them are a thing whereof no trace is to be found in all Antiquitie As also the taxe of the Papall Chauncerie wherein the Absolutions for * Cap. de absolut oÌ„ibus Absolutio pro co qui interfecit patrem matrem gros 7 Absolut io pro eo qui falsificavit litteras Apostolicas grossos 15. Murther for Parricide Inceste Perjury are taxed at a certaine rate of money So many groats or so many Ducats for a man that hath killed his Father so much for him that hath lyen with his Mother A Roman Jesuit called Silvester Petra sancta wrote lately a Booke against me wherein he teaches us a thing which we knew not before He saith in the thirteenth Chapter that during the time of Advent and Lent the Pope permits not a man in Rome to passe the whole night in a bawdy house that would be thought 〈◊〉 violating of the holynesse of Lent Wherefore in those dayes of devotion it is onely permitted to passe the whole day and a part of the night in the Bawdy-house Can such Lawes be found in the Ancient Church Briefly it is a very new Religion and a heape of doctrines and Lawes unheard off in all Antiquitie expressly invented for gain and for the raising of the Popes Empire and building up that Monarchie which was not in the first ages of the Church And for to keepe the People in ignorance least they should discover these Mysteries For example Indulgences Privâ—â—â— Masses Masses and Sâ—ffrage◠〈…〉 dead are very lucrative 〈…〉 to the Pope and 〈…〉 Auriculâ—◠〈…〉 the 〈…〉 Conscienâ—◠〈…〉 jection 〈…〉 is not givâ—◠〈…〉 and satisâ—â—◠〈…〉 Monkes serve to fill up that Spirituall Treasure of the Pope whereof he carries the keyes distributing these satisfactions to the people by his Indulgences so lucrative and profitable to the Pope and his Clergie By Absolutions the Priests make themselves Judges of Soules and Judges in Gods cause In reserving to themselves and unto Kings the communion of the Cup they make themselves companions unto Kings and exalt themselves above the People By the single life of Bishops and other Clergie men the Pope keepes the Ecclesiasticall goods from being wasted and consumed and from being diverted and turned to the reliefe and enriching of the Children In painting God the Father dressed like a Pope they plant this opinion in the minde of the People that the Pope is like unto God and that God makes great account of the Pope since he borrowes his habit By Canonizing of Saints the Pope makes the People to worship his groomes and gives the title of Saint for a recompence of Services By the Sacrament of Penance the Pope and his Priests usurpe the power of imposing corporall and pecuniary punishments * Thus caused he Henry the second of England to be whipt by a troope of Monkes As is to be seene in Matth. Paris and in West monasteriensis so farre as to cause Kings to â—e whipt By the Service in the Latin â—ongue hee entertaines the People in â—gnorance and giving them his tongue planteth in the midst of them a marke of his Empire He gives them the Roman Language for to came and inure â—hem to the Roman Religion The Popes power to unthrone Kings makes him King of Kings and exalts him on an Empire above all the Greatnesse that is in the World Images which are called ignorant mens Books accustome the People to forget and be without the Scriptures which in those Countries where the inquisition raignes is a Booke altogether unknowne among the People By Transubstantiation Priests make Christ and have him in their owne power By Holy-dayes that the Pope ordaines he rules the Civill Government causing the Shops to be shut up and the Seates of Justice and of the Kings Counsell to cease When the Merchants shop shutteth the Clergie-mens shop openeth For then doe the People goe to gaine Pardons as they tearme it and visit Reliques and alwayes the Bason is by By the distinction of meates and fasting dayes the Pope rules the Markets and bellies and Kitchins and Kings and Peoples tables And the more prohibitions there is the oftner come they to the Pope and to the Prelates for to have dispensations The Pope hath made of Matrimonie a Sacrament that he might take away from the civill Magistrates and Judges Secular the right of judging of such causes for it belongs to the Church to judge of Sacraments By Dispensations in degrees of consanguinity which in the Word of God hinders the Marriage the Pope maketh that the Children of Princes for such dispensations are given but to Great ones are obliged to defend the Popes Authority if they will be held for legitimate By Annates or first fruites of Benefices and the sale of Archiepiscopall Cloakes the Pope makes an incredible gaine And there is such a Cloake for which he drawes above threescore thousand Ducats By the power which the Pope assumes to himselfe to change the Commandements of God and to dispense of Vowes and Oathes made unto God he exalts himselfe above God For hee that can free and exempt men from obeying God and being faithfull to him must be greater than God The Invocation of Saints the Adoration of Reliques and the Miracles which are said to be wrought at those Reliques serve to build up many Churches Monasteries which are as so many props to the Papall Domination In sum all the subtilty and policy in the World hath been brought therein Never was there any Empire built with so much craft and cunning The doctrine which teacheth that Christ Jesus by his death hath delivered us from the guilt and punishment of sinnes before Baptisme but as for the sinnes committed after Baptisme that we must beare the punishment for them either in this life or in Purgatory hath clipped Christs benefice for to make place unto their traffick and for to give credit to their Indulgences and Masses for the dead In a word they make profit of all Death it selfe is tributary to the Roman Clergie CHAP. XXIII Answer to the Question made unto us by our Adversaries Where was your Religion before Calvin THis demand which every foot is made unto us by our Adversaries viz. Shew us where your Religion was before Calvin is altogether injust and deceitful For to keepe us from examining the Roman Religion by the holy Scripture they amuse us with humane Histories For this is not a question of Divinity but of History wherein God hath not commanded us to be learned and skilfull that wee may bee saved But hath commanded us to be instructed in his Word At the day of judgement God shall not aske us whether we have beleeved as they did beleeve before Calvin but Saint Paul tels us that God shall judge us according to his Gospell and that men shall be judged by the Law of God Rom. 2.12 16 That if for to be saved it were necessary to know the History of the ages before Calvin mounting upwards
from Calvin to the Apostles time hardlie one Christian of a thousand could be saved That if the question be touching Histories it is certaine we must begin by the Ancientest and that it belongs to our Adversaries to shew where their Religion was in the time of the Apostles afore they speake of the time before Calvin There they are at a stand and driven to a non-plus and not being able to shew their Religion in the Apostles writings they send us back to an unwritten word which depends on the Popes Authority whom they make judge in his owne cause and make the Church of Rome the Soveraigne Judge of her owne proper duty The principall is that the Christian Church is subject to the Lawes and to the practice of the Church of the Apostles time and not to the example of what was done before Calvin Of whom they speake as of the Inventer of our Religion because he exhorted us to beleeve the holy Scriptures For Calvin gave us not any Lawes We speake not of him in our Sermons we ground not our selves upon his authority we doe not say of him what the Church of Rome saith of the Pope to wit that he could not erre We doe not call our selves Calvinists as our Adversaries acknowledge themselves to be Papists and make glory of that title as * Certe nullo sublimiori gloriae titulo exornare nec certius eos esse Catholicos demonstrare potuissent quà m eos nuncupare Romanos atque Papistas Cardinall Baronius doth in his Martyrologie at the 16 of October where he saith that a man cannot be adorned with a higher degree of glory than to bee called a Papist So that after his account the title of Papist is of as much worth as the name of a Christian This demand is so much the more absurd as it is made unto us For when they aske of us where our Religion was before Calvin they presuppose that the Orthodoxe Church ought to be visible in all ages Which the Scripture saith not but foretels us of great revolts and false Doctors that shall teach men to abstaine from Marriage and from meates which God hath created for to be received with thanksgiving 1. Timoth. 4.3 It foretels us that all the Earth ravished in admiration shall goe after the Beast Revel 13 3. and that when Christ shall come hardly shall he find faith on the earth Luke 18.8 2. Thes 2. Revel 17. It tells us of the Sonne of perdition that shall bee called God and shall doe wonders and of the great harlot cloathed with scarlet who sitteth in the Citty with seaven hills that raigneth over the Kings of the earth which seduceth Kings and makes them drunke and is made drunke with the blood of the Saints and Faithfull It tells us in the twelfth of the Revelation that wings are given to the Church for to flie into the Wildernesse and live there hidden for a time It warnes us that the broad way where the throng of Peoples passeth leadeth into perdition Which things afford us another consideration That is if a Cut-purse asketh him whom hee hath robbed of his purse Where is thy Purse This theefe addeth scoffing and derision to his theft So the Pope who since so many ages hath persecuted to the uttermost the Church of God and endeavoured to abolish it addeth to this violence this derision and scoffing when he asketh Where was your Religion at that time For it were rather his part to informe us where hee had put her himselfe and to what passe he had reduced her In the meane while though we are not bound to answer to such an absurd and injust a demand and which doth not at all concerne Religion and being propounded by men whose Religion is new and that have swerved from the Ancient Christian Religion and who even say that the Pope may add unto the Creed new Articles of Faith Yet we say that it is foure or five hundred years agoe since the Pope persecuteth with fire and sword the Faithfull ones whereof there was a great number in France in the Low countries England Germany Bohemia and Hungaria to whom our Adversaries gave odious nicknames calling them Valdenses Albigenses Sodomites Picards c. And fathering upon them many impious and abhominable doctrines fâ—rre from their beleife Of whom were Massacred in few months by one Domiâ—ick Author of the Order of the Jacobins above two hundred thousand in Languedoe and Gasconie in Pope Innocent the third his time Of these faithfull people we have the Confession agreeable to ours written in their owne Language a residue of which People remaines still in Bohemia Hungaria Moravia and in the Valleys of Angrogne Luzerne Peruse Saint Martin Pragela Merindoles and Cabrieres which Churches have joyned themselves to ours so soone as it pleased God to display in France and the neighbouring Countries the Banner of his Gospell And the sudden alteration that hapned in Luthers time shewed that Europe was full of People that knew the truth and groaned after a Reformation which the Pope promised alwayes but would never suffer it to come to execution And for to specifie some thing touching the age immediatly before Calvin Aeneas Sylvius who in the yeare 1458. attained to the Popedome was a capital enemie to the faithfull of whom in his time Bohemia and Hungaria and the neighbouring Countries were full and was a firebrand of warre for to provoke the Emperours and Popes to persecute them Wherefore his testimony in this point is the more worthy of credit This man in his 130 Epistle describeth his journey to Tabor a City in Bohemia and the Religion of the Inhabitants and the Conferences he had with them Their sect saith he is pestilentious and abhominable and worthy of the uttermost punishment They will not admit the Church of Rome to have the Primacy nor that the Clergie should have any thing in propriety They pull downe the Images of God and of his Saints They deny Purgatory They hold that the Prayers of Saints which raigne with Christ availe nothing unto men They observe no holy day but the Lords day and Easter Contemne fasting and the Canonicall Prayers They give the Eucharist under the kindes of bread and wine even to little Children and to madde men When they consecrate the Sacrament they say nothing but the Lords Prayer and the words of Consecration They change no habits and take not any ornaments Yea some of them are so madde as to hold that the very body of Christ is not in the Sacrament of the Altar but that it is onely the representation thereof being wandring Sactators of Berengarius unconverted Among the Sacraments of the Church they admit the Baptisme and the Eucharist and Marriage and Orders But as for the Sacrament of Penance they make little account of it But of Confirmation and extreame Vnction they make no reckoning at all They are very opposite to the Religions of Monkes and affirme they be diabolicall
the substance of bread remaines still is possible neither is it contrary to reason nor to the authority of the Bible but is more easie to conceive and more reasonable And for this cause he is checked by Vasquez the Jesuite in the 3 Tome upon the 3 part of Thomas Disp 180. cap 5. And in that same place he saith that Durand followed the opinion of Scotus upon the 4. of the Sentences Disp 11. quest 2. Gabriel Biel in the 40 lesson upon the Canon of the Masse * Biel Lect. 40. Quomodo ibi sit Christi corpus an per conversionem aâ—icujus in ipsum an sine conversione incipiat esse corpus Christi cum pane manentibus substantia accidentibus panis non invenitur expressumin canone Bibliae How the body of Christ is there whether it be by conversion of â—â—me thing into it or whether without converâ—ion Christs body beginnes to be there with the bread the substance and the accidents remaining it is not expressed in the Canon of the Bible And even there That hath beene proved by the authority of the Church and of the Saints for that cannot be proved by reason The same * Sed cur hunc intellectum difficilem Sancti dicere Ecclesia determinarre elegerunt cum scripturae possint exponi salvari secundum intellectum facilem de hoc articulo in the 41 lesson asketh Why the Saints and the Church have chosen to say and determine that that should be understood in so difficult a manner seeing the Scriptures may be expounded and kept in their soundnesse in a manner easie to be understood To this he answereth that the Church hath determined it so meaning by the Church not the Syrian nor the Greeke or Ethiopian but the Roman Church onely Salmeron the Jesuite in the thirteenth Treatise of the ninth Tome expounding these words This is my body speaketh thus b § Secunda Prosectò illis verbis nequaquam conversio significatur ex vi verborum Alià s qui diceret Hoc est corpus meum demonstrando suum corpus significaret conversionem alicujus rei in suum corpus Certainely these words doe not signifie that any conversion be made by the force of the words Otherwise he that should say this is my body in shewing his owne body would signifie that some thing is converted into his body And he insistes very much upon this that these words This is my body are declarative or significative of the thing which is and not effective of that which is not Wherefore the same Jesuite in thâ— same Treatise * Inno. 3. â—ib 4. de Myster Missa cap. 6. Sane dicâ— potesi quod Christus vâ—rtute divina confeâ—â—t poslâ—â— forma expressit c. Et cap. 17. Ab hajus quaestonis laqueo saeâ—le se absolvit qui dâ—cit quod Chrâ—stus tunc conscit cum hened câ—t joynes himselfe to thâ— opinion of Pope Innocent the third a who in the fourth booke of the Mysteries of the Masse Chapters 6. and 17 teacheth that Christ made not the conversion of the bread by these words Hâ—est corpus meum but by his divine power and by the blessing that had preceded For he will have the pronouncing of these words to have another vertue at this day in the mouthes of Priests than they had in the mouth of Christ Which opinion of Innocent the third is followed by Innocent the fourth his Successor and by multitudes of Doctors which Salmeron produceth * § Porio pag. 82. in the same Treatise It is credible that these Popes and Doctors were moved to teach that Christ did not consecrate by these words This is my body but by the prayer 〈◊〉 blessing he made before because the Fathers say the same and that such was the beleefe of the ancient Church Justin Martyr b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calleth that which wee receive in the Eucharist a foode consecrated by the prayer of the Word that is to say Christ Saint Austin in the third booke of the Trinity Chapter 4. speaking of that which we receive in the Sacrament saith that it is taken of the fruits of the earth prece mystica consecratum and is consecrated by the mysticall prayer | 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origen in his eight booke against Celsus * We eate loaves of bread which by the prayer are made one bodie which is some holy thing Ireneus in his fourth Booke Chapter 34. * Qui est à terra panis percip â—is vocationem Deâ— jam non est panis communâ—s sed Eucharisiâ—a The bread receiving the invocation of God is no more common bread but Eucharist Basil in the first booke of the holy Ghost 27 Chapter calleth the words of consecration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the words of invocation Isido us in the sixth booke of Origines in the Chapter de Officijâ— * Sâ—â—â—â—ficâ—ii diâ—tum quasi sacrii saâ—â—â—m quâ—â— ece mâ—sti a consecratur in meâ—â—â—â—â—â—m pro 〈◊〉 is domâ—nuae passion v. The Sacrifice is so called as if one should say a sacred deede because it is consecrated by the mysticall prayer in remembrance of the Passion which the Lord sâ—ffeced for us Yet at this day the Greek Churches consecrate by the prayer as Bellarmin acknowledgeth in the fourth Booke of the Eucharist Chapter * § Habemus 12. See the Canon Corpus in the second distinction of the consecration By this it is as cleare as the light that the Ancient Fathers did not beleeve that by these words This is my body any conversion of the bread was made CHAP. XV. Of the Adoration of the Sacrament The opinion of the Roman Church THe Roman Church having deified the Sacrament hath consequently obliged her selfe to worship it with the highest adoration which is due to God alone By this meanes a wafer of bread hath taken Gods place and is called God and is worshipped as God They speake of lifting up God in the Masse and of Gods feast viz Corpus Christâ— day and of carrying God to a sickâ— body Phrases that are not to bee found in the holy Scriptures and unheard off in the Ancient Christian Church The Councell of Trent in the thirteenth Session Chapter 5. speaketh thuâ— There remaines no doubt but that all faithfull Christian people ought to give the worship of Lâ—tria nullus dubu andi locus relinquitur quâ—n omnes Christi sideles latriae cultum qui vero Deo debetur huic sanctissimo Sacramento in veneratione adhibeant which is due to the true God to this holy Sacrament in the veneration Now by this word Sacrament they understand the body of Christ with the species or accidents For by this word Sacrament our Adversaries never understand Christ Jesus out of the species This Councell then ordaineth that the species of the bread and wine shall be worshiped with soveraigne adoration The practise doth verifie what I say For the people worshipping the consecrated hoste