what they say or avouch so they say somewhat against Rome and those that any way favoured the same wherein passion doth so greatly blind them as they cannot discern when they alledge matters plainly against themselves as you have seen in the former enumeration of British Teachers Pastors and Prelates whom they would have us think to have been of a different Religion from that of Rome whereas their own words testimonies condition and state of life do testifie the contrary And so I leave these men to their folly and impudency in this behalf CHAP. XI The Deduction of the aforesaid Catholic Roman Religion planted in England by St. Augustin from his time to our days And that from King Ethelbert who first received the same unto King Henry VIII there was never any public interruption of the said Religion in our Land. HAving shewed before how that the Roman Catholic Faith was first preached in our Island under the Apostles and then again in the next Age under Pope Eleutherius and thirdly four Ages after that again under Pope Gregory and that all this was but one and the self-same Religion continued renewed and revived in divers times under divers States and People of the Realm there may seem to remain only now two other points considerable in this affair The first Whether this Religion brought in by St. Augustin to England were held at that day for the only true Religion of Christendom and so accepted by all the World The other Whether that Religion then planted hath come down and been continued in England ever since by continual Succession until the first public alteration made thereof in our days For if this be so then is the demonstration easie to be made even from the Apostles Times to Ours 2. And for the first tho' we have handled the same somewhat before yet briefly we will add now That there can be no doubt at all in this matter with men of Reason and Judgment but that St. Augustin and his Fellows brought in with them the whole Body of Religion as well touching Articles of Belief as Ceremonies and Ecclesiastical Customs which were at that time in use at Rome whence they came and in other Catholic Countreys by which they passed namely Italy France and Flanders from which Countreys Pope Gregory himself exhorteth them by his Letters to take such good Ecclesiastical Uses as they should see most agreeable to Piety Edification and Devotion which is a sign that all those Countreys agreed fully in Faith and Belief with Rome at that day and were perfectly Catholic tho' in some external Ceremonies belonging to Devotion there might be difference And forasmuch as the French Bishops St. German St. Lupus and St. Severus 150 years as hath been said before the entrance of St. Augustin planted in Britanny the French Catholic Faith against the Pelagians and these men coming from Rome found no fault therewith most certain it is that all was one And finally if we do consider the Works Writings and Actions of Pope Gregory related by us before partly out of St. Isidore living at that time in Spain partly out of his own Epistles yet extant written to the chiefest Bishops of the Christian World and their Answers to him again together with their agreement in Faith and Religion If we do consider also the Heresies condemned in his days by Him and his Authority as the Eutychians Monothelites and others which our Protestants also do condemn for Heresies at this day By all this I say and by infinite other Arguments and Demonstrations that may be made it is most evident that either Christ had no Visible Church or Catholic Religion in those days which were most foolish and wicked to imagin or that the Religion of St. Gregory and his Church of Rome and others of others of the same Communion was in that Age the only true Catholic Church and consequently had in it the only true Catholic Faith and Religion of Christ whereby Christians might be saved which also is proved most evidently by infinit Miracles wrought in England and in divers other Countreys upon manifold occasions during this time of our Primitive Church as shall appear more in particular in the deduction of our second point which is the continuance of this same Religion from St. Augustin to Thomas Cranmer the first and last Archbishops of Canterbury following by Succession the one the other for the space of above 900 years the first dying a Saint the last ending in Apostacy as after shall be shewed 3. Wherefore to come to the second point about the deduction of Catholic Religion in our Nation from St. Augustin downward first of all St. Bede talking of the planting thereof and of our first Primitive Church whose progress and increase he describeth for the space of almost 140 years after the entrance of St. Augustin hath these words Gregorius Pontifex Divino admonitus instinctu servum Dei Augustinum alios plures cum eo Monachos timentes Dominum misit praedicare verbum Dei genti Anglorum c. Gregory the Pope being admonished by heavenly Instinct did send God's Servant Augustin and others Monks with him that feared God to preach his Word to the English Nation in the 14th year of Mauritius the Emperour which was of Christ 596 and the 4th after that St. Gregory was made Pope 4 These holy men landed in the Isle of Thanet belonging to the Kingdom of Kent for that the whole Dominion of the Saxons in those days which was all the Land except Scotland and the other part now called Wales whither the reliques of Britans were retir'd was divided into seven several States and Dominions which they called Kingdoms The first whereof to speak of them according as they received the Faith was the Kingdom of Kent whose King Ethelbert being the fourth in number from Hengistus that began the same about the year of Christ 450 afterward first of all other received the Christian Faith at the preaching of St. Augustin about the year of Christ 600 that is to say an hundred and fifty years after they had reigned as Pagans there 5. The second Kingdom was of the East-Saxons and contained the Shires now called Essex Middlesex and Hartfordshire The first founder of which Kingdom was Erchenwine about the year of our Lord 527 as Stow and some others do hold tho' Malmesbury doth write otherwise but both do agree that under King Seebert or as Bede calleth him Sabered those Provinces were converted to Christian Religion by the preaching of St. Mellitus Fellow to St. Augustin and first Bishop of their chief City of London whither he was sent by St. Augustin from Centerbury in the year of Christ 604. 6 The third Kingdom was of the East-Angles which contained the Shires of Norfolk Suffolk Cambridge and the Isle of Ely. Which Kingdom was begun about the year of Christ 492 by one Vffa but converted after to
Tythes and if any man will needs give he may give to whom he will excluding thereby their Curates Another Article also was of the said Brute That a Priest receiving by bargain any thing of Yearly Annuity is thereby a Schismatic and Excommunicate Which if it be true then are his Ministers in a hard case at this day in England who do bargain for their Service and Wages due thereunto 40. And so goeth Fox on from Point to Point to ratifie John Wickliff's Doctrin or at least the Professors thereof not considering simple Fellow how much they differ from him or make against him so they be contrary to the Pope of Rome or condemned by him For further proof of which Folly and blind Ignorance we shall pass now to treat in a several Chapter what manner of Continuance and Succession of his Church he deviseth thro'out the Rabble of these opposite Sects from the time of Pope Innocentius III. to the Reign of King Henry VIII whereby I doubt not but the Reader will remain sufficiently instructed of these Mens madness that of so contrary and repugnant Spirits will needs frame to themselves the Unity of a true Christian Church CHAP. X. The most absurd and ridiculous Succession of Sectaries appointed by John Fox for the Continuance of his Church from Pope Innocentius III. downward where also by this occasion is declared the true Nature and Conditions of lawful Ecclesiastical Succession HAving now followed John Fox throughout all this Treatise from Christ's time to ours to see what visible course and race he would set down as well of His Church as Ours according to his promise made in the beginning of his Acts and Monuments we have found him hitherto to have talked only in a manner of Our Church that is to say of the Universal Roman Church perspicuously come down by succession of Years and Ages from the Apostles to Us neither did John Fox for twelve hundred years together so much as name unto us any other Congregation of Men or Women small or great good or bad that in this time bare the Name of a Christian Church besides the other nor did he pretend any Succession fearing perhaps those words of Tertullian before recited Confingant tale aliquid Haeretici c. Let Heretics presume to feign or devise any such Succession of Bishops Teachers and Pastors for Their Church as we have alleged for Ours if they dare 2. But now from Pope Innocentius's time downwards John Fox presuming that all the other Church was fallen from God a great presumption indeed as before hath been shewed he bringeth us forth in place thereof another Company of Men which he saith in those days made the true Church for that they were condemned by the other Church which he holdeth for the false And these were a certain Rabblement of Sectaries different in Opinions and Professions not only from Us but also from John Fox and his Crew and most of all among themselves being of divers Countries Sects Times Ages Offices and Functions and cohering together in no other form at all of Succession but that one rose or sprung up after the other For which cause Fox himself in his Acts and Monuments doth not handle their Affairs as of any Congregation that ever met together or saw perhaps one another or had Conference Order Subordination or Succession among themselves but only tieth them together in a certain List or Catalogue as Sampson's Foxes were by the Tails Which List or Catalogue he setteth down in his foresaid Protestation to the Church of England telling us first That during the time of the last 400 years from Pope Innocentius downwards the true Church of Christ durst not openly appear in the face of the World being oppressed by Tyranny but yet that it remained from time to time visibly in certain chosen Members that not only bare secret good affection to sincere Doctrin but stood also in the defence of Truth against the Church of Rome 3. This is his Assertion which he proveth by a large List or Catalogue as I have said of sundry that were in this time censured and condemned in some part of Doctrin by the said Roman Church In which Catalogue saith he first to pretermit Bertramus and Berengarius which were before Pope Innocentius III. a Learned multitude of sufficient Witnesses here might be produced whose Names neither are obscure nor Doctrin unknown as Joachim Abbot of Calabria Almaricus a Learned Bishop that was judged an Heretic for holding against Images besides the Martyrs of Alsatia of whom we read an hundred to be burned by Pope Innocentius in one day Add likewise saith he to these the Waldenses and Albigenses Marsilius Patavinus Gulielmus de Sancto Amore Symon Tornacensis Arnoldus de nova Villa Joannes Semica besides divers others Preachers in Suevia standing against the Pope Anno 1240 c. 4. Thus beginneth Fox his Catalogue and then goeth he forward with Joannes Anglicus a Master of Paris Petrus Joannis a Minorite burned after his death Robert Grossehead Bishop of Lincoln called Malleus Romanorum c. And further he addeth Joannes de Ganduno Eudo Duke of Burgundy that counselled the French King to receive the Popes Extravagants Dante 's an Italian Poet that wrote against Popes Monks and Friars together with Petrarcha and them Conradus Hagaz imprisoned for preaching against the Mass Anno 1339 c. And to these again he coupleth Franciscus de Arcaterra and others burned for new Opinions Gregorius Ariminensis Armachanus Occham and others as tho' these had been all of the same Opinions And finally he falleth upon the Lollards Wickliffians Hussites and their Followers in England and Bohemia succeeding one after another now in this Country now in that now upon one occasion and now upon another until the Reign of King Henry III. when Martin Luther began his Profession who did agree and symbolize in divers Points with the said former Sects of Waldenses and Albigenses Lollards Wickliffians and Hussites and differed in others as before hath been declared And after the Lutherans did follow again others partly agreeing and partly disagreeing as Zuinglius Calvinus Beza Oecolampadius and others unto our days and every one affirming his Opinions to be the New Gospel 5. And this is the visible Succession forsooth which John Fox hath devised to set down for the proof of his new Church and the Antiquity thereof for 400 years past And it is like as if a man in England to disgrace the City of London should seek out the Records of all those that have been hanged at Tyburn for Theft or Murthers for 400 years and having found them out should produce them for Witnesses of the truth and for honest men and good Citizens condemning both the Judges and Jurors and whole Country that gave Sentence and Verdict against them And yet if you will see how John Fox playeth the Fool indeed and braggeth of this Succession
Paganism to Christian Religion by the especial Diligence Labor and Industry of the same See. Once in the time of the Britans about 180 years after Christ at what time Eleutherius that holy Pope and Martyr converted King Lucius and his Subjects by the Preaching of St. Damianus and his Fellows sent from Rome to that effect And the second time 400 years after that again when our Predecessors the English Saxons were converted by St. Augustin and his Fellow-Preachers sent by St. Gregory the Great then Bishop of Rome to the same end And if it be most certain and cannot be denied that these two so great and universal benefits rightly considered are the highest under Heaven that our Land could receive from any mortal then and that the Obligation of this double Spiritual Birth of ours is so much greater than the Bond we owe to our carnal Parents by how much more weighty and important is our Eternal Salvation than our Temporal Life and Generation let all men consider the barbarous ingratitude of this man that barketh with such spite against the See of Rome the Mother of our Christianity and against her Bishops the Workers of so high a Blessing to us And with this consideration I leave the modest and discreet Readers to judge of the matter as Reason and Religion shall induce them and not as the rage of this and other such raving people would incite them 3. Thus I wrote then and to this declaration and conclusion of mine our Knight taketh upon him now to answer in these words Whereas this Roman Advocate saith That this Land ought to bear more reverence to the See of Rome than other Nations for that it hath received more singular benefits from thence namely that it was converted from Paganism to Christian Religion by the special Diligence Labor and Industry of the same See I answer First That it is apparent by sundry Testimonies that this Land was converted to the Faith long before that time by you specified and not by the Bishop of Rome Gildas testifieth that Britanny received the Gospel in the time of Tiberius the Emperor and that Joseph of Arimathea was sent by Philip the Apostle from France hither where he remained till his death And Bede our Country man likewise doth testifie That in his time this Land kept Easter after the manner of the East Church by which my be gathered that the first Preachers came hither from the East parts of the World and not from Rome More proofs might be set down but I spare them 4. Mark good Reader what manner of Answer this is to my former Speech and how directly these people do go to the matter I said before That the Isle of England wherein so many at this day do rail against Rome hath more obligation of Love towards the same for benefits received than divers other Countries for that the people of this Island have been twice converted by men sent from thence once under Pope Eleutherius almost 200 years after Christ and again under Pope Gregory the Great about the year of our Lord 600. Now to this the Kt. thinketh to have answered well by affirming two or three things First out of Gildas That Britanny received the Gospel in the time of Tiberius the Emperor before any or these two Conversions named by me Which how likely it is Tiberius living but five years after Christ's Ascension shall after be examined Secondly That Joseph of Arimathea was sent by Philip the Apostle out of France into Britanny which yet the true Gildas hath not But by these two Examples the Knight would shew That in Britanny the Faith of Christ was not first of all planted from Rome nor by the Popes thereof or by their industry And to the same effect he allegeth out of Bede the used of observing Easter after the manner of the East Church remaining amongst the Britans in his time whereof he inferreth as you see That it is most like that our first Preachers were from the East and not from the West Church 5. But suppose all these things were true do they overthrow that which I said before in my Ward-word that the Britans were converted under Pope Eleutherius or the Saxons under Pope Gregory and by several Preachers sent from Rome by them They prove only that before these two public Conversions which we owe to the Church and Popes of Rome there might be some sparkles of Christian Faith also in Britanny by other means which I never deny'd but only said that I would have English-men grateful to Rome for these two which Conversions no man can deny without apparent impudence as after more amply shall be shewed where also these Examples alleged out of Gildas and St. Bede shall be examined how far they are true or do make for the purpose here in hand 6. So that this first part of Sir Francis's Answer being nothing to the purpose as you see tho' all were granted which he allegeth Let us hear his second part Secondly saith he tho' it be granted that Eleutherius sending hither Preachers from Rome in King Lucius his time did frist convert this Land to the Christian Faith I say that there is not now the same Faith in Rome that was then There were then no Masses said no setting up of Images in Churches c. Here now if we will take Sir Francis's word we have a sure warrant by his I say that the Faith in Rome is not the same now that it was in Pope Eleutherius his time and that in particular there were neither Masses then nor Images Wherein you may note first that cunningly he holdeth his peace of the Conversion of English-men under St. Gregory which most concerneth us that be of this Nation for that he dareth not deny that both Mass and Images were in use in his time in the Roman Church and Faith and so brought into England by St. Augustin that converted us which is evident in St. Bede in every place of his Story and particularly where he relateth the first entrance of St. Augustin and his Fellows into Canterbury in Procession with a Cross and Image of our Savior in a Banner and that they said their first Masses there in an old Church of St. Martin builded as he saith by the old Christian Romans before their departure out of Britanny 7. And for the time of Eleutherius under whom the Britans were converted tho' it were not hard also to prove the same particulars yet will I not take that disputation now in hand but shall leave it to a better occasion afterward in this Treatise where without standing upon these particular two Doctrins of Mass and Images here mentioned by the Knight I shall shew more general and firm Arguments that the Faith of the Church of Rome under Eleutherius 200 years after Christ was the very same and no other than was that under St. Gregory 400 years after that again nor this
Cùm jam varia grassentur quasi factiones opinionum c. Whereas every where now-adays divers factions of Opinions grow up among them that profess the Gospel there are some among others who by certain Philosophical Reasons go about to evacuate or make void the Testament of our Lord so as they would remove the Presence of the true Body and Blood of Christ from the Communion and would by a certain strange perplexity of words deceive the people against the most clear the most evident the most true and the most potent words of our Savior himself Wherefore your Majesty must principally look to this point and provide that the Articles of our Faith be kept without such Pharisaical Leaven and that the Sacraments instituted by Christ be restored without all corruption and adulteration Thus far the Magdeburgians to her Majesty by which you may perceive why I call them Fox his Masters in lying but not his Mates in believing 7. To come therefore now to our purpose I might as before hath been said if it were not over long use two ways for this positive Proof That these Articles deny'd by Fox and his Scholar were heard of and acknowledged in Eleutherius's time The first by citing the places themselves out of the principal Doctors that then lived but this as I have said would be over-long Yet one place I cannot omit of Irenaeus in the very Age we speak of and written while Eleutherius yet lived The words are these Maximae antiquissimae Ecclesiae c. We shewing the Tradition of the greatest and most ancient Church of Rome known to all the World as founded by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul which Tradition and Faith she receiving from the Apostles hath preached and delivered unto us by Succession of her Bishops from time to time unto our days do confound thereby all those Heretics which by any ways either through delight in themselves or vain-glory or blindness of understanding do gather otherwise than they should For that unto this Church in respect of her more Mighty Principality it is necessary that all Churches must agree and have access that is to say all faithful people wheresoever they live In which Church the Tradition that hath descended from the Apostles hath ever been kept by those that live in any place of the World. 8. And again a little after having for proof of his Faith and confirmation of Apostolical Tradition recounted all the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter to his days he saith Nunc duodecimo loco c. Now in the twelfth place from the Apostles hath Eleutherius that Bishopric and by this Succession of the foresaid Roman Bishops is the Tradition of the Apostles conserved in the Church and the Preaching of the Truth hath come down unto us and this is a most full Demonstration that one and the same lively Faith hath been conserved in the Church from the Apostles time and delivered unto us in Truth c. 9. Lo here Tradition of the Apostles delivered and conserved by the Succession of the Bishops of Rome Lo here the Church of Rome called so long ago the Greatest and most Ancient of all other Churches her Principality both named and confirmed Behold the Obligation of all other Churches of the World yea and of all faithful Christians to agree and have access to Her See here all vainglorious and self-will'd Heretics confounded by Irenaeus with the only Tradition and Succession of this Church of Rome and her Bishops even from St. Peter's time to Eleutherius that lived with Irenaeus What Catholic man could say more at this day And will any jangling Fox or Sir Francis avouch yet without shame that none of these points were ever known or heard of in Eleutherius's time 10. Well then this is one way to confound them if I would follow it But being over tedious I mean to take another and shew out of their own Historiographers the Magdeburgenses that all these Doctrins deny'd by Fox and his Follower here were known and in ure among the chiefest Writers in the primitive Church and first Ages after Christ And first of all to begin with this very matter first named by them Of the Primacy of the Pope and Church of Rome The Magdeburgians have an especial Paragraph thereof De primatu Ecclesiae Romanae under the foresaid Title of the incommodious Opinions Stubble Straw and Errors of the Doctors that lived within the first 200 years after Christ And in that Paragraph they not only do alledge for Stubble this last Authority of Irenaeus by me cited tho' they alledge it so miserably maimed as of six parts they leave out more than five but also another place of St. Ignatius that lived in the first Age with the Apostles themselves to the same purpose which they cite in like manner under the same Title of Straw and Stubble and incommodious Opinions And then passing to the third Century or second Age after that of Christ they cite Tertullian for the same incommodious Opinion about the Primacy of the Roman Church and Bishop saying of him Non sine errore sentire videtur Tertullianus claves soli Petro commissas Ecclesiam super ipsum structam c. Tertullian doth seem not without Error to think that the Keys of the Church were given only to St. Peter and that the Church was built but on him 11. They cite also four or five places out of St. Cyprian where he holdeth the same with Tertullian and so they are both confuted for Stubble-Doctors together Yet go they further with St. Cyprian citing divers other places out of him to the same effect for the Bishop and Church of Rome all which they take for Stubble as where he saith One God one Christ one Church one Chair builded upon the Ark by the Word of our Savior and three or four like places more which for brevity I omit and finally they say of him and three other Fathers of his time Cyprianus Maximus Vrbanus and Salonius do think that one Chief Bishop must be in the Catholic Church c. Lo four old Fathers that lived almost 1400 years agone and were the Lights of that Primitive Church rejected here by four drinking Germans gathered together in some warm Stow of Magdeburg tippling strongly as a man may presume and judging all the World for Stubble besides themselves for which cause the third person in this Quaternity is called perhaps Mattheus Judex But let us go forward 12. They are not content with this rejection of St. Cyprian but they fall upon him again in these words Cyprian affirmeth expresly without all foundation of holy Scripture that the Roman Church must be acknowledged by all Christians for the Mother and Root of the Catholic Church And further yet in another Treatise That this Church is the Chair of Peter from which all the Vnity of Priesthood proceedeth And finally Cyprian say they hath
and be merry in warm Stows saying Quid potest monstrosius dici contra meritum Christi What can be spoken more monstrously against the merit of Christ And then to a Godly Speech of St. Ambrose about the pious honoring of Martyrs Tombs they give this Censure Cogitet pius Lector quà m tetra sint ista Let the Godly Reader consider how horrible these things are uttered by Ambrose 16. And in another place upon certain words of St. Ambrose about the holy Cross found out by St. Helena they have in their injurious Speeches Multa commemor at superstitiosa quae vehementer contumeliosa sunt in meritum Christi repugnantia Fidei Ambrose doth reckon up many superstitious things which are greatly contumelious against the merit of Christ and are contrary to Faith. And thus they go forward against the rest of the Doctors and Fathers that agree not with them in their Fancies and Heresies and generally having sought to discredit about the Article of Justification and Good Works this fourth Age after Christ and the chief Doctors thereof by name as Lactantius Gregory Nyssen Hilarius Nazianzen Ambrose and Ephrem they conclude with this contumely against them all Jam cogitet pius Lector quà m procul haec aetas in hoc Articulo de Apostolorum Doctrina desciverit Let the Godly Reader now consider how far this fourth Age departed from the Doctrin of the Apostles in this Article of Good Works and Justification 17. Well then in all these points of Controversie between Us and the Protestants to wit the Primacy and Principality of the Church and Bishop of Rome the Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Altar otherwise called the Mass Freewill Justification Penance Merit of Good Works Traditions observing of Fasts Holydays Sacred Virginity Continency Monastical Life Prayer to Saints Purgatory Memory and Reliques of Martyrs and other like which in effect are the principal points wherein the Protestants do disagree from us we see by the testimony and witness of their own men that the ancient Fathers of Eleutherius's days and the next two Ages after him for I go no lower did wholly agree with us against them and this so far forth as the Magdeburgians do say more than once of all the Doctors of the second Age after Christ wherein Eleutherius lived That they erred and lived in darkness for that they held with us as now you have heard And with what face then doth John Fox say a little before Let them but leave us the Religion that was in Eleutherius 's time and we will ask no more With what forehead also doth Sir Francis his Scholar add I say there is not now the same Faith in Rome that was then there were then no Masses no Vniversal Pope c. But with such men do we deal that care not what they say or deny so they may bear out the matter for the present and seem always to have somewhat to say 18. But now will we leave this and pass to another Conversion under St. Gregory the Great which concerneth us English-men more particularly than the former whereabout you shall see no less Heretical Fraud and Malignity used than in the other before-mentioned if not more for that these people finding all Antiquity against them and having no other Authorities for proof of their Religion but only their own Inventions with some light shew of Scripture expounded by themselves are forced to use most shameful and desperate shifts when their Cause is examined by the Histories of former Ages And so much of this point CHAP. VIII Of the third Conversion of our Island and English Nation by St. Augustin and his fellows sent from Pope Gregory the first Anno 596. And of divers Heretical Shifts and Impudences to deface the said two excellent Men and the Religion brought into England with them YOu have heard the two Shifts before used about the first public Conversion of Britanny by Pope Eleutherius to wit first of all to discredit this Story so much as in them lay and then being forced to grant it their last Refuge was to say that the same Faith was not then in Rome that is now nor that the Points of Doctrin now believed and taught were known and acknowledged then Both which Shifts have been most evidently refuted and the same Religion shewed to have been in Rome under Pope Eleutherius which at this day is there taught 2. But now there remaineth the other public Conversion of the English Nation from Pope Gregory under King Ethelbert of Kent some four hundred years or more after the other in which neither of the two former Shifts can be used by our Adversaries For neither can they deny or bring in doubt the History it self recorded by all Writers of that time and since and namely and most abundantly by our Countrymen St. Bede and his Continuator William of Malmesbury and others nor can they say that the Faith of Rome then derived into England was any other than that which is now in Rome Which latter Point he that will see proved substantially and examined Article by Article and Point by Point by conferring the Doctrin Rites and Ceremonies brought into England by our said Apostle Augustin with that which at this day is taught and practised in the Roman Churh let him read the Translation of the said Story of Bede put into English by our famous learned Countryman M. Doctor Stapleton with his notes to the same and the learned Treatise which thereon and by that Occasion he made Intituled The Fortress of Faith which sheweth the same to be conform likewise to all Antiquity 3. Wherefore our wily Knight Sir Francis seeing this hath answered not one Sentence or Syllable in this his Reply or Wast-word to this Conversion of Englishmen under Pope Gregory tho I urged the same somewhat earnestly in my Ward-word And yet for that upon other Occasions he saith once or twice in his Book That Augustin brought in the Romish Religion as tho the Romish Religion had been different at that day from that of the Christian Britans and for that his Master John Fox out of whom he hath stolen all this Story runneth also to this Shift upon divers Occasions I am forced to say somewhat thereunto in this place 4. You must then understand that Fox and his Fellows being excluded from the former two Shifts as I have said and yet forced to use somewhat against this evident Deduction of our English Faith from the See of Rome they betake themselves to other Refuges as absurd or rather more than the former The first whereof is to discredit by all means they can devise the Authors of this Conversion to wit St. Gregory the Pope and St. Augustin our Apostle About this time saith Fox departed Gregory Bishop of Rome of whom it is said that of the number of all the first Bishops before him in the Primitive Church he was the basest
tho' first before we enter into this examination we have thought good to treat certain general Points that make way thereunto as by the next Chapter you shall perceive CHAP. I. Of how to great Importance Ecclesiastical Succession is for trial of true Religion and how Sectaries have sought to fly the force thereof by saying That the Church is invisible How fond a shift this is and how foolishly John Fox doth behave himself therein THE Sentence of the Philosopher is known to all That contraries being laid together do give light the one to the other as white and black proposed in one Table do make each colour more clear distinct and lively in it self For which respect we having laid open before in the first Part of this Discourse the known manifest Succession of Christian Religion in our Isle of England first from the Apostles times among the Britans for the first six Ages after Christ and then again among the English-men for nine Ages more since their first Conversion from Paganism we are now to examin what manner of visible Succession John Fox doth bring us forth of his Church that is to say of the Protestants of his Religion for the said 1500 years or fifteen Ages if any such be for that by this comparison of the One with the Other the Nature and Condition of both Churches will be understood But yet first I mean to note by the way certain principal points to be considered for better understanding of all that is to be handled in this Chapter or about this whole matter of Ecclesiastical Succession 2. Whereof the first may be that which I have touched in the end of the former Chapter to wit of how great importance this point is I mean the Succession and Continuation of Teachers the one conform to the other in matter of Belief and Religion for clear demonstration of Truth in matters of Controversie and for staying any discreet man's judgment from wavering hither and thither in his belief according to that which holy St. Augustin said of himself and felt in himself For that considering the great diversity of Sects that swarm'd in his time and every one pretending Truth Antiquity Purity and Authority of Scriptures and himself also having been misled by one of these Sects for many years was brought by God at length to be a true Catholic and to feel in himself the force of this visible Succession of the Catholic Church And therefore writing against one that in time past had been his Master as Head of the former Sect wherein he had lived to wit Faustus Manichaeus after divers other reasons alledged of his confidence and assurance of Truth in the Catholic Church and of his firm resolution to live and die in the same he bringeth for his last and strongest reason the perpetual Succession of Bishops in the same Church and especially in the Church of Rome Tenet me in Ecclesia saith he ab ipsa Petri sede usque ad praesentem Episcopatum successio Sacerdotum c. I am held in this Church against all you Sectaries by the Succession of Priests and Bishops that have come down even from the first seat of St. Peter the Apostle to the present Bishop of Rome Anastasius that holdeth the seat at this day c. 3. Lo here the force and estimation of Succession with St. Augustin Whereunto are conform all other ancient Fathers if we would stand to alledge them yea they stand so firmly upon this point and do make so great account of it as they do generally note Heretics and Sectaries for the contrary defect to wit that they have no Succession or orderly continuation either of Bishops or of Faith among them but did leap hither and thither as ours do at this day challenging to themselves now this and now that without either Order Interest Continuation or Succession Ordinem saith St. Augustin ab Apostolo Petro coeptum usque ad hoc tempus per traducem succedentium Episcoporum servatum perturbant ordinem sibi sine origine vendicantes Heretics do trouble and break the order of succeeding of Bishops begun by St. Peter and brought down by Off spring one Bishop succeeding another and so challenge unto themselves a certain Order without beginning 4. To which effect also Tertullian more than 200 years before St. Augustin challenging Heretics to this Combat of Succession said Edant Haeretici origines suarum Ecclesiarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum c. Let Heretics set forth the beginning of their Churches let them recount the order of their succeeding Bishops if they can And then having set down for his part and for proof of true Catholic Succession the whole rank of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter to Pope Eleutherius that lived in his days Mark I pray you the proof he useth tho' he were of the Church of Africa He glorieth as tho' he brought forth an invincible Argument against all Heretics challenging and provoking them to do the like if they could Consingant saith he tale aliquid Haeretici Let Heretics bring forth or devise any such things for proof of their Church if they can And consider here gentle Reader how Heretics remain confounded by Tertullian's judgment for want of Succession 5. But this is not only Tertullian's Opinion for St. Irenaeus before him again objecteth the same to Heretics against whom he wrote saying Obedire oportet eis qui successionem habent ab Apostolis qui cum Episcopatus successione charismata veritatis acceperunt You ought to obey these who have their Succession from the Apostles who together with the Succession of their Bishoprics have received from time to time the gifts or privileges of Truth And in another place Apud quas est ea quae est ab Apostolis successio hi fidem nostram custodiunt scripturas sine periculo nobis exponunt With whom the Succession of Bishops from the Apostles time downwards is found to have remained these are they who conserve our Faith and do expound the Scripture unto us without danger Behold the vertue of Succession which this blessed Bishop and Martyr St. Irenaeus esteemed so highly in his days as he ascribed thereto both the infallible Conservation of Faith and true Exposition of Scriptures 6. And it is to be noted that he speaketh not only of Succession in Belief as every one of our Sectaries will seem to pretend that they have it among themselves from the Apostles which yet is ridiculous and manifestly false as before hath been declared and after shall be more in particular but he speaketh expresly also of the external Succession and Continuation of Bishops ascribing to them and proving by them the Succession of one and the self-same Faith And to that end doth he number up all the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter to his time as Tertullian before-alledged did notwithstanding the one lived in France and the other in Africa proving
by that Succession of Roman Bishops the true Succession of one and the self-same Catholic Faith to have endured not only in these several Countreys but also over all Christendom and that from Christ to those times esteeming this to be a most invincible Proof and certain Demonstration or to use St. Irenaeus his own words plenissimam ostensionem a most full probation against all Heretics whatsoever 7. According to which Principle and sure Foundation all other Fathers also that have ensued since from Age to Age have stood very resolutely upon this point of Succession against the Heretics of their times Brevem saith St. Hierom apertamque animi mei sententiam proferam in illa esse Ecclesia permanendum quae ab Apostolis fundata usque ad diem hanc durat I will utter briefly my sentence and judgment we must abide in that Church which being founded by the Apostles hath endured unto this day As if he had said We must be and abide in that Church which as it was visibly founded and spread over the World by the Apostles Preaching so it hath visibly been continued under her Bishops and Teachers unto this day Which sentence of his St. Augustin that lived with him tho' somewhat younger confirmeth in these words Dubitabimus nos illius Ecclesiae considere gremio quae ab Apostolica sede per Successiones Episcoporum frustra haereticis circumlatrantibus culmen Authoritatis obtinuit Shall we doubt still to rest in the lap of that Church which hath kept continually the height of her Authority by Succession of Bishops from the See-Apostolic unto this day notwithstanding the vain barking of Heretics on every side of her 8. Thus said St. Augustin of the visible Church in his days which had not continued much more than 400 years But what would he say if he liv'd in our days after almost 1200 years Succession more since he wrote this when he should hear far greater and more spiteful barking of Heretics against the same than he heard in his days tho' then also he heard much and much of that which we hear now But if St. Augustin should live now again there is no doubt of one thing which is that he would make this his Argument of Succession far more strong against our Heretics and esteem it so much the more by how much the Power of Christ hath shewed it self more Omnipotent in continuing the same since for so many Ages more after him amidst so many troubles and turmoils changes and alterations of Empires and Kingdoms and Temporal States as before we have noted And if in England we can number above seventy Archbishops of Canterbury all of one Religion the one succeeding the other since our first Conversion by St. Augustin our Apostle not to speak any thing of the British Church before us as you may see confessed by Cambden and other new heretical Writers of our own and that this English Church was the same in Faith and Belief with the British as before hath been shewed and both of them one with the Roman and General Church from the very beginning to this time what an Antiquity is this and how clear and evident a Succession And how would St. Augustin urge this Argument against our Protestants if he were now alive again 9. Sure I am that if any one Baron Earl or Duke in England could shew but the half of these years for the continuance and possession of any Temporal State Lordship or Land in England he would highly esteem thereof and thereby make a glorious defence against any wrangling Companion that should presume to pretend the same and deprive him thereof if he could truly say and prove as we do in the Cause of our Church that his Ancestors for 1300 years together had continued in that possession But no man can prescribe any such time in temporal matters and therefore are they well called Temporal for that they change in a little time And he that will read the foresaid Cambden's Story towards the end of every English Shire where he taketh upon him to recount the Earls or Dukes that have had their States and Titles over that Shire he shall see such a broken Succession in those States and Signories as it is pitiful to behold no Dukedom or Earldom continuing lightly three or four Generations together in any one Name or Family And this is the frailty and uncertainty of human things 10. But for matters of Religion appertaining to the Soul Almighty God hath given another manner of force unto Succession both of Men and Faith. As for example in the Law of Nature he made the same to endure by only Tradition without Writing for more than 2500 years under the ancient Patriarchs before and after the Flood of Noe. And afterward again in the written Law the Jews continued the possession of their Religion by Succession of Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governors from Moses unto Christ above 1500 years notwithstanding all varieties of times and calamities And no less from Christ to our Age hath he continued the same in a much more glorious sort and manner In which latter time of Christian Religion to speak only of this for the present so many mutations have been made both in the Roman Empire it self and all other Realms and Kingdoms round about us as all men know and may be seen in Histories And yet hath the Succession of the Catholic Church and Pastors thereof together with the Union of Faith therein taught been most miraculously conserved amongst all these tossings and turmoils breaches and divisions of Temporal Kingdoms which could never have been but by the Omnipotent Hand of our Savior that hath defended it especially considering withal the great multitude of Sects and Heresies that from time to time have risen and attempted to impugn the same but could never prevail And this is sufficient for this first and principal point of the vertue and force of Ecclesiastical Succession 11. The second point to be considered is That when Luther's new Religion began and could alledge no Successors of Bishops or ancient Teachers for it self but was much pressed with this other of the Catholics he devised a certain notorious and ridiculous shift to say that the true Church was invisible to the eye of man and only seen by God and consequently had no need of any visible or external Succession of Men. And this shift of his is discovered by that he writeth both against Erasmus and Catharinus and in his wicked Treatise de abroganda Missa privata for taking away private Masses where having had Conference with the Devil as himself confesseth he asketh very stoutly Who can shew us the Church seeing she is secret and to be believed only in Spirit To whom if any man would oppose S. Aug. that saith digito ostendimus Ecclesiam we can shew the Church with our finger should not Luther be well match'd think you 12. The like held
their Authority what Succession bring they down by imposition of hands from the Apostles time may not every Sect of Heretics make themselves Christ's Church by this device Wherefore of this second point there need to be said no more 20. There remaineth then a third point to be considered by the Reader before we come to set down the Succession of John Fox's Church who having considered with himself that both Luther and Calvin did hold it to be invisible and on the other side that divers chief Lutherans had changed their Opinions therein and held it to be visible especially Flaccus Illyricus and the rest of the Magdeburgians who were to write a whole Story of their own visible Church in their Centuries and Fox to follow them step by step therein in his English Acts and Monuments the poor man was brought to a very great perplexity forasmuch as on the one side to leave Luther but especially Calvin seemed very hard unto him and on the other side not to stick to the Magdeburgians that are his Masters in his Story seemed hard also But especially and above all was he troubled as it seemeth with the reason and necessity of the matter it self for if the Church of Christ be invisible how can Fox or the Magdeburgians write so great and large stories thereof To which effect Illyricus writing upon the Genealogy set down by St. Matthew's Gospel of the true Church from the beginning saith thus Ostendit ista series Ecclesiam Religionem veram habere certas historias suae originis progressus This Genealogy proveth that the true Church and Religion have assured Histories of their beginning and progress 21. Thus said Illyricus for that he and his Fellows were then in hand as hath been said with their Ecclesiastical Histories named Centuries which they could not well have written holding the Church to be invisible neither yet John Fox could begin so great a Volume with that Opinion Wherefore after much breaking his brains about this matter as it seemeth he cometh forth with a new Opinion never heard of perhaps before affirming that the true Church of Christ is both visible and invisible to wit visible to some and invisible to others visible to them that are in her and invisible to them that are out of her You shall hear his words 22. Altho' saith he the right Church of God be not so invisible in the World that none can see it yet neither is it so visible again that every worldly eye may perceive it for like as is the nature of Truth so is the proper condition of the true Church that commonly none seeth it but such only as be members and partakers thereof and therefore they which require that God's holy Church should be evident and visible to the whole World seem to define the great Synagogue of the World rather than the true spiritual Church of God. 23. Thus saith he wherein you see that he maketh the true Church visible but only to such as are in her and Members thereof A device I think never heard of before and fit for the Brains of John Fox which were known to be out of tune for many years before he died for if he do not trifle and equivocate meaning one-where internal Visibility by Faith and another-where external Visibility to the Eye but doth mean indeed as he should do and as the Controversie is meant of external visibility to man's eye then is it most ridiculous that none can see the true Church in this World but he that is a Member of her for she is to be seen as well to her Enemies and Adversaries as to her Friends and Children the One to impugn and fight against her the Other to acknowledge and obey her And I would for examples sake demand of John Fox Whether Herod and Nero that persecuted the true visible Church of Christ were of that Church or no For if they were not then by his sentence they could not see her and consequently not persecute her 24. His comparison also between Truth and the true Church doth not hold for that Truth is a spiritual thing to be seen only by the eye of our Understanding but the true Church consisting of visible Men and Women may be seen by man's eye tho' the truth thereof to wit whether this or that visible Congregation be the true Church of Christ is a matter of Understanding and Belief confirmed unto us by such Arguments as before we have recited and others So as albeit the aforesaid Persecutors Herod and Nero for Example did not see the Truth of that Church which they persecuted in respect of their Doctrin for then perhaps they would not have done it yet did they both see and know that this was Christ's visible Church to wit a Congregation professing his Name and Doctrin yea they might know further that it was his true Church seeing it was begun visibly and evidently by him and his Apostles in their days and so continued on without interruption and if they had further known and believed as we do that he had promised to maintain and defend this Church unto the worlds end then must they either have doubted of his Fidelity or Power to perform it or must have believed also that this Church could not fail whereof Protestants doubting must needs doubt also of the one or the other to wit of the Fidelity and of the Ability of our Savior to perform his promise And this is the force of Succession even with Enemies and Infidels 25. But now let us pass to the principal matter intended in this Chapter which is the Succession or Deduction of the Protestants Church promised by John Fox in his Acts and Monuments Wherein saith he is set forth at large the whole race and course of the Church from the Primitive to these latter times of ours c. Thus he promiseth in the Title but how he doth perform it in his whole Book we shall see afterward in this Declaration Tho' in part we may perceive his drift by that he protesteth to the Church of England before his entrance into his Story in these words I have taken in hand saith he this History that as other Story-Writers heretofore have employ'd their travail to magnifie the Church of Rome so in this History might appear the Image of both Churches but especially of the poor oppressed and persecuted Church of Christ which tho' it hath been so long trodden under foot by Enemies neglected in the World not regarded in Histories and almost scarce visible and known to worldly eyes yet hath it been the true Church only of God wherein he hath mightily wrought hitherto in preserving the same in all extreme distresses continually stirring up from time to time faithful Ministers by whom always hath been kept some sparks of this true Doctrin and Religion And forsomuch as the true Church of God goeth not lightly alone but is accompanied with some
other Church or Chappel of the Devil to deface and malign the same necessary it is that the difference between them both be seen and the descent of the right Church to be described from the Apostles time c. 26. Here we see all John Fox his drift laid down First he meaneth to contradict all former Writers that have magnified the Church of Rome and the Greatness and Glory thereof which he calleth the Devil's Chappel And in this he must contradict all the ancient Fathers and Writers for divers hundred years after Christ as Irenaeus Tertullian Augustin Optatus and other Writers that bring down the descent of the true Church of Christ by the Succession of the Bishops and Church of Rome as before you have heard And secondly Fox meaneth to set out another Christian Church trodden under foot before neglected in the World not regarded in Histories and almost scarce visible or known and yet was and is forsooth the only true Church of Christ keeping some spark of his true Doctrin and Religion he doth not say that all was true which she held nor that all Christ's Doctrin was taught in her but only some sparks or scraps of true Doctrin And further he promiseth that he will describe the descent of this Church from the Apostles time 27. This is John Fox his promise and we accept thereof And tho' it be scarce worth the performance to shew us a hidden obscure and trodden down Church in every Age that keepeth some sparks of true Doctrin and Religion for that every Sect and Heresie not denying Christ and his Doctrin wholly doth so yet shall we accept and exact the same being never so miserable and beggarly as we go over the whole course of Times and Ages from Christ downward following therein the distribution it self that John Fox hath appointed to be observed in his Story to wit from Christ to Constantine 300 years from Constantine to S. Gregory as much from S. Gregory and S. Augustin our Apostles to the Conquest 400 and odd years from the Conquest to Wickliff other 300 years from Wickliff to Luther about 240 from Luther's time to ours somewhat less than a hundred In all which variety of Times we shall examin briefly Whether John Fox his Church were on foot or no What Continuance or Succession it may be said to have had Where when and by what men it was begun continued and acknowledged What Doctrin it held and whence and with what Vnion or Conformity with it self or with the Catholic Roman Church Which Catholic Church being shewed and declared in the first Part of this Book to have been founded by the Apostles and conserved visibly from that time hither by Succession of Bishops and Prelates Governors and Professors thereof will easily also bring in the Notice and Certificate of John Fox his opposite Church whereof now we begin to treat CHAP. II. The particular Examination of the Descent or Succession of John Fox his Church in England or elsewhere for the first Three Hundred years after CHRIST to wit unto the time of Constantine the Emperour And whether any such Church was extant then in the World or no and in Whom HE that will consider the proportion of John Fox his Book of Acts and Monuments in the latter Edition he shall find it the greatest perhaps in Volume that ever was put forth in our English Tongue and the falsest in substance without perhaps that ever was published in any Tongue The Volume consisteth of above a thousand Leaves of the largest Paper that lightly hath been seen and every Leaf containeth four great Columns and yet if you consider how many Leaves of those thousand he hath spent in Deduction of the whole Church either His or Ours and the whole Ecclesiastical Story thereof for the first thousand years after Christ they are by his own account but threescore and four to wit scarce the thirtieth part of that he bestoweth in the last five hundred years 2. And further if this his thousand years Story containing threescore and four leaves be sifted and examined what it containeth not four of them do appertain to that which he should handle which is the visible Deduction of his Church as we shall endeavor briefly to shew dividing the whole thousand and threescore years from Christ to William the Conqueror into four distinct Times or Stations appointed out by John Fox himself in his Book to wit the first from Christ to Constantine containing 300 years the second from Constantine to K. Ethelbert's Conversion by St. Augustin containing other 300 years the third from King Ethelbert and other six Kings of England reigning jointly with him unto King Egbert the first Monarch of the English Nation which space is somewhat more than other 200 years and the fourth from King Egbert to William the Conqueror containing the same or some few more years 3. Let us now follow I say John Fox throughout all these Ages and different stations of times and see out of what Holes or Dens he will draw his little hidden trodden down Church different from the Roman Visible Church and yet endued notwithstanding from time to time with some little sparks of Truth which he promiseth to bring down from the Apostles to our time In the first 300 years then from Christ to Constantine whereas all other Ecclesiastical Writers and St. Luke amongst the rest in his Acts of the Apostles ch 2 3 4 c. do set down the visible beginning of Christ's Church by his Apostles and Disciples their strengthening and confirmation by the coming of the Holy Ghost their preaching and converting of others their great and many Miracles and thereby the establishing and wonderful increase of the said Church throughout the World and continuance of the same downward by Succession of Bishops but namely and specially of the Bishops of Rome as before hath been declared and is to be seen in the Writings of Dionysius Areopagita Josephus Justinus Egesippus Clemens Irenaeus Tertullian Origenes Julius Africanus Cyprian Eusebius and others of these Ages John Fox followeth no such order at all nor ever so much as mentioneth any descent of Bishops of His Church or Ours but only to spend time and fill up Paper taketh upon him to translate out of Eusebius and other Authors the Martyrdoms of such as suffered for Christian Religion in the ten general Persecutions of these first 300 years setting the same forth also in painted Pictures for no other purpose as it seemeth but only to entertain his Reader with some strange and delightful Spectacle and afterward so to joyn his Protestant burned Martyrs with those of the Primitive Church as the Painting being somewhat alike the simple Reader might thereby be induced to think that there was no great difference either in their Persons or Cause of suffering 4. But I would ask John Fox To what purpose of his was the bringing in of all these Martyrs of the Primitive
Church throughout the World Were they His or Our Martyrs think you For to both of us they cannot be Martyrs that is to say Witnesses we being of a different belief for that we of our part do hold resolutely the saying of St. Athanasius in his Creed That whosoever doth not hold all and every point of the Catholic Faith entirely shall perish eternally If therefore he will say they were his Martyrs he must prove that they were in all and every point of His Religion and not of Ours And to examin this point to wit of what Religion they were whether more of Ours or of His divers considerations may be brought in As first Who of us do more honor them We keep their Days and Feasts as all men know we put them in our Ecclesiastical Calendar and Martyrology we keep their Relics we honor their Tombs we call upon them in Heaven to pray for us as reigning in most high Glory with Christ All which Protestants do mislike yea John Fox by name hath put the most of them I mean of the Martyrs of these first 300 years quite out of his Ecclesiastical Calendar to give place to John Wickliff John Husse Martin Luther and other like Companions as may be seen in the very first pages of his Book which is a sign that we esteem and honor them more than they which we would not do if we did not persuade our selves that they were of our Religion and not of Protestants in any point of Controversie between us 5. Moreover the Christian visible Church of that time to wit of those first 300 years wherein these Martyrs suffered and were put to death would never have registred them for Saints nor admitted them into the number of true Martyrs if in all points they had not been of her Faith and Communion no more than she did those of divers Sects namely of the Marcionists and Montanists who were very many and bragged of Martyrdom and of God's assistance therein no less but much more than true Catholics as Apollinaris a most ancient Bishop related by Eusebius in his fifth Book of Ecclesiastical History doth testifie at large Yea these Heretics especially the latter sort were so forward in Martyrdom as they held it was not lawful to flee in time of Persecution as may appear by Tertullian who defended the same also after he was fallen into that Heresie himself St. Cyprian doth inveigh often against the Martyrs of the Novatians and St. Epiphanius against those of the Euphemits sirnamed for the multitude of their false Martyrs Martyrians and St. Augustin no less earnestly doth detest those Martyrs of the Donatists who rather than they would lack Martyrs were ready to murder themselves All which Martyrs notwithstanding were rejected by the Catholic Church tho' in shew they died for Christ for that they agreed not with her in all points of Faith and Belief And consequently we may infer for most certain that seeing the Catholic Church of that time and of all times since hath held these Martyrs before mentioned of the first ten Persecutions for true Saints and Martyrs indeed and have continued their honorable remembrance both by Histories and celebrating their annual Feasts and Memories sure it is that they agreed fully with the said known Catholic Church of those Ages Whereof we infer again That seeing the Faith of those first 300 years was continued as before we have proved in the second 300 years and so consequently downward and delivered to us and forasmuch as the Church of Rome was held still for Head of all this Church it cannot be that these Martyrs were of John Fox's Religion and consequently are to no purpose brought in by him but only for that he had nothing else to talk of or to make a shew of handling some pious matter in his Book 6. Moreover if we would take upon us to reflect upon all that is extant of the sayings and doings of these Martyrs recorded in their Histories we might soon discern of what Religion they were and whether they were John Fox his Martyrs or Ours As for example in that Answer of St. Andrew the Apostle and holy Martyr which he made to Aegeas the Proconsul that exhorted him to sacrifice to Idols Ego saith he Omnipotenti Deo qui unus verus est immolo quotidie c. I do sacrifice daily to Almighty God that is One and True not the flesh of Bulls or blood of Goats but the immaculate Lamb upon the Altar whose flesh after that all the Faithful People have eaten the same Lamb that is sacrificed remaineth whole and alive as before This man as you see spoke not as a Protestant Martyr 7. The Speech also of St. Laurence Martyr that suffered in Rome under the Emperor Valerianus the same year that St. Cyprian did in Carthage his Speech I say to Pope Sixtus Bishop of Rome whose Deacon he was and who was carry'd to Martyrdom three days before him doth not shew that he was a Protestant but rather a plain Papist as both St. Ambrose St. Augustin and other later Authors do relate the same Cùm videret Laurentius saith St. Ambrose Sixtum Episcopum suum ad Martyrium duci flere coepit c. When Laurence the Deacon saw his Bishop Sixtus to be carried away to Martyrdom he began to weep not for the others suffering but for his own remaining behind him wherefore he cried unto him in these words Whither do you go O Father without your Son and whither do you hasten O holy Priest without your Deacon You were never wont to offer Sacrifice without a Minister what then hath displeased you in me that you leave me behind you Have you proved me perhaps to be a Coward Make trial I pray you whether you have chosen unto your self a fit Minister to whom you have committed the dispensing of our Lord's Blood And then seeing you have not denied unto me the Fellowship of administring Sacraments do not deny me the Fellowship of shedding my Blood also with you 8. Thus talked St. Laurence of his Deacon's Office in dispensing the Blood of Christ from the Altar and in ministring to his Bishop while he offered Sacrifice which is a phrase far different from Protestants manner of Speech But if we consider the Speech of the Heathen Emperour to St. Laurence set down by Aurelius Prudentius above 1200 years past objecting to Christian Priests their sacrificing in Gold and dispensing the Blood of our Savior in silver Cups and the like we shall easily see of what Religion this Martyr was Hunc esse vestris Orgiis Mor émque artem proditum est Hanc disciplinam foederis Libent ut auro Antistites Argenteis scyphis ferunt Fumare sacrum sanguinem Auróque nocturnis sacris Astare fixos caereos c. We hear saith the Persecutor this to be the fashion and device of your Feasts and
respect of obscurity and contemptibility John Fox may easily joyn his Church with them as also in having some sparkles of true Doctrin but not the whole body of true Doctrin among them 5. He may joyn also in divers particular Doctrins which these men held as peculiar Heresies to themselves and were condemn'd by the Church for such in those days and are held also in these days by John Fox his Church in the very self-same words sense and meaning as they were held by those Heretics As namely he may joyn with the Donatists who said that thy were the only true Church and called the Succession of Bishops in the Church of Rome as Sectaries do at this day the Chair of Pestilence and moreover that the whole Church besides themselves had erred c. which is the common Song of our modern Protestants And further if you will see how near of Kin these Donatists and our Protestants be both in Manners Conditions Doctrin and Belief read St. Augustin Optatus and other Writers that objected against them these things following to wit That they had cast the blessed Sacrament of the Altar to Dogs overthrew Altars broke Chalices and sold them cast a Bottle of holy Chrism out of the Church-window shaved Priests heads to take away their Unction turned Nuns out of their Monasteries to the World polluted all Church stuff and the like And whether John Fox and his Fellows do not joyn also in these Points let the Reader judge 6. They may joyn in like manner with the Eunomians for their only Faith who affirmed as St. Augustin saith quòd nihil cuiquam obesset guorumlibet perpetratio ac perseverantia peccatorum si hujus quae ab illis docebatur Fidei particeps esset That the committing and perseverance in never so great sins could not hurt him that was partaker of their Faith. They may also joyn with the Novatians of that time in denying the Churches power in forgiving sins They may joyn with the Aerians who taught as St. Angustin saith non oportere orare vel Oblationem offerre pro mortuis that we ought not to pray or offer Oblations for them that be dead and further That solemn Feasts are not to be appointed by the Church but every one to fast when he would lest he should seem to be under the Law c. 7. Thus testifieth St. Augustin of him and of Jovinian that followed him both the said Father and St. Hierom that wrote against him do accuse him to have held That all sins were equal before God that fasting from certain meats was not profitable that chast Marriage was equal in honor and merit to professed Virginity in Nuns and that he had been cause that some Nuns had married in Rome and finally that the reward in Heaven was equal to all men And is not this good currant Protestant Doctrin and Practice at this day But let us go forward They may joyn also with the Helvidians or Antidicomarians in impugning our Blessed Lady and equalling Marriage with Virginity And much more with Vigilantius in impugning the continent sole Life of Clergy-men Worship of Martyrs at their Tombs use of Candles and Torches in the Church by day-time Invocation of Saints Vows of Poverty and the like 8. I will go no further for that this is sufficient to see what Communion John Fox his Church did hold in these three Ages either with the common known Catholic Church of Christ or with these lurking Assemblies of Heretics pursued and persecuted by the said Church and for that John Fox is guilty to himself in this behalf he hath proceeded accordingly in his Acts and Monuments For whereas he promiseth a several Book of these second 300 years under this Title The second Book containing the next 300 years after Christ c. he not finding any sufficient matter for his purpose to patch up this second Book withal as he did the former with recounting the Martyrs of those days what shift deviseth he think you to blear his Readers eyes with all and to seem to say somewhat in the continuation of his Story You shall hear briefly and by this one trick you may learn to know the man and his meaning for the time to come 9. First he writeth but five leaves in all for the continuation of the Story of these second 300 years A short Volume you will say for so great and copious an Argument And yet further you must know that of these five leaves he passeth two in telling tales and matters that fell under Pope Eleutherius and King Lucius more than a hundred years before and consequently it should have been told in his former Book by order of Time and Story and then the other three leaves he spendeth in setting down the entrance of the Saxons into England about the year of Christ 449 and the Succession of their Pagan Kings unto St. Augustin's coming So as of all the foresaid glorious Christian Church for 300 years together to wit from Pope Sylvester and Constantine unto Pope Gregory and Mauritius the Emperour wherein she flourished more than in any other three Ages we find only five Leaves designed but scarce three Lines performed Whereby you may perceive how little part John Fox persuadeth himself to have in these three Ages for his hidden Church You may consider also what an honest Bargainer he is and how well he performeth his promise made in the first page of his whole Work wherein he saith That he will set forth at large the whole Race and Course of the Church from the Primitive Age to these latter times of ours c. whereof you see he hath performed nothing at all hitherto either largely or briefly I mean of this Race or Course of any Church General or Particular Domestical or Foreign Good or Bad True or False His or Ours for of the first 300 years he wrote only the ten Persecutions as you have seen and of the second 300 years he writeth nothing at all 10. Which if you consider well is a strange confession of his own weakness and poverty seeing that these three Ages to wit the fourth fifth and sixth are the most abundant of matter that are to be found in the Church of Christ from the beginning and so might he see by the Centuries of his Masters the Magdeburgians who do enlarge themselves much more in these three Ages than in the former enforced thereunto by the multitude of matter tho' all against themselves as before hath been noted and here will also appear which John Fox well perceiving thought best by slight of silence to avoid that inconvenience of treating a History so apparently against himself Which slight notwithstanding or rather flight every man of mean understanding doth easily see considering that according to the Argument of his Book and particular promise made before he should have declared to us That the Religion of Britanny in these 300
from King Egbert his death but 234. So as Fox is in no one thing exact or punctual And these 264 years may be counted the fourth station or parcel of Time from Christ downward which now we are briefly to examin and run over as we have done the former Stations and Limitations appointed 2. First then concerning the general Roman Church it continued in these Ages as in the former by continual Succession of her Bishops and Governors altering nothing in Belief and Doctrin from her Ancestors And briefly to repeat the sum of all there ruled in the See of Rome in these two Ages and an half as supreme known and acknowledged Pastors of this great visible Church some sixty Popes from Leo III. that crowned Charles the Great and thereby restor'd the Western Empire unto the time of Alexander II. under whom Duke William of Normandy conquered England And in the Western Empire there reigned some eighteen Emperours in this space from Charles the Great to Henry IV. and in the Eastern Empire some twenty five from Nicephorus I. to Constantine X. All which Popes Emperours and Princes were of one Religion Faith and Belief in those days And albeit soon after the See of Constantinople and Greek Church by occasion of Emulation against the Roman Empire did begin to withdraw their due Obedience from the Roman Church and thereby fell by little and little into divers errors of Doctrin also and finally were delivered over as all the World seeth into the Subjection and Servitude of the Turks yet in these Ages there was Union and due Subordination between both Churches Which may appear by that one only General Council being held at Constantinople even against Phocius that was Patriarch of the said City being gathered by order of Pope Adrian II. and Basilius the Grecian Emperour concurring therein This Council was of 300 Bishops and confirmed by the said Pope Adrian being the eighth General Council in order and the fourth of those that were held in Constantinople Whereby it cometh also to be noted That all the General Councils held hitherto in the Christian Church for the space of 900 years being eight in number as hath been said from the first Council of Nice unto this and from this to the first General Council of Lateran holden in the year of Christ 1115 under Pope Innocentius III. were all held in Greece but yet by order of the Bishops of Rome sending thither their Legats and confirming the same afterwards by themselves without which confirmation they were never held for Lawful in the Christian World which is no small Argument of the Greatness and Authority of the Church of Rome from time to time 3. It shall not be needful to speak of the particular Heresies of these two or three Ages which in effect were none of any name but only two the Iconoclasts or Image-breakers and the Berengarians or Sacramentaries both of them agreeing in their particular Heresies with the Calvinists of our Times tho' in many other things different as it is wont to be The first of them was begun before these Times by Leo III. Emperour of Constantinople sirnamed Isaurus about the year of Christ 750 as before hath been noted and renewed again by Claudius Taurinensis The second was begun 300 years after by Berengarius about the year of Christ 1050 and abjured by him again as hereafter shall be shewed The chief Doctors and Fathers that defended true Religion in these Ages were Turpinus Eginhardus Haymo Rabanus Frecolphus Hincmarus Jo. Diaconus Remigius Theophylactus and others in the ninth Age and then in the other Odo Ado Rhegino Luitprandus Rhatbodus Abbo Floriacensis and others and the other half of the eleventh Age Bruchardus Petrus Damianus Lanfrancus and many others 4. And this was the state of the Universal Christian Church in these Ages whereunto in all respects was conform the particular Church of England as the Daughter to her Mother which may be demonstrated partly by the continual Descent of Archbishops in England which were to the number of Sixteen from Celnothus that lived with King Egbert unto Stigand that possessed the See of Canterbury when William the Conqueror came in tho' afterward he caused him to be deposed by a Commission from Rome in the year of Christ 1070 as John Stow and others do note 5. I do pretermit the Succession of other Bishoprics in England for Brevities sake the Kings also of England that possessed that Crown from Egbert to William the Conqueror were some Twenty in number if we count Canutus the Dane and his two Children among the rest All which Kings of what Nation or State soever agreed fully in Faith and Belief with the said Archbishops and Bishops of our Land and They again with the whole Universal Roman Church as appeareth by their Acts and Monuments and John Fox also confesseth 6. Which being so it is hard to say or imagin where John Fox in these Ages will pick out a different Christian Church tho' it be never so poor and creeping for Him and His either in England or out of England during this time And much more hard it is to think how he can devise any visible Continuation of the said obscure and trodden-down Church as he promised to do even from the Apostles Time to our Age. His only refuge must be as before we have often noted to run to the condemned Heretics of these times if he find any for his purpose Which yet he dareth not openly to do as you have seen throughout all the former Ages But afterward when he cometh near home to wit after Pope Innocentius III. and John Wickliff he taketh more heart affirming Our Church to have utterly perished and a new visible Off-spring of his Church to have started up to wit all the Sectaries and Heretics cast out and condemned of our Church as you shall see more particularly when we come to that place 7. For the present Ages that we are now in he doth not so much as lay hands upon the Iconoclasts or Berengarians nor doth seem to count them for his Brethren tho' in the principal Points of their Heresies they agree with Him as is notorious And John Fox to have some visible Members of his Church in these Ages ought to have shaken hands with them but the poor Fellow was asham'd to build his Church openly of so ancient Heretics tho' afterward when he beginneth to build indeed and to gather Stones together he calleth for the Berengarians again which now he casteth away as after you shall see 8. But now perhaps you will ask me If John Fox do set down no Succession in these Ages as neither in the former of His Church or Ours what doth the simple Fellow in all this third Book of his Whereto I answer first That albeit he promiseth in the Title That this third Book shall contain the Acts and Monuments of 300 years together with the whole
throughout the World for Christ's Church are wicked and rebellious unto God and Acts of the Devil's Synagogue from the time that John Fox assigneth of her Fall and Apostacy and that on the contrary side all the Writings Actions and Gests of all sorts of Heretics against this Church from that time are the Acts and Monuments of the true Church of Christ Supposing all this I say as Fox doth there cannot want matter either on the one side or the other to fill up Volumes And the lower he passeth downward the more matter he findeth for that Sects and Sectaries increasing daily whom he registreth for Saints and Pillars of his Church the Volume of his Book must needs grow greatly And so is it seen by this fourth Book wherein from the Conquest to the latter-end of King Edward III's Reign when Wickliff began containing 300 years to wit from Anno Domini 1066 to 1370 there are spent above 100 Leaves of Paper which is much more than was in the former 1066 years But in the fifth Book from John Wickliff's time to King Henry VIII which are but 140 years are contained upon the point of 200 Leaves and then again from the beginning of King Henry's Reign to the entrance of Q. Elizabeth being but fifty years he spendeth above 600 Leaves And by this you may judge both of the Subject and Substance of John Fox's huge Volume tho' we are to look into the same somewhat more particularly also as we pass it over in this and the ensuing Chapters 3. Well then this being his device and resolution for the present to have no longer patience with our Church but wholly to deny the same his greatest difficulty seemeth to be about the Time and Causes to wit where or when or how or upon what occasion she perished or vanished away for seeing she hath continued by his Confession also for so many Years and Ages and come down unto our days under the self-same Succession of Bishops Pastors and Teachers as before and consequently also with the self-same Doctrin and Religion and with the same external Power and Majesty which it was wont it seemeth a very hard thing upon the sudden either to annihilate so Great and Mighty a Kingdom or which is much more difficult to make so strange a Metamorphosis and Mutation in her as that she having been hitherto the Church of Christ his Spouse his Kingdom his dearest Beloved and beautified with his Graces directed by his Spirit enriched with his most precious Gifts and Endowments and so acknowledged also by Fox ' himself in former Ages that now she should become Christ's Enemy and Adversary upon the sudden and the Kingdom of Satan his Eternal Foe and yet to retain still the Name Place Estimation and external Dignity which she had before professing with no less shew of duty her Obedience and Love to Christ than in former times she was wont This Change and Metamorphosis I say is most wonderful and incredible to all those that believe Christ to be God and to have been able to perform his promise that Hell-gates should never prevail against this Church Wherefore we are to examin somewhat more diligently in this Chapter how this matter could fall out and when and by what occasion come to pass for that so great and rare a Mutation as this is never fell out yet in the World before Tho' Temporal States and Kingdoms have had their changes nay all temporal mutations of Empires Kingdoms States and Monarchies have been made principally to shew the contrary stability and immutable continuation of Christ's Church once planted in the World as in part we have declared before shewing how that in all times and seasons in all variety and variations of States People Countries and Dominions as well in England as elsewhere the Christian Catholic Religion remained one and the same among them all To which effect also is that notable Prophesie of Daniel when foretelling first the breaking and overthrow of all four Monarchies by him mentioned he addeth as a notorious opposition to the same the stability and immortality of Christ's Church and Kingdom once set on foot in these words In the days of these Kingdoms God of Heaven shall raise up a Kingdom that shall never be dissipated neither shall this Kingdom be given to another people This Kingdom shall consume and wear out all the other Kingdoms but it self shall stand for ever 4. Thus saith Daniel and the most of these Points we have seen verified and fulfilled already for God of Heaven hath raised this Kingdom and visible Church of Christ which then seemed a strange matter he hath increased and continued the same for a thousand years and more as Fox will confess which is a longer time than any Temporal Monarchy lightly hath continued without change he hath overthrown in this time and consumed the other Kingdoms and Monarchies mentioned by him Now remain the other two Clauses to be fulfilled in like manner to wit That it shall stand for ever or as Christ expoundeth it usque and consummationem saeculi to to the Worlds end and then quod alteri populo non tradetur that this Kingdom shall not be delivered over to another People from that which possessed it from the beginning The quite contrary whereof teacheth here John Fox affirming this Church that hath been accounted the true Church and Kingdom of Christ for a thousand years past is now no more his Church or Kingdom nor these Popes Bishops and Pastors that are found in her to have come down by continual Succession are now no more the true and lawful Guides or Governors thereof but that it appertaineth to others and consequently this Kingdom of Christ is taken from them and delivered to another People to wit to the Berengarians to the Waldenses to the Albanenses to the Wickliffians Lutherans Zuinglians and other like people of latter Ages 5. This is John Fox his mad Assertion wherein you see he should prove two Points First That our Church is lost and fallen and our Men rightly dispossessed of the Interest thereof And then That his Men to wit these new Sectaries have entred into a just possession of that Name and Title of the true Church Both which Points we deny You shall see how he beginneth to prove the first that is to say the Fall and Overthrow of the Universal visible Church sirnamed the Roman And thus hitherto saith he stood the condition of the Church of Christ meaning the next Ages before the Conquest albeit not without some repugnance and difficulty yet in some mean state of the Truth and Verity till the time of Pope Hildebrand called Gregory VII which was near about the year 1080. and of Pope Innocentius III. in the year 1215. by whom all was turned upside down all Order broken true Doctrin defaced Christian Faith extinguished c. 6. Here you see John Fox to assign two Times and two Popes when and
in those days should revive and preach again in these days would his Brethren the Protestants in England or out of England receive them think you And if it be certain that they would not how were they true Preachers then and not now or how can these and they be true Brethren of one Faith Religion or Church Doth not every simple Man or Woman see this Folly and absurd Contradiction 29. But to return to the matter in hand about rejecting Parliaments and other public Testimonies we see that John Fox with the same facility both reciteth and rejecteth the Letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury written to the Pope about those Wickliffians of his time twenty years after the former Parliament was held but yet in conformity of that which the said Parliament under King Henry IV. and the other before under King Richard II. did testifie as well of the said Sectaries Hypocrisie and Dissimulation as of their wicked Errors and Heresies All which Fox contemning saith to the contrary That they served faithfully the living Lord within the Ark of his true spiritual and visible Church c. 30. And it is to be noted that scarce ever throughout this whole Volume of Acts and Monuments from Christ downward for the space of 1400 years doth Fox talk of any visible Church on his side but only now when he cometh to these Wickliffians and other like Sectaries And yet to speak warily also he adjoyneth unto it the word spiritual to have some starting-hole to run out when he shall be pressed about the true nature of visible Succession which we mean to do in the next Chapter following But in the mean space it is a matter worth good laughter to hear him say That Papists do brag of their painted Sheath concerning their Churches Antiquity and Succession and that he hath sufficiently proved before by the continual descent of his Church after the Doctrin that now is reformed that it hath stood and been continued from the beginning for so are his words yea and that visibly as now he addeth Whereat I know no man can choose but laugh that hath read this our Treatise wherein we have shewed all the contrary to wit the visible Descent of the Roman Church by orderly Succession from the Apostles time and that John Fox hath not so much as named any different Succession or Descent of his Church distinct from the other until the time of Innocentius III. 1200 years after Christ And what manner of deduction or collection of Heretics and Sectaries he bringeth down from thence and how well they agree and hang together either in Time Place Function or Faith we shall examin a little after 31. But now before we end this Chapter we are to advertise the Reader that besides the Sects before named of the Petrobusians Henricians Waldensians or poor men of Lyons the Albigensians and Wickliffians there was another Sect in England called Lollards more famous than the rest in respect of Lollards Tower some what renowned in London for the Imprisonments of those Sectaries in that place But when and how this Sect of Heretics began is not so clear for that some as Prateolus and others seem to affirm that it took its Origin in England as a Brood of the Wickliffists for that they were more famous there than in other places And therefore he saith Lollardi ex Anglia ex Wickliffistarum Secta originem duxerunt The Lollards had their beginning from England and from the Sect of the Wickliffians And he addeth That it was about the year 1360 which cannot stand for that we have shewed before how Wickliff began to publish his Doctrin after this to wit about the year 1370. Wherefore the Abbot Tritemius a German Chronicler declareth the matter more particularly and truly saying That there was a certain Heretic in Germany called Gualter Lolhard who about the year of Christ 1315 taking certain Doctrin from the Albigenses and Waldenses that went before him and adding as the fashion is of Sectaries divers new Opinions of his own made a particular Sect who were called Lolhards Whereby it appeareth that this Sect began in Germany above fifty years before the Sect of Wickliff in England and hereby ensued that Wickliffians taking afterwards divers Opinions from the said Lolhards were commonly also called Lolhards And John Fox himself reciting the Sentence of Condemnation of Bishop Tresnant of Hereford against one William Swynderby an Apostata Priest for Wickliffian Heresies in the year of Christ 1391 the 24th of June he setteth down these words of the said Bishop We being excited through the Information of many credible and faithful Christians of our Diocese to root out pestiferous Plants as Sheep diseased with an incurable Sickness going about to infect the whole and sound Flock that is to say certain Preachers or more truly execrable Offenders of the new Sect vulgarly called Lolhards c. 32. Lo here Wickliffians at this time for such a one was this Swynderby were commonly called Lolhards twenty years and more after Wickliff had begun his Doctrin So as rather Wickliffians are to be said to have come forth of Lolhards than Lolhards of Wickliffians 33. And albeit these two Sects beginning as you have heard the one in Germany and the other in England with the distance of some fifty years of their Off-spring had many Opinions common to them both especially against the Roman Church against Invocation of Saints Fastings Prayers and the Sacraments of Penance Matrimony Extreme Unction and the like yet had they their peculiar Opinions also whereby they were made a several Sect. As for Example the Lolhards impugned not only the foresaid three Sacraments of Penance Matrimony and Extreme Unction as some Wickliffians did but Baptism and the Eucharist in like manner They held also for their peculiar Opinions as Tritemius saith That Lucifer and his Angels were injuriously thrust out of Heaven by Michael and his Angels and consequently to be restored again at the Day of Judgment and that Michael and his Angels are to be damned for the foresaid Injury and to be delivered over to everlasting Punishment from the Day of Judgment forward That our Lady could not bear Christ and remain a Virgin for that so he should have been an Angel and not a Man. That God having given the Earth to the use of Man according to the saying of the Psalm Terram autem dedit filiis hominum God hath given the Earth to the children of men he doth consequently punish such Wickedness as is done upon Earth but if any thing be done under ground it is not punishable And therefore in Caves and Cellars under ground they were accustomed to exercise all manner of Abomination And of this he relateth a certain Story happened in Germany which was That one Gisla a young woman of their Sect coming to be burned for Heresie she was asked whether she were a Virgin or no whereunto
of his Church observe what he writeth presently upon the enumeration of these foresaid Pillars of his Church 6. Wherefore if any be so beguiled in his Opinion saith he as to think that the Doctrin of the Church of Rome as now it standeth is of such Antiquity and that the same was never impugned before the time of Luther and Zuinglius now of late let him read these Histories and peruse the Acts of Parliament passed in this Realm of ancient time as Anno 5 Regis Richardi 2. 1380 c. Did you ever hear a man in his Wits reason in this sort How doth this Catalogue I pray you of condemned Heretics for these last 400 years impugn the Antiquity of the Roman Church or Doctrin before that time And again Who doth deny but that the same Roman Church and Doctrin was impugned by old Heretics long before Luther and Zuinglius yea and before Wickliff Waldenses Albigenses and Berengarius were born as by our former deduction hath appeared that she was impugned by Heretics of every Age And moreover To what purpose doth Fox will us to read these Histories and the Acts of Parliament passed against Wickliffians in the time of King Richard II To what purpose I say doth this simple Fellow talk and write this against himself seeing that by these Histories and Statutes we learn nothing as before we have noted but only that his elder Brethren the Lollards and Wickliffians were condemned for Heretics by public Authority of our Realm above 200 years agone Which we grant unto him without further proof 7. Wherefore to leave this childish babling that is without sense consequence or reason and to return to some more serious Argument We shall handle here two Points for better discussion of this Succession of Sectaries alleged by John Fox First What are the Conditions necessarily required to a good Ecclesiastical Succession for demonstrating a Church And then What manner of men these were indeed which Fox doth here assign for Representation of his Church And all shall be done with as much brevity as may be 8. The first Condition is That this Succession of men that make the Church be Universal both in Place and Time that is to say to use St. Augustin's words Non quae hoc loco est sed quae hoc loco per totum Orbem terrarum nec illa quae hoc tempore sed ab ipso Abel usque in finem c. That it be not in this or that particular place only but in this place and throughout the whole World and that it be not only in this or that time but that it be from Abel to the end of the World. By which words of St. Augustin we see that the visible Succession of the true Church must be Universal first in Place and that it must be a visible Company professing Christ under one Faith and Doctrin not in this or that particular Country Province or Place only but over all the World where Christians are And so we see it verified in the Succession of the Roman Church in our former deductions 9. Secondly It must be Universal in Time for that it must not begin from John Wickliff only Bertramus or Berengarius as John Fox doth appoint the Visibility of his Church but it must come down from the Apostles and endure visibly to the end of the World yea from Abel himself as St. Augustin saith for that even from Him Christ instituted a visible Church and continued the same by Succession under all three Laws both of Naturè of Moyses and of Grace as St. Augustin in his Book de Civitate Dei doth declare at large and in our days Dr. Sanders most Learnedly in his Excellent Work de Visibili Monarchia doth prove the same 10. So as this Collection of Sectaries alleged here by John Fox being neither Universal in place nor agreeing in Faith with the Universal known Church of Christendom but with particular Assemblies one in one place and another in another nor yet having Universality of Time as not coming down from the Apostles Age but only for some 400 years as Fox himself confesseth these men I say cannot make a true Church tho' they have some sparks of true Doctrin among them as Fox braggeth seeing it is true which St. Augustin affirmeth Quicunque credunt quòd Christus Jesus in Carne venerit quòd fit Filius Dei c. Et tamen ab ejus Corpore quod est Ecclesia ita dissentiunt ut eorum communio non sit cum toto quacunque diffunditur sed in aliqua parte separata inveniatur manifestum est eos non esse in Catholica Ecclesia Whosoever doth believe that Christ Jesus came in Flesh and that he is the Son of God c. And that they do so dissent from his Body that is the Church as they do not communicate with the whole spread over all parts but only with some separate part it is manifest that these men are not of the Catholic Church And thus much of the first Condition 11. The second Point to be considered is When the ancient Fathers do stand upon visible Succession of Men as a Note of the true Church they meant it especially by Bishops that come down by continual Succession from the Apostles time to ours Ecclesia saith St. Augustin ab Apostolorum temporibus per Episcoporum Successiones certissimas usque ad nostrum deinceps tempora perseverat The true Church doth persevere from the Apostles time unto ours and after us again to the Worlds end by most certain Succession of Bishops c. St. Irenaeus also Tertullian Optatus and St. Augustin before-alleged do each of them as you have heard deduce the visible Succession of the Church from the Apostles to their days by the visible Succession of the Roman Bishops 12. And finally the Sentence of the said holy Father St. Augustin is notoriously known in many parts of his Works concerning the importance of this Succession Tenet me saith he in Ecclesia Catholica ab ipsa Sede Petri ad praesentem Episcopatum Successio Sacerdotum The Succession of Priests he meaneth Bishops from the Seat of St. Peter unto the present Bishop of Rome holdeth me in the Catholic Church And again against his old Master Faustus the Manichee Vides in hac re quid Ecclesiae Catholicae valeat Authoritas quae ab ipsis fundatissimis Sedibus Apostolorum usque ad hodiernum diem succedentium sibimet Episcoporum serie tot populorum consensione firmatur Dost thou not see of what force the Authority of the Catholic Church is which being established by the most firm foundations of the Apostolic See doth endure unto this day by the Race of Bishops succeeding one another and by the consent of so many Nations under their Government 13. Behold here four things especially required by St. Augustin in Succession of men that must demonstrate a true Church First
unto him as those that remained Loyal and Faithful to his good Mother the Queen who all for the most part were known to have been good Catholics it is to be hoped that he will make the same Account also of You that remained Constant and Dutiful not only to Her Majesty while she lived but to God's Divine Majesty also in standing and suffering for your Conscience in Religion which was the Mark and Badge if you remember whereby the foresaid famous Governor Constantius Father to our Constantine did try his Christian Courtiers tho' he were a Pagan himself rejecting those who upon his Commandment and Invitation had yielded and done against their own Religion and retaining and honoring others that had been Constant even against himself Which fact Eusebius recounteth with exceeding praise of the Man's Judgment Justice and Piety therein whose Example I hope our now King will imitate and you follow the Example of the better sort of those Christians whom Constantius for their Constancy so much esteemed and advanced THE PREFACE TO THE CHRISTIAN STUDIOUS READER CONCERNING THE Edition and Argument of this Treatise and of the Method held therein and principal Points to be Treated MAN to be mutable or as the Scripture speaketh uncertain in his foresight and Providence if no other Arguments were to prove it as there be infinite yet my own Experience gentle Reader of the success of this Treatise were sufficient having altered so often my first intention about the same as it being now ready to come forth it seemeth nothing less than that which at the beginning I had purposed 2. My first design was to have written only some few Leaves or Sheets of Paper in answer to Sir Francis Hastings who in his Reply to the Seventh Encounter of the Warder which Encounter concerneth principally the Bishop and See of Rome would seem to diminish that obligation of gratitude which the Warder said that England had above many other Nations to that See for Two Conversions of our People to Christian Religion receiv'd from thence The Knight I say endeavored to strike out or diminish that Obligation by calling in doubt the said Conversions or cavilling at least at some particulars thereof Whereupon I thought it needful not only to confirm that which had been written before of the Two foresaid Conversions under Pope Eleutherius and Pope Gregory I. but also to add a Third more ancient than these Two to wit under S. Peter himself and some other Apostles And albeit all this was meant so briefly as I have said in the first designment yet when I came to the Work it self it grew more long and could hardly be dispatched in so many Chapters as I had purposed Leaves or Sheets at the beginning 3. The reason of this increase was for that coming to the examination of the matter I found Sir Francis to have taken all that he had said concerning that Point out of John Fox tho' he cited him not and Fox again the most part of his Cavils out of the Magdeburgians So as of necessity I was forc'd to encounter all these Three Adversaries together to examin their Arguments discover their Frauds and refel their Follies Which to do with any sufficiency as also with the clearness and perspicuity which I desir'd drew the matter on to a bigger Bulk than well could be set forth as a Part only of that Encounter whereunto it belonged Whereupon at the persuasion of some Friends resolution was taken to have it divulg'd in a several Treatise as before hath been shewed in the end of the Second Encounter already printed 4. But now when it was taken in hand to be reviewed for the Edition divers things occurred to be added for the more fulness of the Treatise and namely that not only the Planting of Christian Faith in England should be averred by these Three several Conversions but that the Continuation also thereof I mean of One self-same Faith and Belief should be shewed and demonstrated from the First to the Second Conversion and from the Second to the Third unto our days And with this came the Discourse to occupy a dozen whole Chapters which was more than twice as much as in the first design was purposed 5. But being arriv'd hither there offered it self a new cogitation of adding a Second Part no less important than the First for searching out our Adversaries Religion in all this time according to the Advertisement both of the Philosopher and Orator That it is not sufficient only to confirm our own Cause except we infringe and refute the contrary Whereupon it seemed necessary not only to shew the first second and third Planting of our Religion in England together with the manifest and visible Continuance thereof unto our Age but also to demonstrate the contrary in the Religion of the Protestants to wit That it was never planted in England I mean in such Points of Doctrin wherein they differ from the Catholic nor ever was received nor had essence or being under the name of Christian Religion from Christ's time to ours And for that John Fox above all other English Protestant-Writers taketh upon him of purpose and by promise to prove the contrary in his huge Volume of Acts and Monuments to wit to shew the course and race of his Church for so are his words from the beginning of these latter Ages I was forc'd to joyn Issue with him in particular upon both these parts I mean in shewing the beginning and continuance of our Church and Religion and the not being or continuance of his for performance whereof I have had occasion as you see to peruse over the first Part of the said Volume from the beginning of Christian Religion to King Henry VIII containing above 500 Leaves 6. But for that the second Part of that Volume from K. Henry downward being of no less bulk than the former treateth of the principal Pillars of his Religion since that time whereof some he maketh Confessors and other Martyrs and distributeth them into a certain Ecclesiastical Calendar according to the days of every Month wherein their Festival memories are to be kept and placeth the said Calendar in the front of his Acts and Monuments it seemed convenient also to the end that nothing should remain wholly unsearch'd or unexamin'd in that Work of his to add a third Part to the former two for the discussion of this Calendar and some other necessary Points belonging thereunto 7. Lo here good Christian Reader a brief sum of all my cogitations about that matter which if they may serve thee for thy spiritual utility either for confirming or establishing thee in Catholic Religion if thou have it already or for thy reducing unto it if hitherto thou be not partaker of so high and heavenly a Blessing I shall be glad and think my Labor happily bestow'd therein well knowing of what importance this matter is for thy Eternal Salvation 8.
In respect whereof thou oughtest also if thou be in any doubt not only to take upon thee the labor of reading this or any such Treatise that may help thee therein but also to travel both by Sea and Land Countries and Kingdoms if we believe S. Austin that both said and practised the same to seek out the Truth and Certainty of Catholic Religion whereby only and by no other ways and means under Heaven may a man be saved or escape Everlasting Damnation as holy Athanasius protesteth in his Creed Wherefore this ought to be unto us as the same Father saith that rich Jewel found in the Field for buying whereof we should not stick to sell or lose all other temporal Goods or Riches that we have seeing Christ our Savior doth so much commend them that did so and thereby inciteth us also to do the like 9. And the same Doctor S. Austin together with S. Chrysostom and other Fathers do reprehend greatly the sluggishness of divers men in their days that seeing Sects and Heresies to arise and diversities of Religion in almost every Country did not bestir themselves to try out the Truth but were content either to accept of every Novelty thrust upon them or to remain doubtful or indifferent which in some sort is a worse state than the other For as the Prophecy and Prediction of our Savior is clear that such times of Heresie and Contradiction should come when one Sect would say here is Christ and another there is Christ One Heretic would cry here is the Church here is the true Doctrin here is Reformation and another deny it So the Apostle expoundeth the hidden Providence of Almighty God in this permission of his to wit ut qui probati sunt manifesti fiant that those who are men of proof should be made manifest among us And how then in a time of proof and of so special trial when so great a Crown is to be gained are men so negligent slothful and fearful in shewing and declaring themselves S. Chrysostom yields this reason which is severe Quia neque promissio beatitudinis ejus saith he desideratur neque judicium comminationis timetur c. It is for that neither God's promise of Eternal Felicity in the next Life is desired by these slothful people nor his threat of Judgment feared And yet saith the same Father si Vestimenta empturus gyras unum negotiatorem alterum c. if you were to buy a Garment you go about from one Seller or Merchant to another to see and examin where the best is to be found And how much more ought this to be done to try out true Religion 10. If a pretension were made saith one to take away your Temporal Lands and Livings or that any new doubts should be put in the Title of your Inheritance or that it should be call'd in question by any Promoters or busie people whether you were true Owners of such and such Lands and Livings or no you would quickly start and bestir your selves looking out Records and Writings for confirmation of your Right and Title and would seek Lawyers to plead and defend the same and you would make account of ancient Witnesses for proof thereof All which you neglecting in this case of trial about Catholic Religion against Heretics which is more clear in it self if men would attend unto it than any other proof of Possession Right Interest Title or Inheritance whatsoever this negligence I say doth clearly declare that men have more care and cogitation of Temporalities than of Eternity of Earth than of Heaven and of this miserable short and vanishing Life than of God's Everlasting Kingdom and their Immortal reigning with him 11. And thus much be spoken by the way concerning the judgment sense and feeling of ancient holy Fathers about the care and sollicitude that every true Christian ought to have for informing himself soundly and substantially but especially in time of Heresies what the truth and certainty of Cath. Religion is lest being negligent therein and yielding overmuch to the cogitation of worldly affairs he be deceived before he be aware and carried away to Perdition by the present surge and sway of Innovations under the colour and name of New Reformations persuading himself that he goeth right and hath no need of further advice or information therein 12. For preventing of which most perilous course held alas by too many of our Country at this day who persuade themselves that either matters of Religion appertain not greatly unto them or that they go well as they are or that they may remain indifferent or attend to worldly affairs and let the other alone or at leastwise do imagin by the multitude of contradictions which they see and hear every where that it is a hard matter to discern which Party hath the Truth or where that Certainty lieth For help I say in all these Points but especially the last I have thought best to publish this Treatise which I trust shall be a sufficient Light for discerning Truth to them that will vouchsafe to peruse the same for that it doth briefly clearly and in whole sum or view lay before them the Verity of Catholic Religion the Off-spring Increase and Continuance thereof together with the Fraud and Falshood of all Sects whatsoever but especially those of our time 13. And it is here to be noted that as in Suits and Controversies about Temporal Lands and Livings belonging to any Estate or Lordship a man may take two ways of proof and trial against Quarrellers that craftily and falsly would intrude or make pretension thereunto The first by alleging particular Evidences for every part and parcel thereof severally as for this Close this Meadow this Park that Pasture those Woods that Glebe-land and the like which way as you see is more prolix and troublesom There is therefore a second more short and general whereby a man proving One point proveth All as if we would take upon us to shew that the chief Mansion-house of the said Lordship in Controversie whereunto all the rest belong is Ours and hath been ever held by our Ancestors and that we are true Successors Heirs and Inheritors to them This Issue I say were more short and sure and this is that in which I do now join plea with our Adversaries especially with J. Fox in name of all his Brother-Protestants to wit that whereas other men hitherto have taken upon them to defend and prove particular Points of Controversies severally As for example the Real Presence Purgatory Prayer to Saints Seven Sacraments and the like which are but Branches of our whole Cause my purpose is to prove all together by joyning the foresaid Issue about the chief Mansion-house and true Owners thereof that is to say the true Catholic Church and lawful Family thereunto belonging descending from Christ himself for that we proving this only we prove the whole no man being able to deny but
Glasconiam irradiat Be glad England for that Rome sendeth Health to thee and Apostolical Brightness doth lighten Glastonbury Which could not well be spoken if the coming of these Saints and first Inhabiters there had not some relation to Rome and to the Apostles that sent them 3. Moreover I find in the ancient Chronicles of the Helvetians and sundry Authors as B. Rhenanus in his Story of Germany yea and Pantaleon an Heretic and others do testifie That one Suetonius a Nobleman's Son of Britanny being converted in Britanny by such Christians as first planted the Faith there and called after his Baptism Beatus was sent by them to Rome to St. Peter Apostolorum Corypheo as the Story saith that is to the chief Head of the Apostles to be better instructed and confirmed who returning backward again from Rome towards Britanny through Switzerland found such flocking of People unto him and such propension to Christian Religion as he stay'd continually among them and built himself an Oratory to exercise a Monastical Life there near unto a Town called in their Language Vndersewen not far from the Lake of Than where he dy'd about the year of Christ 110. And for that this man apply'd himself to a Monastical Life and brought the same purpose with him out of Britanny as it seemeth the conjecture is not improbable but that he was converted and sent to Rome to St. Peter by St. Joseph and his Fellows that followed the same Life in Britanny and that they had particular correspondence with the said Apostle in that behalf 4. And thus much being added for confirmation of that which was said and discussed in rhe former Chapter about the first Preaching and Receiving of the Faith in Britanny there remaineth now that we see the Objections which Sir Francis and his Men and Masters do bring against this to prove that the first Teachers of Christian Faith in Britanny were rather Grecians and of the East Church in Asia than of the West Roman Church For which Assertion having no Author at all that ever wrote thereof nor any man living or dead that hitherto ever affirmed it beside themselves or before Luther's days they are forced to build their whole imagination I mean Sir Francis and his Master Sir John Fox and Fox his Masters again Illyricus Vigandus Judex and Faber that make the Quadrillio or Round-Table of the Magdeburgtans in Saxony upon this bare Conjecture and fond Inference That for so much as in Bede's time some in Britanny observed the day of Easter after the fashion of some East Churches for all did not so use it therefore it was like that the first Preachers of that Island came not from Rome which these men cannot abide to hear but from the East as though forsooth this abuse might not have entred after those first Preachers though they had come from Rome But let us hear their words about this matter 5. First Sir Francis writeth thus Bede our Country-man doth testifie that in his time this Land kept Easter after the manner of the East Church by which may be gathered that the first Preachers came hither from the East-parts of the World and not from Rome Mark I pray you the Knight's good gathering Might not a man as well argue thus That divers Reliques of the Pelagian or other ancient Heresies were found in some parts of Britanny in Bede's time Ergo The first Preachers in Britanny were Pelagians or other Heretics But let us hear John Fox who taught Sir Francis this Argument though the other were not so grateful a Scholar as to name him I take saith he the Testimony of Bede where he affirmeth that in his time and almost a thousand years after Christ here in Britanny Easter was kept after the manner of the East Church in the Full of the Moon what day of the Week soever it fell on and not on the Sunday as we do now whereby it is to be collected that the first Preachers in this Land have come out from the East-part of the World where it was so used rather than from Rome 6. Here you see the Argument more fully set down and the same foolish Collection made that was before For except it could be proved that this Error of keeping Easter-day with the Jews had begun and endured in Britanny from the Apostles time downward which cannot be shewed but rather the contrary is certain as after you shall hear this Collection is not worth a rush And it is to be noted by the way that as Fox cannot tell any Tale lightly without some notorious Lye so here be two very manifest The first that St. Bede affirmeth this Custom of keeping Easter with the Jews to have been here in Britanny in his time as though all Britanny had used it whereas in divers places he doth attribute the same to the Scots that dwelt in the Island of Ireland principally as also to some of them that dwelt in Britanny and to some Britans themselves but all the English Church was free from it So as John Fox his Speech of Britanny in general is both false and fraudulent But the other clause That St. Bede testifieth this for almost 1000 years after Christ is foolish and impudent seeing it is notorious that St. Bede dy'd in the year 735 which is almost 300 years short of Fox his Account and consequently could not testifie a thing so long after his death But this the Reynard juggleth to make St. Bede seem to be a late Writer whom they cannot abide for that he setteth down the Beginning and Progress of our Church far different from theirs 7. But I think good to put down also the words of the Magdeburgians about this matter out of whom Fox took his Argument and the Knight of the Fox to the end it may appear how one Heretic teacheth another though of different Sects to cavil lye and cogg and do agree all in one Spirit of Malignity though they differ in Opinions Thus then these Captain Lutherans do write of this matter in their famous lying and deceitful Centurial Story Quis fuerit qui primùm in Britannia Evangelium docuer it c. Who was the first that taught the Gospel in Britanny is not clear the thing that seemeth nearest to the Truth is that the British Church was planted at the beginning by Grecian Teachers and such as came from the East and not by Romans or other of the West-Church And to this we are moved by two Conjectures First That Peter Abbot of Cluniack writing to St. Bernard saith That the Scots in his time were wont in old time to celebrate Easter-day after the manner of the Grecians and not of the Romans And secondly for that Geffry the Cardinal who lived about the year of Christ 700 doth testifie in his Story of Britanny lib. 8. cap. 4. That the Britans would in no wise admit the younger Augustin Legat of Gregory the Great
in the second Age after Christ there was not the Faith in Rome that now is For that there was no mention or knowledge then either of any universal Authority of the Church or Bishop of Rome or of the name or use of Masses or Sacrifice propitiatory or of Transubstantiation or of Images used in Churches and the like 5. To which vain Arguments of both these poor Men I might answer sufficiently by telling them if they will learn that albeit it were true in some sence that these Doctrins which here they alledge and some other in Controversie between us were not found in the Second Age when Pope Eleutherius lived so expresly set forth as in other Ages afterward when better Occasion was offered and the Times did more permit the same yet is this no good Argument to prove that they were not believed then also in the Catholic Church For if this Consequence should be admitted then as well might it be admitted also against many other principal Points and Articles of our Faith which are acknowledged and believed by Protestants also at this day tho not expresly handled discussed or determined in those first two hundred Years after Christ as for Example the Name and Doctrin of the Blessed Trinity the two distinct Natures and one Person in Christ his two distinct wills the Virginity of our Blessed Lady both before and after her Child-birth the Proceeding of the Holy Ghost as well from the Son as from the Father c. 6. All which Points and some others are not found to be handled so clearly and distinctly by Authors of the first two hundred Years as afterward partly for that they were occupied in other matters against Gentiles and Hereticks that touched not these Points and partly for that General Councils could not yet be gathered together to discuss and declare them distinctly tho no good Christians will or may doubt but that they were believed in the Church before from Christ downward and that the General Councils that determined them afterward for Articles of true Belief against Heretics that had called them in question did not so determine them as if they had made them Articles which were not before for this the Church could not do as is held by all Catholics but only that they being Articles of True and Catholic Belief before the Church did now declare them to be such Wherefore this being so I might answer and I see not how they could reply that John Fox and his Scholar may as well deny and call in question all or any of these foresaid Articles as the other which they recite For that they were as little or perhaps less specified in the first two hundred Years than these which they object 7. But I will deal more liberally with our Minister and Knight and will seek to satisfie them with Reason who do brabble and argue against us without Reason I shall endeavour to do the same by two ways hoping to make their Folly appear to every indifferent Man by them both The first shall be via negativa the negative way by putting them to some proof And the second shall be affirmative shewing them what Proofs may be brought for our side Nothing doubting but that each shall be sufficient to satisfie the equal Reader Let the first kind of Argument then by the way of negative be this 8. We deny that the Faith now held in Rome and namely the Articles here mentioned of the Pope Mass Transubstantiation and use of Images were not believed in Pope Eleutherius's days as now for the substance of the Doctrin And let them prove it if they can and if they say that it is hard to prove a negative we are content that they prove only an affirmative whereby the said negative may be inferred to wit that any one of these Doctrins did begin to enter into the Church after Eleutherius And to this Proof they are bound in all equity and reason as we shall shew by our sequent Discourse For if it be true that the Articles and Points of Doctrin here mentioned by Fox and Sir Francis wherein they differ from us be indeed not things heard of or believed at Rome in the time of Pope Eleutherius which yet they denie not but that in other Ages after they were generally received then followeth it that Fox and his Fellows must shew the Time Place Men and Occasion of their beginning to wit when where and by what Men and upon what Causes and with what Authority or Induction or Violence or by what Deceit or with what Contradiction of others these Doctrins entred first and were continued in the Church All which Points we can shew of every other Error or Heresie that hath risen and was held for such from Christ's Time to ours 9. And if either Fox or his Cub or any of that Kennel can or will shew this and joyn issue with us upon this one Point we do accept thereof and the matter may be quickly dispatch'd But if this cannot be done then must we follow the Rule of St. Augustin held by him for infallible in such Affairs to wit That when any Doctrin is found generally received in the known visible Churh at any Time or in any Age whereof there is no certain Author Time or Beginning found then is it sure that all such Doctrin hath come down from Christ and his Apostles 10. This doth that holy Doctor and great Pillar of Gods Church Saint Augustin affirm and reiterate in every place of his Works against Heretics of his Time which argued as our Men do by denying only and putting Catholics to Proof As for Example against the Donatists denying the custom of baptizing Infants for that it was not in Scripture nor recorded by Fathers of the first Ages Saint Augustin answereth thus Illa consuetudo quam tunc homines sursum versum aspicientes non videbant à posterioribus institutam rectè ab Apostolis tradita creditur That Custom of Baptizing Infants which Men before us in the Church looking upward to Antiquity did not find to have been ordained by them that came after the first Ages is rightly believed to have been delivered by the Apostles 11. And again in another place speaking of Ecclesiastical Customs he saith Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi anthoritate Apostolica traditum rectissimè creditur That which the universal Church doth hold and was not instituted by any Council but hath been still retained in the Church this we may most justly believe to have come from no other Authority than from the Apostles And the like Speeches unto this hath St. Augustin in divers other places both of this Book against the Donatists as l. 2. c. 7. and l. 5. c. 23. as also lib. de Vnitat Ecclesiae c. 19. Epistola 118 c. And as for that he speaketh of Institution by Councils he
Roman in the next Ages after when St. Gregory sent St. Augustin to convert the English or that the Roman Religion brought in by St. Augustin should be different from the British except only in certain Rites or Reliques of Pelagianism which yet were not generally received of all as before hath been declared Reason V 8. The fifth Argument standeth upon some Observations taken out of Histories and other Monuments of Antiquity whereby it may be gathered more or less what points of Religion among such as are now called in Controversie by Protestants were believed in those days by the ancient Britans For albeit the Story of that Church before the coming of St. Augustin be not so left written by any authentical Writer as were to be wished and as other Countreys have and namely ours by St. Bede and this in respect of the manifold Wars great Miseries and continual Calamities fallen upon the British Nation for 200 years together before the Conversion of the English whereby neither the orderly Succession of their Bishops neither their meeting in Synods and Councils neither the observation of Ecclesiastical Discipline neither their Communication with the Churches of other Countreys and especially the See of Rome could be so well performed or recorded yet of the small Sparkles and Reliques that do remain it is not hard to guess besides the Reasons and Considerations before-alledged what Religion the Britans were of and whether their Faith agreed more with the Protestants of our days than with the Religion of St. Augustin brought in from Rome and continu'd by Catholics unto this present 9. For first if we will hear external Authors St. Chrysostom testifieth against the Gentiles in his days that in Britanny there were Altari a Christi dedicata Altars dedicated to Christ which Altars do infer Sacrifice and Sacrifice Priesthood as in his Books de Sacerdotio he proveth So as in St. Chrysostom's Age which was the very same wherein the Saxons entred into Britanny the Britans Religion was Catholic according to St. Chrysostom agreeing as well with the Western as Eastern Church whereof himself was For if they had been different or had followed any other Religion than the Common he would not so much have bragged of them as against the Gentiles he did 10. But let us return to British Authors themselves If we read over with attention the little Treatise or Epistle of Gildas which he writeth of the Destruction and Conquest of his Countrey he being the only Author indeed of entire credit which we find extant of those ancient times we shall find signs and footsteps enough what Religion the Britans were of tho' his purpose was not to write any Ecclesiastical History He lived a good while before the coming of St. Augustin and in the second part of his said Treatise reprehendeth grievously the most horrible sins of the Britans for which these Calamities of the Picts Scots and Saxons came upon them And he beginneth his complaint first of their Kings and Judges saying Reges habet Britannia sed Tyrannos Judices habet sed impios crebro jurantes sed perjurantes voventes sed continuò propemodum mentientes Britanny hath Kings but they are become Tyrants it hath Judges but they are impious swearing often but forswearing making Vows but presently almost breaking the same c. 11. Here we see that breaking of Vows was held for no small sin in those days But he goeth further talking of the said Princes Inter Altaria jurando demorantes haec eadem ac si lutulenta paulò pòst saxa despicientes cujus tam nefandi piaculi non ignarus est Constantinus They run to the Altar and swear when they are in necessity and a little after they despise the said Altars again as if they were but dirty Stones of which wicked Sacrilege King Constantine is not ignorant c. Here you see Altars made of Stone in those days and Princes accustomed to swear by Altars and to seek their Refuge in peril or necessity by running to them and staying by them in Sanctuary or when they would do any act with religious solemnity and that it was counted a heinous sin to break promises made upon Altars in those days which yet Protestants make no scruple of 12. But now what this Oath of King Constantine was whereof Gildas speaketh and in what form it was made it appeareth in the next words after which amongst other are these Hoc anno post horribile juramenti Sacramentum quo se devinxit c. Deo primum Sanctorum demum Choris Genetrici comitantibus c. latera Regiorum tenerrima puerorum vel praecordia crudeliter inter ipsa ut dixi sacrosancta Altaria nefando ense hastaque prodentibus laceravit ita ut Sacrificii coelestis sedem purpurea pallia coagulati cruoris attingerent c. Even this year after a most dreadful Oath whereby Constantine bound himself c. first to God and then to the whole Choir of Saints and the Mother of Christ accompanying the same c. he pierced with his wicked Sword and Spear the most tender sides and hearts of two young Princely Children and this so near to the holy Altars as their Purple Cloaks all besprinkled with Blood did touch the seat of the heavenly Sacrifice c. Behold here an Oath broken which was made to God upon the holy Altars in the sight of his Mother and of all the Saints of Heaven for the preservation of the said two Princely Children committed to Constantine and most cruelly murder'd by him even at the side of the said Altars so near that their Purple Cloaks did touch the seat of the heavenly Sacrifice Which is the same phrase that other ancient Fathers did use to describe holy Altars calling them the Seat of the blessed Sacrifice or which is all one the Seat of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Quid est enim Altare saith Optatus nisi sedes Corporis Sanguinis Christi What is an Altar but the seat of the Body and Blood of Christ 13. And now I would ask our men whether these speeches of Gildas do agree better to Protestants Religion or to Ours Would any Protestant speak or write thus But let us hear how he goeth forward against another Britan Prince of that time called Aurelius Among many other Crimes he objecteth this Propriâ uxore pulsâ furciferam germanam ejus perpetuam Deo viduitatis castimoniam promittentem suscipis Thou having driven away thine own Wife takest unto thee her wicked Sister which had promised to God perpetual Chastity of Widowhood And then to another wicked Prince Maglocunus he objecteth That having made a Vow to be a Monk he returned to the World again saying Coram omnipotente Deo Angelicis vultibus humanisque perpetuò Monachum vouisti c. O quà m profusus spei coelestis fomes desperatorum cordibus te in bonis permanente inardesceret ô qualia
Anselmus and so successively one after another none of them ever being noted to be contrary to his Predecessor in Religion until Thomas Cranmer in King Henry the Eighth's time Who applyed himself to the Religion which the State and Prince liked best to allow of in that time And after the Kings Death agreed to break his last Will and Testament in changing that Religion into Zuinglianism most detested by his Majesty And after again Conspired to put down and destroy all the Kings Children and to set up the Duke of Suffolks Daughter And finally was put to Death both for Heresie and Treason in Queen Maries time as after more particularly shall be shewed And this was the first change of Religion in any Arch-bishop of Canterbury from the beginning unto his days 28. So as from King Ethelbert the first Christned English King unto King Henry the Eighth being the Eighteenth from William the Conqueror and more than Eighty from the said Ethelbert one and the self same Faith endured in England and the self same Church florished under so many different both Kings and Nations as before hath been shewed And the like we have declared to have been for the first 600 years under the Britans to wit that they never were known to have changed their Religion Which being so the deduction and demonstration is so clear as any reasonable Man can either make or require for proof that one and the self same Religion endured from the beginning to the ending among them 29. Unto which kind of proof the Ancient Holy Father and Martyr St. Irenaeus giveth great Authority by a like Argument For that having made the like Enumeration of the Bishops of Rome as we do now of our Arch-bishops of Canterbury against the Heretics of his days and that from St. Peter downward to Pope Eleutherius that lived with him he inferreth this conclusion Est plenissima haec ostensio unam eandem vivificatricem fidem esse quae in Ecclesiis ab Apostolis conservata tradita in unitate c. This is a most full proof that one and the self same lively Faith hath been conserved in the Church from the Apostles days unto our time delivered from one to another in unity c. And if that were a most full proof and demonstration in St. Irenaeus judgment against the Heretics of his time The same is now much more to us having seen the Succession of so many Ages since and noted the manner of like proof and Argument in all other Fathers after him As namely of St. Augustin Numerate sacerdotes velab ipsa Petri Sede in ordine illo Patrum quis cui successit videte Number the Priests that have succeeded the one to the other even from the Seat of Peter himself And then further In hoc ordine Successionis nullus Donatista Episcopus invenitur No one Donatist Bishop is to be found in this rank of Succession And yet more 30. Et si in illum ordinem Episcoporum quisquam traditor per illa tempora subrepsisset nihil praejudicaret Ecclesiae And if any Traytor in those days should have crept into that order and rank of Roman Bishops for of them he speaketh it should not have prejudicated the Church of God. 31. Which saying of St. Austin may serve us not only to Answer whatsoever Heretics do or may object true or false against the Lives of any latter Roman Bishops but for defence also of the Rank and Succession of our Archbishops of Canterbury notwithstanding the Apostasie of Thomas Cranmer or any other his like that for these latter years may have crept in as St. Austin saith or been thrust in and by violence occupied that See and Seat unworthily either in respect of his life or Religion or both seeing that the former Succession as well of Men as of Doctrin from St. Austin to Cranmer is manifest and evident for the space of 900 years without interruption as also that they were united all this time in Faith and Doctrin with the Universal Church of Christendom as Members and Branches of their Head and Body and that the first breach and interruption made thereof in that See by Cranmer and continued after him by some of his followers was noted presently and contradicted yea censured and condemned also by Sentence of the whole Church and thereupon rejected and abhorred by the principal of his own people both Clergy and Laity at that time 32. And the same contradiction endureth to this day and will do ever in those that conserve their Ancient Faith and Religion and do adhere to the lawful Succession of his Predecessors against him and his partners until it please Almighty God to put the said order and lawful Succession in joynt again and restore that chief and head conduct of our Country to his former integrity whereby the Water of true Catholic Religion was wont to be derived to the people of our Land and will be again when Gods wrath for our sins shall be pacified and his mercy induce him to permit as often otherwise he hath done that all return to the accustomed Ancient course of Catholic Faith and Religion again seeing in very deed there is none but that for so much as Sects and new Religions are but inventions and entertainments of time whilst God punisheth some sins in his Servants and after all returneth where it was before 33. And this have we spoken by the way and by occasion of Cranmer that was the first Arch-bishop of Canterbury that ever brake from the Roman Faith but notwithstanding his Apostasie Catholic Religion was not extinguished in England by that but remained there still all King Henries time as also during the Reigns of his three Children King and Queens Edward Mary and Elizabeth unto these our days as in the next Chapter following more largly and particularly we are to demonstrate CHAP. XII How Catholic Religion hath continued and persevered in England during the times and Reigns of King Henry the Eighth and his three Children King Edward Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth notwithstanding all the troubles changes alterations and tribulations that have fallen out and that the same Religion is like to continue to the Worlds end if our sins hinder not THE deduction which we have hitherto made of Catholic Religion from our first Conversion under St. Gregory and King Ethelbert of Kent unto the Reign of King Henry the Eighth with whom concurred in the See of Rome Leo the Tenth and Clemens the Seventh and other Popes Successors of St. Gregory hath been for the most part in time of Peace and without any public discontinuance at all but now are we to prosecute the same matter from the alteration made by King Henry downward unto our days and therein to shew that albeit in the external Face and Form of Religion there have been divers Mutations as Tempestuous Winds and Storms for the present yet hath the Catholic
Religion held firm her continuance throughout all these Tempests yea shewed her self more clear eminent and notorious by the Confession of her most constant Members then she did before in peace which is the proper privilege and excellency of truth and of the Catholic Church that is the Pilar of Truth above all Sects and Heresies as St. Cyprian St. Austin and other Fathers do note to come out of Persecution as Gold out of Fire more bright illustrious and eminent than before or as an excellent Ship well Tackled and skilfully guided breaketh thorow the Waves without hurt at all 2. And this hath been proved now by the experience of 1600 years wherein this Ship of the Catholic Church hath passed thorow no fewer storms than there are years and overcome them all whereas many hundred Sects and Sectaries in the meane space have been broken in pieces perished and consumed either by division among themselves or with a little externe Persecution or Discipline of the Church whereof I shall not need to alledge many examples for that the World is full of them and all Histories do testifie and our former deduction hath made it clear and one Domestical example of our own days there is before our eyes which may serve for all the rest to wit that some severity being begun by our State against two opposite Religions in England the Catholics and Puritans tho' much more rigorous against the former than the second yet hath Catholic Religion increased thereby and Puritanism been broken and in a manner dissolved The Reason of which different success we shall touch afterwards Now to the purpose we have in hand 3. For the first Twenty years of King Henries Reign unto the year of Christ 1530 no Man can deny but that the integrity of Catholic Religion Union and Communion with the rest of Christendom and perfect subordination to the See Apostolic of Rome remained in England whole as the said King had received it from the most prudent Religious and Victorious Prince his Father King Henry the Seventh and he again from his renowned Ancestors whom yet King Henry the Eighth as he did excel in knowledge of Learning So was he nothing inferior to them in zeal of defending the purity of Catholic Faith as may appear by the multitude of Sectaries and Heretics as well Waldensians Arrians Anabaptists Lollards and Wickliffians as Lutherans Zuinglians Calvinists and the like burned by him for dissenting from the universal known Church and Roman Religion in the first said Twenty years of his Reign which Fox setteth down with great complaint and regret and we shall after declare more at large in the Second and Third parts of this Treatise 4. And when Luther afterward rose up in the Eighth year of this glorious Kings Reign which was the year of Christ 1517 King Henry caused first the Famous Learned Bishop John Fisher of Rochester to confute the Mad fellow and after he vouchsafed to do the same himself by a most excellent Book which I have Read and seen subscribed with his own hand with the Dedication thereof by his Ambassador Dr. Clark after Bishop of Bath and Wells unto Pope Leo the Tenth who in gratification thereof gave his Majesty and all his Posterity the most Honorable Style and Title of Defender of the Faith. 5. And thus continued King Henry and the Religion under him in England until the foresaid year 1530. at what time there happened a most fatal and unfortunate contention between Clement the Seventh the Pope and him about his Divorce from Queen Katherine He began first to shew his grief and displeasure against Cardinal Wolsey and secondly against the whole Clergy of England Condemning the one and the other in the Forfeiture of Premunire who in their submission and supplication for Pardon either of fear or flattery called him Supreme Head of their Church of England 6. The King also began to shew openly his disgust with the Pope for not yielding to his pretence and Petition But what Was the Kings Religion changed by this Or did he alter his judgment in Faith for this disaffection towards the Pope No truly as well appeareth by his other actions For he frequented the Mass no less than before he burned Heretics more than ever as appeareth by Fox his accompt and so you shall see in all the residue of his Life which were Sixteen years after this And albeit at this time being much troubled with this breach with the Pope he attended less to repress Heresie for some years than he had done before yet was his judgment no less against them than from the beginning and the longer he lived the more grew his aversion from them as may easily appear to him that will but look over the years that ensued after this disgust and breach with Pope Clement the Seventh For albeit in the next year after to wit 1531 he proceeded to shew his aversion from that Pope yet did not he neglect the punishment of Lutherans as may appear by the burning of David Foster Valentine Freese John Tenkesbury the old Man of Buckingham and other which Fox doth complain of 7. In the year 1532. The King proceeding in the same discontentment with the Pope did certain things rather to terrifie him than to make any change of Religion as making Sir Thomas Audley Chancellor in the place of Sir Thomas More which Audley was suspected to favor Lutheranism In using also familiarly Thomas Cromwell a Man of the same humor or worse To which end also he going over into France conferred with Francis the French King and persuaded him to Summon the Pope to a General Council but he would not whereupon King Henry returning into England not only spake open words against Pope Clement but suffered one Dr. Cutwyn Dean of Hertfort to Preach publickly against him in a Sermon before the King himself in the Church of the Franciscan Friers of Greenwich who passed so far in that vein as a grave Religious Father Named Elstow reprehended him publickly out of the Quire or Roodloft for which he was sent to Prison And this was the first open contradiction that King Henry had within his Realm about this Controversie with the Pope and yet doth Fox recount unto us divers of his Martyrs most opposite to the Pope that were burnt by the Kings Authority this year as namely James Baynam Robert Debnam Nicolas Marish Robert King and others 8. There followed the year 1533 wherein his Majesty was Married to Queen Ann Bullen and consequently this year passed most in Triumph about Coronation of the said Queen as also the Birth and Baptism of her Majesty that now is So as little was done in matters of Religion any way but a great Gate seemed to be opened to the Protestants and to Luthers favorers by this Marriage in so much that Fox doth assign the ground of his Gospel principally from this year in respect both
for a time Brentius as appeareth in his Confession of Wittemberg and some others of that Sect. But this Opinion of Luther did not long please his Followers for that Ph. Melancthon his chief Scholar did soon after teach the contrary viz. That the Church was visible to the eyes of men also And the Magdeburgians do hold the same defining every-where the Church to be a visible Company of Men. Which going back of the principal Lutherans in this point it being done by a certain Consultation had thereof among themselves as Fredericus Staphylus the Emperor's Counsellor that had been one of them affirmeth was some Cause perhaps that Calvin coming presently after them took upon him to defend the same Doctrin again saying Nobis invisibilem c. We are forc'd to believe the Church to be invisible and to be seen only by the eyes of God. Lo Calvin putteth necessity in this point of Belief 13. The Causes that moved the chief Lutherans to go back from their first Opinion about the invisibility of the Church were principally the apparent Evidences and Demonstrations which Catholics do alledge both out or Scriptures Fathers common sense and reason for overthrow of that most fond and ridiculous Paradox And first out of holy Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament these men being not able to alledge any one place where the Name of God's Church is applied to an Invisible Congregation the Catholics on the contrary side pressed them with many most evident Texts of Scripture where it was and is used for a visible Company of Men as that in the Book of Numbers ch 20. Cur eduxisti Ecclesiam Domini in solitudinem Why hast thou brought the Church of God into the Desart And again in 3 Kings ch 8. Convertitque Rex faciem suam benedixit omni Ecclesiae Israel omnis enim Ecclesia Israel stabat c. The King turning his face about did bless all the Church of Israel for that all the Church of Israel was present c. Which places and many the like cannot possibly be understood of an Invisible but of a Visible Company 14. And much more if we consider the speeches of Christ and his Apostles in the New Testament as these words of Christ Dic Ecclesiae si Ecclesiam non audierit c. Tell the Church and if he hear not the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen or Publican But if the Church were invisible neither could a man complain to the Church nor hear the Church Moreover St. Paul exhorteth the chief Pastors of the Ephesians to attend diligently to their charge Acts 20. In quo vos Spiritus Sanctus posuit Episcopos regere Ecclesiam Dei In which the H. Ghost hath placed you as Bishops to govern the Church of God. But how could they being visible men govern a Company that was invisible not to be seen 15. And yet further when St. Paul and St. Barnabas went up from Antioch to Jerusalem the Scripture saith Deducti sunt ab Ecclesia c. They were brought on their way by the Church of Antioch and when they came to Jerusalem suscepti sunt ab Ecclesia they were received by the Church And yet further ascendit Paulus salutavit Ecclesiam Paul went and saluted the Church c. All which places cannot agree possibly to an invisible Church and yet that this was the true Primitive Church of Christ no man can deny 16. And finally when St. Paul doth teach Timothy his Scholar 1 Tim. 3. Quomodo oporteat conversari in Domo Dei quae est Ecclesia c. How he should converse and govern the House of God which is his Church Columna Firmamentum Veritatis the Pillar and Firmament of all Truth Ibid. All this I say had been spoken to no purpose if the true Church of Christ were invisible for how can a man converse in a Congregation which he cannot see or know or how can the Church be a Pillar and sure Firmament of Truth to resolve all Doubts and Questions that may fall out about Scriptures Articles of Belief and Mysteries of Christ's Religion if it be an invisible Congregation that no man seeth discerneth or knoweth where or how to repair unto it nor who are the persons therein contained 17. And lastly not to stand longer upon this matter that is so evident in it self and plain to common sense and reason if the true Church of Christ be a Society not of Angels Spirits or Souls departed but of Men and Women in this life that must be governed or govern therein how can they be invisible And if they must have Communion together in external Sacraments and namely in Baptism and participation of the Body of Christ if they must profess the Name and Doctrin of Christ externally to the World as also to be persecuted and put to death for the same if all men must repair unto them and those that be out of the Church to enter and be received therein and those that be in her to be resolved of their doubts to lay down their complaints to be governed and directed by her and finally to obey her under pain of Damnation how can all this be performed if she be invisible to man's eyes and only seen by the eyes of God 18. To alledge Fathers and Doctors in this behalf were both endless and needless for that all of them every-where almost are occupied in setting forth not only the Visibility but the Splendor also and Greatness yea the multitude and external Majesty of Christ's Church throughout the World in their days and only St. Augustin may serve for all who dilateth himself every-where in this Argument shewing how the little Stone prophesied by Daniel was grown to be a huge Mountain and terrible to the whole World and that the Tabernacle of Christ which is his Church was placed by him in the Sun to be seen of all and that it was a City upon a Mountain which none could be ignorant of and other like Discourses founded on evident Scriptures Whereby is refuted not only the first shift of Luther and Calvin making the true Church of Christ invisible but also the second of these latter Lutherans who tho' overcome with the former proofs do grant the Church to be a visible Company yet do they deny it to be that external conspicuous Succession of Bishops and Councils which have been most eminent in the known Christian Church from the Apostles downward but rather to be some few obscure and contemptible people which they call the Elect that have lived or lurked from time to time in shadows and darkness and known to few or none 19. But this second device is more fond than the former for where shall a man seek out these hidden Fellows to treat with them or to receive Sacraments at their hands how shall they be known how may they be trusted whence have they
Popes of Rome from St. Peter to Pope Silvester which were Thirty-three in number all Martyrs and every one of them condemned the Heretics of his time 13. This accursed new Church also of Heretics had the other quality ascribed in like manner by John Fox to his Church to wit that they were neglected in the Christian World and not regarded in Stories but only to recount them to their shame and damnation Finally the last commendation also was not wanting to them that they were almost scarce visible or known in respect of the flourishing Catholic Church And lastly these congregations and swarms of Heretics tho' never so much divided among themselves continued indeed from the Apostles by a kind of broken Succession of times the one rising and the other falling And they had the last point also specified by John Fox of keeping some sparks of true Doctrin in Religion for that as St. Augustin writeth Nulla falsa Doctrina est quae aliqua Vera non intermisceat There is no Doctrin so false which doth not interlace some true things And this is proper to Heresies for that otherwise if they had no points of true Doctrin they should be rather Apostates than properly Heretics for that Apostates are those that deny all Christ's Doctrin but Heretics do grant some parts and deny others 14. About which point of old Heretics and their Affinity with the Protestants of this Age it is worth the noting That whatsoever some of our late English Writers especially the Minister O. E. or Matthew Sutcliff do prattle to the contrary yet shall you never find any one Article of those that are in controversie and held by us at this day against the Protestants to have been held singularly by any one old Heretic in that sense as we do hold the same and much less condemn'd for Heresie in him or them by the Church in these days or by any one Father thereof And on the other side you shall find divers Doctrins held by them and condemn'd in them by the Church for Heresies I mean the Heretics of the first 300 years which the Protestants do hold at this day properly and in the same sense that those Heretics did And We do condemn the same for Heresies in Them as the Primitive Church did in the Other As for Example that of the Pseudo-Apostoli Heretics called false Apostles who did think only Faith to be sufficient to Salvation without Works against which Heresie St. Augustin saith were written the Epistles of St. James St. Jude St. Peter and St. John. 15. That other point also which St. Ignatius reporteth of certain Heretics in his time Qui non confitebantur Eucharistiam esse Carnem Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi quae pro peccatis nostris passa est Who did not confess that the Eucharist was the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ that suffered for us That other Doctrin in like manner that Theodoretus writeth of the Novatians His qui ab ipsis tinguntur sacrum Chrisma non praebent quocirca eos qui ex hac haeresi Corpori Ecclesiae conjunguntur benedicti Patres ungi jusserunt To those that are baptized by them the Novatians they do not give holy Chrism for which cause whosoever returning from that Heresie are to be joyned to the Body of the Catholic Church the holy Fathers commanded that they should be anointed with the said Chrism 16. Cornelius also Bishop of Rome complaineth that the said Novatus and Novatians did not receive the Sacrament of Confirmation For speaking of Novatus he saith Qui sigillo Domini ab Episcopo non signatus fuit quomodo quaeso Sanctum Spiritum adeptus est He that was not signed with the Seal of our Lord by the Bishop how could he think you obtain the Holy Ghost The same Heretics also deny'd the power of absolving from sin in Priests as also Confession and Satisfaction according as the same holy Bishop and Pope Cornelius objecteth unto him by the testimony of St. Cyprian And finally to go no further within these first 300 years St. Hierom objecteth for an Heresie to the Manichees the denying of Man's Free-will saying Manichaeorum Dogma est hominum damnare naturam liberum auferre arbitrium It is the Doctrin of the Manichees to condemn Man's Nature and to take away Free-will So saith St. Hierom and St. Chrysostom and St. Augustin do also testifie the same of the Manichees expresly And tho' perhaps the Manichees held that Doctrin upon other grounds than Protestants do yet in the Heresie it self they do plainly symbolize and agree 17. These are matters then most evident and clear nor can they be deny'd but that these Opinions are held by Protestants at this day in the very same words sense and meaning as they were by the forenamed old Heretics wherein also they were anathematiz'd and condemn'd by the known Catholic Church of these ancient Ages 18. But now when on the contrary side some Sectaries of our time to cure or cover this wound of theirs will needs like Apes object to us again That we hold some old condemned Errors and Heresies also or rather some shadow or similitude thereof you shall ever find one of these two frauds or falshoods in their Objection to wit that either they object unto us that which we indeed hold not at all or at least not in the sense which they object it or that the thing in truth is no Error in it self nor ever was held or condemned for such in the sense and meaning in which we hold it tho' it may have some little external similitude with that which was an Error As for Example O. E. objecteth unto us That we do symbolize and participate with two old Heresies the one of the Angelici qui Angelos adorabant that did adore Angels as St. Augustin saith the other of the Collyridians so called of the Greek word Collyra signifying a little triangular Cake or Bun that those Heretics being Women did offer in Sacrifice to our Blessed Lady But in both these Examples we utterly deny that we agree in Doctrin or Practice with those Heretics seeing that we neither adore nor worship with Divine Honor Angels or other Saints nor do offer Sacrifice to the Mother of God but only to God himself alone tho' in the Honor and Memory also of his Mother and other Saints glorified by him which Doctrin of ours is extant in all our Books So as here is manifestly found the first fraud of our Adversaries which is to object to us that which we hold not indeed 19. And the other falshood also cannot be deny'd whereby they affirm the Doctrin which we truly hold and practise in this behalf about honoring of Saints to have been at any time held for Error or condemn'd by the ancient Catholic Church or Teachers thereof for such Truth it is that the Magdeburgians are not asham'd to note this
for an Error in Origen Invocandos Angelos Origenes putavit homil 1. in Ezech. Origen thought Angels to be invoked And then again Hanc formulam invocandi Angelos proponit Veni Angele suscipe conversum ab Errore pristino c. And he setteth down this form of praying to Angels Come Angel receive him that is converted from his former Errors c. 20. But I would have the Magdeburgians or any of their Partners shew me when or where this Sentence of Origen was ever noted or condemned by Antiquity for Error or Heresie as some other Doctrins of his were Certain it is they cannot which is a singular Argument against them for that those Watchmen of the Church that noted and condemned those other Errors of his would have noted also this if it had been taken for an Error in those days And further I say to the Magdeburgians Let them tell us whether other holy Fathers yea the chiefest of God's Church after Origen did not hold the very same Doctrin Sure I am that the Magdeburgians themselves in the very next Century after do condemn by Name St. Ephrem and St. Hilary for this Doctrin of Invocation of Angels in the same sense that Origen did hold it And then again in the same third Century they do reprehend by Name for Invocation of other Saints which is the same Controversie the gravest Doctors of the Church to wit St. Athanasius St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzen St. Ambrose St. Epiphanius Ephrem and Prudentius citing their plain words and condemning their Doctrin in this behalf So as if this were an Heresie all these Fathers were Heretics which were a blasphemous cogitation to think and much more to speak or utter And thus much of the first Objection about honoring Angels and other Saints wherein Protestants do only calumniate our doings as you see 21. As for the Collyridians he that will read St. Epiphanius who writeth of that mad fond fantastical Error of certain Women in Thracia for so he termeth them that would needs make our Blessed Lady a Goddess and offer Sacrifice unto her he shall find this Father to handle two things at large First That notwithstanding our Blessed Lady for the Privilege of bearing the Savior of the World be highly to be honored yet not ultra decorum as his words be that is not more than is decent or beyond the limits of a Creature seeing she is not God tho' the Mother of God And consequently these Thracian Women did foolishly and wickedly in devising this public Sacrifice unto her 22. Secondly That albeit this their Sacrifice had been offered by them to God himself yet was it unlawfully done by Women for that neither in the Old or New Testament saith he was it appointed that Women should do the Function of Sacrifice but Men only and those Priests And this Argument St. Epiphanius prosecuteth very largely proving that in the New Testament and Christian Church the Apostles only and other Priests succeeding by Imposition of hands had Authority to sacrifice but no Woman no not the Mother of Christ her self who should have had that Privilege above all other Women if any of her Sex might have been admitted And after our Blessed Lady he addeth these that followeth Fuerunt saith he quatuor filiae Philippo Evangelistae prophetantes sed non sacrificantes c Philip the Evangelist had four Daughters that prophesied but not that sacrificed And again Et ministrarum quidem Diaconissarum appellatarum Ordo est in Ecclesia sed non ad sacrificandum c. Diaconissis indiguit Ecclesiasticus Ordo nusquam autem eas Presbyter as aut Sacrificulas constituit c. Vnde igitur hic rursus Mulierum fastus insania muliebris There is saith he in the Christian Church an Order of them that are called Diaconesses but not to sacrifice The Ecclesiastical Order had need of these Diaconesses at the beginning but yet never ordained them as Priests or Sacrificers And whence then is now come again this pride of Women or womanish madness as to take upon them to sacrifice in the Church 23. By all which Discourse you may easily see what was the true Heresie condemned in these Collyridians to wit Colere Sanctos ultra modum decorum as the words of holy Epiphanius are that is to worship Saints beyond measure and decency and above the nature and condition of Creatures which is forbidden by God's Church but not to honor Them as Servants of His and Him in Them. You will see also what Opinion and Use of Christian Sacrifice there was in Epiphanius's days and how it was deny'd to Women and practis'd by Priests only which yet the Sectaries of this Age cannot abide to hear of And here now will we make an end of these first 300 years after Christ wherein as you see John Fox hath put down no Succession of his Church at all either in Men or Doctrin For as for men to wit Bishops Pastors and Teachers succeeding one to another from the Apostles downward they were all of the Roman visible Church and so were all other that bear the name of Christians except the Heretics before named and of the said Roman and Catholic Church the chief Leaders were from St. Peter unto Silvester Thirty-three Popes as before hath been mentioned all Martyrs and Witnesses of the same Faith. And in other principal Patriarchal Seats wherein the Apostles had held the first Chairs as Antioch Hierusalem Alexandria and the like there had succeeded other holy Bishops as also in infinit other places throughout the World so as in the Emperor Constantine's time who liv'd in the end of these first 300 years and was the first Christian Emperor that publickly professed Christian Religion the said Christian Church was so glorious that in the first General Council of Nice there were 318 principal Bishops joyned together the most of them of Asia only Whereby we see how Illustrious and Eminent the said Catholic Church and Religion was at that time 24. By which we do most evidently infer That either John Fox his obscure and trodden-down Church scarce visible as he saith to the World was not at all in those days or else it lurk'd only in some of the forenamed Heretics For if he say that the great perspicuous Roman Church was his at that time then how doth he define his Church to be obscure and scarce visible to the World And moreover we have shewed before that the Bishops Doctors Teachers Martyrs and chief Members or Guiders of this great illustrious Church were opposite to Him and his Church both in Faith and Doctrin and this by the confession of his own Doctors and Writers the Magdeburgians and others that reprehend and condemn the Fathers of the second and third Ages for holding divers principal Points of Doctrin now also in controversie against Them and for Us. And we have shewed also that this great Universal and
Catholic Church had all Truth in it that was revealed by Christ and not some sparks only as Fox requireth in his Church and that it had continual Succession of multitudes of true Teachers without interruption and not one starting up in one Age and another in another wherewith Fox seemeth to be contented for the continuation of his Church 25. And finally if Fox coming at length to be asham'd of his former definition of an obscure and trodden-down Church and of the sparkled Doctrin of Truth therein taught should leave the same and offer to lay hands on the Great Illustrious and Visible Church of the first 300 years saying that this was His which yet you have seen by many Arguments demonstrated that it cannot be I shall be content to admit so ridiculous a pretence for a time with condition that he will stand to it and go forward with this Church in the sequent Ages and not to disclaim from Her to his hidden Church again Which if he yield unto then have we now a Visible and Eminent True Church on foot by confession of both Parties which we must follow to the Worlds end for that she cannot perish again as before we have declared For which cause I am to prosecute the same from Age to Age in this Treatise from this time downwards to our days in the Chapters that do ensue where we shall see who sticketh to her and who flieth from her who followeth her constantly or who giveth the slip for that she being now once so Potent Notorious and Illustrious as both Parts do confess if he will stand to it in earnest that she is his Church also it is not possible that she should be lost shrink or fade away again but that all the World must see it How Where When and by Whom so great an Accident should fall out neither can Fox and his People being now once in Her and of Her by his own pretence be found out of her afterward but only by Apostacy or Heresie and running away This then let us examin in the Ages following CHAP. III. The prosecution of the same matter to wit of the Descent of the Catholic and Protestant Church for other Three Hundred years that is from Pope Sylvester and Constantine to Pope Gregory and Mauritius the Emperour And where John Fox his Church lay hid in this time AND thus having run over the first three Ages after Christ we must now pass to the second station which is for other 300 years beginning from Constantine the Emperour downward unto the time of St. Gregory under whom St. Augustin came into England in which space of time the Catholic Christian Church spread over all the World as before you have heard did grow and confirm it self powerfully especially after Persecution did cease as by all Stories appeareth having had thirty-two Popes between Sylvester and Gregory whereof thirty were holden for great Saints and three or four were Martyrs 2. The Fathers and Doctors also of these three Ages were most excellent men both Grecians and Latins and it seemeth that what wanted in these three Ages from the former three in the Glory of Martyrdom it was supply'd by the Excellency of Learning As for Example in the fourth Age after Christ which is the first of the second three did flourish Eusebius Lactantius Rheticius Juvencus Athanasius Hilarius Optatus Climacus Basil Nazianzenus Ambrose Prudentius Hierom Chrysostom Epiphanius Cyril and divers others In rhe fifth Age St. Augustin Possidonius Sulpitius Orosius Cassianus Prosper Vincentius Lyrinensis Falgentius and many more And in the sixth Age Cassiodorus Emisenus Procopius Fortunatus Venantius Evagrius Gregorius Turonensis and Gregory the Great All which filled the World with their excellent Books both Greek and Latin besides many General National and Provincial Councils whereof five were Universal the first of Nice the second of Constantinople the third of Ephesus the fourth of Chalcedon wherein there were 630 Bishops and the fifth was of Constantinople the second time but of Provincial and National Councils there are receiv'd to the number of almost seventy to have been held in this time 3. By all which concourse of Testimonies the Force and Unity of Catholic Faith is shewed to wit that these Fathers Doctors Popes and Councils agreeing together all throughout the World in one and the self-same Faith and Religion and continuing the same from Age to Age with so great Authority of Respect and Majesty as not only all Ecclesiastical Persons of what Nations soever and other Christian People but all Temporal Princes Kings and Emperours in like manner except such as were noted with any particular Heresie as some Emperours of the East did wholly submit themselves with one consent Whereby this visible Illustrious Roman Church was made so Great and Universal notorious and known embracing all Christendom as it is wholly impossible for John Fox to find out any creeping hidden Church bearing the name of Christian in these three Ages and yet different from this visible and splendent Church of Rome which he calleth the Devil's Chappel And much more hard will it be for him to find out this in these latter three hundred years than in the former for that the external Glory of this Church was increased much more in these three Ages than in the first three before treated of which passed all in Persecution 4. The Heresies also and Sects of this time being above Fifty in number were beaten down more strongly by the foresaid Fathers Bishops and Councils than before by reason they had more time and leisure from Persecution to attend unto them than had those of the former three Ages The principal Heresies of this fourth Age were Meletians Donatists Arians Novatians Macedonians Luciferians Aërians Eunomians Apollinarians Aetians Priscillianists Jovinians Vigilantians Collyridians Helvidians Antimarians and other the like And in the fifth Age were Pelagians Nestorians Eutychians and other such Rabble And in the sixth Age Severians Monothelites Chrystolytes Agnoites Sadduces Theopaschites and the like Out of which Synagogues and Congregations of wrangling Spirits which succeeded one another in divers Times Places and Countries and opposed themselves maliciously out of their obscure corners against the shining Light of the foresaid Catholic Church if John Fox will frame his poor and beggarly Church which yet he holdeth for the only true Church of God oppressed and trodden down as he saith and almost scarce visible to worldly eyes he may do it with great probability for that these Fellows were neglected and trodden down indeed by the other opposite Roman Church and yet did they as John Fox requireth for the Succession of his Church continue and rise up from time to time tho' by no orderly Succession of Bishops or Doctrin as hath been said yea they had that other quality also proper to John Fox his Church that they always kept some sparks of true Doctrin and Religion together with their Heresies So as in this
years next before the entrance of St. Augustin was for Him and His Church and not for Ours yea different from the Roman Religion brought in by Augustin as often you have heard him protest and here had been the proper place to have proved it if it had been provable And whereas in the same Protestation of his prefixed before his whole Volume he avouched as you have heard that the chief British Preachers and Teachers of these times before St. Augustin's coming as Fastidius Ninianus Patricius Dubritius Congellus David Asaphus Gildas and others before mentioned were true Teachers and taught the Gospel rightly according to the Protestant Faith and consequently were of his Religion he ought here to have proved the same by their Writings Lives Acts and Monuments as I have shewed the contrary by all these kind of Arguments and Proofs before But the Fox knowing the difficulty and peril of this Combat would not enter into the same nor take upon him to defend or justifie any thing at all tho' never so much promised or protested in his Prefaces and Preambles at the beginning Whereof the Reasons are these that ensue 11. First For that touching the British Church during these three Ages he had in truth nothing at all to write or relate but what would be manifestly against himself if he had written or related it and descended to particulars For according to that you have heard before in divers places of this Treatise that as the first Faith of the Britans came from Rome and thereby they were made Members of the Roman Church from the beginning so remained they united with the same in all points of Faith and Religion except some few abuses crept in among part of them towards the latter-end of these three Ages until the Conversion of the English by St. Augustin to the same Roman Faith. Which point is proved so evidently by so many Signs Arguments and Demonstrations as little comfort might John Fox have to enter into this Discourse or Examination and consequently tho' he had promised in the beginning to treat this Subject of the British Church yet coming to the place and time when he should have performed his promise he thought better to withdraw himself slightly by utter silence than to put himself in Briars by making any mention at all thereof And thus much for his silence concerning the Christian Church of Britanny in these three Ages 12. But for the general Catholic Church of Christendom tho' these times yield abundant matter as hath been said yet the whole stream and current thereof running quite against him he thought best in like manner to decline craftily the medling or wrestling therewith And so much the more for that he had seen the pitiful plight wherein his Masters the Magdeburgians had cast themselves in their fourth fifth and sixth Centuries by over-large relating the Acts and Gests of these three Ages against themselves and their own Religion being forc'd to spend a great part of their Labors not so much in relating what the Fathers of those Ages writ or held as to answer and refute the same and shew that it was not true nor the said Doctors and Fathers to be believed therein Which trouble John Fox like a wily Fox indeed thought best to avoid by Art of Silence I will in this place for examples sake only and to give you a taste of the said Magdeburgians dealing throughout their whole Work from which John Fox taketh the principal parts of his let you see some points taken out of their fourth Century dedicated to her Majesty of England with a sharp Invective as before hath been shewed used by them against the Calvinists therein which Century containeth the fourth Hundred year after Christ and the first of the three which now we have in hand from Constantine downward wherein they spend above 400 Leaves in Folio and more than twice as much in the other two Centuries that ensue John Fox not having bestow'd four Leaves upon all three Ages as you have heard 13. And that you may perceive how this one Century of the Magdeburgians cometh to make so great a Volume you must note that it is divided into certain large Chapters or Heads of different matters As for example first of the propagation of Christian Religion in that Age and the State thereof throughout all Countreys Kingdoms and Nations which is a large matter as you see comprehending the Stories of all Ecclesiastical Writers Secondly of Persecutions Troubles and Jars that have passed as also of Peace and Tranquility Then of Doctrin good or bad then of Heresies then of Rites and Ceremonies then of Ecclesiastical Government then of Schisms then of Synods and Councils then of Bishops Doctors and Teachers their Lives Works and Actions at large then of Heretics their beginnings and endings then of Martyrs then of Miracles then of Pagan Commonwealths also and other such points capable as you see of long Discourses Which I thought fit once to note to the end that those which have not read the Centuries may know in general what matters they handle and what method they use therein 14. Secondly it is to be noted about the same affair That in all these Heads and Chapters there be divers things which are not in controversie among us I mean between Catholics and Protestants but are common to us both at least in some degrees Other Points there are that they affirm and we deny or we affirm and they deny There is a third kind also of Points wherein tho' We and Protestants do not agree fully either in the Doctrin or in the Practice yet one Sect of them differeth more or less from us than the other And in all these three Points you shall see some brief Examples of the Magdeburgians manner of proceeding in this fourth Age Noting to you first by the way their own Testimony of the excellent Learning of the Doctors and Teachers thereof in these words Habuit haec aet as si quae unquam alia plurimos praestantes illustres Doctores ut Arnobium Lactantium c. This Age if ever any other had very many most excellent and famous Doctors as Arnobius Lactantius Eusebius Athanasius Hilarius Victorinus Basilius Nazianzenus Ambrosius Prudentius Epiphanius Theophilus Hieronymus Faustinus Didymus Ephrem Optatus and others out of which we shall shew and declare what was the form of Christian Doctrin used in this Age. 15. Lo there the Testimony of the Magdeburgians of the famous Doctors Teachers and Leaders of Christ's Church in this Age And being such as they say so excellently Learned and endued with Christ's Spirit for Guiding of his Church is it probable think you that these four German Magdeburgians Illyricus Wigandus Judex and Faber shall come to presume afterward to condemn them all of Ignorance and lack of Spirit when they speak against them Truly they cannot do it with any shame fac'dness or modesty at all or be believed
West by the foresaid Pope Leo III. And during this Race of time the said Universal Church flourished greatly by Learned Men and Holy Bishops whereof the principal were St. Isidorus Archbishop of Sevil Sophronius Leontius Theodorus Archbishop of Canterbury Venerable Bede Johannes Damascenus Paulus Diaconus Alcuinus our Countrey-man Vsuardus and others 4. This time had many Learned Councils also whereof two were General the one being the third of Constantinople the other the second of Nice Whereby were beaten down all the Heretics of those days the principal whereof were the Jacobites the Armenians Monothelites Neophonites Lampetians Agnychites Iconomachians or Image-breakers and other the like Besides all this there was added to the Greatness of this Church the new Conversion of many Countries from Paganism to Christian Religion Amongst which may principally be recounted our English Saxons as also by their means divers Provinces afterward of High and Low Germany And this for the continuance and going forward of the Christian Catholic Church in general planted by Christ and brought down by Succession from the Apostles time 5. But if you will talk of our new English Church planted in this mean space and inserted or united to that General Catholic Church as a Branch or Member to the whole Body and as a new Daughter subordinate to her Mother we shall see her progress to be conform thereunto to wit that she multiplied mightily in these 200 years both in Number Doctrin and great Piety of Life which John Fox himself is forced to confess in that he having told us of the Conversion of seven English Saxon Kingdoms within the compass of this time he setteth down divers Tables in the end of all whereof one is of seventeen Archbishops of Canterbury from Augustin to Celnothus that lived with King Egbert and another Table of thirty Cathedral Churches Abbies and Nunneries builded and abundantly endowed by Christian English Kings Queens and Bishops of that time and a third Table of nine several Kings besides many more of chief Nobility both Men and Women who leaving the World and their Temporal States entred into a Religious Life the more strictly to serve Almighty God. All which John Fox is forc'd to recount against himself and findeth no one in all this time of 200 years and much less any company on whom he dareth lay hands to build up his hidden Church in England withal 6. And it is to be noted by the Reader and by us to be repeated again for better memories sake that which before we admonished to wit that Fox findeth these 200 years of our first English primitive Church so barren of matter for his purpose as in the whole story thereof he spendeth only eight Leaves of Paper and these rather in deriding and scoffing the same and principal Pillars thereof than writing any Ecclesiastical History For which cause you shall find these Notes and Titles commonly written over the heads of his Leaves and Pages Augustin's arrival in Kent Gregory the basest Pope but the best Proud Augustin Lying Miracles Shaven Crowns Beda his Birth and the like Of which Learned Holy Man's Story I mean St. Bede he maketh so little account as in the same place reciting a Letter out of him written by a holy Man Ceolfride Abbot of Sherwyn in Northumberland to Naitonus King of the Picts he saith thus The Copy of which Letter as it is in Bede I have annexed not for any great reason therein contained but only to delight the Reader with some pastime in seeing the fond Ignorance of that Monkish Age c. Whereby we may see the drift of this pleasant Fox in these his Acts and Monuments which is to discredit that whole Time and all our Primitive Church 7. But yet to the end that the saying of Christ may be fulfilled in him Ex ore tuo te judico Serve nequam I do judge thee out of thy own mouth thou wicked Servant I shall here set down two National Synods gathered in England in these two Ages by two famous Archbishops of Canterbury the one Theodorus in the year of Christ 680 and related by Beda and the other St. Cuthbert in the year 747 related by William of Malmsbury after Bede's death and both of them set down by Fox And by viewing the Decrees of these two Synods you will see whether those Ages were so fond in Ignorance as Fox maketh them Out of the first Synod held at Thetford Fox gathereth ten Decrees in these words 8. I. That Easter-day should be uniformly kept and observed throughout the whole Realm upon a certain day viz. prima 14 Luna Mensis primi II. That no Bishop should intermeddle within the Diocese of another III. That Monasteries consecrated unto God should be exempt and free from the Jurisdiction of Bishops IV. That the Monks should not stray from one place that is from one Monastery to another without the license of their Abbot also to keep the same Obedience which they promised at their first entring V. That no Clergy-man should forsake his own Bishop and be received in any other place without Letters Commendatory of his own Bishop VI. That Foreign Bishops and Clergy-men coming into the Realm should be content only with the benefit of such Hospitality as should be offered them neither should they intermeddle any further within the Precinct of any Bishop without his special permission VII That Synods Provincial should be kept within the Realm at least once a year VIII That no Bishop should prefer himself before another but must observe the time and order of his Consecration IX That the number of Bishops should be augmented as the number of People increased X. That no Marriage should be admitted but that which was lawful no Incest to be suffered neither any man to put away his Wife for any cause except only for Fornication after the Rule of the Gospel And these be the principal Chapters of that Synod c. 9. Out of the second Synod held at Clonisho Fox gathereth thirty-one Decrees as followeth I. That Bishops should be more diligent in seeing to their Office and in admonishing the people of their faults II. That they should live in a peaceable mind together notwithstanding they were in place dissevered asunder III. That every Bishop once a year should go about all the Parishes of his Diocese IV. That the said Bishops every one in his Diocese should admonish their Abbots and Monks to live regularly and that Prelates should not oppress their Inferiors but love them V. That they should teach the Monasteries which the secular men had invaded and could not then betaken from them to live regularly VI. That none should be admitted to Orders before his Life should be examined VII That in Monasteries the reading of Holy Scripture should be more frequented VIII That Priests should be no disposers of secular business IX That they should take no money for baptizing
the Conversion of Infidels to Christian Faith and their holy Baptism calling it signing them with the Character of the Beast Who but a Beast indeed or a man of a beastly mind would speak so If I should allege the Testimonies of all ancient Authors since his time in praise and admiration of so zealous and holy a Martyr I should oppress both Fox and Bale with their very Names and Authority 17. But to return to Fox again You have heard what he omitteth of the Church of England which he might well have discoursed of in handling these Times Seeing he passeth over our particular Church so slightly you will demand perchance what he writeth or setteth down of the Universal Roman Church Truly in effect he handleth nothing of moment nor coherence tho' to bring in a certain impertinent Tale whereof he desireth to speak to wit of Pope Joan he setteth us down a short Rank of some few Popes but namely of Pope Leo IV. unto whom he adjoyneth Pope John VIII and after him Benedict III. and then Pope Nicholas I. And this Pope John VIII which entred between Leo and Benedict he will needs have to have been a Woman whom he calleth Pope Joan And albeit John Fox's words be as foolish and blasphemous as they are wont in such cases yet will I recite them here to the end you may see what truth pr probability this so much blazed and canvased Heretical Fiction hath in it 18. And here next saith he followeth now and cometh in the Whore of Babylon rightly in her true colours by the permission of God and manifestly without all tergiversation to appear to the World and that not only after the spiritual sense but after the letter and the right form of an Whore indeed For after this Leo above mentioned the Cardinals proceeding to their ordinary Election after a solemn Mass of the Holy Ghost to the perpetual shame of them and of that See instead of a Man Pope elected a Whore indeed called by the Name of John VIII who sate two years and six months c. The Womans proper Name was Gilberta c. 19. Behold John Fox describeth so particularly this Woman and her Election as if he had been present and seen all pass But suppose all this were true which he hath written as we shall prove it presently to be altogether false Suppose I say that by Error such a Woman had been chosen what had ensu'd of that or what had this prejudiced the Church of Christ St. Augustin asketh the very same Question in a like case when having recited up the Popes of Rome from Christ to his days to wit from St. Peter to Pope Anastasius he maketh this demand What if any Judas or Traytor had entred among these or been chosen by Error of men Si quisquam Traditor saith he per illa tempora subrepsisset If any Traytor in those days had crept in what had ensu'd thereof And then he maketh the Answer presently Nihil praejudicaret Ecclesiae innocentibus Christianis And the very like do I answer in this case For I would ask John Fox If immediately after the Apostles time whiles yet he confesseth the Church of Rome to have been in good state and the true Church of Christ any Woman or Hermaphroditus or any that had not been baptized or if a Lay-man and not Priest and consequently not capable of that Place and Dignity had by Error of men crept into the Office of chief Bishop which as it may happen by human frailty so yet we assure our selves that the Providence of God will never permit it in so high and supreme a Dignity of his Church but if it should have happened out had this prejudiced that Apostolic Church or made it the Whore of Babylon as Fox inferreth of his latter Church Truly I think he dareth not say so for that it is evident it were a plain cavil the only inconvenience of that case being if it should fall out that the Church should lack a true Head for the time as she doth when any Pope dieth until another be chosen And whatsoever inconvenience can be imagined in this case is more against the Protestants than Us for that their Church admitteth for lawful and supreme Head thereof either Man or Woman which our Church doth not Here then is seen John Fox's Folly in urging this point 20. Again I would ask the simple Fellow that repeateth so often the word Whore in this place as tho' he were delighted therewith Whether that word used by St. John in the Apocalypse to wit Meretrix Babylon were meant of a particular person as he applieth it or rather of a City or Multitude If he will answer any thing at all he must needs grant the second for that the Vision describeth plainly the City of Rome scituated upon seven Hills that slew the Martyrs of Christ and infected the whole World with the variety and confusion of her Idolatries which Sentences being not applicable to the Church or Congregation of Christians in those days that was holy as Fox will confess but rather to the State and present condition of Rome under those Pagan persecuting Emperours that afflicted Christians and forced men to Idolatry which State was prophesied that it should fall and be overthrown soon after by Christ's Power as we have seen it fulfilled All this I say being put together and considered it is a most ridiculous thing to apply this Prophesie of the Whore of Babylon as Fox doth to any particular Pope John Joan or Jill if any such had been 21. But the very truth is that this whole Story of Pope Joan is a meer Fable and so known to the more learned sort of Protestants themselves but that they will not leave off to delude the World with it for lack of other matter If you ask me How it began and hath continued in mens mouths so long I answer Either upon simplicity or malice or both Upon simplicity it seemeth it was begun by the first Author and Relator thereof Martinus Polonus that lived about 300 years agone and above 400 after the thing is said to have fallen out who was a very simple man as appeareth by many other fabulous Relations which he maketh And yet doth not he aver it but only with this limitation ut asseritur as it is said whereby he sheweth to have received it only by vulgar Rumor without any certain Author or Ground And we shall afterward shew the occasion of the foresaid false Rumor 22. But the matter being once on foot it was carry'd on partly by curiosity of latter Writers that took it out of Polonus as Platina and others relating it with the same restriction ut aiunt as men say and partly by malice and emulation of them that favoured the German Empire against the Pope and were glad to have such a matter of some Dishonor to object against the See of Rome which
And if I should number up the manifest Lies which the miserable and poor spiteful Fellow inventeth for some shew of proof you would take pity of Him and not of the Monks You shall hear one short Discourse of his about them and thereby you may judge of the rest 13. Monks saith he were nothing else in old time but Lay-men leading a more stricter Trade of Life as may sufficiently appear by Augustin lib. de moribus Ecclesiae cap. 3. Item lib. de oper Monachorum Item Ep. ad Aurelium Also by Hieron ad Heliodorum writing these words Alia Monachorum est causa alia Clericorum Clerici pascunt Oves ego pascor One thing pertaineth to Monks another thing to them of the Clergy They of the Clergy feed the Flock I am fed c. By all which is evident that Monks were no other in former Ages of the Church but only Lay-men differing from Priests c. 14. Thus writeth Fox which alone were sufficient to shew his peevish Fraud and Folly in all his Writings For albeit St. Augustin in the places by him quoted had written any such thing as he affirmeth which is quite false and so shall the Reader find that will examin the places yet the very words of St. Hierom by Fox himself adjoyned do clearly interpret both his own and St. Augustin's meaning and convince Fox for a meer malevolent Caviller for that St. Hierom doth not deny that Monks are Clergy-men or Priests for then he should deny himself to have been a Priest or of the Clergy seeing he confesseth himself to be a Monk but his meaning is to shew the different End and Office of some Clergy-men to wit Secular Priests and Bishops that have care of Souls from Monks for that the one do attend principally to Action the other to Contemplation the one to Preaching the other to Praying the one to feed others the others to be fed in which latter number St. Hierom for humility putteth also himself whom yet I think John Fox will not affirm to have been a meer Lay-man and not Priest and Clergy-man And so is this cavil of his against Monks that in old time they were Lay-men shewed to be most vain and malicious For what will he say of St. Basil St. Nazianzen St. Augustin St. Gregory were they not Monks Priests and Bishops also how then were Monks meerly Lay-men in old time 15. The like notorious Folly conjoyn'd with Falshood he useth to prove married Monks alleging St. Athanasius's words Epist ad Diacont qui ait se novisse Monachos Episcopos conjuges liberorum patres who saith that he knew both Monks and Bishops married men and Fathers of Children But what proveth this Do not we see every day even now in our Church both Bishops Priests and Religious men that have once been married and some of them also to have had Children and after the death of their Wives to have entred into Ecclesiastical and Religious Orders What fond deluding of his Reader is this He should have proved that they had married after they had been Priests or Monks and then had he said somewhat But this he could not do and so thought best to make a fond flourish of the other 16. Nay in the very Greek Church at this day where Priests are permitted that were married before tho' their Wives be living yet if their said Wives die they are not permitted to marry again And as for Monks out of which Order only Bishops are made in that Church they were never permitted to marry after their profession of Religion Nay St. Epiphanius a chief Pillar of that Church when it was perfectly Catholic about 1200 years agone saith plainly as the Magdeburgians also allege him That the holy Church of God admitted not in his days any man to Priesthood or Episcopal Dignity that either married the second time or did not abstain from conversation with his first Wife if she lived after he was admitted to Priesthood Revera saith he non suscipit sancta Dei praedicatio post Christi adventum eos qui à nuptiis mortua ipsorum uxore secundis nuptiis conjuncti sunt propter excellentem Sacerdotii Honorem Dignitatem Et haec certè Sancta Dei Ecclesia cum sinceritate observat c. In very truth the holy preaching of God after the coming of Christ doth not admit those to be Priests who after their first Marriage and their Wife dead do joyn themselves again in second Marriage And this doth the holy Church of God observe with sincerity in respect of the excellent Honor and Dignity of Priesthood c. So saith Epiphanius and addeth presently Sed adhuc viventem liberos gignentem c. But further than this the said holy Church of Christ doth not admit to Priesthood a man of one Wife if he live and get Children as before but only she admitteth Him to be a Deacon Priest Bishop or Subdeacon especially where the Clergy is sincere who is content to contain from his Wife that he used before or live in Widowhood if his Wife be dead 17. Thus writeth this holy Doctor not only of his own Judgment but of the whole Consent of the Universal Catholic Church in his days not only of Monks that make a more strict profession of Chastity but of all Clergy-men also that lived in Holy Orders to wit Subdeacons Deacons Priests and Bishopss Of whom thus much be spoken by occasion of John Fox his notorious Lye That Monks were only Lay men and married in old time And by this we may see his affection towards Them and their Profession And there were no end if I should prosecute all his peevish picking of quarrels against them upon every occasion or without occasion thereby to shew his Heretical Stomach in that behalf One only Example I will shew you more and so make an end 18. There is a Story recorded by William of Malmsbury and other ancient authentical Authors as Fox himself confesseth touching our foresaid famous English King Alfred fourth Son to the forenamed King Ethelwolf and Nephew to King Egbert brought up in Rome by Pope Leo IV. as hath been said who being driven into great Extremities by the Conquest of the Danes against him was relieved and comforted by the appearance of St. Cuthbert miraculously foretelling him what should succeed in those Wars and confirming the same with other Predictions also which afterwards were fulfilled Which Story tho' it be one of the most rare that is to be read in our English Histories and with most comfort also by him that will consider it with attention and indifferency and testified also unto us as authentically as any Story may be in this kind not only by the said Malmsbury above 500 years agone but by divers others in like manner and of like credit as Fox himself is forced to confess yet for that St. Cuthbert principal Actor therein was an unmarried Monk he cannot
to praise God after the imitation of King David hanging up by his Bed-side on a Pin upon the Wall he heard one night a voice of Angels sing in his Church this Verse Gaudent in Coelis animae Sanctorum at which time his said Harp also gave a sound of it self moved either by the said Angels or otherwise by Miracle from God. Whereat John Fox in his Heretical Vein maketh much Pastime tho' as already you have heard and shall do more in the third Part of this Book he esteemeth highly certain devised Miracles of his miserable Martyrs And so much of this 34. But now as touching the principal Point of all this Discourse which ought to have been the visible deduction of his Church from King Egbert to William the Conqueror there is not one word spoken for all that he writeth is of our Church and this in Lyes Fables Scoffs and Taunts as you see but of his own Church nothing no not so much as of any one person that in all agreed with him or his Church in these days concerning Religion Nay let him shew us any one Man Woman or Child Heretic or Catholic in all this time who was fully of the Religion now held in England and that these believed no more nor less than Fox and his Fellows do at this day and we will yield that he hath brought us forth some visible Church and Succession thereof tho' it be but of three or four persons 35. Lo with how little we are content And seeing Fox will not dare nor any man for him in my opinion to take upon him this Enterprize to wit to shew the succession of any three or four persons throughout the space of this first 1000 years after Christ who did in all things believe and profess the Faith and Religion that now is held in England whereunto also John Fox himself agreed fully while he lived as may appear by the Puritanical Points in his Story which he commendeth and defendeth in the Lives of Rogers Hooper and other their first English Parents as after shall be shewed Forsomuch I say as this is so and that never any three persons of what Condition Religion Sex or Sect soever can be shewed to have agreed fully in the Protestants Religion that now in England is professed not only for the time of these first thousand years of Christianity but neither for the other five hundred next following nor that our English Protestants of these days will bind themselves in all and every Point of Doctrin Faith and Belief to stand to any one visible Congregation Church Conventicle Society or number of men whatsoever professing the Name of Christ that have been known to live upon Earth from the Apostles time downward but that they do vary from them in one Article of Belief or other 36. If all this I say be true and most certain and made evident by this our deduction and that we offer to joyn any further Issue that shall be demanded with any Protestant living upon this point that shall have any thing to say or reply in this matter This being so then is it evident what a Succession of the Protestants Church John Fox bringeth or is able to bring down or any man for him notwithstanding his vain brag and flourish in the first Title of his Book That he would set down the whole race and course of the Church c. The Folly and Falshood of which flourish shall better also appear by that which ensueth from the Conquest downward CHAP. VII The fifth station of Time containing other Three hundred years from William the Conquerour unto the time of John Wickliff wherein is examined Whether the Catholic Roman Church did perish in this time as Fox affirmeth Here is treated also of Pope Hildebrand and of the Marriage of Priests YOU have seen good Reader by our former Treatse how brief and barren John Fox hath been hitherto in relating unto us Ecclesiastical matters for more than a thousand years For tho' he promised in the first Title of his Book as before you have heard that he would set forth at large the whole race and course of the Church from the primitive Age unto these latter Times of ours c. And again in another Title that he was to lay before us the Acts and Monuments of Christian Martyrs and matters Ecclesiastical passed in the Church of Christ from the primitive beginning to these our days as well in other Countries as namely in the Realms of England and also of Scotland discoursed at large c. yet this large Discourse for more than a thousand years is concluded by him in less than seventy Leaves of Paper whereof almost fifty are of impertinent matter to wit of certain Differences which he would pick out between the old Roman Church and that which is now and in the relation of the first Ten Persecutions under Heathen Emperours which before we have declared how little they appertain to his Argument or Subject taken in hand which was to set down the race and course of the whole Church And this being so you may consider what store of Ecclesiastical matters he findeth to his purpose in these first thousand years seeing he scarce spendeth thirty whole Leaves therein whereof also the far greater part I mean of that he writeth in these few Leaves is meer temporal or impertinent as in part you have heard And how then doth he tell us of Ecclesiastical matters discoursed at large c. and of the whole race and course of the Church set forth largely by him c. Do you see how these men do face and lye to deceive their Readers 2. But let us not complain I pray you of brevity or barrenness in John Fox nor lack of Volume seeing he hath set forth the greatest perhaps that ever was in our English Tongue And if he have been over-short for the thousand years past unto the time of William the Conqueror he will as much exceed in length now for the other five hundred years that are to ensue from the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth upon which time he bestoweth above 900 Leaves And the reason of this so notable difference or inequality is that which we have touched before to wit that he finding the whole course of these former Times and Ages of the Christian Church to be against him nor daring openly to reject that Church nor manifestly to joyn with her Enemies adjudg'd by her for Heretics he chose to speak as little of those Times and Affairs as he could But now he hath taken another resolution much more desperate in hand which is to deny Our Church to be any longer a Church and to set up another of His in her place by which means he will come to have matter enough for that this being supposed and he presuming that all the Acts and Monuments of this Church I mean the General Roman Church receiv'd hitherto
wrong Cause 32. How large a Treatise Fox maketh of St. Thomas Becket and his contention with King Henry II. and how shamefully he doth bely and revile him every-where hath been shewed sufficiently before in my Answer to Sir Francis Hastings as also of the Fable of the poysoning of K. John. And as for the Histories the Waldenses Albigenses whom he meaneth to lay for the first Foundations of his visible Church upon Earth he handleth matters so falsly and partially contrary to the testimony of all Antiquity as a man may easily see that the whole contexture of his Story is nothing else but a perpetual woven thread of wilful and malicious Falshoods and for that I shall have occasion to speak again of these Heretics in the next Chapter wherein we have to handle the Succession of John Fox his visible Protestant Church from Wickliff downward I shall say no more thereof here but remit me to that which ensueth CHAP. IX Of the time from John Wickliff unto the beginning of the Reign of King Henry VIII containing about 140 years And how the Roman Church and John Fox his Church passed in these days BY that which hath been said before from Age to Age of the apparent and manifest Descent Progress and Continuation of the Catholic Roman Church and of her State and Condition as well in England as in other parts of the Christian World at the rising of John Wickliff an English-man about the year of Christ 1371 it is not hard to make the like deduction of the same Church from that time unto the year of Christ 1560 when her Majesty that now is had a little before begun her Reign and established the form of Religion that now is held in England For as for the Popes and chief Ecclesiastical Governors of the Roman Church in this time they are publicly known their Names Number and Succession one to another from Innocentius VI. Vrbanus V. and Gregory XI who first condemned Wickliff's Doctrin unto Pope Pius V. that entred the Roman See at the beginning of her Majesties Reign being in number about Thirty and all of one Faith and Religion the one with the other 2. The Emperours also both of the West and East Empire so long as it lasted are known to have been of the self-same Religion excepting some Disobedience and Schismatical Opinions in some of the Greek Emperours against the Church of Rome for which it may be thought that God of his Justice gave them over at length together with their Empire into Infidels hands about the year of Christ 1450 Constantinus the Twelfth of that Name sirnamed Paleologus being the last of that Race 3. The manner also of proceeding in Ecclesiastical matters by this Church in this time was like unto the former to wit by conserving and continuing the Faith of their Ancestors and precedent times defending the same with like diligence against Innovations of Heretics partly by the Writings of Catholic Learned Men Doctors and Preachers which in these Ages were as Gregorius Ariminensis Laurentius Justinianus Thomas de Kempis Bartholomeus Vrbinas Thomas Waldensis Joannes Gerson Alphonsus Tostatus Sanctus Vincentius Sanctus Antoninus Sanctus Bernardinus Senensis Nicolaus Cusanus Jo. Tritemius Jo. Naucleras Albertus Pius Eckius Empserus Clicthoveus and many other Learned Catholic Writers By whose diligence the Heretics in these Ages were every-where refuted But especially were they repressed by the Authority of Synods and Councils as well Provincial and National as General also to which effect were their latter General Councils the first of Florence under Pope Eugenius IV. against the Heretics and Schismatics of those times about the year of Christ 1432 the second of Lateran under Julius II. and Leo X. about the year of Christ 1513 and the third of Trent against Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists Anabaptists and other such fresher Heretics of our days under Pope Paulus IV. Pius IV. and Pius V. which Council was begun about the year 1445. 4. And albeit in this time as in former Ages there wanted not troublesom Spirits and new-fangling Heads to impugn and exercise this Church as the Wickliffians Hussites Pickards Adamites Thaborites Orebites and other such Sectaries going before Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists Anabaptists Trinitarians and other like new Dogmatists of our days yet were they always discovered resisted vanquished and condemned by the same ordinary Process of Ecclesiastical Censures and Judgment excommunicated anathematiz'd and delivered over to Sathan by the Authority of this Church as all other Heretics were in former Ages and consequently are like to have the self-same final end howsoever they ruffle or resist for a time 5. And this being now the demonstration of our Catholic Church most clear and evident to all them that have Eyes of Understanding to see and Grace to consider the Truth let us pass over to the view of John Fox's Church which having been hitherto invisible from Christ downward and only imaginary or Mathematical as you have seen for that he hath scarce named any to have been of that Church yet now from this time forward he will begin to exhibit unto us a real visible Church on his part that is to say a Succession or rather Representation of divers Professors of his Religion or of some Points thereof at leastwise wherein they differ from the Roman For he doth not think it needful for those of his Church to agree in all Articles nor doth he bind himself to the Rule of St. Augustin Ecclesia universaliter perfecta est in nullo claudicat The true Church is universally perfect and doth halt in no one point of Belief But he thinketh it sufficient for his men to agree in some things against the Roman Church and to have some sparkles of Truth in it as before he affirmed albeit therewithal they should have some blemishes and errors also as a little after we will declare 6. The Catalogue of these Protestant Professors whereof Fox would make up his Church we shall handle in the Chapter following Now we are only to tell you that from this time of Wickliff downwards he meaneth to lay down the visible Succession of his Church and to that effect he storeth up all those that held the Articles of the foresaid Wickliff or Husse for Gospellers of his Church whatsoever they held otherwise against him or different among themselves And if any of them or others were punished for their Opinions by our Church then doth he register them for Martyrs or Confessors of the same Church which yet he never durst do before this time albeit there were divers other Sectaries in former Ages that symboliz'd with him in divers Articles as hath been shewed 7. Yea in this matter we may see John Fox also play the Fox and fetch many windings and turnings to deceive his Reader for that at the very entrance of his prolix and tedious Treatise of John Wickliff whom he proposeth as a chosen man raised
the Records of the Chancery as the Act of Parliament it self whereby they were condemned of open Treason and confessed Rebellion for which sixty nine were condemned in one day by public Sentence and yet doth the mad fellow take upon him to excuse and defend them all by a long Discourse of many Leaves together scoffing and jesting as well at their Arraignment and Sentence given as also at the Act of Parliament holden at Leicester Anno 2 Hen. 5. cap. 7. and in the year of Christ 1415. And after all he setteth forth in contempt of this public Judgment a great painted Pageant or Picture of those that were hanged for that open Fact of Rebellion in St. Giles's Field in London as of true Saints and Martyrs namely of Sir Roger Acton and others pag. 540. And some Leaves after that again he setteth out another particular Pageant of the several Execution of Sir John Oldcastle with this Title The description of the cruel Martyrdom of Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham And more than this he appointeth unto them their several Festival Days in red Letters which were the days of their Hanging as unto solemn Martyrs The first upon the sixth of January with this Title Sir Roger Acton Knight Martyr And the other upon the fifth of February with this Inscription in his Calendar Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham Martyr Whereby we may see that these men do not measure things as they are in themselves but as they serve to maintain their Faction 15. And it is further to be noted That albeit these two Rebellious Knights Acton and Oldcastle besides all other their convicted Crimes did make public Profession of a far different Faith from John Fox as may be seen by the Confessions and Protestations set down by Fox himself yea and the latter of them also did openly recant all the Errors and Heresies that he had held before yet notwithstanding will not Fox so let them go but perforce will have them to be of his Church whether they will or no. It would be over long to rehearse many Examples some few shall you have for a tast 16. Page 512. Fox setteth down the Protestation of Sir John Oldcastle with this Title The Christian Belief of the Lord Cobham By which Title you may see that he liketh well of his Belief and holdeth it for truly Christian Well mark what followeth When after other Articles about the blessed Trinity and Christ's Deity Sir John Oldcastle cometh to treat of the Sacrament of the Altar he protesteth thus And forasmuch as I am falsly accused of a misbelief in the Sacrament of the Altar I signifie here to all men that this is my Faith concerning that I believe in that Sacrament to be contained very Christ's Body and Blood under the similitudes of Wine and Bread yea the same Body that was conceived of the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary hung on the Cross died and was buried arose the third day from the dead and now is glorified in Heaven This was his Confession and is related here by Fox And will Fox agree to this think you It may be he will for that he saith nothing against it at all in this place 17. But some Leaves after repeating another Testimonial of the said Oldcastle's Belief witnessed by his own Friends concerning this Article he writeth thus Furthermore He believeth that the blessed Sacrament of the Altar is verily and truly Christ's Body in form of Bread. Upon which words Fox maketh this Commentary in the Margin In form of Bread but not without Bread he meaneth Yea John is that his meaning How then standeth this with his former words Vnder the similitudes of Bread and Wine Is the Similitude of Bread true Bread Who seeth not this silly shift of a poor baited Fox that cannot tell whither to turn his head But mark yet a far worse shift 18. Sir John Oldcastle shewing his Belief about three sorts of Men the one of Saints now in Heaven the second in Purgatory the third here Militant upon Earth saith thus The holy Church I believe to be divided into three sorts or companies whereof the first are now in Heaven c. the second sort are in Purgatory abiding the Mercy of God and a full deliverance of pain the third upon Earth c. To this speech of Purgatory Fox thought best left it might disgrace his new Martyr to add this Parenthesis of his own if any such place be in the Scriptures c And by this you may perceive how he proceedeth in all the rest to wit most perfidiously like a Fox in all 19. Furthermore he setteth down at length a very ample and earnest Recantation of the said Sir John Oldcastle taken out of the Records as authentically made as can be devised Wherein he thus protested In Nomine Dei Amen I John Oldcastle denounced detected and convicted of and upon divers Articles savouring Heresie and Error c. I being evil seduced by divers Seditious Preachers have grievously erred heretically persisted blasphemously answered and obstinately rebelled c. And having recounted at length all his former condemned and heretical Opinions he endeth thus Over and besides all this I John Oldcastle utterly forsaking and renouncing all the aforesaid Errors and Heresies and all other like unto them lay my hand here upon this Book and Evangel of God and swear That I shall never more from henceforth hold these aforesaid Heresies nor yet any other like unto them wittingly c. All which Recantation and Abjuration being related at large by John Fox he saith nothing at all against it but only that it was devised by the Bishops without his consent alleging no one Author Witness Writing Record Reason or probable Conjecture for proof thereof but followeth the fond shift before touched by me against the Magdâ—burgenses of him that being accused of heinous Crimes bringeth in first the best Witnesses of all the City to prove the same against himself and then answereth all with only saying that they are Lyars and know not what they say In which kind I cannot omit to allege an Example or two more for your better satisfaction in this behalf 20. This Fox in his Protestation to the Church of England wherein he pretendeth to put the very sum of all his whole Volume being desirous to prove the Antiquity of this his visible Church not only by these Witnesses the Wickliffians Hussites Lollards and other Sectaries of that time above 200 years agone but also by the testimonies of divers Statutes and Acts of Parliaments made against them in England at the same time he citeth sundry Statutes and Acts of Parliament for that purpose and presently discrediteth the same again telling you That you must not believe Them but rather Him and His Words against them all You shall hear him in his own words 21. Let any man saith he peruse the Acts and Statutes of Parliaments passed in this
Realm of ancient times and therein consider the course of times where he may find and read Anno 5 Reg. Rich. 2. in the year of our Lord 1380 of a great number that there be called evil persons going about from Town to Town in Frize Gowns preaching unto the People c. Which Preachers tho' the words of the Statute do term them to be dissembling persons preaching divers Sermons containing Heresies and notorious Errors to the emblemishment of Christian Faith c. yet notwithstanding may every true Christian Reader conceive of those Preachers to have taught no other Doctrin than now they hear their own Preachers in Pulpits preach c. 22. Mark here three Points good Reader First That if all this were true that the Wickliffians had preached no other Doctrin than the Protestants do now yet nothing followeth of this but that Protestants Doctrin was condemned for Heresie not only by the Church-Laws but also by divers Acts of English Parliaments above 200 years past Which thing what help or credit it can bring to Fox his Religion which standeth chiefly in England by Authority of far latter Acts of Parliament I do not see for that hereof only may be inferred two Conclusions if his premises be true The first That Protestants were condemned for Heretics by Acts of Parliament 200 years agone The second If those ancient Acts of Parliament were of little force in matters of Religion then latter Acts that have established a different Religion may also be called in question and that with much more reason and probability 23. Secondly I say That this Assertion of Fox is most apparently false to wit that the Wickliffian Preachers taught no other Doctrin than the Protestant Preachers now teach if the Articles before alleged out of himself be truly written by him For neither do the Protestant Preachers in England at this day teach the Real Presence in the blessed Sacrament of the Altar or the Doctrin of Purgatory as you have heard Sir John Oldcastle a chief Wickliffian profess a little before nor yet do Protestants hold those Articles of John Wickliff himself which in this Chapter we have mentioned as held neither by Them nor Us. And much less do they hold any other Catholic Opinions which the Wickliffians did together with their Heresies So as this is a notorious untruth and cannot be denied or dissembled 24. Thirdly We may consider of the particular Point which before I noted That John Fox is not ashamed to cite a whole Parliament against himself and then in a word to reject the same as of no credit in the World in respect of Him and his Denial or Rejection The Parliament saith he calleth these Frize gown-Preachers the Wickliffians dissembling persons but you must think notwithstanding they were very honest men The Parliament saith That they preached Heresies and notorious Errors but John Fox saith it was true Christian Doctrin Whom shall we here believe either the whole Parliament who lived with them and examined both their Doctrin and doings or John Fox that cometh more than 200 years after them and will needs make himself their Brother whether they will or no and judge also of the Parliament But let us hear him yet further 25. Furthermore saith he you shall find likewise in Statuto anno 2 Hen. 4. cap. 15. in the year of our Lord 1402 another like Company of godly Preachers and faithful Defenders of true Doctrin whom albeit the words of the Statute there through corruption of time do falsly term to be false and perverse Preachers under dissembled Holiness teaching in those days openly and privily new Doctrin and heretical Opinions c. Yet notwithstanding whoever readeth Histories and the orderly descent of times shall understand these to be no false Teachers but faithful Witnesses of the Truth c. 26. Lo here the testimony of another Parliament of our Country held 22 years after the former which John Fox rejecteth with the same facility that he did the other For whereas the Parliament that had examined the matter protesteth That they had found them false perverse and dissembling People teaching new Doctrin and heretical Opinions Fox averreth the contrary That they were good Preachers and faithful Defenders of true Doctrin and holy Witnesses of God's Truth And for proof hereof he saith That whosoever readeth Histories and conferreth the Order and Descent of times shall understand thus much to be true But how and by what means a man shall gather this understanding he telleth us not And by the Historical Discourses and Conference of times which we have hitherto made in this Book we understand the contrary finding indeed by Descent and Order of times that these Opinions of Wickliff Husse and Lollards and the like were new heretical Opinions indeed and taken and judged so by Christendom at their up rising and appearance in the World. Wherefore this is plain impudence in Fox to say that by reading Histories and noting descent of Times these men are by him justified from being Sectaries 27. It followeth in Fox Of the like number also saith he of like true faithful favourers and followers of God's holy Word we find in the year of our Lord 1422 specified in a Letter sent from Henry Chichesley Archbishop of Canterbury to Pope Martin V. of many infected here in England as he said by the Heresies of Wickliff and Husse c. who tho' they be termed for Heretics and Schismatics yet served they the living Lord within the Ark of his true spiritual and visible Church And where is then the frivolous brag of the Papists which make so much of their painted Sheaths c 28. Do you see in what jollity of mind John Fox is put by finding out this Succession of his new visible Church for above 200 years downward Do you hear how he vaunteth of Antiquity and long Continuance albeit indeed he nameth not continuance nor can he for that I think he will not grant that the Wickliffian Church doth endure unto this day or that if a number of those Wickliffian holy Teachers and faithful Witnesses of the Truth so much praised here by him should come into England at this day or Scotland or into Germany or Geneva or among any other Sect or sort of Protestants whatsoever and should preach that Doctrin which they preached then to wit against the Church of Rome in many Points but yet defending that number of Sacraments which they did the Real Presence Sacrifice of the Mass together with those extravagant Articles also before mentioned to wit That it is against the Scriptures that Bishops or true Ministers should have any Temporal Lands and Livings and that Tythes are not due and that both Princes and Prelates do lose their Offices Authorities and Dignities whensoever they fall into mortal sin c. If these men I say that were so true Preachers and principal Guiders of the Ark of John Fox his true visible and spiritual Church
That the chief Heads thereof must be Bishops Secondly They must succeed orderly one to another Thirdly They must come down from the very Apostles as before hath been shewed Fourthly Christian Nations must agree in the same Faith under them All which four Points are to be found in the Succession of the Universal Roman Church as you have seen but no one of them and much less all are to be found in this Rabble of Heresies and Sectaries scrap'd together by Fox in his former Catalogue For neither were they Bishops at all but private men as after shall be shewed tho' Fox most falsly doth affirm one of them to have been a Learned Bishop Nor did they succeed in Office Function Charge or Jurisdiction the one to the other or concurred in one Time Country or place but one in one corner and another in another One stept up in Germany another in France another in Italy and another in England the one a Priest another a Friar another a Merchant and the other a Souldier or Crafts-man of different States Professions and Conditions yea of different Faith and Religion also as presently shall be shewed Neither had they any relation one to the other more than Botley to Billingsgate or Canterbury to Constantinople And as for Antiquity and coming down by Succession from the Apostles they are far from it as Fox himself confesseth in that he beginneth his Catalogue only from Pope Innocentius 1200 years after Christ as you have heard So as if Christ had any visible Church before this time it must needs be Ours by Fox's own confession 14. And finally the last Point mentioned here and so highly esteemed by St. Augustin of the consent of People and Nations tot populorum consensione firmatur whereof he maketh such account in another place as he saith Anathema erit quisquis annunciaverit Ecclesiam praeter Communicationem omnium gentium He shall be accursed whosoever shall say the Church to be any other but the Communication of all Nations This quality I say he that shall consider and examin in these poor Fellows alleged by Fox who were but a few Outcasts of every Country where they sprung shall find it so ridiculous and contemptible a thing in respect of the main consent of Nations under the Roman Church as without laughter it cannot be spoken of 15. Finally of this ridiculous Succession of Heretics the same holy Father writeth fitly in these words Videtis certè multos praecisos à radice Christianae Societatis quae per Sedes Apostolorum Successiones Episcoporum certa per Orbem propagatione diffunditur de sola figura Originis sub Christiano nomine quasi arescentia sarmenta gloriari quas Haereses Schismata nominamus Truly you see many cut off from the root of this Christian Society the Church which Society is spread over all the World by the Seats of the Apostles and Succession of Bishops as it were by a most certain Propagation or Generation and these Fellows do brag of a certain figure or similitude of a Beginning or Succession under the name of Christians but are indeed wither'd Branches cut off from the Vine and these we call Heretics and Schismatics Thus saith St. Augustin And could any man describe better the Apish Imitation of John Fox endeavouring to bring in his Succession of a few condemned Heretics de sola figura Originis sub Christiano nomine gloriantes bragging only of a certain similitude of Beginning and Succession under the name of reformed Christians but indeed cast out and condemned by the Universal Church 16. This then is the second Point to be noted about the quality of Ecclesiastical Succession But another there is of no less moment but rather more And this is That those who succeed one another in the self-same Church be also of one Faith and Belief in all Articles of Religion For if they differ tho' it were but in any one substantial Point they cannot be of one Church nor of one Communion nor be saved together for that as there is but one God one Christ one Church and one Baptism as the Apostle testifieth so is there but one only Faith in the same Church to be saved by which all men must hold unitedly wholly and inviolably or else as in the Creed of St. Athanasius is affirmed absque dubio in aeternum peribit without doubt he shall perish eternally that disagreeth or dissenteth 17. It were a long matter to stand here upon the proof of this Point to wit how exact and severe the Catholic Church is and ever hath been in defending this strict Simplicity Union and Conformity of Faith in all those that will be her Children St. Thomas handleth the matter at large and very substantially and so do other School-men after him shewing That whosoever erreth in any one Article of Catholic Faith obstinately loseth his whole Faith in all the rest which he seemeth to believe And yieldeth most evident reasons for the same And of the same severity were the ancient Fathers in this behalf as St. Cyprian who applying to this purpose those words of Christ Qui non est mecum adversum me est He that is not with me is against me saith It was meant by Christ of all sorts of Heretics whatsoever Gregory Nazianzen also writeth Qui uno verbo tanquam veneni gutta inficiunt c. They who by any one word as with a drop of Poyson do infect the simple Faith of Christ are to be cast out of the Church as Heretics c. And St. Hierom Propter unum etiam verbum aut duo c. For one word or two contrary to the Catholic Faith many Heresies have been cast out of the Church And finally St. Augustin having reckon'd up Eighty particular Heresies in his Book to Quod-vult-deus he saith That there may chance to lurk many other petty Heresies unknown to him Quarum aliquam quisquis tenuerit Christianus Catholicus non erit Of which Heresies whosoever shall hold any one he shall not be a Catholic Christian and consequently cannot be saved 18. Mark the severity of this holy Man affirming That whosoever holdeth any the least hidden Heresie whatsoever cannot be saved A dreadful Sentence no doubt for many of our Country-men at this day if well they thought of their own case who think it lawful or at leastwise not much dangerous to hold private Opinions at their own pleasure yea many of them thinking as the old Donatists did which St. Augustin relateth and greatly condemneth Nihil interesse credentes in qua quisque parte Christianus sit believing that it is not of great importance in what part Sect or Faction soever a man be a Christian so he believe in Christ Thus thought the Donatists and are much reprehended by St. Augustin for it And this no doubt is the Opinion of many English-men at this day who being tossed hither and thither with
Christian Men have to procure their Salvation tho' all do not use the same to their best benefit and thereby do miscarry For to come to some particulars we say That in this Church and no where else is the truth of Faith and certainty thereof and this by the perpetual assistance of the Holy Ghost promised thereunto by the Founder God himself In this Church is the infallible Judgment both about the Books of Scripture and their Interpretation as all other Doubts and Controversies according to that you have heard before out of S. Augustin In this Church alone and no where else is there true Priesthood by lawful Succession Unction and Imposition of Hands and consequently Remission also of Sins by the Authority they have from Christ to that effect In this Church is the true number use and force of holy Sacraments and Grace given by them In this Church is Unity of Faith and Doctrin Communion of Saints and of Merits and Prayers which no where else is to be found And finally in this Church alone is there warrant and security from Error assurance from overthrow failing or fading which security is established by the promise of Christ himself as our God Creator and Redeemer and to endure unto the worlds end 10. All these utilities and most singular benefits do we believe to be in this Catholic Church above all other Congregations in the world In respect whereof we hold this Church to be our ship our rock our castle our fortress our mistress our mother our skilful pilot throughout all storms of heresies our pillar and firmament of truth against falshood our house of refuge against tribulation our protection our direction our help aid and security in all points and if any man perish in her it is by his own default but out of her none can but perish And this is our estimation of this Affair 11. But now how different an account Protestants do make both of this or their own Church is easily seen by their own words and doings For as they contemn and impugn our Church which we hold for the only true so do they seldom speak of their own For when shall you hear a Minister or Protestant Writer allege the Authority of his Church against us or against his own Fellows when they fall out as often they do or if he should how lightly is it esteemed even by themselves You may read the eager Contentions of the Protestant Churches of Saxony which are Lutherans against those of Heidelberg and other Towns of the Palsgrave's Country that are of a different Sect and of these again against other Consorts of other Provinces both of Switzerland and other parts of Germany yea between the soft and severe Lutherans themselves as between the Calvinian Churches of England and Scotland and in England it self between the Protestants Puritans and Brownists at this day who are nothing else but soft and severe Calvinists In all which sharp Contentions if any part do but name the Authority of their several Church which is very seldom the other presently falleth into laughter holding the Authority thereof so ridiculous as it is not worth the naming so as the Argument taken from the Authority of the Church which with us is of so high esteem as we say with S. Augustin That we would not believe the Gospel if the Authority of the Church did not move us thereunto with these Fellows is most base and contemptible 12. Moreover when they talk of their own Churches tho' every Sect and Sectary for Honors sake would be content to have them accounted Catholic as Lactantius before testified of the Heretics of his time yet do they speak it so coldly and do use the word Catholic so sparingly as they will shew that in their Consciences they do not believe it and a man might answer them as S. Augustin answered Gaudentius the Donatist whose Sect being a particular company of Heretics in Africa presumed by little and little first in jest and then in earnest to call themselves Catholics and their Church the Catholic Church as Protestants do at this day and being reprehended for it by S. Augustin and others would needs prove the same by the Definition of Catholic taken out of S. Cyprian S. Augustin I say after a long refutation thereof out of S. Cyprian's words to the contrary concludeth thus Quid igitur vos ipsos c. Why then do you go about both to deceive your selves and other Men with impudent Lies against S. Cyprian If your Church be the Catholic Church by the testimony of this Martyr shew us that your Church doth stretch her beams and boughs throughout the whole Christian World as ours doth for this S. Cyprian called Catholic c. So as by S. Augustin's Argument if the Protestants cannot shew that their Church hath her beams and boughs spread throughout all the Christian World and that her Faith is the general Faith received amongst all Christians and not only of particular Provinces then cannot they call her or esteem her for Catholic as indeed they do not but for fashion sake and from the teeth outward as hath been shewed 13 For when they come to set her out in her best colours they make her but a very obscure base and contemptible thing first in outward shew calling her the poor oppressed and persecuted Church as Fox's words are troden under foot neglected in the World not regarded in Histories and almost scarce visible c. So as where all the ancient Fathers do triumph and vaunt against both Heretics and Heathens as we do at this day against Protestants that the Catholic Church is more eminent and splendent than the Sun it self and more famously known than any other Temporal Kingdom or Monarchy that ever was in the World Fox of his Church confesseth that she is scarce visible neglected in the World not regarded in Histories c. 14. And then again he playeth fast and loose making her visible and invisible Altho' saith he the right Church be not so invisible in the world as none can see it yet neither is it so visible again that every worldly Eye may perceive it So saith he But how contrary to this was S. Chrysostom who would not yield that the right Catholic Church could be so much as obscured by any force or means whatsoever and thereof vaunting against Infidels saith It may be perhaps that some Heathen here will despise my arrogancy about the Majesty of our Church but let him have patience to expect until I come forth with my Proofs and then shall he learn the force of truth and how it is easier for the Sun it self to be wholly extinguished than for the Church to be so much as darkned or obscured Thus said S. Chrysostom And mark good Reader the difference of Spirits S. Chrysostom vaunteth of the outward splendor and majesty of his Church and John Fox contrariwise doth
answer That the Name Catholic did not import the universality of Nations professing our Christian Faith but the fulness rather of Sacraments which they held to be in their Church and farther they required that the Catholics should prove that all Nations did communicate with them and their Church which thing when the Catholics most willingly admitted and desired of the Judges that they might be suffered to prove it the Donatists presently ran to another Question slipping from this Cause of the Church that was in hand 21 Thus writeth S. Augustin of this matter whereby you see that the Catholics in those days as we in these did urge those Heretics with the force of this Name Catholic and with the signification and possession thereof on their side importing as they inferred the universality of all Nations professing the Faith of Christ so as they in those days assigned the great universal visible and known Church for the true which Church had been gathered by the Conversion of all Nations whereas the Donatists to flie this Argument were forced to say that the Name Catholic signified only the universality or fulness of Sacraments and consequently in what particular Congregation soever this fulness was sound as in theirs forsooth they pretended it was there was the only true Catholic Church which was a plain shift as you see And is not this the self-same manner of proceeding of all our Sectaries at this day Doth not every one of them brag that their Church only hath the fulness and right use of Sacraments and the true Preaching of God's Word Do not the Lutherans say this Do not the Zuinglians Calvinists Brownists and Puritans Preach the like And do not the Anabaptists and Trinitarians affirm the very same This then was a very shift in the Donatists and so it is in our Protestants 22. After this first running from the Cause S. Augustin sheweth that the Donatists full sore against their wills were brought unto it again by Marcellinus the Tribune appointed by the Emperor to assist in that Conference And whereas the Catholics had given up some days before a large Writing shewing by infinite Testimonies of holy Scriptures that the Church of Christ foretold by his Prophets and instituted by himself could not be any particular Church or Conventicle in Africa or out of Africa but an universal visible and illustrious Church spread over all Nations and with which all Nations converted to Christ should communicate in one The Donatists saith S. Aug. after a long Conference and Council held among themselves did answer this Writing of the Catholics by another large impertinent Writing of theirs but quite from the purpose not answering so much as one Text alleged by the Catholics for this Universality of the Church Non solum saith S. Augustin pertractare sed omnino nec attingere voluerunt The Donatists not only would not handle fully or answer these Testimonies alleged by the Catholics for the Vniversality and extern Majesty of the Church but not so much as touch any one of them 23. And then saith he farther Nec aliquod testimonium in tam prolixa epistola sua proferre ausi sunt de scripturis sanctis quo assererent Ecclesiam partis Donati esse praedictam praenunciatam sicut tam multa Catholici protulerunt pro Ecclesia cui communicant quae incipiens ab Hierusalem toto orbe diffunditur c. Neither durst the Donatists in so large an Epistle of theirs which they gave up bring forth any one Testimony of Holy Scripture whereby they might prove that the particular Church of the part or Faction of Donatus was prophesied or foretold by the said Scriptures whereas the Catholics on the other side brought forth many Scriptures for proof of that Vniversal Church with which they communicate which Church beginning from Hierusalem was spread over all the World. And thus writeth S. Augustin of their dealing in that Point 24. And presently after this he sheweth that they fell to the discussion of a third Point to wit whether the true Catholic Church of Christ to whom he promised those singular Graces and Privileges which the Scripture setteth down should consist of good men only as the Donatists held or of the mixture of good and evil in this Life as the Catholics taught wherein the Donatists thought themselves to have a great advantage First for that it might seem to the simple people there present to be a more pious Opinion to hold that only good men were God's Flock and of his true Church Secondly for that they had many places of Scripture that might seem to favor the same for so saith S. Augustin Illud ostendere tentaverunt prolatis multis testimoniis divinarum scripturarum quod Ecclesia Dei non cum malorum hominum commixtione futura praedicta sit They endeavored to shew by many Testimonies alleged out of holy Scriptures that it was not foretold or prophesied of the Church that she should consist of the mixture of good and evil men c. Behold here how old Heretics abounded also in alleging Scriptures as well as ours at this day but all from the purpose for whatsoever the Donatists alleged out of Scriptures for the sanctity and purity of God's Church it was either to be understood of the triumphant Church in the next Life or of the better part of the Church in this Life to wit such as are not only of the external Body of the Church but also of the Soul as this holy Father speaketh that is to say endued and adorned with all necessary Vertues 25. But on the contrary side when S. Augustin and his Fellow Bishops to prove that Christ's Church in this World consisted both of good and bad alleged those evident Parables of our Saviour used about this matter as that of the Net cast into the Sea that comprehended all kind of Fish both good and bad some to be cast away and some to be used That also of the Barn-floor which had in it both chaff and corn the one to be burned the other to be laid up in God's eternal Granary The other also of corn and cockle permitted to grow in one field to the day of Judgment and of the sheep and goats that live in God's Flock under the self same Shepherds in this World but yet the one to be consumed with everlasting Fire in the end thereof and the other to be taken into eternal Joy. When these Parables I say with many other Testimonies of Scripture had been alleged by the Catholics against the Donatists Heresie it was wonderful to see what shifts deceits and tergiversations they used to avoid the same denying some as invented by Catholics others they sought to avoid by false and crafty Expositions and other such shifts which you may read at large in S. Augustin 26. And for that this may be sufficient for a tast to shew the different manner of proceeding between Catholics and Heretics both
old and new about this Point of assigning out the true Church where and in whom it is and how to be found I shall pass no farther in this matter but only add a word or two of the third Point which is the difference between us in laying forth the proprieties and notes whereby this Church may be known and distinguished from all others which Point tho' it may sufficiently be seen and gathered by that which already we have said yet for promise sake must somewhat also be spoken here which in effect shall be nothing but this That the difference between us and the Protestants in delivering these proprieties is not far unlike to that of two Gentlemen that should send forth two Servants into the Market-place where many Men are to seek out some Learned Physician for Examples sake giving them certain notes to find him by but far different for that the one delivereth either general notes only that are common to all or most Men as that he hath a head beard two eyes two arms and the like or else certain inward invisible proprieties as that he is learned meek chast c. That he is a good Physician cureth excellently well and followeth therein exactly the Precepts of Hypocrates and Galen and finally hath all things necessary or needful for that effect Which marks being little to the purpose as you see for knowing or discerning out the said Physician from any other the Messenger might weary himself before he found that which he sought for 27. But the other that sendeth forth his Messenger considering that marks and signs must be more known than the thing it self whereof they are marks and not common to many but proper and peculiar to that which is sought for telleth his Servant what special Name the Physician is called by what age what countenance and what stature he is of what apparel he weareth what gesture and manner of going he useth what sound of voice he hath in speaking and above all where he dwelleth how his house may be found known and discerned from all others All which signs being given we must needs say that the Searcher is a very simple or negligent Fellow if he miss him 28. And this very difference is to be noted between the Protestants and us in delivering proprieties to know the Church by for that the Catholics give sound and sure notes proper and peculiar to one only Church which is the true Catholic Church and these notes not invented by themselves but founded in Scriptures and delivered by the Tradition of Christ and his Apostles and used by the ancient Fathers and Doctors of the Church to this very purpose of distinguishing her thereby from all Congregations and Conventicles of Heretics whatsoever Of which notes and proprieties you have heard some before mentioned in the Conference between S. Augustin and the Donatists as the Name Catholic and the ancient possession thereof Universality over all Christendom and multitude of Nations and Gentiles converted to one Christian Church and Faith participating and holding the Communion of one and the self-same number of Sacraments whereunto are added by other Fathers and the self-same Doctor in other places divers other proprieties also as antiquity with continuation and succession from age to age visibility with most perspicuous and illustrious progress apparent and admirable to the whole world unity and conformity in Doctrin by one Rule of Faith throughout all ages notorious sanctity in many members of this Church testified by infinite miracles and supernatural operations the conversion of infinite Pagans and Gentiles with overthrow and extirpation of their Idolatry which was a thing prophesied to be fulfilled by the true Church only 29. These notes I say and divers others are set down by holy Fathers as both proper and peculiar to the only true Catholic Church of Christ and agreeing to no Heretical Congregation whatsoever as also manifest and notorious and most easie to be judged of by all people For these two conditions ought to have true marks as before hath been mentioned the first that they be peculiar and not common the second that they be more notoriously known and more easily found out than the thing it self which they do demonstrate whereof you may read in particular in S. Cyprian against the Novatians S. Hierom against the Luciferians S. Augustin against the Donatists and Pelagians Optatus against the same Donatists and Vincentius Lyrinensis against all sorts of Heretics and this is the real and substantial dealing of Catholics 30. But the Protestants on the contrary side do give such marks and notes as are either general and common or else more obscure and harder to be found out and judged of than the matter in controversie as before we have signified by the Comparisons of seeking out the Physician as for Example Martin Luther Father of our Protestants having left the Communion of the true Church of God and made a new Conventicle to himself would needs make it the true Church of God and prove the same by certain marks and proprieties devised by himself which he setteth down to the number of Seven whereof the first was the true Preaching of the Gospel the second the right Administration of Baptism the third the lawful use of the Eucharist the fourth the due Exercise of the Ecclesiastical Keys in Absolving and retaining Sins the fifth the lawful Election of Ministers the sixth publick Prayer and Singing of Psalms in a known Tongue the seventh the Mystery of the Cross in bearing tribulations These were Luthers notes which other Protestants after him and namely the Magdeburgians and John Calvin do abridge to the number of two only to wit the true Preaching of the Gospel and the sincere use of Sacraments 31. But now what manner of notes these be which every Sect may and do challenge as proper to themselves which they cannot do with any probability with the marks and notes of the Catholic Church before set down is easie to judge for what Sect will not say and swear also if need be that they only Preach the Word of God truly and that they only Administer the Sacraments rightly and that they use the Ecclesiastical Keys duly and that the Election of Ministers is lawfully made among them and that they have publick Prayer and singing of Psalms bearing the Cross and the like and it is harder to convince them in any one of these notes than in the principal point it self to wit that they are not the Catholic Christian Church of Christ so as these marks being common and not proper and less manifest than the thing it self whereof they are put for marks it followeth that they are fond vain and ridiculous and that the inventors thereof did rather seek to obscure and hide the Church than to declare and manifest the same by such proprieties 32. And here will we make an end of all this Discourse reserving the rest unto the third part which
enemies Diversity of States worketh diversity of Religion amongst Sectaries * In his humble motives an Domini 1601. Why Sectaries do change so often their Religion under different States Affliction by the Danes from the year 800 downward S. Edmund and S. Elphegus Martyred by Danes Osbertus in vita S. Elph. apud Sur. 21. April Malm. lib. 1. Pontif. Angl. pa. 116. Matth. West monast an Dom. 1011. 1012. The good Acts of King Canutus after his Conversion Malmes de gist Regum Angl. l. 2. c. 11. The building the Abby of Edmundbury and rich endowment thereof by King Canutus King Canutus his Letter from Rome Malm. ibid. fol. 14. How King Canutus performed his good desires when he returned from Rome Ibid. fol. 42. Stow in Chron. pag. 116. Ibidem apud Malm. fol. 41. King Canutus was Catholic 1043. The Succession of Catholic Religion since the conquest Thomas Cranmer Arch-bishop of Canterbury The conclusion of this deduction Iren. l. 3. adversus haeres cap. 3. Aug. in psal contra partem Donati Aug. ep 165. Aug. ibid. * Thomas Cranmer his Apostasie doth not prejudicate the See of Canterbury Anno Domini 600. Anno 1509. Anno Domini 1530. 1 Tim. 3. The Catholic faith groweth by persecution and affliction and heresie is overthrown King Henry zealous in Catholic Religion King Henries Book against Luther Dedicated to Leo 10. An. Dom. 1523. The beginning of the Kings breach with the Pope Stow An. Dom. 1530. King Henry winked for a time at some heretics Heretics burned An. Dom. 1531. Thomas Audley Thomas Cromwell Fa. Elstow contradicteth the Preacher in defence of the Pope before the King. Anno 1533. The beginning of Fox his Gospel in England Anno 1534. The first year of open breach with Rome Hol. pag. 964 The Franciscan Friars put out of their Convents Heretics burned an 1534. Stow an 1534. See the Letter of Tyndal to Frith set down by Fox p. 987. The Statute of six Articles An. 1540. The burning of Friar Barns a Lutheran with Gerard Jerom Zwinglians K. Henry gave Commission for his reconciliation with Rome Catholics increased by Persecution The name of Papist not justly punishable The different punishments upon Catholics and Protestants doth shew what K. Henry thought of them both * In his Epistles The true cause of Catholics suffering under K. Henry The condemnation of Anabaptists and Arians by K. Henry Absurd positions of Anabaptists Arrians in K. Henry's time grounded upon Scriptures pretended The condemnation of Lutherans and Zuinglians by King Henry The opinion of Tyndall and Frith agreeing with neither Lutherans nor Zwinglians Fox pag. 942. The different plea or defence of Catholics from heretics * Tertull. l. de praescript adversus haeres The disagreement of Fox his Calendar Martyrs King Edward the 6th his Reign The attempts of Cranmer and Ridley and others of their crew in King Edwards days The attempts of Seymor the Protector and John Bale in flattery towards him Bal. descript Brit. cent 5. fol. 237. See Stow and other Chroniclers in the year 1549. The general aversion of English-people against the entrance of Heresie Fox p. 1185. Fox ib. 1186. Fox p. 1189. K. Henry's Laws rejected by his Son K. Edward K. Edward's reply to the demand of the people of Devonshire Q. Mary's admonition unto the Protector and Council Heresie in K. Edward's days entred by violence Catholic Religion restored by Q. Mary Bishops and Archdeacons deprived and imprisoned for Cath. Faith An. 1560. The constancy of English Catholics in this time of Persecution The constant resolution of divers Catholic Priests Joan Lashford Fox p. 1547 1517. Agnes Potten Joan Trunchfield Rose Nottingham Fox p. 1547. William Hunter Fox p. 1395. an 1555. Rawling White Fox p. 1414. Heretical hastiness to burn for their Errors * Cap. 2. A great number of English Youths in Exile for Religion The Conclusion of the first Part of this Treatise The principal point to be noted of Succession St. Augustin's estimation of Succession Aug. ep cont Faust Manich. c. 4. tom 6. Aug. quaest 110 in nov vet Test Tert. l. de praescrip advers haeres Tert. ibid. Iren. l. 4. advers haeres c. 4. Ibid. c. 45. The force of Succession with Irenaeus other Fathers Hier. dia. ult cont Lucif Aug. l. de utilitate credent c. 17. Barking of Heretics against Succession as St. Augustin termeth it In descr Cantii A comparison between the durance of the Church temporal States The second principal point to be considered about the visibility of the Church (a) In defens l. de servo arbitr (b) Lib. cont Cathar * Part 1. Aug. in tract in ep Joan. * Cap. de Conciliis * In locis com loco 12. de Eccles (c) Cent. 1. l. 1. c. 4. (d) Apol. 1. part 3. Calv. l. 4. Inst c. 1. § 3. Why Lutherans left the Paradox of the invisibility of the Church Matt. 18. Act. 15.18 Evident Scriptures for the visibility of the Church Evident reasons that the true Church must be visible containing both good and bad (a) Marc. ult Ephes 4. 1. Pet. 3. (b) Rom. 10. Luc. 12. 1 Tim. 6. (c) Mat. 5. Luc. 11. Joan. 15. (d) Mat. 28. 1 Cor. 12. 1 Tim. 3.5 St. Augustin's Discourses about the visibility of the Church See St. Aug. in Psal 44 47. l. 2. cont Petil. c. 32 104. l. 2. cont Cresco c. 36. l. 4. c. 58. tract 1 2. in ep Joan. c. 4. collat 3. diei in Brevie A second fond device of Lutherans about an obscure Church The third point of John Fox's Opinion about the true Church A great perplexity of John Fox Illyr gloss in Matth. c. 1. Fox's new Opinion making the Church both visible and invisible Fox in his protestation to the Church of England p. 2. How Enemies and Persecutors do see the true Church Fox in the Title The purpose of John Fox in his Protest p. 3. What is to be handled about John Fox's Church The substance of John Fox's Book The division of 1060 years into four principal parts The first 300 years from Christ to Constantine Sup. c. 8 9. The impertinent course taken by John Fox Reasons to prove that the old Martyrs were of our Church and not of Fox's * Nisi integram inviolatamque servaverit absque dubio in aeternum peribit Who do more honor the ancient Martyrs See Fox's Calendar in the beginning of his Volume The second Reason Cap. 15. Tert. l. de fuga in persecut Epiph. in panar haeres 80. Aug. cont literas Petiliani l. 2. c. 83. cont 2. ep Gaudentit l. 2. c. 26. alibi Of heretical Martyrs * Supra c. 5 6. (a) The third Reason (b) St. Andrew (c) See the story of his passion written by the Church of Achaia in those days cited by Remigius in Psal 21. by Lanfrank lib. cont Berengar by St. Bernard Serm. de St. Andrea many others St. Laurence Amb. l. 1. Officior c.
the universal Church as also of England from the year of Christ 1066. downward The principal Learned Men of this time The Sects Sectaries of this time Aug. l. 1. quaest Evang. q. 38. tract 2. in Epist. Joan. A fit comparison expressing John Fox his Church Psal 47.88 Esay 61. Dan. 2. Mat. 16. 1 Tim. 3. Joan. 16. Mat. 18. St. Augustin impugneth the former absurdities Aug. l. 1. c. 1. contra Epist Parmen Ibid. ep 48. ad Vincent Aug. in Psal 101. conc 2. Aug. ib. Mat. 28. Absurdities Impieties ensuing upon the former Doctrin The patching up of Fox his Church in these Ages The substance of Fox's fourth Book containing 300 years from the Conquest to Wickliff Fox p. 236. Ibid. p. 241. Ibid. p. 255. Pope Gregory VII Fox p. 159. col 2. n. 10. Of Lanfrank Fox p. 167. Of St. Anselm see Edverus in vit S. Ansel apud sur tom 2. Edmund Cantuar. in vit Henr. de viris illust c. 7. Trit de viris illust l. 2. c. 101. l. 3. c. 329. Fox p. 175. Of St. Thomas Becket * Encount 2. c. 10 11 16. Fox p. 209. The state of the Roman Church when Wickliff began Emperours of these Ages The principal Learned Men of this Age. General Council of Florence General Council of Lateran Council of Trent Condemnation of Heretics Aug. de genes ad litteram c. 1. * In his Protest pag. 9. A starting-hole of Fox Fox pag. 390. col 2. n. 33. Fox pag. 400. col 2. Special Judges appointed to examin Wickliff's Doctrin Wickliff's heretical Articles Fox p. 400. Fox's Church made up of our Dunghil clouts Stow Walsing an 1414. Fox from p. 530 to 540. Fox p. 592. Fox maketh adversary Heretics of his Church whether they will or no. Sir John Oldcastle's Protestation at his death Fox p. 520. Fox p. 314. Fox's perfidious dealing Fox p. 529. The Abjuration of Sir John Oldcastle Supra part 1. c. 5. Fox in his Prot. p. 10. Fox's facility in rejecting Parliaments Fox p. 10. in Protest Another Parliament rejected by Fox Fox ib. p. 10. If Wickliffian Preachers were now alive the Protestants would not admit them How Fox hath found out a visible Church and from whence How the Members of Fox's visible Church do hang together Of Lollards their beginning in England Prat. l. 10. haeres p. 157. Trit in chron an Dom. 1315. Fox p. 429. col 1. n. 15. Wickliffians were called Lollards The peculiar Opinions of the Lollards Trit ib. Psal 113. Flagellants or whipping Heretics an Dom. 1350. Trit in chron an 1350. Aeneas Sylv. histor Bohem. cap. 35. The diversity of Sects amongst the Hussites Bon. Decad. 4. lib. 2. Luth. in respons ad Rofensem art 30. Melanct. epist ad Freder Mechonium Anno Dom. 1382. How Fox behaveth himself in defending Wickliffians their Doctrin Fox alloweth taking away of Tythes and Temporalities from the Clergy Fox p. 348. * Supra c. 10. Tertull. l. de Praescript Judic 15. Fox in Protest ad Eccl. Angl. Fox ib. p. 10. * What Learning they were of you shall see afterwards Mark what men Fox doth couple together as of one Faith. A fit similitude comparison Fond reasoning of Fox Two Points to be handled in this Chapter The conditions of Eccles Succession Aug in Psal 90. Conc. 2. ead ferè in Psa 56. True Succession of the Church must be Universal both in place and time Aug. l. de unit Eccles c. 4. Succession is understood principally of Bishops Aug. l. 1. cont advers Leg. Prophet c. 20. Iren. l. 3. c. 3. Tert. de praesc Opt. l. 2. cont Donat. Aug. ep 165. Aug. cont ep fundam c. 4. Aug. l. 2. cont Faust c. 2. Four Points required in true Succession of the Catholic Church The successive Pillars of Fox his Church have no connexion or coherence the one with the other Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent Rogatian Aug. ep 42. ad Mandrens tract 2. in ep Joan. A notable saying of S. Aug. touching Fox's Church The 3 Point required in Succession unity of Faith. Athan. in Symb. * Dom. Thom 22. q. 5. art 3. Caet in cundem Greg. de Valent. ead 4. disp 1. punct 3. Cyp. l. 1. ep 6. ad Magnum Luc. 11. Nazian tract de fide Hier. l. 3. Apol. contra Ruffin Aug. l. de haeres in fine A dreadful Censure of the Fathers against those that be infected with Heresie Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent Enc. 1. The catalogue of John Fox's Church-men Bertramus no Protestant Trit in verbo Bertramus Sand. de visib monarch haer 133. Berengarius no Protestant * De consecrat dist 2. c. Ego Berengarius Fox p. 146. Gerson l. cont Romant Cent. 11. c. 10. p. 527. Abbot Joachim no Protestant Extrav de Trinit Guido Carmel Bern. Luxem in Catalog haereticorum Almaricus was no Bishop nor condemned only for Images Caesar l. dial d. 5. Conc. Nicaen Can. 6. Gagnin l. 6. hist Franc. Gers tract 3. in Matt. Paul Aemil. l. 6. hist Galliae Geneb in chron an 1208. Naucler in hist Tritem in chron Monast Hirsang Geneb in chron an 1215. The Waldenses or poor men of Lyons Aen. Syl. l. 4. de orig Bohem. cap. 35. Vrsper in chron an 1212. Guido Carm. in haeres Waldens Anton. p. 3. sum ti 11. c. 7. Luxemb in haeres paup de Lugduno Absurd positions of the Waldenses Will Fox agree to all this Luc. 22. 1 Cor. 11. The Albigenses and their blasphemous Opinions and Actions Caesar Cistert 5 d. dial Anton. p. 3. tit 19. ca. 1. Vincent in spec l. 3. Caesar 5. dist dialog Luxem haeresi Albig Prateol Sand. ibidem Absurd Articles of the Albigenses and their Heresies The false dealing of J. Fox Marsilius of Padua Alvar. lib. 1. de planct Eccles Castr libr. 6. contra haereses Gulielmus de sancto amore Armachanus Catholic men abused by Fox 1. Cor. 5. The first public tumults of Lollards and Wickliffians in England An. Dom. 1381. Sto. An. Dom. 1414. Sup. c. 9. * Part. 1. cap. 12. The great inconveniences ensuing upon King Henry VIII yielding in one Point only to Heretics Heresies to be stopped at the beginning Sto. an Domini 1377. p. 425. Upon what Cause and Motives Wickliff began his Doctrin The Habit of the first Wickliffians Walsingham an ult Edov. 3. The first Motive of John Wickliff and his favourers Two Apostolical Breves written into England against Wicliffians Walsing in vit Rich. 2. an 1378. The Calamities in England by Wickliff his Doctrin Fox p. 716.717 deinceps The praise of K. Henry VII (a) Stat. an 5. Ricardi 2. an Christi 1390. an 2. Hen. 4. an Christi 1402. (b) Fox in his Protest p. 10. A false flattering Picture set out by Fox of K. Henry VIII Fox p. 732. Fox his Pageants examined See from p. 663. unto 751. That K. Henry's Sword was not for the new Gospel but against it Fox p. 764. See
divers other perillous Opinions about this matter as for Example That he tyeth the Office of true Pastorship to ordinary Succession and that he denieth that Bishops can be judged c. And Origen also in this Age hath no mean blots about the Power and Office of the Church c. 13. Hitherto are the words of the Magdeburgians against the chief Writers of these two first Ages after the Apostles concerning the point of Principality and Supremacy of the Church and Bishop of Rome so clearly confessed by the said Fathers as the Magdeburgians do grant and on the other side so boldly denied by the Fox and the Knight his Follower and Proselyte as a thing not so much as heard or dreamed of in these first Ages whereof you have heard their several and resolute asseverations before Let them but grant me saith Fox and then I say quoth the Knight there is no such matter c. And by this one point only of the five Articles before objected by them and denied flatly to have been known or believed in Eleutherius's time you may see how they behave themselves and what may be said on our part and how great a Volume this Book would grow unto if I should prosecute all the other four Articles also by them mentioned before and should pass through the first three or four or five hundred years after Christ for so much our Adversaries sometimes upon a good mood of bragging will seem to allow us to shew not out of the Books and Writings of the ancient Fathers themselves for that this were over long but what these Magdeburgians do note and gather against themselves out of their Works for the Antiquity of that Doctrin which they impugn rejecting afterward all again with this only frivolous and fond Cavil That these Opinions of the Fathers were but naevi stipulae palia Doctorum stains stubble and straw of Doctors opiniones incommodae c. and incommodious Opinions 14. Wherein it is well noted by a Learned Man of our time That these Fellows do proceed as if one being suspected or accused of Theft Heresie or any other grievous Crime should willingly present himself before the Magistrate or Senate of the City and there first of all for his clearing should bring in for Witnesses against himself the best learned most grave ancient and best reputed honest men of all that City to testifie that he is indeed such a one to wit a false Thief an Heretic or the like but yet having so done would endeavor to refute all these again by one bare rejection saying that they spake rashly and incommodiously and that they were overseen and knew not what they testified or were in a dream when they spake or testified against him and finally that all were deceived and he alone to be believed against them all And would this shift think you countervail so grave Witnesses against him or would any indifferent Judge leave to condemn him for this evasion or would any man think him much better than mad that would take such a course of Defence And yet this is the very course of these Magdeburgians who citing first the gravest and most ancient Fathers of Christendom against themselves do reject the same again with this only jest and contumely that they spake incommodiously ignorantly and were Stubble-Doctors 15. Well then for so much as concerneth the first Article mentioned by Fox and Sir Francis as a thing not heard of in Eleutherius's time to wit the Vniversality and Primacy of the Church and Bishop of Rome you see that with going to the Authors themselves of that Age the Magdeburgians do make it clear against themselves And for the second point concerning the use of Mass and Propitiatory Sacrifice we have cited sufficiently before in the first Chapter of this Treatise out of the same Magdeburgians who condemn divers of the most ancient Fathers for testifying this matter and we may do the like in all the other Articles specified by Fox and his Knight but that it would be over tedious And therefore I do remit the curious Reader to the Volumes of the Magdeburgians themselves if he have so much time to lose as the reading thereof doth require Only in this place I am to note unto him for his better Instruction three or four kinds of shifts and frauds used ordinarily by these Protestant Germans in setting down these and other like matters out of the Fathers which I shall do in the next ensuing Chapter CHAP. VII The same Argument is continued and it is shewed out of the Magdeburgians how they accuse and abuse the Fathers of the Second and Third Age for holding with Us against Them. DIvers are the shifts and frauds and manifold the abuses which Protestant Writers and namely the Magdeburgians do offer to the ancient Fathers in examining their Sentences about Controversies in Religion Whereof one principal may be accounted that of four or five places or more that may be alledged out of them for Us and our Doctrin in the question proposed they will not cite two left the multitude of Authorities if they alledge all that in the Fathers are found should give our Cause too much credit Secondly of four or five parts of the Fathers words contained in the places by them alledged these good Fellows do cut off ordinarily three lest if they did set them down at length with their Antecedents and Consequents their Opinions might appear more probable and plausible than these men would have them And of this you have had an Example in the first Authority alledged by me even now out of Irenaeus about the Principality of the Church of Rome which being set down somewhat at length as it is in the Author maketh the matter clear but shuffled up in four or five words after a most curtail'd manner as the Magdeburgians do alledge them do scarce make any sense at all which is the thing the Alledgers do desire thereby to discredit the Author 2. Their third fraud is that having alledged the first Authorities for Us and against themselves they devise divers pretty and witty slights to discredit them again as sometimes saying that in other places the said Father expoundeth or contradicteth himself sometimes that he speaketh rashly or incommodiously or without Scripture and other such contemptuous rejections As for Example talking of St. Cyprian that famous Bishop Doctor and Martyr and the Christian Phoenix of his Age as St. Augustin judgeth of him these men do handle him in this sort 3. Cyprianus sine Scriptura loquitur Cyprian speaketh without Scripture Cyprianus superstitiosè fingit Cyprian doth feign superstitiously Cyprianus malè judicat Cyprian judgeth naughtily and the like Nay they endeavor to discredit the whole multitude of Doctors and Fathers in every Age As for Example in the beginning of the first Age next after the Apostles they write thus Tamesit haec aetas Apostolis admodum vicina fuit c. Albeit this