the bare and running with the hounde getteth a man frendes but he that will laye flattery aside tell the plaine truth shal get nothing but hatred Thus in these daies vice is extolled vertue contemned Ill rule is made â—f and good rule neglected O heart dissembled which vnder coulour to be iust true canst cloke vnto vs hipocrisie for deuotion ambition for gentlenesse couetousnes for â—oÌ„petencie cruelty for zeale bolde babling without learning for eloqueÌ„ce florishing Rhetoricke without fruit or reasoÌ„ folly for grauity wilines without wit and fleshly wanton libertie for liberty of the Gospell This is nothing els but the deuils drifte alway couering his poison vnder some taste of suger Fallit enim vitium specie virtutis vmbra g This inuectiue speech we may iustly vse of you and your side For the summe ende of all their false doctrine is nothing els but malice with murther to the ouerthrowe of Christes Religion and the true ministers thereof This is their sheepes clothing for an vnhappy reformation Nam impia sub dulci melle venena latent Vnder sweete honny is deadly venome hid O blinde ignorance and ignorant blindnes O cruell and damnable mischiefe comming from the bottomeles pit of hel O intollerable furiousnes and heresie more detestable then it mate any longer be suffered The greate dâ—spleasure the extreame vengaunce the cruell plagues of God hange ouer our heades if this horrible heresie be not shortly remoued froÌ„ mens mindes O h These wordes iustly we maie breake out into in respect of the infinite blasphemies and abominations held and maintained by your side in this point good god how long wilt thou suffer this intollerable abhomination It shameth me it abhorreth me to thinke that these shameles beastes are not ashamed to speake of the most blessed Sacramentes of Christes Church who is able to expresse either by tongue or penne their wicked abhomination whye haue we a pleasure to forsake the true vnderstanding of Gods most sacred worde and become followers and bondslaues of the deuils counterfaite and deceitfull expositions carnall reasons set out by his ministers who in Religion are i This obiection of the diuersitie of opinions see answered at large Cap. 4. so deuided that now they dreame one thing and now another this day they like tomorowe they mislike one is against another of them euen in the highest misterie of Christ his Religion And no meruaile for the deuill is their chiefe head whom they serue and he is full of lies variaunce diuision and discorde vnder him their Schoolemasters were Hus Luther Zuinglius Oecolampadius Bucer Melancthon and the Archheretike Caluin k Therein there is no proofe that he helde any one heresy whose heresies are confuted in the Discourse hereafter ensuing l This is vntrue These with the rest of that rable did neuer agree one with another in their doings there is no vnity no certainty at all and therefore such masters such schollers come of them And this diuision this vnconstancie of doctrine was a manifest token that they were not the children of our true mother the Catholike Church nor ministers of Christ but the children of the deuill and ministers of Antichrist yea very Antichrists m Which that you papists be is most certain the contrariâ—ty of your doctrine with the auncient catholic e Church considered which I haue noted cap. 17. 29 of my answer For whosoeuer saieth S. Augustine is gone from the vnitie of the Catholicke Church hee is become an Antichrist These Antichrists haue borne a great stroke now too long time in our Realme of England in whom is no constancy no stedfastnesse of religion and doctrine These are they that haue damnably deceiued you and haue with their damnable preachings intised you from Church to Church from an heauenly Church to a malignant Church from a louing mother n This is false to a flattering harlot from the condition of grace to the state of perdition o These words remaining we iustly say to and of you from truth to falshoode from faithfull beleeuing to carnall reasoning from sauing Christ to deceauing Antichrist But good Reader beware be not deceaued be not ashamed to arise that hast so shamefully fallen be not ashamed to come home to your mother the Church sith shee is not ashamed to receiue you Let not folly lose the thing that grace hath so preciouslie offered and purchased Let not wilfulnesse and blindnesse put out so great light as is now shewed vnto thee but embrace most humblie the doctrine of our mother the catholicke church so shall you sit in the lappe of so tender a mother which will cherish you into life euerlasting Choose the best whiles choise lieth in lot What were you ashamed of your preface that you put not your name to it Indeede it is so fonde and friuolous that you might well enough be ashamed to father it An answere to the preface set before Iohn de Albines booke entituled A notable discourse against heretickes c. BEfore I take in hande to say any thing to Iohn de Albine or his booke I must craue of thee gentle reader whosoeuer thou art these two things that thou wouldest first giue me leaue to answere the long tedious and bragging preface prefixed before his booke by the publisher thereof and that then also thou thy selfe wouldest vouchsafe before thou goest any further either to the considering what Albine hath obiected or I answered to take the paines to reade ouer this my answere to the saide preface And though it seeme vnto thee of an extraordinary length so somewhat discourages thee yet the length of his considered likewise I pray thee beare with me and vouchsafe the reading of it thorow before thou proceedest any further His preface thou seest is long but indeede so vaine and friuolous it is that though it seemeth the authour thereof was some bolde and impudent Iesuite or fugitiue of our owne country yet such care he had of his credit that for feare of losse thereof he hath not thought good to put his name vnto it The vanity and weakenesse thereof may euen sufficiently appeare by those marginall notes that I haue affixed vnto it so that if I troubled thee with no further answere vnto it I hope it neither could nor should much moue thee or any other to thinke any thing the better of their Church and religion then thou didst before yet because neither he nor any of his faction for want of a further particular aunswere vnto it shall take occasion to persuade theÌ„selues or other that there is further weight and matter in it then indeede there is I will vouchsafe some more paines about it First therefore this I would haue thee Christian Reader for the coÌ„mendation of the authors great skill to obserue that almost al of it is spent in prouing those things which are needles because we teach graunt defende theÌ„ to
that they come to them by the ordinary way by right succession of Bishops and pastours continuing in one Catholicke faith downe from Christ to this present time thus childishly begging in one piece of one short sentence these foure great points all which in this case are betwixt vs and them in question namely that their officers all of them come to their roomes by the ordinary way that they haue right succession right Bishops and pastours and sounde and Apostolicke doctrine And yet though he knew well enough that wee constantly deny all these yet to proue that they come lawfully to their offices hee onely nakedly and barely affirmeth them as though he presumed that he was and should be such a Pythagoras in the conceit of all his Readers that for him once to say it were enough and enough againe For by and by after that thus he had onely saied hauing vsed neither proofe nor colour of proofe to backe his saying hee slippeth into another matter not yet called in question Whither a visible knowen and alwaies a demonstrable personall and locall succession of Bishops pastours be necessary for the perpetuall continuāce of the Church and preseruatiō of the trueth therin And thus hee windeth frō matter to matter leauing alwaies that vnproued which hee had most neede to haue proued labouring sweating continually about the proofe of that which though it were graūted him yet he might wel enough loose his cause As for example hauing entred into the foresaid matter in maner before saied in 3. or 4. whole Chapters following he shewes how the trueth is continued in the Church by succession of pastours how profitable their ministry is to bring men to to settle them in the truth that the anciēt trodē way by Christs sheepe downe from Christ to this day that the ancient Catholicke faith that the faith which in Irenaeus and Augustines time was helde and taught at Rome had vnto their times beene continued from Christ by succession of Bishoppes and pastours is the waie and faith that a Catholicke man must liue and die in whosoeuer saieth to the contrary In which propositions no maruaile though he goe on roundly for he hath winde and weather with him none of vs gainesaies him yea these things being rightly vnderstoode wee constantly affirme and teach the same But these things being all graunted him what is hee nearer his cause seeing as yet all the sort of them neuer could nor shall bee able to proue that their pastours succeed Christ his Apostles or the ancient holy Bishops pastours that were before Irenaeus Avgustines time in teaching the same doctrine that they taught But herein is his popish subtlely that standing thus vpō these points he would haue his Reader graūt him all these that their successiō of Priests Bishops is that successiō of pastours so profitable for the continuāce of the trueth and Church that their Romish Religion that now is is that ancient way that Christs sheepe haue alwaies trod so the ancient Catholicke Religiō which in Irenaeus Augustines time they the holy pastours Bishops at Rome and else where had soundly succeeding one another from the Apostles continued in vnto that time which are things whereof not one the Pope and all his confederates shall euer be able indeede to proue and therefore it seemeth Iohn de Albine thought it good policy seeing these thinges could be got no otherwise to trie whether he could get them thus by flatte begging of them And it seemeth also that hee presumed that hee should come onely to such liberall mens dores that all these should be graūted and giuen him euen at the very first asking for alwaies after he behaues himselfe in such sort as that without all peraduenture he had them all graunted him Onely a little in his thirty seuēth Chapter belike somewhat growing ashamed of his shamelesse begging al the while before he begins to make shew that if men should be so hard harted as to deny him that their pastours doctrine and Church are sound Catholicke that he is able to proue them so to bee whither such will or no. And yet euen there when all comes to all though indeede hee bragge that he could and would but for being too tedious to his Reader iustify the rest of their doctrine by the testimony of a number of doctours holy confessours and martyrs he onely by mustering of a sort of dumbe doctours vpon the stage makes his poore Reader beleeue that in the places quoted by him they speake directly to iustify their ceremonies their Auricular Confession praier for the dead and to the dead as though these were the principall matters in controuersy betwixt them and vs. But doubtles hee knew well enough that no one of his Readers amongst an hundred would and could turne the places and so try whither the men he name make there so for him or no. For otherwise for shame he would not haue quoted them so negligently falsely and corruptly as when I come to that place I shall shew thee hee hath These thinges considered Christian Reader thou must bee very simple and haue before hand thy minde wholy forestalled with his false principles or else hee shall winne with thee little credit to his cause or disgrace to ours Howbeit seeing both his whole drift and his publishers in his preface was as it euidently thereby appeares vnder the odious names of heretiques and schismatiques to disgrace vs and the trueth that wee professe as though it were not once to be called in questiō whither they and their crue were the onely sound Catholickes and Christians in the world before I let thee proceede come to the view of his declamation made to that ende and of my answere thereunto this vpon good and most cleare ground I protest vnto thee and assure thee what brags soeuer he or any other of his fellows make of their popish and Romish Religion that now is prosessed amongst them besides all other things that can or may be saied against it it is such a Religion and their Church the vpholder thereof such a dame as is the very nurse and baude of monstrous impietie as is intolerably iniurious to the right of the good estates of all Christian Princes and their people and as lastly howsoeuer it may seeme to carry a shew of holinesse it is not so but indeede cunningly vnder the colour thereof aymeth at no marke more then to aduaunce the pride pompe and gaine of her louers The first is euident in that their doctrine of their Popes supermacy is such as that for money hee may pardon any sinne as their practise teacheth either committed or to be committed yea their verie Hedge-priestes by the authority of the power of absolution giuen vnto them vpon penaunce done how light soeuer if it so seeme good vnto them haue and doe take vpon them marueilously that way to breede immunity and impunity by their absoluing whom for
quickelie forsake your popery and ioyne with vs. to follow the interpretation of the ancient Doctours standing to that that euer the Catholicke Church hath taught not to turne at euery blast Vpon this matter one * Lib. con haer Vincentius Lyrinēsis who florished aboue a thousand yeares agone he saith thus If anie mā perchāce demaund saying Since that the rules of the Scripture are certaine b Yea and more then sufficient saieth he Marke he graunts the rules of the scripture to be sufficient how is then that true which your Andradius saieth the greatest part is left to tradition not writen sufficient of thēselues And what neede haue we thē of the authority of the Church He answereth For that saieth he that the secrets misteries of the holy Scriptures are such that euery mā doeth not vnderstand thē interprete thē after one sort but that of one place this mā that mā shal seeme to maintaine their opinions being cleane cōtrary one to another so that looke how many mē so many interpretations For one way it is interpreted by Nestorius another way by Arrius another way by Sabellius so forth according to diuers heresies that haue risen from time to time And therefore it is necessary for the knowledge of the trueth among so many errours to draw the c And for these reasons we allow of Vincentius rule vnderstanding as he doth that by the right line and rule of interpreting is ment that sence which hath the consent of the Prophets Apostles and Catholique Church for no other sence we giue of the Scriptures right line of the Propheticall Apostolical interpretatiō according to the rule true sense of the Catholicke Church This is the learned opinion of this anciēt father Vincētius Lyrinensis The III. Chapter IN the 3 Chapter you say as little to the purpose as in the second For vnderstanding by the Church the true catholique Church indeede and not your late Synagogue of Rome falsely by you so named because neither it nor the faith thereof is vniuersall neither in respect of time nor person whatsoeuer you haue writen therein we confesse to be most true and sure we are it maketh more for vs then for you For we neuer denied the ministry of the true Church to be needefull according to Vincētius rule to finde out the true sence of the scriptures and certaine we are that we are farre better able to iustifie our interpretations thereby then you are yours and he liuing a 1000. years agoe as you write we boldely affirme that you shall neuer bee able to proue that the Catholicke Church and her doctours and pastours before or in his time taught the errours and heresies now taught by yours for the which wee account yours Antichristian And yet as in the former Chapter most beggerly you begged this principle that your doctrine is the ancient Catholicke faith so here in this you begge this also that your Church is the true and vndoubted Catholicke Church But you must vnderstand howsoeuer your owne frendes will giue you at your first asking both these that yet we will graunt you neither of them both And therefore writing as you would seeme purposely against vs you should not thus miserably alwaies haue begged them at our handes but by sound and iust proofe at least haue endeuoured to proue that you had iust right thereunto and then with some more honestie and credit might you haue gone on in this supposall that they are yours This also you must vnderstand that when it is in question which is the trueth of Religion yea euen in the fundamentall points as indeede it is betwixt you and vs it is alwaies also in question which is the Church of Christ For as both parts imagine they haue the trueth so will they perswade themselues that they are the true Church Your frendes also and all others must bee aduertised that it is no newe thing for damnable heretiques to brag much both of the truth of the titles of the Church of the doctours thereof least through too much simplicity they think streight that you haue al these things on your side because you haue them so much and so often in your mouthes For as Cyprian writeth Epist ad Iubaianum de baptizandis haereticis the Nouations after the fashion of apes challenged vnto themselues the name of the Church and all other they called heretiques And we reade that in the time of Arius Macedonius and Donatus these heretiques accounted themselues the onely Christians and that the true Christians indeede were counted by them Homousians Macarians Caesarians and Caecilianists So doeth Tertullian de Prescrip aduersus haereticos testify that the heretiques did in his time So did the Donatists saieth August Contra Epist Parm lib. 2. cap. 1. and Epist 161. and he writeth Cōtra Epist Fundamenti cap. 4. that amongst the Manichees there was great brags of the trueth Bernard also in his 66. sermon vpon the Cāticles speaking against certaine filthy heretiques that condemned mariage and superstitiously absteined from meates yet saieth that they gloried that they alone were the body of Christ bragging also that they were the successours of the Apostles and Apostolicke the Church of Christ And indeede wee finde nothing more vsuall with the ancient hereticks then to boast that they had the Church and Catholique trueth on their sides And very vsuall we finde it also with them to stand much vpon fathers in the defence of themselues and their heresies For it appeareth in the Councell of Calcedon the 1. Action that Eutiches bragged that he had reade Cyprian and Athanasius yea that then and there he confidently saied for his defence that he had so learned of his ancient predecessours and that he had beene baptized in that faith had liued and hoped to die in it And we reade in the 4. Action of the same councell that Carosus an Eutichian heretique saied stoutly I beleeue thus according to the exposition of the 318. fathers and so was I baptised Dioscorus also in the 1. Act of that Councell cried and saied I haue the testimonies of the holy fathers Athanasius Gregorie and Cyrill on my side I go not from them in anie thing I am cast out with the fathers I defend the fathers doctrines I haue their testimonies euen set downe in their bookes for me And as we reade in August contra Cresconium the Donatist 2. booke cap. 23. and in his 4. booke cap. 17. he cited for himselfe Cyprian and it seemeth that Maximinus the heretique against whom August wrote vsed to alleadge for his defence the councell of Ariminum and therefore Augustine saieth vnto him Neither will I obiect the councell of Nice against thee neither oughtest thou to obiect that of Ariminum against me 3. booke 14. chap. What a vaine thing is it these things considered for you and your fellowes then to carie away the simple vnder the bare titles of Catholique trueth Catholique Church
pretend you would yeelde vnto them in this point and so spare much labour that you bestowe to get credit to your traditions vnwriten Which if you would once be brought vnto we should quickly by the sole and sufficient authority of the scriptures haue a faire hand of you Which you espying whatsoeuer otherwise you would seeme to account of the fathers to bleare the eies of the simple in this they shall keepe their iudgement to themselues for you like it not So that this and such your like dealing with them caused one once to tell you that the fathers are vnto you as counters in the handes of him that casteth an account according to whose will and pleasure sometimes one and the selfesame counter standeth for an ob that stoode immediately before for a pound or more So with you when it pleaseth you an ancient fathers testimony is of great weight and when it pleaseth you againe 20. of their testimonies are nothing Howbeit I hope the indifferent reader by these testimonies doeth will perceiue that you wonderfully seeke to abuse Gods people when yet you would perswade them at anie time that the ancient fathers are fauourers and patrons of your vnwriten traditions And I trust this may serue to make it sufficiently appeare that in the iudgement of these ancient fathers your Andradius may be ashamed to write as he hath scripto suo aedito tempore Tridentini coÌ„cilii That the greatest part of Catholicke Religion is left vnto the traditions of the church not writen and that your Lyndan was extreame mad or very drunke when he wrote It is most extreame madnes to thinke that the whole and entire body of Euangelicall doctrine is to be searched out of the Apostolique letters writen with inke out of the litle booke of the new testament Panopl lib. 1. cap. 22. But thus to make vnwriten traditions sometime equall sometime superiour in authority to the canonical scripture that vpoÌ„ this ground that al trueth is not sufficieÌ„tly taught therein you haue learned of the Encratites Manichees and of the Montanists Valentinians and others as it appeares in them that wrote against them And yet O good God what a stir now of late this Andradius Lyndan other such your great champions haue made what cost they haue bestowed to drawe men from that estimation that these fathers had of the authority and sufficiencie of the canonicall scriptures in making large treatises and discourses to shew that the authority therof depends of the testimony and authority of the church that they are not sufficient no not halfe sufficient for the direction of the church either for Religion or conuersation and that they are obscure hard to be vnderstoode all vpon this occasion that will they nil they they are driuen to perceaue that their opinions wherein we differ from them cannot any longer bee defended by the scriptures for al their sophistrie cunning and that therefore they see they must maintaine the credit of theÌ„ by the authority of the church her vnwriten traditions which they may say to be what they lift or that else they must be driuen to throw vs the bucklers and to run out of the field But you doe fouly deceiue your selues if you thinke in this great light that men espy not that this is a shamefull shift and which argueth that your cause is euen giuing vp the ghost that you caÌ„ hold out no longer vnles it be by preferring the authority of the church the wife before Christ the husband by giuing her your commission to sit as iudge ouer her husbands word to adde there unto and take therefrom how what seemeth good vnto her And your fault herein is the more intollerable because by the church you vnderstand alwaies your popish Synagogue that now is For euen children may see that you are very farre driuen when there is no other remedy but you must thus open your mouthes and prepare your pens to disgrace his writen word which all meÌ„ know to be his word indeed without question for the gracing countenancing in this sort of that which though you call his worde you are neuer able to proue to be so And for this who seeth not that we may iustly say of you as Tertull Apolog. 5. saied of the heathen in his time Apud vos de humano arbitratu pensitatur diuinitas nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit homo iaÌ„ Deo propitius esse debebit that is with you the godhead is esteemed of as man shall thinke good vnles God please man he shall not be God man now must be good to God Howsoeuer you are ashamed thus grosly with these prophane pagans to speake yet it is euident in that you still say write that the writen word of God is inferiour in authority to the church hath the canonical credit from thence that the sence thereof is must be whatsoeuer your Bishop of Rome for the time being doeth define determine so to be relying stil vpon vnwriten traditions bearing men in hand that they are as well the word of God as the canonical scriptures as you doe al meÌ„ whoÌ„ your enchantmeÌ„ts haue not bewitched made blind may see that in effect you are as grosse as they of whom these words were truely writen This once we knowe to be his word which wee finde set downe in the Canonicall scriptures we are sure this was writen by the direction of Gods Spirit for the information of the Church And we cannot be ignorant but that this Spirit of God foresawe what dangerous heretiques there would bee which if they were not preuented by leauing the word of God fully in writing vnder the pretence of vnwriten traditions would bring in damnable heresies And therefore seeing it is euident vnto vs that he in these writings begaÌ„ to leaue instruction vnto vs to settle vs in the certaine trueth we know he could go thorow with it because he is God the fountain authour of all wisedome trueth are sure that he was willing because he perfectly loued the church by Christs promise by the ministry of the Apostles was to leade it into al trueth we must needes thinke it flat blasphemy to think that the writeÌ„ word of God is any way vnsufficieÌ„t for the full direction of the Church in all matters And therefore howsoeuer you please your Sects in this deuise of yours in feighting thus for the traditions of the Church thinke not to the contrarie but any man of meane iudgement will discrie both your vâ—â—â—tie and impiety therein by making this reason in his owne minde vnto himselfe The spirit of God in the writers of the Scriptures sawe it good and necessary to leaue the worde of God for the full direction of the Church in all matters writen by that is done and writen it is cleare hee tooke it in hand and to take it in hand
printed in our hearts that he be holden as an * Galat. 1. Anathema or an excommunicate person yea although it were an Angell of heauen The which doeth perswade vs not to receiue your d Ours is new to you as the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles was to the Iews in that time that vnderstoode not the Scriptures new doctrine or Gospell but to keepe our selues vnder the gouernaunce of our olde Pastours and Bishops without hauing any respect to their euill or good liues for as touching our faith and saluation that doeth import nothing e This is hardly boldly saied for any thing that you know some take occasion the rather thereby to haue them and so to be conuerted The good and holie liues of Iesus Christ and his Apostles hath profited nothing neither to the obstinate Iewes nor to the vnbeleeuing Gentiles f Open confessioÌ„ would haue open punishment Nor in the like case the depraued life of manie euill Bishops that haue beene at Rome and in other places haue not shut the dores of heauen against those that are true Catholickes and leade particuler liues the which are two principall pointes that doe quiet our consciences g The first is talke and the laâ—ter iâ— little bene seeing how many of you haue learned to be lâ—â—dâ— of them I meane the one that we beleeue that that our Pastours and the vniuersall Church haue beleeued these thousand and fiue hundred yeares and the other that their euill liues cannot hurt vs. For as the Apostle doeth say euery man shall beare his owne bundell The IX Chapter NOw perswading your selfe that you haue yeelded vs a sufficient account of your ministrie when as onely you haue countenanced it with a shew of personall succession and a bare bragge without any proofe at all of succession also in the Apostolique trueth as it may appeare by that which hath beene sayed you call vs to a reckoning for ours and will vs to shew that God is the authour of it or else to giue you leaue to say it commeth from his aduersary We answere you that our calling is of God first because orderly according to the order of the Church wherein wee liue wee are by them that are deputed by the Church for that busines tried and examined and then with imposition of handes and speciall prayer vnto God fitte for that purpose admitted and ordained ministers of his worde and Sacramentes Secondly because our office of the ministery it selfe is the same that Christ gaue vnto his Church vnder the names of pastours and Doctours whose office and properties are set downe and described Actes 20. 2. Corinthians 4. 1. Timothy 3. Titus 1. 1. Peter 5. And thirdly because we are able to proue by the writen word that we feede Gods people committed vnto vs with that onely foode which God hath allowed for his children and minister the Sacraments according to Christes institution Lastly God himselfe hath sealed ratified our ministery to be of him in the effectual vocatioÌ„ conuersioÌ„ of many thereby Let vs now therfore heare what you can say either to weaken this our assertion that our calling is of God or any of these reasons that we vse to proue the same by First in Tertullians words de Praescrip aduersus haereticos you bid vs shew the beginning of our Churches and reckon vp the succession of bishops down to vs from the beginning c. you haue heard that the same Tertullian in the very same place yea euen in the words immediately following yours addeth Be it that heretiques deuise thus to doe for what is not lawfull for them being once fallen into blasphemy But though they shal deuise so sayeth he they shall gaine nothing For their doctrine compared with the Apostolique doctrine by the diuersity and contrariety thereof will pronounce that their Churches haue neither Apostle nor Apostolique man for the authour thereof Whereof when he had giuen a reason he addeth that those Churches which caÌ„not shew any Apostle or Apostolique man to be the founder thereof in that they were founded long after as many are yet in eâdem fide conspirantes non minus Apostolicae de putantur pro consanguinitate doctrinae that is they are no lesse to be reputed for Apostolique agreeing with them in the same faith euen for the affinitie therof You thought it good to stop before you came to these words For these words indeede take away all the force of the obiectioÌ„ grouÌ„ded vpon the former in that hereby it is euident that howsoeuer Tertullian in his time could shew the originall of the Catholique Church by deducing it and the doctrine therein professed euen from the Apostles to his time yet hee thought it was possible for heretiques to make shew of the like succession of persons but secondly and especially because thereby it is most cleare that to proue a Church to be Apostolick it is not necessary for it alwaies to be able to deduce such a line of personal succession down from the Apostles but it is sufficient to be able to make it appeare that the doctrine thereof agreeth with the doctrine of the Apostles Which vnles we be able to doe by the Scriptures whereby we most cartainly may know what their doctrine was let not our Churches be accounted Apostolique But if this we be able to doe which we doubt not of and yours compared and conferred with the Apostolique doctrine therein expressed shall proue both diuers and contrary then for all your fiction of succession we say vnto you in Tertullians worde that so your Churches shall be proued to be founded neither by Apostle nor Apostolique man For as the Apostles taught not contraries amongst theÌ„selues so neither did the Apostolique men saieth he vnlesse it were they that departed from the Apostles and ours shall proue themselues though they were not able to deduce their Succession from the Apostles by their affinity of doctrine with that of the Apostles to be Apostolique and so to haue their originall and beginning from Sion and so also in the end it will fall out that Tertullian spoke rather against such as you are theÌ„ against vs. And thus you see Tertullian hath sufficiently answered himselfe and also hath giuen vs weapons against you to defend our selues withall You gaine euen as little by your similitude taken from tenants who to proue their title good must shew their Land-lordes how by succession they came to their landes For if all Land-lords should thrust all their tenants from their possessions which are not able to deduce the descent of their tenimeÌ„ts froÌ„ one to one euen froÌ„ the first that held it purchased it the 10 tenant in the world should not long quietly enioy his owne Yet you for your parts if your bare bragge were a proofe are such tenaÌ„ts to the inheritance of the church of Christ and the Catholique trueth that you haue not onely proued your title thereunto to be good by
by BertraÌ„ and others before named and their followers as we haue made it most euident in many bookes writeÌ„ to that purpose namely of late in a great booke called Orthodoxus coÌ„seÌ„sus the true catholick coÌ„sent of the holy Scriptures ancient Church of the trueth of the words of the Lords supper and of al the coÌ„trouersie thereabout printed at Tygure 1578 which booke al the swarme of you wil neuer be souÌ„dly able to answere coÌ„fute as long as you liue And therfore al the rest of this Chapter is needles wherein you suppose that betwixt Christ and his Apostles and vs there is none that we caÌ„ produce of our iudgemeÌ„t or otherwise against you But you take vpoÌ„ you to proue that we cut of theÌ„ al that haue bene betweene theÌ„ vs because Caluin hath writeÌ„ haÌ„dling this matter of the sacrament that he did find that they of old time had chaÌ„ged the fashioÌ„ of the administratioÌ„ therof otherwise theÌ„ Christs institutioÌ„ would beare c. wheruâ—oÌ„ your coÌ„clusion followeth not for diuers causes For an argumeÌ„t froÌ„ one to al holdeth not as Caluin hath done so ergo it is all out opion we al do so For though we accouÌ„t of him as of a rare singuler minister of the Lord yet wee doe not binde our selues to doe and say whatsoeuer he did and saied For we know him to haue beene a man subiect to error and infirmity for al his gifts neither wil you be coÌ„tented that such an argument should hold alwaies drawn froÌ„ any one of your greatest most famous learned writers to presse al the rest And a second reason of the weaknes of your argumeÌ„t is that there is more in your coÌ„clusion then is in the antecedent giuen you by him For you would conclude for those are your words to the proofe whereof you cite Caluin that we condeÌ„ne cut of al the ChristiaÌ„s that haue bene are betwixt Christ his Apostles and vs wheras Caluin speaketh not of al but of some of olde time The 3 reason Caluin himselfe giueth you in the eueÌ„ in the words set downe by you he sheweth plainly that though in theÌ„ that he spake of he noted some aberration froÌ„ the simplicity of Christs institution yet he did not therfore cut theÌ„ of froÌ„ the Church nor coÌ„deÌ„ne theÌ„ What are you such a cutter that you straight cut of al those froÌ„ coÌ„munioÌ„ with you in whoÌ„ you caÌ„ iustly finde any fault or errour in opinion or practise of life Surely then you must cut of most of your best frends That which we can foundly proue to be a fault in brethren either ancient or of later time we may safely note tel them of and labour to reforme yet as long as they ioine togither with vs in one God faith and Baptisme otherwise we can and ought to holde peace Christian communion with them or els where caÌ„ there at any time be any true concord or peace kept in the church For some differences of opinions vsages there haue alwaies yet beene and wil be betwixt one particuler Church and another and betwixt some members of the true church or other You needed not therfore I warrant you one whit haue beene afraide that Caluin his fellowes were so scrupulous that they would not ioine in fellow ship with some such as he speaketh of there and yet the letteth not but that he should couÌ„sel his readers to prefer Christs own simple institution before the vsage of them or any other differing from it The XI Chapter YOu doâ— verie wel that S. Paul doth coÌ„pare many times the mistical body of the church vnto a natural body seing that Iesus Christ is the head vnto whoÌ„ the body is ioined by ioints bones sinews If one should then demande of you how the feete are ioined to the head you will answere me by the legs which are next vnto the feete And if I aske you how the legs are ioyned to the head you will answer by the ioints and by the 〈◊〉 of the backe and so consequently from member to member I doe beleeue that we are all of one accord * 1 Cor. 10. that the ende of the world is at hand and so consequently that we are the lower most part of the body so that 〈◊〉 the feete or the legs Then my masters you that haue made so fâ—ne aâ— Anotomie of the Masse at my request make another of the ministrie of your congregation a You were a very pleasant man be like that could thus play your selfe a fit of mirth and when you had done daunce after your owne pipe it seemes you thought that the sport then would be so pleasant that no beholder could forbare laughter If you should see such another as Apelles that would paint a man and that he had drawen his head and without painting the rest of his bodie he had set his feete vnder his eares what would you saâ—â— to such a Table Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici Would you not thinke that he was a simple painter or else a great Iester Euen so doe you deserue that one should laugh at your ministerie b This is vntrue and a grosse slaÌ„der for we hold and teach that euer since Christ to our daies there haue bene both shepheards and sheepe ioyning with vs in the vnity of faith therfore you laugh at your owne shadow and vaine fansie For you will ioine your Church if it may bee so called vnto the church of the Apostles without setting forth anie members betweene them You take but scant measure when you will cut of all the Bishops Pastours and doctours that haue beene from the Apostles time till our daies they being the members that followe the head of the church This maie well be called a new Religion or to saie the truth it is a meere presumption to flie without winges or to climbe without a ladder And I saie to you againe that this is not the waie to followe the counsell of the great Sheepheard that I mentioned before who doeth saie vnto vs that if we will not misse the waie of the Catholicks we ought to follow the flocke of those sheepe that haue gone before vs that is to saie that we should reckon c But thâ—s in truth yours caÌ„not do therefore yours is not the Catholicke Church by your owne reason by succession the Pastours that haue succeeded in continuance of one kinde of doctrine the which as we haue shewed the Catholicke church doeth and hath euer done The XI Chapter As though you had most substaÌ„tially proued by Caluins words that we cut of all Christians betwixt the Apostles and vs in this Chapter you vrge the metaphor of a body whereunto vsually the church of Christ is compared whereupon you gather that as there is an orderly connexion and situation of members in a body so there must be in the church and that therefore our church must
gentiles namely to Augustus Cesar which profes though they were granted to be of sufficient force to proue that the gentiles had thereby some knowledge of the cōming maner of cōming office of such a Messias yet they proue not but that it was notwithstāding a thing newe and not vnderstoode to most of thē neither doe they at all proue but that still the doctrine concerning the particuler person of that Messias namely that Iesus the sonne of the virgin Mary whom the Iewes crucified was he no other was a new doctrine both to Iew and gentile and therefore in that respect it was necessary for the Apostles for all these thinges to confirme that by miracle whereas now amongst vs that beare any waie the name of Christians that doctrine is not newe neither anie thing else that wee preach but to those to whom the ancient doctrine taught in the Scriptures is newe and therefore as yet there remaineth cause sufficient why the Apostles should worke miracles and not wee This also I cannot but tell you of that howsoeuer the Sybilles are reported to haue prophecied of Christ your comparison is verie odious when you saie they did it as fully and as plainelie as anie of the Prophets and that you wrong Augustine too too much in making your Reader beleeue that hee either in the place quoted by you or anie where else ioyneth with you in that malaperte comparison But these comparisons of yours argue the profanenesse of the spirite that directeth your pennes The XX. Chapter THVS you see that Iesus Christ was anounced among the Gentiles before the comming of the Apostles who notwithstanding this did not let to set forth the doctrine that they were sent to preach vvith manie notable miracles although they did not teach but that doctrine that was verie ancient And although that their doctrine vvas newe and vnknowen to the Gentiles yet you cannot alleadge that it vvas so a Yes it is evident that the true doctrine both of his person and office was new and strange vnto thē vnto the Iewes for they beeing studied and learned in Moses lawe they hearde nothing of the Apostles but had beene prophecied by the Prophets Doeth not Saint Paul saie at the beginning of his Epistle to the Romanes that hee was seperated to preach the Gospell the which God promised by the holie Scriptures * Act. 3. Saint Peter talking with the Iewes doeth giue them plainelie to vnderstande that his vvas no newe doctrine because that hee did preach Iesus Christ of vvhom Moses had prophecied long before saying thus * b Deut. 16. God shall raise a Prophet among your brethren b Deut. 18. you would saie you shall obey him as you doe me and hee that doeth refuse it shal be put to death Saint Peter saieth afterwarde All the Prophets that haue beene from Samuel vnto this time doe announce vnto you these daies that is to saie the doctrine that wee doe preach That that the Apostles did preach vnto the Iewes that is to wit the remission of their sinnes by the death and passion of Christ it was no newe thing for as * Act. 10. Saint Peter saied vnto Cornelius All the Prophets haue vvitnessed that those that beleeue in him shall obtaine remission of their sinnes for it had beene so prophecied by Esay c 53 you should haue saied cap. 55. vnto the people aboue eight hundreth yeares saying that hee had laied vpon his sonne all our iniquities as it doeth appeare in his booke in the vvhich he doeth shew himselfe more an Euangelist then a Prophet for there hee doeth vvrite the tormentes of our Sauiour euen as if hee had beene present at his passion Dauid likewise doeth talke of the like where hee doeth mention the extreame affliction of our Redeemer and of the Gall and Isope and the Vinager Daniel did not onelie discrie the death of our Sauiour but therewithall the verie time that he should come And to bee briefe all the Prophets haue announced vnto the Iewes that that the Apostles did preach vnto them Now if wee desire to knowe why this olde doctrine preached aswell to the Gentiles as to the Iewes by the Apostles was confirmed vvith manie miracles vvhich they did in the name of God vvho sent them the cause is this the Deuill had so obscured and hidden the trueth ouer all nations that superstitious Idolatrie had taken place in steede of the true seruice of God so that the poore Painims did not put their trust in one God but in a multitude of Gods And in like maner the true Religion giuen by God to the Israelites had beene troubled and almost cleane abolished by the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees in the vvhich they did trust for the iustification and remission of their sinnes d And in your owne consciences you cannot but see we haue iust cause The like doe you report of vs and of your great curtesie yee are contente to match vs vvith the superstitious Iewes and Idolatrous Paynims placing your selues in the degree of the pure Gospellers and the true children of God taking vpon you the succession of the Apostles and calling your congregation the true Catholicke and Apostolical Church This sounds notablie well but seeing that your cause is absolutely to reforme the Church as they did preaching the ancient doctrine of God as they did and dealing with superstitious Idolaters that cleaue more to the traditions of men thē vnto the pure word of God as the Iewes Seing then that our case is reported vnto the similitude of the Iewes and yours to the Apostles and Prophets how comes it to passe that you doe not as they did seeing that you are sent frō one master Why e Because our doctrine being the very same that theirs was their miracles serue sufficiently to confirme it to take away al excuse from them that will not beleeue it to the worldes ende doe ye not make your commission appeare by signes and miracles seeing that God hath euer done the like heretofore when he hath sent the like Commission to yours The XX. Chapter I haue shewed you my reason in the former Chapter why you must stay for all your premises from the conclusion that you beginne withall in this For howsoeuer some few of them thē heard in some sort that such a Messias either should come or was come yet the particuler person who that same was was first preached by the Angel Gabriel secondly by Zacharie and Elizabeth his wyfe Luke 1. before he was borne then by the Angels to the shepheards the day of his birth after by Simeon and Anna Iohn Baptist the Apostles of Christ and the rest as it followeth set downe in the story Luke 2. c. But you say yet further that though their doctrine concerning Iesus Christ the Messias was vnknowen to the Gentiles yet it was not so to the Iewes for the Apostles preached nothing but that which
had warrant from the law and the prophets as you proue I graunt wel out of the 1. to the Rom. and 10. of the Acts conferring those places with the 53. of Esay though wrong quoted by you and out of the prophecy of Daniel I graunt they preached nothing that ought to haue beene new vnto them forasmuch as euery thing that they preached had ground in the olde Testament but yet as you after seeme to confesse it was growen new not onely to the Gētiles but also to the Iewes in that they were misse-led in the vnderstanding of the prophecies that went before of him both concerning his person and office through their ignorance corrupt glosses interpretations that by false teachers were made thereof Insomuch that when the Messias came and executed his office though indeed all the ancient prophecies were yea Amen in him and most plainly in respect of euery circumstance verified yet they could not be perswaded either that he was such a one in person or office as he was and therefore then once it was necessary by all other good meanes miracles also to confirme the doctrine concerning him which was thorowly done by Christ and his Apostles in their tymes Now whereas hereupon you would inferre that seeing wee match you with the superstitious Iewes and Idolatrous Painims and our selues take vpon vs Succession to the Apostles and to the true catholique and Apostolique Church and to reforme you of your errours as they did theirs therefore we preaching that ancient doctrine of God and of his Christ that they did we now also should confirme our doctrine commission by miracles as they did Beside many other there are two principal things that let you from this conclusion The first is that howsoeuer other things were old y they taught of God the Messias yet this was new who was the very person of the Messias Wherin if they had erred though otherwise they had rightly vnderstood the generall doctrine both of his person and office it had bene most dangerous for thē and therefore that doctrine especially is vrged by thē as for example you may see in Peters sermon to Cornelius Act. 10. And for the confirmation of that doctrin they work al their miracles not generally in the name of the Messias but particulerly in the name of Iesus Christ of Nazareth as it appeareth Act. 3.6 c. Which thing in respect of you we haue not for that is a thing agreed on betwixt vs. Another stop to your conclusion is seing that doctrine hath bene once sufficiently confirmed by miracles by Christ and his Apostles that we teach and you haue the same doctrine and miracles set downe in the new Testament whereunto you seeme to giue credit as wel as we it is thenceforth needles for the ministers thereof howsoeuer they meete with people that for Idolatry superstitious errours match the Gentiles the Iewes in the Apostles times to vse any other proofe thē from those records of the scripture which ought now to be accoūted sufficient therefore now the calling for miracles to be out of time To reason therfore as you doe It was necessary for the Apostles in their time to worke miracles Ergo it is necessary also now for vs though our doctrine be the same is besides and without reason And yet for al this we recant no whit for comparing you to the superstitious Iewes and Idolatrous heathen For if either be worse then other we thinke it is like to proue your selues in that hauing far better meanes and more knowledge of God and his Christ then they had yet you multiply your Idolatries and superstitious conceites far beyond them And euen for this that notwithstanding your better meanes to keepe you in the waies of God and your more knowledge then they had when Christ and his Apostles came first vnto them to preach this Gospel you match them in grosse Idolatrie and in multitude of superstitions and false opinions is it that God vouchsafing the better to conuert them to worke miracles then thinketh it fit to answere you now as the rich glutton was enforced in the like case ye haue Moses and the Prophets yea also the books of the New Testament and if you will not beleeue them you would not beleeue though one should rise from death againe or what miracle soeuer els were wrought But wher as you suppose that the cause why the Apostles wrought miracles was the blinde Idolatry of the heathen superstitions of the Iews onely and not any newnes of any part of their doctrine you are much deceiued as you may perceiue by that which I haue saied Againe if you would perswade that their doctrine was in no point new because in the doctrine of one God and in the doctrine of the Messias in some points it was not or ought not to haue bene so your logicke is flender For in other points it might be new as I haue tolde you and so in respect thereof though not of the other miracles were necessary But this your obiectiō of lacke of miracles pleaseth you so well that you cannot haue done with it let vs therfore heare what further you can say touching this matter The XXI Chapter YOu doe coniure vs by the name of the liuing God to receiue your Gospel and pure word of God or els you doe threaten vs that you will shake off the dust of your feete in testimonie against vs because that vvee will not beleeue your words But in this matter ye doe alleage a wronge text for we were very simple if we should forsake or remoue the foundation of our Church vpon such an occasion as I vvill shevv by this discourse that doeth followe I am sure that you are not ignoraunt howe that Luther after he began to preach his Gospell was not founde barren for immediatelie after his beginning he did ingender another Gospeller that is to wit Andrew Coralstadius and from thence was produced another called Zuinglius and of Zuinglius Oecolampadius Then Thomas Muncerus considering that he had no lesse the gift of the spirit then the rest hee beganne to forge a newe Gospell of the Anabaptists vvith the which hee thought to gratifie the Towne of Milhouse vvho had receaued alreadie the Gospel of Luther But the Senate of that towne beeing vvearied already with two manie straunge Gospels they aduertised Luther you first Apostle of it And he wrote to them againe that Thomas Muncerus ought not to be receiued if hee could not proue his vocation by some miracle And if you demaund where I haue founde this I saie to you not in the workes of some lying Papist but in the Commentaries of your deare Historiographer master * a Lib. 8. fol. 4. Sleydon vvho hath so good a grace in his writing and is so mooued with the trueth of his spirit a Either you had wondrous ill hap for your quotations or else your printer was too bad for it is
not thought that he himselfe not onely might but had erred would he euer haue writeÌ„ as he did a booke of RetractioÌ„s or RecaÌ„tatioÌ„s And indeed in his 2 book 4. Chap. ad BonifaciuÌ„ against that 2. Epist of the PelagiaÌ„s it appeareth that he was of opinioÌ„ that of necessity childreÌ„ were to receiue the CoÌ„munion or els they could not be saued because it is writeÌ„ Ioh. 6. Except yee eat the flesh of the sonne of maÌ„ drinke his bloud yee haue no life in you and Pope Innocent and many of the fathers were of the same opinion then And yet I thinke now your selues holde this to bee an errour aswell as wee And who will read his fourth booke de animâ eius origine ad Vincentium and his prologue to his retractions he should there plainlie finde him confesse that there are manie things in his wordes worthilie to bee founde fault withall which he craueth that his reader would not cleaue vnto in any case but rather pardon and follow him non erraÌ„teÌ„ sed in melius proficientem not erring but better profiting Yea in the later place he saieth that he would not arrogate that perfection to himselfe then being old much lesse when hee was young not to erre And I thinke that you are not ignorant that Irenaeus and Papias were plaine Millenaries and that Cyprian a nuÌ„ber of bishops in his time in Affricke held in councel decreed that rebaptizatioÌ„ of those that had bene baptized by hereticks which both you and we count errors notwithstanding now Why therefore especially when the names and titles of councels or men are vrged to the preiudice of the trueth taught in the scriptures may we not say that which is true that they both might haue erred And thus you haue your answere first generally to your principall scope in these 4. or 5. last Chapters set downe togither because the drift of them was but al one and now also a further answere to the rest of the matters and words therein here and there scattered But yet you haue not quite done with this matter let vs therefore further follow you to see if you haue said any more to the purpose in that which is behinde then in that which we haue heard already The XXVII Chapter I Pray Syrs since you are so absolute answere me to this obiection a A vaine questioÌ„ for whoeuer of vs either saied or wrote so is it good to beleeue almaner of people that doe alleage the Scriptures or not If ye say yea why doe not you beleeue the aboue named Valentinus Apollinaris Hebion Cherintus and Nestorius with diuers others that haue sought to maintaine their errours with the new olde Testament If you saie no but that we ought rather to follow the counsell of S. Iohn in his first Epistle cap. 4. The which is not to beleeue euery spirit but that we ought to proue whether it be of God or no b Our proofe is that our senâ—e wherein we alleage them stands with the rest of the scriptures is according to the analogy of faith and good maners receiued to be the sence of ancient time and from time to time amongst the sound teachers in the Church What proofe wil you shew vs of yours Shewe the priuiledge that you haue by the vvhich God dieth enioine vs to beleeue your Gospel rather the the Gospell of the Pelagians Nouatians Nestorians and other such false Apostles considering that they haue alleaged the Scriptures aswel as you If you saie that they were heretickes abusers of the people and rauishing wolues cloathed in lambes skins and false interpreters of the Scriptures all this is certaine a The more haue they to answere for that report so for they can neuer proue it to be so But vvhat though the like report goeth of you Ye say that ye are sent from Cod to reforme the Church They saie as much b Which of hem I pray you seeing they liued before the B. of Rome beâ—ame Antichrist They preached that the Pope vvas Antichrist c Yea but the Church of Rome then and now are not al one shevving themselues verie eloquent in detracting and rayling against the Catholicke Roman Church you doe the like d You say so but you â—ay more then you can proue At euerie vvord they did alleage the Scriptures in their Sermons to confirme their doctrine as you doe for yours That that they preached was called by them the Gospel the pure vvorde of the Lord these are the verie tearmes that you vse among your holie prophetes they haue beene condemned as heretiques by the generall Councels e Not yet by any lawful and f ee geneâ—al councel was euer our religioÌ„ or any point of it condemned you are so likewise They did appeale vnto the pure vvord of God you doe the like Yet are they proued to be false f This iâ— flat dogs eloquence cogging knaues and so shal you Then seeing there is so great an vniformitie betvveene you vpon vvhat grounde g Vpon this that we are able to iustifie our alleaging of them to to be sound and catholicke which they are not shall vvee confirme that reason that shoulde condemne them as heretiques allow you for Catholicks h This question is rather meete to be proposed to you who haue learned of the Donatists to tye the Church to your popes sleue and to shut it vp within the narrow limits of his dominion S. Augustine in his Epistle 161. did put vnto a Donatist called Honoratus this probleme We desire thee not to thinke it much to answere vs to this what cause doest thou know or what thing hath there beene done that hath made Chirst loose his inheritance spred ouer all the world to coÌ„e to be contained onely in Affricke there onelie to remaine We put the like question to i Though your popish Church hath bene none of his â—nheritaÌ„ce a good while yet he hath had his inheritance alwaies and euer will haue and this we hold and teach and therefore your question is vâ—iâ—e friuolous and flaâ—â—eâ—ous Caluin Beza Viret the rest that it may please theÌ„ to tel vs if that by chauÌ„ce they haue bene aduertised through what occasion our Sauiour Christ hath lost his inheritaunce that is to say the Church spread ouer all the world to remaine now in the later daies with a coÌ„panie of rude Swizers or in two or three corners besides not among the rest for there is a great number of good Catholickes what badge caÌ„ you shew or what signe to make vs know that you are the successours of the Apostles of Christ If that the Scriptures that you alleage ought to be a sufficient proofe we are content to accept it k There as no need that we should doe so because we can proue that we alleadge them soundly they falsely corruptly if you will be content to grant
is manifestly taught in others which is your fashion altogether and we alleadge them truely to confirme onely the trueth and therefore are very well contented that our interpretations should be tried by all soūd and good rules of interpreting Whereas you adde If we say they were heretiques and abused the scriptures c. the like report you say is of vs I say the more is their fault that so report of vs for they can neuer proue it Howbeit to make your report seeme the more probable you cōpare our dealings with theirs which by your saying are very like But the reader must be aduertised that you frame their speeches doings here without booke I meane without warrant of any good authour that reporteth these things of them euen of your owne head that so you may the better make their speeches and ours alike I praie you in what good authour did you euer reade and yet here you confidently aduoutch it that the Palagians Nouatians Nestorians c. who were long dead and buried before your Pope was hatched preached that the Pope was Antichrist It may be true that you write that some of them railed against the Roman Church that then was But alas what is this for your Romish Church now which is no more like that then then an apple is like an oister Indeede this is one of your trickes wherewith you coosen the poore simple people For it is the fashion of you all when you finde in any ancient father anie thing that soundeth to the credit of the Catholique church or to the commendation of the Roman Church in their daies to alleadge it as spoken in the commendation of your Romish church now a 1000. yeares after their death whereas there is more difference betwixt yours and that which they speake of in weighty materiall points of doctrine and discipline then in yeares If your Romish Church now would returne to the state of the ancient church of Rome and grow once like that you and we should soone agree For that is the thing that we will stand vpō with you that it is you in your railing vpon our churches that according to the fashion of these ancient heretiques raile vpon the church of Rome that then was rather then we For our churches are 1000. times more like it indeed thē yours as it is now Nether are you able to produce your authours to proue that these heretiques did at euery word alleadge scripture or appeal onely thereunto For the contrary is euident both in Epiphanius Tertullian Irenaeus August and others that wrote against them For they testifie that many of them shunned the triall of the Scriptures onely and fled euen as you doe to traditions succession of fathers visions other such like motiues as councels fathers antiquity consent c. as I haue shewed cap. 3. as appeareth euidently in diuers of these fathers writings as in Tertul in praescrip contra haeret Epiphanius in many places de haeresibus Chrysost in Math 4. Irenaeus libro 3. cap. 2. August Contra Maxim lib. 1. de Baptismo contra Donatist lib. 3. cap. 2. in Ioan Tract 13. de vnitate Ecclesiae cap. 15. Epist 165. ad Generosum Who but one of your Religion would euer thus grossely abuse his simple poore Reader You yet as a man that had saied all this while nothing but that you might truely say proceede on with your comparison tell vs that they were condēned by generall Councels so are we they were found cogging knaues and so shall we Whereunto I answere that those which you call generall Councels were but late Conuenticles of your owne since the apostasie of your Church from the ancient Roman Church wherein there was indeede no freedome of a lawfull Councell enioyed and therefore whose condemnation we neede care no more for then Christ and his Apostles needed to care for the sentence of condemnation that in their times the high Priestes Scribes and Pharisees gaue of them and their doings in their councels And as for your vnmanerly prophecie we neede not esteeme it For neither is your mouth any slander nor yet doe we take you to be a true Prophet But seeing say you they and you be thus like why should they be condemned for heretiques you absolued receiued I answere the likelihood is denied and the reason I haue giuen you alreadie As for Augustines probleme you talke of it is impertinent and toucheth vs not For we doe not with the Donatists shut vp Christs inheritance within the compasse of any place as they did in Africke neither say we that Christ at any time hath lost his in heritance but we say that Christ hath had alwaies and hath still his Church without restraint of place wheresoeuer it pleaseth him neither doeth it remaine now onely with a fewe rude Switzers and in two or three corners besides as it pleaseth you to speake For it is well seene that diuerse whole kingdomes as England Scotland and Denmarke haue receiued our Religion and that indeede it groweth so mightily in most places that it maketh the stoutest of you greatly feare that ere it be lōg your kingdome of the Pope will be greater in the west Indies then in these parts Hauing done with vrging this probleme which indeede fitteth you Papists better then vs in that you tie Christes inheritance to your Popes girdle you tell your Reader but you meane to proue it at leasure that these heretiques that you haue talked on all this while haue fortified their campe with as manie moe places as wee alleadge and therefore once againe you would haue a reason why that notwithstanding they should bee counted heretiques and not we You make vs answere because they did interpret them contrarie to the Churches doctrine which you suppose is the onely answere we can giue But I haue tolde you that because when there is questiō of truth there is cōmonly also questiō of the church our answere is that their alleadging of them was hereticall ours true and right as may be proued by the scriptures themselues and by the right rules of interpreting of them But be it that we answere as you imagine what haue we lost or you gained thereby This say you that you haue no more right then they to be counted Catholiques because you alleadge them also contrarie to the Churches doctrine Here againe you deceiue both your selfe and your Reader with the ambiguity of the word Church For if wee answere that we reiect their allegations for that they alleadged them contrarie to the Churches doctrine that then was we by the Church vnderstand a sound and sincere church of Christ in possession of sound Religion and not whatsoeuer Synagogue will entitle it selfe with the name of the Church and so vnder the name of the Church warre against the true church In which sence onely your Church against whose doctrine wee alleadge them hath the name of a church And yet you as though it
to escape this 1000. more such contrarieties betwixt your doctrin and the reueiled wil of God in the scriptures but by subtle sophistrie fonde quiddities and distinctions deuised of your owne heades without all warrant and ground frō thēce which in matters and questions of diuinity is intollerable These and such like contrarieties betwixt the doctrine of your Popes and Prelates and the trueth taught in the scriptures we hauing oft obserued and tolde them of and yet finding them most obstinatly to persist in the same hath caused vs rather in respect of their hereticall doctrine to call them wolues thē in respect of their negligence onely heretiques And for this same cause seeing all yours are thus infected you wish vs in vaine to ioyne some of the best of them with some of the best of ours to reforme things amisse in both For there is no hope of any good reformation at all where any such as yours haue any thing to doe therein And seeing it is and hath beene so cōmon a thing with vs as you cannot be ignorant if you haue reade anie of our bookes writen against you to denie that you continue in the doctrine which was preached vnto you at the first yea seeing you all know that we count your synagogue Antichristian for her manifold Apostasies from the ancient doctrine of Christ and his Apostles taught first vnto the Romans I wonder with what face or forehead you could write as you do in the cōclusion of this Chapter that we our selues cannot denie if we will confesse the trueth but that you haue continued in the doctrine that was first preached vnto you And therefore not onely for your lewdnes of life and negligent sheepherds bad sheepe doeth your kingdome decay as you would insinuate but especially for this also that in the points we striue with you about you are quite gone from the ancient sound Catholique faith and religion first taught by Christ and his Apostles and receiued and continued many yeares in the ancient Roman church others The only way therefore for you is to preuēt an vtter vniuersall subuersion and confusion first to returne againe from your new Antichristian Religiō doctrine to the true ancient Catholique faith taught in the scriptures and thē to amend your maners according to the direction of the same The XXXVII Chapter ALL our ancient doctours a This is but an arrogant false brag as we are able to proue come to particulars when you will as well of the Greeke as of the Latine church since the Apostles time and the Christians of all the foure quarters of the world which were in those daies b Christians haue alwaies vowed and promised lawful thinges onely to God they haue had a care to make those vowes and promises discreetly of such things as they saw he had made possible vnto thē which things are neglected in the vowes that I feare you most mean haue made their promises and vowes vnto God euen as we doe now and at their baptisme they did vse euen those verie ceremonies that we doe with the selfesame exorcismes adiurations and annoyntings that we doe vse in our Catholique church which you call Papisticall and to proue this true we will bring the saied ancient doctours as witnesses if it please you to reade the c Neuer man had worse hap in quoting so few places as is euident in the answer to this Chapter places that we will quote Tertullian who liued verie neere the Apostles time doeth make mention in his booke that he intituled De resurrectione carnis of the annointing vsed at the Baptisme and of the renouncing the Deuill all his pompe In his booke de coronâ militis he doeth speake of the third dipping vnder the water in the name of the father the sonne and the holy ghost S. Cyprian the Martyr who was aboue 1300. yeares agone doeth write in the second volume of his Epistles Epist 12. how they did vse in his time to giue the holy Chrisme vnto the children that were baptised Origen in his twelfth Homilie and in diuerse other places of his workes doeth make mention of the renouncing of the Deuill at ones baptisme of the making of the signe of the crosse vpon childrens faces when they were christened S. Iohn Chrysostome in his 12. Homilie vpon the first Epistle to the Corinthians cap. 4. And in his first Homilie vpon the first Chapter to the Ephesians he doeth make mention of the saied renunciation made from the Deuill and all his workes Reade I praie if it be your pleasure S. Aug. in Psal 31. Aug. li 15. contra Iulia. Pelag. li. 1. ca. 2. Item de nuptiis cōcupiscentia lib. 1. cap. 20. in Ioannem tract 33. in Canonicam Ioannis tract 3. tractat 6. Et de eccle dogmat cap. 31. De Simbolo lib. 1. cap. 7. lib. 2. cap. 11. Et libro de his qui initiantur sacris Cap. 1. Basilius de Spiritu Sancto cap. 15. 27. Arnobius in Psalm 75. All these doctours which were aboue a thousand yeares agone if you reade in them the places that heere I haue quoted you shall finde that they did vse at the Baptisme of their children those verie ceremonies that wee doe now vse and that you doe so mislike And as for confession before the receiuing of the Sacrament our sauiour Christ doeth teach vs that the Ecclesiasticall ministers haue authoritie to binde and forgiue sinnes Saint Cyprian in his fifth Sermon de lapsis Origen vpon the thirtie and seuenth Psalm and in Leuit. Hom. 2. Saint Augustine libro 2. de visitatione infirmorum Cap. 4. Saint Cyril libro 12. in Iohannem Cap. 56. Saint Hierom in Ecclesiast Cap. 10. All these doctours according to the Scriptures in these places doe confirme auriculer confession And as for praying vnto the Saintes in Paradise to helpe vs vvith their praiers read Origen in his third Homilie vpō the Cāticles and in his 2. book vpō Iob his eight book in Eccl. Reade Chrysostom in his eight Homilie vpon the Epistle to the Ephesians the fourth Chapter and S. Augustine in his twentie booke against Faustus the one and twenty Chapter and Saint Hierom against Vigilantius All these make mention of the praying vnto the Saintes And for praying for the dead reade Tertullian in his booke De Monogonia and in his booke De corona militis and Saint Cyprian ad plebem Furnensem and in the first booke of his Epistles and Origen in Hieremiam Homil. 12. Item in Epist ad Rom. libro 8. cap. 11. Reade Chrysostome in his thirde Homilie vpon the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Philippians and S. Augustine lib. 2. de gen against the Manichees cap. 20. in the Encheridion ad Laurent cap. 110. Item libro de cura pro mortuis agenda All these doctours whose workes haue continued these 1200. yeares doe teach vs all these thinges that now we doe obserue the which
wee onely are saued or they al condemned For I haue shewed how a nuÌ„ber yea infinite numbers of them might be saued this notwithstanding As for your iudgement that they neuer erred so much as our disciples it is not material For you are no competent iudge in this matter And the reason of your iudgement that we condemne the faith that the Catholique Church hath held this 1500. yeares and maintaine the olde rotten condemned heresies is a thing which by begging after this sort at our hands though therein you be neuer so impudent and shamelesse a begger as that way in this your book your greatest skill hath appeared you shall neuer get And therefore set your hearts at rest your words though they be neuer so lowde stout shall neuer make vs yeelde you this for an almes You must therefore proue your words true and so make vnto vs euident demonstration thereof which you shall neuer be able to doe before we may yeeld vnto you that you haue any right at all to this The XXXIX Chapter IF that by a good and a right title your disciples cal themselues the children of God this maketh me beleeue that the saying of our Sauiour is fulfilled in them the which is * Luc. 16. The childreÌ„ of this world are wiser in their generation then the children of light To proue this true wee see this dailie experience for a wise worldly man when he doeth put out his money to gaine he vvill not trust the promise so soone of one or two or three as hee vvill doe the bondes of a vvhole Towne or Cittie that should warrant or assure his gaine But you nor your disciples haue not done thus but rather the contrarie It had beene better for you to haue first put your faith and trust in God beleeuing that he hath giuen his holie spirit and declared the meaning as touching the Scriptures vnto the Catholique Church a We build not our faith religion or hope of saluatioÌ„ of these meÌ„s credits but vpoÌ„ the credit of the vndoubted worde of God set down in the scriptures which is for credit to be preferred before the credit of all men speaking beside or contrary vnto them and not to hazard the hope of your saluation putting it into the hands of Luther Zuinglius Oecolampadius and three or foure other such pelting merchantes vvhich haue newlie set vp shoppes at Wittemberge Geneua Losane vvhich one of these daies we shal see bankeroutes as their predecessours haue beene before them the vvhich after that they had deceiued the poore simple Catholiques b Beware of dogs Phil. 3. ergo take heed of this Romish barker the best is hee is but one that barketh to bite hurt he hath small or no power and gained some of their soules for the deuill they haue at the last sold al their honestie and credit so that at this daie except that it be those that reade the ancient histories no bodie else doeth remember that euer they liued in the world You are come now last of all to make vp their merchandise but your credit can hardlie be good before God c Will you neuer haue done with this bare vaine brag Shew this but once to bee true and then we yeelde and then brag and spare not for you shall haue against you all the ancient Catholicke Church which hath continued visible since the comming of Christ vnto this day all the Doctours of all the vniuersities all the Empires Kingdomes and priuate state thoroughout al the worlde which haue receiued and honoured this doctrine that you call Papisticall And if you saie that you will not trust meÌ„ but the verie word of the Lord we agree to the like that we ought al to beleeue the Scripture but we varie about the interpretation for you interpret it after one sort and we after another you expound it after a new sort and the Catholicke Church doeth follovv d When it commeth to the trial it will be found that our interpretation rather then yours hath continuance froÌ„ all the sound ancient Doctours and the vndoubted Apostolicall â—raditions the olde exposition of the ancient Doctours traditions which you haue forsaken or to saie the trueth your Ministers haue led the sheepe astraie froÌ„ the old flocke at the departing froÌ„ the which they haue beene al scattered abroad some following Luther some Caluin some the Anabaptists so forth for the which the Popes kings others that haue had the gouernment of the Church shall answere at the last daie of iudgement for as much as while e Ergo you haue had sleepy Popes they slept you haue come sowedweeds among the good corne Then seeing you are the sheepe that rome astraie what excuse can they make before God that wilfully follow your steps We confesse that we are the poore sheepe of God that haue continued with our old flocke stedfast whole as touching our religion but very weake and sickely f Amend them for shame as touching our maners that is to say g But your wounds sores sicknes is grown so desperat that you will account none such but them that wil tel you you are sound and in health where you are most sicke full of sins vices attending some sage phisitions to heale vs good pastors to keepe vs casting out the chaffe froÌ„ the corne I meane cutting off those abuses that are offensiue not to such scrupulous consciences as you haue but vnto him that doeth threaten theÌ„ for the carelesse liues of their sheepe so to continue in that h Proue this once some of you or else for shame neuer say it almost in euery leafe for lack of matter as you doe ancient faith that by succession of pastours we haue receiued from the Apostles The XXXIX Chapter In this Chapter there is nothing but your old great words stout begging the maine questioÌ„ that your Church is the true ancient Catholicke Church that al the ChristiaÌ„s great small since Christ haue bene flat on your side that you are the only men that follow the sound sence of the scriptures deliuered vnto you by the ancient doctors and true pastors of the Church that we are but two or three in coÌ„parison of you sprung vp yesterday such as you prophesie wil shortly grow banckerout both of credit and honesty This bladder ful of nothing but winde is sufficiently I hope prickt and let out already by that which I haue saied in sundry places before Howsoeuer I hope the reader is not so simple as that seeing in you neuer so great store of these swelling wordes as long as he knoweth your aduersaries denie them as stoutly of the other side and he seeth you bring nothing but bare wordes without proofe he wil any whit be mooued therewith And yet as not able a discourse as this booke of yours is accounted the greatest stuffing that it hath is onelie
of such vayne wordes as these aboue twenty times I am sure without any proofe at al therein repeated Indeed if in al your life you could proue but halfe so much as confidently here you set downe then you were a notable fellow indeede and then truely we would striue no longer with you But in the meane time seeing we know your speeches are such as you can neuer proue and that we are able against you both to proue the falshoode of yours and the trueth of our owne blame vs not if wee esteeme not your words Yet lest you should saie that these likewise are but words in vs as the former haue beene in you though I see no reason to the contrary but that our words containing a iust and true denial of yours were sufficient confutation thereof I say and will proue it that you shew your selfe a man past al shame in writing here as you doe that all the ancient Catholicke Church which hath continued visible since the comming of Christ vnto this day al the doctours of all the vniuersities all the Empires kingdomes priuate states throughout al the world are against vs for they haue al receiued honoured that doctrine that we count papisticall For first such is the newnes thereof as I haue plentifully shewed in diuers places already of this booke that none of all these for sundry 100. yeares were once euer acquainted therwith yea that diuers of your assertions which are the very principallest of your opinions as namely your dotcrine of Transubstantiation of your Popes being in authority aboue generall Councels and of denying the cuppe to the lay people are not yet of 400. yeares age and continuance And it is notoriously knowen that in the daies of Gregory the 9 about the yeare of Christ 1230 by occasion of iniury and oppression offered by the Pope to that Church that the Greeke Easterne Churches departed quite from the Church of Rome and neuer since though it hath beene oft attempted could be brought to hold communion therewith againe insomuch that in your conuenticle at Trent you haue condemned them for schismatical and heretical Churches And these Churches as it is noted in an ancient record in the Church of Herford differ from yours at the least in 29 articles And they holde yours excommunicate and an Apostata Church vnto this day And vnlesse your reading be very small you cannot be ignorant that Math Paris writeth that the Patriarch of Constantinople at the Councell of Lyons shortly after this breach shewed that of 30. bishoprickes in Greece the Pope had not three that then held communion with him and that all Antioch and the Empire of Romania to the gates of Constantinople was gone quite from him There is also extant in print in ancient record an Epistle writen about seuen yeares after this breach began in the yeare 1237 by one Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople vnto the Pope wherein not only he laboureth to make him see that the occasion therof was that he tooke more vpon him ouer those Churches then he should but amongst other argumēts to persuade him to see his folly he sheweth him that not onely the Greeke Churches themselues but that al so the Aethiopians Syrians Hiberians Alani Gothi Charari with innumerable people of Russia and the mighty kingdome of the Vulgarians held communion with his Church of Constantinople and so by occasion of this schisme had forsakē felowship with the Roman Church And the Cosmographers write that the iurisdiction of the Patriarch of Canstantinople reacheth so farre that all Greece Misia Belgaria Thrasia Walachia Moldauia Russia Muscouia the iles of the Aegaean sea and Asia the lesse bee vnder the same It is also reported by authours of good credit that at this day vnder the other Patriarchs of Antioch Alexandria Hierusalem and vnder the other in the dominions of Presbyter Iohn in Africa there be infinit numbers of Churches and Christians differing from yours and ioining with ours in manie thinges So that Churches also both in the East North and South and that of very great amplitude within the time that you speake of haue professed Christ and yet haue neuer beene acquainted with most or many at the least of the pointes for the which your religion is counted of vs Papisticall in all which there haue beene some doctours vniuersities Empires Princes and priuate men no doubt since Christ before you wrote that neither honoured nor receiued your papistical religiō Yea but that merueilously you ouershot your selfe you might haue remembred that within the time limited by you in these Westerne partes there haue beene euen vnder your Popes nose and in his greatest ruffe many doctours vniuersities and some Emperours kings and priuate estates that haue neither receiued nor so honoured your religiō which we cal papistical as here you would beare your reader in hand For euen in these parts and within the compasse of these times haue bene you know Wickliffe Hus and Luther vniuersities kingdomes good store haue had both your religion Church in defiance long before you wrote He that readeth but the stories of Philip Lodovicke the last French kings of Henry the 4 5. of the 2. Fredericks the 1 2 Emperours and the Cronicles of king Iohn here in England and of 2 or 3 of his successours he shal easily perceiue that much within the compasse of time that you speake of both Empires and Kingdomes with their Emperours and Kings haue beene far from making that reckoning of your popish Church and religion that you here bragge of or else doubtlesse you must needs confesse that your Popes haue beene vnreasonable creatures that haue so cursed and banned these men as they haue and which besides haue caused such infinite Christian bloud to be by warre shed to hamper them These things considered euen children may see not onely the vanity but grosse falshood of these your wordes For howsoeuer either here or else where in this your booke you would cause your reader to beleeue that your Romish Church is the catholicke Church of Christ euery one indeed may see that in trueth it is but a particuler and a petty Diocesse in comparison of the catholicke Church of Christ For the reader must vnderstand that the Church of Christ is called catholicke first because the religion that shee imbraceth is that which hath beene at al times will be to the end the true religiō of God secondly because the same Church in respect of the mēbers therof especially since the calling of the Gentiles is not to be limited or shut vp within the compasse of any particuler countries but may vniuersally be dispersed amongst all nations and in al countreyes where it pleaseth the Lord. In neither of which sences can the Romish Church be truly accounted catholick For neither is her doctrine that which the true Church of Christ embraced was in possessiō of for 4000 years more neither are the
them that with them we will not run out frō this church and faith to beleeue in a 1000. things that are not God as they doe And therefore these things considered by this note they are proued to be the Antichristian false prophets heretiques schismatiques that he speaketh of and not we His second sure marke signe and token of false prophets c. is saieth he that they being departed from the catholique church doe of thēselues of their owne authority without warrant being not sent set vp a new gospell a new faith and Religion and so by preaching a newe doctrine assemble and set vp a newe church and congregation And to proue this Heb. 5. Rom. 10. and Exod. 4. are quoted whence onely we may learne to this purpose that none may take vpon them an office in Gods house without lawfull calling and warrant from him Yet hereupon as though these were most pregnant places to proue that to be necessary to a lawefull calling which the learned protestant can neuer proue to bee in our calling he promiseth likewise to yeelde and to recant when wee shall bee able to proue our iust and due vocation ordinarily or extraordinarily to proceede of God and not onely of mē By his owne words in describing this note or marke two things must concurre to the making of it namely the preaching of a newe Religion or Gospell and the doing of it without a iust and due vocation from God and yet in the prouing it to be such a marke in the applying it to vs he forgetteth altogither the former maketh only shew of proofe for the later Belike his own cōscience tolde him that howsoeuer it was an easie matter to insinuate that our religion was new that yet he was not able so much as to make any shew that he could proue it so to be indeed And touching the other howsoeuer the places quoted by him serue to proue a lawful calling or sending by God to be necessary for and to all such as shal take any office vpon them in his Church yet they proue not at al that there is any thing needful to the prouing of our vocation to be such wanting in ours neither doeth he name any thing required in any of these places to be in ours which he could say we wanted which it is likely he would not haue omitted to haue done if he had seene that with any probability he might haue done it And therefore any man may see that euen in this signe as in the former his onely ground is a false supposition that those things must needs be graunted him all which both most iustly and confidently we alwaies deny For without any proofe or shadow of proofe he in one periode assumeth three things against vs most vntruely slanderously as at large in sundry places of my answere to Albine I haue made it manifest namely that we are gone out of the true catholicke Church that wee haue set vp a new faith and religion and that we haue assembled a new Church and congregation Yea christian reader if thou wouldest but vouchsafe by the table annexed vnto this answere of mine to turne to the places in the saied answere where these points be handled the antiquity of our church and religion the newnes of popery and the contrariety betwixt the Romish church that now is the scriptures fathers and councels in the true catholicke church of Christ the lawfulnes of our calling to the ministry and the vnlawfulnes of their priesthood and vocation thereunto vnto other prelacies amongst them and when thou hast found them to read ouer wtout partiality what I haue writen hereof I doubt not but thereby thou wouldest see not onely that he vniustly hath here charged vs with these three faults but the most iustly we may charge thē with thē al. And therfore therunto referring thee for further answere vnto this threefold charge of his in this place vpon that which there thou shalt finde I hope with mee thou wilt conclude that this beeing a marke and a most certaine signe of antichristian heretiques as he saieth that it standeth faire vpon thē and not vpon vs therfore he should recāt The third signe tokē that the offerer talketh of is that such ouer and aboue the properties touched in the two former doe preach and teach contentiously and seditiously against the doctrine before time taught of the common knowen Catholicke Church of Christ as namely saieth hee against the sacraments of Christs Church by a flat denial of many of thē against the real presence of Christs body in the holy eucharist against the blessed sacrifice of the masse propitiatory both for the liue and the dead against penance the worthy fruits thereof by fasting watching and praier al straightnes of life against vowes inuocation of Saints praier for soules departed and finally against the Church it selfe flatly denying that Christ hath here vpon earth any spouse or visible Church to be heard speak perceiued or seene The ground of which signe he maketh that saying Hebrues 13 be you not caried away with diuers and strange doctrines so tearmed of the Apostle as he expoundeth him because they agree not but are contrary to the receiued and common knowen doctrine of Christs holy catholicke Church whereupon he groweth to his conclusion that when the learned protestant shal be able to proue that they and not we are by our preaching of these strange doctrines the raisers vp of these strifes and contentions then he wil recant and not before Whereunto I answere that vnderstanding by the common knowen catholicke Church the true Church of Christ which is knowen and acknowledged so to be alwaies of him and his faithfull members then we graūt that this is a right marke of such as he would haue it to be a marke of and that worthely in the thirteenth of the Hebrues all men are warned to take heed that they be not caried away with diuers and strange doctrines from that which she hath vniuersally taught and receiued But so taking the common knowen catholicke Church of Christ and not otherwise I say it and haue proued it in my answere to Albine that the Church of Rome that now is hath too long and doeth still not onely cōtentiously and seditiously but also furiously tirannically bloudely and euery way antichristianly preach against the doctrine before time taught by her and commonly receaued and professed by hers touching the true vse of the law and the gospell the office of Christ faith in him the doctrine of faith and workes and of praier and the sacramentes and almost of all other principall pointes of the true Christian religion And thus I am sure hee must vnderstand the church of Christ if either he would haue this to be a certaine signe of heretiques or to be thought rightly to haue expounded the 13. to the Hebrewes And therefore vnderstanding by the common knowen catholique Church of Christ
that which he should this marke is euident vpon them and not vpon vs. But if by the common knowen catholicke church of Christ that hee talketh of here and alwaies else he vnderstand as it is apparent that hee doeth their Roman church that now is most beggerly still hee beggeth that almes that neuer an honest and wise man in the world would giue him For in all these points here named by him that Synagogue a long time hath taught and doeth still so contrary to the true and chast spouse of Christ that though nether seditiously nor contentiously yet vehemently and earnestly it is the part of all skilfull painfull and faithfull ministers of the Lord to cry out against her and her so doing And thus onely haue we and doe we labour to manifest vnto the world their corruptiō in doctrine in these points least thereby to their perdition they should be seduced by them Otherwise whatsoeuer he saieth neither he nor all his faction shall euer he able to proue against vs that we either deny any thing or hold otherwise of any point here reckoned vp by him then we haue most sound and good warrant for both out of the scriptures and out of the ancientest and soundest monuments of antiquity But where as he saith that we flatly deny that Christ hath here vpon earth any spouse or visible church to bee heard speake perceaued or seene hee shamefully and vntruely reporteth y◠of vs. Onely cōcerning the visibility or not visibility of Christs church this wee holde and teach that who be the right members thereof whereof properly she doeth consist it is not discerneable by humane sence but knowen onely vnto God and vnto those to whom God giueth spirituall sences to discerne it withall but if otherwise by the church of Christ here vpon earth be vnderstoode generally all those that by outwarde profession seeme vnto men to be thereof then we hold and confesse that Christ hath alwaies had here vpō earth since the beginning and wil haue to the ende a visible spouse and church to be both heard speake perceiued seene though not alwaies alike nor of al sorts kinde of men as I haue shewed at large in the first and fourth chapters of my answere to Albine The onely thing that we deny is that it alwaies hath beene and euer must be so visible and apparent both for multitude and gouernment that euery one should be able therby not only to discerne it but frō time to time downe frō Christ to the ende of the world to name the principall persons by whose orderly succession one to another wtout interruption it hath bene cōtinued in one place or other Now hereupon to infer that wee simply deny it to be heard seene or perceiued argueth that they that doe so are growen so grosse that they can neither heare see nor perceiue that there is any difference betwixt the maner of being of a thing the simple being therof Iohn that neuer taught that the Church of Christ here vpō earth should neither be heard seen or perceiued yet teacheth Re. 12. that she would be driuē by persecution of the dragō into the wildernes where for a time in cōparison that she was before she should be hiddē Christ that hath taught vs that hel gates shal neuer preuaile against his church Mat. 16. yet foresheweth that towards his secōd cōming true faith should hardly be found vpō earth Luke 18. And doe we not read 2 Thessalonians 2. and 1. Timothy 4. to that end that before that day there shall be a great departing from the faith which by that which we read Reuelations 17 and 18. we may vnderstand shal be so great and so farre preuaile that the whore of Babylon there figuring vnto vs Antichrist and his kingdome shall haue vniuersality and all outward pompe that may be so on her side that shee shall make kings and people yea all nations drunke with the wine of her fornications During the fulfilling of which prophesies if it bee hard for some either to heare or see the Church or to vnderstand where shee is so that they cannot name the persons successiuely that she consisteth of no maruell For distance of time and place and ignorance or vnfaithfulnesse in Croniclers ioyned with a speciall care that Antichrist would alwaies by all likelyhoode haue to keepe from men all meanes to make thē to haue knowledge of these things least therby in the end he should fall into his cōsumption in respect of sundry former times and vs that liue now might make this impossible And yet he that should say so doeth not simply say as he here chargeth vs. But Gods name be blessed for it the Church yet was neuer so driuen into the wildernesse by the dragon or oppressed by Antichrist but as I haue shewed in my fourth Chapter of my foresaied answere to Albine some haue so heard seene and perceiued where she was and who were her true mēbers at al times that there was neuer time or state of the Church so bad but that we are able to nāe some of her frēds and where they liued or died in the profession of her trueth against antichristian abhominations As for the other points here reckoned vp by him gētle reader though he would make thee beleeue that they are such as in euery point as they teach thē now haue alwaies before beene taught of the true Catholicke church of Christ it is nothing so as in great part I haue shewed in answering of Albine as others thorowly vniuersally haue shewed of them all in seueral bookes writen against them for their Antichristiā doctrine therein Howbeit least by his words in the meane time whiles thou gettest leasure to peruse what we haue writen cōcerning these points thou shouldest cōceiue worse of our doctrine thē in any shew we deserue vnderstand that we preach against none of Christs sacraments neither doe we deny any sacrament of his in that sence to be a sacrament that he appointed it neither doe we deny Christs reall true most certain presence in the eucharist to the soule of the right receiuer onely a grosse presence of his body to the mouth of euery receauer fancied by thē cōtrary both to scripture the nature of a sacramēt of Christ himselfe is the presence that there we deny Indeed we as zealously as we can preach against their masse denying it to be any propitiatory sacrifice either for quicke or dead much lesse for both because we haue learned out of the epistle to the Hebrewes that only Christ is cōsecrate of his father as the fit Priest of the new testament in his owne person once for all to offer propitiatory sacrifice for the redemption of mankind that we learne by the words of the institution of this sacrament that it was neuer instituted to repeate that but with faith and thankesgiuing to make a commemoration thereof and rather to offer and deliuer Christ to vs thē
to offer him againe to his father If by penance he vnderstand repentance we neither preach against it nor against any worthy fruit thereof For we most earnestly call for both but if by penance be vnderstood either voluntary or enioyned penance as they commonly take it ioyned with an opinion thereby either to satisfie for sinnes past or to merit at Gods hand because we know that such penance and all the fruits thereof are abhominable before God because thereby Christ is robbed of that honour of a ful and perfect sauiour in by himselfe alone that is due vnto him then we graunt as we haue iust cause we preach against it Otherwise fasting straightnes of life watching and lawfull vowes to make vs more ready feruent in holy prayer we commend and vrge Indeed praying to Saints because we haue neither example coÌ„mandement nor promise in Gods book to encourage vs thereunto but all to the contrary we condemne as grosse idolatry and likewise prayer for soules departed as they vse it to relieue foules in purgatory for the same reasons and sundry other we preach against But what we teach of these two points and what not and what reasons we haue for our so doing and how quite voide they be of all ground for theirs I refer thee to the 37 Chapter of my answere to Albine where I haue at large shewed these things And thus much therfore for this 3 signe The next is to bring a schisme into the Church coÌ„trary to Pauls exhortation 1. Cor 1. and that such a schisme as wherby not onely one member shall be seperated from an other but the whole mystical body from the true head Christ Iesus which we to haue done in seperating our selues from their Church not they hee assumeth and so concludeth when the learned protestant can shew the coÌ„trary that he wil recant and not before Still thus thou maiest see good reader that this man is no changling For vnles that be graÌ„ted him which is the maine point betwixt vs that their Church is the true Church of Christ their doctrine the sound catholicke faith and religion he hath no ground or foundation for any thing he saieth For he cannot be so ignorant as to imagine that euery one straight is authour of such a schisme as he here speaketh of that by doctrine draweth others from euery society or company inuesting themselues with the name of the Church and bragging that they haue the trueth For what would he then make of Christ and his Apostles who in their time drew so many after them from holding any longer coÌ„mâ—â—tion with the Synagogue of the Iewes that then I am sure bragged as confidently of both these as this man and his fellowes doe now Or what would he say to those ancieÌ„t catholicks after Liberius time that when Arrianisme had in great part ouer run the world and the Arrians for many yeeres togither bragged theÌ„selues to be the onely 〈◊〉 catholicks disgracing theÌ„ that were so indeed with the name of Omousians that yet though they had got both bishops and emperours so many and so fast of their opinion that they had in ten seuerall councels goe sentence of their side ceased not labouring and traueling vntill they had drawen men againe to breake from them and to ioine with the poore persecuted contempt the number that then yet persecuted in the trueth I am sure they 〈◊〉 not for shame for all this count either Christ and his Apostles or these ancient catholicks antichristian heretickes or schismatiques And our drawing of meÌ„ by our doctrine now in these later daies from them is nothing else in trueth but an imitating as nigh as we can these renoumed and vndoubted good presidents examples that so the kingdome of Antichrist according to Saint Pauls prophesie might fal into consumption 2. Thessalonians 2 and that great Babylon might yet at leÌ„gth as it was reuealed vnto Ioh. Reuelations cap. 14. fall and come downe For not onely we saw that the Church of Rome had made a schisme but such an apostasie euen in the fundamentall points of Christian religion from Christ and his Church that there was no remedy but that we must breake of from her as we did or else we could neuer haue communioÌ„ indeed in Christ with his true Church Though therefore we know and at the first knew that peace vnity and concord were pretious things and by al lawfull meanes to be laboured for yet knowing withall as we doe did that it is vnity in verity and not in errour impiety with Christ not with Antichrist that is so much to be set by blame vs not for chusing rather according to these good exaÌ„ples to haue war with men then with God discord with Antichrist and al hes bread then with Christ and his members We grauÌ„t them therfore that to bring into the Church such a schisme as shal make diuision not onely amoÌ„gst Christs meÌ„bers but also of the body from the head is indeed an vndoubted signe of antichristian heretickes but wheras he taketh this for grauÌ„ted that this we haue done in departing froÌ„ theÌ„ as we haue that we deny For we teach men to hold hold our selues that faith religion as we are alwaies ready to proue by the canonical scriptures of the old and new testament that alwaies the true Church of Christ hath held and therfore which when hardly both holdeth the liuely members amongst themselues is vnity and also knitteth theÌ„ and their head Christ so fast together as that no popish or antichristian tiranny shall euer be able to seuer them And howesoeuer this proude challengeâ— thought wtâ—â— impossible thing for the learned protestant to proue that they haue brought into the Church such a schisme as hee speaketh of I the vnlearnedst often thousande doubt not that I am very well able to doe it For this is most certaine and cleare Iesus Christ the Sauiour of the worlde indeede is at this point beeing euery waie so able and willing as he did in his owne person and by himselfe alone to go through with the office of a most perfect Sauiour of mankinde that either so hee must bee beleeued in and trusted vnto for that matter or else hee taketh himselfe antichristianlie robbed of that 〈◊〉 and glory that is due vnto him and therefore wil be no part of a sauiour at all to such That this is most true appeareth because it is writed that God is so iealouse of his owne honour and glory that hee wil not abide that any should therein bee pertaker with him or rob him of any ioâ—t therof Esay 42. that in him all thinges are already prepared Matthew the twenty two that his name is the onely name whereby commeth saluation Actes 4. that hee is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reu. 1. that he is the authour finisher of our faith Heb. 12. that by one offering he hath consecrated for
before vs agreeing in vnitie of faith as I haue already said For neither the naughtines of h There is no such there mentioned this is your common hap in your quotations It seemes you would haue said 2. Kings 16. Achas Num. 1. nor of Ioram nor of diuerse other great sinners which are inrolled in the booke of the generation of Iesus Christ were not able to withstand the fulfilling of the promise of God made to Abraham that is to saie that he would be borne of this line Euen so the ill liues and conuersation of diuerse wicked Popes that haue followed after Saint Peter haue neuer beene a This is true and yet you neuer the nearer For though al Papists faile in faith yet his church neuer faileth able to moue Christ to breake his promise that is to saie that the faith of his Church should neuer faile Math. 16. and that the gates of hell that is to saie of infidelity which are the portes of damnation should neuer preuaile against it b I see not how that chapter or any thing therein serueth to this purpose any whit at all Esay 58. Our aduersaries therefore that take such great paines to set forth in golden legends the liues of the wicked Popes that haue beene since Saint Peters time thinking thereby to ouerthrowe the succession of the Catholicke ecclesiasticall faith c Your comparison is odiou◠neither doe wee lay open their wicked liues to that ende you speake of but to shew that your glory is your shame doe no lesse offend God then if they should go about to proue the promise of God made to the Patriarches to bee vaine because of the evill liues of their successours Therefore those that doe reproche vnto vs now that the Popes of our daies are not altogither so holie as S. Peter wee doe confesse it But they cannot deny or they will confesse vnto vs that the aboue named euil Kings Achaz Ioram Manasses Amon Iechonias and others did leade no such holy liues as Abraham Isaac Iacob or Dauid yet notwithstanding those euil Kings haue beene set forth in the generation of our Sauiour as the fathers of the iust Iesus Christ Let them iudge then that haue any witte whether this bee a great folly or no to see how these crafty coggers of the scriptures should make many simple persons refuse to be the Popes spirituall children because they were sinners seeking thereby to ouerthrow all the ancient customes of the Church The VII Chapter WHither onely your succession doeth suffice to ouerthrow all our Religion or any part of it though you here confidently say it is and suppose that to be the cause why we reiect it I refer to the iudgement of the reader by that which hitherto hath beene saied by you and confuted by me concerning the same Whereby also I doubt not but euery indifferent reader may perceiue that we haue and doe still yeelde other causes of our reiection of it and not this at all Whereas you call our Religion here heresie that you haue learned of the corrupt Orator Tertullus Act. 24. But as he tearmeth poore Paul there a captaine of the Sect or heresie of the Nazarites and the high Priest and elders saied it was euen so yet hee was not ashamed of the Gospell of Christ which they so tearmed but stoutly saied before Felix to their faces that according to that way which they counted heresie he worshipped the God of his fathers beleeuing all that was writē in the law the Prophets so though you giue vs neuer so many nicknames and tearme our Religion neuer so oft new and an heresie and haue your high Priest of Rome and your elders to bear you out in so doing we neuer a whit the more mislike of our Religion as long as wee are able in trueth to say with Saint Paul which our consciences witnesse comfortably we may that therein we doe but beleeue that which is taught vs in the canonicall Scriptures Indeede not Caluin only but euery one of vs when we haue to doe with you in this question of your succession we tell you your reason drawen frō your succession is of no force seeing the Greekes whom you account heretiques may vse that argument as well as you But to preuent this our obiection against your argument of succession you say They haue not succession and continuance of doctrine the which ought euer to be ioyned to the continuāce of pastors to shew the true recognisance of the Catholique Religion We are glad to see heare that euidence force of trueth hath wrong frō you this kinde of honest true replie to our obiection yet we thanke you not for it at all For ful gladly if our obiections had not driuen you to it perforce would you haue run on which bare succession of Bishops pastours without any mention of this Well howsoeuer you haue beene drawen to confesse thus much thereupon it doeth most euidently followe that if there be as little continuance lesse too in the Apostolicke faith and doctrine in your succession as there is amongst the Greekes then by your owne confession your succession is as weake a recognisance of the Catholique Religion as theirs And therefore the case thus standing you had neede to haue bestowed lesse paines to proue your personall succession and more to haue proued this succession and continuance of the true Catholicke doctrine for the other wtout this you see is nothing What a preposterous course is this then that you haue takē to take such leasure to bestow pains on that which when you haue gotten is nothing to find no leasure to bestow any paines on this which if you could haue proued your aduersaries would haue stoode with you no longer Enter yet into this controuersie when you will I dare vndertake if you will be tried in this case by the canonicall scriptures which as I haue shewed you must of necessity it shall easily be proued that notwithstanding all you can say against the Greekes your popish Religion consisteth of more heresies and is a greater Apostasie from the ancient Catholique Apostolique faith then theirs The greatest thing you charge thē withall is their denying of the proceeding of the holy ghost from the Father the Sonne which indeede if they denied in that sence that is obiected against them by you doubtles therin they were heretiques But it should seeme that they refuse only that word as not vnderstood of thē added as they say without the consent of the whole church to the creede of feare onely least by admitting the word they should thereby be enforced to cōfesse that he came not of one beginning but of two beginnings in the meane time vsing other words expressing in effect the same thing And if it be thus as in the last session of the Florētine councell it should seeme to be els where thē in that respect their cause is not so ill as
consequent thereof which is eating of Christes precious bodie with the filthy mouthes of vnbeleeuers bee absurd the antecedent thereof must also bee absurde Howbeit because you shall not say that we are vnwilling to yeelde you thorowly an account why we deny your reall presence vnderstand you yet further we are mooued so to doe because your doctrine of traÌ„substantiation the onely vpholder thereof and the doctrine it selfe as you holde it bringeth in without all reason such an interpretation and construction of the wordes of the instruction of this Sacrament as taketh away the analogie betweene the signes and the thinges whereof they are signes ouerthroweth the nature of a Sacrament in anihilating or otherwise abandoning the outward part which scripture and al antiquity necessarily require to continue to the constitution of a Sacrament as bringeth in many monstrous absurdities and needelesse miracles contrary both to the true faith of Christes manhoode and good maners abhorring both by nature and expresse warrant of the scripture from eating and drinking of mans flesh and bloud couered or vncouered and as lastly inferreth an eating drinking of Christ by the mouthes of the wicked and vnbeleeuers as wel as of beleeuers Which eating of Christ with the bodily mouth neither standeth with the doctrine of the word which teacheth no such bodily commition of our boâ—ies with Christs therefore seeing the sacraments are but confirmations of that which is taught in the word cannot or may not be taught herein nor yet with the nature of the couenaÌ„t communion with christ which is spirituall belongeth only to the faithful therefore only mâ—st be offered sealed ratified in this sacrament to them And yet for alâ—â—â—s I would not haue you to imagine that we deny al kinde of reall preseÌ„ce in this sacrament of Christs body bloud For we doe most constaÌ„tly teach with the ancient fathers that in this sacrament though by means thereof there be a change in name vse honour and estimation in the outward elements yet they remaine stil to be fed on with the mouth of the body and that when by occasion of that which is done by the outward elements the communicaÌ„t calleth thankfully to remembraÌ„ce christs death and beleeueth that his body was as certainly broken for him â— his bloud shed as there he seeth the bread brokeÌ„ wine poured out and both deliuered vnto him that thereby his ful perfect saluatioÌ„ was absolutely wrought theÌ„ by this mouth of his soule faith he as certainly though after a spiritual vnspeakeable maner feedeth vpoÌ„ christs very broken body bloudshed groweth through the working of the spirit to a coÌ„munion therw t as by the mouth of his body he feedeth vpoÌ„ the outward elements so by the force of nature hath them vnited with his nature And marueil not that faith can doth make the body brokeÌ„ and bloud shed of Christ which was now done 1500. yeares ago yet liuely truly present For it can make things spoken taught in the word though done neuer so long ago things absent to be present And therefore wheÌ„ Paul wrote to the Galat though christ long before had beene crucified and was ascended yet by the meanes of the word sacraments on the one side ministred amongst theÌ„ and of their faith on the other side he saith that Christ was eueÌ„ crucified amoÌ„gst theÌ„ Gal. 3. wherein as Chrysostom noteth vpoÌ„ that place his meaning was to shew the streÌ„gth of faith which is able to see things though far away that by the eies of faith Christs death was more clearly perfectly seene then it was of many that were present at it saw all that was done You seeme in this your doctrine and for the defence thereof to be great aduancers of Gods omnipotencie But in Christes time I pray you tell me whither they that beleeued that Christ could fulfill their desire though absent or they that thought he must be locally present or els it would not be had the greater faith in his omnipotencie I am sure you will say the faith of the former was the stronger and that they therein shewed themselues better perswaded of Christes almightinesse then the later for the euidence of the matter will enforce you to confesse thus much Then to applie this to this present matter the thing that both you and wee desire is truely to bee fedde with the bodie and bloud of Christ to eternall life whither then doe wee or you indeede beleeue his omnipotencie better we that say and beleeue that he can and doeth feede vs herewith and vnite vs and himselfe together in the vse of this sacrament hee tarrying still in heauen according to the Scriptures or you that imagine that hee cannot doe it vnlesse hee creepe into your mouthes vnder the formes of bread and wine Nay whatsoeuer you talke of his omnipotencie this argueth that your faith is too too weake therein in that you must haue such a reall presence of him as you imagine or else you thinke it will not serue your turne You will graunt that distance of place betwixt heade and feet betwixt man and wife father and sonne breaketh not nor hindreth the vnion that nature hath made betweene them what weaknes of faith then were it to thinke that Christ our head our husbaÌ„d our father must be locally conioined with vs or els the vnion betwixt him and vs cannot be perfected Assure your selues if beeing at this table you will secke him by faith where hee is in heauen and not as you doe in the formes of bread and wine whereunto only your owne fansie hath tied him by your faith you shall so reach and apprehend him and hee by his spirit will so embrace you that there was neuer head more surely by vienes sinewes arteries and other helps of nature tied vnto the inferiour parts nor husband to wife nor father to sonne more fast and surely linked and knit by the bonds of naturall vnion then he will vnite himselfe vnto you For the defence of your reall presence and for the auoiding of many absurdities concerning Christs manhoode that thereby you are fallen into you talke much of the state of Christes glorified body But alas doe you not see that whatsoeuer you talke thereof is quite besides the purpose For this is not a Sacrament of his glorified bodie but of his crucified bodie not of the coniunction of his bodie and bloud but of the separation of the one from the other and therefore Christ in the institution called not bread and wine simply his bodie and bloud but his bodie broken and bloud shed and gaue the bread a sacrament of the one and the wine a part from the bread a Sacrament of the other Whereupon it is euident that here we haue to doe with his passible body with his bodie broken his bloud shed vpon the crosse and not with the state of his glorified and impassible body and therefore vnlesse
these more certaine rules helps to finde out the true sence first that the true Grāmaticall sence of the words and speech vsed by the holy ghost bee soundly and rightly vnderstoode by sound knowledge of Grammer Rhetoricke for the natiue signification of the words and vse of the phrase whereunto much helpeth conference of translation with translation of all transtations if neede be with the originall tongues Secondly that diligent consideration be had of the circumstances of the text in hand as namely what is the matter scope thereof vpon what occasion it was vttered who vttered it to whom where when Thirdly that it be taken in such a sence as will agree best with these circumstances and stand well with all other places of scripture And lastly that no sence be admitted but that which will stand with the sound proportion and summe of Christian faith and good maners taught vs plainely elsewhere in the scriptures By these rules we doubt not but to iustifie approue that to be the true sence of the scriptures which we take them in either for the confirmation of the trueth which we holde or for the confutation of the errours which you defend And such rules they are as the ancient fathers in defending the ancient Catholique faith against heretiques haue alwaies vsed and no other as appeareth in their workes And such they are as Augustine in his bookes of Christiā doctrine doeth prescribe as most necessary in this case to be followed as no mā can or ought to make any exception against And yet such they are as would anone discouer the ridiculous vanity of your interpretatiōs in any controuersie betwixt vs and you For example let vs try here by your interpretation of Hoc est corpus meū which to be soūd you will liue and die in By what grammer or by helpe of what tongue or translation shall the word Est is be all one with transubstantiatur in is transubstantiated into Sure I am in no language nor in anie Dictionarie shall you euer finde the verbe Substātiue takē in that sense Secondly the matter in hand when those words were vttered was a sacrament Christ spake them to his Apostles at his last supper to the ende to institute a sacrament to continue a duetifull remembrance of his death vntill his second comming What reason is there then to the contrarie but that this speech should be taken as the like speech alwaies els hath beene and yet is in other Sacramentes Where Est is neuer taken coupling the signe and the thing signed togither whereof a Sacrament consisteth as you doe here for It is turned into but for signifieth which standeth also well with the nature of a Sacrament whereas yours ouerthroweth the nature thereof in so annihilating or transubstantiating of the signe that you leaue no signe to beare any analogie of the thing resembled which is the ground of such Sacramentall phrases Thirdly your sence agreeth not with the rest of the scriptures not onely in that in the whole bodie of the Scriptures you cannot finde Est Is placed as it is here betwixt two thinges of diuerse kindes as breade and body be taken in your sence and yet in such propositious you finde it vsually taken for it signifieth or representeth but also in that the scripture for all that speech calleth it bread still euen whiles it is in eating 1. Corin. 10. 11. cap. and expoundeth the eating thereof to bee a communion or partaking with or of the body of Christ and that spirituall not by corporall cōiunction 1. Cor. 10. Lastly your interpretation for the bringing in establishing of a corporall reall eating of Christ with the mouth of the bodie which is a thing neuer taught vs in the word but such a kinde of feeding on him as you your selues confesse Iudas and such may atteine vnto and be neuer the better shaketh yea subuerteth al those articles that concerne Christs true manhoode making him to haue euen for that needles presence sake a body without any of the essential and inseparable properties of a body yea at one selfesame time to haue a body visible sensible and locall in heauen yet inuisible insensible and without dimentions of place in earth Besides it is against good maners which forbiddeth eating of mans flesh and drinking of his bloud either openly or secretly couered vnder or in another thing And truely Auerroes had some reason of all men in the world to thinke such Christians as you the most sauage and foolish that first would fal downe worship a peece of bread for your God whē you haue so done eate him vp and deuour him Howsoeuer you please your selues in this interpretation and in your imagination grounded thereupon I am fully perswaded that this your multitude of images and idols are two of the principall causes whereby you haue hardened the hearts both of the Turkes and Iewes against Christiā Religion And as I haue read some of them haue to some of your fellowes being in hand to perswade them to turne frō their Religion to yours yeelded these two reasons why they thought yours worse then their owne and consequently as sufficient cause why they would not yeelde to yours Now if I should but barely recite a number of other your interpretations and collections of the scripture which yet with you go for very sound and Catholique interpretations collections I am sure it were sufficient to make euery reader thereof that hath anie witte or discrecion left him to thinke that there were neuer heretiques in the world that haue more fondly vainely interpreted the scriptures then you For example let the reader marke these for a tast God made two great lights the sunne the moone that is the Pope the Emperour therefore as many degrees as the moone is inferiour to the sonne is the Emperour inferiour to the Pope Innocēt de Maioritate obediēt Glossa Ibid. Peter saied he had two swords that is the tēporall spirituall sword therfore the Pope hath both powers Cornelius the Bishop of Bitonto in the councell of Trent blusheth not to apply to the Pope these words The Pope the light is come vnto the world men loue darknes more then light Euery one the euill doeth hateth the light commeth not to the light least his deedes be reproued Yea Paulus Aemilius in his 7. booke testifieth that the Pope suffred the Legates of Cicilia being prostrate before him to say vnto him Qui tollis peccata mundi Thou which takest away the sins of the world haue mercy vpon vs Thou which takest away the sins of the world graūt vs peace thus blasphemously applying that to the Pope which belongeth to Christ But you will say these were but the popes flatterers that made these expositiōs applications What then they were made vttered wtout checke yea to the liking of the Pope And a picture once
mercie and Christian compassion vnles there had beene some such great reason of their doings Well then because venter non habet aures the belly hath no eares and a minde desirous and greedy of gaine will neuer be satisfyed I wil not take vpon me any further to wrestle against this argument onely I warne you that euen in this respect you be not any longer found within the number of those walkers that Paul tolde the Philippians often of and then when hee wrote vnto them told them of them weeping which were enemies to the Crosse of Christ for they sought their owne and not that which was Iesus Christs cap. 1. For then he wil go on with you as he did with theÌ„ tell you that your end is damnatioÌ„ your belly is your God your glory your shame because you mind earthly things cap. 2. And in the meane time vntill by this warning you caÌ„ and will learne to take heede for this argument sake to giue ouer to plead any more for your praying for the deade to ease soules in purgatory amongst an 100. other questions that hang vndecided thereabout amongst you I pray you learne to answere this how it chanceth that since the light of the Gospel came amongst vs in these later daies to the detection and consumption of your glorious AntichristiaÌ„ kingdome we hauing heard before tydings of so many that apparitions of soules that are troubled there and would be eased are growen now to gayson and rare And if you would haue your doctrine thereof run currant as a plaine and resolute point I pray you also let vs vnderstand how it came to passe not long since that S. Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester two deepe and profound learned men and martyrs also of your Church as your freÌ„ds accouÌ„t theÌ„ agreed no better thereabout For Sir Thomas More held there was no water in purgatory because Zachary calleth it a lake wherein there was no water the other held there was both water and fire because of the Psalme which saieth by water fire thou hast brought vs to a refreshing and the Bishop of Rochester held that their executioners there were the holy Angells and the other held that out of all doubt they were Deuils And vntil you haue learned to answere these our questions and to reconcile these your owne Doctours this shall be sufficieÌ„t to shew that you haue neither all the doctours Greeke and Latine nor all the Christians of the foure quarters of the world ful and whole of your side in these foure points as you bragged you had in the beginning of this chapter And the rather because touching this particuler and last point both the vanity and vntrueth thereof you your selues haue confessed in that some of you as AlphoÌ„sus by name haue writeÌ„ that the Greeke church could neuer yet be brought to be of your mind for purgatory nor the Armenians and that namely as he saieth because there is almost no mention thereof in the fathers especially that were Greekes aduersus haeres l. 8. 12. The XXXVIII Chapter ANd if I did not thinke a What are the ceremonies in baptisme auriculâ—r confession praying to Saints and for the dead either all or the most material things of your religion that we oppugne or was your prouision onely in a readines for those that it would be b You pretend feare of being too tedious caused you to particularize no more but lack of souÌ„d proofe for any thing that we withstand in you caused you both thus coÌ„fusedly sâ—amlingly to run thorow this and to passe ouer the rest too tedious for the Reader I would set forth the rest of our Catholique doctrine the confirmatioÌ„ of it by the testimony c If you had done this indeed it had bene somewhat but it being the onely thing that of all other you should haue done and thus to passe it ouer with a brag what you would haue don but for had I wist bewraieth the penury of your cause especially you not so much as once bragging that you would proue any of theÌ„ by the Scriptures of such a number of not only doctours but therewith all holy confessours martyrs which haue suffered for our religion and that haue taught vs both by word of mouth and by writing all that we doe vse at this day teaching vs to liue and die in it and for it d You ground your question vpon a supposall that you could haue beene as good as your brag which you neuer could haue beene and therfore at least vntill you had made better proofe of your cuÌ„ning that way you might haue spared this â—uestion I would haue you answere me vnto this Doe you thinke that they be in heauen or in hell I know well that meere scrupulosâ—y of conscience will make you not expresse plainely that that your workes doe teach and that you will remitte this question to the iudgement of God But this is not to the purpose for I doe not demauÌ„d of you any absolute answere as if you had beene in heauen or hell to see it but this to vtter in your conscieÌ„ce what you thinke of those that haue holden mainteined and confessed our faith whom you call Infidels and superstitious Papists are they condemned If you say yea then wherefore was the bloud of Christ shed on the e For all true beleeuers and for al such of yours that ere they died got hold of the foundation a right and yet for you to say as you doe is no better theÌ„ blasphemy for though al dying in the grosnes of popery were condemned yet it is well and a happy thing that Christ died Crosse it had beene better that he had neuer suffered if this were true If you say that God would be mercifull to theÌ„ because their errour proceeded of ignorance and so that he wil haue pitty of vs because of ours But I know that you will say that we are nowe vnexcusable because that wee doe refuse the trueth that you doe preach By the selfe same reason our ancesters caÌ„ alleage before God no good excuse for asmuch as they doe make no accouÌ„t of the receiuing of such ministers as you are that haue preached the like gospell that you doe announce vnto vs f These things follow not at al for so the foundation be held soundly euery errour that a manholdeth liuing or dying condeÌ„neth not S. Hierom all the Christians of his time are then condeÌ„ned because they would not receaue the Gospell of VigilaÌ„tius who did euen as you doe preach that we should not allowe the exposition of the Doctours nor honour the reliques of martyr S. Augustine is likewise condemned because he wrote and preached against the g AeriaÌ„s you mean I think Arrians who taught as you doe that it is an offence to praie for the dead And to be briefe if that which you doe preach ought to be called the gospell
bouÌ„ds of the Romish Church vniuersal but eueÌ„ as the Donatists shut vp the Church in Africk so do the Romanists within the coÌ„passe of a corner of the world in coÌ„parison of al the rest which they cut of from the coÌ„munion of the Church And yet there is nothing more vsual with Master Ioh. de Albine in this his book theÌ„ to labour to couÌ„tenaÌ„ce the Romish Synagogue with these two things antiquity vniuersality But as for vniuersality it may appeare by that which I haue saied by that which euery one may easily coÌ„ceiue if he coÌ„pare theÌ„ the professe Christ whoÌ„ they reiect as heretickes schismaticks with theÌ„ that receiue honour the popish religion that it is now and hath beene a long time rather with theÌ„ whoÌ„ they thus coÌ„deÌ„ne theÌ„ with theÌ„selues And as for antiquity most certaine it is that the Turks the Nestorians the CircuÌ„cisers may a great deale more iustly brag therof theÌ„ they For the Turkes haue beene in possession of their full Mahometisme these 900 years the heresie of the NestoriaÌ„s hath continued these 1200 years amongst the Georgians And the heresie of them that ioine circuÌ„cision with baptisme continueth yet in Africa in AEthiopia vnder Presbyter Iohn hath these 1500 years whereas popery is not so old as the youÌ„gest of these in that almost al the points therof wherfore it is so called haue beene deuised and brought in since the youngest of these began But put the case that popish religion were ancient indeede and had the greatest part of the world to follow it must it needs therfore follow that it were the trueth the best way No indeed For who can deny that Gentilism or Paganish idolatry wheÌ„ the Apostles were sent first to preach the gospel to the GeÌ„tiles was very ancient For it had welnigh continued then from Noahs fâ—ould vntill that time And neuer was popery of so manie nations so vniuersally receiued as that was And yet who is so simple but he knoweth now for all this that that was a way that led to destruction And if the mystery of iniquity beganne to worke in the Apostle Paules time and yet Antichrist the father thereof was not quite to be abolished before the brightnes of Christs second comming as he plainely teacheth 2. Thess 2. it being withall prophesied that the whore of Babylon Antichrists right patterne should sit vpon many waters that is rule ouer many people and cause the kings and nations of the earth to be drunk with the wine of her fornication as it is Reuelat. 17. who seeth not that euen Antichristianity may be countenanced with great shew both of antiquity vniuersality as certaine and good tokens as the Romanists count these two of the true Church of Christ Which things considered howsoeuer it pleaseth Master Ioh. de Albine here to iest at vs as men like to the children of God in nothing but in this folly that contrary to the fashion of the wise children of the world we chuse rather to trust a few then many we are contented therein to be like them stil and so rather to chuse to enter into the Arke with 8. persons Ge. 7. so to be saued then to refuse so to doe with all the world besides so to be drowned And I would aduise him for al his wisedome to be such a foole as rather with two or three to flie out of Sodom with Lot Gen. 19 then with all the rest to tarry behinde and to be destroied with fire and brimstone For howsoeuer he count this folly Christ who is wisedome it selfe hath charged his to striue to enter in at the straight gate though few go the way many the other broad way For that is the way that wil lead vnto saluation whereas the other leadeth to destruction Luke 13. But the men whom he nameth Luther Zuinglius and Oecolampadius though they be men whom we thinke wel of and whose memories shal be famous in Gods Church for al his blinde prophecie to the contrary when the names of a thousand such as himselfe is shal bee either buried in obliuion or infamous for their resisting of Gods trueth are not the men vpon whom wee build our religion These we account such as in these later daies God vsed to very good purpose to reuiue further to publish and make knowen the doctrine of trueth then it was when they beganne first But the men that we trust and leane vnto in this case are those holy men of God and such like as Saint Peter speaketh of 2. Pet. 1 which spake as they were moued by the holy Ghost so haue left the will of God for our full direction vnto vs in the holy Scripture And these the ancient Christians and Doctours for six hundred yeares after Christ and infinite numbers since euen downe vnto the times of these whom he here nameth as I haue shewed in the fourth Chapter of this booke and else where togither with vs haue followed And further then these writers of the canonical scriptures haue led any of these we doe not nor meane not to follow theÌ„ You shew therefore Master Albine but the nature of your Romish spirit in your confident aduouching without all proofe that these men you name gained soules to the Deuill and that they haue so fold their honesty credit that few now know that euer they liued in the worlde For besides your rash and vncharitable iudging of theÌ„ you speake that which your owne heart tolde you was a lie For you could not bee ignorant but that these mens names are knowen to thousands that neuer read their stories But you say that you agree with vs in not trusting of men but in trusting to the very word writeÌ„ but you and we vary about the interpretation for we interpret it after one sort and you after another we after a new sort and the Catholicke Church whereby wrongfully stil you meane your owne doeth follow the olde exposition of the ancient doctours and traditions with we haue forsaken Herein you say more then either you or any of your fellowes wil stand to For when it commeth to the point the greatest champions of you confesse that a number of the things that are in controuersie betwixt you and vs are without the coÌ„passe of the scripture and therfore least they should be quite reiected they vnder prop them with the rotten prop which yet they labour to make to carry some shew of strength of traditions or of the word vnwriten And in the other point concerning interpretation that therein we vary it is true but that the variety is as you say it is false For we neuer refused the exposition of the Catholicke Church nor to vse the helpe of her sound and Catholicke Doctours or traditions agreing with the word writeÌ„ as helpeth the better to attaine to the right sence therof by Indeed the interpretation of your new Apostata Church of Rome her false doctours and
not amisse vnto my former answer to Iohn de Albine to annex this short answer thereunto His first signe of such as hee speaketh of hee saieth is their departure from the cōmon knowen catholick Church of Christ wherin they were baptized first receaued christiā faith and religiō and this to be such a signe he proueth out of the second chapter of S. Iohns first Epistle where he speaking of such saieth they departed frō vs but they were not of vs for if they had they would stil haue cōtinued with vs. Wherupon he thinketh that forasmuch as hee saieth wee cannot deny but that wee are the men that haue thus departed from their common knowen catholicke Church faith and religion wherein we were first baptized and that wee cannot say that they haue so departed from vs they still remaining in the same church faith and Religion that they first receaued that of necessity we must be enforced to graunt that this signe agreeth to vs and not to them This good Christian that he hath saied were of fome force if he any or all his fellowes togither were euer able to proue that they their church faith and Religion were such as Saint Iohn spake of when he so taxed men for their departure therfrom but seeing onely most beggerly all the packe of them this being the maine question betwixt them and vs alwaies take this for graunted them euen for their bolde impudent and importunate begging of it which we will neuer graunt them nor they shall euer be able to winne at our hands all that he hath saied herein is childish and vaine For we are alwaies most ready and willing to ioyne this issue with them for and about al the controuersies amongst vs that if we be not able by due conference of the Catholique and Apostolique doctrine taught by the Apostles Apostolicke men in the primitiue church testified and extant in their owne vndoubted writings with ours that we are of the same common knowen Catholique Church faith and Religion that they were and that the Romish Church in the thinges wherein wee differ from them is cleane departed from them and from the church of Christ her faith and Religion that then was that then we will as he saieth most willingly submit our selues yeelde and recant And I hope in answering of Iohn de Albine vpon occasion in sundry places I haue so shewed the agreeablenesse of our faith and Religion with the Apostles and the manifolde disagreements of the Church of Rome that nowe is from them and the ancient church of Rome planted by them as that euery one euen thereby sufficiently may see that not wee but they are the men that Saint Iohn spake of that haue departed from the true Church of Christ faith and Religion and that therefore this signe doeth so farre better agree to Papists then to vs that if this offerer will be as good as his worde hee must presentlie submit himselfe yeelde and recant In the meane time the manifest contrariety betwixt their doctrine and Christs and his Apostles made manifest vnto vs by the view of the scriptures thēselues and the notorious difference betwixt their churches practise now and the ancient churches of Rome for sixe hundreth yeares after Christ at the least made likewise euident vnto vs by all sound monuments of antiquity haue assured vs that in respect of them and their Romish Synagogue in these later daies to embolden vs to doe as we haue God from heauen by an Angel saied vnto vs go out of her my people least you be pertakers of her sinnes and so receaue of her punishments Apoc. 18. vers 4. And therefore as it was lawfull for Abraham to follow the Lordes calling Gen 12. to depart out of his owne cuntrey Chaldea and to forsake the abhominatiō thereof as it was wisedome for Lot at the admonition of the Angels to go out of Sodom Gen. 19. and as it was necessary that Christ and his should separate thēselues from the high Priests Scribes and Pharisees and their errours and superstitions though they then their followers bragged that they were the people of God his church so was it meete requisite for vs to depart as we haue from their Popish church and the popery thereof And as for our receauing our baptisme amongst them that bindeth vs no more to hold cōmunion with thē still in their false erronious religion then the receauing of circumcision bound Christ his Apostles those of the Iewes that beleued by their doctrine to continue felowship with the blind and superstitious synagogue of the hard harted Iewes or the receiuing of baptisme in former times at the hands of the ancient heretiques the Arriās or any other such like bound thē that were baptised by such y◠they might not separate themselues frō such to returne home againe to the true catholique church of Christ Againe if they thinke that men are bound alwaies to liue and die in that Religion whereof they were that baptized them why doe they labour by their Iesuits seminaries to seduce to their Religion such as we haue baptized But yet to touch them more neerely for all this brag of their still continuing in the faith and Religion they first receaued let euen their owne Baptisme and their faith and Religion that they after professe bee compared togither and the contrary will appeare For they being al baptized in the name onely of the Father the Sonne the holy Ghost as it is well knowen they are thereby they are bounde onely to beleeue in this Trinity in Vnity and Vnitie in Trinity and yet afterwardes all the sort of them notwithstanding the Apostles Creede and all other ancient Creeds teach them the same become plaine apostataes from this faith in beleeuing in a number both of persons and thinges that without blasphemy they cannot count either God the Father God the Sonne or God the holy Ghost Proofe and most palpable demonstration hereof is their beliefe in their owne merits merits of others Popes pardons halowed water other halowed things their beliefe in and therefore praying vnto Saints Angels In the wonderful prouidēce of God doubtles this forme of baptisme these creeds were preserued continued amongst thē not only to make it euen thereby euident whatsoeuer any of thē brag to the contrary neuer so oft that they are the men that daily depart both frō the faith of Christ first taught them their forefathers and after particulerly in their baptisme cōfirmed to euery one of them but also to make thē before both God man without all excuse of their so grosse apostacy from the same notwithstāding Wheras they know all the world els that knoweth vs know that we simply continue in this faith first deliuered vntd vs briefly by the holy catholique church in these creeds daily sealed vnto vs in our baptisme that euen for that it is that we are so hated and persecuted of