with passion you read them ten yeares togeather In these say you I fully found out what I sought for much more then I sought for How wel you set downe the māner of your fal You hated Heresie but affected Cōtumacy against the Pope and whilest you will not leaue what you loued you are falne into that which you abhorred You would faine without losse of your religion haue remained an obstinate and stubborne Catholike but behould you haue made wracke of your faith and are become a rebellious heretike You sought for Catholike contumacy contempt of the Pope a thing not to be found but in lieu therof you haue found heretical perfidiousnes Verily that haue you found which by such an inquiry you deserued to find Lib. 3. ep 9. which al that haue sought in this same māner haue found For the beginning of Heretikes saith S. Cyprian is to take delight in themselues with a swelling pride to contemne their Superiours Hereupon they rush into schismes and prophane Altars are reared vp out of the Church Malignant feuers neere neighbours to the Pestilence when the Plague is rife alwayes turne to this mischief so neere of kinne vnto them so when Heresies abound the Contempt of the supreme Pastour a sin neerly allied to Heresie can scarcely be conteined but that at least it will empty it selfe into Heresie Let them learne by your exāple that go about to be rebellious what they are like to find at last And let this be the conclusion That very orderly you descended on the steps of the ladder of Apostasy which I set you in the beginning You grow more sinfull one day then other you still more and more fleet away from the Church and euery step you make brings you neerer to Hell The eight Degree Presumption of proper Iudgment against the Church THERE now remaines the eight and last degree in the ladder of your descent a degree and step not only neighbouring vpon heresy but also neere allied vnto it which it doth not only touch immediatly but is the very beginning and head thereof This is too much presuming of your owne learning and wit aboue the Church S. de vera Relig cap. 16. Augustine saith excellently That no errour can be in the Christian religion did not mans soule worship her selfe for God For it were impossible that a Christian should be an Heretike did he still submit himselfe and inthrall his vnderstanding to God and giue him leaue by the voyce of his Church to ouersway their wits which are blind rashe erroneous not only when they wander without diuine Scriptures through the works of Nature but thē also when within the boundes of sacred Writ they discourse according to their owne fense arbitrement Hitherto before you openly fled from vs were you fallen Antony and being in that case you did not so much tend towards Apostasy but rather were you arriued at your iourneyes end You cannot abide Subiection of vnderstanding to the obedience of Faith euery where you impugne it and at last conclude I am no child now whome being nigh threescore yeares of age euery man should perswade what he listeth without weight of reasons This your girding at the Roman Church contaynes either a grosse calumniation or a vast arrogancy For if you meane to taxe the Roman Church as though she did vse to propose to be beleeued of her children with true submission of their vnderstanding whatsoeuer a priuate man or Doctour or Prelate listeth to teach truly you hatefully charge her with that she neuer doth But if by whatsoeuer listeth any man you meane those points of doctrine which you call proper decrees of the Roman Church namely the Supremacy of Peter and his Successour the doctrine that most of all offends you If by euery one you vnderstand the witnesses authours vnto whose iudgment the Romā Church would haue her childen submit the supposed weight of their reasons If I say you meane this doctrine and intend to shew your cōtempt of the authorities that are by the Church alleadged for it refusing to submit your iudgment to them then are you come to this last step which consumates an Apostata For you know all Catholikes all Bishops through out the world and the vniuersall Church now spread through Europe and the new found Indies acknowledge the Romā Supremacy I will not presse you with the old Councells I wil not vrge you with any thing that you may or will deny Only I say that this doctrine was defined by the Tridentine Councell by the Florentine by the Lateran which Lateran for the generall concourse of all Christendome and for the number of Bishops that were in it was the greatest of all Christian councells that haue beene hitherto assembled Will you then submit your iudgment to the censure of these councells You will not The assembly of so many so great and so worthy men by you is tearmed quisque euery one ordinary fellowes Their iudgmēts you accompt no more then quod quisque libuerit you reckon them as trifles Behould now appeares the arrogancy of your speach which though you harboured in your mind yet you sought to cloake with ambiguous words 29. You say that euery man shall not make you belieue what they list being a man as you are of almost three score yeares of age you say that you haue reasons of weight that the Church shal giue you better or as good before you will beleeue her O craft of Heresy what doth not she inuent to saue her selfe she sees that if the matter come to be tried by authority she will not be able to stand nor shew her selfe in comparison with the Catholike Church that her vpstart paucity will blush to appeare before the Catholike authority which in former ages was and now is spatiously enlarged ouer the world What shift then doth Heresy make With full mouth she cryes that she hath weighty reasons on her side hoping by the promise of reasons to counterballance the Churches authority If you will not credit me that this is the tricke of heresie then heare S. Epist 56. Augustine that long ago noted and discouered this fraud Heretiks saith he perceauing that they are vtterly ouerthrowne if the authority of their Conuenticles be brought to compare with the Catholik authority they endeauour by making shew promises of reason in some sort to ouercome the most graue and grounded authority of the Church For this kind of boldnes is the common and ordinary tricke almost of all Heretikes So S. Augustine which in truth toucheth your right who go about to poise the weight of your reasōs against the authority of the Church Nor do I captiously intend to wrest your words to a sense perhaps from your own meaning as if before you will beleeue you demaund of vs weighty reasons drawne out of Philosophy naturall Knowledge I deale not so hardly with you for you meane perhaps reasons grounded on Scriptures but
verily you will misse of your purpose Theft shall be theft murder murder Schisme schisme will you nill you Antony Well but I fly say you from errors I fly from abuses I fly that I may not be partaker of her sins not haue part in her punishments O how liuely did the holy Ghost describe you long agoe The wicked sonne saith Prouerb 30 ver 12. as S. Augustine readeth that he is iust yet doth he not wash cleere his going out You say the Church swarmeth with errours is ful of abuses loaden with sinnes that you are pure iust and thereupon fly not to be partaker of the punishments due to our sinnes who haue no sinns forsooth of your owne to be punished You say you are iust but you do not proue it notwithstanding though you should in your owne cause say the very truth yet could not you therby cleere your selfe from the crime of Schisme which I will make manifest euen by your owne words In the 37. page touching S. Cyprian you write in this māner Cyprian made no doubt but that Stephen the Roman Bishop did erre very grieuously yet rather then to make a Schisme in the Church he chose to communicate not only with Pope Stephen whose beliefe and practise was contrary to his but also with others whome he iudged impure for this cause only because Pope Stephē did admit them into his Communion which example S. Augustine as he sets it before the Donatists so likewise he sets it before vs for imitation Now I will iudge you by your one euidence For why do you not imitate this example which you say is layd before you a purpose that you should imitate it If S. Cyprian could not deuide himselfe from Pope Stephen whome he most assuredly iudged to erre without being guilty of the crime of Schisme may you reuolt from Pope Paul the fifth vnder pretence that he errs and not be a Schismaticke If S. Cyprian had he forsaken Pope Stephen could not haue iustified his departure by saying put case he might truly haue sayd so I fly his errours his abuses his sinnes do you thinke that your defection frō the Roman Church can be washed cleane from the note of Apostasy by your loud exclaiming that you fly errour A protestation vaine though it were true and indeed false vttered without any proofe You go about Antony to wash a bricke you loose your labour your crime cannot be washed away without teares of repentance The second Gulfe Wandring vncertainty about Religion THE second Gulfe wherein you are drowned I call Nullity of fayth because you abandoned the Roman Church and Faith before you had made choice of any other Church or religion that should succeed in lieu thereof You seemed at your departure from vs to be a blanke ready to preceaue any Religion or faith that should be written therin so it were contrary to the Roman A deepe pit of impiety which heretikes do fall into whos property it is not to establish but to ouerthrow fayth to beate downe Christian Churches that stand not to reare vp Christian Churches amongst Pagans They ioyne friendship and communion indifferently with all Sectes sayth Tertullian nor do they regard though they be different from them in opinion Praese cap. 40. so they will concurre with them to ouerthrow the truth This want of sound and solide faith you shew Antony by many signes and tokens First by your perpetuall silence not declaring either in the title or in the body of your booke to what sect or Religiō you meane to passe from the Roman In the title you pretend to shew the reasons of your going but you tell vs neither whence nor whither you take your iourney Motion as Philosophers say receaues forme and shape of the end and marke wherein finally the same resteth which being true your going to which your title prescribes not any end nor restraynes within the compasse of any markes what may it seeme but a vast vncertaine blind and inconsiderate wandering This your omitting to set down in your title the finall marke of your iourney is the more blame-worthy because straight in the very beginning of your discourse you require that euen we Catholikes should approue your departure For how can any prudent man possibly approue your iourney before he know in what Country Church or Religion you meane to take vp your rest We that know not for what place you are bound can we know or approue your course Seing then this circumstance whither is the chiefe thing that giues light to them that are to iudge in the vndertaking of a iourney and therfore is the first thing to be declared in the very beginning of the deliberation why did not you Antony expresse it in the Title of your Booke why haue you not once thoughout your whole pamphlet tould it vs in playne and direct termes The answere is easy you tould it not because you were certaine neither of the Church nor of the Religion wherein you should make your finall abode You compare your selfe forsaking the Church of Rome with the great Patriarke Abraham who following God left his Countrey which comparison though in the mayne point it be very idle yet heerein you are not vnlike to Abraham that as he departed from his natiue soyle not knowing whither he went so you abandoned the Roman Church and Religion before you could tell what other Church or Religion you should imbrace vpon the forsaking therof 6. Secondly of this your doubtfullnesse in choice of Religion which you did but insinuate in the title you make open demonstration in your booke in the 15. pa. wherof you write Now myne eyes being more opened I might easely perceaue that the doctrines of the Churches which being very many Rome hath raysed vp to be her aduersaries which Churches though we sharply censure our Deuines maynly impugne do little or nothing at all swarue from the true primitiue doctrine of the pure Church So you write nor could you haue more disclosed the vast pit of vncertainty in your breast gaping for any doctrine so it be opposite to the Roman For let vs search into the matter I demaund of you Antony whither are you going to Churches say you that swarue very little or nothing from the true Primitiue doctrine I heare you But shew me these Churches which are they they be those Churchs which being very many Rome hath raised vp to be her aduersaries O what a deale of vncertainty and confusiō lyeth couched togeather in these words I let passe that vncertainty very little which how much or little it is no man knowes you only may determine and at your pleasure stretch or contract it I do not enquire where about in the world those Churches are to be seen which you so highly cōmend Which questiō should I propose I could pursue you from country to country and you would sweat to find such Churches in the world as you describe in your booke Churches I
do they concerne Who requires that doctrines questionable be admitted as articles of Faith before they be fully and sufficiently defined Who would haue any to be accomted Heretikes before the Church instructed by the holy Ghost hath-censured them We Catholikes hold the Primacy of the Roman Bishop as a doctrine of Faith the denyers therof who haue byn accursed in diuers generall Councells we detest as Heretikes This grieueth you so many Councells be not full because you the Pastour forsooke of the vniuersall Church haue not subscribed vnto them And in the 38. page you thunder againe without any bolt and giue vs idle prescripts Let vs say you hold different doctrines let vs be of contrary opinions till things be fully defined which are not yet fully defined but in the meane time let vs continue in vnity Do not make the schisme greater then it is Thus you idly spend pen inke and paper What doctrine do we demaund that you should beleeue which hath not byn established by the Decrees of general Coūcels Well saith Marcian the Emperour that they call in question and dare publikely dispute against that which is already iudged and rightly ordayned offer great wronge to the iudgmēt of the most Reuerend Synodes The doctrine which most you mislike to wit that the Pope is appoynted of God Head and Pastour of the whole Church the Orient and Occident hath defined in nine Generall Councells What fuller Councells can you desire Are you yet fully satisfied No but you puffe and go forward blowing still demanding fuller definitions till you come to conclude your Pamphlet with this sentence which to me seemes wholy deuoyd of any good sense Let vs driue away by the light of the truth Euangelicall without firme obstinacy the darkenes of errours and falsities 50. Secondly that you not only beate the ayre with idle words but also fight against your selfe denying in one place what in another you affirme these fiue examples of your contradictions may make manifest 51. The first contradiction In the page 8. and 9. you say that the Roman diligence in forbidding the bookes of her aduersaries did euer displease you This practise say you not to be voyd of suspition as reason doth shew so did I euer Iudge Euer Antony did you neuer dislike the reading bookes that impugne the Roman doctrine did you neuer aboue measure detest it In the 4. page to proue that you tooke not your resolution to depart from vs by reading our aduersaries bookes thus you write I Religiously call God to witnesse that I did vehemently abhorre from the reading of the bookes that the Roman diligence had forbidden Which bookes if any Prelate addicted to the Roman Court hath detested then I by reason of vayne feares conceaued against this reading in my childhood did aboue measure detest 52. The second Contradiction In the 9. page you say That you still suspected the Roman Church by reason of her forbidding of her aduersaries bookes that her doctrine was weake and not able to ouerthrow her aduersaries arguments But in the 7. page you say the contrary to wit that the proper decrees doctrines of Rome were with true captiuity of your vnderstanding wholy imprinted and rooted in your mind How were they wholy imprinted in your mind if you euer supected them if you still imbraced them not without feare staggering 53. The third Contradiction You say in the 2. and 5. page That by going from Rome you incurre great losse of wealth and dignity And in the 25. page That vnder the Pope you had honorable dignities and commodities not to be contemned But in the page 22. you say that Bishops vnder the Pope that are not Temporall Lords and such a meere Bishop were you are scarse so much as seruantes of our Lord the Pope base contemptible oppressed troden vnder foote miserably subiect Now Antony make these things agree base seruitude and honorable dignity cōmodityes not to be contemned miserable subiection 54. The fourth contradiction In the 22. page you write That the Church vnder the Pope is no Church but a certaine Common-wealth vnder his Monarchy meerly temporall These wordes import that the Church of Rome is no Church but else where you call it a Church yea the Church of Christ Pag. 29. I am Bishop in the Church of Christ who then were Bishop in no Church but in the Roman And in the 35. page you call the Roman Bishops your Colleages and fellow-Bishops And againe page 39. you thus commaund the Catholike-Roman Bishops Offer your communion readily to all that still retayne their opinions against you yet so that falsityes be driuen away None can make that common with another which they haue not themselues If the Roman Church be not a Christian Communion and society how can they offer readily their Christian Society and communion to others If it be meerely and wholy a temporall Common-wealth what can it affoard to her friends but meere human peace and temporall communion 55. The fifth Cōtradiction In the 39. pag. you cōmand Bishops to restore peace and charity to all that professe Christ by the Creeds essentiall In these words you require no more then the profession of the Creeds essentiall but within three lines after this sentence followes Offer readily your cōmunion to all sauing their opinions yet driuing away falsityes Here you will haue them that communicate togeather to agree not only in the profession of your essentiall Creeds but also in the abnegation of falsities wherof you expresse neither the quality nor the number And yet also herein you agree not with your selfe for in the 36. page you praise S. Cyprian because he did cōmunicate with such as erred and whome he iudged to erre most grieuously Here you will haue errours to be tolerated and communion not to be broken for errours but in the former speach you allow not communion but with this condition that on both sides falsities be driuen away I demand of you Antony whether errours grieuous errours be not falsities If they be then how is communion to be giuen without reiecting of errours and yet not to be exhibited without driuing away falsities Here you shamfully contradict your selfe The Conclusion I will now end I haue shewed who you were before you fell and by what stepps and degrees you came to fall into the depth of Apostasy I haue also declared who now you are and into what a low gulfe of Hereticall Impiety you be plunged Why then may I not conclude and in few wordes foretell what will finally become of you laying vpon you the Censure of the Apostle 2. Timoth. c. 3.9 You shall not further proceed for your folly shall be manifest vnto almen You being thus discouered by this Suruey if you will not see your selfe yet Protestants wil easily see who you are and what great want of iudgment you haue bewrayed in your writings They will wonder that into so little a Pamphlet written in your owne defence
That you would cite before your Tribunall as guilty of Schisme as well the Latin Church as the Greeke no lesse the Roman whereof you were a member then the Lutheran I would say you faine haue knowne the cause of the diuision and Schismes of all Churches and find out some meanes to bring them vnto the true ancient vnity A great piece of worke Antony and hardly to be dispacht in a generall Councell of the Church much lesse are the shoulders of a puny Clergy man as you were then able to sustaine the burthen thereof But what necessity was it for you to intrude your selfe into the search of this cause Generall Councells had already heard this controuersie of schisms they had before hand condēned both Greeks and Lutherans Cyprian l. 4. Epist 6. they had concluded with Cyprian That Schismes Heresies do and haue euer sprunge vp from no other cause then this that the Bishop which is one and gouernes the Church by the proud presumption of some is set at naught and the man by Gods ordinance honoured by most vnworthy men is adiudged nor that there is any other way of vnion and of extinguishing heresies then that they returne to the fountaine of vnity and imbrace that Catholike proofe a short an easie way of belief cōteyning the Epitome of truth which our Lord appoynted Matth. 16. when he spake to Peter Thou art Peter and vpon this Rock will I build my Church That he that forsaketh Peters Chaire whereupon the Church is founded cannot be of the Church This is the only cause of Schisme this the only way to vnity this the definition of the Fathers and of the Church This you being then a Iesuite and a Clergy man could not be ignorant of nor doubt of being a Catholike if you were so indeed why therefore did not this iudgment of the Church quiet you Why did you vexe your selfe in the search of another cause of Schismes and another way of vnion 3. Certainly you then beganne to breed that which you haue now at last brought forth or at least you leaue the Church to the end you may bring it forth which is a certaine strange and wonderfull deuice to vnite all the Churches in one whereby all Christian societyes although differing in Religion among themselues from Peters Seate are thrust vp into one Body of a Church without any vniuersal Head or Prince to gouerne them This is the speciall new doctrine you come to preach this the great supposed light wherein you now exult a glimps wherof Sathan transfiguring himselfe into an Angell of light long ago presented vnto you And what was this else but to make your selfe wiser then all Catholikes besides then Councells Fathers and the vniuersall Church yea which is more wiser then Christ himselfe who when he saw that the peace of his Church could not otherwise stand without a Gouernour Leo ep 84. he made Peter the chiefe of his Apostles That in fellow-ship of honour there might be a certaine difference of power Hier. cont Iouin and that by appointing a head the occasion of schisme might be vtterly taken away 4. If as you would make vs belieue you had byn inflamed with the true zeale of soules you would neuer haue so anxiously searched into new causes of schismes but rather haue laboured to remoue those which are now already discouered by Fathers and Councells pestering the world to the ruine of many You would not haue byn so prodigall of your vaine and proud teares for the Christian Churches and for the Roman it self with the rest whose child you were but rather taking compassion of nations wādring from the Roman Church you would haue studied to reduce them to the head-spring of vnity by word example writing labours perills and lastly with your life laid downe in pawne for testimony therof This had beene the part of a wise man of one burning in Charity of a Iesuite But whilest your fellowes the Iesuites with other Preachers of the Faith sweat out their bloud for the vnion of Churches and the vtter racing of schisme you forsooth burning with zeale innated not infused humane not diuine at home in your idle and imaginary trauelles discouer new found wayes of conuersions such as were neuer trod on by any foote before Thus you vanished away in your owne cogitations whilst you toyled your selfe in seeking out new and vnused wayes you lost the auncient and ready way whilest in the Catholike way with the foote of pride you stroue to go beyond the rest from the Catholike truth were you cast away could not stand The second degree Secret Infidelity FOR whiles you sit in your throne vmpiere of Churches you begin your selfe to stagger in the Catholike faith that you might at last become an Apostata it was needfull that you should first doubt of your faith that so the saying of Hilary might stand for good Hilar. l. 6. de Trin. Well may heresy tempt an vnperfect man but it cannot supplant the perfect Cyprian saith Let no man thinke Cyprian de vnit Eccles ca. 7. that good men can departe from the Church The wind blowes not away the Corne nor doth the tempest ouerthrow the Tree that is well rooted in the ground The slighter chaffe is carried away with the winde the weaker trees by force of stormes are ouerthrowne These are those whom the Apostle Iohn noteth Ioan. 2. cap. 19. saying They went out from vs but they were not of vs For had they beene of vs they would no doubt haue stayed with vs. It is so indeed Antony you were none of ours euen when you seemed most to be ours you were euer of a doubtfull Faith and of a wit propense to heresy This those that know you testify this you seeme not to deny of your selfe and this will I demonstrate with a double argument out of your owne speaches 6. First in your eight page you write that continually you felt temptations which now you terme sparckles of the inward spirit about certaine supposed doctrines of the Roman faith wherwith say you I could neuer rest satisfied nor free my selfe wholy from a vehement suspition which euer held me perplexed as I grew more auncient in the studies of sacred diuinity What those temptations were and against what articles of the Roman faith you set not downe you leaue it to our choyce to thinke that you allways had a doubt of the mysteries of the most holy Trinity of the Incarnation and the Eucharist with others for these also are the articles of the proper Roman faith which it constantly manteynes against the old heretikes and many of the reformed or deformed rather of this vpstart Ghospell Nor can you say that you signified your temptations only but gaue no assent or consent thereunto For this is confuted out of that which you write in the same pag. 8. I haue truly alwaies thought it say you a matter not voyde of suspition as
reason teacheth that the bookes contrary to the Roman doctrine should be barred from the students and from those that are well affected to the Catholike faith You plainly confesse by this that you had not only a motion of doubt against faith but an assent also nor were you tempted only but you assented likewise to that which the temptation suggested to wit that the Roman faith was if not false at least wise not free from suspition of falshood 7. From hence is deriued the second Argument of your secret Infidelity You say that you euer haue suspected the Roman Church because she layeth those bookes out of sight which are any waies contrary to her doctrine And by and by you explicate more cleerely your suspition to wit That something there was no doubt in the bookes of heretikes which the Roman doctrine was not able to conuince I take you at your word that you alwaies suspected the Protestants doctrine to be sounder then the Catholikes What may be deduced from this Euen this that you were neuer a Catholike indeed neuer truly indued with the Roman Faith For he that beleeues like a Catholike and a Christian this thing of all other first and chiefly he belieues that nothing may be found surer or holier then his faith And this persuasion if it be vnsteddy and wauering is no Faith nor the substance of thinges hoped for nor the firme and immoueable ground of saluation Tertul. praesc ca. 8. When we beleeue saith Tertullian we desire to belieue no more for this thing we first of all belieue that there is not ought else to be belieued And againe Ibidem c. 11 No man seekes for that which he hath not lost or neuer had If you belieue the things that you ought to belieue and yet imagine something else to be sought for then surely you hope that there is something else to be found which you would neuer do but because either you did not belieue that which you seemed to belieue or else now you haue left to belieue Thus leauing your Faith you are found a denyer Thus Tertullian Who seemes Antony to speake to you your coÌ„science he conuents you say that with reason you haue alwaies esteemed the Roman doctrine to be touched with suspition of infirmity Is this you speake true or false If false who hath so bewitched you to giue the lye to your owne selfe how is it likely that you will speake well of the Pope whome you hate that spare not your owne selfe he that is not good to himselfe to whome will he be good If true how were you euer a Catholike and a Roman Catholike that haue alwaies iudged the Roman doctrine if not openly false yet lying open to suspitions of falshood and no way secure 8. Since then you confesse your Faith to haue been euer so sickly and feeble we trouble not our selues with the searching out of those decrees and mysteries of the Roman Faith wherof you doubted But in reward of your ingenuous confession we do of our owne accord vouchsafe you the graunt of your suite which you so painefully endeauour in this writing to obtayne of vs. For you desire that your departure may breed no admiration in vs Your suite Antony is reasonable and not amisse for vs. For it is the part of a Christian rather to eschewe heresies whereof Christ foretold vs Matth. 24.19 Act 20. then to wonder at them not to wonder I say though the starres should fall from heauen or that from among Bishops whome Christ hath placed to gouerne his Church purchased by his bloud there should arise men lying and speaking peruersly Wonderers as TertulliaÌ„ saith by the fall of certaine persons which were held for learned or holy men are edified to their owne destruction They vnderstand not that we ought to receaue Doctours with the Church and not with Doctours forsake the Church nor to esteeme the Faith for the persons that imbrace it but the persons for the Faith they imbrace But as for you Antony why should we wonder at your fall seeing you confesse that you were neuer stable Cypr. epist 52. ad Anton Graue men saith S. Cyprian and such as are once well soundly founded on the rock are not shaken with wind or stormes much lesse remoued with a silâ—y blast It were a wonder indeed if such men so grounded in the faith should fal but you that neuer stood fast vpon the Rock against which the proud gats of hel cannot preuaile Aug. cont part Donat you that alwaies had the sayles of you high mind spread to the winds of nouelty you that continually suspected the infallible doctrines of the Roman Church for feeble you being so doubtfull and vncertaine no meruayle if at last tossed with diuers fancies as it were with certaine blastes of windes rushing vpon you you were beaten from your first purpose The Faith that in your selfe already was false could not long retayne the semblance of standing The third degree Suspicious Lightnes and Inconstancy BVT now if we do looke into the causes of these your doubts such causes especially which you commit to writing straight appeareth your suspicious Leuitie readily carried away with euery blast You obiect forsooth errours abuses and innumerable nouelties to the Roman Church but they are but words only For in particuler you do not so much as name them much lesse proue them Namely and especially you vrge two incitements of your change two things that scandalized you in the Catholike Church which we will now examine and lay open the vanity you discouer therein The first in your 8. page you set downe in these words That which made me more doubtfull was the exact and rigorous diligence vsed both at Rome and in my owne Countrey Wherby a most vigilant heed is taken that no books contrary to the Roman doctâ—iâ—e be handled or read of any good reason I thought there was that the vulgar sort should be forbidden them But that students and those very well affected to the Catholike faith and well knowne to be sound in doctrine should wholy be depriued of them I haue euer thought it a matter of suspition And in hiding suppressing and destroying of such books so much industry is had that for this cause only a man may well suspect that there is something in them which our doctrine is not able to conuince Two things you say first that you haue always had the Roman Church in suspitioÌ„ because she prohibits the aduersaries books The other is that for this very cause her doctrine may wel be called in question By the first you bewray the instability of your mind but in the second your impiety also 10. For the first then what a lightnes inconstancy is it vpon so vaine a suspition to renounce the Church especially that Church that hath bred you to Christ In whose lap to vse S. Augustins words many iust respects should haue held you Aug. cont Epist rundam
cup. 3. to witt the consent of people and notions the authority which was first bred by miracles nursed by hope brought vp by charity founded in antiquity The succession of Priests euen from the seate of Peter the Apostle to whome our Lord after his resurrection committed his flock vnto this present Bishoprick Lastly the name Catholike which not without cause this Church only amongst so many heresies hitherto hath enioyed But say you she smothers oppresseth and destroyeth the aduersaries books by all meanes possible she doâ—h so indeed like a mother she wisely and piously tenders the good of her children like a shep-heard she lookes carefully to her flocke as the seruant of seruants Whome our Lord hath placed ouer his family forbiddeth them to tast of poysoned meates warily preuenting least such deadly food should be brought into her house what fault is there in all this This is no diffidence but prouidence nor is the weaknes of her doctrine which is diuine the cause of her feares but the frailty and inconstancy of mans mind For experience sufficiently approues nor do you deny that which S. Aug. cont Epist Fund Augustine affirmes That there is no errour whatsoeuer but may be so glossed that it may easily steale in by a faire gate to the minds of the ignorant And who sees not if dangerous Bookes for the vse of the learned should be freely brought into Countries that are not tainted with heresy that scarce truly or rather not scarcely can it be but that they must light into the hands of the ruder sort especially if they should be permitted in such a number as you would haue that is to say to all Bishops and Deuines Pag. 9. that haue fully ended their studies Yea and moreouer to Students and scholers also to see whether their maisters truly alleadge the testimonies of heretikes This were too great a multitude and would make poyson ouer coÌ„mon Wherfore the Catholike Church with great wisedome hath thought it more expedieÌ„t that the learned which may securely read such books rather should want this vaine contentment of curiosity or vnnecessary furtherance of learning then that the vnlearned by so common bringing in of such infectious merchandize should be brought into manifest daunger of their saluation 11. Neither truly as you suppose doth this daunger of drinking falshood by perusall of hereticall books belong to the common sort of men only whome you tearme voyd of iudgment and discretion I take it you meane heardes-men shepheards craftes men such like which kind of people notwithstanding for the most part is safest of all of they be not more by others example and authority then by their owne reading peruerted The daunger indeed threatens the vulgar sort but the vulgar sort of the learned In which number are found not a few rash hoat spirits men rather died then imbued with sacred learning that seeme to themselues and many times also to the people learned Catholikes constant when rather they are like vnto men easily remouable from their faith vnlearned apre to worship their owne fancies as diuine oracles Wherfore no Catholike vnles some giddy fellow voyd both of experience and reason will mislike this Roman sollicitude in prouiding so carefully that books condemned be not read rashly and promiscuously euen of those that are otherwise held learned but with choyce mature counsaile and regard had to places times persons and causes And if there be any that would read these books not out of an impious leuity to find out perhaps some better faith nor out of daungerous curiosity by such reading to become more learned but with a purpose to confute them the Catholike Church will neuer deny them faculty if charity be their motiue and they thought meet for the burthen What is there heer done but with great counsaile and wisedome What practise that the Church vsed not in auncient times Aboue 800. years ago more or lesse the seauenth Oecumenicall Synode the second Nicene Canon the ninth decreed that the bookes of the heretiks which they had condemned should be conueyed to the Bishop of Constantinople his pallace there to be laid vp amongst other hereticall bookes You will say that this Canon was directed only to the vulgar not to the Deuines to Bishops much lesse Hear what followes But if there be any that conceale these bookes be he Bishop or Priest or Clergy man let him be deposed and if he be a lay man or a Monke let him be anathematized What can be more manifest Leo ep 48. But Leo the Pope for learning holines surnamed the Great but much the greater by his office with no lesse carefulnes ordeyneth that with all Priestly diligence care be had that no bookes of heretikes differing from godly sincerity be had of any yea and that some of theÌ„ should he consumed by fire Moreouer the fourth Councell of Carthage or rather the fifth held in S. Augustines time permitted not hereticall bookes to be read for Bishops curiosities but restrained them to their limites of time Can. 16. necessity Canon 16. ordeyning thus Bishops may read hereticall books according to the time and necessity Is not this practise then of the Roman Church both ancient pious and full of wisedome What will not the reprobate catch at to their owne destruction that are offended with so holsome a custome Aelian lib. 4. cap. 16. The spider suckes poyson from flowers the beetle being toucht with the breath of the purest Rose dieth yea that flower of flowers by whose odour we breath life to the Iewes was an odour of death to death And you Antony are scandalized with the Churches piety in suppressing hereticall books her prudence in this practise strikes you blind her motherly care you calumniate you wrest the motiues of loue to causes of bitter hatred 12. Now as this other saying of yours that the Roman Church for so seuerely prohibiting the books of heretiks may wel iustly be called in question for her doctrine is not only in it self false but in the sequele impious For that which is said of a thing hoc ipso per se that is as belonging to the thing of it self by it selfe is spokeÌ„ likewise of euery such thing according to Philosophy nor any man that knowes what he saieth will deny it Therfore that which agreeth to the Roman Church of it selfe and meerly for this respect that she prosecuteth her aduersaries books must agree likewise to euery Church that with like industry suppresseth her aduersaries bookes If you do graunt but this once then you must giue sentence against the ancient Church and restore to life all those Heretikes who with their bookes haue beene long since turned into ashes For we haue already declared with what diligence our Forefathers and ancient Councels haue prohibited their aduersaries bookes which care and solicitude Christians and pious Princes haue imitated by their Edictes Iustinian the Emperour being in person at the
enlarged but the rights of the Roman Bishop ouer you abridged Hence arose Spleene Malice Strife with which whirlewind blowne away you were carried headlong into Apostasy You would not indeed haue gone but you could not stay being once possessed with this passion Euen as weighty things which cast headlong downe make no end of mouing till they lye on the ground These things meane we to make good For that you write pag. 14. I was lifted vp from my Bishoprick to be an Archbishop from whence sprange to me a new and more vrgent occasion of renewing my endeauours and of a more feruent and exact pursuite of them For when I began to be stirred with the molestations of the Suffragan Bishops of my Prouince but much more with the ouer much power of the Courte of Rome disturbing my Metropolitan rightes I was forced to search more narrowly into the roote and origen of all the Ecclesiasticall degrees powers functions offices dignityes and especially of the Popedome So you I cannot tell whether you wot what you say For by this discourse truly you haue wholy dashed your owne cause and defeated your writings of all credit against the Pope which I trust so to demonstrate that perhaps your selfe or at least euery man besides your selfe may see it manifest 23. Your Suffragans I know not nor haue I to do with thē You are their Primate be you also Accuser Witnes Iudge against them They wrought your vexations I excuse them not They enuied your honour they would haue diminishtit T' was ill done The Pope helped you not but rather with his authority oppressed you more See now how fauourable an aduersary I am I do not deny but that it may haue so happened You grieued at it you tooke it hainously You were incensed and set on fire with anger This I allow not yet let it be held a pardonable fault and according to kind to be sensible of iniuries But you should not fret your selfe so much as to leaue the Church for the matter so to boyle as to seeth ouer the pot not to skip as the Prouerbe goes from the frying pan into the fire If you will not learne patience of any Man yet me thinkes you might of that worthie Matrone Paula Romana no lesse renowned for sanctity then for Nobility of bloud She without her fault hauing incurred enuy and being by S. Hierome exhorted to giue place to furie answered Hieron in Epitaph Paul You should say well if Sathan did not in all places molest the seruantes and hand-maydes of God or if I could find my Bethleem in any other part of the world Most wisely piously and aptely spoken to our purpose Sathan is busy euery where That the lesser do enuy the greater that the weaker be oppressed by the mightier is not Roman but humane If you thinke to eschew this mischiefe you must wholy fly from men also and not from Rome only There are troubles euery where iniuryes crosses euery where something to suffer but not euery where Bethleem that House of Bread is not else where to be found but in the Catholike Church The bread of heauenly doctrine that doth satiate vs with Faith The bread of the most sacred Body that feeds vs in the Sacrament you shall find Bread indeed in the Ministers Suppers but profane bread such as those which do take it stick not to share it to the dogges whose crummes and crustes without awe of religion they shake of on the ground Do you thinke this Holy Bread I do not thinke you do although to please his Maiesty of Great Brittanie you may feed of it with shew of much veneration your anger therefore should not haue lead you so farre as to carry you from Bethleem If there had been any such iniuries offered you either by the Suffragans or the Pope which you obiect but proue not they should rather haue been for Bethleems sake togeather with that diuine bread disgested by you 24. But take heed now in the heat of your anger and being so inraged against the Pope that you vtter nothing for which you may after repent you You say that the power of the Pope annoyed you much and that he assaulted you and your Titles also and that from thence arose in you that seruent and burning desire to search out the roote and origen of the Papacie Do you say this You say it certainly your words be witnesses therof nor could you with any other words so much haue wrought the vtter ouerthrow of your owne cause For cōsider I beseech what you do You moued with the wronges which as you perswade your selfe the Pope hath done you oppressed with his power and for that cause now put into heat and distemper set your self to read and write and search into the first beginnings of the Papacy First who can beleeue that you will disclose any truth in fauour of the Pope if happely you find it who burne with such passion against him That you will discouer if you chance to light on the certaine and firme roote of the Popedome the roote wherof to no other end you seeke but to haue it rooted out That you will lay open the vttermost extent of the Roman Bishops authority which by a preiudicate opinion you iudge ouer large now already before you know what it is Secondly can you hope to find out the Truth seeking it in anger and hauing so mighty a beame in your eye as is the power of the Roman Bishop in the sight of the enuier therof Know you not the verse though vulgar yet true Anger doth so the mind bereaue That Truth it can no whit perceaue Could none of these diuines sayings occurre vnto you Anger killeth the Foolish man Iob. 5.2 In your wrath you do loose your soule Iob. 13.4 An angry man raiseth strifes Iac. 1.20 Anger of man worketh not the iustice of God Could you not remember the precepts of the Apostle Giue place to Anger Rom. 12.19 not reuenging your selues Eph. 4.31 Banish from amongst you all Bitternes and Anger and Indignation and Clamour and lastly Blasphemy which is as it were a certaine fume of boyling Choller 25. Now therfore we shall not hereafter so much meruayle though your ten promised Bookes Of the Ecclesiasticall Common Wealth abound with Blasphemous vntruths which the furie of your breast incensed as you confesse your selfe with supposed iniuries done you by the Pope hath powred forth I should wonder indeed if that were true which you witnes of your selfe in perusing the Fathers in such heate of your prouoked passions That with your eyes more opened you easily obserued you saw now and throughly perceaued It is a strang thing that a man should haue a beame in his eye and not feele it that being starke blind yet to himselfe he should seeme quick sighted But tell me Antony what saw you there in that your feruour and passion of reading I saw say you and throughly perceaued that
so that except the Churches reasons do so fully conuince you that it manifestly appeare to you that she proposeth to our beliefe that only which is conteined in the Scriptures except you see this I say you will not yeild nor do you thinke it meet that you should yeild being a man of such yeares Thus to stand vpon reasons drawne from Scripture is I say an hereticall tricke For those ancient Heretikes amongst whome as S. Augustine saith it was ordinarie to oppose their reasons and arguments to countermaund the definitions of the Church these heretikes I say did not vrge reason without Scripture but they boasted that they had and exacted likewise of the Church argumēts out of Scripture so cleere and so perspicuous that mans vnderstanding cannot resist against them And the same kind of conuincing arguments our Nouellestes require of the Catholike Church nor will they graunt any man to be an Heretike but such a oneas being conuinced by testimonies of Scriptures cleerly seeth that to be affirmed in Scriptures which the Church would haue to be beleeued notwithstanding he refuseth to belieue This is their doctrine which if we once admit to be currant t' is impossible there should be any men in the world properlie Heretikes For if that which the Church proposeth to be belieued they find not cleerlie deliuered in Scripture although they disagree from the Church they be not Heretikes as they say And on the other side if they see the doctrines of the Church to be cleerlie contained in Scripture they cannot dissent from them vnles they belieue either that God can lie or that the Scriptures of Christians be not the word of God And if they beleeue either of these two things they be not properly Heretiks For if they beleeue that God can lie they are not Heretikes but Atheists if they beleeue that God is true but thinke that Christian Scriptures be not his word they be not Heretikes but Infidells seing they wholy deny Scriptures and as Tertullian saith There can be no Heretike without Scriptures Praes c. 39. And if you say they be Heretiks that deny the Scriptures not wholy but in part then this followes that there can be no Heretike which doth not refuse some part of Canonicall Scriptures And then I aske of Protestants how they can taxe vs Catholikes for Heresy who from the Canon exclude no booke which they themselues admit nor do we find the doctrines cleerlie deliuered in Scriptures which they so boldly and clamorously contend to be conteined in them But my purpose is not at this time to ouerthrow this proud Tower of Heresy which is not to beleeue the Church vnlesse they see with their owne eys that her doctrine is conteined in Scripture 30. This only I vrge that you Antony were come to this last step towards Apostasy which is not to yield to the Churches authority without she make her word good by weighty reasons that out of presumption of your Wit and Learning but especially out of a great opinion of the ten Bookes you promise to print you haue shamefully reuolted frō the Church That which we read of Agar Sara's handmaide Gen. 16. may very well be applied to you Who perceauing that she had conceaued with child set light by her Mistresse For as soone as you had conceaued in your braine that new forme plot of an Ecclesiasticall gouernement and Christian vnion you forthwith contemned the iudgment of the Roman Church to whō you should haue beene obsequious submitting and captiuating your iudgment But it seemes by your manner of proceeding that you be of opinion that in those your ten Bookes more is conteined then in the whole Catholike world besids For you promise many great wonderfull Benefits which by your Reuolt from the Pope shall redound to the Church to witt the suppression of Schisme the vniting of Churches the extinguishing of Heresies the pacification of Princes from open Hostility and the combining of their forces for the subuersion of the Turke with the infranchisement of Christiā Captiues groaning vnder their yoke These are great and glorious things Let vs now see by what power you will performe them As Dauid with fiue stones encountred Goliah so you with the same number of bookes twice told will enter into combat with the aforenamed Monsters The Church say you shall shortly heare my voyce I will speake to the hart of Ierusalem I will call her forth Thus you and yet if I be not deceaued God only is he that speakes to the hart as for men euen the greatest the most learned and eloquent while they inuite men to heauenly matters of themselues can do no more but knocke at their eares Nor do I see vpon what grounds you may be so sure that your voyce should penetrate into the hart of the Church though I see very well that you imagine there is no small force but rather some diuine efficacy in your voyce Well what is that you will proclayme that shall be heard ouer Christendome Let vs now heare it from you own mouth I will say you shortly put forth my ten Bookes of the Ecclesiasticall Common wealth in which principally I endeauour that the Roman Errours may be detected the truth and soundnes both of Doctrine and Discipline may appeare that many of the Churches cast forth and reiected by the Roman Church may be reteyned still in a Catholike sense That the way of vnion betweene the Churches of Christ may be demonstrated or at least pointed at with a nod or finger And that if it be possible that is if it be possible my bookes wil do the deed we may all say and thincke the same thinges and so all Schismes may be repressed that the occasions may be taken away from Christian Princes of oppressing one another that therby the better they may direct their forces in such sort that the Churches of Christ groning vnder Infidel Tyrantes may be recouered to their former liberty Thus you write of your Booke What victories will this your Child yet in wombe get for the Church What ouerthrowes and woes will he worke vpon Heretiks if he may be once happily borne into the world 31. Whose birth therefore you iudge a matter of such consequence that any wickednes may be committed that he may be borne For I pray you is it not a wicked thing to forsake the Church Yes certainly and yet you finding no possibility to print your booke in a Catholike Country rent your self wholy from the Catholike Church that so your ympe finding no other way of passage to life might worke himselfe into the world by renting his mother Againe is it not great wickednes for Pastours to forsake their flock to the continuall tuition whereof the law of God seuerely bindeth them Without question it is Yet you write in this manner It was very necessary for me to leaue my flocke that so hauing broken also these bandes being at more liberty I might be the
readier to praise the truth and so much the safelier condole the ruines of the Church which it susteynes at the hands of the Roman Marke I beseech you your wordes What is this els but so say let the bands of the diuine Law be broken let soules redeemed by the bloud of Christ perish all is well so that I with my ten stringed Psalter may get liberty to chaunt out the praises of Truth or to deplore the wretched state of Schisme You hold belike the teares you spend for the Roman Church at so high a rate that the Bloud of soules the Law of God must be set at naught and contemned for them Yf you had such a pleasure to singe mourne why would you be a pastour Why entred you not into some Religious family deuoted to the quire and solitude and there haue giuen your selfe to songes and teares Lastly what greater crime then to dissemble in matters of Religiō with body to approach that Church whose faith in your hart you approue not Is not this wickednes Now tell me Antony haue you so soone vomited forth all those Roman doctrines wherewith you were once imbued or haue you suddainly swallowed vp all the articles of the English Faith that you haue so without guide of Conscience imbraced their Communion I cannot thinke it but rather that you dissemble in many points to giue them satisfaction of whom you expect your hire and to get the Kings Protection and assistance for the priuiledge of your Booke that what you could not publish in the light of Christianity you may at last set forth in the darcknesse of Heresie 32. It is reported of a certaine Zoilus that was wont to keep his bed like a sick man when in truth he was not so that he might thereby take occasion to shew forth a purple Couerlet of his wherin he was much delighted Such a kind of languour is it wherein you languish with desire to publish your writings which that you might the better bring to passe you feigne your selfe an Heretike in the English Church you lay your selfe downe at the feet of the Kinges Supremacie ouer the Church as though you were sicke of that Parlamentarian Maladie and all this to get leaue to print your Bookes and shew them to the view of the world and yet alas when these your so highly by you esteemed treasures of learning shall haue passed the print which by committing so many sinnes you haue found out at last there will not want diuers I say not Catholiks but Protestants that hauing read your so much expected Booke will apply to you that which was spoken to Zoilus These riches are but vaine Which make the sicknesse fayne I wish you would rather follow the counsaile that the Angell gaue vnto Agar Genes 16. being great with Child which was Returne home to thy Mistresse againe and humble thy selfe vnder her handes Returne I say home againe to the Church which you haue forsaken Cast prostrate at her feet your selfe your wit your learning your bookes Submit them to the Catholike and Roman Censure As Rachels seruant deliuered her children into her Mistresse lap so do you offer vp your Bookes to the pleasure of the Church But me thinkes I see you turne your head aside at this and say This is base this is seruile this is to become againe a little child It is so indeed But oh noble basenes and high humility whereby a Christian transcending himselfe and his naturall wit comes to be vnited to God reuealing mysteries that surpasse mans capacity by the mouth sometimes euen of vnlearned Prelates Oh happy seruitude that tieth makes men bondeslaues of the Truth which only affoardes true Liberty Oh huge littlenes which only art capable of heauen which only canst intertaine God! So that Antony though you be welnigh threescore yeares of age you shall neuer enter into the Kingdome of Heauen vnles you be conuerted and become as a little child They that scorne to be little ones grow to be great ones indeed not in wisedome but in malice and folly which shal be further demonstrated in the second part of this Suruey of your Apostasy THE SECOND PART OF THE SVRVEY OF MARCVS ANTONIVS de Dominis his Apostasy CONCERNING The state wherein now he is WE will not there being no need vse circumlocutions but plainly set downe the misery of your present state By the former eight degrees not of beatitudes but of maledictions you are falne into eight bottomles Gulfes which within the compasse of Heresy are contayned I will first tell you what they are and then shew that you lye plunged in them These they are Forsaking of the Church of Christ Not to be certaine of any religion Hypocrisy Mendacity against the Church Contumelious speach Arrogancie Inuenting of new flattering doctrine Vayne and idle talking That you are swallowed into these pits belonging to Heresy I will make playne and by no other arguments then such as your owne booke affoardeth This booke now pleadeth against you but more dreadfull euidence will it giue in at the day of doome against your obstinate perseuerance Wherefore Antony rise out of this mayne deep of Heresy wherein as yet you lye not so low but repentance may reclayme you The first Gulfe of Apostasy The forsaking of the Church of Christ TO abandon the Church of Christ and the Catholike Communion is the first though not the shallowest gulfe of Hereticall peruersity All Heretikes saith S. Hierome are Apostata's that is Reuolters The Apostle tearmeth the Heretike peruerse Tit. 3 11. because no man is an Heretike that hath not auerted himselfe and swarueth from the way of Truth wherein once he walked He saith also that the Heretike delinquit proprio iudicio condemnatus that he is a delinquent condemned by his owne iudgment That you are in this Gulfe Antony is a thing so cleare that it need not to be proued yet seeing you deny it I will proue it not by common arguments but such as shall leaue you conuicted out of your owne words 2. He that forsaketh the Church of Christ and the communion of Saintes is peruerse a delinquent an Apostata This you will not deny and that you do it your selfe most manifestly affirme For that you fly from the Roman Church that you depart out of it in the pag. 34. you openly professe This my departing say you this my going out of Babylon or flight I will haue to be cleare from all suspition of schisme You depart then out of the Roman Church which you stile Babilon but the Roman Church is the Church of Christ the Society of Saintes therfore you impiously go from it impiously you call it Babylon If you aske me how I can proue the Roman Church to be the Church of Christ the society of Saintes I answere euen by your owne words which are registred in the 28. page I may not say you be wanting in my charge I being a Bishop in the Church
of Christ And in the 38 page you name the Bishops in the Roman communion your most holy Colleages or fellow Bishops When you writ this you were in no Church but in the Roman into no other Church or cōpany were you then by visible externall profession admitted Wherfore you were Bishop in no Church of Christ but as you were Bishop in the Church of Rome or if you were Bishop in some other Church then were not our Catholike Bishops your colleags or fellowes If then you were a Bishop in the Church of Christ and the Bishops of the Roman were your follow-Bishops most holy it followes out of your owne confession that the Church of Rome is the Church of Christ the society of Saintes Which seing you forsake you cannot deny but you forsake the company of Christ and of his Saints which is to be peruerse to be delinquent and to Apostate Praes c. 8. Well saith Tertullian Erring is without fault where no delinquishing is He wanders securely who by wandering forsaketh nothing This is most true but he that forsaketh the Church of Christ he that abandoneth his Saintes he leaueth somthing yea a thing of great esteem he leaueth and so delinquisheth not without fault yea with great impiety is such wādring And if also he leaue that companie whome he iudgeth whom he tearmeth most holy which is your case then questionlesse he is a delinquent condemned by his owne iudgement Serm. 30. Marke what S. Ambrose expounding these words of the Apostle commenteth against your Apostasy The Heretike condemneth himselfe who casteth himselfe out of the Church of Christ and not being forced by any of selfe accord departs from the companie of Saints Well doth he declare what he deserues at the hands of all who by his owne proper doome is seuered from the company of all For whereas other criminous persons by Bishops censures are driuen out of the Church the heretike preuenteth all and becomes a forlorne from the Church by the choice of his owne will The Heretike then doth suffer the like condemnation that Iudas did being both delinquent and Iudge himselfe the authour and the punisher of his owne misdeed 3. You will say that you forsake the Roman Church with body not with hart that you fly for feare of persecution but are most ready so you may do it with your safety to haue peace and communion with the Church of Rome If you now pleade in this sort you will not be longe of so good a mind neither can this answere consort with your other deeds and doctrine For in the 34. 35. page you write that you are ready to communicate with any that agree with you in the essentiall articles and creeds of faith yet so say you that we all likewise detest new articles either openly contrary to the sacred scripture or els opposit to the aforenamed Creeds Now I aske you whether the Church of Rome teach new articles manifestly opposite to holy Scripture or no If not then you fly from her without any iust cause she being subiect to no cleere or notorious errour If she teach new articles that cleerly repugne with Scriptures and will not detest them yea seeing you say of her that she doth obtrude new articles that containe in them manifest falsity and doth persecute all that dare but mutter against them euen to the death this supposed I say cleere it is that you haue carried away not only your body but also your hart your loue cōmunion and profession from the Roman Church which yet you grant to be the church of Christ and the Company of Saints 4. You will say againe that you indeed abandon the Roman Church which is a Church of Christ notwithstanding you forsake not the Church of Christ but from one Church of Christ defiled with diuers errours you passe to another Church of Christ more pure and more sincere both for doctrine and discipline but this deuise wil not serue to quit you of the crime of Apostasy For Antony the Churches to which you fly be themselues fugitiue and fleeting Churches Companies which haue deuided themselues from the Roman which had they not done no Church no Company had been now in the world to haue receaued you in your flight This do you your selfe in a manner insinuate when you call the Churches to which you depart the Churches which Rome hath raised vp to be her aduersaries The time then was whē they were not Romes aduersaries when they were not raised vp but addicted to that which you call Romish Idolatry lay prostrate on the ground at the Popes feet So that also these Churches haue abandoned the Church of Christ and the Company of Saints if the Roman Church be as you graunt it to be the Church of Christ and the Company of Saintes Now then did these fly to a Church more pure then the Roman when they reuolted from her No but forsaking the Roman Church they departed to themselues being made purer then the Roman in their owne opinion not by cleauing to the purity of some Church before extant in the world but by the purity of a new Company raysed vp made more pure then any other by forsaking and abandoning the rest of the whole Christian world So Caluin sayth It is absurd that we that haue departed from the whole world should now fall out and quarell amongst our selues Caluin ep 107. Your strifes and contentions M. Caluin are in very truth absurde and ridiculous but much more absurde is this your confession that you made a separation from the whole world besids For straight out of S. Augustine I subsume they that forsake the communion of the whole world must needs be Apostata's God forbid wil you say for we haue iustly reuolted from the rest of the world we runne away from errours abuses we haue weighty reasons for what we do No saith S. Augustine you haue no iust reasons you are without doubt reuolting Apostata's Epist 48. for we are certaine saith he none could iustly separate themselues from the communion of the world and againe Ibidem It is no way possible that any should haue reason to separate their Communion from the communion of the whole world to call themselues the Church because vpon iust reasons they deuided themselues from the society of all nations Thus S. Augustine leauing you Antony no way to escape from the gulfe of Apostasy but by returning to the Roman Communion 5. But say you I will haue this my departure or flight to be free from all suspition of schisme You speake peremptorily like a Prince You will but you should know you haue not authority to ouerule the Natures of things If you will take another mans goods without his leaue and not be a theef If you will vpon priuate reuenge bereaue a man of his life and not be a murderer If you will abandon the Church of Christ and not be an Apostata or Schismatike
say for number very many in doctrine all opposite to the Roman and all agreeing among themselues in the pure primitiue truth But pretermitting these questions I only aske when you say that the Churches which being very many Rome hath raysed vp to be her aduersaries do very little swarue from the pure primitiue doctrine whether you speake of all the Churches and Companies that in doctine are opposite to the Roman or of some of them only You cannot with truth speake it of all they being so many and so repugnant the one against the other Grecians Lutherans Caluinistes Libertines Anabaptists Arians Trinitarians How can it be that they all should very little or nothing disagree from the true doctrine whose doctrines disagree mainly and allmost infinitly the one from the other 7. If you say that though not all yet some of the Churches aduersaries to Rome do very little disagree from the primitiue truth then I demaund Why do you not distinguish these pure Churches from the other impure before you prayse them Why do you thus at random rashly not to say impiously cast that great commendation to swarue very litle from the pure primitiue doctrine vpon the confuse multitude of sects disagreeing from the Roman Church in which masse euen your selfe being iudge all be not sincere yea many be corrupt many impious many most food sottish And yet by your words no man can perceaue whether this high prayse be bestowed by you on the Grecians or on the Septentrionals on the Lutherans or on the Anabaptists on the Caluinists or on the Arians Verily you be not the mouth of God Antony you be not the preacher of Truth who to good bad layd togeather on an heape giue your approbation without any distinction not seuering pretious from vile noxious from wholsome hereticall from Catholike impious from Christian doctrine And yet herein you are excusable For what els could you do who had not as yet made choice of any certaine Church you might magnify before al other being vncertaine for the present and ignorant what finally your choice might be you durst not condēne any Church of the many opposite to Rome fearing you should perchance condemne that Church which you might be forced to fly vnto Had you singled one Church out of that number extolling it only aboue all other the rest perchance would with lesse willingnesse haue intertained you taking your singular prayse of that one Church as a disparagement to them all nor durst you commend distinctlie and by name all the sectes that are enemies to the Pope knowing that thereby you might expose your selfe to iust exception that Catholikes might take at you as being a friend of damnable errours Wherfore craftily you resolued to shoot at randome in the praise of Churches that oppose themselues to Rome without specifying the name or doctrine of any that so you might haue both freedome to runne to what sect you pleased and shelter against Catholikes should they except against you as fauouring the errours of any particuler heresy Now Antony perceaue you not that your secret wily deuise is layd open that this your booke brings to light the things which you most of al desired should haue byn hiddē 8. Thirdly so great is your vncertainty that you are not only ignorant to what sect to fly from the Roman Church but also you know not from what doctrine of the Roman Church you should fly I confesse you do particularily mislike the Primacy of the Roman Bishop but you were not ignorant that the hatred of this authority is common to all sorts of Heretikes Whosoeuer are wicked in the world the more egregiously that they are wicked the more mortally do they hate the power of the Pope all being herein combined Grecians Protestants Lutherans Caluinists Anabaptists Arians Turkes Iews Atheists What other article of the Roman beleife do you condemne besides this You name no other but in generall you proclaime that you fly the Roman sinnes errors abuses and innumerable nouelties Why name you them not I will tel you the sects that band against Rome being very many do not all mislike the same doctrines in the Roman Church What one condemneth another prayseth what some approue others abhorre so your religion depending on future euents you could not shew detestation of the Roman errours in particuler till you had made certaine choice of your Church You knew that you were to condemne in the Roman Church other articles did you become a Grecian others did you fall to be a Lutheran others did you turne Caluinist others did you cleaue to the Anabaptists others should you stay in Germany others should you fly to France others should you sayle into Englād Wherfore wauering in vncertainties not able to forsee what shall becom of you without naming any particulers with all your might and mayne you cry out on the Roman Errours When you shall haue made your election for your religion therein set vp your rest then shal the Roman Church erre in those poynts and as damnably as it please that company you liue with to haue you say 9. But I pretermitt say you in the 17. page to set downe particularly the Errours of Rome because in my booke of the Ecclesiasticall Common wealth I do fully prosecute them which booke now a good while ready for the print I haue and will set it forth out of hand and bequeath it to the first printer in Germany that by the way I shal find for the purpose I beseech you Antony why did you not performe what here so solemly you promise Met you with no Printer in Germany that was for the purpose or did the King of great Britany countermand your purpose or did you of your self shrinke from your purpose I search not into this secret This I say that now you shall not print the booke you brought out of Italy with you but another Your selfe growing daily worse and worse will change therein diuers things either taking away some points of Catholike doctrine or adding some new doctrines gotten by your reading in the books of heretikes to say nothing of the things which Ministers by their arguments will winne you to alter And what shall I say of his gracious Maiesty so excellent for his knowledge To change some things in your booke and to adde other things to it he will persuade you by his learning to leaue out diuers doctrins that sauour to much of Rome he may compell you by his authority perchāce also sundry of his sayings though he vrge you not yet you to please him will put them into your booke Know you not what befell Casaub one How much changed he was from that affection and mind that he seemed to carry with him into England which alteration he going about to excuse to his friend plainly confesseth that by entrance into the English Court he was become a slaue not daring in any thing gaynesay the Kings pleasure which basenes
notwithstanding I am persuaded did proceed not from the Kings disposition but from Casaubons dastardy 10. And as for the changes which I do now aforehand auouch wil be in your booke we haue a fayre presage or rather a beginning of them in this Pamphlet which reprinted in England differs somewhat from that you set forth at Venice For in your edition of Venice declaring the argument of the ninth booke of the ten you promise you say that you largely shew quà m parca esse debeat Ministrorum Ecclesiae sustentatio How scarse the maintenance of the ministers of the Church ought to be The word scarse maintenance sounded harshly in the eares of English ministers Peraduenture when you wrote at Venice you prouided maintenance for Bishops only not also for their wiues and children Wherefore in the London edition the matter is amēded you say that you declare qualis esse debeat ministrorum Ecclesiae sustentatio What kind of maintenance Church-ministers ought to haue And when your bookes come forth you may happily to gaine the good will of Ministers wiues change their scarse maintenance into plentifull You may see that without cause you bragge that you will publish a booke brought with you from Italy contayning the Roman errours togeather with many cleere sights and visions of truth you had at Venice and diuers doctrines different from the Roman which you learned by the only reading of the Fathers For the booke you now publish Antony is not that you wrote at Venice it is not I say that worthy worke which you as you vaunt placed in the midest of the darkenesse of Popery not hauing the candle of any hereticall booke shining before you writ only by the light which diuine illustrations falling downe from heauen yeilded to your pen these discourses of yours so noble and diuine be now lost vanished away perished Not so me thinks I heare you say for though some points of doctrine may be changed in my Booke yet many and very many will remaine Suppose this be true who will be able to discerne the reliques of the pure originall from so many the new corruptions therof or distinguish the parts of your booke vntoucht from the parts changed your ancient opinions from your new your Venetian beliefe from your English his Maiesties conceyts from those that be properly yours yours which you lately got by perusing the workes of heretikes from those whereof you boast as if you had receaued them immediatly from heauen No man certainly though he be neuer so sharpe-sighted 11. Fourthly you bewray your vncertainty in that to free your selfe from suspition and to meet with these inconueniences you haue not in this your writing set downe any confession of the faith you brought from Venice which thing was most expected and it did greatly behooue you to haue done it For this is the first thing which persons reclaymed from heresy haue care to do that seeing they now openly forsake the Religion which once they followed the world may take notice of the Religiō which in lieu therof they imbrace least otherwise they should thinke them plaine Infidels vtterly without any certaine religion Wherfore you should straight in the beginning of your reuolte haue made a plaine profession of your faith set down distinctly the doctrines of the Roman Church which you disliked also what you approued in the pretendedly reformed Churches for when you say of them that they swarue from the pure doctrine very little you seeme to insinuate that none of them do fully and absolutly content you This you did not but seruing the time rather then the truth and as S. Hilary saith Lib. 7. de Trinit Heretiks vse to do being ready to frame your doctrine to the humours of men by this negligence you haue changed the ten yeares of your cleere light into darkenesse eternal Neither shall any mortal man euer know what was the faith that ran away with you frō Venice nor what doctrine of Popery made you runne away your writings will be not only charged with falshood but also suspected of fiction that you write to please others what you beleeue not your selfe 12. Nor may you say that in this Booke you haue made confession of your faith in the 29. page therof where you write I am ready to communicate with all so long as we agree in the essentiall articles of our faith and the creedes of the ancient Church yet so if also we togeather detest new articles either openly contrary to the holy Scripture or else repugnant with the aforsayd Creedes This confession of faith is too wandring and wild within which all Heresies may range or at least very few are excluded by it And yet you are not constant in this profession For pag. 9 you cōmaund the Roman Church to restore communion to all the Christian Churches that professe Christ by the essentiall Creeds of faith Where you do not mention what heere you so expressely require the detestation of new articles that are openly contrary to Scriptures Moreouer how vncertaine and ambiguous is that phrase openly repugnant with Scripture For many kindes there be of errours openly contrarie to Scripture and euen Protestants themselues do mainly disagree nor can they define which of these errours must needs be detested vnder paine of expulsion from the Church Againe you say nothing of the Iudge to whose censure it belonges to decree which errours be new and clearly repugnant with Scripture For if you require of men that they detest those errours and articles which to themselues seeme clearly repugnant with Scripture there is not any Sectary that will not do it If you will haue all men reiect such errours and articles which in your iudgment be new and do manifestly contradict the Scripture you do them wronge For who made you their iudge If you will haue the Controuersy decided neither by your iudgment nor by theirs but remitted to the finall decision of a third Iudge why do you not name him Finally you do not declare what you meane by essentiall articles nor how many they be in number nor whether all the articles of the ancient Creedes be essentiall nor what you meane by Creedes essentiall that being a new phrase with I do not remember to haue read in any Authour Catholike or Protestant yea the word may without much adoe be drawne to such a sense as no Heresy will reiect any ancient Creed so farre forth as it is essentiall And why do you not rather exact full and absolute profession of all ancient Creedes but still with this restriction of the Creedes essentiall verily something lurkes in this phrase In libro de Synod Nican decret which we as yet vnderstand not nor without cause did S. Athanasius warne vs to suspect all the wordes and phrases of Heretikes Why speake you not plainly and ingenuously Why dally you with doubtful and ambiguous words in the busines of Religion but only because not being resolued of
And yet you neither do nor can name any article of the Roman faith which hath not beene euer intertained as a point of faith in former times or els defined not in Rome but in some generall Councell 20. The second vntruth in greatnes equalleth the first in malice surpasseth it This vntruth standes recorded in your 24. page where you say that you left the Church of Rome ranne away fearing the ordinary sequells of hatred that are poysoning stabbing For to this passe say you matters are brought in this age that at Rome by authority frō Rome the controuersies of the Church are committed no longer to Deuines nor to Councells but to racke-maisters to hang-men to cut-throats to bloud-suckers to parricides Here Antony you are seene to be in a fury and to haue your hart imbued with the bloudy disposition of the men you haue named The Church of Rome doth not practise that which you hatefully charge her with she referred the Church-controuersies of this age not to be maintained with poysoning stabbing by bloud-suckers and parricides but to be treated of and decided by Fathers by Bishops by graue and learned Deuines in the Councell of Trent Such as obstinatly defend doctrines accursed by Councells such as reuiue the controuersies that haue been already decided such men I say being conuicted of the crime and confessing themselues to be contemners of the Churches Councells she deliuers vp to be punished not to bloud suckers nor to Parricides but to Christian Princes and to the Iudges by them appointed she doth not reproue the endeauours of Deuines who discusse points of doctrine that are yet vndefined but the temerity of Heretikes whose labours are as S. Leo saith to seeke for the things that already are found Epist 60. to reuiue controuersies that are ended to repeale the doctrines that haue byn formerly established You lay to our charge Antony the cruell demeanour of your Caluinists who with swordes and weapons do not defend Decrees of Councells which were laudable do not put an end to controuersies that were neuer before determined which were an euill not altogeather so vntolerable but the doctrines that Councells haue builded and set vp they with their poyniards swordes and lances beate downe the beliefe which the tradition of Ancestours which the Decrees of generall Councells haue rooted in Christian breasts togeather with their bowells they draw out and cast into the fire 21. The third vntruth is page 16. that We Romanists haue contracted the Church Catholike to which Christ promised the perpetuall assistance of the holy Ghost to be the very Court of Rome What Catholike euer wrote spake thought or so much as dreamed of this fond conceite The particuler Church of Rome we tearme the principall Church with which all Churches must haue agrement and accesse vnto in regard of her more powerfull Principality we tearme the Church of Rome the head of that Catholike Church to which Christ promised perpetuall infallible assistance but we say not that the sole Roman is the vniuersall Catholike Church taking the Roman by it self without the rest of the Christian Churches adhering vnto her 22. The fourth vntruth is in the same 16. page where you say that It is exacted of vs that we belieue firmely as an article of our Faith that the whole spirit of Christ is resident in the Court of Rome only yea in the Pope only What greater falshood can be vttered or deuised The spirit of Christ is indeed but one nor is he in any one man in whome he is not whole if we respect his substance and in this sense we say that the spirit of Christ is whole in the Pope yea in euery Christian But this one and same spirit worketh very different and diuers things according to which he is not whole in euery one and in this sense to say that we beleeue the whole spirit of Christ to be abiding in the Pope only is a great vntruth First the spirit of Christ assisteth the Elect whome through the dangerous miseries of this life he guideth by sure meanes to the land of the liuing Do we make this spirit resident in the Pope only Do we not acknowledge that there be others Elect besides the Pope Secondly the spirit of Christ is the spirit of adoption in whome we crye Father Father Do we teach that this spirit is in none but in Popes that the Pope only is Iust Holy and the Sonne of God Thirdly the spirit of Christ signeth and sealeth the hartes of euery one that is faithfull and annointeth them that they may belieue And is this spirit also made by vs proper to the Pope only Do we say that there is not any true beleeuing Christian besides him Fourthly the spirit of Christ teacheth his Church so that the whole Church can neuer erre And do we not place this spirit infallible in the whole Church So that whatsoeuer hath byn in any age receaued by the vniforme beliefe of the whole Church that without doubt as being a most certaine Christian verity we imbrace Fiftly the spirit of Christ decideth the controuersies which concerning faith in euery age may arise in the Church neither do we make fast this spirit to the Pope only but we teach that the same is abiding in the rest of the Catholike Bishops who be the Iudges of Faith and togeather with the Roman Bishop their Head do determine assuredly the cōtrouersies of the Church Wherefore I wonder where your forehead was when you did not blush to write that we make the whole spirit of Christ to be abiding in the Pope only 23. The fift vntruth is in the 26. page That whatsoeuer hath byn formerly fortould by the Prophets for the honour of the vniuersall Church we by extreme violence and wronge draw it all to the Roman Court only It is certayne that some sayings of Prophets do particulerly concerne the Church of Rome and haue byn accordingly performed in it But that whatsoeuer is sayd glorious of the Church in the ancient Prophets we turne it all to the Church yea to the Court of Rome only you speake it indeed in your splene against the Pope but in speaking it your knowledge cannot choose but giue a checke to your tongue 24. The sixt vntruth is That the Roman Court hath now a longe while suppressed the holy Councells so hath put out the eyes of the Church If you speake of the Councells that haue byn celebrated already none do more Religiously obserue their Decrees then the Church of Rome If you meane of Councells that should be gathered that she hinders that they cannot be now assembled did not the Church of Rome I pray you call of late the Councell of Trent to say nothing of Nationall Prouincial and Episcopall Councells which are very frequently held And if your accusation be limited to General Councels you must know that to gather so great and vniuersall assembly is not an easy thing nor necessary for the
promise de vtilitate credend cap. 14. you barke But know that you barke against that Church which as S. Augustine saith by succession of Bishops from the Apostolike Sea hath obteyned the height of authority Heretikes her enemyes round about her barking in vayne against her Sampson sent foxes into the corne of the Philistines with their heads loose but with their tayles tied which signifies saith S. Hierome that Heretikes haue tongues free to barke but for performing they be shackled and cumbred They barke fiercely but they beat but the ayre sooner may they breake themselues then fright and remoue the Roman Church from the imbracing of the faith that hath byn deliuered vnto her She cleauing to the diuine promises as it were fixed in the firmanent being on high secure despiseth her rayling aduersaryes as the moone doth the dogges Who barke but winde drowneth their clamours base Diana chast holds on her heauenly pace The sixt Gulfe Arrogancy of Doctourship and Authority ouer the whole Church THE power which from the Roman Bishop you would faine take you challenge to your selfe so making your selfe the vniuersall curate of the Church in the 29. page To euery Bishop so is a particuler Church committed that he must know that also when need is the vniuersall Church is by Christ commended to him In the 30. page you add that any Bishop by his owne proper authority may remoue to other Churches that are afflicted and oppressed Thus you make a conueyance of power ouer the whole Church for your selfe yet you do it subtilty thinking you should not be seen You offer that vniuersall power to euery Bishop knowing aforehand that out of modesty they will refuse it that so this authority reiected by the rest may retourne to your selfe the first authour therof as being properly and peculiarly yours Yea say you it is most of all properly belonging to my office to succour as farre as in me lieth the Roman Court that makes a schisme and diuision by it selfe and teareth in peeces the flocke of Christ You are the new Atlas you will support the Heauen the vniuersall Church with your shoulders For which enterprise you thinke your selfe so sufficient that if the Pope and the rest of Catholike Bishops will yield to rely vpon your aduise what will follow I hope say you that shortly it will so fall out that full peace and concorde and that so necessary vnion of the holy Churches will thereupon ensue so that we shall beleeue all the same and all abide in the same rule Your hopes are vayne poore soule you take to much vpon you 33. Heresies were before you were borne and will be when you shal be dead the number of Heretiks you now make greater by one through Pride which deserues to be pittied rather then confuted For what Put the case the Roman Bishops would become your subiects and remit the busines of vnion and reconciliation to your wisedome do you thinke the matter ended and that the Sects opposite to the Roman Church Grecians Lutherans Caluinists Anabaptists will also without more ado become obedient to you at a becke Such is your vanity that you seeme not to doubt but that all the rest of Christian companyes besides the Roman will in this affaire of peace beare humble duty and respect towards you You know not Antony and little do you imagine what fierce and furious windes I meane proud and peremptory sects rage in the Northern parts which if you can assemble to a generall Councell or keepe them when they are there in peace verily you shall be more omnipotent then Aeolus But afore-hand I tell you they will not set a rush for you Maydes and Boyes will laugh you to scorne they will preferre their skil of Scripture before yours with sentences flowing thicke and threefold from their tongues vttered with one breath they will ouerload you If you dare but mutter against what they say you shall be stiled Papist if you do not straight yield to beleeue them they will take pitty of your eyes that hauing beene so many yeares togeather accustomed to Popish darkenesse cānot now behold the cleere shining light of the Gospel This is the Caluinian nature which if you be ignorant of you will learne to your cost 34. But to returne to the care of the vniuersall Church which you presumptuously take vpon you togeather with authority to visit any Church at your pleasure which you shall iudge to haue need of your assistance Herein you commit a double errour The first is to thinke that a Bishop to help other Churches that are afflicted may abandon his owne and in such manner adandon it as to leaue it destitute of the meanes of saluation to be rauened deuoured by wolues For this in your conceit you do and this you thinke that lawfully you may do to succour the Roman But what ancient holy Bishop can you name that did so Which of them hath left written that such practise is laudable Euen those Bishops whome you pretend to imitate your selfe confesse that they went to assist other Churchs leauing their owne well appointed and prouided of sufficient persons to teach and instruct them 35. The second errour is to thinke that euery bishop at his owne good liking and by his owne authority may visit other Churches that are in need put them in order though the proper Bishops of such Churches be vnwilling Which doctrine were it brought to practise would breake and vtterly ouerthrow the peace and concord of the Church as any man of iudgment may soone foresee For if euery Bishop may whensoeuer he shall thinke it needfull passe into the boundes of anothers Iurisdiction there sit as Iudge of cōtrouersies and pronounce finall sentence vpon them it cānot be but Bishops will very often encounter and be beaten one against another by mutuall discord nor can I imagine what other deuise can be thought of de vnit Eccles c. 4. or feigned so fit to trouble the quiet of Churches There is as S. Cyprian saith but one Bishopricke whereof a part is wholy possessed by euery one yet so is the Bishopricke one as the body of man is one which hath an Head that commandeth the rest of the members In this manner the one Bishopricke of the world hath one Sea supreme aboue the rest l. 3. ep 4. which the same S. Cyprian tearmeth the principall Sea from which Priestly vnity and concord floweth to which perfidiousnes can haue no accesse The authority of this Sea spread and diffused ouer the rest is that Glew of concord which ioyneth them all togeather in peace and charity This Sea hath care to prouide for the necessityes of the vniuersall Church and to send as Legats other Bishops whose Churches be well prouided to giue succour to others that are in need By this Sea were Osius Athanasius Eusebius Bishop of Vercells Lucifer of Calaris and others sent whome you name and affirme but as your manner
is without any proofe that they put themselues into the busines of visitation of Churches vpon their owne head and authority 36. Theodoret writeth that Lucifer Bishop of Calaris Eusebius Bishop of Vercells went about visiting the Churches of the East Lib. 3. c. 4. and namely the Churches of Antioch and Alexandria to see whether the Decrees of the Nicen Councell were kept That Lucifer at Antioch ordayned Paulinus Bishop that Eusebius at Alexandria togeather with Athanasius called a Councell to which Lucifer sent a Deacon by whome he signified that he would agree to the things that that Councell should ordayne These things you thinke that those two Bishops but of meane Seas did performe by their owne proper authority that you haue sufficient authority of your selfe to do the like when and whersoeuer you shal iudge it expedient Lib. 6. aduersus Iulian I may with reason exclayme with S. Augustine What dares not the pride of rotten flesh presume You should Antony haue known what S. Gregory Nazianzen writeth Monod in S. Basil that Eusebius Bishop of Vercells and Lucifer of Calaris were sent ex vrbe Româ from the Citty of Rome into the East particularly to appease a sedition and tumult at Cesaraea De viris illustribus in Lucifero and that which S. Hierome left recorded of Lucifer that he was sent Legat into the East to Constantius Emperour from Liberius the Roman Bishop Whence you may gather that by power delegated to them from the Roman Bishop they were able to commaund the East and ordaine such great affaires and not by their owne proper authority Wherefore you haue not Lucifer the Bishop of Calaris but Lucifer prince of Pride for your patterne and president when you go about to rayse your selfe a throne in the coasts of the North that as Christ in the South by the Bishop of Rome gouerneth the Vniuersall Church so in the North he that seeks to be like to the highest may by you as Head send forth and display his counsells and deuises vpon all Christendome 37. And what meant you to match your selfe with those most holy and famous Bishops Worthyes of the Church Contrary things layd togeather deserue to set forth mutually ech other In the practise of these Saintes as in a glasse we may behold how opposite all your proceedings are to the rules of sanctity They going left their Churches prouided and well commended to other pastours You leaue your Church wholy destitute to be deuoured as you conceiue by wolues They either went to the Roman Church for succour and counsell or were sent by the Roman to giue succour and counsell to others you fly from the Roman Sea you detest blaspheme it They being men renowned in the whole Church for their learning and sanctity being earnestly inuited by diuers Bishops and by the secret suffrages of the whole Church for that interprise designed went to put an end to the Church Controuersies you being neither for the dignity of your Sea eminēt aboue the rest nor commendable for Knowledge and Holynes of life a man vtterly vnknowne who by your Apostasy now beginne to haue fame You I say offer your selfe for vniuersal Superintendent and Curate to the world which before this your offer had neuer so much as heard of your name They laboured for that faith which had byn settled and defined by Councells you seeke to bring in Doctrine which you know to haue byn many ages ago condemned by the authority of Councells They stroue against Heretikes that seing they had bin accursed in Coūcells they might likewise be reiected from the Catholike Communion your labours are in fauour of damned Heretikes that though they be proscribed by Councells yet they may be reteyned in the Church if so be that they will professe Christ by the essentiall Creedes as you speake And you seeme to be of the same mind that some Donatists were Epist 48. whome S. Augustine condemns that it is no matter in what part or side a man be a Christian nor do you consider that it is sitting that God should be serued in vnity Thus by comparing your selfe with the ancient holy Bishops your sanctity appeares The seauenth Gulfe New flattering doctrine THIS Gulfe imbraceth two vices and both of them properly belong to Heretiks the one is to coyne new doctrines the other to flatter their auditours specially Princes Lib. 1. ca. 1. Of the first S. Irenaeus saith That later Heretiks do day by day inuent some new thing which neuer any man had thought of before Of the second S. Hierome writeth Lib. 1. cōt Pelag. That flattering properly agreeth to Heretiks and to them that study how to deceaue soules according to the saying of the Apostle such persons serue not Christ our Lord but their owne belly and by sweet speaches and benedictions seduce the harts of the innocent 39. Many new doctrines you haue in your booke Antony as are these 1. That a Bishop for feare of persecution may forsake his flock and leaue it wholy destitute 2. That to euery Bishop is giuen the care of the vniuersall Church so that by his owne proper authority he may intermeddle in the affaires of other Bishoprikes 3. That none who professe Christ by the Creeds essential of the ancient Church are to be repelled from the Catholike Communion 4. That Schisme is a farre greater sinne then Heresy These your new conceits haue been mentioned and refuted already 40. Other foure sayings you haue wherin you make fayre with Kings by depressing the authority of the Church The first is That Kings can do many thinges in the Church The second That the Church can do nothing at all in temporalls specially towards Kings The third That all iurisdiction is to be remoued from the Church These three propositions you haue in the 28. and 29. page In the first the English Parlamētarians agree with you The two other be new not only repugnant to the ancient Fathers but also to the Heretikes of this age to Puritans and Protestants and to the eager defenders of the late English Oath For these deny not the Churches authority ouer Kings yea they graunt that euen in temporalls the Church may commaund them though they mantayne that Kings obstinate rebellious against the Church may not be deposed from their gouernement And what is Iurisdiction but power to appoint what is right to enact Lawes to call the transgressors of their lawes before them to sit vpon them and punish thē being conuinced of punishable offences Now that the Church did in former times exercise this power as deriued to her from Christ is so cleere that he that is ignorant therof or so impudent as to deny it I thinke him not worthy to be disputed with 41. The fourth doctrine I dare say is new and properly yours then which scarse any more base can be deuised to flatter Kings Which doctrine you may seem to haue coyned of purpose that therby
vnsauory and contemptible what wonder though as salt without sauour you were cast forth vnto the dung-hill 45. The second difference betweene the King and the Pope deuised by you is that the Pope is the brother and colleague of Bishops but the King is second after God inferiour to God only By the first because the Pope is the brother of Bishops you inferre that the Pope may be rebuked by his fellow bishops And your inference is good if the Pope giue iust cause if the correction be giuen with due modesty in due time place and manner that it may be for the good both of the Pope the Church By the other because the King is second to God you gather that no man may rebuke him but God only and the Prophets that are stirred vp by God sent purposely for that end You be then of this mind that the dignity of a King which is to be next vnto God doth make him not to be the sonne of the Church nor the brother of Christians For if his being supreme after God in temporalls hinder not but that in spirituall things he is the sonne of the Church why may he not be rebuked by his Mother If he be the brother of Christiās the brother of the Children of the Church why may not they warne him of his faults freely yet with modesty with prudency and with Charity Hebr. 12. vers 7.8 The Apostle saith What son is it whom the Father doth not correct If you be not vnder discipline and correction you be not sonnes but bastards You can neuer exempt the King from being vnder the discipline and correction of Bishops except you put him from the number of the children of the Church 46. But take heed you do not this not because therein you should contradict the ancient Fathers for to do that you would not greatly care but for feare least you offend his gratious Maiesty of Great Brittany whome by this flattering diuinity you endeuour to sooth For William Tooker Deane of Lich-field in his booke called Duellum aduersus Martinum Becanum in the 34. page thereof hath these words Our most gracious and potent King Iames doth accompt nothing more glorious and more honorable for him then with Valentinian to professe himselfe the sonne of the Church and with Theodoricus King of Italy most willingly to acknowledge himselfe the pupill of the Church and the disciple of his Arch-bishops and Bishops Marke me Antony Either you deny the King to be the sonne of the Church or you grant it If you deny it you take from the King the title which if we beleeue Maister Tooker most and aboue all other he esteemeth If you grant the King to be the sonne of the Church and yet will exempt him from being vnder her discipline you make him if we beleeue S. Paul not a lawfully begotten sonne but adulterous Which way so euer you turne your selfe you are in bryars you both dispute impertinently and flatter foolishly 47. The third difference you put between the Pope and the King is that it is not for Prophets to meddle with the Pope but to reprehend Kings God himselfe appoints speciall messengers and Prophets This difference you proue by the example of Dauid who when he was to be rebuked for murder and adultery no man no not the High-priest himselfe durst attempt it because Dauid being King was inferiour to God only Heere you suppose things that are false yet were your false supposalls granted you yet your argument is naught First it is false that Dauid was to be rebuked for adultery and murder Dauid sinned closely he cunningly made away with Vrias by the sworde of his enemyes This his wickednes mortall men could hardly know much lesse could they reproue him for it Secondly it is false that the high-priest durst not reprehend Dauid because he was a King next vnto God He rebuked him not because he knew not that he was worthy of rebuke for had he knowne it why might he not haue dared to do that to Dauid 2. Paral. cap. 26. which Azarias High-priest did to King Ozias whome after sharpe reprehensions he turned out of the Temple And how vaine your discourse is though your premisses were solide hence may it appeare that by the same kind of argument I will easily proue that the Pope may not be rebuked but by some Prophet and speciall messenger sent for that purpose from God For God to reprehend the High-priest hath sent speciall messengers 1. Reg. cap. 2. 3. When Hely the High-priest out of fond affection and indulgence towards his sonnes permitted them to staine the worship of God with most heynous and scandalous sinnes and so deserued to be rebuked and soundly tould of his fault yet none of the Priests nor of the Leuites nor of his friends and familiars durst that we read of rebuke him for it but God sent singular Prophets and speciall Heraldes for that purpose Therfore the high Priest may not be rebuked but of Prophets by singular commission from God This argument is much stronger then yours is yet if I should seriously bring it as placing any force therein I were a foole But you that would haue earthly power preferred before the heauenly what wonder though your arguments in this behalfe be earthly The eight Gulfe Fond and idle Talking YOvv write in the 28. page that you heare a voice which doth thunder still in your eares and say vnto you Cry You follow the instinct of this voice In cap. 22. Isa you do as Heretikes vse to do whose doctrine saith S. Hierome consistes not in knowledge but in clamors and in idle multiplicity of words without sense You powre forth words and make a noise wherewith you beate the ayre and touch no body yea sometimes you strike your selfe with one sentence destroying what in another you had set vp Examples in both kinds of this fond talking are very plentifull in your booke I shall gather you a few 49. In the 35. page being now Gouernour of the Vniuersal Church created by your owne authority you very grauely exhort and rebuke the Bishop of Rome and other Catholike Bishops in this māner Articles in themselues indifferent that were neuer yet in the Church sufficiētly discussed established or defined let vs not admit as articles of fayth except they be first sufficiently defined to the full or be shewed to be sufficiently already defined Let vs not also condemne any for Heretikes except it be first cleare that they haue been formerly or now are sufficiently condemned by the Church In things indifferent then let free scope be left to euery one to thinke and practise as they please let euery one abound in their owne sense till the Church taught and gouerned by the spirit of Christ shall make an end of Controuersies and separate the true chaffe from the true grayne Thus you talke And to what end are so many wordes cast into the wind Whome
you could possibly lay togeather on a heape so many things openly false absurd impious so many things wherein you contradict your selfe wherein you bewray the courses which you would fayne haue hidden wherin you vtterly ouerthrow your owne cause Wherfore you can neuer proceed further except you returne backe to the Catholike Church from which you haue fayled You are gone out of the way you must needs returne before you can make forward 56. The applause wherwith our Adueruersaries intertained you let it not detayne you from this returne Therein they did nothing that swarueth from the nature of Heretikes or from the course that ancient Heretikes held Praesc cap. 40. Being themselues Apostata's saith Tertullian they ioyfully receaue our Apostata's that fly vnto them they bestow on them benefices they aduance them to dignities so tying them fast to their sect by honours whome they cannot bind sure to them by the truth Nor let their exclamations prayses predictions allure you wherwith they shew their great hope conceyued that they shall vanquish the Pope you being their leader These are but bubbles froath which your fall from so high a state into so deep a gulfe hath raysed suddaynly will vanish away Despise them These are the oyle of sinners wherewith wretches appointed for fire euerlasting be in this world anointed that in the next their burning may be the sorer Abhorre them These are but conceits prayses wherwith they make a vaine shew of triumph ouer vs and flatter you to your face who behind your backe play vpon you with scoffes loading you with the disgracefull titles you truly deserue and with some also which perchance you haue not merited when not long ago at S. Dunstans you made a speach in the street do you not know what the people then present vttered against you They called you great-bellied-Doctour made fat vnder Antichrist and some there were also that sayd that before you ranne away from the Pope you got your owne Neece with child and that feare to be punished for it made you trudge away with your great load of flesh in such hast 57. I do not relate these things as beleeuing them or as desiring that they should be beleeued but to shew how vaine be the prayses of Heretikes how vayne a prophet you were in promising to yourselfe that your most beautifull Sara for so you tearme your good Name should remaine pure and vntoucht in the midest of Barbarians For these things were vented against you not in Rome by Catholikes but in London by Protestants openly in the streets Many great Personages also do not sticke to mutter about you that besides grossnes of body you haue brought nothing with you that is answerable to the greatnes of your titles that your booke doth not equall the solemne ostentation and expectation you haue raised therof that you do not performe therein what you promise yea some would not haue it printed at all fearing you may therwith disgrace your selfe and their Ghospell 58. Now then Antony why tarry you in the middest of a depraued and peruerse nation Why do you wretchedly draw on your gray hayres with grief and disgrace to your graue Seeke for true renowne who haue lost the vaine honour that you hūted for irreligiously Enter into your owne hart remember whence you are falne do pennance and turne againe to your first workes Through Gods goodnesse assisting you rayse your self a monument of the diuine mercy which this present age which the future times may admire and make a lasting benefit of Let reioycing posterity to the worlds end be taught by your example this comfortable truth that the bowels of diuine benignity be not so loathing of sinners but that they willingly take in againe euen tepide Apostata's whome they were forced to cast vp Ayme at the dignity of a Penitent seeing you haue lost the state of Innocēcy You that haue let go the sterne you who beaten out of the ship wherein you were Pilot floate in the Ocean lay hold on this board which is reached vnto you whereon you may swimme to a Kingdome You are threescore yeares old very nigh the remnant of your yeares be bad and few Withdraw these your bad yeares from vice that you may see good dayes Bestow these your few yeares in pennance that you may gaine yeares eternall Let not the bitternes of pennāce discourage you which by the dew of diuine Comforts falling from aboue will be sweetned Where sinne hath abounded there grace will more abound The deeper and darker that the dungeon is wherin you are kept by so much more sweet will the breath be that being thence deliuered you shall draw in the lightsome mercies of your Redeemer 59. Nor let it deiect you that you haue shamefully falne but remember that as the depth of the diuine Iustice so likewise the depth of the diuine Mercy is vnsearchable Who knowes the mind of God And whether he hath not ordayned that this your fall be for your owne rising againe and for the rising of many The secret pride wherein you went mounting a loft in your conceyts against your Creatour was to be beaten downe by a mighty thunderclappe that you others might feele it For this your pride standing on foote you could no wayes be saued by him that lookes vpon low things high things knoweth a farre off Wherfore I am not greeued with your defection no not for your owne sake which yet would grieue me could I be persuaded that you should haue byn saued had you continued in the Catholike Church But when I consider the wauering disposition the darke and intangled proceedings of Apostata's both ancient and new I come to be setled in this opinion That none perish by falling from the Church who would not as well haue perished through their secret concealed errours though they had continued outwardly in the Church And these men are by the secret course of diuine Prouidence cast out of the Church to the end that being so forlorne they may reflect on themselues or else that by being out of the Church they may benefit others who by remayning in the Church would neuer haue benefited themselues This to me seemes the opinion of S. Augustine whose golden words I here set downe de vera Relig. c. 8. Seing it is truly sayd that Heresies must needs be to the end that they who are of proofe amongst you may be made manifest let vs make vse of this benefit of the diuine prouidence For Heretikes be made of such kind of men who though they were in the Church would we neuerthelesse erre but being out of the Church they be very beneficial not because they teach the Truth for hereof they are ignorant but because they awake carnall Catholikes to seeke and spirituall Catholikes to declare the truth Thus S. Augustine 60. I could name diuers Apostata's with whome in times past I haue byn acquaynted who euen then when to others yea to themselues they seemed Catholikes were couertly infected with Errours against the Roman Faith and possessed with secret malice against the Roman Sea But you Antony are an example of this truth that may stand insteed of many For to say nothing of your open enimity against the Roman doctrine in your last ten yeares you that still beleeued that the Church of Rome was iustly suspected of errours what could the externall shew and profession of a Roman Catholike haue auayled you to saluation You that still were doubting whether some doctrine more firme then the Catholike did not lye hidden in the writings of Heretikes what good would it haue done you that you kept your eyes from their books your body frō their Conuenticls You had perished secretly nor such was your carelessnes had you perceaued that you did perish Now you erre openly that many may be taught the truth you perish in the sight of the world that diuers affrighted with your example may be moued to work their saluation And why may not this your fall turne to your euerlasting exaltation I will not despayre but when you haue been cloyed with the huskes of swine which now you feed in a farmers house that once were a feeder of sheep in the Church I do not despayre I say but that one day you will call to mind the aboundance of your fathers house and hauing learned by deare experience what a mischiefe secret Pride is retourning to the Catholike Church you will say I had perished vnlesse I had perished FINIS Faultes escaped in the Printing Page Line Fault Correction 6. vlt. of out of 8. 9. hell in hell in 12. 26. vnion vnion 16. 3. your our 19. penult false falne 23. 12. of if Ibid. 21. vnto men vnto you 25. 23. now as this now this 26. 5. prosecuteth persecuteth 31. 20. begon be gone 33. 14. do be to be 53. 3. to rather to Rather Ibid. 4. your selfe You your selfe you Ibid. 6. deeds You deeds you 67. 2. Church Church Ibid. 4. world world 68. 19. guide grudge 72. 19. swarueth swarued 79. 19. one owne 98. 18. fall face 102. 2. so to 111. 6. are were 121. 12. deserue do serue