because the iudges and officers of the court do wrest Gods law by their popish canon law and respect persons take rewards which is forbiddē in Deuteronom and by their profession they must needs do so or else they cannot hold their office how shall any make complaynt vnto them for church matters which can be counted none of the Church And seeing Christ hath commanded to complaine to the church against the sinner how shall Christes ordinance be broken by complaining vnto such wretches Furthermore seeing the scripture sheweth that the church hath nothing to do to iudge those that are without how shall any complaine of such a number of wicked men as neuer were worthy to be counted the Church Againe seeing no godly man may seeke iudgemēt vnder the vniust as Paule sheweth if he haue a matter against a brother why should we seeke to such for iudgemēt Again because those canon officers are strāgers neither knowne to the churches nor dwelling among thē no maruaile though Christ say that his sheep will not follow nor seeke to strangers but will flee frō them Moreouer because they bring the churches into bondage as it is written because they deuoure because they take their goods because they exalt thēselues and as it were smite the people on their face cast thē in prison they do all these things besides the church gouernment and therefore ought to be reiected in no case to be suffered So he concludeth Thus it is manifest by the word of God that such prowd Prelates and Antichristiā vsurpers haue no authority nor power of the church neither is their suspēdings to be counted suspensions by the Church nor their calling of Ministers a calling by the Church Hauing then thus condēned our Bishops authority disauowed as vtterly vnlawfull to meddle with their courts and officers How strange is this that he seeth not his subscription to the B. authority to haue gainesaid all his writings yea how monstrous is it that he should thus fetter other men frō any way vsing or applying themselues to their courts officers and yet himselfe of late being iustly called in question by the Minister of the parish where he dwelt for not communicating according to the order appointed made his speedy recourse to a Doctor and iudge of such courts and by his meanes cut off and forestalled the intended proceeding of the minister congregation there against him O worthy Captain guide of so vnworthy a schisme But perhaps his Proctors will pleade for him that his subscription and late practise haue now cancelled all his former writings so as they cannot henceforth in any equity be vrged against him No no let thē know that I hold him heere faster than that all of them can be able to wring him out of my hands I answer therefore that since the time of his subscription first he hath written that which is against both the Bi. and their authoritie as in these words Thus your writing condemneth you of iniquity that speake not one word in the pulpit against the restraint by popish discipline that ye cannot separate How sore do you labour and how much do you suffer that dare not speake a word by name against those officers and courts neither name nor protest openly against those wicked against whom you would haue vs protest particularly and by name And by and by after But why labour you not also to charge them openly though it cost you your life and liuing Also in his Libell against my admonition he hath these words Thou hast written it heeretofore that there is no Aegipt in England and hast thou now found vs out to be in Aegipt Doest thou not perceiue that thou and thy partakers abusing your knowledge to persecute those which are come out of Aegipt are worse then Aegipt yea princes of Sodome and people of Gomorrha looke thou to it that thou remain not in Aegipt Thou hast confessed that we were once come out of Aegipt thou canst not say so of thy selfe if still thou iustifie thy Aegiptian doctrine pollutiōs as is to be seen by thy pamphlet Let the reader now bethinke him what Bro. calleth Aegiptian doctrine sith my booke containeth no doctrine but the doctrine of the church of England and so it was iudged alowed by authority Also whether he accompt Englād as Aegipt which he would deny in another place whether he exclude the Bishops frō the number whē he calleth me all my partakers that do persecute him and his followers Princes of Sodome and people of Gomorrha Again when my admo demandeth what gaine their departing frō our church heer in England hath gotten thē he denieth not that they are departed but answereth thus We haue gained by fleeing from persecuting wolues not wealth nor bellycheere nor fauour in the world but losse imprisonment all maner euil speaches and death it selfe Nay he is so far frō recanting his former course as that he thundreth iudgements and inuocateth vengeance euen the bloud of all those of his sect that haue died any way by pursuite of law vpō the heads of all those that haue been meanes and partakers to their trouble these are his words It is thy manner and thy partners to force to threaten to make stirrings and hurly burlies and to driue man wife asunder thine and their outrage cannot be satisfied with bloud thine their railings slander false accusations haue brought diuers of vs to death some by the Gybbet some by long imprisonmēt some by flight and pursuite some by extreame care thought sicknes some by Seas some by necessity and want some by changing aire dwelling place the bloud of all these shall be vpō thine thy partners heads These places are sufficiēt being writtē since his subscription to proue that he still continueth to oppose himself against the authority gouernment of our Bishops as also to the vnity peace of our Church Secondly to those that obiect his subscriptiō to cut off the allegation of his former writings against him I answere that Brown hath in writing since his subscription iustified all his former cause doctrines in euery point therefore hath again cancelled his subscription and reuiued all his bookes This I lay down by his own euidēt words in two places of his libell against my admo let the Reader consider iudge Glouers popery saith he or popish heresies being long ago by many diuines refuted needed not Bredwells childish refutation wheras the cause wherin Bro. hath stood as yet is refuted by none Now the places aboue cited shew that a chiefe part of Bro. cause is touching the authority proceeding of the Bishops which he vtterly detesteth And seeing then he auoucheth his cause to stād as yet vnrefuted he intendeth not that his subscriptiō should any whit empaire the same for then he could not say so but meaneth therfore that
inferred this absurditie vpon your leaders interpretation thereof namely that so the Corinthians were vnsanctified and become no Church of God because they had not remoued the incestuous person Your leader salueth that sore with fyue excuses in the behalfe of the Corinthians but indeede all will not make a plaster of a haire breadth to couer so mortall a wound First he sayth The wickedman remayned not among them which is apparantly false else why did Paule appoynt hys remoue And touching the space of time it will be found reasonable long if you consider how long it must be ere Paule being at Philippi in Macedonia could heare out of Corinth in Achaia the vndoubted truth of theyr disorder His second excuse is They communicated not with him in the Sacraments being knowne But it is certayne they dyd else why dyd Paule rebuke them for miscarying themselues in the matter And that they knewe of him there is no reason to doubt first because if the matter had beene vnknowne and vnconuinced to them they had beene still free from blame and as I sayd before Paule had no reason to checke their security 2. I would aske him how Paule came to the knowledge of it by reuelation no for he sayth It is heard for truth or for certaine Well had he it by reports they must come from Corinth and then must you eyther say they were some pike-thanke spyes that without cause so accused the Church which is great reproch to the Apostle in that he should without cause and yet so peremptorily accuse them of neglect of duty or else confesse that they were of the faithfullest brethren who being not able by themselues to preuayle with the Church sought by this meanes of telling Paule to do it and then you see the case as cleere as may be 3. Your leader sayth He was not conuinced belike he had vowed the number of fiue and so this must fill vp tale His 4. excuse is That they wanted not Christes power and discipline to seuer him being in bondage to popish discipline I perceiue he is almost drawne dry for what is this to the purpose The Corinthians still communicated with him in the Word and Sacraments in consideration whereof by your leaders iudgement it had beene lawfull for as many as made conscience of the matter to haue forsaken the assemblyes and then it followeth that eyther you may forsake a true Church of God which hold you haue alreadie renounced or else that the Church at Corinth was now disanulled become a leauened lumpe and so fallen from Christ which is blasphemie too abhominable so that whether you looke forward or backward heere that foxe I meane that Heretick is taken Fifthly he sayth They refused not to seuer him but onely neglected it Yes it must be sayd except when we speake fauourably that they in effect refused to seuer him else could there haue beene no iust complaynt made agaynst them to the Apostle They refused perhaps not in playne words but in lending the deafe eare to the complaynings and securely neglecting the meanes of theyr healthie state Howsoeuer it was in such sort it seemes to be as that they that infourmed it to Paule had no hope else to get remedie But if one should graunt it onely a negligence in the meane tyme the forwardest and soundest brethren must eyther still communicate with him whome they would remoue or else forsake the assemblyes and so I haue you agayne at the same poynt you were at before Thus you see what extremities error bringeth you into when it is traced out to the end If you take the comparing of the wicked with leauen to be in quantitie that is that the Apostle should vnderstand the wicked to haue as thorow power and force to make wicked a whole Church being suffered amongst them as hath leauen to make sowre a whole masse of meale in which it lyeth then was the Corinthian Church now leauened throughout and consequently become no Church of God when Paule wrote his first Epistle 32 Of all the other cauils of your leader at my answere to the comparison of leauen because as it seemeth you are little capable of them and they are easily iudged by all that haue some giftes of learning both as concerning my speeche wherein he hunteth for contrarietie and also my Logick which he told you would not fadge I aunswere heere no further but freely giue it vp to the verdict of the godly learned If your leader haue any thing empaired it or gotten therein at my handes by his worthy Reply let hym enioy it for hys gayne onely this I may tell you in secrete if hys teeth would serue hym no better for to eate his meate then his Logicke doth to discusse a question rightly you must feede him with spoone-meate or that which is minced if you meant to keepe him long aliue he may freely bid fye of all Logitians and no reproch to himselfe therein The rest of my answere he sayth is nothing but a tedious repetition of former matters But if you looke vpon it agayne you shall see among other things a playne demonstration of your schismaticall and therefore very dangerous estate Wherein for asmuch as he hath forsaken to defend you let it stirre you vp to the better and earlyer consideration of all his other dealings which if you shall do with humble calling vpon the name of the Lord I trust it will please him in mercie to reach you his hand of conduct to bring you out of that vast wildernesse wherein you haue lost your selues and make you to see those good things that concerne your stable peace euen in this Church though poore diseased and piteously neglected yet such as the Lord vouchsafeth to beget and nourish to himselfe many children by Depart from the foolish man when thou perceauest not in him the lips of knowledge Prouerbs 14 7. ¶ A Defence of the Admonition to the followers of Browne made in reply to a raging Libell of Brovvnes sent abroade in sundrie written copies against the same WHen I came to the knitting vp of my Confutation of Glouer Christian Reader I iudged it a labour much tending to the benefit of many to write some short admonition to his followers whereby his vnsoundnes being vrged againe vnto them by rehearsall and iustly aggreeued by the dangerous consequences their hearts might be pricked if it were possible to seeke and to embrace the way of truth againe In the entrie whereof I considered the originall of their euill estate to be deriued from a former fountaine vnto which also my labour of cleansing must descend if I would obtaine my desired fruites thereof It is not any new thing but of old obserued and witnessed vnto by the written word that the Lord in his righteous iudgement payeth sinne with sinne and euery degree of declining from his truth with some other deeper downefall vnto Apostacie Therefore when I beheld and perceiued all that I could
assumption His proposition carrying the force of a conuexiue falsely inferreth the feyning of a counterfait Christ and a counterfaite Church vpon the deniall of his power and authoritie to be of the essence of a Church For they do not thereby as hee beareth men in hand separate Christ and his Church from his power and gouernement Men of meane vnderstanding knowe that there are propper accidents to thinges which cannot be separated from them and yet are not of their essence For example heate cannot bee separated from the fire nor mouing from the sunne yet are neither of those properties any part of their essence nor doeth hee that saith heate is not of the essence of fire nor motion of the essence of the sunne deny therefore the fire to be hote or the sunne to haue his motion And concerning these offices in question touching which Browne so arrogantly challengeth M.C. to answere whether they be of the essence of the Church I would the reader should aske of him or his friends if he thinke it good whether the kingdome Priesthood of the sonne of God and man the word incarnate be partes of his essence or accidentes vnto him rather and so whether hee that shall say they are not of his essence doeth thereby dispoyle him of his offices I feare not vnlesse you take him in some desperate fit hee will answere no. Why then if a thing may truely be remoued from the essence and neuerthelesse necessarily admitted in the Subiect howe followeth it that they that deny the kingly power or authoritie of Christ to bee of the essence of a Church doe there-fore make or feyne a Church that is without it This being voyded let vs nowe trye whether Christs power authoritie and office of gouerning bee of the very essence of a Church as hee woulde haue it This shall we soundly try out by examining by the word of God what are the essentiall causes of that which is truly may be called the Church of God And first for the matter of a Church I suppose it will-be readily yeelded vnto to bee Christ the head corner stone and Christians who are as liuely stones to bee builded vppon him to a spirituall house For so the Apostles Peter Paul playnely declared according to which proportion hee is likewise called the head and we that beleeue in him the members as Saint Paul sayth that vnder the feete of Christ God hath subiected all thinges and hath appoynted him ouer all thinges to bee the head to the Church which is his body euen the fulnesse of him that filleth all in all thinges To the same end Christ compared him-selfe to a vine and those that beleeue in him to the braunches of the vine Like whereunto is that of the Oliue and the braunches grafted therein as Saint Paul deliuereth it The matter of a Church wee haue Let vs nowe see what may be the fourme Neither will it bee hard to find that if wee consider that the setting together of prepared stones maketh the building the vniting of the head with the members fourmeth the body and the continuance together of the stocke with the braunches giueth the being of a tree For so is it likewise agreeable to all reason that the vniting and knitting together of Christ and Christians bee graunted the formall cause of a Church Nowe this vnition is by two meanes the one eternall the other seruing but for this life The eternall vnition is by the holy Ghost whereby we are flesh of his flesh bone of his bones and made finally complete and perfect in one God through that one and only mediator betweene God and man Iesus Christ This is peculiar and proper to the Catholique Church which is the whole company of the elect of God and doth not pertaine to the members of a particular Church as they are only considered members of any particular Church but as they are also in that regard members of the Catholique The tēporal vnition which as I sayd serueth for this life is by faith which shall cease in the day of the reuelation of the Saincts of God when we shall be possessed of the full fruition of all those things we hoped for as the holie word doth testifie for mortalitie shall be swallowed vp of life perswasion of possession and faith of the fulnesse of the spirit and perfect being in God through Christ Meane time faith is as the engrafting of the braunches into the stock whereby they are vpholden whilest that by the sappe and spirit of life proceeding therefrom they be growne and established And as the braunch to be ingrafted needeth those his enwrappings and bindings to support and defend it against sundrie inconueniences till it be able to be without them and afterward they are of no vse vnto it so doth faith support and desend the tender conscience against all the stormes of temptations till there be that perfect growth in Christ that is vtterly freed from them at which time in like sort faith doth cease But heere withall thys faith must be vnderstood to admit a twofold consideration the one in respect of Gods the other in respect of mans beholding and iudging thereof In regard of God that onely is acknowledged which is vnfeigned and sealed vp with his holie spirit of promise But in regard of man a feigned faith may also stand in the reckoning sith man cannot iudge of the heart but must therfore accept rest in the sound confession of the mouth and so according to this latter consideration hath the Reader the right vnderstanding of faith in this question concerning the fourming of visible Churches for man to discerne of ioyne with them Now that faith doth engraffe and vnite vs vnto Christ and so is the proper fourme of particular visible Churches I needed not at all stand heere to prooue if there were not in this man against whom I deale a iust suspition of fundamentall Apostacie heerein For if he had beene indeede perswaded thereof to this day we should neuer by him haue beene thus brought to the proofe of the being of our Church as now he hath prouoked vs. Therefore although this cause hath beene alreadie so handled by the worthie seruants of God against the common Aduersarye as that he whosoeuer at this day shall call it into question is more worthie the sharpest discipline then any disputation Yet for to stop importunate mouthes whatsoeuer and to make cleere to the world the confutation of Brownes false conclusion heere in hand it is requisite that after the large labour of others I also point at some profes for this purpose shewing that visible Churches in as much as they stand in the accompt of visible Churches are vnited vnto Christ by faith only First let all the planting of Churches thoroughout the story of the Actes be considered and see if the holy Ghost do not euery where testify this vniting vnto Christ