a spurious Ioane her selfe so that there was not any of her stocke which might haue beene twitted with her ignominie so that the discouering of the same by your owne Historians should haue brought no greater profit to your Church then shame by reuealing their deare Mothers turpitude Doth not your Bergomensis and some others relating the History affirme that in respect of the most shamefull turpitude of the tale she was not numbred in the Catalogue of your Popes as Paris lib. de potest Papae Plat. in vitis Genebrard Chronic. Baren Annalls in like sort your famous Ioannes Parisiensis saith of Ciriacus Pope and your Platina Genebrard and Baronius deliuer of some others the point is cleare I go on A third ground of your defence is the impossibility or vnlikelihood of the tale why vnlikely In respect of her wickednesse not so for Iohn the 23. Siluester the 2. Boniface the 8. Alexander the 6. Iohn the 12. Sergius Sabinian with diuers other most wicked Popes of your owne approuing for wickednesse of life haue by many degrees surpassed her Why impossible In respect of her sexe Alac good sir might not she as well liue in the habit of a man vndiscouered as your Euphrasina Mariana Melania with some others whereof your Legendists How diuers women haue liued as men in the habits of men See Raderu in Vâ—ridario 1. p. annotat in Apolinar Epist Petri Antiâ—ch apud Bâ—râ— Ann. 1054. make mention being women liue for many yeares together in Monasteries with your Monkes vndiscouered Why might not the same happen in the Church of Rome as well as in the Church of Constantinople as by yours hath been obiected against the same because they admitted Eunuches to Episcopacy The likeliest matter to haue discouered her sexe might haue beene want of a beard but your Church had taken order for that before for your Masse-Priests and Monks vsed to be shauen Againe Physicians will tell you and that truly that as there be waies to procure the growing of haire where nature had not determined the same so likewise there are waies to hinder the growing of haire where nature had otherwise appointed it whereof your Papisse Ioane being so singularly instructed in all humane literature could not be ignorant and it is to be presumed that she hauing resolued to liue in that sort shee vsed her most cunning meanes to conceale her sexe both to auoide punishment due to such dissembling being against the law of God as also to purchase those honours at which she aimed and which by her excellent learning she knew she was reputed and reported to haue deserued Adde to this that there be women who by nature appeare Semibarbatae halfe bearded vpon whom the Italian prouer begoeth Da donna barbata à huomo raso dio mi guarda From a bearded woman and a shauen man God deliuer me Why might not your Ioane be of some such constitution Why might not she beardlesse by nature liue in Rome amongst breadlesse by Arte as well as some of your mincing women of late yeares being of the age of thirtie pretending to be younger passe the searches at our Portes and liue in Flaunders in the habit of men as though they were men amongst bearded men The case is cleare some of your Gallant Maides which come to you to be Nunnes know well how to case themselues in the habit of Gallant youngsters Ipsae viderint whether any of them did scorch or bee scorched as your phrase is against Galeacius A fourth ground of your reasons ariseth out of some contrarieties which are in Authours touching the time of this Ioanes sitting What of this they are all generally agreed that she sate betwixt Lee the 4. and Benedict the 3. the yeere of our Lord 855. or 856. or the reabouts Shall their varietie concerning the time of her Papacy ouerthrow the truth of the historie beware of that For how familiar a thing is it in your Historians and Cronologists to varie in the setting downe of the order and sittings of your Popes shall such variance make the matter doubtfull if so what then will become of the succession of your Rockes whereon your Church is builded What will become of Saint Peters being and dying at Rome whereon your Papall supremacie is founded concerning which Authours are so diuers and so various The Septuaginta-Translatours Sir and others do they not differ in the account of the worlds age some hundreth of yeares what shall we therefore play the Atheists and either deny Moses credit or the worldes creation Concerning the birth life and death of our Sauiour is there no variance in Authours shall wee therefore blaspheme and call the truth of Christianity in doubt Touching the death of the euer blessed Virgin Mary is there not great varietie and contrarietie in Authours what shall we therefore say she is not dead we may not for then your practise touching her corporall assumption after her death would bee found superstitious Thus by the way I haue refuted in a few wordes your groundes for your deniall of Popisse Ioane In the conclusion hereof I will aduertise you that if you will needs deny the history to take vp and to content your selfe therewith that answere which your Onuphrius makes Onuph Annot. in Plat. in Pap Ioh. 8. you haue great reason to listen vnto him though he be a very fresh writer within lesse then an age for hee amongst your Authours denying this history is the Bell-weather He thus saith and proueth out of Luitprandus Luitprand Ticin lib. 6. cap. 6. 7. an ancient Historian and an obedient childe of the Church of Rome how that Iohn the 8 was a most notorious luxurious and impudike Person who not contenting himselfe like a common Bull to abuse other mens wiues he further kept in his Serralls apart for his lecherous vse three most impudent Strumpets Rainera The best popish defence can be made concerning Pope-Ioane Anna and Stephana Onuphrius guilefully to make his tale seeme more currant calleth one of them Ioane with whom he liued in most detestable sort in hate whereof for his effeminatenesse the Romanes termed him by the name of Ioane And so was the faire childe named and a Pope-Ioane deuised This is your Onuphrius coniecture and the same seemeth more likely because Auentine a Auent hisi lib. 4 pag. 285. no great Fauorite of Popes seemeth so to haue coniectured saue only that Auentine calleth the Strumpet Theodora For my part though I refuse Auentines coniecturall authoritie herein as your men do reiect him in a world of his other narrations yet I aduertise you Master Floode to sticke vnto it for of all your defences it seemeth most likely and yet I ingenuously confesse I am somewhat doubtfull whether I should so aduise you or not For in very truth it seemeth more infamous for your Church to haue had such a Pope-Iohn then such a Pope-Ioane as the Historians relate In the first there should haue
Catharine and Catharine that of Christ Oh you ignorant and desperately superstitious Pontificians obserue you not vnderstand you not that this miraculous chaffering of hearts subuerteth a very Principle of Christian religion receiued also by your selues which is that quod Christus semel assumpsit nunquam dimisit what Christ did once assume to wit by hypostaticall vnion he neuer left the same tell vs then I beseech you did he not assume his carnall and corporall heart as a principall member of his body was it not conioyned and vnited mediately or immediately by hypostaticall vnion to his diuinitie I know you cannot nor will not deny it Well then for Catharines sake did he demisse and leaue his owne heart to enterchange for hers if so then you must needes admit that Christ for Catharines sake did suffer a partiall kinde of death Christ changeth his heart for Catharines by separating his soule from his owne heart which was the principallest part of his body and the chiefest and immediatest seate of life vnlesse you will be so desperately madde as withall to affirme that Christ also did enterchange soules with Catharine either partly or wholy and so giue her a liuing heart and take in liew thereof her liuing heart and surely if the hearts enterchanged betwixt Christ and Catharine were but dead hearts and had not so much as a vegetatiue or a sensitiue soule in them for what purpose then can your senselesse soules and witlesse hearts dreame that Christ should be so enamoured with a dead heart of Catharine as to giue her his own liuing for it what was he ouertaken with some corrupt passion of loue to long after a dead heart hath he so forgotten his loue and respect to his mother as to esteeme more of a peece of dead flesh from Catharine then of that heart which hee tooke from her sacred wombe the which also because heauy in the garden euen to death deserued not to bee cast off Christ himselfe confesseth that his corporall presence was a kinde of let and hinderance to his Apostles that the Paraclet and Comforter could not come vnto them vntill he was departed Ioh 16. 7. And yet now forsooth he cannot sufficiently loue Catharine spiritually embrace Catharine fully vnlesse hee make a carnall and corporall permutation of heart with her and take hers for his When I read in Baronius Querâ— Baron anno to 28 â—â— 5. that phantasticall relation of his how the vergin Mary visited Fulbert in his sicknesse and gaue him her brests to sucke perhaps then there escaped some drops of milke from Fubbertus his lips hee being not accustomed to sucke and are those which are kept in a siluer-image of the virgin Mary in her Church at Rhemes and are there worshipped much comforting him thereby I thought Baronius should haue gained the whetstone but now the case is otherwise for surely of all prodigies this commutation of hearts betwixt a young Damosell and God is most exceeding all credit Surely we might iustly esteem our selues as bewitched if we should not thinke that the Pontificians are deluded by strong illusions foretold by the Apostle to beleeue such lyes Doe they not giue the world iust cause to make like account of this their Catharines markes and signes in her hands head feet and side like those of the holy maide of Lisbo by whom how the holy Father Lewes Granatensis her Ghostly Father and Sixtus Quintus the Ghostly Father of their Catholike Church together with the Spanish King his Prelates his Priests and his inuincible Armado were mocked and deluded the yeare 88 is not ignorant and yet let them deny it if they can but that they held her in admirable veneration setting vp and worshipping her pictures in publike places yea in Churches esteeming of her as of another Catharine of Sienna like another Asissian Saint Frances for he also had the signes and markes of a crucified Saint walking not hanging liuing not dying in deception not in verity But after 88. when her blessings and prophecies proued to be vanities then the Spanish Sages and Romes Ghostly Father well obserued how they were ouertaken in their follies but had they preuailed as they might according to the chance of warres if God had not withstood them she had been a Canonized Saint ere this and then were they ashamed to see themselues so deluded by an Hipocrite-woman and doubtlesse had some like occasions happened they had not beene so long deceiued by their Asissian Frances and Catharine of Sienna but the time was then not come for the more open reuealing of the man of sinne and for the stronger deception of those who had forsaken the charitie of truth who therfore deserued so to be deceiued God permitting the same And notwithstanding I dare tell them by the way for their comfort that there are diuers of their religious blacke Fryers who beleeue not their Francis who was a white-Fryer his signes and markes as on the other side diuers of the white Fryers disciples of Francis beleeue not regard not the signes and markes of Catharine who was a blacke Nunne This I deliuer both out of my owne experience and verie credible relation of those who are very well acquainted with the dispositions of Monkes and Fryers And if it be answered that these Fryers doe so out of emulation and bitternesse against each other not because they hold the histories to be doubtfull bee it so for this time but by this their answere euery man may Ioh. 13. 35. euidently know that such enuious Fryers are not the disciples of Christ but of him who is the Parent of discord and by whose enuie death entered into the world and so consequently of the Archministers of him amongst whom not a few Tyranizing like Lions as it is Langius Platina alij written of Boniface 8. haue indeauoured to cast their terrour and feare vpon the whole world Secondly I obserue these men that shall worke such wonders and prodigies to be described both by our Sauiour and by his Apostles that they shall be false-Prophets false-Christs preaching the doctrines of deuils the which how to the very haire it is fulfilled by the Pontificians I do hereafter declare Christ speaking of the dangers which his Elect should suffer towardes the consummation of the world saith thus Then if any man Mat. 24. 23 c. Mark 13. shall say loe here is Christ or there beleeue it not for there shall arise false-Christs and false-Prophets and shall shew great signes and wonders insomuch that if it were possible they shall deceiue the very elect behold I haue told you before wherefore if they shall say vnto you be hold he is that is Christ is in the desert go not forth behold he is in the secret penetralls beleeue it not for as the lightning commeth out of the East and shineth euen vnto the west so shall also the comming of the sonne of man be For wheresoeuer the carkase is
Saluat in Berito alleaged by the second Nicene Councell act 4. S. Athanasins and by i i Lib 1. de gloria Mart cap. 22. Gregorius Turonensis of two images of Christ which vpon violence offered by the Iewes vnto them did miraculously bleed These and innumerable other most autenticall miracles wrought and written for the confirmation of the cheifest points of our Catholike faith before the supposed Antichrist was in the world doe manifestly confute the wicked blasphemie by which you would make our Catholike miracles to be his ANSWER You goe on and say thus No lesse wonderfull is the miracle recorded by S. Athanasius What Mr. Flud haue you wilfully stumbled into like errour with that whiâ—h with so foule mouth you censured falsly in a learned Knight in your proiected ouerthrow and for which in Pag. 134. Triumph Pag 36. your Purgatories triumph you spend much battologie to proue him either guilty of ignorance or of intended fraud to deceiue the Reader Yea in your Triumph you Pag. 34. v. 7. speake thus vnseemely and vntruly in print and would It was well said by one a Knight a lyer deserues to haue his spurrs strooke off from his heeles make him culpable of that which in a Knight is most dishonourable How grosse then is either your ignorance who by profession are a Padre in Iesreel or else how inexcusable is your Ignatian-like fraud to deceiue the Reader by citing vnder the name of that Grand Athanasius of Alexandria for to no other can your agnomination of Saint be fitted and him I know you meane a Treatise which your owne learned men do discard as not his and out of which the miracle cited by your holy Fathers of the second Nicene is reputed as a matter lately hapned if lately then some hundreths of yeeâ—â— after the Patriarke Athanasius his death And the narration is so barbarous and legend-like that it may not without great wrong be attributed to so learned and eloquent a Father I intreat your learning to tell me what distance of time your Chronologists make betwixt the time of Athanasius the Great of Alexandria and the Empire of Constan called the Elder whose wiues name was Irene If you cast your account rightly you shall finde no lesse than 400 yeeres distance betwixt Great Athanas of Alexandria the Empire of Constant Irene Your Legendarie fondly and contrarie to the truth of History makes this Irene wife to Constantine wheras she was only daughter in law to Constantine the Elder by mariage of his sonne Leo and mother to Constantine the younger but a barbarous and most inhumane mother Shee raigned with her sonne Constantine when the second Nicene Pseudosynode was celebrated in the 8 yeere of their Empire so that the Bishops of that Pseudosynode relating this miracle as lately hapned in Beritum it is to be presumed that the same either hapned or was feigned to haue hapned in some of those former yeeres in which Irene the Empresse raigned with her sonne Constantine according as your Legendaries title pretendeth And to confirme what I haue said we may not thinke that Baronius Baron in Annot. in Martirolog Roman NoueÌ„ 9. would haue forgone such a narration as the worke of Great Athanasius but that he saw such repugnancies in it that it could not stand and yet as loth to forgoe it wholy he would faine finde a Father for it in some Bishop in Siria Alas good Sir what Bishop in Siria could be so ignorant as not to know that Irene was not wife to any of the Constantines as your Legendarie pretendeth Further refutation of this fable shall not need only I request The tale of the Image crucified at Beritum most idle the iudicious Papist to read the tale it selfe and hee will finde such improbabilities nay such impossibilities in it as especially how the Image so great a one should bee forgot by the Christian who left the house and againe how it should continue vnespied by the Iew that dwelt in the house vntill it was espyed by one of his neighbours I say he will finde such impossibilitie in it that he will neuer giue credit to the same What you adde out of Gregorie Turonensis it is not worth a rush the Authour is very fabulous But put case M. Flud wee admit both your tales and miracles what can you inferre thereout against vs what if Christ for the confusion of that incredulous and perfidious Nation when out of hate to him and his sacred Person they did abuse either his Sacramentall image that is the sacrament of his bodie or else any other Image of his which Christians of those times might make and keepe only as monuments and remembrances of their deliuerer what I say if Christ did shew some prodigious miracles against them was this any thing to confirme your idolatrous worship of images It is one thing Sir to haue a picture of Christ burnt or defaced in despite of Christ or to be defaced in despight of Idolatrie committed vpon the same whereby Christ is dishonoured Good King Ezechias burnt and defaced the brazen Serpent The different end for which Iewes Christians deface popish Images in hate of the Idolatrie which was committed by it and his fact was pious but had he done the same in contempt of God who commanded or Moses who caused the Serpent to haue been made his sinne had beene without excuse Your selues may in your vaine practise giue an example When you cause a vomit in which it is doubtfull whether the sacramentall species be decayed or not to be burnt if you should doe the same in contempt of The hoste being vomited was burnt at Ausâ—re in France about the yeere 1526 The like done in the Romane Colledge of the English your Sacrament-God your sacriledge should be horrible but doing the same lest your Sacrament-God should continue in the vomit you count it a point of religion Many such like examples might bee produced out of your owne practise in burning old worme-eaten Images Agnus Deies in which by long wearing in sweating bosomes vermine may breed in all these you think you commit no sacrilege because your intention and end is pious as you thinke Burbon ransackt Rome The Gothes did the like The Turkes may perhaps doe the like but assuredly Christian Princes shall doe the like Their ends were diuers whereout it followeth that their actions are different commendable in some culpable in other Euen so the Iew hee burneth and defaceth the images or sacraments of Christ wee likewise burne your images not all but such as haue been speciall obiects of idolatrie but here is the difference the Iew doth what he doth out of hate and contempt of Chrisâ— we out of loue to Christ and hate of idolatrie the Iew because he would not haue Christ glorified we bicause wee will not haue Christ dishonoured by your idolatrous worships but him onely honoured exalted glorified To whom only with Father and
apprehension and acknowledgement of his manifolde iniquities and corrupt nature by the acknowledging of the same to bring him to such an humiliation and depression of himselfe and within himselfe that for remission of his sinnes and saluation he can looke for no other meanes but the only and alone merits of Christs death and passion And yet this not without store of Christian good workes to admonish the wise and cauilling Papists by the way applied vnto his soule by a liuing and sincere faith in which respect our Christians are or may bee euer preserued in perfect humiliation of their soules and pouertie of spirit As for humilitie towards man good God who obserueth not that the Papists haue lest thereof to particularize though in time of persecution as they pretend do not they in exccesse of apparell surpasse at least equalize our worst and disorderedst Protestants I haue often heard both Ignatian and Secular Priests affirme the excesse and curiositie of fashions to haue beene farre worse amongst Papists then Protestants and if they did not or would not affirme it who seeth it not whence I doe demand of the Papists haue wee our daily innouations of fashions not from out of France where as likewise in Italy the vanity and excesse in apparell is too too vnmeasurable and for brauing ostentation what people vnder heauen come nigh by many degrees to the Hesperian Nation But to reflect vpon their first point of doctrine in this consideration by which they affirme that hee committeth the sinne of presumption who hopeth for saluation without merits it is so far frō assecuring their soules with Christian comfort that it doeth rather cause vnto them endlesse afflictions and torment of minde which I could confirme by many examples out of their owne histories Neuerthelesse to shew how pernicious this their doctrine is for a man any whit to rest vpon his owne merits I will relate perhaps a fable onely one story Coster conc dom 10. post pente which Coster produceth solemnly in his Homilies Thus it was A certaine holy Eremite liuing in a desert being neere his end sendeth for a certaine Abbot dwelling neere by to come vnto him and to housell him hee commeth and vpon his comming by the ringing of a certaine bell a famous theefe and a notorious malefactour draweth neere to the doore of this Eremites Sell where seeing the Eremite vsing such deuotion he in his conceit thinking him to be a very holy and blessed man wished so loudly that the Eremite heard him that hee were like vnto him in holinesse which wishing of the theefe when the Eremite heard he contemned him and said within himselfe that he had well wished that he had beene in holinesse like vnto himselfe and so continuing in such kinde of thoughts of his owne merits the Eremite dyeth vpon and for his death the Monke that came along with the Abbot greatly lamenteth and returning together with the Abbot in the way they finde this theefe of whom we spake before sodenly slaine by some wilde beast at sight of which heauy chance the companion of the Abbot laugheth for which being reprehended by the Abbot hee thus excuseth himselfe that God had reuealed vnto him the different endes of these two of the Eremite that he was damned for pleasing and contenting himselfe in his owne iustice and that was the cause why he so heauily bewailed his death of the theefe and malefactour that he was saued for that he did with humility acknowledge himselfe a sinner and for saluation rested and confided onely in the mercies of God and that was the cause why hee so greatly reioyced at his death This story is related by Coster as many other like ones to the reproouing of sundry Pontifician positions though he bringeth them against vs Christians How dreadfull is that vision related in the great glasse of examples by which it is deliuered how vpon Speeul Mag. Exemp verbo damnatus exē 2 that day when Saint Bernard dyed it was reuealed vnto a certain Eremite that thirty thousand dyed whereof one onely with Bernard went directly to heauen and three others to purgatory which vision if it should bee true what may be thought of those assecurances which they giue in the Popish Church to all such as dye in the same with the copious furniture of their Sacraments and their owne merits Againe workes of charity intended and instituted for the releeuing of the poore are great tokens of true Christianity when they are done purely and meerely for the loue of God The Papists doe bragge much of this but vainely for taking quantity of time for quantity there are who dare vndertake to shew as many workes of piety especially for hospitals and schooles of learning done in the reformed Churches as in any like time of popery and yet such as were done there with them were done alwaies with conceit of merit to cause Friers to pray for themselues or the souls of their friends departed or were mixt with some like respect of selfe loue whereas all like workes done in Reformed Churches haue beene done for no other end but to releeue the poore further godlinesse and please God their doctrine excluding all manner of merit and hope therein and all manner of feare of purgatory flashes Lastly a signe of true Christianity especially towards the end of the world is frequent and deuout meditation in holy Scriptures the which is so plentifully performed by zealous Christians such as are touched with care of saluation in the Reformed Churches that there is no comparison to bee made betwixt them and the Laikes of their Churches who are so farre from daily meditating therein that they dare not nor may not without speciall leaue read in vulgar tongues any parts or parcels of the same which causeth great ignorance of sacred Scriptures in their Laikes as also the ignorance of their Clerkes therein is very grosse as by many particulars might bee shewed one late one I will not heere omit There was of late and yet perhaps is conducted vp and downe London a Champion of the Papists by a certaine Knight this Champion disguised Cauiliere-like either by accident or of set purpose is brought to the house of a certaine Knight where entring into disputation about the Sacrament he went rashly so farre as to teach that the very flesh of Christ is rent and torne in the Sacrament by the teeth of the receiuers Which his manner of speech and defence did not please the Knight his Guide and Leader he holding the contrary He also so profoundly discoursed vpon the Scriptures that he would needes defend that by the word Phase which is interpreted transitus Domini the passing of the Exod. 12. 11. Lord was signified the passing of the children of Israel through the red sea And is not this a iolly Champion to be carried vp and downe the City to encounter either with Protestants or Ministers indefence of Popish religion doubtlesse they are vnstable in