interest and makes it his profession to advance his ovvne and other mens interest by cheating Policy or foolish knavery then you had done a deed of Christian Charity by teaching me this lesson of your Stoical Philosophy CHAP. I. My first and second reason defended against the Doctors objections 1. TO the first argument deduced from the authority of our Catholique Doctors charging in their printed bookes your first superintendents vvith vvant of Episcopal consecration some five or six yeares after you pretend it vvas so solemnly performed at Lambeth you give no other ansvver Pag. 167. but that you regard not their judgment and authority beause they give no cause or reason of their Knovvledge Ipray Mr. Doctor vvhat greater cause of Knovvledge can ther be of the not being of a visible and publicque solemnity then the not being seene or heard of by knovving parsons vvho made it their busines to inquire after it in the very same time and place vvherin its pretended to have bin acted To say that D. Harding Stapleton Bristovv Reynolds and others should object in print against your protestant Bishops vvant of ordination vvithout inquiring and examining vvhether they vvere ordained or no is in equivalent termes to call them fooles and Knaves Pag. 207. hovvever averse you pretend to be from so unmanerly language your attributing the obiections of these great Doctors to credulity and preiudice doth rather increase then diminish the jury for you ought to knovv that credulity contradicted by publique and obvious evidence is of the grosser sort of foolery and prejudice that makes men slight such evidence is the most malicious knavery neither of both can be layd to the charge of so learned and honest persons as the foresaid Doctors who would never presse Parker and his fellovves to shevv the register and hovv and by vvhom they received Episcopal Orders if there had bin in those days as publique and authentique registers as now yee pretend 2. To this you say that none of our Doctors did ever vrge any such thing as required that yee should cite the registers in prudence And that the â—…re vvas no pressing to produce Registers What theÌ„ Doe not men in à suite of lavv produce what is for their manifest advantage of their ovvne accord I am sure you bring many things you thinke advantagious which neyther any person nor reason pressed you to doe But that they were pressed immediately after you may learne out of D. Harding We say likvvise to you M. r Ievvel Confut. apol fol. 57. 59. edit an 1566. and to each of your companions shevv vs the register of your Bishops c. Shevv vs the letters of your orders But order you have not for vvho could give that to you of all these nevv Ministers hovv soever else you call them vvhich he hath not himselfe Yet I must confesse it vvas prudence in your first Bishops not to cite the registers though D. Harding called for them because it was better by their silence to acknowledge the want of registers then to prove themselves impostors by producing them in a time wherin their forgery had bin discovered by thousands of witnesses incase they were forged then and not afterwards when ordination was growne into more credit And as I commend the prudent silence of your first Bishops so I must condemne your silly answer in averring that the registers or records vvere cited in print Pag. 112. and alleaged by the Parliament in the publique lavves of the Kingdome of which our Doctors that desired to see some evidence of Parkers consecration could pleade no ignorance wheras it is notorious that the act of Parliament 8. Eliz. which as yow pretend but without any grovvnd as shall be proved here after makes mention of the records of Parkers consecration at Lambeth vvas made at least à yeare after your Register was called for and our Doctors had objected to your Bishops the nullity and illegality of their ordination and the booke of the 70. Archbishops of Canterbury was printed 1572. seven yeares after that D. Harding had called for the same Register and Letters of their Orders Though he was a wise man I hope he might pleade ignorance of what then vvas not as much as thought of vvhen he vvrit nor indeed ever after by any but your selfe vvho confounds the records of Kings and Queens letters patents vvith the registers of the Archbishops of Canterbury 3. Another reason against the pretended consecration of your first protestant superintendents vvas the contradictions of your ovvne Authors vpon this subject disagreeing in the persons of the consecraters and in the time of their consecrations These contradictions you call innocent mistakes and thinke to excuse them by the retractation of the Authors who desired that they might be corrected by Mr. Masons newfound registers Pag. 176.177 178. which you compare to the sun diall wherby all clockes and Clerks must be regulated when the sun shineth out It seemes Mr Doctor that the sun never shined vpon your church vntill Mr Masons tecords were printed for if it had Mr Goduin Mr Sutcliffe and Mr Butler three of the most famous Clerks amongst you infallibly vvould have consulted the sundial and their judgements and bookes concerning your consecrations had not bin so different How comes this sun to be more then fifty yeares vnder a cloud if it vvas not that your new registers might participate in some measure of the ould invisibility of your Church Doe yow imagine that learned and sober men would venture to write and publish to the world a matter of such importance as the consecration of your first Bishops vvithout consulting the registers therof if any such had bin exstant or visible when they vndertooke the worke were they paradventure ignorant of the place where this sun did shine Or were they negligent in setting their clocks to it Nheiter can be presumed of so eminent persons as you make them But your comparison of Masons records to the sun or sundial is very improper for if the suns motion were as irregular as those registers are incoherent the sun would be as unfit for a measure of time as those are for a proofe of truth But if one should mistake for the sun à false Meteor called a Parhelion and set his clock by the light of a cloud he would guide the towne as you do your Church and men of understandingh would be as litle regulated by such a dial or clock as Fitzherbert was perswaded by Masons registers at their first appearance who suspected them of forgery by the latenesse of their discovry as you may see in his booke of D. Andrevvs absurdities falsities lyes c. 4. Pag. 158. But yovv regard not Mr Fitzherherts suspicions at all What are the suspicions of a private stanger to the vvel knovvn credit of a publique register If you Mr Doctor had not bin a stranger to such pious and learned bookes as Policy and Religion and
by the late K. Henry and K. Edward her Majesties father and brother in their like letters â—atents made for such causes but also hath vsed â—nd put in her Majesties said letters patents divers â—â—her general vvords and sentences wherby her H. â—y her supreme power and authority hath dispenâ—ed vvith all causes or doubts of any imperfection â—r disability that can or may in any vvise be objeâ—ted against the same as by her Majesties said letters â—atents remaining of record more plainly vvill apcare So that to all those that vvill vvell consider of the effect and true intent of the said lavves and â—â—atutes and of the supreme and absolute authoriâ—â— of the Queens Highnes and vvhich shee by her Majesties said letters patents hath vsed and put in â—â—e in and about the making and consecrating of the sayd Archbishops and Bishops it is and â—ay be very evident D. Pag. 122. Bramhall cites these last words vvithout mentioning the former of which their sense depends and apparent that 〈◊〉 cause of scruple ambiguity or doubt can or â—ay justly be objected against the said elections confirmations or consecrations or any other materiaâ— thing meete to be vsed or had in or about the same but that every thing requisite and material for that purpose that is the Queens letters patents and ample dispensation vnder the great seale of England hath bin made and donne as precisely and vvith as greate a care and diligence or rather more as ever the like vvas done before her Majesties tyme as the Records of her Majesties sayd Father and brothers tyme and also of her ovvne time vvill more plainly testify and declare This is a clause indeed that taketh a vvay all ocasion of Protestant scruples and doubts not only of the invalidity but also of the illegality of your ordination at the Nagshead 10. Yet because you vvould needs have the ordination performed at Lambeth you maintaine that these last words the Records of her Majesties sayd Fathers and Brothers time and also of her owne time will more plainely testify and declare relate to your forged Registers And to make good your assertion you falsify the text egregiously for you say the statute speaketh expressely of the Records of elections and confirmations Pag. 115. and consecrations and this you put in a distinct caracter as if they had bin words of the very statute It s strange that where you lay to my charge falsifying of the text your selfe should commit the crime so notoriously In all the statute you can not find any such words Records of elections and confirmations and Consecrations but you will find expressely these words as by her Majesties sayd letters patents remaining of record more plainly will appeare If that Glosse is accursed which corrupteth and coÌ„tradicteth the text vvhat shall wee say of yours Read with attention the text and you will be convinced that the Records of her Majesties said Father and Brothers time and also of her owne time relate not to any Records or Registers of the Archbishop of Canterbury nor to the Records of elections confirmations and consecrations but to the Records of the Kings and Queenes letters patents for the statute sayth that every thing requisite and material for the taking away all causes of scruples doubts and ambiguities that might be objected against the sayd elections and consecrations and confirmations or any other material thing meete to be vsed or had in or about the same had bin made and done as precisely or rather more then ever before her Majesties time as by the Records of her Majesties said Father and Brothers time and also of her ovvne vvill more plainely appeare The words or rather more precisely and with more care and diligence can not relate to Parker and his Camerades consecration though we should grant it was performed at Lambeth with a read cloth on the floore and tapestry on the east side for I hope in Catholique times they were as precise diligent and decent in consecrations as in Q Elizabeths though they vsed not a read cloth vpon à Sunday of Advent as your Register sayes yee did vpon the 17. of December 1559. especialy CHAP. III. The Protestants Consecration at Lambeth is proved to be a fable and their Register to be forged by their falsifications of Scripture and by the 25. of their 39. articles and D. Bramhals arguments to maintaine the contrary are retorted against himselfe 1 NOt withstanding all this the Doctor sayes it is incredible that the Registers of the first Protestant Bishops consecration should be forged Pag. 106. And why so M Doctor Is it incredible that they who falsify Scripture should forge Records And hovv notoriously your first Bishops have falsified Scripture is demonstrated by D. Gregory Martin in a learned booke intituled A Discovery of the manifold corruptions Pag. 201. c. You give fovver ansvvers to this argument 1. you desire good words And I desire a better ansvver 2. That Gregory Martin is an adversary vvhose censure you do not esteeme a button I desire you once more M. Doctor to answer and speake to the purpose Though you do not weigh D. Martins censure ansvver his reasons and the examples he brings confute his booke and demonstrations Your third ansvver is I hope none of vs did ever attempt to purge S. Paules Epistles because there were in them some things that sounded not well in point of justification I vnderstand not to what or to whom do you allude by this answer But I am sure your Proto-Patriarche Luther to make good his justification by faith alone in his Dutch translation inserted the word alone into the very text against all originals or copies or versions that ever had bin seene before Fourthly you answer Rather then be accounted falsifiers of Scripture vve are content to stand to the vulgar Latin in any controversy betvveen them and vs. Is this to solve an argument Are your Protestant readers satisfied with such stuffe stay sir I must in the name of convincing logique arrest your shifting Rhethorique This was the argument Those that have grossely falsified Scripture may easily be presumed to have falsified records especially when the records vpon other circumstances are deepely suspected but the first hath bin the frequent vse of Euglish Protestant Ministers ergo you should have proved at least in som general termes that your English translations were not corrupted you should have called them innocent mistakes or Erratas of the print as Dover for Bedford which you thought sufficient to serve your turn at least in another occasioÌ„ If one were accused aÌ„d pressed by sundry proofes to have killed his Brother and it should be further vrged that notwithstanding the crime was enormous and not easily to be beleeved in other persons yet in him it might justly be presumed by reason of the knowne publique evidences whereby he had bin plainely convicted to have killed his father Must this be slipt over Would this availe nothing Can the
even as he desired After this Deaconship he was imediately without any orders made Prebend and Preacher of S. Paules having never studied but one yeare and all his life before having bin a serving man to Sr. John Harington Doe you imagine M. Doctor that Barlowes Consecrater would not be as indulgent to him as Ridley was to Bradford Or do you thinke that Ridley vvould not venture as farre for his owne conscience when he vvas to be consecrated as he did for that of his Deacon There vvas no such rigour or danger of Premunires in those dayes as you endeavor to perswade your Reader neither Henry the 8. nor his Vicar General Cromvvel nor Archbishop Cranmer nor sir Thomas Audley a Lutheran and Chancelor after Sir Thomas More did thinke it vvas for their purpose to presse any other ordination or Consecration vpon tender consciences but baptisme because by this principle the King had some colour for his spiritual headship and for the temporalities of the Church and the three others by dissembling and suspending the rigour of the lavves vvith a pretense of enriching the King countenanced and planted their owne errours in the Kingdome 8. What wonder is it therfore if the consecration of Protestant Bishops should not appeare in any Register but yours and Barlovvs in none at all seing it was against their principles and practise to be consecrated But your invisible Register hath a property of making visible what never had a being Pag. 185. Yet by the helpe of those Records vvhich are in the Court of faculties I should not despaire sayth the Doctor of finding Barlovves consecration I must confesse my ignorance of your Court of faculties but like wise acknowledge my experience of the faculties of your Court and Church in finding things never thought of by any but your selves But where trow you doth the Doctor hope to find out Barlovvs consecration I am confirmed Pag. 191. saith he in my former conjecture that he vvas consecrated in Wales which Bishop Goodvin had much more reason to knovv exactly then we have Yet Bishop Geadvin speaking of Barlovv in three sundry places viz as Bishops of S. Davids Bath and Welles Chishester sayes not a word of his cōsecrationin any of them for of his being B. of S. Asaph there is no mention in the English edition much lesse of his being consecrated there though you tell vs that in his Latin edition printed at London 1616. are these vvords he vvas consecrated 22. Feb. 1535. From whence came this new knowledge It is à preparation and disposition for a further forgery Without doubt the next edition wil say he was consecrated at S. Davids or S. Asaph in Wales and that indeed may confirme your conjecture of the place and my evidence of your Clergies practise of forging Registers But why you should hope or conjecture that Barlows consecration after the effluxion of a hundred yeares may be found in Wales I vnderstand not if it be not that you are resolved to imitate the example of meane upstarts who insert their families into welch pedigrees So yee it seemes intend to furnish your upstart Church and Clergies want of Ordination with welch Registers as in an other occasion you indeavored to prove your independency of Rome by a welch proverb You are pleased to say but without any proofe that Barlows leases made in the sees of S. Davids Bath and Wels were never questioned We deny it And prove our denial by the example of Ridley who being as much à Bishop in Henry the 8. time as Barlow begged as a favor before his death of Q. Mary that the leases made by him in the see of London might stand good This you may reade in your owne John Fox where he relates Ridleys martyr dome What greater right I pray could Barlow pretend for the vaildity of his leases then his brother Ridley both of them being pretēded Bishops of Henry the 8. time You are very unfortunate in all your arguments unlesse your intention be prevarication of your cause to make your selfe more looked after upon the title of deriving your Episcopacy from the line of Irish Prelacy which thoug I can not say it had its beginning in a Taverne as the English had yet it wanted as much in the substance Had there bin true Bishops in Ireland who could have bin brouglt to lay hands on the new Superintendents the Queene might have saved her labour and credit of giving such enormous dispēsations as never were heard of Besides I must aske you a question in your eare Were you Mr. Doctor made Priest in Ireland you find an occasion to thrust in your being Bishoped in Ireland but I can not find you speake of the other and you know that no Priest no Bishop But although you were if matters litle for your Irish descent is no better then the English nor any reason hitherto hath bin produced to make it better CHAP. VII D. Bramhalls ten reasons against the Nagshead story refuted and retorted against Masons Records and the fable of the first Protestant Bishops Consecration at Lambeth 1. WE are come at length to the Nags-head M. Doctor the place of your florishes and triumphs against this very true story you produce ten reasons to make it incredible which I will not only refute but retort against your Records and feigned Consecration at Lambeth Your first reason against the Nagshead story Pag. 31. Is taken from the palpable contradictions of the Catholique Writers who have related this tale of a tub Pag. 32. Let us heare these palpable contradictions The common opinion is that Scory a lone did consecrate them But M. Constable See Chāpney edit Lat. 1618. pag. 502. one of their principal Authors supposeth thus you English me latet that Barlow might joyne with him in that and Sanders leaveth it doubtfull Pag. 33. when or where or by whom they were ordeined You must have learned a peevish wrangling logique that makes you fall vpon another as contradicting you when you affirming the thing to be so he doth not say no but onely me latet I doe not know But you say that M. Wadsworth only doth affirme that there was an attempt to consecrate Parker All others writers say the same There was no more then an attempt that Landaffe should consecrate Parker I hope you do not imagine that we take Scoryes ridiculous ceremony vvith Parker and the rest to be an episcopal consecration it vvas no more then an absurd attempt Here is another contradiction of people that say the same thing in different words 2. Seing these contradictions are so farre from being palpable that they are not intelligible the Doctor brings others Other say Pag. 34. there was more then an attempt but they name none Others name some but they accord not one with an other in naming them Some say I ewel Sands Horne c. Others say Parker Grindall c. Lastly others say they were all ordeined
translateth in to English that very text of Azor. which himself citeth in the margen The words in latin are Si venit ex loco aliquo peste minimè infecto qui falsò habetur pro infecto Which Morton turnes thus into English if he com from a place infected But truely translated make the case wholy different and are these if he came from a place not infected which falsely is held to be infected But he is not only content to be convicted of vnexcusable falsehood by men that study moralists but even by schoolboys that read Tullies offices in his 90. page he doth so grossely pervert the sense change the words and distroy the whole drift of Tullies discourse l. 3. offic § Regulus and § sed si that it is a wonder to see what impudensy growes from a custom of lying These are but a few examples of the many detected by the aforesaid Treatise of Mitigation and an other called A quiet and sober reckoning with Thomas Morton by the reading wherof and conferring each particular with the bookes cited every one may in a short time and no great trouble judge by his eyes whether I have reason to except against such a witnes in his owne cause and what reason there is to follow so wilfully and wickedly blind leaders But I cannot but wonder at one circumstance that after Morton had gained reputation by this practise he was promoted to the title and profits of a Bishopricke purchasing by a new kind of fimony not with buying but with lyeing a rich benefice I Bellarmin or Perron could have bin convicted of this false and base proceeding either before or after their Cardinals caps what a noyse would have bin when we heare such a clamour vpon that which is not proved but only pretended to be a credulous mistake Yet when I consider John Foxes Acts and Monuments the very Magazin of no lesse malicious then ridiculous lies to have got so honorable a place in Protestant Churches and that not by vulgar simplicity but by publick authority not by connivence or negligence but vpon designe and by command when I see this abomination hath stood so long in the holy place I wonder no more at Mortons promotion nor at whole Nations deceaved by Mahomets Alcoran If I should insist vpon the number of those that by commaund or concurrence are guilty of the falsehood of Foxes booke I should accuse many more then I am by this present occasion obliged but the Ministers I cannot excuse vpon any title for although they be of meane learning and no extraordinary reading yet the falsities are so numerous and obvious that it is impossible but many should have fallen under the observation of most And by the booke of the three Conversions of England and the Examen of Foxes Calender which have bin printed almost threescore yeares since and have come to the hands of many Protestant Ministers this Foxes fowle worke hath bin so plainly discovered that those who have seen it if they had least zeale or love or care of truth ought to have informed their Brethren and not to have permitted any Christian Religion to be longer prophaned with so publick a slaunder and shame of Christianity Should a renegate Captive tell his maister that the sect amongst Christians which he had bin taught was maintained by such false and shamfull practises he would easily gaine Credit of a true Proselite turned Turke vpon conscience and not convenience I need not set downe Foxes impostures for you shall see them in the forsaid bookes so grosse and thick set one by another that it will be harder to make a way through them then find the way to them I will passe my word the Author does him no wrong and the reader vpon his owne examination will take my word in an other occasion But to returne to Morton now with a white Rochet on his backe but with as little ingenuity and candour of mind as before The imposition of those unhallowed hands hath not imprinted the least marke of grace in his soule or shame in his forehead In the grand imposture writ by him then B. of Cov. and Lichf pag. 85. edit 2. he sets doune a large and lying description of the Inquisitions cruelty and addes So your Authour And who do you thinke is this Author but Cornellius Agrippa a Magitian as himself confesseth of himselfe And where doth he write what heer is alleaged against vs In a booke condemned by our Church Not a word of these circumstances but only that he is our Author to make the Reader believe he is one we have no reason to except against You had better take him to your selfe for his blacke art is of the same colour with yours and taught by one maister who esteems you the better scholler having done more mischiefe with your false jugling then Agrippa with his conjuring Now pag. 388. the same jugling trick over againe Marke the ensuing words Els why is it that your owne Thuanus speaking of this separation Viz of Luther sayd that some in those days layd the fault vpon the Pope Leo More fully your Cassander an Author selected in those days by the King of the Romans as the chiefest divine of his And pag. 385. He cals Thuanus our noble Historian Who knows nothing of Thuanus but by this mans relation would take him to be not only a sound unsusspected Catholique but of special regard amongst vs wheras both our common opinion and his owne Annals prove him a Hugonot But besides falsely reporting him for a Catholic he is plainly falsified in these very places alleaged In the first he speaks not of Luthers separation but of the election of Prelats in France and in the 2. where he speaks of benefices Morton makes him speake of Indulgences in both places evidently against his cleere words which read as they stand in Thuanus have not the least shadow of ambiguity But the makeing Cassander ours and our chiefest Devine being listed in our Index of forfidden bookes amongst the Heretiques of the first ranke and his owne writings accusing him not only of the general heresies of these times but of others also particular to himself is not only a shamles but senseles imposture It is a labour too loathsom to dig any longer in this filthy dunghil of corruptions And it is a madnes in any man that already knowes Morton by his notoriously impudent lying bookes or before he take knowledge of him vpon this admonition to give the lest credit to any thing he shal say write signe or sweare concerning Religion as being convicted by his owne writings to have lost all remorse of conscience all feare of reproach from men or punishment from God Did he believe there is a God who hath prepared a Hel of torments for those who maintaine a division in the Church by so many wilfull impostures and seriously intended to prevent the scourge of his heavy hand could he stand gazing vpon his grave at