein repeated Indeed if in al your life you could proue but halfe so much as confidently here you set downe then you were a notable fellow indeede and then truely we would striue no longer with you But in the meane time seeing we know your speeches are such as you can neuer proue and that we are able against you both to proue the falshoode of yours and the trueth of our owne blame vs not if wee esteeme not your words Yet lest you should saie that these likewise are but words in vs as the former haue beene in you though I see no reason to the contrary but that our words containing a iust and true denial of yours were sufficient confutation thereof I say and will proue it that you shew your selfe a man past al shame in writing here as you doe that all the ancient Catholicke Church which hath continued visible since the comming of Christ vnto this day al the doctours of all the vniuersities all the Empires kingdomes priuate states throughout al the world are against vs for they haue al receiued honoured that doctrine that we count papisticall For first such is the newnes thereof as I haue plentifully shewed in diuers places already of this booke that none of all these for sundry 100. yeares were once euer acquainted therwith yea that diuers of your assertions which are the very principallest of your opinions as namely your dotcrine of Transubstantiation of your Popes being in authority aboue generall Councels and of denying the cuppe to the lay people are not yet of 400. yeares age and continuance And it is notoriously knowen that in the daies of Gregory the 9 about the yeare of Christ 1230 by occasion of iniury and oppression offered by the Pope to that Church that the Greeke Easterne Churches departed quite from the Church of Rome and neuer since though it hath beene oft attempted could be brought to hold communion therewith againe insomuch that in your conuenticle at Trent you haue condemned them for schismatical and heretical Churches And these Churches as it is noted in an ancient record in the Church of Herford differ from yours at the least in 29 articles And they holde yours excommunicate and an Apostata Church vnto this day And vnlesse your reading be very small you cannot be ignorant that Math Paris writeth that the Patriarch of Constantinople at the Councell of Lyons shortly after this breach shewed that of 30. bishoprickes in Greece the Pope had not three that then held communion with him and that all Antioch and the Empire of Romania to the gates of Constantinople was gone quite from him There is also extant in print in ancient record an Epistle writen about seuen yeares after this breach began in the yeare 1237 by one Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople vnto the Pope wherein not only he laboureth to make him see that the occasion therof was that he tooke more vpon him ouer those Churches then he should but amongst other argumēts to persuade him to see his folly he sheweth him that not onely the Greeke Churches themselues but that al so the Aethiopians Syrians Hiberians Alani Gothi Charari with innumerable people of Russia and the mighty kingdome of the Vulgarians held communion with his Church of Constantinople and so by occasion of this schisme had forsakē felowship with the Roman Church And the Cosmographers write that the iurisdiction of the Patriarch of Canstantinople reacheth so farre that all Greece Misia Belgaria Thrasia Walachia Moldauia Russia Muscouia the iles of the Aegaean sea and Asia the lesse bee vnder the same It is also reported by authours of good credit that at this day vnder the other Patriarchs of Antioch Alexandria Hierusalem and vnder the other in the dominions of Presbyter Iohn in Africa there be infinit numbers of Churches and Christians differing from yours and ioining with ours in manie thinges So that Churches also both in the East North and South and that of very great amplitude within the time that you speake of haue professed Christ and yet haue neuer beene acquainted with most or many at the least of the pointes for the which your religion is counted of vs Papisticall in all which there haue beene some doctours vniuersities Empires Princes and priuate men no doubt since Christ before you wrote that neither honoured nor receiued your papistical religiō Yea but that merueilously you ouershot your selfe you might haue remembred that within the time limited by you in these Westerne partes there haue beene euen vnder your Popes nose and in his greatest ruffe many doctours vniuersities and some Emperours kings and priuate estates that haue neither receiued nor so honoured your religiō which we cal papistical as here you would beare your reader in hand For euen in these parts and within the compasse of these times haue bene you know Wickliffe Hus and Luther vniuersities kingdomes good store haue had both your religion Church in defiance long before you wrote He that readeth but the stories of Philip Lodovicke the last French kings of Henry the 4 5. of the 2. Fredericks the 1 2 Emperours and the Cronicles of king Iohn here in England and of 2 or 3 of his successours he shal easily perceiue that much within the compasse of time that you speake of both Empires and Kingdomes with their Emperours and Kings haue beene far from making that reckoning of your popish Church and religion that you here bragge of or else doubtlesse you must needs confesse that your Popes haue beene vnreasonable creatures that haue so cursed and banned these men as they haue and which besides haue caused such infinite Christian bloud to be by warre shed to hamper them These things considered euen children may see not onely the vanity but grosse falshood of these your wordes For howsoeuer either here or else where in this your booke you would cause your reader to beleeue that your Romish Church is the catholicke Church of Christ euery one indeed may see that in trueth it is but a particuler and a petty Diocesse in comparison of the catholicke Church of Christ For the reader must vnderstand that the Church of Christ is called catholicke first because the religion that shee imbraceth is that which hath beene at al times will be to the end the true religiō of God secondly because the same Church in respect of the mēbers therof especially since the calling of the Gentiles is not to be limited or shut vp within the compasse of any particuler countries but may vniuersally be dispersed amongst all nations and in al countreyes where it pleaseth the Lord. In neither of which sences can the Romish Church be truly accounted catholick For neither is her doctrine that which the true Church of Christ embraced was in possessiō of for 4000 years more neither are the
AN ANSWERE TO MASTER IOHN DE ALBINES NOTABLE DISCOVRSE AGAINST heresies as his frendes call his booke compiled by THOMAS SPARK pastor of Blechley in the County of Buck. And I heard a voice from heauen saying Come out of her my people that yee be not partakers of her sinnes and that yee receaue not of her plagues Revelat. 18. vers 4. Put your selues in aray against Babylon rounde about all yee that bende the bowe shoote at her spare no arrowes for shee hath sinned against the Lord. Ierem. 50. vers 14. ACADEMIA OXONIENSIS SAPIENTIAE ET FELICITATIS Printed at Oxforde by IOSEPH BARNES Printer to the Vniversitie 1591. TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE ARTHVRE LORD GREY OF WILTON Knight of the most honourable order of the Garter his especiall good Lord and Patrone Thomas Sparke Wisheth all good perseuerance in Christian courage and constancy in the profession and furtherance of Gods sincere truth with all other ornaments of true nobility to Gods glorie our comfort and his owne heart good contentation nowe and euer ALthough Right Honourable when I had first perused this treatise of Iohn de Albines I foūd it thorow out a most bitter inuectiue a malitious declamation written onely of purpose to deface disgrace amongst the simple both our religion the ministers professors thereof yet finding withal as I did as anie indifferent man that reads it shal that neither for matter nor manner of writing there is any newe thing of any importance in it which hath not beene before euer this discourse of his sawe the light oftē that far more substantially vrged by some other of that side therefore which hath not also heretofore been as oftē fully effectually answered by some or other of ours I not only iudged this to be the reason when it hauing now been amōgst vs in english these 16. or 17. yeares none hitherto had vouchsafed it any further particular answere but also though vrged as your Honour knoweth to frame vnto it a speciall direct answere I could yet hardly be brought to thinke it necessary so basely I esteemed of it to aford it any other answere then either a fewe marginal notes that whē I first red it I bestowed vpō it or frō point to point as it were in a table to haue shewed the reader where and by whom he might read the same thing long ago often obiected on the one side answered by the other which might haue bene in one sheet of paper very well dispatched Howbeit in the end calling to minde what your Lordship tolde me concerning the opinion that our poore seduced cuntrimen seeme secretly to haue amōgst thēselues of it as you learned by one of their owne speeches had thereof vnto your selfe in acquainting you first with the booke and marking how not onely by publishing it in english but also by entitling it both in the forhead ouer euery leafe a notable discourse against heresies they themselues haue plainely shewed that they haue it in no base account finding it also since to be the iudgement of a certaine learned man of auncient and long experience euen of our owne side now this last yeare published in print that the hauing of this very booke so long in secret amongst them vnanswered hath bene one great cause of the apostasy of so many yong mē as of late yeares in this our cuntry haue reuolted from the truth to popery at the last I resolued with my selfe though I know that whē I had done what I could herein that I should be foūd to haue said litle or nothing not said writtē aswel before by some one or other of our side that yet your Lordships request made vnto me to answere it as fully and directly as I coulde when you first shewed me the booke how you came by it was is such as that both of duty to your selfe particularly for sundry causes to the church of Christ generally for that by this means many may see togither an answere to that which otherwise in great part either they might chance neuer to hit of in any other wryter of ours or else be driuen to search more those further then it was likely they would or could I was bound to satisfy in as good sort as any way conueniently I could Hauing therefore encouradgement by these reasons to take it in hand hauing now by Gods grace finished it in maner as you see I present the same vnto your Honour as an vndoubted token of my dutifull affection towards you beseeching you not onely to take the paynes as your leasure serueth you to peruse it ouer your selfe but also desyring you to bee vnto it such a patrone as that it comming abroade thus by your prouocation it may haue your best protection and countenaunce to passe vp and downe openly and boldly both in the veiw of frendes and foes vnto it There was prefixed before Jhon de Albines book vvhich your honour deliuered me a long preface to the reader made as it should seeme by the publisher thereof in english and there was annexed vnto it in the later ende an offer of a catholicke as hee is there termed to a learned protestant consisting of two and twenty demaunds and six signes of false prophets heretiques and schismatiques the preface I haue aunswered and the answere thereunto I haue placed next vnto my aunswere vnto Albines booke it selfe somewhat also I haue annexed that answere of mine to his booke finished in the latter ende to shewe the vanitie and childishnesse of those things which the author hath vttered in the application of those six signes to vs but to that which hee hath written concerning those two and twenty demaunds I haue said nothing And indeed because otherwise the booke was growen farre greater then I imagined at the first it woulde I haue not at all inserted that offer nor anie part thereof The reason of my not medling at all with those two and twenty demaunds and not troubling this my booke at all with anie part of that offer is that Doctor Fulke long agoe hath aunswered those demaundes and that also nowe of late Master Crowley hath at large aunswered both them and that which is added concerning those signes Doctor Fulkes answere thereunto maie bee had vnder the title of an aunswere of a Christian protestant to the proude Chalenge of a popish Catholicke and it is prefixed commonly before his booke written in confutation of Allens of Purgatorie Indeede concerning the six signes hee saieth nothing not because of any greater matter in them then in the rest but because at the first they were not published with the other The demaunds though hee haue aunswered shortly according to his manner yet so sharpely and effectuallie hee hath doone it that if the Chalenger were a man of his worde hee continued not long after a popish Catholicke Master Crowleys aunswere to the whole offer worde for worde as it was annexed