to the substance not only in the bread and wine of the Eucharist or in the hearts of the faithfull but also in all Creatures in fire water or in the rope and halter wherewith desperate persons hang themselves He averreth that the Ten Commandments belong not unto us for God did not lead us but the Jewes forth of Aegypt That faith except it be without even the least good works doth not justifie and is no faith Whereof you may see him condemned and cited by That we are equall in dignity and honour with Saint Paul Saint Peter or the blessed Virgin Mary or all the Saints That all the holinesse which they have used in fasting and prayer enduring labours chastising their bodies austerity and hardnesse of life may be daily performed by a hog or a dog That in absence of a Priest a woman or a boy or any Christian may absolve That they onely communicate worthily who have confused and erroneous consciences That a Priest especially in the new Testament is not made but borne not consecrated but created That the Sacrament were true though it were administred by the Devil See him baited for it by two of his fellow Protestants That among Christians no man can or ought to be a Magistrate but each one is to other equally subject and that among Christian men none is superiour save one and only Christ That the husband in case the wife refuse his bed may say unto her if thou wilt not another will if the Mistresse will not let the maid come That the Magistrates duty is to put such a wife to death and that if that the Magistrate omit to doe so the husband may imagine that his wife is stolne away by theeves and slaine and consider how to marry another That the adulterer may flie into another Country and if he cannot contain marry againe That Polygamy is no more abrogated then the rest of Moses Law and that it is free as being neither commanded nor forbidden That it is no more in his power to be without a woman then it is in his power to be no man and that it is more necessary then to eat drink purge or blow his nose I will give you the latine of another opinion of his because they are his owne words but not any of my english shall be accessary to the transportation of such a blast into my native language Perinde faciunt qui continenter vivere instituunt acsi qui excrementa vel lotium contra naturae impetum retinere velit Luther saith How can man prepare himselfe to good seeing it is not in his power to make his waies evill for God worketh the wicked work in the wicked But I pray you where have you this or any of all this in Scripture nay what Scripture have you for it that Scripture should be no Scripture as hitherto he hath made a great part of it and Zwingl almost all the rest denying all Pauls Epist to be sacred Zwing tom 2. fol. 10. What Councel what Fathers what primitive or sequent Church Usque ad ever taught or approved such doctrine as this and how are we cryed out upon for errors notwithstanding we have all for our Justification and yet this is the man that boasted that Christ was first published by him and by all of you that he was the first reformer this is he who calls himselfe a more excellent Doctor then all those who are in the papacy This is he who thus brags of himselfe viz. Dr. Martin Luther will have it so a Papist and an Asse are directly the same so is my will such is my command my will is my reason This is he that tells you I will have you to know that I will not hereafter vouchsafe you the honour as that I will suffer either you or the very Angels of heaven to judge of my doctrine c. Nor will I have my doctrine judged by any no not by the Angels themselves for I being certaine thereof will by it be judge both of you and the Angels And lastly this is he that gave the alarme to all Christendome of the errors idolatries superstitions and prophanenesse of the Church of Rome but what Scriptures have you for it that you should not belive the Scriptures what Fathers have you that you should not believe the Church what custome have you that you should not believe the Fathers rather then any private interpretation the promised holy Ghost alwaies ruling in the Church rather then the presumed private Spirit in any particular man The Church of Geneva NOw for the Church of Geneva Calvin comming after him is not contented to stop himselfe at Luthers bounds but he goes further and detracts not onely from the Scripture but from Christ and God himselfe For first He maintaines that three essences doe arise out of the holy Trinity That the Sonne hath his substance distinct from the Father and that he is a distinct God from the Father He teacheth that the Father can neither wholly nor by parts communicate his nature to Christ but must withall be deprived thereof himselfe He denies that the Sonne is begotten of the Fathers substance and essence affirming that he is God of himselfe not God of God He saies that that dream of the absolute power of God which the Schoolmen have brought in is execrable blasphemy He saith that where it is said that the Father is greater then I it hath been restrained to the humane nature of Christ but I doe not doubt to extend it to him as God and man He severeth the person of the Mediator from Christs divine person maintaining with Nestorius two persons in Christ the one humane and the other divine That Christs soule was subject to ignorance and that this was the onely difference betwixt us and him that our infirmities are of necessity and this was voluntary That it is evident that ignorance was common to Christ with the Angels And particulariseth wherein viz. that he knew not the day of Judgement Nor that the Fig-tree was barren which he cursed till he came near it He is not afraid to censure certaine words of Christ to be but a weak confutation of what he sought to refute And saies Christ seems here not to reason solidly He tells us that this similitude of Christ seemes to be harsh and farre fetch'd and a little after the similitude of sitting doth not hang together Where Christ inferred All things therefore whatsoever you will c. Calvin giveth it this glosse It is a superfluous or vaine illation This Metaphor of Christ is somewhat harsh He saith insomuch as Christ should promise from God a reward to fasting it was an improper speech He writeth of a saying of Christ that it seemes to be spoken improperly and absurdly in French
sans raison He saith that Christ refused and denyed as much as lay in him to performe the office of a Mediator That he manifested his owne effeminatenesse by his shunning of death He saith that Theeves and malefactors hasten to death with obstinate resolution despising it with haughty courage others mildly suffer it but what constancy stoutnesse or courage was there in the Son of God who was astonished and in a manner striken dead with fear of death how shamefull a tendernesse was it to be so far tormented with fear of common death as to melt in bloudy sweat and not to be able to be comforted but by the sight of Angels And that the same vehemency took him from the present memory of the heavenly decree so that he forgot at that instant that he was sent hither to be our redeemer This prayer of Christ was not premeditate but the force and extremity of grief wringed from him this hasty speech to which a correction was presently added and a little before he chastiseth and recalleth that vow of his which he had let suddainly slip Thus doe we see Christ to be on all sides so vexed as being over-whelmed with desparation he ceased to call upon God which was as much as to renounce his salvation and this saith he a little before was not fained or as a thing only acted upon a stage That Christ in his soul suffered the terrible torments of a damned and forsaken man In the death of Christ occurs a spectacle full of desperation In this spectacle there was nothing but matter of extreame despair It is no marvell if it be said that Christ went downe into Hell since he suffered that death wherewith God in wrath striketh wicked doers That Christ sitting at the right hand of his Father holds but a second degree with him in honour and rule and is but his Vicar Lastly Calvin holds it to be absurd that Christ should challenge to himselfe the glory of his owne resurrection when the Scripture saith he every where teacheth it to be the work of God the Father That God is the Author of all those things which these Popish Judges would have to happen onely by his idle sufferance Instit lib. cap. 18. Sect. 3. That our sins are not onely by his commission but decree and will 16. Sect. 1 2. lib. 2. cap. 4. Sect. 3 4. Which blasphemy is condemned by his famous brethren Fleming lib. de univers grat p. 109. Osiander Euchir Controvers p. 104. Schaffm de peccat causis p. 155. 27. Sitzlinus disput Theol. de providentia Dei Sect. 141. Insomuch that the Magistrates of Berne made it penall by their Laws for any man to preach or read any of his books or doctrine Vide literas Senat. Bern. ad ministros An. 1555. This man strikes neither at the right hand nor on the left but at the King of Israel himselfe who can thinke this mans mouth any slander or his invections a depravement when he belches forth such blasphemies against the Son of God in whom the fulnesse of the God-head dwelt bodily or who could thinke this man fit to reforme a Church when nothing more required reformation then his owne errours But what Scriptures or Fathers is there for all this The Doctrine of the Zwinglians ZWinglius confesseth himselfe to have been instructed against the Masse by a certaine admonisher which he knew not whether it was black or white The same derided as illusion by the learned Protestants The same as Luther's Devil largely set downe by himselfe He is taxed by Calvin for depraving the Scripture for changing the word est and putting in significat in his Translation of the New Testament He saies that these sayings and the like viz. If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments c. are but superfluous and hyperbolicall He denies that Originall sin can damne us calling it but a disease or contagion He maketh Baptizing of Infants a thing indifferent which may be used or left off That Princes may be deposed by the godly if they be wicked or goe contrary to the rule of Christ He saith that when we commit adultery or murder it is the work of God being the mover the Author or inciter c. God moveth the thiefe to kill c. he is forced to sin c. God hardned Pharaoh not speaking hyperbolically but he truly hardned him though he had resisted For which he is particularly reprehended by the learned Protestant Grawerus But where is there any Scripture or Fathers or Doctors of the Church that ever taught this Doctrine before Melancthons Doctrine FOr Melancthon he taught that there are three Divinities as there are three Persons For which he is reprehended by Stancarus He affirmes polygamy not to be against Jus Divinum and adviseth Hen. 8. unto it He teacheth peremptory resistance against Magistrates He inableth the inferiour Magistrate to alter Religion against the contrary Edicts of the Superiour So Calvin so Beza so Goodman so Danaeus so Knox so Buch so Bancroft so Fenners so Scutcliff so Hottomanus so Ficlerus so Renekerus all hold it lawfull to depose murder or to arraigne their Prince Call in forraigne ayd to assist them Bestow the Crown at their pleasure Destroy them either by peaceable practices or open War Propose rewards to such but where have they Scriptures or Fathers or times that shewed the practise of such doings before these latter times and latter practices The Doctrine of Andreas Musculus AS for Andreas Musculus he was not afraid openly to teach that the Divine Nature of Christ which is God died upon the crosse with his humane Nature Neither did he desist publickly to professe and spread abroad this Doctrine of the death of Christs Divinity And that by the help of Johannes Islebius Thus far It is manifest saith Simlerus forth of the writings of Brentius Myricus and Andreas Musculus that they make nothing of the ascention of Christ but a vanishing or disappearing What is this but making way for Mahomet but what Scriptures or Fathers or times hath he wherein this Doctrine was ever taught before The Divisions of Protestants IF Ye would but consider how the Lutherans are divided into Antinomians Osiandrians Majorists Synergists Stancarians Amsdorfians Flaccians Substantiarians Accidentarians Adjaphorists Musculans of Effingereans Vibiquilists c. So dissenting from and persecuting one another that they will not permit one another to live in the same Town in so much that Oecolampadius reckons up seventy seven changes not onely in their explanations of Scripture but also in certaine imaginary phantsies Or if we should consider the Divisions that are between the old and new Sacramentaries the old called Zwinglians the new Calvinists with us Puritans in France Hugonots in other places Formalists elsewhere Familists somewhere Brownists every where Arminians Seekers
Ceremonies and of Apostolicall tradition She held then besides Batisme and the Eucharist Confirmation Marriage Orders and extream Unction for true and proper Sacraments which the Church of Rome now acknowledgeth The Church in the Ceremonies of Baptisme used then oyl salt wax-lights exorcismes the signe of the Cross the word Ephata and other that accompany it none of them without reason and excellent signification The Church held then Baptisme for infants of absolute necessity and for this cause then permitted lay men to baptise in danger of death the Church used then holy water consecrated by certain words and Ceremonies and made use of it both for Baptisme and against inchantments and to make exorcismes and conjurations against evill spirits The Church held then divers degrees in the Ecclesiasticall Regiment to wit Bishops Priests Deacons Subdeacons the Acolite Exorcist Reader and Porter consesecrated and blessed them with divers Forms and Ceremonies And in the Episcopall Order acknowledged divers seats of Jurisdiction of positive right to wit Archbishops Primates Patriarchs and one Supereminent by Divine law which was the Pope without whom nothing could be decided appertaining to the universall Church and the want of whose presence either by himselfe or his Legats or his Confirmation made all Councels pretended to be universall unlawfull In the Church then the service was said throughout the East in Greek and throughout the West as well in Africa as in Europe in Latin although that in none of the provinces except in Italy and the Cities where the Romane Colonies resided the Latine tongue was understood by the common people She observed then the distinction of feasts and ordinary dayes the Distinction of Ecclesiasticall and lay habits the reverence of sacred vessels the custome of shaming and unction for the collation of orders the Ceremony of the Priest washing his hands at the Altar before the consecration of the Mysteries She then pronounced a part of the service at the Altar with a low voice made processions with the reliques of Martyrs kissed them carried them in clothes of silke and vessels of gold took and esteemed the dust from under their reliquaries accompanied the dead to their sepulchres with wax tapers in sign of joy for the certainty of their future resurrection The Church then had the picture of Christ and of his Saints both out of Churches and in them and upon the very Altars not to adore them with God like worship but by them to reverence the Souldiers and Champions of Christ The faithfull then used the sign of the Crosse in all their Conversations painted it on the portal of all the houses of the faithfull gave their blessing to the people with their hand by the signe of the Crosse imployed it to drive away evill spirits proposed in Jerusalem the very Crosse to be adored on good Friday Finally the Church held then that to the Catholick Church onely belongs the keeping of the Apostolicall tradition the Authority of interpretation of Scripture and the decision of Controversies of faith and that out of the succession of her communion of her Doctrine and her ministery there was neither Church nor Salvation Neither will I insist with you onely upon the word then but before and before and before that even to the first age of all will I shew you our doctrine of the reall presence and holy Sacrifice of the Masse Invocation of Saints Veneration of Reliques and Images Confession and Priestly absolution Purgatory and prayer for the dead Traditions c. In the fift Age or hundred of years Saint Augustine was for the reall and corporall presence In the fourth Age Saint Ambrose In the third Age Saint Cyprian In the second Age or hundred of years S. Irenaeus And in the first Age Saint Ignatius Martyr and Disciple of Saint John the Evangelist Concerning the honour and invocation of Saints In the fifth Age we find Saint Augustine praying to the Virgin Mary ond other Saints In the fourth Age we find Greg. Naz. praying to S. Basil the great In the third Age we find S. Origen praying to Father Abraham In the second Age Justin Martyr And in the first age in the Liturgy of S. James the lesse For the use and veneration of holy Reliques and Images and chiefly of the Holy Crosse in the fifth age Saint Augustine In the fourth Age Athanasius In the third Age Origen In the second Age St. Justin Martyr And in the first Age S. Ignatius Concerning Confession and Absolutions In the fifth Age S. August In the fourth Age S. Basil the Great In the third Age S. Cypr. In the second Age Tertull. And in the first Age S. Clement Now concerning Purgatory and Prayer for the dead in the fifth Age S. Augustin In the fourth Age S. Ambrose In the third Age S. Cypr. In the second Age Tertull. And in the first Age S. Clement e. Concerning Traditions in the fifth Age S. Aug. In the fourth Age S. Basil In the third Age S. Epiphanins In the second Age S. Irenaeus And in the first Age S. Dennis Now suppose that all these quotations be right The saving of a soul of your own soul of the soul of a King of the souls of so many Kingdoms and the gaining of that Kingdome for a reward which in comparison of these Earthly ones for which you so often fight so much strive and labour so much for to obtain your tetrarchate would be a gain for you to lose it so that you might but obtain that would be worth the search and when you have found them to be truly cited I dare trust your judgement that it will tell you that we have not changed our Countenance nor fled our Colours nor fallen away nor altered our Religion nor forsaken our first Love nor denyed our Principles nor brought Novelties into the Church but that we doe antiquum obtinere whereby we should be forsaken of you for forsaking our selves but rather that we should win you unto us by being still the same we were when we won you first unto us and were at the beginning And is it for the honour of the English Nation famous for the first Christian King and the first Christian Emperour to forsake her Mother Church so renowned for antiquity and to annex their Religion as a codicell to an appeal of a company of Protesters against a decree at Spira and to forsake so glorious a name as Catholick and to take a name upon them wherein they had neither right nor interest and then to take measure of the Scottish Discipline for the new fashion of their souls and to
by Hierome came to be Pope there was such a conflict betwixt him and Urscicinus about it that in one day there were found in a Church 137. dead bodies of those that were slaine in the conflict This is related by Ammianus Marcellinus who lived in the same time when this happened And though he were no Christian yet that he did not write thus out of any ill affection towards Christians and a desire to disgrace them may appear as by that ingenuity and impartiality which he elsewhere usually shews in his history so by this that in this very place he much commends other Bishops of meaner places and saith that the Bps. of Rome might have been happy indeed if they would have imitated them and despising the greatnesse of the City would have lived sparingly and carried themselves humbly as other Bishops of the Roman Provinces did But so also for the same reason to wit the honour and dignity of Rome the Bishop thereof had some priviledge and preheminencie above others And so the first Councel of Constantinople decreed that the Bishop of Constantinople should have the second place to wit next after the Bishop of Rome because it was new Rome And afterwards the Councel of Chalcedon which was the fourth general Councel as that of Constantinople was the second for the very same reason confirmed the same plainly expressing thus much that because Rome had been the seat of the Empire therefore the Fathers had given the chief honour to the Bishop of that City and that now Constantinople being advanced to that honour Constantine having removed his seat thither it was meet that the Bishop of that place should likewise be advanced so as to be next to the Roman Bishop Thus it plainly appears even by this very Councel which the Marquesse alleadgeth that the dignity of the Bishop of Rome is built meerly upon humane authority and earthly consideration Neither doth Hierom attribute such supereminencie as is pretended to Damasus the Roman Bishop but being in the Eastern parts which were much infected with Arianisme and knowing that Damasus was free from that infection he consulted him about a point wherein he feared lest some Arians in the East might ensnare him But that Hierome did not hold the Bishop of Rome to be supereminent by divine Law is clear and evident by what he wrote to Evagrius namely this Wheresoever a Bishop is whether at Rome or at Eugubium whether at Constantinople or at Rhegium whether at Alexandria or at Tanis he hath the same merit and the same Priesthood The power of riches and the meannesse of poverty doth not make a Bishop either higher or lower but they are all the successours of the Apostles The Marquesse goes on saying In the Church then the Service was said throughout the East in Greek and throughout the West as well in Africa as in Europe in Latine although that in none of the Provinces except in Italy and the Cities where the Roman Colonies resided the Latine tongue was understood by the common people That divine Service should be performed in a tongue which the people understand not is most repugnant both to reason and Scripture The Apostle 1 Cor. 14. plainly and fully declares against it and shews the absurdity of it For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God for no man understandeth him v. 2. Now brethren if I come unto you speaking with tongues viz. unknown tongues what shall I profit you v. 6. And even things without life giving sound whether pipe or harp except they give a distinction in the sounds how shall it be known what is piped or harped v. 7. For if the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to the battell v. 8. So likewise you except ye utter by the tongue words easie to be understood how shall it be known what is spoken for ye shall speak into the aire v. 9. Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice I shall be unto him that speaketh a Barbarian and he that speaketh shall be a Barbarian unto me v. 11. Else when thou shalt blesse in the spirit how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest v. 16. In the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding that by my voice I might teach others also then ten thousand words in an unknown tongue v. 19. The case here is so clear that Cardinal Cajetan in his Commentary upon the place is forced to confesse That by this doctrine of the Apostle it is better for the edification of the people that publick prayers be made in a tongue which both the Clergy and the people understand then that they be in Latine And hereupon also he expresseth his dislike of the use of Organs and of chanting in Divine Service and saith that it were better such musical melody were laid aside and that Divine Service were so performed as that people might understand it Austine indeed shews that in his time and Country the Latine tongue was used in Divine Service but withall he shews that the people did understand it though they were not very Grammatical and exact in it And therefore sometimes barbarous words were permitted because the people were acquainted with them and understood them better then pure Latine words For this reason he saith in that place which the Marquesse citeth that floriet was used for florebit that is shall flourish And so elsewhere he saith that he would rather use the word ossum for a bone then os chusing rather to be reproved by Grammarians then that the people should not understand him And that the Latine tongue was then generally understood by the people where he lived is most evident also by that which he writeth in his Confessions to wit that though he had very much ado to learn the Greek tongue yet the Latine he learnt without difficulty even whilst his Nurse and others played with him and because he heard none speak any other Language The Marquesse to prove still that the Church of Rome is not changed but is the same that it was of old mentioneth divers things which the Church then he saith observed as distinction of Feasts and ordinary dayes c. 1. These are things of an inferiour alloy in comparison of many things wherein Protestants charge the Church of Rome to be altered from what of old it was 2. The same things might be observed of old yet not in the same manner as now in the Church of Rome they are viz. so as to place the worship of God in such things So they now do which makes Ferus though one of their own Authors cry out Behold our stupidity and perversenesse And again O preposterous Religion 3. If Protestants have abolished such things besides that they might lawfully do it God in
he was above two hundred years after Minutius and Gregory who was about as much after Paulinus was against the worshipping of any thing made with hands as appears by the words before cited Finally saith the Marquesse the Church then held that to the Catholick Church only belongs the keeping of the Apostolical tradition the authority of interpretation of Scripture and the decision of controversies of faith and that out of the succession of her communion of her doctrine and her ministery there neither was Church nor salvation 1. For Apostolical traditions enough hath been said before 2. And so also of interpretation of Scripture and decision of controversies of faith 3. I understand not what is meant by objecting against us that out of the Catholick Church there is no Church For the Catholick Church being the Church universal and so comprehending all particular Churches as parts and members of it who can doubt that there is no Church out of the Church Catholick But what is this to the Church of Rome which once indeed was a sound part of the Catholick Church but the Catholick Church it never was nor could be except a part could be the whole In that which follows page 101. c. there is nothing but the same matter as before only the form is somewhat altered and therefore there is no need that I should trouble either my self or the Reader any further about it only I shall adde one or two Animadversions 1. Whereas it is objected page 105. c. that Luther after his deserting the communion of the Church of Rome did yet hold some points of Popery and so also Husse and Wickliffe and others that otherwise opposed themselves against the errors and corruptions of that Church I answer That as Rome was not built at once so neither was it demolished at once but by degrees it is no marvel therefore if those worthy men did at least for a while retain some Romish opinions and practices after that in many things they had discovered the truth and stood up in defence of it 2. Whereas it is pretended page 106. that before Berengarius who was above 1000. years after Christ none did oppose that reall presence of Christ in the Sacrament which the Romanists maintain besides that I have sufficiently confuted this before the Marquesse might have seen from Bellarmine himself that there were some who above 200. years before Berengarius did oppose that doctrine which in this particular the Church of Rome now doth hold namely Bertram a Presbyter who was about 800. years after Christ and saith Bellarmine was one of the first that did call in question that doctrine But Bellarmine doth too much mince the matter for Bertram did more then call in question that reall presence of Christ in the Sacrament which the Romanists do hold he did plainly assert that which Protestants maintain viz. that the substance of bread and wine doth still remain after consecration as is to be seen in Hospinians first part of the Sacramentary history and so in others that cite that Author for the book it self I confesse I have not seen that I do remember But that is here worthy to be observed which the Romish censurers of Books say speaking of this book of Bertrams about the Sacrament Although say they we do not much value this book nor should greatly eare if it were no where to be found yet seeing it hath been often printed and read of very many c. and we sufer very many errours in other ancient Catholicks we extenuate them we excuse them and finding out some device we often deny them and fain some good sense of them when they are opposed in disputations or conflicts with the adversaries we see not why Bertram may not deserve the same favour and diligent recognition lest Hereticks prate against us and say that we burn antiquity and prohibit it when it makes for them Some things therefore in Bertrams book they will have to be quite left out and some things to be quite altered as namely for visibly to be read invisibly Such devices have they of the Church of Rome to corrupt ancient Writers when they make against them and then they pretend that all are for them Thus the Marquesse in the conclusion of his Reply page 230. pretends that they have the prescription of 1600. years possession and continuance of their Churches Doctrine and evidence out of the word of God and the Fathers witnessing to that evidence and the decrees of Councels and Protestants own acknowlegdements But what ground there is for this pretence let the Reader judge by comparing and considering what is said on both sides And so I also shall leave the successe of my labour unto God in whose hand are the hearts of all An Addition of some few things omitted in the fore-going REJOINDER THe Marquesse pag. 69. citeth Basil orat in 40 it is misprinted 44 Mart. as affirming that we may pray unto the Saints departed But in that Oration Basil affirms no such thing He shews indeed his approbation of praying not unto the Martyrs but which is quite another thing to God at the monuments of the Martyrs The most learned B. Usher observes That the memory of the Martyrs indeed was from the very beginning had in great reverence and at their Memorials and Martyria that is to say at the places wherein their bodies were laid which were the Churches whereunto the Christians did in those times usually resort prayers were ordinarily offered up unto God for whose cause they laid down their lives But this is no argument that they then prayed to the Martyrs though that errour might take occasion afterwards to creep in by this meanes The Marquesse taxeth Calvin for holding that Christs soule was subject to ignorance To what I have already said in answer to this charge I adde that in this particular Fulgentius was of the same minde with Calvin For confuting those that held Christ to have no humane soul he saith thus If we must believe that the humane nature in Christ wanted a soul what is it that in Christ being an Infant is said not to have known good and evil Then he cites Isa 7. 16. expounding it of Christ and addes Therefore the humane soule which is naturally made capable of reason in Christ being an Infant is said not to have known good and evil which according to the truth of the Gospel in Christ being a child is related to have increased in wisdome c. To that also that hath been said before concerning Calvins death let this be added How far Calvin was from despairing at his death as the Marquesse doth object may appear by what he wrote to his dear friend Farel when he looked for death every moment I hardly breath saith he and expect continually that breath should fail me It is enough that I live and dye to Christ who to those that are his is both
doe rather call for our care and diligence to suppresse them For answer unto this I grant that the prevailing errours of the times are mainly to be opposed yet as our Saviour said in another case this ought to be done and the other not to be left undone Yea Popery is the grand evill that doth infest the Church and by how much it is the more inveterate the more diffused by so much the danger of it is the greater and it requires the more opposition There is also a speciall warning to come out of Babylon Revel 18. 4. and certainly it will availe us little to come out except we also keepe out of it And if we would keep our selves out of Babylon we must keepe the Babylonish Doctrine from finding entertainment with us This will aske no little care no humane policy in the world I think being greater then that which is used either for the supporting of that doctrine where it is or the introducing of it where it is not embraced Shall we thinke that the Romanists are idle in these busy times Though few doe shew themselves as the Marquesse did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with open face yet we may well suspect that many are working so as that by how much they are the lesse conspicuous by so much they are the more dangerous And as David in a certaine case said to the woman of Tekoah Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this So in respect of that heape of heterodox opinions that is among us may it not be said Is not the hand of a Iesuite in all this Diverse Pamphlets in these times have admonished us to beware and among the rest one intituled Mutatus Polemo what ever the Authors designe were doth speake not a little to this purpose Before these trouble some times began some have either expressed as Mr. Archer or intimated as Mr. Mede that in their opinion Popery shall yet againe for a while universally prevaile in those Countries and Nations out of which it hath bin expelled If this be so as for any thing I see I may hope the contrary may it not be feared that as those many Antichrists as they are called 1 Joh. 2. 18. that is those many heretikes that were in the primitive times did make way for the rise of that great Antichrist so these in our times may make way for the restauration of him And whereas we have heard long since of Romes Master-peece I see not how any Romish designe can better deserve this title then so to debase the Ministery and to decry learning as the practice of many is in these times Hoc Ithacus velit hoc magno mercentur Atreidae The Chieftaines of the Church of Rome can desire nothing more then that among their adversaries the Ministery should be cast down and learning overthrown For then why should they doubt but that they may soon reduce all unto them none being now of any competent ability to oppose them It is observed by those that are acquainted with Ecclesiasticall History that when Learning was the lowest then Popery got to be highest as the one decayed so the other was advanced and on the otherside that the restauration of good literature did make way for the Reformation of Religion Surely if Popery overspread againe barbarisme and illiteratenesse is a most likely means to effect it Neither are the Papists I suppose lesse politick and wise in their generation then Julian the Apostate was who could see no fairer way whereby to re establish Gentilisme then by indeavouring to devest Christians of Learning a thing so vile and odious that Ammianus Marcellinus himselfe though a Pagan and a great admirer of Julian was ashamed of it and shewed great dislike of Julian for it calling it a cruell part and a thing to be buried in perpetuall silence But I have held Thee Reader longer then I did intend I will preface no further but praying unto the Lord to preserve his Church from errors without and to purge it from errors within I rest Thy Friend and lover in the truth C C. The CONTENTS of the FIRST PART OF THE REIOYNDER 1 OF the marks of the true Church which they of the Church of Rome assigne as Universality Antiquity Visibility Succession of Pastors unity in Doctrine and the Coversion of Nations Page 107 to 114 2 Of having recourse unto the Scriptures in matters that concern Religion 114 115 116 3 Of relying either on Fathers singly and severally considered or on a generall Councel 116 117 118 119 4 That the Apostles as Pen-men of the Holy Ghost could not erre 120 5 Of the easiness and plainness of the Scriptures 120 121 6 Of the presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 122 to 140 7 Whether the Church hath any infallible rule besides the Scripture for the understanding of Scripture 140 to 147 8 Againe of the Scriptures being easie to be understood 147 148 9 Whether the Church can erre or not 148 to 152 10 Againe of the Visibility of the Church 152 153 11 Of the Universality of the Church 153 to 158 12 Of the unity of the Church in matters of faith 158 159 13 Of Kings and Queens being Heads or Governours and Governesses of the Church within their Dominions 159 160 14 Of the Ministers power to forgive sins 159 as 't is misprinted to 162 15 Of confessing sins to a ghostly Father 162 to 172 16 Of works of Superogation 172 to 176 17 Of Free-will 176 to 195 18 Of the possibility of keeping the Commandements 196 to 201 19 Of Justification by faith alone 201 to 211 20 Of Merits 211 to 216 21 Whether justifying faith may be lost 216 to 221 22 Of Reprobation 221 to 239 23 Of assurance of Salvation 239 to 251 24 Whether every Believer hath a peculiar Angel to be his guardian 251 to 254 25 Of the Angels praying for us and knowing our thoughts 254 255 256 26 Of praying to the Angels 256 to 261 27 Whether the Saints deceased know our affairs here below 261 to 266 28 Of the Saints deceased praying for us 266 to 269 29 Of praying to the Saints deceased 269 to 276 30 Of Confirmation whether it be a Sacrament properly so called 276 to 281 31 Of communicating in one kinde 281 to 287 32 Of the sacrifice of the Masse as they call it or whether Christ be truly and properly offered up and sacrificed in the Eucharist or Lords Supper 287 to 296 33 Whether Orders or rather Ordination be a Sacrament of like nature with Baptisme and the Lord Supper 296 to 301 34 Of Vows of chastity and of the Marriage of Ecclesiastical persons 301 to 318 35 Of Christs descending into Hell 319 to 340 36 Of Purgatory 340 to 355 37 Of extreme Unction 355 to 363 38 Of the saying of Austine Evangelio non crederem nisi me Ecclesiae Authoritas commoveret I should not believe or should not have
believed crederem for credidissem the Gospel except the authority of the Church did move or had moved comoveret for commovisset me to it 364 365 c. The Contents of the Second Part of the Rejoynder 1 OF the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England Page 1 2 2 Of Luthers Doctrine 3 to 20 3 Zuinglius vindicated from that which by the way is charged upon him 19 4 Of Calvines Doctrine 20 to 35 5 Of Zuinglius his Doctrine 35 to 40 6 Of Melancthons Doctrine 40 41 42. 7 Of Andreas Musculus his Doctrine 42. and in the addition 8 Of the divisons that are among Protestants 42 9 Of that Unity which is among them of the Church of Rome 42 to 46 10 Of Crimes charged upon Protestants and the testimonies alledged for proof of them 46 11 Of Luthers conference with the Devil 46 47 48 12 Whether Zuinglius were an Authour of war and a disturber of peace c. 48 49 13 Beza cleared of a foul aspersion cast upon him 49 50 14 Of Luthers writing against King Henry 8. 50 51 15 Of the people of the reformed Churches whether they be so vitious and corrupt as they are censured 51 52 16 A vindication of Calvin in respect of vild aspersions cast upon him 53 54 17 Mantuans testimony concerning Rome and the corrupt estate of it 54 55 18 Whether the Doctrine of the Church of Rome be the the same still that it was at first 55 19 Of Prayers for the Dead 55 56 57 20 Of Lent-Fast 57 58 21 Of mingling Water with Wine in the Lords Supper 58 59 60 22 Of diverse ceremonies which the Church of Rome useth in Baptisme 60 61 23 Of the necessity of Infants Baptisme and whether they may be saved without it 61 62 63 24 Of the several Ecclesiastical Orders which they have in the Church of Rome 63 64 65 25 Of the Pope and his supremacy 65 66 67 26 Of service in an unknown tongue 67 68 69 27 Of Festivals 69 70 28 Of Reliques 70 71 29 Of Pictures and Images 71 to 77 30 Of the signe of the Crosse 77 31 Of Luther Husse and Wickliffe holding some errours and so others that oppose the Church of Rome 78 32 That some before Berengarius as namely Bertram did professedly impugne that reall presence of Christ in the Sacrament which they of the Church of Rome maintain 79 80 CERTAMEN RELI GIOSUM OR A CONFERENCE BETWEEN The late King of England and the late Lord Marquesse of Worcester concerning Religion at His Majesties being at Ragland-Castle 1646. Marquesse SIr I hope if they catch us in the act it will not be deemed in me an act of so high conspiracy in regard that I enter the lists leaning upon a Doctor of your own Church To whom the King replyed as merrily My Lord I know not whether I should have a better opinion of your Lordship for the Doctors sake or a worse opinion of the Doctor for your Lordships sake for though you leane much upon his arme yet he may lean more upon your judgment Marq. Sir it conduceth a little to the purpose we have in hand to be a little serious in the thing you speak of your Majesty knows the grounds of my acquaintance with the Doctor and my obligation to him which difference in opinion shall never mitigate in point of affection but I protest unto you I could never gain the least ground of him yet in perswading him from his principles King It may be your Lordship hopes to meet with a weaker Disputant of me Marq. Not so and if it please your Majesty but I think thus That if it should please God to make me so happy an instrument of his Churches good as to be a means to incline your royall heart to imbrace the truth I beleeve that he and thousands such as he would be soon brought to follow your Majesty in the right way who are so constant followers of your steps whilst you are in a wrong path the Oaths which they have taken the relation which their Hierarchy have to the Crown which must be no longer so but whilst the government of the Church and soules stand as a reserve to the regiment of lives and fortunes the preferment which they expect from your Majesty and the enjoyment of those preferments which they have already which they must no longer enjoy then whilst they are or seem to be of your opinion causeth them to smother their own knowledge whilst their mouths are stopt with interest whereas if the strong Tide of your Majesties opinion were but once turn'd all the ships in the river would soon turn head Hereupon the Marquesse fell abruptly from his subject and asked the King Sir I pray tell me what is it that you want The King smiled a little at his sudden breaking off and making such preposterous haste to aske that question answered King My Lord I want an Army can you help me to one Marq. Yes that I can and to such a one as should your Majesty commit your self to their fidelity you should be a Conquerour fight as often as you please King My Lord such an Army would do the businesse I pray let me have it Marq. What if your Majesty would not confide in it when it should be presented unto you King My Lord I would fain see it and as fain confide in that of which I had reason to be confident Marq. Take Gedeons three hundred men and let the rest be gone King Your Lordship speaks mystically will it please you to be plain a little Marq. Come I see I must come nearer to you Sir it is thus God expected a work to be done by your hands but you have not answered his expectation nor his mercy towards you when your enemies had more Cities and Garrisons then you had private families to take your part when they had more Cannons then you had Muskets when the people crouded to heap treasures against you whilst your Majesties friends were fain here and there to make a gathering for you when they had Navies at Sea whilst your Majesty had not so much as a Boat upon the River whilst the oddes in number against you was like a full crop against a gleaning then God wrought his miracle in making your gleaning bigger then their vintage he put the power into your hand and made you able to declare your self a true man to God and gratefull to your friends but like the man whom the Prophet makes mention of who bestowed great cost and paines upon his vincyard and at last it brought forth nothing but wilde grapes so when God had done all these things for You and expected that You should have given his Church some respit to their oppressions I heard say You made vows that if God blest You but that day with Victory You would not leave a Catholike in Your Army for which I feare the Lord is so angry with You that I am
light was gathered into the body of the Sun this body so glorious and comfortable is but the same light which was before we cannot make it another though it be otherwise And therefore though the Church and the Scripture like the light that is concomitant and precedent to the Sun be distinct in tearms yet they are but one and the same no man can see the Sun but by it's own light shut your eyes from this light and you cannot behold the body of the Sun Shut your eyes against one and you are blind in both he never had God to be his Father who had not the Church to be his Mother If you admit Sillogismes à priori you will meet with many paralogismes à posteriori cry downe the Churches Authoritie and pull out the Scriptures efficacie give but the Church the lie now and then and you shall have enough will tell you the Scripture is false here and there they who have set so little by the tradition of the Church have set by halfe the Scriptures and will at last throw all away wherefore in a word as to deny any part of the Scripture were to open a vein so to question any thing which the Church proposes is to teare the seamelesse Coat of Christ and to pierce his body King My Lord I see you are better provided with Arguments then I am with memorie to run through the series of your Discourse satisfie me but in one thing and I shall soone yeild to all that you have said and that is concerning this Catholick Church you talke of I know the creed tells us that we must believe it and Christ tells us that we must hear it but neither tell us that that is the Church of Rome Marq. Gratious Sir the creed tells us that it is the Catholick Church and Saint Paul tells us in his epistle to the Romans that their faith was spread abroad through the whole world King That was the Faith which the Romanes then believed which is nothing to the Roman Faith which is now believed Marq. The Roman Faith then and now are the same King I deny that my Lord. Marq. When did they alter their Faith King That requires a librarie Neither is it requisite that I tell you the time when if the envious man sowes his tares whilst the husband-man was asleep and afterwards he awakes and sees the tares are they not tares because the husband-man knowes not when they were sown Marq. And if it please Your Majestie in a thing that is so apparent your similitude holds good but the differences between us and the Protestants are not so without dispute as that it is yet granted by the major part of Christians that they are errours which we believe contrary to your Tenents and therefore the similitude holds not but I shall humbly intreat Your Majestie to consider the proofs which the learned Cardinal Peroone hath made concerning this particular in his answer to your Royall Father his Apologie to all Christian Princes where he proves how that all the Tenents which are in controversie now between you and us were practised in the Church of Christ within the first three hundred years wherefore I think it would be no injury to reason to require belief that that which hath been so long continued in the Church and so universally received and no time can be set down when those Tenents or Ceremonies did arise must needs be Catholick for time and place and Apostolicall for institution though we have no warrant from the Scriptures to believe them to be such For the Apostle Saint Paul commanded Timothy to keep fast the things which he had delivered unto him as well by word as by writ Wherefore if we will believe no tradition we may come at last to believe no writings King That was your owne fault wherefore I blame your Church for the way to make the Scriptures not believed were to adde unto them new inventions and say they were Scriptures Marq. If the Church of Christ had so mean esteeme then as amongst some she hath now certainly the former books received into her Canon would have been much prejudiced by the admittance of the latter wherefore if the Church be questionable then all is brought in question King My Lord you have not satisfied me where this Church is and as concerning the Cardinals book I have seen it and have read a part of it but doe not remember neither doe I believe that he hath prov'd that which you say Marq. It may be the proofes were in that part of the book which Your Majesty did not read and as for my proving the Roman Church to be this Church by which we should be all guided I thus shall doe my endeavour That Church whose Doctrine is most Catholick and universall must be the Catholick Church but the Roman Church is such Ergo. King My Lord I deny your Minor the Romane Church is not most universall the Grecian Church is far more spreading and if it were not it were no Argument for the Church of the Mahumetanes is larger then both Marq. First This is no Argument either for an English Man or a Protestant but for a Grecian or Mahumetane not for an English Man because he received his Conversion from Rome and therefore he in Reason should not look beyond Rome or the Doctrine that Rome practised then when they converted England nor for a Protestant because he is as far distant from the Grecian Church in matter of opinion as from the Romane and therefore he need not look for that which he hath no desire to find besides the Greek Church hath long agoe submitted to the Church of Rome and there is no reason that others should make Arguments for her who are not of her when she stands in no competition her selfe besides there is not in any place wherever the Greek Church is or hath beene planted where there are not Roman Catholicks but there are diverse Countreys in Christendome where there is not one Professour of the Greek Church neither is there a place in all the Turks Dominions where there are not Romane Catholicks nor in any part of the world where there are not multitudes of Romanes neither is there a Protestant Countrey in Christendome where there are not Romane Catholicks numberlesse but not a Protestant amongst the Natives neither of Spaine or Italy Shew me but one Protestant Countrey in the world who ever deserted the Romane Faith but they did it by Rebellion except England and there the King and the Bishops were the principall reformers I pray God they doe not both suffer for it Shew me but one reformed Church that is of the opinion of another aske an English Protestant where was your Religion before Luther and he will tell you of Hus and Jerom of Prague search for their Tenents and you shall find them as far different from the English Protestant as they are from one another run to the Waldenses for
Saint Chrysostom saith Omnia clara sunt plana ex scriptur is divinis quaecunque necessaria sunt manifesta sunt yet no man ever hath yet defined what are necessary and what not What points are fundamentall and what are not fundamentall Necessary to Salvation is one thing and necessary for knowledge as an improvement of our faith is another thing for the first if a man keeps the Commandments and believes all the Articles of the Creed he may be saved though he never read a word of Scripture but much more assuredly if he meditates upon Gods word with the Psalmist day and night But if he meanes to walk by the rule of Gods word and to search the Scriptures he must lay hold upon the meanes that God hath ordained whereby he may attaine unto the true understanding of them for as Saint Paul saith God hath placed in the Church Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors to the end we should be no more little children blown about with every wind of Doctrine therefore it is not for babes in understanding to take upon them to understand those things wherein so great a Prophet as the Prophet David confessed the darknesse of his owne ignorance And though it be true the Scripture is a river through which a lambe may wade and an Elephant may swim yet it is to be supposed and understood that the lambe must wade but onely through where the river is foordable It doth not suppose the river to be all alike in depth for such a river was never heard of but there may be places in the river where the lambe may swim as well as the Elephant otherwise it is impossible that an Elephant should swim in the same depth where a lambe may wade though in the same river he may neither is it the meaning of that place that the child of God may wade through the Scripture without directions help or Judges but that the meannest capacitie qualified with a harmelesse innocence and desirous to wade through that river of living waters to eternall life may find so much of Comfort and heavenly knowledge there easily to be obtained that he may easily wade through to his eternall Salvation and that there are also places in the same river wherein the highest speculations may plunge themselves in the deep mysteries of God Wherefore with pardon crav'd for my presumption in holding Your Majestie in so tedious a discourse as also for my boldnesse in obtruding my opinion which is except as incomparable Hooker in his Ecclesiasticall pollicy hath well observed the Churches Authority be required herein as necessary hereunto we shall be so far from agreeing upon the true meaning of the Scripture that the outward letter sealed with the inward witnesse of the Spirit being all hereticks have quoted Scripture and pretended Spirit will not be a warrant sufficient enough for any private man to judge so much as the Scripture to be Scripture or the Gospell it selfe to be the Gospell of Christ This Church being found out and her Authority allowed of all controversies would be soone decided and although we allow the Scripture to be the lock upon the door which is Christ yet we must allow the Church to be the Key that must open it as Saint Ambrose in his 38. Sermons calls the agreement of the Apostles in the Articles of our beliefe Clavis Scripturae one of whose Articles is I believe the holy Catholick Church As the Lion wants neither strength nor courage nor power nor weapons to seize upon his prey yet he wants a nose to find it out wherefore by naturall instinct he takes to his assistance the little Jack-call a quick sented beast who runs before the Lion and having found out the prey in his language gives the Lion notice of it who soberly untill such time as he fixes his eyes upon the bootie makes his advance but once comming within view of it with a more speed then the swiftest running can make he jumps upon it and seizes it Now to apply this to our purpose Christ crucified is the main substance of the Gospell according to the Apostles saying I desire to know nothing but Iesus and him crucified This crucified Christ is the nourishment of our soules according to our Saviours own words Ubi Cadaver ibi aquilae Thereby drawing his Disciples from the curious speculation of his body glorified to the profitable meditation of his body crucified It is the prey of the Elect the dead Carkasse feedeth the Eagles Christ crucified nourisheth his Saints according to Saint Iohns saying except we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud we have no life in us him we must mastigate and chew by faith traject and convey him into our hearts as nutriment by meditation and digest him by Coalition whereby we grow one with Christ and Christ becomes one with us according to that saying of Tertullian Auditu devorandus est intellectu ruminandus fide digerendus Now for the true understanding of the Scriptures which is no other thing then the finding out of Iesus and him crucified who is the very life of the Scriptures which body of Divinity is nourished with no other food and all its veines fil'd with no other bloud though this heavenly food the Scripture have neither force nor power to seize upon its prey but is endued with a lively spirit able to overcome the greatest ignorance yet there is a quick sented assistant called Ecclesia or Church which is derived from a verbe which signifies to call which must be the Jack-call to which this powerfull seeker after this prey must joyne it selfe or else it will never be able to find it out and when we are called we must go soberly to work untill by this means we have attained unto the true understanding and sight thereof and then let the Lion like the Eagle Maher-shalal hashbaz as the Prophet Esay cap. 8. v. 3. tells us make hast to the prey make speed to the spoile Saint Paul confirmes the use of this Etymologie writing to the Corinthians viz. To the Saints called and the Ephesians cap. 4. he tells us if ye would be in one body and in one spirit and of one mind you must be as you are called in our hope of your vocation and in his Epistle of the Colossians cap. 3. he tells us that if we will have the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts that is it by which we are called in one selfe body where we must allow a constitution or Society of men called to that purpose and whose calling it is to procure unto us this peace and unitie in the Church or we shall never find it Thus when dissention arose between Paul and Barnabas concerning Circumcision their disputations could effect nothing but heat untill the Apostles and Elders met together and determined the matter there must be a society of men that can say Bene visum fuit nobis Spiritui sancto or
else matters of that nature will never be determined which societie is there called the Church which Church we are to find King I pray my Lord what doe you meane by the holy Catholick Church doe you meane the Church of Rome Marq. I doe so King My thinks it should be inconsistent with it to be both universall and particular Marq. No more then it is inconsistent for the Generall of Your Army to be Generall of all Your Officers and Souldiers and yet a particular man By the word Roman we intend not the particular Church of Rome but all the Churches which adhere and are joyned in Communion with the Roman Church as by the Jewish Church was not onely meant the Church of Judah onely but of all the other Tribes which had Communion with her the word Catholick is taken in three severall sences formally casually and participatively In the first sence the Societie of all the true particular Churches united in one selfe-same Communion is called Catholick Casually the Roman Church is called Catholick for as much as she infuseth universalitie into all the whole body of the Catholick Church wherefore being a Center and beginning of Ecclesiasticall Communion infusing unitie which is the form of universalitie into the Catholick Church she may be called Catholick Participatively because particular Churches agree and participate in Doctrine and Communion with the Catholick King You have satisfied me why the Church of Rome in your sence may be called Catholick but you have not yet satisfied me why other Churches may not be called casually as much Catholick as she being the Greek Church hath infused as much universalitie into the whole body of the Catholick Church as she did and was both center and circumference as much as ever she was Marq. Sir as to this point I shall refer your Majestie to the learned reply that the profound Card. Peroon so respectfully and learnedly made to Your royall Father his Apologie wherein this point is largely and to my apprehension fully answered But will Your Majestie either give or take either let me shew you this Church or else doe Your Majestie shew it me King My Lord if you can shew it me I shall not shut mine eyes against it But at this time truly my Lord I can hardly hold them open My Lord I pray will you set downe your mind in writing and I will promise you it shall want no animadversion and that I will give you my clear opinion concerning it Marq. O Sir Literae scriptae manent I doe not like that what I speak hère to your Majestie I can promise my selfe so much from your goodnesse that no bad Construction shall be made of what I speak But if my writing should come into other folks hands I may justly fear their comments wherefore I desire to be excused King My Lord I hold it more convenient so to doe I will promise you that I will let no eyes but mine owne view your Paper and I will returne it to you againe by the Doctor Marq. Upon that Condition I am contented I have one request more unto your Majestie that You would make one Prayer to God to direct You in the right way and that You would lay aside all prejudice and selfe-interest and that You will not so much fear the Subject as the Superiour who is over all and then You cannot doe amisse King My Lord all this shall be done by the Grace of God Whereupon the Marquesse called upon me to help him so that he might kneel and being upon his knees he desired to kisse His Majesties hand which he did saying Sir I have not a thought in my heart that tends not to the service of my God and you and if I could have resisted this motion of his Spirit I had desisted long ago but I could not wherefore on both my knees I pray to his Divine Majestie that he will not be wanting to his owne Ordinance but will direct Your understanding to those things which shall make You a happy King upon Earth and a Saint in Heaven And thereupon he fell a weeping bidding me to light His Majestie to His Chamber As the King was going he said unto the Marquesse My Lord it is great pittie that you should be in the wrong Whereat the Marquesse soone replyed It is greater pittie that You should not be in the right The King said God direct us both The Marquesse said Amen Amen I pray God Thus they both parted and as I was lighting His Majestie to His Chamber His Majestie told me that he did not think to have found the old man so ready at it and that he believed he was a long time putting on his armour yet it was hardly proofe To which I made answer that I believe his Lordship had more reason to wonder how His Majestie so unprepared could withstand the on-set The King being brought to His door commanded me that before I brought him his Lordspips Paper I should peruse it and give him my opinion of it Which I promised to obey and so returned to the Marquesse whom I found in the dark upon his knees whom I did not disturbe but when he rose he said unto me Doctor I will tell you what I was doing I was giving God thanks that he had preserved the use of my memory for so good a work and imploring a blessing upon my endeavours To which I made answer My Lord no question but you think it a good work or else you would not implore Gods blessing upon it Whereupon my Lord said Ah! Doctor I would to God you thought so too And waiting upon him into his Chamber he further said unto me Doctor Bayly you know I am obliged not to speak unto you in this nature yet I hope I may say thus much unto you without any breach of promise you may be an Instrument of the greatest good that ever befell this Nation I say no more Good night to you The third day after he gave me this Paper to deliver unto His Majestie which I did The Marquesse his Paper to the King IT must be granted by all that there must be alwayes in the world one holy Catholick and Apostolique Church one that it may be uniforme holy that it may be certaine Catholick that it may be knowne and Apostolick that it may succeed this Church must be either the Romane or the Protestant or else some other that is opposite to both It cannot be any Church which is opposite to both because the Church of England did not when she separated from the Romane joyn her selfe to any not to the Grecian for that holds as many Doctrines contrary to the Church of England as doth the Roman nor to any else because she agrees with none no reformed Church under the Sun that is or ever was hath the same articles of beliefe as hath the Church of England And from any other Church besides the Romane she never had a being and with
any other Church besides the Romane she never had Communion She cannot be that one because she is but one nor Catholick because she agrees not with any nor Apostolick because she hath acknowledged such a fine and recovery that has quite cut off the entaile which would have otherwise descended unto her from the Apostles neither can she be holy because she is none of all the other three Now if these Attributes cannot belong unto the Protestant Religion and do clearly belong unto the Roman then is the Church of Rome the Catholick Church And that it doth I shall prove it by the marks which God Almighty hath given us whereby we should know her And the first is Universality All Nations shall flow unto her Esa 2. 2. And the Psalmist The heathen shall be thine inheritance and the uttermost part of the Earth for thy possession Psal 2. 2. And our Saviour Matth. 20. 14. This Gospell of the Kingdome shall be preached in all the world as a witnesse to all Nations c. Now I confesse that this glory is belonging to all Professors of the Christian Religion yet amongst all those who do professe the name of Christ I believe Your Majestie will consent with me herein that the Romane Church hath this forme of universality not onely above all different and distinct Professors of Religion but also beyond all Religions of the world Turkes or Heathens and that there is no place in the world where there are not Romance Catholicks which is manifestly wanting to all other Religions whatsoever Now I hope Your Majestie cannot say so of any Protestant Religion neither that Your Majestie will call all those who protest against the Church of Rome otherwise then Protestants but not Protestant Catholicks or Catholicks of the Protestant Religion being they are not religated within the same Communion and fellowships for then Religion would consist in protestation rather then unity in Nations falling off from one another rather then all Nations flowing to one another neither is it a Consideration altogether invalid that the Church of Rome hath kept possession of the name all along other reformed Churches leaving her in possession of the name and taking unto themselves new names according to their severall founders except the Church of England who is now her selfe become like a Chapter that is full of nothing else whose founder was such a one whose name it may be they were unwilling to owne For antiquity if we should inquire after the old paths which is the good way and walke therein as the Prophet Jeremiah adviseth us if we should take our Saviours rule Ab initio autem non fuit sic if we should observe his saying how the good seed was first sowed and then the tares If we should consider the pit from whence we were dug and the rock from whence we were hewen we shall find antiquity more applicatory to the Church of Rome then any Protestant Church But you will say your Religion is as ancient as ours having its procedure from Christ and his Apostles so say the Lutheran Protestants with their Doctrine of Consubstantiation and many other sorts of Protestants having other Tenents altogether contrary to what you hold how shall we reconcile you so say all hereticks that ever were how shall we confute them a part to set up themselmes against the whole and by the power of the sword to make themselves Judges in their owne causes is dealing that were it your case I am sure you would think it very hard I wish you may never find it so For Visibility Our Saviour compares his Church to a Citie placed on a hill according unto the Prophet Davids Prophesie a Tabernacle in the Sun It is likewise compared unto a candle in a candle-stick not under a bushell and saith our Saviour If they shall say unto you behold he is in the desart go ye not forth Behold he is in secret places believe it not forewarning us against obscure and invisible Congregations Now I beseech Your Majestie whether should I betake my selfe to a Church that was alwayes visible and gloriously eminent or to a Protestant Church that was never eminent and for the most part invisible shrowding their defection under an Apostolicall Expression of a woman in the Revelation who fled into the wildernesse for a thousand years as if an allegory could wipe out so many clear texts of Scripture as are set down by our Saviour and the Prophets concerning the Churches invisibility And I could not find any Church in the world to whom that Prophesie of Esay might more fitly appertain then to the Church of Rome I have set watch-men upon the walls which shall never hold their peace day nor night which I am sure no Protestant Church can apply to her selfe It is not enough to say I maintaine the same Faith and Religion which the Apostles taught and therefore I am of the true Church ancient and visible enough because as I have said before every heretick will say as much but if you cannot by these marks of the Church set down in Scripture clear your selves to be the true Church you vainly appeale to the Scriptures siding with you in any particular point for what can be more absurd then to appeale from Scripture setting things down clearly unto Scripture setting down things more obscurely There is no particular point of Doctrine in the holy Scripture so manifestly set downe as that concerning the Church and the Markes thereof nothing set down more copious and perspicuous then the visibility perpetuitie and amplitude of the Church So that Saint Augustin did not stick to say that the Scriptures were more clear about the Church then they were about Christ Let him answer for it He said so in his book de unitate Ecclesiae and this he said was the reason because God in his wisdome would have the Church to be described without any ambiguity that all Controversies about the Church may be clearly decided whereby questions about particular Doctrines may find determinations in her judgement and that Visibility might shew the way unto the most rude and ignorant and I know not any Church to whom it may more justly be attributed then to the Church of Rome whose Faith as in the beginning was spread through the whole world so all along and at this day it is generally known among all nations Next to this I prove the Catholick Church to be the Romane because a lawfull succession of Pastors is required in every true Church according to the Prophet Esay his Prophecie concerning her viz. My Spirit which is upon thee and the words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed from henceforth for ever This succession I can find onely in the Church of Rome This succession they onely can prove nons else offering to go about it This succession Saint
Augustin sayes kept him in that Church viz. a succession of Priests from the very seat of Peter the Apostle to the present Bishop of his time And Optatus Milevitanus reckons all the Romane Bishops from Saint Peter to Syricius who then was Pope and by this he shewed and made it his Argument that the true Church was not with the Donatists bidding them to shew the originall of their Chayre this no Protestant did or ever can doe The Romane Church gave the English Bishops Commission to preach the Doctrine of Christ as they have delivered it unto them but they never gave them any Commission to preach against her Religion which Bishops being turned out for observing the depositum wherewith they were instructed and new Bishops chosen in their room by her who not contenting her selfe with being a nursing mother thereof must needs be head of the child and moderatrix in the same Church wherein by the Apostles precept she is forbidden to speak the succession was broke off the branch cut off from the body becoming no part of the tree fit for nothing but to be chopt into smaller pieces and so fitted for the fire this proofe of succession the Bishops of England thought so necessary for proving their Church to be the true Church that they affirmed themselves to be consecrated by Catholick Bishops their Predecessors which never proved argues the interruption and affirming it shews how that in their owne opinion the succession could not hold in the inferiour Ministers as indeed it cannot for as there is a continued supply of Embassadours in all places yet the succession is in the royall race so though all vacancies are replenished by Ministers of the Gospel yet the succession of the Authority was in the Bishops as descended to them from the Apostles according to our Saviours rule I will be with you alwayes unto the end of the world Which Affirmation of theirs argues that their calling is sufficient without it and in that they would faine derive it from the Church of Rome it argues that that is the true Church and yet they would forsake her supposing her to have errors when that Reformation it selfe was but a supposition for seeing they hold that their Church may erre they can be certain of nothing and whilst for errors sake they forsake the Church of Rome the Church of England in forsaking her may be in the greatest error of all where there is neither Succession nor assurance I must leave her to her selfe and your Majestie to judge Next I prove the Romane Church to be the true Church by her unity in Doctrine for so the Apostle Paul requires all the Churches children to be of one mind viz. I beseech you that all speak one thing Be ye knit together in one mind and one Judgement 1 Cor. 1. Endeavouring to keep the unitie of the Spirit in the bond of peace Ephes 4. 3. The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul Act. 4. 32. Continue in one Spirit and one mind of one accord and one judgement Phil. 1. 27. Phil. 2. 2. So our Saviour prayeth that they may be one So Joseph forewarned his brethren that they should not fall out by the way knowing that whilst they were with him he could order them when they came to their father he could order them but having no head they should be apt to be dissentious This Unity I find no where but in the Church of Rome agreeing in all things which the Church of Rome hath determined for Doctrine whereas the Protestant Doctrine like the heresie of Simon Magus divided it selfe into severall Sects and to that of the Donatists which were cut into small threds in so much that among the many Religions which are lately sprung up and the sub sub sub-divisions under them each one pretending to be the true Protestant excluding the other and all of them together no more likely to be bound up in the bond of peace then a bundle of thornes can expect binding with a rope of sand In vaine is their excuse if non-disagreement in fundameatalls for they dis-agree amongst themselves about the Sacrament for the Lutherans hold Consubstantiation but the Church of England no such matter Some that Christ descended into hell others not The Church of England maintain their King to be the head of the Church The Helvetians will acknowledge no such matter the Presbyterians will acknowledge no such matter the Independent will acknowledge no such matter Concerning the Government of the Church by Bishops some Protestants maintaine it to be Jure Divino others to be Jure Ecclesiastico others no such matter Some think that the English translations of the Bible in some places takes away in other places addes and other some places changes the meaning of the holy Ghost and some think it no such matter or else the Bishops would not have recommended it unto the people Lastly they are so far from agreeing about the true meaning of the word of God that they cannot agree upon what is the word of God For Lutherans deny the second Epistle of Saint Peter the second and third Epistle of Saint John the Epistle to the Hebr. the Epistle of Saint James and Saint Jude and the Revelation The Calvinists and the Church of England no such matter they allow them And I believe that these are fundamentalls If they cannot agree upon their Principalls how shall they agree upon the deductions thence If these be not fundamentall points how come Protestants to fight against Protestants for the Protestants Religion The disagreement is not so amongst the Romane Catholicks for all points of the Romane Religion that have been defined by the Church in a generall Councell are agreed upon exactly by all nations tongues and people uibicunque terrarum but in those points which are not determined by the Church the Church leaves every man to abound in his owne sense and therefore all the heat that is either between the Thomists and the Scolists the Dominicans and the Jesuits either concerning the Conception of our blessed Lady or the concurrence of Grace and free-will c. being points wherein the Church hath not interposed her decrees is no more prejudicall or objectionall against the Church of Romes Unitie then the disputations in the Schools of our Universities are prejudiciall to the 39. Articles of the Church of England But in each severall Protestant Dominion there are certain severall Articles of beliefe belonging to severall Protestant Dominions in which severall agreements not any one agrees with any of all the rest neither is there any possibility they should being there is no means acknowledged nor power ordained whereby they should be gathered together in one councell whereby they might be of one heart and of one soule neither is there this Unitie in any one particular Dominion as is in the Dominion of the Roman Church for they are all in pieces amongst themselves even in
Succession In the Cities of Judah and Jerusalem There is Universalitie so Demetrius urged Antiquity and Universality for his godde 〈…〉 viz. That her Temple should not be despised 〈…〉 Magnificence destroyed whom all Asia and the world worshipped So Symachus that wise Senator though a bitter enemie to the Christians Servanda est inquit tot seculis fides sequendi sunt nobis parentes qui feliciter sequuti sunt suos we must defend that Religion which hath worne out so many ages and follow our Fathers steps who have so happily followed theirs So Prudentius would have put back Christianity it selfe viz. Nunc dogma nobis Christianum nascitur post evolutos mille demum Consules Now the Christian Doctrine begins to spring up after the revolution of a thousand Consul-ships But Ezekiel reads us another lecture Ne obdurate cervices vestras ut patres vestri cedite manum Iehovae ingredimini sanctuarium ejus quod sanctificavit in seculum colite Iehovam Deum vestrum Be not stiff-necked as your fore fathers were resist not the mighty God enter into his Sactuary which he hath consecrated for ever and worship ye the Lord your God Radbodus King of Phrygia being about to be baptized asked the Bishop what was become of all his ancestors who were dead without being baptized The Bishop answered that they were all in hell whereupon the King suddenly withdrew himselfe from the font saying Ibi profecto me illis Comitem adjungam Thither will I go unto them no lesse wise are they who had rather erre with fathers and Councels then rectifie their understanding by the word of God and square their faith according to its rules Our Saviour Christ saith we must not so much hearken to what has been said by them of old time Mat. 21. 12. as to that which he shall tell you where Auditis dictum esse antiquis is exploded and Ego dico vobis is come in its place which of them all can attribute that credit to be given unto him as is to be given to Saint Paul Yet he would not have us to be followers of him more then he is a follower of Christ 1 Cor. 11. 1. Wherefore if you cry never so loud Sancta mater Ecclesia sancta mater Ecclesia the holy mother Church holy mother Church as of old they had nothing to say for themselves but Templum Domini Templum Domini the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord we will cry as loud againe with the Prophet Quomodo facta est meretrix Urbs fidelis how is the faith full City become a harlot if you vaunt never so much of your Roman Catholick Church we can tell you out of Saint John that she is become the Synagogue of Sathan neither is it impossible but that the house of prayers may be made a Den of theeves you call us hereticks we answer you with Saint Paul Act. 24. 14. After the way which you call heresie so worship we the God of our fathers believing all things which were written in the Law and the Prophets I will grant you that all those marks which you have set downe are marks of the true Church and I will grant you more that they were belonging to the Church of Rome but then you must grant me thus much that they are as well belonging to any other Chucch who hold and maintaine that Doctrine which the Church of Rome then maintained when she wrought those conversions and not at all to her if she have changed her first love and fallen from her old principles for it will do her no good to keep possession of the keyes when the lock is changed now to try whether she hath done so or no there can be no better way then by searching the Scriptures for though I grant you that the Catholick Church is the White in that Butt of earth at which we all must aime yet the Scripture is the heart centre or peg in the midst of that white that holds it up from whence we must measure especially when we are all in the white We are all of us in gremio Ecclesiae so that controversies cannot be decided by the Catholick Church but by the Scriptures which is the thing by which the nearenesse unto truth must be decided for that which must determine truth must not be fallible but whether you mean the consent of Fathers or the decrees of generall Counsels they both have erred I discover no Fathers nakednesse but deplore their infirmities that we should not trust in armes of flesh Tertullian was a montanist Cyprian a rebaptist Origen an Anthropomorphist Heirom a Monoganist Nazianzen an Angelist Eusebius an Arrian Saint Augustine had written so many errors as occasioned the writing of a whole booke of retractations they have often times contradicted one another and sometimes themselves Now for generall Counsels Did not that Concilium Ariminense conclude for the Arrian heresie Did not that Concilium Ephesinum conclude for the Eutichian heresie Did not that Concilium Carthaginense conclude it not lawfull for Priests to marry Was not Athanasius condemned In concilio Tyrioi Was not Eiconolatria established In concilio Nicaeno secundo What should I say more when the Apostles themselves lesse obnoxious to error either in life or doctrine more to be preferred then any or all the world besides one of them betraies his Saviour another denies him all forsake him They thought Christs Kingdome to have been of this world and a promise onely unto the Jewes and not unto the Gentiles and this after the resurrection They wondered that the holy Ghost should fall upon the Gentiles Saint John twice worshipped the Angel and was rebuked for it Apoc. 22. 8. Saint Paul saw how Peter walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel Gal. 2. 14. Not onely Peter but other of the Apostles were ignorant how the word of God was to be preached unto the Gentiles But who then shall rowl away the stone from the mouth of the monument Who shall expound the Scriptures to us one puls one way and another another by whom shall we be directed Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus You that cry up the Fathers the Fathers so much shall hear how the Fathers doe tell us that the Scriptures are their owne interpreters Irenaeus who was scholler to Policarpus that was schollar to Saint Iohn lib. 3. cap. 12. thus saith Ostentiones quae sunt in Scriptur is non possunt ostendi nisi ex ipsis Scriptur is the evidences which are in Scripture cannot be manifested but out of the same Scripture Clemens Alexandrinus Nos ex ipsis de ipsis Scriptur is perfectè demonstrantes ex fide persuademus demonstrative Strom. li. 7. Out of the Scriptures themselves from the same Scriptures perfectly demonstrating doe we draw demonstrative perswasions from faith Crysost Sacra Scriptura seipsam exponit auditorem errare non sinit Basilius Magnus Quae ambiguè quae obscurè videntur
of witnesses to the divine truth and be no more prejudicicall to their generall determinations then so many exceptions are prejudiciall to a generall rule Neither is a particular defection in any man any exception against his testimony except it be in the thing wherein he is deficient for otherwise we should be of the nature of the flies who onely prey upon corruption leaving all the rest of the body that is whole unregarded Secondly Your Majesty taxes generall Councels for committing errors If Your Majesty would be pleased to search into the times wherein those Councels were called Your Majesty shall find that the Church was then under persecution and how that Arrian Emperours rather made Assemblies of Divines then called any Generall Councels and if we should suppose them to be generall and free Councels yet they could not be erroneous in any particular mans judgement untill a like generall Councell should have concluded the former to be erroneous except you will allow particulars to condemne generalls and private men the whole Church all generall Councels from the first unto the last that ever were or shall be makes but one Church and though in their intervals there be no session of persons yet there is perpetuall virtue in their decretals to which every man ought to appeale for judgement in point of controversie Now as it is a maxim in our law Nullum tempus occurrit regi so it is a maxim in divinity Nullum tempus occurrit deo Ubi deus est as he promised I will be with you alwaies unto the end of the world that is with his Church in directing her chief Officers in all their consultations relating either to the truth of her doctrine or the manner of her discipline wherefore if it should be granted that the Church had at any time determined amisse the Church cannot be said to have erred because you must not take the particular time for the Catholick Church because the Church is as well Catholick for time as territory except that you will make rectification an error For as in civil affairs if that we should take advantage of the Parliaments nulling former acts and thereupon conclude that we will be no more regulated by its lawes we should breed confusion in the Common-wealth for as they alter their laws upon experience of present inconveniences so the Councels change their decrees according to that further knowledge which the holy writ assures us shall encrease in the latter daies provided that this knowledge be improved by means approved of and not by every enthusiastick that shall oppose himselfe against the whole Church If I recall my own words it is no error but an avoidance of error so where the same power rectifies it selfe though some things formerly have been decreed amisse yet that cannot render the decrees of generall Councels not binding or incident to error quoad ad nos though in themselves and pro tempore they may be so As to Your Majesties objecting the errors of the holy Apostles and pen-men of the holy Ghost and Your inference thereupon viz. That truth is no where to be found but in holy Scripture under Your Majesties correction I take this to be the greatest argument against the private spirit urged by your Majesty its leading us into all truth that could possibly be found out For if such men as they indued with the holy Ghost inabled with the power of working miracles so sanctified in their callings and enlightened in their understandings could erre how can any man lesse qualified assume to himselfe a freedome from not erring by the assistance of a private spirit Lastly as to Your Majesties quotations of so many Fathers for the Scriptures easinesse and plainnesse to be understood If the Scriptures themselves doe tell us that they are hard to be understood so that the unlearned and unstable wrest them to their owne destruction 2 Peter 3. 16. and if the Scripture tells us that the Eunuch could not understand them except some man should guide him as Acts 8. 13. and if the Scripture tells us that Christs owne Disciples could not understand them untill Christ himselfe expounds them unto them as Luke 24 25. and if the Scriptures tell us how the Angel wept much because no man was able either in heaven or earth to open the Book sealed with seven seals nor to look upon it as Apoc. 5. 1. then certainly all these sayings of theirs are either to be set to the errata's that are behind their books or else we must look out some other meaning of their words then what Your Majesty hath inferr'd from thence as thus they were easie id est in aliquibus but not in omnibus locis or thus they were easie as to the attainment of particular salvation but not as to the generall cognisance of all the divine mystery therein contained requisite for the Churches understanding and by her alone and her consultations and discusments guided by an extraordinary and promised assistance onely to be found out of which as to every ordinary man this knowledge is not necessary so hereof he is not capable First we hold the reall presence you deny it we say his body is there you say there is nothing but bare bread we have Scripture for it Mat. 20. 26. Take eat this is my body so Luke 22. 19. This is my body which is given for you You say that the bread which we must eat in the Sacrament is but dead bread Christ saith that that bread is living bread you say how can this man give us his flesh to eat we say that that was the objection of Jews and Infidels 1 John 6. 25. not of Christians and believers you say it was spoken figuratively we say it was spoken really re vera or as we translate it indeed John 6. 55. But as the Jews did so doe ye First murmur that Christ should be bread John 6. 41. Secondly that that bread should be flesh Iohn 6. 52. And thirdly that that flesh should be meat indeed John 6. 55. untill at last you cry out with the unbelievers this is a hard saying who can heare it Iohn 6. 60. had this been but a figure certainly Christ would have removed the doubt when he saw them so offended at the reality John 6. 61. He would not have confirmed his saying in terminis with promise of a greater wonder John 6. 62. you may as well deny his incarnation his ascention and ask how could the man come down from heaven and goe up againe if incomprehensibility should be sufficient to occasion such scruples in your breasts and that which is worse then naught you have made our Saviours conclusion an argument against the premises for where our Saviour tels them thus to argue according unto flesh and bloud in these words the flesh profiteth nothing and that if they will be enlivened in their understanding they must have faith to believe it in these words it is the Spirit that quickneth
acknowledgment The Fathers are on our side Orig. Hom. 2. in Levit. S. Chrys lib. 3. de Sacerd. S. Aug. in speculo Ser. 215. de temp Vener Bed in 6. Marke and S. James and many others Thus most Sacred SIR we have no reason to wave the Scriptures umpirage so that you will hear it speak in the mother language and not produce it as a witnesse on your side when the producers tell us nothing but their owne meaning in a language unknowne to all the former ages and then tell us that she saith so and they will have it so because he that hath a Bible and a sword shall carry away the meaning from him that hath a Bible and ne're a sword nor is it more blasphemy to say that the Scripture is the Churches off spring because it is the word of God then it is for me to say I am the sonne of such a man because God made me instrumentally I am so and so was shee for as saith Saint Aug Evangelio non crederum nisi me Ecclesiae anthoritas commoveret I should not believe the Gospel it selfe unlesse I were moved by the authority of the Church There was a Church before there was a Scripture take which Testament you please We grant you that the Scripture is the Originall of all light yet we see light before we see the Sun and we know there was a light when there was no Sun the one is but the body of the other We grant you the Scriptures to be the Celestiall globe but we must not grant you that every one knows how to use it or that it is necessary or possible they should We grant that the Scripture is a light to our feet and a lanthorne to our paths then you must grant me that it is requisite that we have a guide or else we may lose our way in the light as well as in the darke We grant you that it is the food of our souls yet there must be some body that must divide or break the bread We grant you that it is the onely antidote against the infection of the Devil yet it is not every ones profession to be a compounder of the ingredients We grant your Majesty the Scripture to be the only sword and buckler to defend a Church from her Ghostly enemies yet I hope you will not have the glorious company of the Apostles and the goodly fellow ship of the Prophets to exclude the noble Army of Martyrs and the holy Church which through all the world doth acknowledge Christ wherefore having shewne Your Majestie how much the Scriptures are ours I shall now consider your opinions apart from us and see how they are yours and who sides with You in Your opinion besides Your selves and first I shall crave the boldnesse to begin with the Protestants of the Church of England The Church of England WHose Religion as it is in opposition to ours consists altogether in denying for what she affirms we affirme the same as the Reall presence the infallibility visibility universality and unity of the Church confession and remission of sins free-will and possibility of keeping the Commandments c. All these things you deny and you may as well deny the blessed Trinity for we have no such word in Scripture onely inference then that which ye have already denyed and for which we have plaine Scripture Fathers Councels practise of the Church that which ye hold positive in your Discipline is more erroneous then that which is negative in your Doctrine as your maintaining a woman to be head Supreame or Moderatrix in the Church who by the Apostles rule is not to speak in the Church or that a Lay-man may be so what Scripture or Fathers or custome have ye for this or that a Lay-man as your Lay-Chancellour should excommunicate and deliver up soules to Sathan Whereas matters of so weighty concernment as delivering of mens soules into the Devils hands should not be executed and upon mature deliberation and immergent occasions and not by any but those who have the undoubted Authority lest otherwise you make the Authority it selfe to be doubted of A strange Religion whose Ministers are denyed the power of remitting sins whilst Lay-men are admitted to the power of retaining them and that upon every ordinary occasion as non-payment of fees and the like Whereas such practises as these have rendred the rod of Aaron no more formidable then a reed shaken with the wind so that you have brought it to this that whilst such men as these were permitted to excommunicate for a threepeny matter the people made not a three-peny matter of their Excommunication The Church of Saxony NOw for the Church of Saxony you shall find Luther a man not only obtruding new Doctrine upon his Disciples without Scripture or contrary to Scripture but also Doctrine denying Scripture to be Scripture and vilipending those books of Scripture which were received into the Canon and acknowledged to be the word of God in all ages As The book of Eccles saying That it hath never a perfect sentence in it and that the Author thereof had neither boots nor spurs but rid upon a long stick or begging shooes as he did when he was a Fryar And the book of Job that the argument thereof is a meer fiction invented onely for the setting downe of a true and lively example of patience That it is a false opinion and to be abolished that there are four Gospels and that the Gospel of S. John is only true That the Epistle of S. James is contentious swelling dry strawy and unworthy an Apostolical spirit And that Moses in his writings shewes unpleasant stopped and angry lips in which the word of grace is not but of wrath death and sin He calls him a Goaler Executioner and a cruell Serjeant For his doctrine He holds a threefold Divinity or three kinds as there are three persons whereupon Zwinglius taxes him for maning three Gods or three Natures in the Divinity He himselfe is angry with the word Trinity calling it a humane invention and a thing that soundeth very coldly He justifies the Arrians and saith they did very well in expelling the word Homousion being a word that his soule hated He affirmed that Christ was from all eternity even according to his humane nature taxed for it by Zwing in these words how can Christ then be said to be borne of a woman He affirmes that as Christ dyed with great pain so he seeems to have sustained pains in Hell after death That the divinity of Christ suffered or else he were none of his Christ That if the humane nature should only suffer for him that Christ were but a Saviour of a vile account and had need himselfe of another Saviour Luther held not onely consubstantiation but also saith Hospinian that the body and bloud of Christ both is and may be found according
filthily more uncivilly more lewdly and beyond all bounds of Christian modesty then did Luther No marvel that he is so taxed for his obscenity in his Henzius Anglicus against King Hen. the eight for his beastlinesse in his Hans worst against the Jewes for his filthy mentioning of Hogs for his stincking repetition of turds and dunghils in his Schemhamphorise But if you will hear of his Master-piece you mast read the Book which he writ against the Pope where he asks him out of what mouth O Pope dost thou speak is it out of that from whence thy farts doe burst If it come thence keep it to thy selfe if it comes from that wherein thou powrest thy Corisca wine let the Dog fill that with his excrements good Asse doe not kick kick not my little Pope O my dear Asse doe not so fie how this little Pope hath bewrayed himselfe Is this the way to win to his side or to gaine souls to Christ or to reforme Churches or to confute heresies It is observed that Saint Paul in his Epistles repeated the sacred name of Jesus 500 times and it is the observation of the learned Tygurin Divines that so many times Luther hath used the name of Devill in his Bookes and it is no marvaile that they burst out into this admiration How wonderfull is Luther here with his Devils what impure words he useth with how many Devils doth he burst Nor marvail that Zwinglius saith to him we fill not our Books with so many Devils nor doe we bring so many armies of Devils against thee If you can expect to gather figgs from thorns or grapes from thistles then ye may expect words from a sanctified spirit to proceed from such a mouth else not What should I say more Melancthon tells us that Carolostadius was a barbarous fellow without wit without learning without common sense in whom was no signe of the holy Ghost but manifest tokens of impiety Lastly Hutterus Beza's owne fellow Protestant thus saies of him and casts this dirt in his face which is so shamelesse a testimony that you must give me leave to throw a latine vail over it viz. Beza in fine libri de absentia corporis Christi in coena scribit Candidae sive Amascae suae culum imo partem diversam magis adhuc pudendam mundiora esse quam illorum ora qui simpliciter verbis Christi inherentes credant se praesens Christi Corpus in coena sacra ore suo accipere And another Beza by his most filthy manners was a disgrace to honest Discipline who in sacrilegious verse published to the world his detestable loves his unlawfull carnall acts whoredoms and fowl adulteries not content that himselfe onely should like a hog wallow in the durt of wicked lusts but he must also pollute the ears of studious youth with his filth I could inlarge my Paper to a volume of like instances in others but these are the prime reformers of the Protestant Churches and how the people edified under their Doctrine these Narratives from their owne mouths shall tell you When we were seduced by the Pope saith Luther every man did willingly follow good works and now every man neither saith nor knoweth any thing but how to get all to himselfe by exactions pillage theft lying usury Certainly to speak the truth there is many times found Conscionable and plainer dealing amongst most Papists then among many Protestants And if we look narrowly to the ages past we shall find more godlinesse devotion and zeal though blind more love one toward another more fidelity and faithfulnesse every way in them then is now to be found in us If any man be desirous to see a great rabble of knaves of persons turbulent deceitfull Cosoners Usureis let him goe to any City where the Gospel is purely preached and he shall find them there by multitudes For it is more manifest then the day light that there were never among the Ethnicks Turks or infidels more unbridled and unruly persons with whom all virtue and honesty is quite extinct then are amongst the Professonrs of the Gospel The children of them of the reformed Gospel grow every day worse more untractable and dare commit such crimes as men of former times were never subject to If you cast your eyes upon Protestant Doctours you shall find that some of them moved through vaine glory envious zeal and a prejudicate opinion disorder the true Doctrine disperse and earnestly defend the false some of them without cause stir up contentions and with inconsiderate spight defend them many wrest their Doctrines every way of purpose to please their Princes and the people by whose grace and favour they are maintained they overthrow with their wicked life all that they had formerly built with their true doctrine How could the people be better when their Ministers were so bad like lips like lettice I will conclude all with the learned Protestant Zanchius and then you will neither wonder at one or other I have read saith he the Latine copy of the Apology and diligently read it over not without choller when I perceived what manner of writing very many let me not say for the most part but all doe use in the Churches of the reformed Gospel who would seeme notwithstanding to be Pastors Doctors and Pillars of the Church The state of the question that it may not be understood we often of set purpose over-cloud with darknesse things which are manifest we impudently deny things false we without shame avouch things plainly impious we propose as the first principles of faith things orthodoxall we condemne of heresie Scripture at our pleasure we detort to our owne dreams we boast of Fathers when we will follow nothing lesse then their doctrine to deceive to calumniate to raile is familiar with us so as we may defend our cause good or bad by right or by wrong all other things we turne upside down Oh times Oh manners It is no marvel that M. Sutcliff saies that the Protestant writers offered great violence to the Scriptures expounding them contrary both to antient Fathers History and common reason It is no marvel that Cambden tells us that Holland is a fruitfull province of heretiques It is no marvell that Your royall Father tells us that both Hungary and Bohemia abound with infinite varieties of sects It is no marvell that he said he could never see a Bible well translated into English and that the worst of all was the Geneva whereunto were added notes untrue seditious and savouring too much of dangerous and traiterous conceits It is no marvel that He protested before the great God that you should never find among the Highland or Border-theeves greater ingratitude more lies and vile perjuries then with those phanatick spirits It is no marvel that M. Bancroft said that the Puritans of Scotland were published in a Declaration by his Majestie to
be unnaturall Subjects seditious troublesome and unquiet spirits members of Sathan enemies to the King and the Common-wealth of their owne native Country And lastly because your Church of England most followed Calvins doctrine of any of the rest I shall shew you what end he made answerable to his beginning and course of life written by two knowne and approved Protestant Authors viz. God in the rod of his fury visiting Calvin did horribly punish him before the fearfull hour of his unhappy death for he so struck this heretick with his mighty hand that being in despair and calling upon the Devill he gave up his wicked soule swearing cursing and blaspheming dying upon the disease of lyce and wormes increasing in a most loathsome ulcer about his privie parts so as none present could endure the stentch these things are objected unto Calvin in publick writing in which also horrible things are declared concerning his lasciviousnesse his sundry abominable vices and Sodomiticall lusts for which last he was by the Magistrate at Nayon under whom he lived branded on the shoulder with a hot borning iron And this is said of him by Schlusberg She which is likewise confirmed by Jo. Herennius It may be your Majestie may taxt me of bitternesse or for the discovery of nakednesse But I hope you will give me leave to look what staffe I leane upon when I am to looke down upon so great and terrible a precipice as Hell and to consider the rottennesse of the severall rounds of that ladder which is proposed to me for my ascent unto heaven and to forewarne others of the dangers I espie their owne words can be none of my railing nor their owne accusations my errour except it be a fault to take notice of what is published and make use of what I see Ex ore tuo was our Saviours rule and shall be mine There hath not been used one Catholick Author throughout the accusation and I take it to be the providenee of God that they should be thus infatuated as to accuse one another that good men may take heed how they rely upon such mens Judgements in order to their eternall Salvation As to Your Majesties Objection that we of the Church of Rome fell away from our selves and that you did not fall away from us as also to the common saying of all Protestants bidding us to returne to our selves and they will returne to us we accept of their offer we will doe so that is to say we will hold our selves to the same Doctrine which the Church of Rome held before she converted this Nation to Christianity and then they cannot say we fell away from them or from our selves whilst we maintaine the same Doctrine we held before you were of us that is to say whilst we maintain'd the same Doctrine that we maintained during the four first Councels acknowledged by most Protestants and during Saint August time concerning whom Luther himself acknowledged That after the sacred Scriptures there is no Doctor of the Church to be compared thereby excluding himself and all his associates from being preferr'd before him concerning whom Master Field of the Church writes that Saint Aug. was the greatest Father since the Apostles Concerning whom Covel writes that he did shine in learning above all that ever did or will appear Concerning whom Jewell appeals as to a true and Orthodox Doctor Concerning whom Mr. Forrester Non. Tessagraph calls him the Fathers Monarch And Concerning whom Gomer acknowledges his opinion to be most pure Concerning whom Master Whitaker doubts not but that he was a Protestant And lastly concerning whom your royall Father seemed to appeal when he objected unto Card. Peron That the face and exteriour form of the Church was changed since his time and far different to what it was in his dayes wherefore we will take a view of what it was then and see whether we lose or keep our ground and whether it be the same which you acknowledged then to be so firm Our Church believed then a true and reall presence and the orall manducation of the body of Christ in the Sacrament as the prince of the Sacramentarians acknowledged in these words from the time of S. Augustin which was for the space of twelve hundred yeares the opinion of corporall flesh had already got the mastery And in this quality she adored the Eucarist with outward gestures and adoration as the true and proper body of Christ Then the Church believed the body of Christ to be in the Sacrament even besides the time that it was in use And for this cause kept it after Consecration for Domesticall Communions to give to the sick to carry upon the Sea to send into far Provinces Then she believed that Communion under both kinds was not necessary for the sufficiency of participation but that all the body and all the bloud was taken in either kind And for this cause in Domesticall Communions in Communions for children for sick persons by Sea and at the hour of death it was distributed under one kind onely Then the Church believed that the Eucharist was a true full and intire sacrifice not onely Eucharisticall but propitiatory and offered it as well for the living as the dead The faithfull and devout people of the Church then made pilgrimages to the bodies of the Martyrs pray'd to the Martyrs to pray to God for them Celebrated their Feasts reverenced their Reliques in all honourable forms And when they had received help from God by the intercession of the said Martyrs they hung up in the Temples and upon the Altars erected to their memory images of those parts of their bodies that had been healed The Church then held the Apostolicall traditions to be equall to the Apostolicall writings and held for Apostolicall traditions all that the Church of Rome now embraceth under that Title She then offered prayers for the dead both publick and private to the end to procure for them ease and rest And held this custome as a thing necessary for the refreshment of their souls The Church then held the fast of the forty dayes of Lent for a custome not free but necessary and of Apostolicall tradition And out of the time of Pentecost fasted all the Frydayes in the year in memory of the death of Christ except Christmay-Day fell on a Fryday which she then excepted as an Apostolicall tradition The Church then held marriage after the vow of Virginity to be a sin and reputed those who married together after their vowes not onely for adulterers but also for incestuous persons The Church held then mingling of water with wine in the sacrifice of the Eucharist for a thing necessary and of Divine and Apostolicall tradition She held then exorcismes exsufflations and renunciations which are made in Batisme for sacred
make to themselves posies of the weedings of that Garden into which Christ himself came down upon which both the north and south-winds do blow in which is a well of living waters and streams from Lebanon about which is an enclosure of brotherly affection Will you forsake the Rose of Sharon and the Lillie of the Vallies for such a Nose-gay For I shall make it apparent unto your Majesty that the Doctrines which Protestants now hold as in opposition unto us were but so many condemned heresies by the Antient and Orthodoxall Fathers of the Church and never opposed by any of them As for example Protestants hold that the Church may Erre this they had from the Donatists for which they were frequently reproved by St. Augustin Protestants deny unwritten traditions and urge Scripture onely This they had from the Arrians who were condemned for it by St. Epiphanius and S. Augustin both Protestants teach that Priests may Marry this they had from Vigilantius who is condemned for it by St. Hieronimus Protestants deny prayer for the dead this they had from Arrius for which he is condemned by Saint August and Epiphanius both Protestants deny Invocation of Saints this they had from Vigilantius for which he was condemned by Saint Hieron Protestants deny Reverence to Images this they had from Xenias for which he is reproved by Nicephorus Protestants deny the reall Presence this they had from the Carpenaites who were saith Saint Augustin the first Hereticks that denied the reall Presence and that Judas was the first Suborner and Maintainer of this heresie Protestants deny Confession of sins to a Priest so did the Novatian Hereticks and the Montanists for which they are reproved by Saint Ambrose and Saint Hieron Protestants say that they are justified by Faith onely this they had from the pseudo-Apostles for which they are comdemned by St. Augustin Lastly as I have shewed Your Majesty that Your Church as it stands in opposition to ours is but a congeries of so many heresies to which I could easily make an enlargement but that I fear I have been too tedious already So I shall make it appeare that our Church as she stands in opposition unto yours is true and right even your selves being witnesses and you shall find our Doctrine among your owne Doctors First the Greek Church whom you court to your side as indeed they are Protestants according to your vulgar reception being you call all those Protestants who are or were in any Opposition to the Church of Rome though in their Tenents otherwise they never so much doe disagree For the Greek Church with which you so often hit us in the teeth and take to be of your faction she holds Invocation of Saints Adoration of Images Transubstantiation Cōmunion in one kind for the sick and many others Master Parker confesseth that Luther crossed himselfe morning and evening and is never seene to be painted praying but before a Crucifix As touching the Invocation of Saints saith Luther I think with the whole Christian Church and hold that Saints are to be honoured by us and invocated I never denyed Purgatory saith Luther and yet I believe it as I have often written and confessed If it is lawfull saith Luther for the Jews to have the picture of Caesar upon their Coins much more is it lawfull for Christians to have in their Churches Crosses and Images of Mary and lastly he maintained the reall Presence But let us goe a little further and consider what they held whom ye call your Predecessours under whom ye shrowd your Visibility and on whom you look beyond Luther for your Doctrines Patronage viz. First upon the Hussites who brake forth about the year 1400. they held seven Sacraments Transubstantiation the Popes primacy and the Masse as Fox in his acts and monuments acknowledgeth Let us goe further and consider Wickliffe our owne Countrey-man who appeared about the year 1370. he maintained holy water worship of Reliques and Images Intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary the rites and Ceremonies of the Masse all the seven Sacraments Moreover he held Opinions contrary and condemned both by Catholick and Protestants as that if a Bishop or Priest be in any mortal sin his Ordaining Consecrating or Baptizing is of no effect He condemned lawfull Oaths with the Anabaptists Lastly he maintained that any Ecclesiasticall Ministers were not to have any temporall possessions This last Opinion was such savory Doctrine that rather then some of those times would not hearken to that they would listen to all as the greedy appetites to Bishops Lands make some now adayes to hearken unto any thing that Cryers downe of Bishops shall foment To goe further yet to the Waldenses descended from the race of one Waldo a Merchant of Lions who brake out about the year 1220. These men held the reall Presence for which they were reproved by Calvin These men extolled the merit of voluntary poverty they held Transubstantiation and many other opinions which most Protestants no way allow And lastly I shall run your pedegree to the radix and utmost Derivation that the best read Herauld in the Protestant Genealogy can run its linc and that is to the Waldenses and to Berengarius who broacht his heresie in the year 1048. and he held all the points of Doctrine that we held onely he differed from us in the point of Transubstantiation And for this cause they took him into the name and number of Protestants and Reformers notwithstanding he presently afterwards recanted and died a Catholick So it ends where it never had beginning Finally if neither prescription of 1600 years possession and continuance of our Churches Doctrine nor our evidence out of the word of God nor the Fathers witnessings to that evidence nor the Decrees of Councels nor your owne acknowledgments be sufficient to mollifie and turne your royall heart there is no more means left for truth or me but I must leave it to God in whose hand are the hearts of Kings AN ANSWER TO THE Marquesse of WORCESTER His Reply to the KINGS Paper YOur MAJESTY is pleased to wave all the Markes of the true Church and to make recourse unto the Scriptures Ans 1. His MAJESTY did not wave all the Markes of the true Church assigned by the Marquesse but shewed them to be such as may without distinction and further explication belong to a false Church From Ier. 44. 16. His MAJESTY shewed that Antiquity Succession and Universality was alledged in defence of Idolatry That Demetrius Acts 19. alledged Antiquity and Universality for the worship of Diana and that Symmachus alledged Antiquity as a plea for all heathenish Idolatry and Superstition page 47. That Ezechiel bids Be not stiff-necked as your fore-fathers were page Ibid. These words the place being not cited I confesse I cannot
those times saith that mountains and woods and lakes and Prisons and deep pits were more safe then Churches and publick places of Gods worship these being all possessed by the Arrians and the true beleeving Christians having onely the other to lurke and lie hid in How visible also was the Church like to be when that should be fulfilled which is written Revel 13. 15 16 17. that as many as would not worship the Beast should be killed And that all both great and small should be forced to receive a marke in their right hand or in their foreheads And that none should buy or sell save he that had the marke or the name of the Beast or the number of his name Bellarmine himselfe saith It is certaine that the persecution by Antichrist shall be most grievous and most notorious so that all publick ceremonies of Religion and Sacrifices shall cease And againe that in the time of Antichrist the publike service of the Church shall cease through the grievousnesse of persecution and that Antichrist shall interdict all divine worship c. 4. For Succession of Pastours which the Marquesse saith is required in a true Church and is onely to be found in the Church of Rome We must distinguish of Succession There is a succession of Persons and a succession of Doctrine the former succession without the latter is to no purpose The Priests that condemned Christ had a personal succession but that was worth nothing they wanting doctrinall succession They did personally succeed those that were before them and they others and so on till they came to Aaron but they could not shew the like succession of their doctrine So neither can they of the Church of Rome shew that they hold the same faith which was delivered by the Apostles and therefore though they can shew that their Popes doe personally succeed one another from the very times of the Apostles it availes nothing Bellarmine though he struggle a little about it yet cannot deny but that a succession of persons is to be found is the Greek Church and therefore grants that it doth not necessarily follow that where such succession is there is also a true Church Yea he saith that all those Patriarchall Churches had for a long time Bishops that were manifest Heretiques and that therefore the succession of ancient Pastours was interrupted What is this else but to confesse that a succession of Pastours without a succession of the true doctrine is no mark of a true Church The ancient Doctors of the Church t is true have sometimes used this argument drawne from succession to convince Heretiques but so as to shew that a succession of doctrine did concur with a succession of persons Yea they plainly shew that it was succession of doctrine which they did stand upon and that without this they made no account of the other We must adhere unto those saith Ireneus who keep the doctrine of the Apostles This succession of doctrine he calls the principall succession So Ambrose They doe not succeed Peter who have not the faith of Peter And Tertullian speaking of Heretiques saith Their doctrine being compared with the Apostles doctrine shewes that it was not received from the Apostles nor from any Apostolicall teachers And speaking of Churches planted since the Apostles times he saith That they agreeing in the same faith are neverthelesse accounted Apostolicall for the consanguinity of doctrine 5. For Unity in doctrine by which the Marquesse proves the Roman Church to be the true Church I answer that Unity without Verity will not prove it and the one is not alwayes necessarily accompanyed with the other The words of the Prophets declare good unto the King with one mouth said the messenger to Micaiah 1 King 22. 13. They were about foure hundred Prophets ver 6. and all of them did agree in one yet they prophecyed falsly for all that there was a lying spirit in the mouth of all those Prophets how unanimous soever they were ver 22. Neither is there such unity in the Church of Rome as is pretended The difference betwixt the Dominicans and the Jesuits about Gods decrees the concurrence of his grace and the determination of mans will this difference I say betwixt them is as great and as important as any I think that is amongst Protestants Neither doth it suffice to say as the Marquesse doth that the Church hath not determined any thing in these points and therefore such difference about them is not against the Churches unity For if the Popes authority be so great and his judgement so infallible as they pretend why hath he not decided the controversie and so put an end to the difference long ere this Besides which the Marquesse took no notice of they of the Romane Church differ much about the very head of it the Pope himselfe For some will have him to be above a generall councell others hold the councell to be above the Pope and this also was the determination both of the councell of Constance and of the councell of Basill Finally I grant that unity in the truth is much to be desired and so much the places cited by the Marquesse doe prove viz. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Eph. 4. 3. Acts 2. 42. Phil. 1. 27. 2. 2. yet we see that the Apostle doth acknowledge the Church of Corinth a true Church notwithstanding the differences and divisions that were in it so that all dis-union of people is not enough to dischurch them Neither if the confessions of the reformed Churches be considered as they ought to be wil the differences that are among them however particular persons be exorbitant be found so many and so great though too many and too great I grant as our adversaries of Rome would make them 6. And lastly for the conversion of Nations which the Marquesse also will have to be a marke of the true Church and thereby prove that the Church of Rome is it and not the Church of Protestants I answer that the Scriptures which hee alledgeth viz. Esay 49. 23. and 60. 16. and Psal 2. 8. doe shew indeed that in the time of the Gospell the Gentiles should be converted and joyned to the Church which the Scripture of the New Testament and experience also shewes to have been accomplished But they doe not shew either that every true Church must necessarily evidence it selfe to be a true Church by working a conversion in infidels or that every Church that doth worke any conversion in that kind must therefore be acknowledged to be a true Church The Scribes and Pharisees did make Proselytes and were very zealous in it yet neverthelesse were guilty of grosse errors which all were to beware of as most pernicious Mat. 23. 15. Besides there is a conversion as from unbeliefe to faith so from misbeliefe to a right and found faith And though Protestants have done little or nothing it may be in the former kinde of
his book against Berengarius speaks of some Copies of Ambrose his Workes wherein those words were not Ut sint quae erant that is That those things should be which were But no such Copies either Printed or Manuscript it seems did Bellarmine meet with for otherwise I doubt not he would have given us notice of them Again with the same Lanfrancus he answers that those words are thus to be understood that in respect of outward shew the things which were still are but are changed in respect of inward substance But how can a thing be said to be what it was when as there is no substance of the thing remaining but onely a shew and appearance of it In the last place Bellarmine addes of his own that Ambrose meant If Christ could make a thing of nothing why can he not make a thing of something not by annihilating the thing but by changing it into that which is better But if a thing be changed substantially into another thing how doth it remain what it was before But so the things doe that Ambrose speaks of For Bellarmines criticisme is poor in distinguishing betwixt Ut sint id quod erant That they should be that which they were and Ut sint quae erant That the things should be that were as if these words did not import that the same substances still remain as well as the other when Christ turned Water into Wine can we say that his Word was operative and powerfull Ut esset quod erat in aliud mutaretur That that should be which was and that withall it should be changed into another thing I confesse I cannot see how the thing may be said truly and properly to be which was if it be substantially changed into some other thing Ambrose there a little after saith Tu ipse eras sed eras vetus creatura posteaquam consecratus es nova creatura esse coepisti Thou thy self wast but thou wast an old creature after thou art consecrated thou beginnest to be a new creature which cannot be meant of any substantiall change in us Chap. 5. the same Ambrose if it were Ambrose for Bellarmine is not very confident that Ambrose was the Author of those Books De Sacramentis saith indeed That before it is Consecrated it is Bread but when the words of Christ are come it is the Body of Christ But that it is so the Body of Christ as to be no longer Bread he doth not affirme That he was of another mind appears by the words before alledged And so much also may be gathered from that which he saith in this same Chapter viz. He that did eat Manna dyed but whose eateth this Body shall have remission of sins and shall live for ever Which cannot be understood of a Corporall eating of Christs Body but of a Spirituall eating of it Bellarmine cites some other sayings of Ambrose out of another Work of his viz. De iis qui mysteriis initiantur but they prove no more than these already cited neither doth the Marquesse refer us to them Yea in that same work Ambrose doth sufficiently declare himselfe against Transubstantiation For there he saith It is truly the Sacrament of Christs Flesh And after Consecration the Body of Christ is signified And again It is not therefore Corporali food but Spirituall Whence also the Apostle saith of the Type of it that our Fathers did eat Spirituall meat and did drink Spirituall drink 1 Cor. 10. The last Author Remigius is onely cited by the Marquesse at large neither doe I find him cited by Bellarmine at all and therefore untill we have some particular place cited out of him it is in vain to trouble our selves about him besides that his Antiquity is not such as that his Authority should much be stood upon being 890 years after Christ as Bellarmine sheweth in his book of Ecclesiasticall Writers Secondly saith the Marquesse We hold that there is in the Church an infallible Rule for understanding of Scripture besides the Scripture it self This you deny this we have Scripture for as Rom. 12. 6. We must prophecy according to the Rule of Faith We are bid to walke according to this Rule Gal. 6. 16. We must encrease our Faith and preach the Gospell according to this Rule 2 Cor. 10. 15. This rule of Faith the Holy Scriptures call a forme of Doctrine Rom. 6. 17. a thing made ready to our hands 2 Cor. 10. 16. that we may not measure our selves by our selves 2 Cor. 10. 12. the depositions committed to the Churches trust 1 Tim. 6. 20. for avoiding of profane and vaine bablings and oppositions of sciences And by this rule of faith is not meant the Holy Scriptures for that cannot doe it as the Apostle tells us whilst there are unstable men who wrest this way and that way to their own destruction but it is the tradition of the Church as it is delivered from hand to hand as most plainly appears 2 Tim. 2. 2. The things which thou hast heard of us not received in writing from me or others among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithfull men who shall be able to teach it to others also That there is any infallible Rule for understanding of Scripture or any other rule of Faith besides the Scripture we do deny and that by authority of the Scripture it self To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this Word it is because they have no light in them Isai 8. 20. Search the Scriptures for in them yee thinke to have eternall life and they are they that testifie of mee Joh. 5. 39. These were more noble then they of Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readinesse of minde and searched the Scriptures whether those things were so Acts 17. 11. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproofe for correction for instruction in righteousnesse That the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good workes 2 Tim. 3. 16. 17. Neither doe those places alledged by the Marquesse make for the contrary We must prophesie according to the rule of Faith saith the Apostle Rom. 12. 6. as the Marquesse hath it following therein the Rhemists translation as also their comment upon the place But the word in the originall signifies rather proportion then rule And I see not but that by the proportion of saith may be understood the measure of saith which is spoken of vers 3. But be it granted that proportion of faith is as much as rule of faith where doth the Apostle say that this rule of faith is any other then the Scripture it selfe The places before cited shew that we are referred to the Scripture as the rule whereby all doctrines are to be tried but no where doe I finde that wee are referred to any unwritten tradition Sure I am our Adversaries can evince no such thing from
Tertullian and so of Vincentius Tertullians words as he cites them are these wee doe not admit our adversaries to dispute out of Scripture till they can shew who their ancestors were and from whom they received the Scriptures For the ordinary course of Doctrine requires that the first question should be from whom and by whom and to whom the forme of Christian Religion was delivered otherwise prescribing against him as a stranger These words I cannot finde nor any like unto them in the place cited viz. de Praescrip cap. 11. elsewhere indeed in that booke I finde words like unto these though not the same However if wee should be tried by these words I see not how they will conclude against us For though the Heretickes with whom Tertullian had to doe might be convinced otherwise then by Scripture it followes not that therefore this is not the ordinary way whereby to convince Hereticks Thus Christ convinced the Sadduces that denied the Resurrection Mat. 22. 29. c. thus Apollos convinced the Jewes who denied Jesus to be the Christ Acts 18. 28. And thus the Apostles convinced those that urged Circumcision and the observing of the Jewish Law Acts 15. 15. c. And thus both other Fathers and even Tertullian himselfe doth usually dispute against Heretickes and confute them by the Scriptures But saith the Marquesse If a Heathen should come by the Bible as the Eunuch came by the prophecy of Esay and have no Philip to interpret it unto him hee would find out a Religion rather according to his own fancy then Divine verity Be it so yet here is nothing to prove that this Philip that is to interpret the Bible is not to fetch his interpretation from the Bible it selfe but from some unwritten tradition I come to Vincentius Lirinensis whose words produced by the Marquesse run thus It is very needfull in regard of so many errors proceeding from mis-interpretations of Scriptures that the line of propheticall and Apostolicall exposition should be directed according to the rule of the Ecclesiasticall and Catholike sense But I see not that in the opinion of Vincentius the rule of the Ecclesiasticall and Catholike sense is any other then the Scripture He insists much I am sure upon those words of the Apostle If wee or an Angell from heaven preach any other Gospell unto you then that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. Now as was noted before out of Irenaeus the Gospell which the Apostles preached they delivered unto us in the Scriptures and that is the foundation and pillar of our Faith Indeed all that Vincentius in his Commonitory against Heresies aimes at is this That the Faith once delivered to the Saints as Saint Iude speaks might be preserved To which end he descants well upon those words of the Apostle O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust 1 Tim. 6. 20. That which is committed to thee not that which is invented by thee that which thou hast received not that which thou hast devised a matter nōt of wit but of doctrine not of private usurpation but of publick tradition a thing brought unto thee not brought forth by thee in which thou art not to be an author but a keeper not an ordainer but an observer not a leader but a follower That this Depositum or thing committed to Timothy was any unwritten Tradition and not the doctrine of the Gospell contained in the Scripture neither doth Vincentius say neither can it be proved Bellarmine himself is forced to confesse That all things necessary for all are written by the Apostles Yea and that those things which have the testimony of Tradition he means unwritten tradition received in the whole Church are not usually such as concern most obscure questions And how then should such Tradition be the Rule of Faith and of Expounding the Scriptures The Marquesse saith that in matters of Faith Christ bids us to observe and doe whatsoever they bid us who sit in Moses Seat Mat. 23. 2 3. whence he infers Therefore surely there is something more to be observed then onely Scripture Will you not as well believe what you hear Christ say as what you hear his Ministers write You hear Christ when you hear them as well as you read Christ when you read his Word He that heareth you heareth me Luk. 10. 16. Thus the Marquesse but it was from our Saviours meaning that the people should doe simply and absolutely whatsoever the Scribes and Pharisees who sate in Moses Seat should enjoyn Our Saviour meant nothing lesse for expresly he bade beware of the leaven of the Pharisees Mat. 16. 6. that is of the Doctrine of the Pharisees v. 12. Our Saviours meaning therefore was only this that whiles the Scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses Seat did deliver the Law and Doctrine of Moses people should hear and obey though otherwise they were most corrupt both in life Doctrine The Jesuite Maldonate doth thus expound the place as indeed it cannot with any probability be otherwise expounded When Christ saith he bids observe and doe what the Scribes and Pharisees say whiles they sit in Moses seat he speaks not of their Doctrine but of the Doctrine of the Law and of Moses For it is as if he should say All things that the Law and Moses shall say unto you the Scribes and Pharisees rehearsing it observe and do but after their workes doe not It 's true Christ doth tells us that they that hear his Ministers hear him but that is when they speak as his Ministers when they speak his Word not their owne As God said to the Prophet Ezekiel Thou shalt speak my Words unto them Ezek. 2. 7. And to the Prophet Ieremy Speak unto them all that I command thee Ier. 1. 17. And so Christ to his Apostles Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you Mat. 28. 20. So then we hear Christ indeed when we hear his Word spoken by his Ministers as well as we read Christ when we read his Word written in the Scriptures But that which we hear must be tried by that which we read that which is spoken by Ministers by that which is written in the Scriptures as hath been shewed before by Isai 8. 20. Ioh. 5. 39. Act. 17. 11. We say saith the Marquesse the Scriptures are not easie to be understood you say they are we have Scripture for it as is before manifested at large The Fathers say as much c. We doe not say that the Scriptures throughout in every part of them are easie to be understood but that they are so in things necessary unto Salvation This hath been shewed before by the testimony both of the Scripture it self and of Austine as likewise that the places of Scripture objected by the Marquesse doe make nothing against the easinesse of the Scripture either at all or at least in this sense Neither are the
ascribing so much to the Church when as 't is well known contrary to what the Bishop of Rome and the Church generally did hold he held the re-baptizing of such as had been baptized by Heretikes Though Cyprian in this did erre yet his very erring in this shewes that hee thought the Church the generality of the visible Church not onely subject to error but indeed to have erred The last Father whom the Marquesse here mentioneth for though hee say cum multis aliis yet hee nameth no more is Irenaeus l. 3. c. 4. where he saith It is not meet to seeke the truth among others which it is easie to take of the Church seeing the Apostles did lay in it as in a rich depository all things that concerne truth that every one that will may out of it receive the drinke of life This indeed is gloriously spoken of the Church and not Hyperbolically neither yet doth it not amount to this that the Church cannot erre The holy Scriptures wherein all saving truth is contained are committed to the Church and the Doctine of salvation is ordinarily held forth in and by the Church but hence it doth not follow that the Church that is such as beare sway in it is not subject to error All that Irenaeus saith of the Church is no more if so much as that of the Apostle 1 Tim. 3. 15. that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth which place it may seeme strange that the Marquesse pretermitteth Bellarmine disputing this point brings in those words in the very first place to prove that the Church cannot erre And whereas Calvin answers that the Church is so styled by the Apostle because in it the Scriptures are preserved and preached he replies that thus the Church should rather be compared to a Chest then to a Pillar But this is a frivolous objection for the Church doth not keepe the truth close and secret as a thing is kept in a chest but so as to professe and publish it and therefore is compared to a Pillar to which a thing is fastned and so hangeth that all may see it But that those words of the Apostle do not infer an infallibility of the Church and an exemption from errour is cleare by this that he speakes of a particular visible Church namely the Church of Ephesus now that a particular visible Church may erre our Adversaries will not deny and that very Church of Ephesus there spoken of doth sufficiently demonstrate The Apostle therefore in those words doth rather shew the duty of the Church then the dignity of it rather what it should be then what it alwayes is As when it is said Mal. 2. 7. Labia sacerdotis custodient scientiam The Priests lips shall keep knowledge that is as our translations rightly render it should keepe So the Jesuite Ribera doth expound it shall keepe that is saith he ought to keep The Marquesse here comes againe to the visibility of the Church and some other particulars before handled That the Church is alwayes visible he proves by Mat. 5. 14 15. The light of the World a City upon a Hill cannot be hid But I have shewed before these words Yee are the light of the world to be meant of the Apostles who as their own Iansenius expounds it were a light unto the World by their preaching So also Theophylact They did not enlighten saith hee one Nation but the whole world And the words following A City set upon a Hill cannot be hid he shewes to have been spoken by way of instruction Christ saith hee doth instruct them to be carefull and accurate in the ordering of their life as being to be seene of all As if hee should say Doe not thinke that you shall lie hid in a corner no you shall be conspicuous And therefore see that yee live unblameably that so you may not give offence to others This exposition sutes well with the admonition given vers 16. Let your light so shine forth before men that they seeing your good workes may glorifie your Father which is in Heaven The Marquesse here further addes 2 Cor. 4. 3. Isai 22. I suppose it should be Isai 2. 2. Now the former of these two places is not to the purpose viz. to prove a perpetuall visibility of the Church For how can that be inferred from those words of the Apostle If our Gospell be hid it is hid to them that are lost The Apostle having said vers 2. by manifestation of the truth commending our selves to every mans conscience in the sight of God because as Oecumenius notes it might be objected that the truth was not made manifest unto all for that all did not believe to prevent this Objection the Apostle addes If our Gospell be hid c. As if hee should say It is not our fault as if the Gospell were not plainly enough preached by us but it is their own fault who perish through their owne blindnesse That Isai 2. 2. is more to the purpose though not enough neither It is said that in the last dayes the Mountaine of the Lords House shall be established in the top of the Mountaines and shall be exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it The Prophet there sheweth by metaphoricall expressions taken from Mount Sion where the Temple stood that by the preaching of the Gospell the Church should be increased and exalted farre above what it was before This prophesie was fulfilled by the bringing in of the Gentiles but the Prophet doth not say that in the times of the Gospell the Church should alwayes be so conspicuous and visible Neither doe the Fathers here alledged by the Marquesse viz. Origen Chrysostome Austine and Cyprian speake of the perpetuall condition of the Church but onely as it was in their time I have proved before by Scriptures and Fathers and even by the acknowledgement of our Adversaries that the Church is not perpetually visible After the Visibility of the Church the Marquesse speaketh of the Universality of it saying that the universality of the Church is perpetuall and that the Church of Rome is such a Church For proofe hereof hee citeth Psal 2. 8. Rom. 1. 8. Now the former place shewes that Christ should have the heathen for his inheritance and the ends of the Earth for his possession and consequently that the Church should not be confined as it was in the time of the Law to one Country but should be extended farre and wide throughout the World This also hath been fulfilled and yet shall be but hence it doth not follow that the Church is alwayes so universally extended throughout the World but that sometimes errors and heresies doe so prevaile and overspread all that the truth in comparison can finde no roome See before page 2. The other place viz. Rom. 1. 8. testifies indeed that the Church of Rome was a true Church and famous throughout the World but neither doth
of Reprobation as the good merit of Election 2. To that question Is there unrighteousnesse with God he doth not answer that therefore there is not because the whole lumpe is depraved by sinne c. but he answers so as that he refers as well the Reprobation of these as the election of those unto the sole Will of God and so represses the curious inquirer O man who art thou c. 3. That comparison of a Potter of the same lumpe making one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour doth exclude the supposition of a corrupt lumpe For here verily is nothing supposed in the lumpe but that it is indifferent and may be fashioned both the one way and the other Thus this learned Papist goes as farre in the point both of Election and of Reprobation as any Protestant that I know whatsoever Neither would he have us thinke that he goes alone for hee cites many as Lombard Hugo de S. Victore Aquinas Cajetan Lyra Titleman and Pererius as being of the same opinion with him and interpreting the words of the Apostle in the same manner And this I suppose may suffice to vindicate the Doctrine of Protestants even such as goe highest in this point as touching Reprobation Now for the Scriptures objected against us the first viz. Wis 1. 13. is not Canonicall Hierome brandes that booke called the the Wisdome of Solomon as falsly intituled and saith that it is no where to be found among the Hebrewes to whom the Oracles of God were committed Rom. 3. 2. and that the style doth smell of Greeke eloquence and that some ancient writers affirme it to be the worke of Philo a Jew Therefore saith he as the Church doth read indeed the Bookes of Judith Tobie and the Maccabees but doth not receive them amongst the Canonicall Scriptures so also doth it reade these two volumes viz. Ecclesiasticus and the wisdome of Solomon for the edifying of the people but not for the confirming of Ecclesiasticall Doctrines But suppose it were Canonicall the place alledged is answered to our hand by one of the Roman Church viz. Alvarez when it is said God made not death the meaning hee saith is that God doth not primarily of it selfe intend the death of any but in respect of some other great good that is joyned with it And againe that place hee saith is expounded of death in respect of the cause to wit sinne These expositions of the place doe free the Doctrine of Protestants from suffering any prejudice by it were the authority of it greater then indeed it is The next place is that 1 Tim. 2. 4. Who will have all men to be saved c. Austine gives diverse interpretations of those words First thus that the meaning is that God will have all to be saved that are saved and that none but such as hee will save can bee saved Secondly this that by all men are meant men of all sorts how ever distinguished Kings and private persons noble and ignoble c. This hee shewes to be agreeable both to the Context and also to the phrase of Scripture Luke 11. 42. You tithe Mint and Rue and every Herbe i. e. every kinde of Herbe This latter exposition of the Apostles words Alvarez saith is also followed by Fulgentius Beda and Anselme The same Alvarez relates two other interpretations which Austine gives of these words viz. first this God will have all men to be saved that is hee makes men to will or desire that all may be saved as the Spirit is said to make intercession for us Rom. 8. 26. that is makes us to make intercession or supplication c. Estius upon the place doth embrace this Exposition before any other VVho will have all men to be saved that is saith hee He willeth and maketh godly men to desire the salvation of all Though God will not save all but onely the Elect yet he will have all to be saved to wit by us as much as in us lies in that he commands us to seek the salvation of all and this desire and indeavour he workes in us This Exposition wee embrace rather then any of the rest The other Exposition which Alvarez relates is that the Apostle speakes of Gods antecedent will Thus hee saith Austine doth expound it in diverse places and for this Exposition hee also cites Damascene Prosper Theophylaot Oecumenius Aquinas as also Chrysostome and Ambrose and saith that it is common among the Doctors Now in the next Disputation hee tels us that Gods antecedent Will is that which respects the object simply considered and by it selfe and that this will is called antecedent not because it goes before the good or ill use of our will as some thinke but because it goes before that will whereby God respects the object considered with some adjunct which is the consequent and latter consideration of it If saith hee the salvation of the Reprobate be considered simply by it selfe so God doth will it but if it be considered as it hath adjoyned the privation or want of a greater good to wit the universall good of manifesting Gods Iustice in the Reprobate and of causing his Mercy the more to shine forth in the Elect so God doth not will it And in this respect were affirmed that God by a consequent will doth not will that all shall be saved but only such as are predestinate Now take any of all these foure Explications of the Apostles words wherein hee saith that God will have all men to be saved as for my part I like best either the second or the last take any of them I say and the Apostles words are nothing against that which Protestants hold concerning Reprobation As for that of Peter that God is not willing that any should perish 2 Pet. 3. 9. Bellarmine himselfe expounds both it and the former place viz. 1 Tim. 2. 4. of that Will of God which Divines call Gods Antecedent will Now what that Antecedent will of God is we have seene even now out of Alvarez if Bellarmine did understand it otherwise as Alvarez notes that some did hee is confuted by Alvarez in the place above cited Where hee also cites Austine saying Many are not saved not because they will not but because God will not which without all controversie is manifested in young children whence he inferrs that the condition which is included in Gods Antecedent will whereby he will have all men to be saved is not this if they will and if they doe not hinder it And Bellarmine himselfe also though he say It is most true that all are not saved because they will not for if they would God would not be wanting unto them Yet immediately hee addes But none can have a will to be saved except God by preventing and preparing the will make him to will it And why God doth not make all to will this who hath knowne the mind of the Lord
those that hold this doctrine 2. In what sense we deny the Real presence and the other particulars here mentined I have shewed before as also what little cause they have to boast that either Scripture or Fathers do make for those assertions of theirs wherein we dissent from them That which the Marquesse after addeth of a Womans being head supreme or moderatrix in the Church I have likewise spoken to sufficiently before That a Lay-man should excommunicate and that upon every ordinary occasion as non-payment of Fees and the like for which the Marquesse taxeth this Church I am content that it passe among the Errata's of our Church as he was pleased to speak though without cause concerning some passages in the Fathers as I have noted before It is our Doctrine and not our Discipline that I endeavour to defend After the Church of England the Marquesse commeth to the Church of Saxony and so passeth to the Church of Geneva as he pretendeth but yet indeed he speaketh only of two particular persons relating to those Churches viz. Luther and Calvin as if whatsoever were held by them were to be imputed to those Churches to which they did relate which surely is not fair dealing much lesse that all Protestants should stand charged with all their sayings were they indeed such as the misconstruction of adversaries would make them We honour these and many more as men eminently active in that great work of reforming the Church yet do we not ascribe an infallibility unto them as the Romanists do unto their Popes We do not say of them as Bellarmine doth of the Pope that if they should command vices and forbid vertues we were bound to believe vices to be good and vertues to be evil No we know the Apostle bids us prove all things and hold fast that which is good 1 Thess 5. 21. But let us see what it is that the Marquesse doth say and first of Luther 1. He chargeth Luther as saying of the book of Ecclesiastes That it hath never a perfect sentence in it and that the Author thereof had neither boots nor spurs but rid upon a long stick or in begging shooes as he did when he was a Friar The places which the Marquesse citeth for proof of this I cannot examine they not being in Luthers Works of that Edition at least which I have liberty to peruse But therein I find that Luther doth comment upon the book of Ecclesiastes and doth speak after a far other manner of it saying that it is a Book worthy that all should be much versed in it and that all and especially Magistrates should be well acquainted with it 2. He taxeth Luther for saying of the book of Job That the argument thereof is a meer fiction invented only for the setting down of a true and lively example of patience If Luther did say thus which is more also then I can find though I am far from being of his mind for I suppose that if there had not indeed been such a man as Job in the history of him is described the Prophet Ezekiel and S. James would not have mentioned him as they do Ezek. 14. 14 20. Jam. 5. 11. Yet that most famous Doctor amongst the Jewes Moses Maimonides shewes that some were of this opinion that there never was such a man as Job and that the history of him is but a parable And this opinion himself inclines unto though I confesse his reason is of small force viz. because they that hold otherwise cannot agree about the time in which Job lived 3. Luther as is alleadged against him saith That it is a false opinion and to be abolished that there are four Gospels and that the Gospel of S. John is only true Neither can I find any such thing as this in Luther that the Gospels written by the other three Evangelists Matthew Marke and Luke are not as true as that written by John But I finde that which doth sufficiently evince the contrary viz. that Luther in the fifth volume of his Works hath Annotations upon the first seventeen Chapters of St. Matthews Gospel and that in his Notes upon the first Chapter he divers times calls both Matthew and Luke Evangelists or publishers of the Gospel 4. Luther as the Marquesse alledgeth saith of the Epistle of S. James That it is contentious swelling dry strawy and unworthy an Apostolical spirit Thus also divers other Romanists have charged Luther as Campian Duraeus Breerley and Silvester Petrasancta yet the words which they mention are not to be found in Luthers works But say the Romanists they were in them though afterward they were left out I answer Then it seems if there were any such words they were not approved Duraeus confesseth that those words are not in Luthers works set forth either at Wittemberge or at Strasburge but onely in those set forth at Jena which argues that if there were any such words they found but little approbation Mr. Breerley saith that the later Editions of Luthers works at Wittemberge were corrupted by the Zuinglians and others But surely if Luthers Works were corrupted and that in the Editions of Wittemberge it must be by others and not by the Zuinglians For is it likely that the Zuinglians who were such adversaries unto Luther that Mr. Breerly and after him the Marquesse doth frequently alledge them against Luther is it likely I say that they should corrupt Luthers Works in that kinde so as indeed to purge them from that which was amisse in them And if they would do Luther this favour yet how should they do it at Wittemberge where I suppose not the Zuinglians but the Lutherans did bear sway and would have the chief hand in setting forth Luthers Works in that place And for that first Edition of Luthers Works at Jena though it seems Luther did speak lesse honorably of St. James his Epistle as I confesse I find him to speak elsewhere in his Works yet not so basely as his adversaries of Rome do charge him Gerhard a great Lutheran saith that Luther indeed in his Preface to S. James his Epistle in the first Edition of the German Bible did say that this Epistle is not of like worth with the Epistles of Paul and Peter and that it is strawie if it be compared with those Epistles But that he no where tearms it contentious swelling dry nor yet simply but onely comparatively strawie And that after the year 1526. in no Edition of Luthers Works it is so called but the contrary rather is to be found to wit that Luther did commend this Epistle though some of the Ancients did reject it and account it good and profitable It seems then that Luther himself did retract that which hee had written concerning the Epistle of S. James his censure of it having been too bad though yet not so bad as the Romanists would make it
point at takes upon him to refell that which some others answer in the behalf of Beza but never takes notice of this which Beza hath said in his own behalf But the Marquesse returns to Luther and besides other things which he objects against him but proves only by the testimony of his adversaries or by such pieces of Luthers own Works as I have not liberty to peruse he taxeth him for giving such opprobrious termes to King Henry 8. Ans It is true K. Hen. 8. having written or at least some other in his name against Luther and his Doctrine Luther did return answer so as to shew but small respect to the person against whom he wrote But afterwards Luther in an Epistle which he wrote to the King confessed his fault humbly craving pardon and offering to write a publike recantation and to do the King honour if he should require it Indeed the King not answering Luthers expectation but instead of accepting his submission setting forth another book against him with his Epistle annexed to it and insulting over him as if he had recanted his doctrine Luther made answer to this book also yet so as to abstain from those terms of contumely and reproach which before he had used only shewing that he was firm and stedfast in his doctrine yea daily more and more confirmed in it and that no mans person how great soever he were should be of any esteem with him so as to bring him to any recantation in that respect The Marquesse having censured some of the prime Doctors of the Reformed Churches falls to censure the people as being generally averse from all honesty and godlines and to this end he all eadgeth the words of Luther and some others who complain of the vitious and corrupt wayes of those that live under the pure preaching of the Gospel and he concludes How could the people be better when their Ministers were so bad Bellarmine urging also some of these testimonies proceeds so farre in his censure as to say that though among them of the Church of Rome for that he means by the Catholike Church there be many bad yet among Protestants whom after his manner he terms Hereticks there is none good and this he saith is notorious But if both Ministers and people were bad as their adversaries pretend yet might their doctrine and profession be good for all that It was the Apostles complaint in his time All seek their own not the things that are Jesus Christs Phil. 2. 21. Yet the doctrine of Jesus Christ which they preached and professed was never a whit the worse for all this though with some it might be worse accounted of In like manner the Prophets frequently complain of the people of the Jews whose Religion neverthelesse was the only true Religion in the world See Isa 1. 4 5 6. Jer. 5. 1. 2. 9. 2. c. Ezek. 22. 2. c. and so many other places And that the Protestant doctrine is not to blame what ever the Preachers and professors of it be may appear by those very testimonies which the Marquesse and other alledge For in that as they shew Ministers tax and reprove people for being so bad it argues that the doctrine delivered unto them is good though they make no good use of it But that Protestants are so universally bad as that Bellarmine should say there is none good among them is too grosse an aspersion and wondrous impudence it is to adde that this is notorious to all that know them I will only cite the testimony of Bodinus one that never withdrew himself for any thing I finde from communion with the Church of Rome He speaking of Geneva where Calvin and Beza were Ministers of the Gospel exceedingly commends the discipline there used Then which he saith nothing could be imagined greater and more divine for the restraining of mens lusts and those vices which by humane Laws and Judgements could no way be reformed Insomuch that no whoredomes no drunkennesse no dancings no beggars no idle persons are found in that City But to proceed the Marquesse in the conclusion of all that he hath in this kinde relates horrible things of Calvin in respect both of his life and death alleadging that they are written by two knowne and approved Protestant Authors One of these Authors whose words the Marquesse alleadgeth was indeed a Protestant but a great Lutheran to wit Schlusselberg and a professed adversary unto Calvin and I presume so also was the other who the Marquesse saith did write the life of Calvin and confirme that which is said by the former to wit Herennius though I have not heard of him before Mr. Breerley so far as I finde never mentions him though he make very frequent use of Schlusselberg whose words concerning Calvin here cited by the Marquesse he all eadgeth in two several places of his Apology But however Bolsecus is the man from whom at first did proceed whatsoever any have in disgrace of Calvin either for his life or death Now this Author lived some while at Geneva where Calvin was and being opposed by him it seems for some things which he could not approve he both became Calvins bitter enemy and also turned back to Popery and was a Papist at that very time when he wrote of Calvin as is confessed by Mr. Breerley who saith that therefore he doth purposely forbear to urge his testimony in which respect also it may be the Marquesse made no mention of this Author because he would not seem in this case to alleadge any of their own Church But to what porpose is it that they forbear to cite Bolsecus when as they cite those who have nothing in this kinde but from Bolsecus He was the first and for some while the only man that did traduce Calvin as concerning his life and death And therefore Bellarmine as writing before those whom Mr. Breerley and the Marquesse mention alleadgeth only Bolsecus as relating things that concerne Calvin of this nature But if Mr. Breerley and so other Romanists could think there was just cause to except against the testimonies of Benno and others concerning Pope Hildebrand called Gregory 7. alleadging that they were his adversaries and took part with the Emperour against him though yet Benno was a Cardinal and the rest were all Romanists what candour and ingenuity is there to alleadge against Calvin the testimonies of those who did professe themselves adversaries unto him Besides that Bolsecus the first deviser of these calumnies was one of their own party For the things that are objected That concerning the manner of Calvins death appears most false by what Beza hath written of it who being with Calvin at Geneva when he dyed had more cause to know the truth then Bolsecus who was removed I think from Geneva before that time And the other particular about Calvins being stigmatized is clearly
authority of the Church as if were it not for the authority of the Church the Scripture were of no force neither could deserve any credit So the Romanists do frequently pervert those words of Austine but Austines meaning was only this that the Churches authority by way of introduction was a means to bring him to beleeve the Gospel by propounding and commending the Gospel unto him as a thing to be beleeved whereas otherwise he should not have given heed to it nor taken notice of it not as if he did finally rest in the authority of the Church and resolve his faith into it No for as I have shewed before he would have the Church it selfe sought in the Scripture and proved by it Had not the woman of Samaria told those among whom she lived of Christ they had not come to the knowledge of him much lesse to beleeve in him yet having heard Christ himselfe they did not rest in the testimony of the woman but said unto her Now we beleeve not because of thy saying for we have heard him our selves and know that this is indeed the Christ and the Saviour of the world Joh. 4. 42. So should not the Church hold out unto us the Scriptures we should not know much lesse beleeve them but at length God by his Spirit opening our understandings that we may understand the Scriptures Luke 24. 45. we come to be convinced by the Scriptures themselves that they are the Oracles of God and of divine authority Melchior Canus a learned Writer of the Church of Rome holds that the formall reason of our faith is not the authority of the Church that is that the last resolution of our faith is not into the Churches testimony And he saith that he could not dissemble their errour who hold that our faith is to be reduced thither as to the utmost cause of beleeving For the confuting of this errour he saith belongs that Ioh. 4. Now we beleeve not because of thy saying for we our selves have heard him and know c. The same authour averres that the authority of the Church is not a reason by it selfe moving to beleeve but only a cause or meanes without which we should not beleeve viz. Because as he addes the Church doth propound unto us that the Scripture is the word of God and except the Church did so propound it we should never ordinarily come to beleeve it yet we doe not therefore beleeve the Scripture to be Gods word because the Church doth say it but because God doth reveal it If the Church saith he doth make way for us to know such sacred books we must not therefore rest there but we must goe further and must relye on Gods solid truth And then he brings in that very speech of Austine and shewes what he meant by it Hereby is understood saith he what Austine meant when he said I should not beleeve the Gospell except the authority of the Church did move me And again By the Catholikes I had beleeved the Gospell For Austine had to doe with the Manichees who without dispute would have a certain Gospell of theirs beleeved and so would establish the faith of the Manichees Austine therefore askes them what they would doe if they did light upon a man who did not beleeve so much as the Gospell what kind of perswasion they would use to bring him to their opinion He affirmes that himselfe could not be otherwise brought to embrace the Gospell but that the authority of the Church did overcome him He doth not therefore teach that the faith of the Gospell is grounded upon the Churches authority but only that there is no certain way whereby either infidels or novices in the faith may have entrance to the holy books but one and the same consent of the Catholike Church This he himselfe hath sufficiently explicated in the fourth Chapter of that Epistle and in his book to Honoratus concerning the benefit of beleeving I have thus largely cited the words of this learned Romanist because no Protestant can speak more clearly and more fully to the purpose That which the Marquesse after addeth is nothing against us viz. That there was a Church before there was any Scripture that though the Scripture be a light yet we have need of some to guide us though it be the food of our soules yet there must be some to administer it unto us though it be an antidote against the infection of the devill yet it is not for every one to be a compounder of the ingredients that though it be the onely sword and buckler to defend the Church from her Ghostly enemies yet this doth not exclude the noble army of Martyrs and the holy Church which through all the world doth acknowledg Christ All this I say is nothing at all against us who do so assert the authority of the Scripture as that we doe not evacuate the Churches ministery Timothy must preach but it is the word viz. of God contained in the Scriptures which he must preach 2 Tim. 4. 2. If any man speak for the instructing of others he must speak as the Oracles of God 1 Pet. 4. 11. He must confirm that which he doth speak by the Scriptures And so on the other side they that hear must take heed how and what they hear Luke 8. 18. Mark 4. 24. They must not beleeve every Spirit but must try the Spirits whether they be of God 1 John 4. 1. They must to the Law and to the Testimony for that if any speak not according to this word it is because they have no light in them Isai 8. 20. They must search the Scriptures diligently to see whether the things delivered unto them be so or no. Acts 17. 11. OF THE CHVRCH of ENGLAND THE SECOND PART OF THE Rejoynder to the Marquess of WORCESTER'S Reply MAJESTIE' 's Answer to the said Marquesse's Plea for the ROMISH RELIGION THE Marquesse saith that he will now consider the Opinions of Protestants apart from them of the Church of Rome and begin with the Church of England The Religion of this Church he saith as it is in opposition to theirs consists wholly in denying for that what she affirms they affirm the same as the Real presence the Infallibility Visibility Universality and Unity of the Church Confession and Remission of sinnes Free-will Possibility of keeping the Commandments c. And you may as well saith he deny the blessed Trinity for we have no such word in Scripture only inference as that which you have already denied for which we have plain Scripture c. But 1. it is not altogether so that what the Church of England doth affirm the same they of the Church of Rome do affirm also For the Church of England Art 9. doth affirm alleadging the authority of the Apostle for proof thereof that Concupiscence hath of it self the nature of sinne even in the regenerate which the Romanists deny the Councel of Trent accurseth