Gospell and the irradiation of so many parts of Europe with the glorious beames thereof there haue risen vp many contradicting the verity of the same there haue beene diverse distractions by the whisperings of heretikes the intelligent Christian Reader may easily perceiue that this maketh not against vs but illustrateth the truth of that which we de fend First it hath ever so beene with the Church when God hath given somewhat more free passage of the Gospel then ordinary the o Mat. 13. 25 good seed is no sooner sowen but presently the evill man taketh opportunity to sow tares among it which Parable our Saviour in his divine wisedome did speake to this purpose Where it is not amisse to consider that the old veteratorious enemy Sathan who hath Mille nocendi artes a thousand devises to do hurt striveth to bring about his practises by manifold tricks stratagems Here his first chiefest purpose as best making way to his darke kingdome of hel is to keep all in ignorance If that cannot be but that he is over-mastred theÌ„ his next study is by the sword of violent persecution to destroy the professors of Gods truth If that will not succeede then he raiseth vp heresies distractions among theÌ„ who pretend the same verity Even vpoÌ„ the coÌ„ming of Christ into the world Sathan had almost al things at his owne will The Gentiles were not yet come to the light the Iewes were wel-neere past it but neither among the one nor the other was much faith to be fouÌ„d How did this Beelzebub struggle to keep the world in these termes wheÌ„ he would haue had p Mat. 2. 13. Christ to be murthered in his cradle afterward left him not till he brought him to his crosse Wel this would do no good but for one steÌ„me cut down their grew vp many young plants al taking their vital nourishmeÌ„t froÌ„ the first root The q Rom. 10. 1â—… sound of the Apostles doctrine went out through all the earth and their words into the ends of the world Here then Sathan being put to his shiftes turned over a nevve leafe If he could not stoppe the streame hee thought he woulde poison it and therefore sendeth in the Nicolaitanes Ebion and Cerinthus with their complices immediatly who shoulde mixe the good graine with cockle and darnell This was his manner of assaulting at the first Yet was he not so simple but to his best power hee helde his first grounde Better no Christians at all then some Christians true and some counterfeit A second time therfore he falleth on the well head with earnest desire either to dry it or to damme it vp By Decius and Ualerian and the rest of the bloudy Emperours he exciteth ten most terrible persecutions by the which vntil wel neere 300. yeeres after Christ he thought to have râ—…zed out from vnder the heaven the name of the embracers of the Gospell And in the intervalla or interstitia of these persecutions hee did not forget his feates of Heresie as may bee seene by the Novatians But after the time by his own counsaile appointed God was pleased to stey the fury rage of tyrants sending that his blessed servant Constantine and the other Emperours who openly professed for the ChristiaÌ„ faith And now the floud-gats of the Gospel being so wide set open through a great part of the world the Devill had his hands his head too ful to do some-thing which might serve for his purpose Then grewe immediately such a rabble of Heresies as is almost incredibles which as it appeareth by that which formerly hath bin cited out of Epiphaniâ—… and Austen so it is more confirmed by the words of Hierome saying thus q Lib. 2. contrâ—…â—…ovinianum It is almost foure hundred yeeres agone that the preaching of Christ doth shine in the world since which time â—…erable Heresies have reâ—…e his coate And yet as I noted before well neere three hundred yeeres were passed over in that continued time of persecution Now amidst these Heresies vvhat vvarres and dissentions vvere among the Christians it is not easie to reporte If the inferiour s Soâ—…om 6. 25. Clergy among themselues sell to disagree about any thing it grewe to that stomake that it ended in some Heresie And the Bishops when some s Socrat. 2. 19. schisme was once amongst theÌ„ they kept their bucharist apart would not come to the communion eâ—…he with other VVill you in this case heare the testimony of a heathen man who no doubt recounteth the story with great gladnes as pleasing him well in the endvseth almost the same wordes as the Romanistes doe of some other VVâ—… t Am. Marcillâ—… l. 22. 3. the Christians did disagree among themselves 〈◊〉 suâ—…y intending to deale vvith them did call the Prelates and the people intâ—… his Palace where he permitted to every one the vse of his Religion sâ—… meaning to increase betweene them so great discordes aâ—… that they might not be alaidâ—… knowing that beastes are not more deadly minded tovvards beastes then Christians are to Christians You may learne heere froÌ„ what schoole-master the u Commentar Relig Reip. in Gall. Lib 3. Cardinall of Lorraine did take his lesson when at the conference of Poissy to thwart M r Beza and Peter Martyr and other of that company he sent for some Lutheranes out of Germany who might in the matter of Sacrament have turned their disputations against those of the Religion when as both of them should rather have ioyned against the common enemy And in the auncient times before spoken of if we will thinke of private quarrels what u Hier Apolog contr Ruffin Ruffin in Invectiv rancour and bitternes was there betweene Hierome Ruffiâ—…s as also what stomakefulnesse betweene x Sozom. lib. 8. 15. Chrysostome Epiphaniâ—… when they parted and never saw eche other againe Yet to say that among any or all of these Christians there was no verity or solidity of faith or Religion had bin an absurde conclusion and such a one as our Romanists themselves would quickly deny There were many who walked in by-pathes and yet there vvere vvho kepte the right way also GOD had his Saintes and Sathan his schismatickes 16 The reason why such heresies did spring vp in the church was partly to be derived from Gods determinate counsaile and partly from the malice of our olde deadly enimy They had both their purposes in it but the one holy and good the other like himselfe full of improbity and impiety y 1 Cor 11. 19. There must bee Heresies among you saith Saint Paule that they which are approved among you might be knowne And z Contr. hoeres c. 15. Vincentius Lirinensis telleth vs that therefore there be herisies that the Lord our God may try vs whether we love him with all our hearte and all our soule or no. Whether by the authoritie or vvitte of any man vvee vvill
be for a great parte thereof but borrowed stuffe and that of such meane qualitie as that hardly it may goe in the number of the buttons and lace vvhereof you talke that is to say for Pedlerie and paultry ware it may bee reputed and not as ought of any precious accounte or reckoning You had neede therefore intreate your friendes as you doe to take all vvell which if they doe vpon this your request and so yeelde you your defire it is much more of their kindenesse and curtesie then of your deserving The protestation which you make of loyal and duetiful affection toward our and your Soveraigne is in shewe somewhat if in truth your hearte and actions doe directly and indirectlye corresponde there-vnto But it may be demurred vpon whither those who are in highest authority and by long experience and manifolde intelligence haue vnderstoode their course who are brought vp in the Seminaries will giue credite to your wordes You doe not so daunce in a net as that you can see every body and no body can see you There is much and very much preiudice against you such as wil not in hast vpon the naked word of a person suspect be satisfied for We know this your Maxime that faith given or promise made to an Hereuke may be broken We know that with you the Pope is Christes Vicar and his voice is to be obeyed as an immediate Oracle of God We vndoubtedly vnderstande that diverse of the Romane Bishops haue done their worst to depriue her late sacred Maiesty of her crowne and dignity We finde that many of your Predecessors and Schoole-maisters haue in printed books much reviled and railed against the Lords Annointed and some doe yet persist We are assured that the companies of your fellow students are mainetained by the late professed enemies of our Religion Prince and Countrey We haue it confessed by men of their owne sort that many of the English beyonde the seas are at the sole devotion of the Spanyard It cannot be denied that the Rectours and chiefe men of or neere your Seminaries as Allen Bristow Stapleton Parsons other haue either by their actiōs or their writings or both declared themselues known traitours against our dead Soveraigne the State as also that diverse of the leaders did with their best indevours helpe forward the invasion Anno 1588 and some of the meaner sort came in the fleete And as certaine it is that sundry both Irish and English Priests and Iesuites haue beene principall instigatours of the Irish tumults At home albeit of late there hath appeared some difference between such as are vnited to the Arch-Priest and the rest which oppugne him yet in this our Q. Elizabeth did certainely finde that they al agreed that to their vitermost they did knit p The proclamation Nov. 5. 1602 as many as they could fast to the Pope diminishing the number of those who were assured to her Highnesse and encreasing his account who heretofore had as a temporall Prince his banner displaide in the field and stil to her death continued his warlike Stratagems against her Maiesty And from this roote of being reconciled to the Romane Bishop it ariseth that many of your followers are male-contented with the present state and insinuate so farre as they dare that they wish another governement Al these scruples make against you besides the frequent conspiracies by some against the life of our late gracious Queene and by others the iustification of such Rebels as haue lift vp their sword against her And well it were if together with her death the wicked malice of that false generation had dyed but it is otherwise as by the attempts of that Quodlibeting Watson and other his complices is evident to all men They haue by printed books made infinite protestations of alleageance and loyalty the least sparke whereof doth novv see me never to haue resided within their breasts which well demonstrateth what credit may be given to actiue stirring Papists Now for your part if you approue these thinges your heart is not sounde and if you dislike them you renounce many Theoremes and much also of the practise of Popery and then you may be a witnesse to your selfe that as many of your forerunners and fellowes haue swarved in these actions and positions so they and you also may goe astray in your other pointes of Papistrie vvhich you at this time doe not more eagerly defende or confidently mainetaine then your predecessours and copartners haue done the rest before named But vntill this doe enter into your hearte and you by evident demonstration do shewe vs some better fruit you must giue vs leaue with a watchfull eie to obserue you and to holde you no more loayll then wee haue good assuraunce thereof An enemye canne humble himselfe and make faire vveather till hee can gaine opportunitye to effecte his longe-vvished and principall desires Vpon this I pray you to ruminate in your chamber at Phalempyne or Palempyne vvhence you date your letters which vvee vvill not imagine to bee Pampelyne or Pampelune in Navarre nor othervvise beate our braynes to knovve vvhat this meaneth since an Examination hath detected that Master Fitz. UUilliams that is to say you Doctour Hill brought your booke your selfe to be Printed not at Antwerpe as the first page falsly signifieth but in Englande and there where either blacke or white Lordes or Ladyes beare either game or name avva◅e God sende you so much grace as to see and consider your ovvne courses to recall your vntruthes to repent for your slaunders and to make satisfaction to those simple and superstitious people vvhom by this following libell you haue abused AN ANSWERE TO THE FIRST REASON THOMAS HILL If the Prophecies of the Holy Bible be true as they be most true then must the Religion of the Protestants needes be false GEORGE ABBOT THat some doe still continue to plead for their vnholy father of Rome do their best endevours to vnderprop vphold the ruines of his decaying Babylon ought not to seeme strange to any Christian man who hath but a competent knowledge of things spiritual For while there is a church militant there shal also be a Church malignant laboring to oppresse and keepe downe the other and so long as Antichrist standeth he shall haue his admirers yea and a Apoc. 13. 15. adorers too of the image of the beast And toward the end of the world it is foretolde that there shall be swarmes of b Cap. 9. 3. locusts who in likelyhood wil not so ill love the bottomles pit from which they do ascend but that their purpose wil be to returne thither againe drawe with them such store of company as they may bee able to worke vpon Neither may it seeme wonderfull that among the devoted servants of the Pope some of our nation being ◅ed over the seas should play their parts and prizes since it is their open profession to stand on his side
never is nor cā be extinguished but hath a continual being Vnto which it may be added that since faith doth much cōsist d Heb. 11. 1. of things which are not seene we beleeve the holy Catholike Church as an Article of our faith it may follow that it need not ever be eminently visible and apparantly sensible vnto vs. 17 For the better exemplificatiō of this verity it may be remēbred what havocke was made by the heathen Romane Emperours their Deputies against the flock of Christ in the ten first persecutions That in the Roman dominion there was scant any to be heard of who professed Christianity but hee was soone cut of by the sword or otherwise Did they in those times suffer any patent visibility of true profeslours or when they once knewe where they were did they not forthwith labour to extirpate thē But in the daies of Cōstātius whē the Arriā Heresy had once gottē the head where in the world did there appeare any sēsible cōgregatiō maintaining the Orthodoxe belief Hieromes testimony of those daies was e Adversus Luci◅rianos The whole vvorld did sigh wondred that it selfe was Arrian The words are but fewe but they are to the purpose So said Gregorius Presbiter writing the life of Gregory Nazianzen The secte of the Arriās had almost possessed al the coastes of the world the power impiety of the Emperour ministring boldnes vnto it The words of Constātius himselfe in f Theodor. Hist. Eccles. lib. 2. 16. Theodoret do give testimony vnto this neither doth Liberius the Roman Bishop say ought to the cōtrary The speeches of the Arrian Emperour against him Athanasius are these The whole vvorld doth thinke that this is well The whole world hath givē sentēce of his impiety Thou alone dost embrace the friēdship of that wicked man And a litle before that Doth so great a part of the world reside in thee Liberius that thou alone dost dare to come in aide to that wicked mā disturb the peace of the vniversal world Whervnto Liberius did not take exceptiō saying that the visible Church stood for him Athanasius but rather giveth another reason to make good his being alone Be it that I am alone Notwithstāding for that the cause of the faith is not the worse For a great while agone there were three only foūd who would resist the Kings cōmandemēt Heere the Church for any external shew was low brought for if any body held it vp it was Athanasius who thē plaied least in sight durst not appeare For this Liberius who did for a time second him did afterward shrinke He went at first into banishmēt in defence of the truth but after that he was so sollicited laid at by g Hieron in Catalog script Eccles. Fortunatianus that he relēted cōdescended to subscribe to the Arrian heresy as Hierome witnesseth who lived in that age was longe cōversant in Rome therfore could better report what was the issue of Liberius his cōstācy thē some other who do relate it otherwise What can be said for him h De Pontifice Romano 4. 9. Bellarmine hath but yet enforced by the evident testimony of Athanasius Hilary Hierome he cōfesseth so much as I have heere set downe but cover it he would that he only consented to the externall acte of subscribing but remained in hart Orthodoxe Why should it then be a marveil◅ if in processe of time Antichrist growing to greater strength the Church should be in covert It is no more then often times fell out vnder the Iewish Synagogue and hath bin exemplified to have beene since among the Christians was so evidently foretolde before In so much that by the example of the i Apoc. 12. 6. woman it cannot be the true Church vnlesse it should be hidde in the wildernes Which while our Popish teachers deny to agree to their Romish Church but professe that it hath ever bin in sight they thēselves do by a cōsequēt proclaime that they are not the pure vndefiled flying womā but another painted harlot strūpet The true Church is for a time out of sight in the wildernes but so say they was their Church never and therefore will they nill they their Church is not the true Church 18 And heere to the end that the slaūderous calūniatiō of our Adversaries may the more bee manifested to all those who will not wilfully close their eies against truth I wil a little shewe the vanity and yet maliciousne◅ of their obiectiō whē they say that there was k Campian Ration 10. Q◅nti Evang pro fessores never any of our faith before the daies of Luther who in the yeere 1517. began for hi◅ part to display the kingdō of Antichrist Where I pray the Reader to cōsider that the most pa◅t of those whō I shal ◅e are Popish writers no way partially flected toward vs. We say thē that M. Luther was not the first brocher of those pointes which he taught against Papistry but as he did originally deduce thē frō the Scriptures out of the workes of the ancient Fathers so he did derive thē also hereditarily frō other who immediatly before him had taught the same doctrine left it both in bookes the harts of mē recōmēded vnto him As principal parties herein I name Iohn Hus Hierome of Prage al such as were their scholers in or about Bohemia who before Luthers time oppugned the beliefe of the Church of Rome and their professiō was not extinguished vntil his dates howsoever it before had bin mainly assaulted If we could learn this no where els yet Fraūcis Guicciardine an Italiā Florētine Historiographer would informe vs of it who l Histor. l. 13. writing of the yeere 1520 saith plainly that Luther did set abroad the Heresies as he tearmeth thē of the Bohemiās he nameth there Hus Hierome as former divulgers of the same And Petrus m In vita Wenceslai Messias a Spanyard therin agreeth with him who mētioning the opiniōs of Hus the Bohemians saith they were the seed of those errors which were afterward in Germany alluding to the doctrin of Luther There is no mā whose testimony in this behalfe may be of more worth thē Iohannes Cochleus first because hee wrote a large story n Historia Chochle◅ de Hassit◅s of purpose cōcerning the Hassites and therefore by his long search reading writing in that argument may bee presumed to knowe as much as any Secondly because it may bee vvell imagined that hee woulde faine nothing to doe Luther good in as much as hee also wrot◅ a o Histor de actis script M. Lutheri volume purposely against that worthy servāt of God intēding to rippe vp his whole life frō yeere to yeere to censure all his workes Yet this enimy of his in the story of the Hussites doth plētifully satisfie vs about the