other Church or Chappel of the Devil to deface and malign the same necessary it is that the difference between them both be seen and the descent of the right Church to be described from the Apostles time c. 26. Here we see all John Fox his drift laid down First he meaneth to contradict all former Writers that have magnified the Church of Rome and the Greatness and Glory thereof which he calleth the Devil's Chappel And in this he must contradict all the ancient Fathers and Writers for divers hundred years after Christ as Irenaeus Tertullian Augustin Optatus and other Writers that bring down the descent of the true Church of Christ by the Succession of the Bishops and Church of Rome as before you have heard And secondly Fox meaneth to set out another Christian Church trodden under foot before neglected in the World not regarded in Histories and almost scarce visible or known and yet was and is forsooth the only true Church of Christ keeping some spark of his true Doctrin and Religion he doth not say that all was true which she held nor that all Christ's Doctrin was taught in her but only some sparks or scraps of true Doctrin And further he promiseth that he will describe the descent of this Church from the Apostles time 27. This is John Fox his promise and we accept thereof And tho' it be scarce worth the performance to shew us a hidden obscure and trodden down Church in every Age that keepeth some sparks of true Doctrin and Religion for that every Sect and Heresie not denying Christ and his Doctrin wholly doth so yet shall we accept and exact the same being never so miserable and beggarly as we go over the whole course of Times and Ages from Christ downward following therein the distribution it self that John Fox hath appointed to be observed in his Story to wit from Christ to Constantine 300 years from Constantine to S. Gregory as much from S. Gregory and S. Augustin our Apostles to the Conquest 400 and odd years from the Conquest to Wickliff other 300 years from Wickliff to Luther about 240 from Luther's time to ours somewhat less than a hundred In all which variety of Times we shall examin briefly Whether John Fox his Church were on foot or no What Continuance or Succession it may be said to have had Where when and by what men it was begun continued and acknowledged What Doctrin it held and whence and with what Vnion or Conformity with it self or with the Catholic Roman Church Which Catholic Church being shewed and declared in the first Part of this Book to have been founded by the Apostles and conserved visibly from that time hither by Succession of Bishops and Prelates Governors and Professors thereof will easily also bring in the Notice and Certificate of John Fox his opposite Church whereof now we begin to treat CHAP. II. The particular Examination of the Descent or Succession of John Fox his Church in England or elsewhere for the first Three Hundred years after CHRIST to wit unto the time of Constantine the Emperour And whether any such Church was extant then in the World or no and in Whom HE that will consider the proportion of John Fox his Book of Acts and Monuments in the latter Edition he shall find it the greatest perhaps in Volume that ever was put forth in our English Tongue and the falsest in substance without perhaps that ever was published in any Tongue The Volume consisteth of above a thousand Leaves of the largest Paper that lightly hath been seen and every Leaf containeth four great Columns and yet if you consider how many Leaves of those thousand he hath spent in Deduction of the whole Church either His or Ours and the whole Ecclesiastical Story thereof for the first thousand years after Christ they are by his own account but threescore and four to wit scarce the thirtieth part of that he bestoweth in the last five hundred years 2. And further if this his thousand years Story containing threescore and four leaves be sifted and examined what it containeth not four of them do appertain to that which he should handle which is the visible Deduction of his Church as we shall endeavor briefly to shew dividing the whole thousand and threescore years from Christ to William the Conqueror into four distinct Times or Stations appointed out by John Fox himself in his Book to wit the first from Christ to Constantine containing 300 years the second from Constantine to K. Ethelbert's Conversion by St. Augustin containing other 300 years the third from King Ethelbert and other six Kings of England reigning jointly with him unto King Egbert the first Monarch of the English Nation which space is somewhat more than other 200 years and the fourth from King Egbert to William the Conqueror containing the same or some few more years 3. Let us now follow I say John Fox throughout all these Ages and different stations of times and see out of what Holes or Dens he will draw his little hidden trodden down Church different from the Roman Visible Church and yet endued notwithstanding from time to time with some little sparks of Truth which he promiseth to bring down from the Apostles to our time In the first 300 years then from Christ to Constantine whereas all other Ecclesiastical Writers and St. Luke amongst the rest in his Acts of the Apostles ch 2 3 4 c. do set down the visible beginning of Christ's Church by his Apostles and Disciples their strengthening and confirmation by the coming of the Holy Ghost their preaching and converting of others their great and many Miracles and thereby the establishing and wonderful increase of the said Church throughout the World and continuance of the same downward by Succession of Bishops but namely and specially of the Bishops of Rome as before hath been declared and is to be seen in the Writings of Dionysius Areopagita Josephus Justinus Egesippus Clemens Irenaeus Tertullian Origenes Julius Africanus Cyprian Eusebius and others of these Ages John Fox followeth no such order at all nor ever so much as mentioneth any descent of Bishops of His Church or Ours but only to spend time and fill up Paper taketh upon him to translate out of Eusebius and other Authors the Martyrdoms of such as suffered for Christian Religion in the ten general Persecutions of these first 300 years setting the same forth also in painted Pictures for no other purpose as it seemeth but only to entertain his Reader with some strange and delightful Spectacle and afterward so to joyn his Protestant burned Martyrs with those of the Primitive Church as the Painting being somewhat alike the simple Reader might thereby be induced to think that there was no great difference either in their Persons or Cause of suffering 4. But I would ask John Fox To what purpose of his was the bringing in of all these Martyrs of the Primitive
established over the World than in any other former Ages And to come unto the particulars there sate in the See of Rome as high-High-Bishops of the Universal Church from Pope Alexander II. that sent a Banner blessed unto William the Conqueror at his entrance into England and was the 162 Pope from St. Peter to our time unto Pope Gregory XI under whom Wickliff began his Doctrin 45 Popes and in the Roman Empire from Henry IV. unto Charles IV. succeeded 19 Emperours and in the Crown of England 10 or 11 Kings from the Conqueror to Edward III. under which Kings there succeeded by Election in the Metropolitan See of Canterbury from Stigand and Lanfrank unto Thomas Arundel 20 Archbishops All which both Popes and Emperours of the Universal Church as also the Kings and Archbishops of our Island agree uniformly in Faith and Religion without any difference at all and so it continued in our Island For albeit towards the end of this time John Wickliff with his Followers and some other Sectaries especially the Lollards rose up in our Country and caused many troubles both in England and other places yet neither the State of England nor any of our Princes and much less any Bishops or Archbishops ever suffered themselves to be infected therewith So as for the manifest continuation both of Men and Doctrin in these Ages we have no less visible Succession both of Bishops Doctors and Faith than before we have shewed in the former Ages the Succession of Bishops being evident in every Country and Church by their particular Stories and Records as also of Teachers and Doctrin as now we shall shew 18. The principal Learned Men also and Doctors of this time from the Conquest to Wickliff are known As for Example Burchardus Petrus Damianus Lanfrank Anselmus Oecumenius Marianus Scotus Ivo Carnotensis Lambertus Schafnaburgensis Rupertus Abbas Enthymius St. Bernard Peter Lombard Gratianus Albertus Magnus St. Thomas of Aquin Nicephorus Calixtus and many other downward In which time there are accounted some ten or eleven Synods and Councils to have been held in divers Countries for suppressing of Heresies and Sects that did from time to time peep up and reforming of abuses in former times and two of them to have been General to wit that of Lateran and of Constance wherein Wickliff was condemned 19. The most notorious Sects also of this time which against these Doctors Councils and Synods did strive were the Bogomilians the Petrobusians the Arnardistes the Waldenses or poor men of Lyons the Albigenses of Tholosa the Cathari or Puritans the Flagellantes or Whippers the Begardians the Beguisnes and Fraticelli or little Brethren the Lollards and Wickliffists and the rest that ensued Against all which the Church proceeded in all this time by Censures of Councils and Bishops as in all other times before against such men and must do to the Worlds end 20. And now this being so tell me good Reader whether it be not true which St. Augustin saith That it is as easie in all Ages to see where the true visible Church goeth as to see the Sun at noon day when it shineth clearest And where will John Fox go now to seek himself a private hidden Church among Christians except he patch it up of those Heretics by me named and other like as he doth And therein dealeth as if one having shewed the Descent and Continuance of the most Noble and most Ancient House of England by their Arms and Actions would condemn them all presently to have degenerated and bring in a Company of Beggars or Brothers that have run out of that House or were beaten from thence affirming These only to be of the ancient Race of that Family Or as if a man would say of the City of London that for these thousand years and more all those Men or Women that have been punished by the same City for Malefactors were the true Citizens indeed and the others that punished them only Intruders 21. In which Examples notwithstanding tho' they be ridiculous yet is there much more reason or probability than in the other for that any temporal House or Family whatsoever may degenerate and be wholly perverted and any City whatsoever may err alter or be turned upside-down by disorder but the Catholic Church cannot except we deny both the Promise Power and Godhead of Christ himself as our Heretics in effect do tho' not in words whilst they make to themselves a new scarce-visible Church of elect people to wit of their own Election and thereby are forced to say that the great visible Church begun by Christ and continued for many Ages together did at length about the time appointed by Fox tho' they cannot agree at what time wholly forsake Christ and fall to Apostacy becoming the Synagogue of Sathan an Enemy to Christ instead of his Family Kingdom and dearly-beloved Spouse which is so foul and foolish yea ignominious and monstrous an absurdity that it doth not only contradict the whole course of Scriptures which did prophesie and foretell the visible durance and continuance of this Church until the Worlds end but that it should also be the Pillar and Firmament of Truth and so assisted by Christ and his holy Spirit that it should never err nor bring into error and much less fade away or perish 22. The most Learned Father St. Augustin doth handle this matter every-where against the Donatists who like our Protestants would needs have the Universal visible Church in their time to have erred and fallen from Christ and they only as elect Vessels make the true Church tho' scarce visible to the eyes of the World as Fox saith of his Church gathered up of lurking Heretics here and there as after you shall see declared Against which absurdity St. Augustin disputed most learnedly solving first the Arguments which they allege of some evil Men or Popes that may have been in the Church if all were true as they say Nullius hominis quamvis sceleratum immane peccatum c. That no man's sin being never so heinous can prejudicate the promises of God for the visible continuance of the Church to the Worlds end neither can any Impiety of any men whatsoever within the Church bring to pass that the Faith of God which was contained in the promises made to the ancient Fathers concerning the Church of Christ to come and to be spread over the World and now fulfilled in our days should be made void c. 23. And again Albeit this Church be sometimes obscured and shadowed by multitude of scandals yea even then doth she shine and is eminent in her most firm Members c. And yet further Sed illa Ecclesia quae fuit omnium gentium non est periit hoc dicunt qui in illa non sunt O impudentem vocem Illa non est quia in illa tu non es But perhaps you will say saith he to the Donatists that that
Writings for his Defence he should never so much as look them over or take a view of them but should suffer himself to be cast and overthrown in the whole Suit without pleading at all for Himself or his Interest Which is the very case of many negligent Christians in our days who seeing so many assaults to be made by different Sectaries against the old possession of Cath. Religion which was their Ancestors Inheritance to Salvation and must be theirs if ever they be sav'd do yield so dastardly in this conflict and injury offered them as they never so much as examine what Proofs or Evidences they have or may have for their Defence A negligence no doubt inexcusable and worthy of infinite rebuke and confusion 40. Out of the Third Point concerning the necessity of pious Affection in him that must profit by these Arguments of Credibility I do infer how highly it doth import every man that meaneth seriously to treat of his Salvation in this behalf to dispossess himself of his Passions and sinister Affections against the Truth at leastwise while he treateth this Great Affair and that he place himself in such an indifferency equanimity and serenity of mind as he may be able to discern and look upon the Truth with an unpassionate Eye if she chance to appear unto him 41. The saying of our Savior in the place before-alleged of S. John's Gospel to such as were ambitious and intangl'd with the Wealth and Honor of this World and thereby letted to believe the Truth is terrible and dreadful For having demanded How it was possible for them to believe and thereby come to Salvation that were so intangl'd and evil-affected in mind he addeth presently Nolite putare quia ego accusaturus sim vos apud Patrem est qui accusat vos Do not you think that I shall have need to accuse you to my Father for these corrupt affections of yours rising of Ambition for there wanteth not one to accuse you Whereby Christ insinuateth amonst other things that Himself at the Day of Judgment was not to be Accuser but Judge and that the Condemnation of these men was to be most grievous who for Ambition Honor Wealth Dignities and Promotions had neither Time nor Will to attend to matters of Faith and true Religion whereby only Eternal Salvation may be atchieved which is a Point greatly to be considered and born in mind especially by such who are in the same or like Case with those Men of Jewry to whom Christ our Savior used that dreadful speech 42. Out of the Fourth and Last Point is inferred That considering all the premisses and that this matter of true Religion is of so great Moment as hath been shewed and that in this Treatise so short and clear a way is taken for discussion thereof as by only joyning Issue about the Planting Continuance Succession and Descent of Christian Religion in England from the Apostles Time unto Ours the whole Controversie between Us and the Protestants may fully be cleared and that with such evidence of Reason and necessary Consequence as supposing only that Ghrist was Christ and his Promises true all the rest doth follow by most certain sequel of Argument and moral Demonstration All this I say being so it may encourage and animate the studious Reader to run over this short Treatise Which if he do with that indifferency and attention which in the Second and Third Point of this Discourse have been touched I do not doubt but that he shall not need to read many other Books for resolving himself either about the grounded certain Truth of Catholic Religion or the Vanity Inanity Inconstancy Lightness and Folly of all Sect and Heresies that ever have or shall arise up against the same And with this good Reader I leave thee to the holy Protection and Benediction of Almighty God and to his merciful direction of thee in so weighty an Affair This Vigil of the Nativity of our Savior 1602. The First PART of this Present TREATISE CONCERNING Three Conversions OF ENGLAND TO THE Christian Catholic Roman Religion The ARGUMENT THe purpose of this first Part gentle Reader is to declare by evident demonstration both of Histories Reasons Antiquities and Succession of Times and by confession and other testimonies of the Adversaries themselves That this our Isle of England and People thereof the Britans Saxons and English have at three several times received Christian Faith from Rome and by Romish Preachers First under the Apostles in the first Age after Christ And then under Pope Eleutherius in the second Age And thirdly under Pope Gregory in the beginning of the sixth Age And that this Faith and Religion was no other than the Roman Catholic Faith generally received over all Christendom in those days And that it was One and the Self-same Faith at all these three times and that the same was continued and professed afterward in England publicly for almost 1400 years together to wit from the Apostles days unto the Reign of King Henry VIII under divers Nations States Governments and variety of Times by Britans Saxons Danes Normans and English and that the self-same Faith continueth at this day in the Church of Rome and Christian Catholic World abroad without change or alteration of any one substantial Article or Point of Belief and that all Cavils and Calumniations of Heretics and Sectaries in this behalf are vain and foolish and most manifestly here confuted And finally a most clear easie evident and infallible deduction visible to the Eye and Vnderstanding of every mean intelligent Reader is set down and brought from hand to hand without interruption from the first Conversions of our Realm unto this day and this so perspicuously as no man that will not wilfully shut his eyes but can see and behold the same as by the Chapters following God willing more particularly shall appear CHAP. I. Whether England and English-men have particular Obligations to the See of Rome above other Nations And of the first Conversion of Britans to Christian Religion in the time of the Apostles AFTER a certain Narration made by me in my Answer to Sir Francis Hastings about the seventh Encounter between him and N. D. wherein I declared what Reverend Respect other Nations and Kingdoms of the Christian World have ever born to the See Apostolic and Bishop thereof until this miserable Age of Heretical Spirits who ridiculously do hold the same to be Antichrist I do infer the conclusion and comparison following about the particular Obligation of English-men towards the same See and Bishop above many other Kingdoms saying in my Ward-word thus 2. And if all Christian Nations have and ought to bear such Reverence and Respect to the See of Rome then much more out little Island of England as this man calleth it for that it hath received more singular benefits from thence than any one Nation in the World besides having been twice converted from
conform to this do speak also other ancient Fathers as well Greek as Latin and one thing is specially to be noted That both the Greek and Latin Church did agree therein in the said Council there being present two Patriarchs of the Greek Church to wit those of Constantinople and Hierusalem and others both Archbishops Bishops and Prelates So as of both Churches the Archbishops were 70 the Bishops 412 Abbots and Priors 800 and Prelates in all 1215 together with the Legats Doctors and Embassadors of both Empires West and East as also of the Kings of France Spain England Hierusalem and others So as this point of Doctrin about Transubstantiation was not hanled in corners but publicly and the Council doth not deliver the same as any New Doctrin but only as an Explication of That which ever had been held before 19. And the same is answered to the other-like Heretical Cavils about other points here objected by Fox and Sir Francis of an Vniversal Pope the use of the Mass and Propitiatory Sacrifice the setting up of dead Mens Images and the like For if they understand by the first the Primacy and Supreme Authority Ecclesiastical of the See of Rome and her Bishops and by the second the Christian external Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of our Savior instituted by himself as the Complement of all other Sacrifices that went before and by the third Sacred Memories and Images of Christ and his Saints that are not dead but living and reigning everlastingly in Heaven then are all these Doctrins howsoever disguised by Heretics with different words to make them more odious most true and Catholic Doctrins and received in the Church from the beginning and continued from the Apostles downward 20. And albeit these People to continue cavilling do alledge divers times that the first of these Articles about the Popes Supremacy did begin first under Pope Gregory the Great and Phocas the Emperor about the year of Christ 600 and that the last about the Vse of Images was decreed in the second General Council of Nice about the year 700 and that the other of the Use of Mass began by little and little they cannot tell when yet is this all most ridiculous and themselves dare not stand to any certain time by them assigned for that presently we appoint another time before that wherein these things were also acknowledged which they cannot do in the Heresies by us objected to them for that we shew indeed the very true time wherein they began and had their off-spring together with the proper Authors Places Occasions and other-like particularities recorded not by our selves but by other authentical Writers before us so as reasonably there can be no doubt thereof And herein stands the true difference between us We really and substantially shew the Beginning and Authors of their Heresies for that they are Heresies indeed but They cannot shew the Beginning or Author of any of our Articles of Belief since Christ and his Apostles for that they are no Heresies but Catholic Doctrins and have ever endured from Christ downward tho' in some Ages more than other they have been expounded or declared by Fathers and Councils according to the necessities of the time and this is one proper Office of the Holy Ghost appointed for Guider of the Church to explain matters as doubts do arise 21. Wherefore this is the first way of trial whether the foresaid Articles of the Roman Religion taught at this day about Transubstantiation Mass and the like be the same that Pope Eleutherius held and sent into Britanny or not And I do call all this kind of Argument Negative both in respect of our Adversaries that deny them to have been then in use and of Us that deny them to have been brought in afterward And they ought to prove the second seeing they cannot deny but that they were once generally in use and received over Christendom Whereof we do make the former most infallible Inference with St. Augustin That forasmuch as they were once in use and generally received and no particular beginning can be shewed of them or of their entrance Ergo They came from the Apostles themselves 22. To this Inference the Sectaries and Heretics of our time have one only shift more which is That albeit these Doctrins have for many Ages been received generally in the Church of Christendom yet that they crept into the same by little and little and finding no resistance began at last to be universally believed But this creeping Instance can have no place here by any probability For to say nothing of the Providence of God in protecting his Church from such creeping Errors nor yet of the Promises of Christ before-mentioned to the same effect Reason it self doth demonstrate also that this possibly could not be For if the Doctors and Fathers of the Church did note and discover from time to time every least Heresie or Error that did peep up in their days and this not only in Heretics but in divers principal Fathers also that held any particular Opinions as is manifest in St. Cyprian Lactantius Arnobius Cassianus and others If this diligence I say were used by them in all other occasions how could it happen that so many so manifest and so important Doctrins as are in controversie between Us and Protestants should be let pass without Note or Contradiction if they had been either New or Erroneous How should it come to pass I say that no one of these ancient Fathers should ever impugn any of these Doctrins if they were New Opinions and brought into the Church contrary to the Doctrin that was before as these men do say Yea how should it fall out that no one Record in the World should be left by our Ancestors that at such a time by such or such occasions began the Doctrin of Purgatory of Praying to Saints of the Real Presence of the Vse of Images of Mass and Sacrifice of seven Sacraments and the like that were not held in the Church before 23. And that this is impossible may be shewed by this experimental Deduction which now I will set down Let us imagin that none of these Doctrins were in the first Age under the Apostles and namely that then there were but two Sacraments no Purgatory at all or any External Sacrifice held We ask them concerning the second Age wherein Justinus Polycarpus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and Tertullian were chief Teachers whether these Doctrins were in this Age or no If they deny it tho' we might prove the contrary out of their Works yet not to pass from this first kind of Argument we ask the like of the third Age under Origen Cyprian Dionysius Alexandrinus Pamphilus Arnobius and the rest And if they deny of this Age also that these Doctrins were not held by them we go to the fourth Age under Athanasius Hilarius Optatus Basil Nazianzen Ambrose Hierom Chrysostom Epiphanius Cyrillus In whose Writings
what they say or avouch so they say somewhat against Rome and those that any way favoured the same wherein passion doth so greatly blind them as they cannot discern when they alledge matters plainly against themselves as you have seen in the former enumeration of British Teachers Pastors and Prelates whom they would have us think to have been of a different Religion from that of Rome whereas their own words testimonies condition and state of life do testifie the contrary And so I leave these men to their folly and impudency in this behalf CHAP. XI The Deduction of the aforesaid Catholic Roman Religion planted in England by St. Augustin from his time to our days And that from King Ethelbert who first received the same unto King Henry VIII there was never any public interruption of the said Religion in our Land. HAving shewed before how that the Roman Catholic Faith was first preached in our Island under the Apostles and then again in the next Age under Pope Eleutherius and thirdly four Ages after that again under Pope Gregory and that all this was but one and the self-same Religion continued renewed and revived in divers times under divers States and People of the Realm there may seem to remain only now two other points considerable in this affair The first Whether this Religion brought in by St. Augustin to England were held at that day for the only true Religion of Christendom and so accepted by all the World The other Whether that Religion then planted hath come down and been continued in England ever since by continual Succession until the first public alteration made thereof in our days For if this be so then is the demonstration easie to be made even from the Apostles Times to Ours 2. And for the first tho' we have handled the same somewhat before yet briefly we will add now That there can be no doubt at all in this matter with men of Reason and Judgment but that St. Augustin and his Fellows brought in with them the whole Body of Religion as well touching Articles of Belief as Ceremonies and Ecclesiastical Customs which were at that time in use at Rome whence they came and in other Catholic Countreys by which they passed namely Italy France and Flanders from which Countreys Pope Gregory himself exhorteth them by his Letters to take such good Ecclesiastical Uses as they should see most agreeable to Piety Edification and Devotion which is a sign that all those Countreys agreed fully in Faith and Belief with Rome at that day and were perfectly Catholic tho' in some external Ceremonies belonging to Devotion there might be difference And forasmuch as the French Bishops St. German St. Lupus and St. Severus 150 years as hath been said before the entrance of St. Augustin planted in Britanny the French Catholic Faith against the Pelagians and these men coming from Rome found no fault therewith most certain it is that all was one And finally if we do consider the Works Writings and Actions of Pope Gregory related by us before partly out of St. Isidore living at that time in Spain partly out of his own Epistles yet extant written to the chiefest Bishops of the Christian World and their Answers to him again together with their agreement in Faith and Religion If we do consider also the Heresies condemned in his days by Him and his Authority as the Eutychians Monothelites and others which our Protestants also do condemn for Heresies at this day By all this I say and by infinite other Arguments and Demonstrations that may be made it is most evident that either Christ had no Visible Church or Catholic Religion in those days which were most foolish and wicked to imagin or that the Religion of St. Gregory and his Church of Rome and others of others of the same Communion was in that Age the only true Catholic Church and consequently had in it the only true Catholic Faith and Religion of Christ whereby Christians might be saved which also is proved most evidently by infinit Miracles wrought in England and in divers other Countreys upon manifold occasions during this time of our Primitive Church as shall appear more in particular in the deduction of our second point which is the continuance of this same Religion from St. Augustin to Thomas Cranmer the first and last Archbishops of Canterbury following by Succession the one the other for the space of above 900 years the first dying a Saint the last ending in Apostacy as after shall be shewed 3. Wherefore to come to the second point about the deduction of Catholic Religion in our Nation from St. Augustin downward first of all St. Bede talking of the planting thereof and of our first Primitive Church whose progress and increase he describeth for the space of almost 140 years after the entrance of St. Augustin hath these words Gregorius Pontifex Divino admonitus instinctu servum Dei Augustinum alios plures cum eo Monachos timentes Dominum misit praedicare verbum Dei genti Anglorum c. Gregory the Pope being admonished by heavenly Instinct did send God's Servant Augustin and others Monks with him that feared God to preach his Word to the English Nation in the 14th year of Mauritius the Emperour which was of Christ 596 and the 4th after that St. Gregory was made Pope 4 These holy men landed in the Isle of Thanet belonging to the Kingdom of Kent for that the whole Dominion of the Saxons in those days which was all the Land except Scotland and the other part now called Wales whither the reliques of Britans were retir'd was divided into seven several States and Dominions which they called Kingdoms The first whereof to speak of them according as they received the Faith was the Kingdom of Kent whose King Ethelbert being the fourth in number from Hengistus that began the same about the year of Christ 450 afterward first of all other received the Christian Faith at the preaching of St. Augustin about the year of Christ 600 that is to say an hundred and fifty years after they had reigned as Pagans there 5. The second Kingdom was of the East-Saxons and contained the Shires now called Essex Middlesex and Hartfordshire The first founder of which Kingdom was Erchenwine about the year of our Lord 527 as Stow and some others do hold tho' Malmesbury doth write otherwise but both do agree that under King Seebert or as Bede calleth him Sabered those Provinces were converted to Christian Religion by the preaching of St. Mellitus Fellow to St. Augustin and first Bishop of their chief City of London whither he was sent by St. Augustin from Centerbury in the year of Christ 604. 6 The third Kingdom was of the East-Angles which contained the Shires of Norfolk Suffolk Cambridge and the Isle of Ely. Which Kingdom was begun about the year of Christ 492 by one Vffa but converted after to
tho' first before we enter into this examination we have thought good to treat certain general Points that make way thereunto as by the next Chapter you shall perceive CHAP. I. Of how to great Importance Ecclesiastical Succession is for trial of true Religion and how Sectaries have sought to fly the force thereof by saying That the Church is invisible How fond a shift this is and how foolishly John Fox doth behave himself therein THE Sentence of the Philosopher is known to all That contraries being laid together do give light the one to the other as white and black proposed in one Table do make each colour more clear distinct and lively in it self For which respect we having laid open before in the first Part of this Discourse the known manifest Succession of Christian Religion in our Isle of England first from the Apostles times among the Britans for the first six Ages after Christ and then again among the English-men for nine Ages more since their first Conversion from Paganism we are now to examin what manner of visible Succession John Fox doth bring us forth of his Church that is to say of the Protestants of his Religion for the said 1500 years or fifteen Ages if any such be for that by this comparison of the One with the Other the Nature and Condition of both Churches will be understood But yet first I mean to note by the way certain principal points to be considered for better understanding of all that is to be handled in this Chapter or about this whole matter of Ecclesiastical Succession 2. Whereof the first may be that which I have touched in the end of the former Chapter to wit of how great importance this point is I mean the Succession and Continuation of Teachers the one conform to the other in matter of Belief and Religion for clear demonstration of Truth in matters of Controversie and for staying any discreet man's judgment from wavering hither and thither in his belief according to that which holy St. Augustin said of himself and felt in himself For that considering the great diversity of Sects that swarm'd in his time and every one pretending Truth Antiquity Purity and Authority of Scriptures and himself also having been misled by one of these Sects for many years was brought by God at length to be a true Catholic and to feel in himself the force of this visible Succession of the Catholic Church And therefore writing against one that in time past had been his Master as Head of the former Sect wherein he had lived to wit Faustus Manichaeus after divers other reasons alledged of his confidence and assurance of Truth in the Catholic Church and of his firm resolution to live and die in the same he bringeth for his last and strongest reason the perpetual Succession of Bishops in the same Church and especially in the Church of Rome Tenet me in Ecclesia saith he ab ipsa Petri sede usque ad praesentem Episcopatum successio Sacerdotum c. I am held in this Church against all you Sectaries by the Succession of Priests and Bishops that have come down even from the first seat of St. Peter the Apostle to the present Bishop of Rome Anastasius that holdeth the seat at this day c. 3. Lo here the force and estimation of Succession with St. Augustin Whereunto are conform all other ancient Fathers if we would stand to alledge them yea they stand so firmly upon this point and do make so great account of it as they do generally note Heretics and Sectaries for the contrary defect to wit that they have no Succession or orderly continuation either of Bishops or of Faith among them but did leap hither and thither as ours do at this day challenging to themselves now this and now that without either Order Interest Continuation or Succession Ordinem saith St. Augustin ab Apostolo Petro coeptum usque ad hoc tempus per traducem succedentium Episcoporum servatum perturbant ordinem sibi sine origine vendicantes Heretics do trouble and break the order of succeeding of Bishops begun by St. Peter and brought down by Off spring one Bishop succeeding another and so challenge unto themselves a certain Order without beginning 4. To which effect also Tertullian more than 200 years before St. Augustin challenging Heretics to this Combat of Succession said Edant Haeretici origines suarum Ecclesiarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum c. Let Heretics set forth the beginning of their Churches let them recount the order of their succeeding Bishops if they can And then having set down for his part and for proof of true Catholic Succession the whole rank of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter to Pope Eleutherius that lived in his days Mark I pray you the proof he useth tho' he were of the Church of Africa He glorieth as tho' he brought forth an invincible Argument against all Heretics challenging and provoking them to do the like if they could Consingant saith he tale aliquid Haeretici Let Heretics bring forth or devise any such things for proof of their Church if they can And consider here gentle Reader how Heretics remain confounded by Tertullian's judgment for want of Succession 5. But this is not only Tertullian's Opinion for St. Irenaeus before him again objecteth the same to Heretics against whom he wrote saying Obedire oportet eis qui successionem habent ab Apostolis qui cum Episcopatus successione charismata veritatis acceperunt You ought to obey these who have their Succession from the Apostles who together with the Succession of their Bishoprics have received from time to time the gifts or privileges of Truth And in another place Apud quas est ea quae est ab Apostolis successio hi fidem nostram custodiunt scripturas sine periculo nobis exponunt With whom the Succession of Bishops from the Apostles time downwards is found to have remained these are they who conserve our Faith and do expound the Scripture unto us without danger Behold the vertue of Succession which this blessed Bishop and Martyr St. Irenaeus esteemed so highly in his days as he ascribed thereto both the infallible Conservation of Faith and true Exposition of Scriptures 6. And it is to be noted that he speaketh not only of Succession in Belief as every one of our Sectaries will seem to pretend that they have it among themselves from the Apostles which yet is ridiculous and manifestly false as before hath been declared and after shall be more in particular but he speaketh expresly also of the external Succession and Continuation of Bishops ascribing to them and proving by them the Succession of one and the self-same Faith And to that end doth he number up all the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter to his time as Tertullian before-alledged did notwithstanding the one lived in France and the other in Africa proving
respect of obscurity and contemptibility John Fox may easily joyn his Church with them as also in having some sparkles of true Doctrin but not the whole body of true Doctrin among them 5. He may joyn also in divers particular Doctrins which these men held as peculiar Heresies to themselves and were condemn'd by the Church for such in those days and are held also in these days by John Fox his Church in the very self-same words sense and meaning as they were held by those Heretics As namely he may joyn with the Donatists who said that thy were the only true Church and called the Succession of Bishops in the Church of Rome as Sectaries do at this day the Chair of Pestilence and moreover that the whole Church besides themselves had erred c. which is the common Song of our modern Protestants And further if you will see how near of Kin these Donatists and our Protestants be both in Manners Conditions Doctrin and Belief read St. Augustin Optatus and other Writers that objected against them these things following to wit That they had cast the blessed Sacrament of the Altar to Dogs overthrew Altars broke Chalices and sold them cast a Bottle of holy Chrism out of the Church-window shaved Priests heads to take away their Unction turned Nuns out of their Monasteries to the World polluted all Church stuff and the like And whether John Fox and his Fellows do not joyn also in these Points let the Reader judge 6. They may joyn in like manner with the Eunomians for their only Faith who affirmed as St. Augustin saith quòd nihil cuiquam obesset guorumlibet perpetratio ac perseverantia peccatorum si hujus quae ab illis docebatur Fidei particeps esset That the committing and perseverance in never so great sins could not hurt him that was partaker of their Faith. They may also joyn with the Novatians of that time in denying the Churches power in forgiving sins They may joyn with the Aerians who taught as St. Angustin saith non oportere orare vel Oblationem offerre pro mortuis that we ought not to pray or offer Oblations for them that be dead and further That solemn Feasts are not to be appointed by the Church but every one to fast when he would lest he should seem to be under the Law c. 7. Thus testifieth St. Augustin of him and of Jovinian that followed him both the said Father and St. Hierom that wrote against him do accuse him to have held That all sins were equal before God that fasting from certain meats was not profitable that chast Marriage was equal in honor and merit to professed Virginity in Nuns and that he had been cause that some Nuns had married in Rome and finally that the reward in Heaven was equal to all men And is not this good currant Protestant Doctrin and Practice at this day But let us go forward They may joyn also with the Helvidians or Antidicomarians in impugning our Blessed Lady and equalling Marriage with Virginity And much more with Vigilantius in impugning the continent sole Life of Clergy-men Worship of Martyrs at their Tombs use of Candles and Torches in the Church by day-time Invocation of Saints Vows of Poverty and the like 8. I will go no further for that this is sufficient to see what Communion John Fox his Church did hold in these three Ages either with the common known Catholic Church of Christ or with these lurking Assemblies of Heretics pursued and persecuted by the said Church and for that John Fox is guilty to himself in this behalf he hath proceeded accordingly in his Acts and Monuments For whereas he promiseth a several Book of these second 300 years under this Title The second Book containing the next 300 years after Christ c. he not finding any sufficient matter for his purpose to patch up this second Book withal as he did the former with recounting the Martyrs of those days what shift deviseth he think you to blear his Readers eyes with all and to seem to say somewhat in the continuation of his Story You shall hear briefly and by this one trick you may learn to know the man and his meaning for the time to come 9. First he writeth but five leaves in all for the continuation of the Story of these second 300 years A short Volume you will say for so great and copious an Argument And yet further you must know that of these five leaves he passeth two in telling tales and matters that fell under Pope Eleutherius and King Lucius more than a hundred years before and consequently it should have been told in his former Book by order of Time and Story and then the other three leaves he spendeth in setting down the entrance of the Saxons into England about the year of Christ 449 and the Succession of their Pagan Kings unto St. Augustin's coming So as of all the foresaid glorious Christian Church for 300 years together to wit from Pope Sylvester and Constantine unto Pope Gregory and Mauritius the Emperour wherein she flourished more than in any other three Ages we find only five Leaves designed but scarce three Lines performed Whereby you may perceive how little part John Fox persuadeth himself to have in these three Ages for his hidden Church You may consider also what an honest Bargainer he is and how well he performeth his promise made in the first page of his whole Work wherein he saith That he will set forth at large the whole Race and Course of the Church from the Primitive Age to these latter times of ours c. whereof you see he hath performed nothing at all hitherto either largely or briefly I mean of this Race or Course of any Church General or Particular Domestical or Foreign Good or Bad True or False His or Ours for of the first 300 years he wrote only the ten Persecutions as you have seen and of the second 300 years he writeth nothing at all 10. Which if you consider well is a strange confession of his own weakness and poverty seeing that these three Ages to wit the fourth fifth and sixth are the most abundant of matter that are to be found in the Church of Christ from the beginning and so might he see by the Centuries of his Masters the Magdeburgians who do enlarge themselves much more in these three Ages than in the former enforced thereunto by the multitude of matter tho' all against themselves as before hath been noted and here will also appear which John Fox well perceiving thought best by slight of silence to avoid that inconvenience of treating a History so apparently against himself Which slight notwithstanding or rather flight every man of mean understanding doth easily see considering that according to the Argument of his Book and particular promise made before he should have declared to us That the Religion of Britanny in these 300
West by the foresaid Pope Leo III. And during this Race of time the said Universal Church flourished greatly by Learned Men and Holy Bishops whereof the principal were St. Isidorus Archbishop of Sevil Sophronius Leontius Theodorus Archbishop of Canterbury Venerable Bede Johannes Damascenus Paulus Diaconus Alcuinus our Countrey-man Vsuardus and others 4. This time had many Learned Councils also whereof two were General the one being the third of Constantinople the other the second of Nice Whereby were beaten down all the Heretics of those days the principal whereof were the Jacobites the Armenians Monothelites Neophonites Lampetians Agnychites Iconomachians or Image-breakers and other the like Besides all this there was added to the Greatness of this Church the new Conversion of many Countries from Paganism to Christian Religion Amongst which may principally be recounted our English Saxons as also by their means divers Provinces afterward of High and Low Germany And this for the continuance and going forward of the Christian Catholic Church in general planted by Christ and brought down by Succession from the Apostles time 5. But if you will talk of our new English Church planted in this mean space and inserted or united to that General Catholic Church as a Branch or Member to the whole Body and as a new Daughter subordinate to her Mother we shall see her progress to be conform thereunto to wit that she multiplied mightily in these 200 years both in Number Doctrin and great Piety of Life which John Fox himself is forced to confess in that he having told us of the Conversion of seven English Saxon Kingdoms within the compass of this time he setteth down divers Tables in the end of all whereof one is of seventeen Archbishops of Canterbury from Augustin to Celnothus that lived with King Egbert and another Table of thirty Cathedral Churches Abbies and Nunneries builded and abundantly endowed by Christian English Kings Queens and Bishops of that time and a third Table of nine several Kings besides many more of chief Nobility both Men and Women who leaving the World and their Temporal States entred into a Religious Life the more strictly to serve Almighty God. All which John Fox is forc'd to recount against himself and findeth no one in all this time of 200 years and much less any company on whom he dareth lay hands to build up his hidden Church in England withal 6. And it is to be noted by the Reader and by us to be repeated again for better memories sake that which before we admonished to wit that Fox findeth these 200 years of our first English primitive Church so barren of matter for his purpose as in the whole story thereof he spendeth only eight Leaves of Paper and these rather in deriding and scoffing the same and principal Pillars thereof than writing any Ecclesiastical History For which cause you shall find these Notes and Titles commonly written over the heads of his Leaves and Pages Augustin's arrival in Kent Gregory the basest Pope but the best Proud Augustin Lying Miracles Shaven Crowns Beda his Birth and the like Of which Learned Holy Man's Story I mean St. Bede he maketh so little account as in the same place reciting a Letter out of him written by a holy Man Ceolfride Abbot of Sherwyn in Northumberland to Naitonus King of the Picts he saith thus The Copy of which Letter as it is in Bede I have annexed not for any great reason therein contained but only to delight the Reader with some pastime in seeing the fond Ignorance of that Monkish Age c. Whereby we may see the drift of this pleasant Fox in these his Acts and Monuments which is to discredit that whole Time and all our Primitive Church 7. But yet to the end that the saying of Christ may be fulfilled in him Ex ore tuo te judico Serve nequam I do judge thee out of thy own mouth thou wicked Servant I shall here set down two National Synods gathered in England in these two Ages by two famous Archbishops of Canterbury the one Theodorus in the year of Christ 680 and related by Beda and the other St. Cuthbert in the year 747 related by William of Malmsbury after Bede's death and both of them set down by Fox And by viewing the Decrees of these two Synods you will see whether those Ages were so fond in Ignorance as Fox maketh them Out of the first Synod held at Thetford Fox gathereth ten Decrees in these words 8. I. That Easter-day should be uniformly kept and observed throughout the whole Realm upon a certain day viz. prima 14 Luna Mensis primi II. That no Bishop should intermeddle within the Diocese of another III. That Monasteries consecrated unto God should be exempt and free from the Jurisdiction of Bishops IV. That the Monks should not stray from one place that is from one Monastery to another without the license of their Abbot also to keep the same Obedience which they promised at their first entring V. That no Clergy-man should forsake his own Bishop and be received in any other place without Letters Commendatory of his own Bishop VI. That Foreign Bishops and Clergy-men coming into the Realm should be content only with the benefit of such Hospitality as should be offered them neither should they intermeddle any further within the Precinct of any Bishop without his special permission VII That Synods Provincial should be kept within the Realm at least once a year VIII That no Bishop should prefer himself before another but must observe the time and order of his Consecration IX That the number of Bishops should be augmented as the number of People increased X. That no Marriage should be admitted but that which was lawful no Incest to be suffered neither any man to put away his Wife for any cause except only for Fornication after the Rule of the Gospel And these be the principal Chapters of that Synod c. 9. Out of the second Synod held at Clonisho Fox gathereth thirty-one Decrees as followeth I. That Bishops should be more diligent in seeing to their Office and in admonishing the people of their faults II. That they should live in a peaceable mind together notwithstanding they were in place dissevered asunder III. That every Bishop once a year should go about all the Parishes of his Diocese IV. That the said Bishops every one in his Diocese should admonish their Abbots and Monks to live regularly and that Prelates should not oppress their Inferiors but love them V. That they should teach the Monasteries which the secular men had invaded and could not then betaken from them to live regularly VI. That none should be admitted to Orders before his Life should be examined VII That in Monasteries the reading of Holy Scripture should be more frequented VIII That Priests should be no disposers of secular business IX That they should take no money for baptizing
from King Egbert his death but 234. So as Fox is in no one thing exact or punctual And these 264 years may be counted the fourth station or parcel of Time from Christ downward which now we are briefly to examin and run over as we have done the former Stations and Limitations appointed 2. First then concerning the general Roman Church it continued in these Ages as in the former by continual Succession of her Bishops and Governors altering nothing in Belief and Doctrin from her Ancestors And briefly to repeat the sum of all there ruled in the See of Rome in these two Ages and an half as supreme known and acknowledged Pastors of this great visible Church some sixty Popes from Leo III. that crowned Charles the Great and thereby restor'd the Western Empire unto the time of Alexander II. under whom Duke William of Normandy conquered England And in the Western Empire there reigned some eighteen Emperours in this space from Charles the Great to Henry IV. and in the Eastern Empire some twenty five from Nicephorus I. to Constantine X. All which Popes Emperours and Princes were of one Religion Faith and Belief in those days And albeit soon after the See of Constantinople and Greek Church by occasion of Emulation against the Roman Empire did begin to withdraw their due Obedience from the Roman Church and thereby fell by little and little into divers errors of Doctrin also and finally were delivered over as all the World seeth into the Subjection and Servitude of the Turks yet in these Ages there was Union and due Subordination between both Churches Which may appear by that one only General Council being held at Constantinople even against Phocius that was Patriarch of the said City being gathered by order of Pope Adrian II. and Basilius the Grecian Emperour concurring therein This Council was of 300 Bishops and confirmed by the said Pope Adrian being the eighth General Council in order and the fourth of those that were held in Constantinople Whereby it cometh also to be noted That all the General Councils held hitherto in the Christian Church for the space of 900 years being eight in number as hath been said from the first Council of Nice unto this and from this to the first General Council of Lateran holden in the year of Christ 1115 under Pope Innocentius III. were all held in Greece but yet by order of the Bishops of Rome sending thither their Legats and confirming the same afterwards by themselves without which confirmation they were never held for Lawful in the Christian World which is no small Argument of the Greatness and Authority of the Church of Rome from time to time 3. It shall not be needful to speak of the particular Heresies of these two or three Ages which in effect were none of any name but only two the Iconoclasts or Image-breakers and the Berengarians or Sacramentaries both of them agreeing in their particular Heresies with the Calvinists of our Times tho' in many other things different as it is wont to be The first of them was begun before these Times by Leo III. Emperour of Constantinople sirnamed Isaurus about the year of Christ 750 as before hath been noted and renewed again by Claudius Taurinensis The second was begun 300 years after by Berengarius about the year of Christ 1050 and abjured by him again as hereafter shall be shewed The chief Doctors and Fathers that defended true Religion in these Ages were Turpinus Eginhardus Haymo Rabanus Frecolphus Hincmarus Jo. Diaconus Remigius Theophylactus and others in the ninth Age and then in the other Odo Ado Rhegino Luitprandus Rhatbodus Abbo Floriacensis and others and the other half of the eleventh Age Bruchardus Petrus Damianus Lanfrancus and many others 4. And this was the state of the Universal Christian Church in these Ages whereunto in all respects was conform the particular Church of England as the Daughter to her Mother which may be demonstrated partly by the continual Descent of Archbishops in England which were to the number of Sixteen from Celnothus that lived with King Egbert unto Stigand that possessed the See of Canterbury when William the Conqueror came in tho' afterward he caused him to be deposed by a Commission from Rome in the year of Christ 1070 as John Stow and others do note 5. I do pretermit the Succession of other Bishoprics in England for Brevities sake the Kings also of England that possessed that Crown from Egbert to William the Conqueror were some Twenty in number if we count Canutus the Dane and his two Children among the rest All which Kings of what Nation or State soever agreed fully in Faith and Belief with the said Archbishops and Bishops of our Land and They again with the whole Universal Roman Church as appeareth by their Acts and Monuments and John Fox also confesseth 6. Which being so it is hard to say or imagin where John Fox in these Ages will pick out a different Christian Church tho' it be never so poor and creeping for Him and His either in England or out of England during this time And much more hard it is to think how he can devise any visible Continuation of the said obscure and trodden-down Church as he promised to do even from the Apostles Time to our Age. His only refuge must be as before we have often noted to run to the condemned Heretics of these times if he find any for his purpose Which yet he dareth not openly to do as you have seen throughout all the former Ages But afterward when he cometh near home to wit after Pope Innocentius III. and John Wickliff he taketh more heart affirming Our Church to have utterly perished and a new visible Off-spring of his Church to have started up to wit all the Sectaries and Heretics cast out and condemned of our Church as you shall see more particularly when we come to that place 7. For the present Ages that we are now in he doth not so much as lay hands upon the Iconoclasts or Berengarians nor doth seem to count them for his Brethren tho' in the principal Points of their Heresies they agree with Him as is notorious And John Fox to have some visible Members of his Church in these Ages ought to have shaken hands with them but the poor Fellow was asham'd to build his Church openly of so ancient Heretics tho' afterward when he beginneth to build indeed and to gather Stones together he calleth for the Berengarians again which now he casteth away as after you shall see 8. But now perhaps you will ask me If John Fox do set down no Succession in these Ages as neither in the former of His Church or Ours what doth the simple Fellow in all this third Book of his Whereto I answer first That albeit he promiseth in the Title That this third Book shall contain the Acts and Monuments of 300 years together with the whole
to praise God after the imitation of King David hanging up by his Bed-side on a Pin upon the Wall he heard one night a voice of Angels sing in his Church this Verse Gaudent in Coelis animae Sanctorum at which time his said Harp also gave a sound of it self moved either by the said Angels or otherwise by Miracle from God. Whereat John Fox in his Heretical Vein maketh much Pastime tho' as already you have heard and shall do more in the third Part of this Book he esteemeth highly certain devised Miracles of his miserable Martyrs And so much of this 34. But now as touching the principal Point of all this Discourse which ought to have been the visible deduction of his Church from King Egbert to William the Conqueror there is not one word spoken for all that he writeth is of our Church and this in Lyes Fables Scoffs and Taunts as you see but of his own Church nothing no not so much as of any one person that in all agreed with him or his Church in these days concerning Religion Nay let him shew us any one Man Woman or Child Heretic or Catholic in all this time who was fully of the Religion now held in England and that these believed no more nor less than Fox and his Fellows do at this day and we will yield that he hath brought us forth some visible Church and Succession thereof tho' it be but of three or four persons 35. Lo with how little we are content And seeing Fox will not dare nor any man for him in my opinion to take upon him this Enterprize to wit to shew the succession of any three or four persons throughout the space of this first 1000 years after Christ who did in all things believe and profess the Faith and Religion that now is held in England whereunto also John Fox himself agreed fully while he lived as may appear by the Puritanical Points in his Story which he commendeth and defendeth in the Lives of Rogers Hooper and other their first English Parents as after shall be shewed Forsomuch I say as this is so and that never any three persons of what Condition Religion Sex or Sect soever can be shewed to have agreed fully in the Protestants Religion that now in England is professed not only for the time of these first thousand years of Christianity but neither for the other five hundred next following nor that our English Protestants of these days will bind themselves in all and every Point of Doctrin Faith and Belief to stand to any one visible Congregation Church Conventicle Society or number of men whatsoever professing the Name of Christ that have been known to live upon Earth from the Apostles time downward but that they do vary from them in one Article of Belief or other 36. If all this I say be true and most certain and made evident by this our deduction and that we offer to joyn any further Issue that shall be demanded with any Protestant living upon this point that shall have any thing to say or reply in this matter This being so then is it evident what a Succession of the Protestants Church John Fox bringeth or is able to bring down or any man for him notwithstanding his vain brag and flourish in the first Title of his Book That he would set down the whole race and course of the Church c. The Folly and Falshood of which flourish shall better also appear by that which ensueth from the Conquest downward CHAP. VII The fifth station of Time containing other Three hundred years from William the Conquerour unto the time of John Wickliff wherein is examined Whether the Catholic Roman Church did perish in this time as Fox affirmeth Here is treated also of Pope Hildebrand and of the Marriage of Priests YOU have seen good Reader by our former Treatse how brief and barren John Fox hath been hitherto in relating unto us Ecclesiastical matters for more than a thousand years For tho' he promised in the first Title of his Book as before you have heard that he would set forth at large the whole race and course of the Church from the primitive Age unto these latter Times of ours c. And again in another Title that he was to lay before us the Acts and Monuments of Christian Martyrs and matters Ecclesiastical passed in the Church of Christ from the primitive beginning to these our days as well in other Countries as namely in the Realms of England and also of Scotland discoursed at large c. yet this large Discourse for more than a thousand years is concluded by him in less than seventy Leaves of Paper whereof almost fifty are of impertinent matter to wit of certain Differences which he would pick out between the old Roman Church and that which is now and in the relation of the first Ten Persecutions under Heathen Emperours which before we have declared how little they appertain to his Argument or Subject taken in hand which was to set down the race and course of the whole Church And this being so you may consider what store of Ecclesiastical matters he findeth to his purpose in these first thousand years seeing he scarce spendeth thirty whole Leaves therein whereof also the far greater part I mean of that he writeth in these few Leaves is meer temporal or impertinent as in part you have heard And how then doth he tell us of Ecclesiastical matters discoursed at large c. and of the whole race and course of the Church set forth largely by him c. Do you see how these men do face and lye to deceive their Readers 2. But let us not complain I pray you of brevity or barrenness in John Fox nor lack of Volume seeing he hath set forth the greatest perhaps that ever was in our English Tongue And if he have been over-short for the thousand years past unto the time of William the Conqueror he will as much exceed in length now for the other five hundred years that are to ensue from the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth upon which time he bestoweth above 900 Leaves And the reason of this so notable difference or inequality is that which we have touched before to wit that he finding the whole course of these former Times and Ages of the Christian Church to be against him nor daring openly to reject that Church nor manifestly to joyn with her Enemies adjudg'd by her for Heretics he chose to speak as little of those Times and Affairs as he could But now he hath taken another resolution much more desperate in hand which is to deny Our Church to be any longer a Church and to set up another of His in her place by which means he will come to have matter enough for that this being supposed and he presuming that all the Acts and Monuments of this Church I mean the General Roman Church receiv'd hitherto
wrong Cause 32. How large a Treatise Fox maketh of St. Thomas Becket and his contention with King Henry II. and how shamefully he doth bely and revile him every-where hath been shewed sufficiently before in my Answer to Sir Francis Hastings as also of the Fable of the poysoning of K. John. And as for the Histories the Waldenses Albigenses whom he meaneth to lay for the first Foundations of his visible Church upon Earth he handleth matters so falsly and partially contrary to the testimony of all Antiquity as a man may easily see that the whole contexture of his Story is nothing else but a perpetual woven thread of wilful and malicious Falshoods and for that I shall have occasion to speak again of these Heretics in the next Chapter wherein we have to handle the Succession of John Fox his visible Protestant Church from Wickliff downward I shall say no more thereof here but remit me to that which ensueth CHAP. IX Of the time from John Wickliff unto the beginning of the Reign of King Henry VIII containing about 140 years And how the Roman Church and John Fox his Church passed in these days BY that which hath been said before from Age to Age of the apparent and manifest Descent Progress and Continuation of the Catholic Roman Church and of her State and Condition as well in England as in other parts of the Christian World at the rising of John Wickliff an English-man about the year of Christ 1371 it is not hard to make the like deduction of the same Church from that time unto the year of Christ 1560 when her Majesty that now is had a little before begun her Reign and established the form of Religion that now is held in England For as for the Popes and chief Ecclesiastical Governors of the Roman Church in this time they are publicly known their Names Number and Succession one to another from Innocentius VI. Vrbanus V. and Gregory XI who first condemned Wickliff's Doctrin unto Pope Pius V. that entred the Roman See at the beginning of her Majesties Reign being in number about Thirty and all of one Faith and Religion the one with the other 2. The Emperours also both of the West and East Empire so long as it lasted are known to have been of the self-same Religion excepting some Disobedience and Schismatical Opinions in some of the Greek Emperours against the Church of Rome for which it may be thought that God of his Justice gave them over at length together with their Empire into Infidels hands about the year of Christ 1450 Constantinus the Twelfth of that Name sirnamed Paleologus being the last of that Race 3. The manner also of proceeding in Ecclesiastical matters by this Church in this time was like unto the former to wit by conserving and continuing the Faith of their Ancestors and precedent times defending the same with like diligence against Innovations of Heretics partly by the Writings of Catholic Learned Men Doctors and Preachers which in these Ages were as Gregorius Ariminensis Laurentius Justinianus Thomas de Kempis Bartholomeus Vrbinas Thomas Waldensis Joannes Gerson Alphonsus Tostatus Sanctus Vincentius Sanctus Antoninus Sanctus Bernardinus Senensis Nicolaus Cusanus Jo. Tritemius Jo. Naucleras Albertus Pius Eckius Empserus Clicthoveus and many other Learned Catholic Writers By whose diligence the Heretics in these Ages were every-where refuted But especially were they repressed by the Authority of Synods and Councils as well Provincial and National as General also to which effect were their latter General Councils the first of Florence under Pope Eugenius IV. against the Heretics and Schismatics of those times about the year of Christ 1432 the second of Lateran under Julius II. and Leo X. about the year of Christ 1513 and the third of Trent against Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists Anabaptists and other such fresher Heretics of our days under Pope Paulus IV. Pius IV. and Pius V. which Council was begun about the year 1445. 4. And albeit in this time as in former Ages there wanted not troublesom Spirits and new-fangling Heads to impugn and exercise this Church as the Wickliffians Hussites Pickards Adamites Thaborites Orebites and other such Sectaries going before Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists Anabaptists Trinitarians and other like new Dogmatists of our days yet were they always discovered resisted vanquished and condemned by the same ordinary Process of Ecclesiastical Censures and Judgment excommunicated anathematiz'd and delivered over to Sathan by the Authority of this Church as all other Heretics were in former Ages and consequently are like to have the self-same final end howsoever they ruffle or resist for a time 5. And this being now the demonstration of our Catholic Church most clear and evident to all them that have Eyes of Understanding to see and Grace to consider the Truth let us pass over to the view of John Fox's Church which having been hitherto invisible from Christ downward and only imaginary or Mathematical as you have seen for that he hath scarce named any to have been of that Church yet now from this time forward he will begin to exhibit unto us a real visible Church on his part that is to say a Succession or rather Representation of divers Professors of his Religion or of some Points thereof at leastwise wherein they differ from the Roman For he doth not think it needful for those of his Church to agree in all Articles nor doth he bind himself to the Rule of St. Augustin Ecclesia universaliter perfecta est in nullo claudicat The true Church is universally perfect and doth halt in no one point of Belief But he thinketh it sufficient for his men to agree in some things against the Roman Church and to have some sparkles of Truth in it as before he affirmed albeit therewithal they should have some blemishes and errors also as a little after we will declare 6. The Catalogue of these Protestant Professors whereof Fox would make up his Church we shall handle in the Chapter following Now we are only to tell you that from this time of Wickliff downwards he meaneth to lay down the visible Succession of his Church and to that effect he storeth up all those that held the Articles of the foresaid Wickliff or Husse for Gospellers of his Church whatsoever they held otherwise against him or different among themselves And if any of them or others were punished for their Opinions by our Church then doth he register them for Martyrs or Confessors of the same Church which yet he never durst do before this time albeit there were divers other Sectaries in former Ages that symboliz'd with him in divers Articles as hath been shewed 7. Yea in this matter we may see John Fox also play the Fox and fetch many windings and turnings to deceive his Reader for that at the very entrance of his prolix and tedious Treatise of John Wickliff whom he proposeth as a chosen man raised
A TREATISE OF Three Conversions of England FROM PAGANISM TO Christian Religion I. Under the Apostles in the First Age after CHRIST II. Under Pope Eleutherius and King Lucius in the Second Age. III. Under Pope Gregory the Great and King Ethelbert in the Sixth Age with divers other Matters thereunto appertaining The First Two PARTS Dedicated to the Catholics of England with a new Addition to the said Catholics upon the News of the late Queens Death and the Succession of His Majesty of Scotland to the Crown of ENGLAND By N. D. Author of the Ward-Word Enquire of ancient times before you remember the old days of your Forefathers consider of every Age as they have passed ask your Father and he will tell you demand of your Ancestors and they will declare unto you Deut. iv 32. LONDON Re-printed by Henry Hills Printer to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chappel MDCLXXXVIII THE Epistle Dedicatory TO THE CATHOLICS of ENGLAND THo ' when I wrote the Preface that doth ensue I had no purpose to add any Epistle Dedicatory most dearly-beloved and worthy Catholics yet afterwards thinking of some other circumstances both of Matter and Time I deem'd it not amiss to say somewhat also in this kind of Dedication both for presenting this Work to whom principally it is due as also for Advertisement in some few Points which the present State of your Affairs doth seem to require 2. And for the first Who doth not see and consider that this Treatise of the first Planting of Christian Catholic Faith in England with the Continuance and Preservation thereof from Age to Age unto our Times doth chiefly and principally belong to You that are Catholics at this day most worthy Children of so renowned Parents most honorable Off-spring of so excellent Ancestors most glorious Posterity of so famous Antiquity whom future Ages will both esteem and extoll above many of your Predecessors for retaining That in times of War which they left unto you in possession of Peace and for defending that by so singular Constancy of Sufferings which they both received and bequeathed unto you by quiet Tradition 3. Which Tradition being set down proved and declared most clearly in this ensuing Work I do by offering the same unto you but present you with your own to wit the History of your own House the Records and Chronicles of your own Family the Pedigree and Genealogy of your own Forefathers the Antiquity and Nobility of your own Progenitors together with your just Title and Claim to their Inheritance producing jointly for the same your undoubted Charters Enrollments Evidences Writings and Witnesses which no man with reason can deny or call in doubt 4. And furthermore I do add in the end for more full Complement of this whole Cause all such former false and wrong Suits Pretences Pleas Intrusions Surreptions or other like Shifts or Wranglings which any Heretics to this day but especially these of our times have made hitherto about the same for shew of some Title or Right on their part to this Inheritance and Succession of yours And lastly I do produce also the Judgments Censures Sentences and Arrests of all Christian Parliaments of the World to wit the Determination of all the highest Ecclesiastical Tribunals in your favor By all which I doubt not but that your Right and Title remaineth most evident and clear to all Men of Judgment even to the Enemies or Adversaries themselves Wherefore most justly I do Dedicate this Treatise unto you which so many ways and for so many reasons is your own And so much for the first Point 5. The second also about the Circumstances of the present Time is already somewhat touched in that we have said How by God's holy Providence you are born in this time of War Tribulation and Contradiction instead of that large and long Peace and Tranquility which your Ancestors enjoyed in the use of that Catholic Religion for which you strive and suffer now which thing tho' for the present it seem unpleasant and distastful to Flesh and Blood yet will the hour come when it shall prove a most singular Benefit and Privilege to such as have received Grace to manifest themselves by this occasion seeing that according to the Apostle this is one principal End in God's Everlasting Wisdom for permission of Heresies ut qui probati sunt manifesti fiant that those that be of proof be made manifest by this occasion 6. Wherefore seeing as the same Apostle saith in another place it is given to you dear Catholics that live in England at this day not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him a singular privilege by his account yea and that we may say of You as he said and gloried of Himself and his Fellows Vincula vestra manifesta fiunt in Christo in omni praetorio Your Bonds for Christ are made notorious throughout all the Tribunals and Judgment-seats of our Country And yet further as he wrote to his dear Thessalonians in their highest praise and commendation You are become such Followers of Christ and his Apostles as receiving the Word of God with Joy of the Holy Ghost in great Tribulation you are made an Example or Spectacle to all other faithful people in Macedonia and Achaia for that from you is divulged the Word of God not only in Macedonia and Achaia but also in all other places by reason of your Faith which is published every-where throughout the World. 7. Seeing I say all this may be truly written of you and that our Country hath gotten more honorable Renown in Foreign Catholic Nations and the Church of God more Glory and Comfort by this your Patience and Sufferings in these few latter years than by the peaceable Calm of many former Ages of your Ancestors I know no true Servant of God that together with the commiseration of your present hard afflicted state receiveth not also particular Consolation by your Integrity and Constancy praying for your perseverance in that most honorable Course which hitherto you have held of true Obedience to Almighty God in matters of your Soul and Loyal Behavior of Duty towards your Temporal Prince in all worldly Affairs which course tho' it have not escaped the calumnious Tongues and Pens of some carping Adversaries yet is it justifiable and glorious both before God and Man where Reason ruleth and not Passion And I doubt not but that the Wisdom and Moderation both of her Majesty and her sage Council will rather in this Point ponder your own facts than your Adversaries words as also consider how rare such Examples of Patience are in these our days where so great a multitude for so many years hath passed under the Rod of so sharp Afflictions which is your singular commendation with all wise and godly men let Cavillers and Calumniators say what they will to the contrary 8. But God's holy hand hath not
unto him as those that remained Loyal and Faithful to his good Mother the Queen who all for the most part were known to have been good Catholics it is to be hoped that he will make the same Account also of You that remained Constant and Dutiful not only to Her Majesty while she lived but to God's Divine Majesty also in standing and suffering for your Conscience in Religion which was the Mark and Badge if you remember whereby the foresaid famous Governor Constantius Father to our Constantine did try his Christian Courtiers tho' he were a Pagan himself rejecting those who upon his Commandment and Invitation had yielded and done against their own Religion and retaining and honoring others that had been Constant even against himself Which fact Eusebius recounteth with exceeding praise of the Man's Judgment Justice and Piety therein whose Example I hope our now King will imitate and you follow the Example of the better sort of those Christians whom Constantius for their Constancy so much esteemed and advanced THE PREFACE TO THE CHRISTIAN STUDIOUS READER CONCERNING THE Edition and Argument of this Treatise and of the Method held therein and principal Points to be Treated MAN to be mutable or as the Scripture speaketh uncertain in his foresight and Providence if no other Arguments were to prove it as there be infinite yet my own Experience gentle Reader of the success of this Treatise were sufficient having altered so often my first intention about the same as it being now ready to come forth it seemeth nothing less than that which at the beginning I had purposed 2. My first design was to have written only some few Leaves or Sheets of Paper in answer to Sir Francis Hastings who in his Reply to the Seventh Encounter of the Warder which Encounter concerneth principally the Bishop and See of Rome would seem to diminish that obligation of gratitude which the Warder said that England had above many other Nations to that See for Two Conversions of our People to Christian Religion receiv'd from thence The Knight I say endeavored to strike out or diminish that Obligation by calling in doubt the said Conversions or cavilling at least at some particulars thereof Whereupon I thought it needful not only to confirm that which had been written before of the Two foresaid Conversions under Pope Eleutherius and Pope Gregory I. but also to add a Third more ancient than these Two to wit under S. Peter himself and some other Apostles And albeit all this was meant so briefly as I have said in the first designment yet when I came to the Work it self it grew more long and could hardly be dispatched in so many Chapters as I had purposed Leaves or Sheets at the beginning 3. The reason of this increase was for that coming to the examination of the matter I found Sir Francis to have taken all that he had said concerning that Point out of John Fox tho' he cited him not and Fox again the most part of his Cavils out of the Magdeburgians So as of necessity I was forc'd to encounter all these Three Adversaries together to examin their Arguments discover their Frauds and refel their Follies Which to do with any sufficiency as also with the clearness and perspicuity which I desir'd drew the matter on to a bigger Bulk than well could be set forth as a Part only of that Encounter whereunto it belonged Whereupon at the persuasion of some Friends resolution was taken to have it divulg'd in a several Treatise as before hath been shewed in the end of the Second Encounter already printed 4. But now when it was taken in hand to be reviewed for the Edition divers things occurred to be added for the more fulness of the Treatise and namely that not only the Planting of Christian Faith in England should be averred by these Three several Conversions but that the Continuation also thereof I mean of One self-same Faith and Belief should be shewed and demonstrated from the First to the Second Conversion and from the Second to the Third unto our days And with this came the Discourse to occupy a dozen whole Chapters which was more than twice as much as in the first design was purposed 5. But being arriv'd hither there offered it self a new cogitation of adding a Second Part no less important than the First for searching out our Adversaries Religion in all this time according to the Advertisement both of the Philosopher and Orator That it is not sufficient only to confirm our own Cause except we infringe and refute the contrary Whereupon it seemed necessary not only to shew the first second and third Planting of our Religion in England together with the manifest and visible Continuance thereof unto our Age but also to demonstrate the contrary in the Religion of the Protestants to wit That it was never planted in England I mean in such Points of Doctrin wherein they differ from the Catholic nor ever was received nor had essence or being under the name of Christian Religion from Christ's time to ours And for that John Fox above all other English Protestant-Writers taketh upon him of purpose and by promise to prove the contrary in his huge Volume of Acts and Monuments to wit to shew the course and race of his Church for so are his words from the beginning of these latter Ages I was forc'd to joyn Issue with him in particular upon both these parts I mean in shewing the beginning and continuance of our Church and Religion and the not being or continuance of his for performance whereof I have had occasion as you see to peruse over the first Part of the said Volume from the beginning of Christian Religion to King Henry VIII containing above 500 Leaves 6. But for that the second Part of that Volume from K. Henry downward being of no less bulk than the former treateth of the principal Pillars of his Religion since that time whereof some he maketh Confessors and other Martyrs and distributeth them into a certain Ecclesiastical Calendar according to the days of every Month wherein their Festival memories are to be kept and placeth the said Calendar in the front of his Acts and Monuments it seemed convenient also to the end that nothing should remain wholly unsearch'd or unexamin'd in that Work of his to add a third Part to the former two for the discussion of this Calendar and some other necessary Points belonging thereunto 7. Lo here good Christian Reader a brief sum of all my cogitations about that matter which if they may serve thee for thy spiritual utility either for confirming or establishing thee in Catholic Religion if thou have it already or for thy reducing unto it if hitherto thou be not partaker of so high and heavenly a Blessing I shall be glad and think my Labor happily bestow'd therein well knowing of what importance this matter is for thy Eternal Salvation 8.
missus est Augustinus à beato Gregorio c. In the mean space was sent into Britanny Augustin by Blessed Gregory to preach to English-men the Word of God who were yet blind in Pagan Superstition c. Though among the Britans that Christianity was yet in force which being received from the time of Eleutherius the Pope had never failed until that day c. Among whom there was an Abbot of Bangor named Dinoot that had above 2000 Monks under his charge who answered to Augustin when he requir'd Subjection of the British Bishops and that they would joyn with him to convert the English Nation That the Britans owed no Subjection unto him nor would bestow the labour of Preaching upon their Enemies seeing the Britans had an Archbishop of their own and that the Saxons took from them their Country for which cause they hated them extremely nor did not esteem their Religion nor would communicate with them more than with Dogs 14. Lo here all that is to be found in Geffry of Monmouth to this purpose which is nothing else as you see but a passionate and choleric Answer of the Britans as of men afflicted and exasperated Here is no one word of their not acknowledging the Popes Supremacy as the Magdeburgians write but only that they acknowledged not the Superiority of Augustin over the Britans seeing he was only sent to the English and that the Authority of their own Archbishop was not taken away by his coming for any thing they yet knew but remained as before Which question of Jurisdiction between two Archbishops falleth out daily even where the Pope's Authority is acknowledged and so we see that it is a manifest Lie which the Magdeburgians affirm so resolutely That the Britans would not acknowledge any Primacy of the Bishop of Rome over them For they speak as you see of Augustin's Authority and not of the Bishop of Rome from whom we read not that he had yet shewed to them any Authority to place him over their Archbishop and consequently it is a vain and malicious Inference which the Magdeburgians here do make out of this Answer of the Britans if it had been true that forasmuch as they admitted not St. Augustin's Authority they acknowledged not the Primacy of Rome and that this again was a clear sign that Religion was not planted in Britanny by the Romans 15. For how clear is this I pray you or how hangeth this together might not this Error of not acknowledging the Power of the Roman See if it had been among them have crept in after the first planting of Christian Faith Will these Germans or Sir Francis or Fox their Scholars deny that Ravennae in Italy for Example was converted by St. Apollinaris sent thither from St. Peter for that afterwards the Bishops of that place for many years waxing proud and presumptuous upon the presence and Court of the Exarchs and Vice-Roys of the Emperours residing amongst them did refuse to yield to the Bishops of Rome Or for that England at this day by Error of Protestant Religion refuseth to acknowledge any Subjection in Spiritual Affairs to Rome will our men deny that the English Nation was ever converted to Christian Faith from Rome Who seeth not the impertinency of this kind of Argument And yet with such-like kind of Arguments and Inferences these absurd People do deceive the World. 16. But the last point of these Germans Assertion about Pope Innocentius I. is a most egregious Impudency to say of so holy a Father so highly commended by St. Augustin and other Fathers that lived with him and after him That he spake of Vain-glory and desire of Temporal Power when he wrote above 1200 years agone That all the West-Churches and the British amongst the rest were founded by St. Peter or his Disciples and Successors And let any indifferent or prudent Reader in the World consider of what weight these words of the Germans may be when having said That albeit Innocentius I. wrote so yet we judge that to have been spoken of Vain-glory c. A proud Censure of so great a man by three or four poor Companions that wrote Books for their Bread and begg'd the same commonly of every Prince to whom they dedicated their several Centuries That so contemptible People I say should presume to touch the Honor and Truth of so great and worthy a Saint and Father as was holy Innocentius so called commonly by St. Augustin St Hierom St. Basil Orosius and others and whom all the rest of the World together with these men admired and respected in his Life for such Sancti Innocentii saith St. Hierom to the Virgin Demetriades qui Apostolicae Cathedrae beat ae memoriae Anastasii successor filius est tene as fidem nec pergrinam quamvis prudens callidáque videaris doctrinam recipias Hold the Faith of holy Innocentius which is the Successor and Son in the Seat of St. Peter's Chair of Anastasius of blessed Memory that went before him and do not admit any new or foreign Doctrin though thou maist seem perhaps wise and subtle to thy self 17. Thus wrote St. Hierom which is another manner of Judgment of Innocentius both for his Holiness of Life and Authority of Place to direct men in Religion than the Magdeburgians give who would make him Vain-glorious But thus they use all ancient Fathers that are against them And so much for this Chapter CHAP. III. The former Controversie is more particularly handled how the Grecian Custom of celebrating Easter-day after the Fashion of the Jews came first into the British and Scottish Church and how untruly and wickedly John Fox and John Bale do behave themselves about this matter BUT now let us return if you please to speak a word or two more of the entrance of the foresaid Custom of celebrating Easter with the Jews into Britanny to wit how and about what time or upon what occasion it is probable that it entred Wherein first it seemeth most certain that it could not be brought in by the first Preachers of Christian Religion to John Fox and Sir Francis and the Magdeburgians would have men believe And this is proved as well by the Reasons and Authorities alleged before to shew that the first Preachers in Britanny either came from Rome or preached Roman Doctrin as also by the Reasons following First for that if Damianus and other Preachers sent into Britanny by Pope Reason I Eleutherius to instruct King Lucius and the rest in Christian Faith about the year 180 had found any such Custom there contrary to the Roman Use from whence they were sent they would have removed the same or at least wise have made some mention thereof forsomuch as at that time the contrary Custom of celebrating Easter upon the Sunday was public in the Use of the Roman Church and Pope Pius I. had made a Decree for confirming the same against the Asian Use about 40 years
great and horrible Persecutions of Christians in Rome and of their often Martyrings and that they remained constant notwitstanding in their Christian Faith to all mens admiration and that their number did increase daily even of the chiefest Nobility and that two worthy Senators in particular Pertinax and Tretellius had been lately converted from Paganism to profess Christ yea that the Emperour himself Marcus Aurelius then living began to be a Friend to Christians in respect of a famous Victory obtained by their Prayers all which things Baronius sheweth the Emperour's Legat in England to have told Lucius For these causes I say and for that he hated the Romans and their Old Religion to whom he understood the Christians to be contrary he resolved to be instructed in that Religion And understanding the chief Fountain thereof to be at Rome contented not himself either with Instructions he might have at home by Christians there nor yet from the Christian Bishops flourishing then in France as St. Irenaeus Photinus and others but sent men to Rome to demand Preachers of Eleutherius the Pope who directed to him two Romans named Fugatius and Damianus by whom the said King and his Countrey were converted about the year of Christ 180 as John Fox holdeth but as Baronius thinketh 183 from whom Pamelius Genebrard Nauclerus and other Chronographers do little dissent tho' Marianus Scotus doth put it in the year 177. And this Conversion of Britanny under King Lucius is testified both by the ancient Books of the Lives of the Roman Bishops attributed by some to Damasus as also by the ancient Ecclesiastical Tables and Martyrologies yet extant as Baronius proveth and by St. Bede in his History of England and after him by Ado Archbishop of Trevers and Marianus Scotus anno 177 and all Authors since 3. This then being so and John Fox the Father of Lies not â—â—â—ing openly to impugn the same yet granteth he the thing with such difficulty and strainings and telleth the story with so many hems and haws ifs and ands Interpretations and Restrictions as a man may see how greatly it grieveth him to confess the substance thereof I mean of this second Conversion by Pope Eleutherius and therefore he turneth himself hither and thither now granting now denying now doubting now equivocating as is both ridiculous and shameful to behold For as on the one side he would gladly deny the Truth of this Story so on the other side being press'd with the Authorities before alledged and general consent of all Writers he dareth not to utter himself plainly but endeavoureth to leave the Reader in suspence and doubtful whether it were true or no which is the effect most desired commonly of Heretical Writers to bring all things in doubt and question and there to leave the Reader And to this purpose doth the Fox tell us first That divers Authors of later Times do not agree about the certain year wherein this Conversion of King Lucius did happen some saying more and some saying less But what is this to the overthrow of the thing it self For that about the particular times wherein things were done there is often found no small variety among principal Writers and about principal Points and Mysteries of our Faith as about the coming of the Magi and Martyrdom of the Infants about the time of Christ's Baptism yea also of his Passion what Year and Day each of these things happened which yet doth not derogate from the certainty of the things themselves 4. And this is his first Cavil or rather light Skirmish whereby he would somewhat batter or weaken the credit of the Story before he cometh to lay the full Assault which ensueth immediately with seven double Cannons planted by him which he calleth seven good conjectural Reasons against the Tradition of Antiquity about this Conversion of Britanny from Pope Eleutherius Wherein notwithstanding you must note That he proposeth the Controversie as tho' his purpose were only to prove that Pope Eleutherius was not the first that converted England which thing as it might be granted in the sense before often touched if he spake or meant plainly so finding him to deal guilefully and to go about to prove in the end as appeareth by his Conclusion that Eleutherius converted not King Lucius at all but only helpt perhaps to convert him or to instruct him better in Religion being a Christian before I am constrained to examin briefly the Force or rather Fraud and Folly of these his seven Arguments to the end you may judge thereby how he behaveth himself in so main a Volume as his Acts and Monuments do contain seeing that in this one matter he beareth himself so fondly and maliciously And for brevities sake I will reduce the said seven Arguments to three general Heads or Kinds shewing first that all are Impertinent secondly that some besides Impertinency have also gross Ignorance thirdly that others besides these two commendations have Fraud and plain Imposture in them 5. To the first kind of Impertinent do appertain his fourth fifth and sixth Arguments handled by me before against the Magdeburgians to wit that St. Bede said in his time That the Britans celebrated Easter after the fashion of the East-Church that Petrus Cluniacensis testifieth the same in his days of some Scots and that Nicephorus saith that Simon Zelotes preached the Gospel in England All which three Arguments as they do serve to no purpose here but to shew that Fox stealeth all out of the Magdeburgians so no other Answer is needful to be made unto them than that which before hath been written seeing that all being granted that here is said yet proveth it nothing that the Faith of Britanny came not from Rome and consequently all is impertinent 6. Of the second sort both Impertinent and Ignorant Arguments are his second and third probations My second reason is saith he out of Tertullian who living near-about or rather somewhat before this Eleutherius testifieth in his Book contra Judaeos that the Gospel was dispersed abroad by the sound of Apostles in divers Countreys and then among other Kingdoms he reciteth also the parts of Britanny c. Thus you see how impertinent it is to the purpose we have in hand for that it concludeth not but that Pope Eleutherius after the Apostles time might convert King Lucius and his People publicly by Fugatius and Damianus as we affirm And then secondly it includeth notorious Error and Ignorance in that he saith Tertullian lived before Eleutherius for that it is prov'd out of Tertullian's own Works and Words especially in his Book de Pallio wherein he yieldeth the reason wherefore he changed his Habit from a Gown to a Cloak as Christians were wont to do in those days that he was converted to the Christian Faith in the tenth year of Pope Victor that was Successor to Eleutherius which was Anno Domini 196. And moreover he wrote
and of all them that came after him he was the best 5. Lo here Envy and Malice how blind they are for as for Baseness if he means in Blood or Worldly Honor it might perhaps with more probability have been attributed to all or any of the Popes that were before him than to Gregory who was as is known the Son of a most Noble and Rich Senator Gordianus as all Authors do testifie Whose Palace on the Hill Scaurus near to that of the Emperours is at this day a fair Church and Monastery and this Man being his Fathers Heir built with his own Substance seven Monasteries and endued them with rents before he entred into any religious Order himself Wherefore touching Birth and wordly Wealth this was so far off from the Baseness wherewith Fox would disgrace him as he might perhaps with more probability have subscribed this note as before I said to any other Pope from St. Peter downward then to St. Gregory And as for rare and singular Learning which impugneth also Baseness or for Holiness of Life that increaseth much Nobility I think John Fox dareth not to make St. Gregory inferiour to many Popes that went before him tho he were no Martyr as many of them were So that hard it were to determine wherein this Baseness doth consist but that the simple fellow would needs say somewhat to so great a Mans Disgrace And for terming him the best of all that followed this is not so much to praise him as to dispraise the rest or to make base and best to fall out in Tune and so we must pass it over as an impertinent Speech 6. But if we should stand upon the Testimonies of Antiquity in this behalf to oppose them against John Fox as namely Joannes Diaconus that wrote his Life and many other after him we should oppress the poor Fellow with Multitude of Witnesses yet cannot we let pass two that lived in Spain at the same time the one and the other soon after The first is Isidorus Archbishop of Sevil who writeth thus presently upon his Death Gregorius Papa Romanae Sedis Apostolicae Praesul compunctione timoris Dei plenus humilitate summus tantoque per gratiam Spiritus Sancti scientiae lumine praeditus ut non modo illi praesentium temporum quisquam sed nec in praeteritis quidem par fuit unquam Pope Gregory Bishop of the Roman and Apostolic See being full of Compunction of the Fear of God and most high in Humility was indued by the Holy Ghost with so great light of Knowledge as not only any Man of the present time is equal unto him but neither of the Ages past 7. This is his judgment which holy St. Hildefonsus Archbishop of Tollet having cited in a Book of his of the same Title not long after yieldeth as it were the Reason of this Asseveration of St. Isidore in these words Ita enim cunctorum meritorum claruit perfectione sublimis ut exclusis omnium illustrium virorum comparationibus nihil illi simile demonstret antiquitas Vicit enim sanctitate Antonium eloquentia Cyprianum sapientia Augustinum c. For St. Gregory did shine with so high a perfection of all kind of merits as the comparisons of all other worthy Men being excluded Antiquity hath nothing to shew like unto him seeing that in Holiness he surpassed St. Anthony in Eloquence St. Cyprian in Wisdom St. Augustin c. Thus wrote these Men in those days and albeit it may seem some kind of exaggerations yet we may hereby behold the judgment of those Ages and the sense of these two learned and holy Prelates how different they were from John Fox and his Mates in our days that seek so fondly to discredit so rare a Man and this shall be sufficient for St. Gregory 8. Now as for our Apostle St. Augustin tho' the malice of our Heretics be exceeding great both against his person and actions yet is Fox oftentimes forced to speak well of him and his company as in these words At length when the King Ethelbert had well considered the honest Conversation of their Life and moved with the Miracles wrought through Gods hand by them he heard them more gladly and lastly by their wholsom Exhortations and Example of godly Life he was by them converted and Christened in the year abovesaid 596. and the 36 of his Reign 9. Thus writeth he there and moreover talking of a great and special Miracle wrought by St. Augustin in sight of the Britans then his Adversaries for confirmation of the Roman Doctrin in observing the Easter-feast as now it is used which Miracle was the restoring of a blind Man to his sight by only kneeling down and praying to God for him in the presence of the multitude whose Prelates had attempted the like before but could not atchieve it he saith that the stories both of Bede and Polychronicon Huntington Iornalensis Fabian and other more do agree in this matter And yet in the very next Page following he goeth about to discredit him by all means possibl◠and to diminish the Opinion of Sanctity in him For talking of a certain meeting of seven Britan Bishops with him where they say St. Austin being now made Archbishop and Primate of England would not raise nor move his Body at their coming in Fox writeth thus Much less would his Pharisaical Solemnity have girded himself as Christ did and wash his Brethrens feet after their journey but how knoweth John Fox this Hear his Reason Seeing his Lordship was so high or rather so heavy or rather so proud that he could not find in his heart to give them a little moving of his Body c. By this is his Affection seen to the Man and also by that he would gladly bring him in some manner of suspition to have been some part of the cause of the slaughter of the Britan Monks of Bangor slain by Ethelfred a Heathen King of Northumberland for that they come to Chester to pray against him Whereas Fox himself notwithstanding doth confess that both Huntington and other Authors and he might have said also Bede himself do say that St. Augustin was dead when this slaughter happened nor could any way this matter appertain unto him or to any occasion given by him yet doth another Companion of John Fox go further and more maliciously against this holy Man our Apostle to wit John Bale the Apostate Frier who writeth thus Augustinus Romanus à Gregorio primo ad Anglosaxones papistica fide initiandos Apostolus mittebatur Augustin the Roman was sent as an Apostle from Gregory the first to convert the English-Saxons to a Popish Faith. Behold here how ancient Papists the Catholics of England are by this Mans Opinion 11. I pass over the rest of Bales false and contumelious Speech concerning St. Augustin as that he being ignorant of the Scriptures taught false Doctrin and that he made himself Archbishop
Calixtus the Second Whereby appeareth that the Britans were not only Papists in those days before the coming of St. Augustin but had Papist Gods and Saints also there Yet this Man might live according to Bale to have seen the times of St. Augustin's entrance for that he saith he flourished in the year 440. and lived in all 146 years tho' Gerrad Cambrensis Polydor and others do make him somewhat more ancient 10. And for that we have talked here of John Bale and that the testimonies taken from Enemies themselves are of greatest weight against themselves we shall in this place touch certain Points briefly of the chief Preachers and Pastors among the Britans in those days to wit for the next two hundred years before the coming of St. Augustin into England Which Preachers are mentioned and much praised both by Fox and Bale as true Teachers in those days whereof Fox writeth thus In this Age to wit after the Peace restored to the Church by Constantine followed here in the land of Britanny Fastidius Ninianus Patricius Bacchiarius Dubritius Congellus Kentegernus Helmotus David Daniel Sampson Elnodugus Assaphus Gildas Henlanus Elbodus Dinothus Samuel Nivius and a great sort more which governed the Britan Church by Christian Doctrin a long season albeit the civil Governours for the time were dissolute and careless as Gildas very sharply doth lay to their Charge and so at length were subdued by the Saxons And all this while about the space of 400 years to wit from the time of King Lucius Religion remained in Britanny uncorrupt and the word of Christ truly preached until about the coming of St. Augustin and his Companions from Rome c. 11. Here now you see the chief Teachers of the British Church Nineteen in number for the space of 400 years as Fox avoweth set down in order and highly praised by him but neither his Order or Argument is worth a rush For as for his Order he beginneth with Fastidius that lived not two hundred years before St. Augustin's coming tho he name four hundred And then he putteth some before that lived long after the rest and sometimes skippeth over 100 years together from one to another as you shall see by the Examen And for his Argument how many lies and errors it containeth shall easily appear by the Sequel of this Discourse For first concerning two of the chief in this Catalogue contained to wit Dubritius and David Archbishops of the Britans you have seen before that they were Roman Catholics and canonized many Ages after their Death by Roman Bishops which they would never have done if they had differed from them in any Point of Religion But now let us see of the rest for I see not what reason there is why Fox should so commend these two 12. The first four are Fastidius Ninianus Patricius and Bacchiarius all which are found to have been Catholic Men and held the common Faith of Rome in those days nor any of them ever favoured any of these new Doctrins brought in by our new Gospellers Trithemius maketh mention of Fastidius whose Sirname was Priscus Bishop of the Britans a Man of rare Life and great Learning in the Scriptures and a singular Preacher and lived in the time of Honorius and Theodosius the Emperors about the year of Christ 420. The same do write of him both Honorius Gennadius and Bergomas And John Bale concurreth with the rest adding that he was Archbishop of London and that amongst other his Works he wrote one De Viduitate servanda of keeping Widowhood without marryig again By which only work you may know that he was not of John Bale's Religion What we have written also of the Religion of St. German and his fellow Bishops that came into England may easily declare what Religion this Man was of who being then Archbishop of London must needs be presumed to have had a great part in their calling in as also to have joyned with them against the Pelagians which he would not have done if they had not been all of one Religion And thus much of him 13. Of St. Ninianus who converted the Picts to Christian Religion St. Bede maketh most honorable mention in the Third Book of his Ecclesiastical History and the Roman Martyrologe doth cite him for a Saint upon the Sixteenth day of September Which would never have been permitted if he had been in any one thing different from the Roman Faith. Nay John Bale writeth of him thus Ninianus Bernitius ex Regio Britannorum sanguine procreatus Italiam adhuc adolescens petiit Romae apud divini verbi ministros mysteria veritatis edoctus ad plenum celer in patriam remigrabat c. miraculis ac sanctitate clarissimus obiit anno 432. St. Ninian Bernitius being descended of the Blood of the King 's of Britanny went in his youth into Italy and being fully taught the Mysteries of Gods Word in Rome he returned swiftly to his Country again where he flourished exceedingly in Miracles and Sanctity of Life and after died in the year of Christ 432. Mark here that Princes Children became Priests in those days and went to Rome to learn Divinity and that this Man having done so and brought back into Britanny the Christian Doctrin of Rome wrought Miracles thereby Ergo he was no Protestant so that here Bale testifieth against himself 14. There followeth of Patricius in John Fox but indeed he should have put Palladius before Patricius For so doth Bale and he hath Reason for that he was a famous Teacher in Britanny and sent from Rome by Pope Caelestinus before Patricius as Bale doth note saying first of Palladius Hic à Caelestino Romanorum Pontifice Antistes mittebatur c. This Man was sent Bishop from Caelestinus Pope of Rome to drive out of Britanny the Pelagian Heresie which at that time had infected the greater part thereof and to reduce the Scots to true Piety c. He flourished about the year of Christ 431. c. So saith he And the same is confirmed by that which Prosper a far better Author than Bale writeth in his Chronicle where he saith that Palladius was sent by Caelestinus Pope in the year 432 into Britanny but especially to the Scots as testifieth also St. Bede in his Story So as in this time also the Popes of Rome had Supreme Care in Spiritual Affairs both among the Britans and Scots seeing he appointed them Bishops from Rome 15. And this is confirmed also by the other Example of Patricius who as John Bale saith was sirnamed Mangonius and was born in Britanny of the Family of Senators and thereby called Patricius but yet of kindred by his Mother to St. Martin Bishop of Tours study'd Divinity in Rome and thence sent by Caelestinus the Pope to preach to the Irish-men Istum saith he ad Scotos Hibernos post Palladium Graecum misit ut eos à Pelagianorum tueretur
erroribus This man did Caelestinus Bishop of Rome send to the Scots and Irish-men especially those that lived in Britanny after Palladius the Grecian to defend them from the Errors of the Pelagians 16. Behold the Care and Authority of the Bishop of Rome in those days But what followeth in Bale This man saith he did preach the Gospel unto the Irish-men with incredible fervour of spirit for forty years together and did convert them to the sincere Faith of Christ He was most excellent both in Learning and Holiness and among other Miracles that he did he continued in Praying and Fasting forty days and forty nights founded many Churches healed many sick deliver'd many possessed of Devils and raised to life sixty that were dead c. 17. Behold the effects of Preachers sent forth by the Bishops of Rome recounted by the Heretics themselves Let Fox or Bale shew us any such Example of Miracles wrought by Preachers sent by them and their Sect. And that this man also was made Bishop by Caelestinus the Pope and sent hither after Palladius is testified by St. Prosper that lived in that time and after him by St. Bede Marianus Scotus Sigibert and others who say also that he died in the year of Christ 491 being of the age of 122 years and his Memory is held in the Roman Calendar upon the 17th day of March c. And now our Fox and Bale being taken in these Examples to speak against themselves we might pass over the rest with silence assuring the Reader that all is like unto this Yet some points more we shall note 18. The fourth before named Bacchiarius tho' he be not mentioned by John Bale yet other Authors do report that he was brought up in Rome and in good credit with Pope Leo I. to whom he dedicated a Book written in defence of his Pilgrimage to Rome He had been the Scholar of St. Patricius and by this you may guess of what Religion he was 19. Congellus is the sixth Preacher of true Religion cited in Fox's Catalogue for of Dubritius which is the fifth we spoke before whom Bale saith to have flourished about the year of Christ 530 and that he was the first Abbot of the Monastery of Bangor But what more think you Ab isto Monachismus à Pelagio introductus c. From this man saith he the Religion of Monks brought in by Pelagius the Heretic was not only spread over Britanny under shew of true Religion but was dilated also into other Countreys c. Behold how Fox and Bale agree Fox saith He was a true Preacher of the Word of God and Bale saith He was a Father of Pelagian Monks And note here by the way that Fox professing to shew the continual Succession of the Britan Church leapeth from Patricius to Dubritius of whom we spake before and between whom there was above 100 years distance if we believe Bale and other Authors And then followeth Kentegernus and Helmotus before David Menevensis who should have come after him in respect of time tho' of Helmotus Bale maketh no mention but of Kentegernus he saith That he flourished in the year 560 and lived in all 185 years which if it be so he must needs be alive long after the entrance of St. Augustin He saith He was a Monk and had three hundred Scholars in one Colledge which he sent to preaching here and there c. And then he addeth further Melote utebatur c. He used a Garment made of Goats skins with a streight Hood having a white Stole about his Neck after the fashion of the Primitive Church He converted many to the Faith of Christ recall'd many Apostatas drove out Pelagians built Churches ministred to the sick and healed their sickness and lived in very great Abstinence c. Thus he describeth him and whether this description doth agree to a Protestant Minister or to a Catholic Abbot let the Reader consider 20. There do follow in Fox's Catalogue David Daniel Sampson Elnodugus Asaphus and Gildas But of St. David the first of this number we have spoken before in this Chapter And as for Gildas which is the last of this Rank Bale saith He was a Monk of Bangor And further it may easily appear by the speeches themselves which before we have alledged out of him in the former Chapter of what Religion he was Of Daniel Sampson and Elnodugus tho' John Bale speak little or nothing yet Capgrave Leland and others shew that they were of the same Religion with the rest Daniel being the first Bishop of Bangor and Sampson next after St. David was Bishop of that place 21. Of Asaph Bale saith He was Scholar to the foresaid famous Abbot Kentegern and was made Bishop of Elgoa in Wales which of his name was called Asaph ever since He flourished in the year 590 and saw the coming in of Augustin and his Fellows from Rome and was the first of the Britans saith Bale qui à Gregorii Romani Discipulis in Angliam adventantibus Auctoritatem Unctionem accepit that took his Authority and Vnction or Consecration from the Disciples of Gregory Bishop of Rome that came into England So writeth Bale and by this sheweth that St. Asaph held nothing against the Roman Religion seeing he accepted his Authority and Consecration from the Bishop of Rome Besides this this Bishop St. Asaph hath his Memory celebrated in the Roman Martyrology upon the first day of May which he should not if he had been different in any one point from the Roman Religion 22. And so being come down now to St. Augustin's time it is to no purpose to go any farther or name the rest that do ensue in Fox to wit those five Herlanus Elbodus Dinothus Samuel and Nivius for that they lived after St. Augustin's entrance whereas Fox's promise was to cite only British Teachears that were before him and different from the Roman Religion whereof he hath named hitherto none Besides that of three of these five Bale writeth not and as for Dinothus Abbot of Bangor he was the chiefest of those who opposed themselves against Augustin and set other men against him also in Synodo Wiccionum and was severely punished afterward for the same by the Providence of God as St. Bede noteth to wit by the Sword of Ethelfredus a Heathen King of Northumberland long after the Death of St. Augustin when the said Dinothus and 1200 Monks were slain at Chester by the Souldiers of the said Ethelfride Augustino jam multo ante tempore saith St. Bede ad Coelestia Regna sublato St. Augustin being taken to Heaven long before tho' Bale be not ashamed to say that it was done by his suggestion praising the foresaid Dinothus and his Confederates for that they would not preach Baptism and celebrate Easter-day according to the Custom of Rome and Universal Catholic Church 23. So as now we see that these men care not
Christian Religion under King Sigebert about the year of Christ 609 and that by the preaching principally of their first Bishop Felix born in Burgundy in France being ordain'd Bishop of a City there called Dunwich at that time which now is more than half consumed with the Sea. 7. The fourth Kingdom was of the Northumbers which contained many Shires towards the North to wit Lancashire Yorkshire Cumberland Westmorland Northumberland Durham and some part of Scotland The first Monarch of this Kingdom is accounted Ida and it received the Faith of Christian Religion under their 13th King Edwyn in the year of Christ 626 by the Preaching of St. Paulinus sent thither to preach by Justus the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury by whom the said Paulinus was translated from the See of Rochester to be Archbishop of York 8. The fifth Kingdom was of the West-Saxons which contained the Countreys of Cornwall Devonshire Dorsetshire Somersetshire Wiltshire Barkshire and Hampshire The first Founder thereof was Cerdick about the year of Christ 509 and under Kenegilsus their fifth King they received the Christian Faith by the preaching of St. Berinus their first Bishop of Dorchester in the year of Christ 635. 9. The sixth Kingdom was of the Mercians or Middle-Countrey being in that time the greatest of all the rest and containing some fifteen or sixteen Shires as Glocester Hereford Chester Stafford Worcester Shrewsbury Oxford Warwick Darby Leicester Buckingham Northampton Nottingham Huntington and Rutland The first Founder of this Monarchy is said to be one Creda about the year of Christ 586 and the Conversion thereof to Christian Faith was about the year of Christ 635 under Prince Peda Son and Heir unto the notable persecuting Pagan Peda. Their first Apostle was B. Finan who baptized King Peda against his Father's will in the Kingdom of the Northumbers at a Town by Berwick called Ad murum and this by the instance of the good Christian King Oswyn King of Northumberland who gave King Peda his Daughter in Marriage on this condition That he would become a Christian 10. The seventh Kingdom was of the South-Saxons containing the Shires of Sussex and Surrey and began about the year of Christ 478 by one Aelus a Saxon and was converted to Christianity under King Ethelwold or Ethelwach as St. Bede nameth him about the year of Christ 662 by the preaching especially of St. Wilfrid their first Bishop who erected a Monastery for the Episcopal See in a place called Seolyce or Selcey 11. Well then thus we see that within the space of forty years more or less six Kingdoms of England received the Gospel and the seventh not long after under their first Preachers and Apostles before mentioned And what great variety of Miracles God did work by these his Servants and their Helpers and Assistants in this Work of the Conversion of our Countrey is evident by all Stories of that time and after and no man but an Infidel or Miscreant can with any probable reason call them in doubt 12. And it seemeth that the promise of our Savior made to his Apostles at his last farewell in St. Mark 's Gospel for Miracles to be wrought in the Conversion of Nations especially of Gentiles as St. Gregory observeth was as abundantly fulfilled in the first Conversion of our English Nation as of any other probably in the World. The Signs and Miracles saith Christ which shall follow them that shall believe in me or receive my Faith especially in the beginning are these That they shall cast out Devils in my Name they shall speak with new Tongues they shall remove Serpents and if they should drink Poyson it shall not hurt them they shall lay their hands upon sick men and therewith heal them c. 13. All these things promised Christ our Savior and performed them most abundantly in the first Conversion of Nations while the said Miracles were necessary to plant and confirm the Faith. But when as St. Gregory in the place before alledged saith the young Plants had no more need of such daily watering by Miracles then ceased they Tho' in our Countrey and Primitive Church they endured no small time as were easie to shew if I would stand in this place to run over the Ecclesiastical Stories of the least part of the aforesaid seven Kingdoms whereof yet many things will be spoken of afterward 14. For only in the Kingdom of Kent for the first hundred years after the Conversion of King Ethelbert there possessed the See of Canterbury from St. Augustin unto Bertualdus who died in the year of Christ 730 and with whom St. Bede endeth eight Arch-bishops all most Godly and Holy Men to wit Augustin Laurence Melitus Justus Honorius Deusdedit Theodorus and Bertualdus Which Bishops were held for great Saints in our Primitive Church as appeareth by the writing both of St. Bede that lived also himself in that Age and by William of Malmesbury that lived some Ages after Who yet alledgeth a more Ancient Author than himself called Gosselinus that wrote the Lives and Miracles of all those Eight Arch-bishops of Canterbury and of some other Saints of our Country Horum saith he non minus sancti Letardi c. Of these Arch-bishops as also of St. Letard that in Ancient time came in with Q. Berta the Author before mentioned Gosselinus hath written their marvelous and admirable vertues out of Bede and others Adding also many things which he saw himself with his own Eyes shewing the great Miracles and Signs which they did c. He doth recount also the Rank of Kings with their Kindred that lay Buried in his days in the Church of St. Augustin at Canterbury Which he doth worthily call the lights of England and the Senators of the English Heavenly Court of Parliament And to this Quire of Saints and Crown or Diadem of our Eternal King Christ he addeth other pretious Stones also of Inestimable Glory to wit St. Adrian the Abbot and St. Mildred the Virgin as Conspicuous in Glory of Miracles as the rest c. 15. Thus writeth Malmesbury of these servants of God of the Church of Canterbury for the first hundred years after Christ's Faith received but he that would recount the like of all the other six Kingdoms and English Churches should have great store of matter Especially if he would enter into the particular Lives and Actions of such eminent Holy Men as that Age by the force and virtue of that Primitive Christian Religion brought forth And then if with all this he remember in like manner that most certain principle before mentioned that God would never have concurred with such abundance of Piety Holiness and Miracles to the setting up of a false Religion he will easily see how plain a demonstration this is for the truth of that Religion which was thus planted amongst us by St. Augustin and Maligned by these Sectaries of our time 16. Well then
of this King Canutus saying amongst other things thus Monasteria per Angliam c. He did repair all the Monasteries in England that were overthrown or defaced by the Wars of his Father Swanus or himself He did Build Churches in all the places where he had fought any Battels And appointed Priests for the said Churches who should Pray continually to the Worlds end for the Souls of them that had been slain in those places He was present at the Consecration of a goodly Church in a place called Aschendum where he had his chiefest victory causing both the Nobles of the English and Danish Nation to offer with him Rich gifts to the said Church c. 22. Over the Body of Blessed St. Edmund which the Ancient Danes had slain he Builded a Church worthy the greatness of his Kingly Heart appointing there both an Abbot and Monks and giving them many Possessions In so much as by the greatness of his gifts that Monastery at this day is above all the rest in England He took up with his own hands the Body of St. Elphegus Arch-bishop of Canterbury slain not long before by his Danes and caused the same to be be carried unto Canterbury Reverencing the same with worthy honor He gave such great Gifts and rare Jewels to the Church of Winchester that the shining of pretious Stones did dazle the Eyes of such as did behold them c. In the Fifteenth year of his Kingdom he went to Rome by Land and having stayed some days there and redeeming his sins by Alms in those Churches he returned by Sea to England c. 23. Thus and much more doth William of Malmesbury write of this notable King Canatus a terrible and fierce Warrior before his Conversion and much given to Blood and Impiety whereby may easily be seen what force Catholic Religion is of to make change in a Mans manners where it truly entreth Let Protestants shew us some such examples of Princes Converted to their Religion But to go forward in Malmesbury he setteth down after all this a large Epistle of King Canutus which he wrote from Rome or in the way homeward unto the two Arch-bishops Egetnothus and Alfricus the first of Canterbury the other of York and by them to the whole Realm giving them account of his Journy to Rome Where amongst other things he writeth thus Canutus Rex totius Angliae Denmarkiae Norvegiae partis Suecorum c. notifico vobis me noviter ivisse Romam oratum pro Redemptione peccaminum meorum c. I Canutus King of all England Denmark and Norway and part of Swecia c. do give you to understand that of late I went to Rome to pray for the Redemption of my sins and for the health of my Kingdoms and people having made a vow of this Journy long ago but could never perform it until now by reason I was hindred by the Affairs of my Kingdoms And now I do yield most hearty thanks to Almighty God that he hath granted me this Grace to come and visit in my Life time the Blessed Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and all the Sanctuary that is within and without this City and according to my desire to honor and worship the same in my own person c. 24. Thus he wrote And moreover adjoyned many other pious Ordinances in the same Epistle to be observed in England for Restitutions to be made Alms to be given and other good deeds to be done exhorting all to perform them willingly and threatning them that should do the contrary And William of Malmesbury saith that returning after to England he caused the same to be strictly observed And gave many new priviledges to Churches And one among other to the Church of Canterbury which Malmesbury setteth down at length and in the end hath these words Si quis verò c. If any Man shall perform this my Ordination with a prompt will Almighty God by the Intercession of the most Blessed Virgin Mary and all his Saints increase his portion in the Land of the living And this Donation of Priviledge is written and Promulgated in the Presence of me King Canutus in the Wooden Church in the year of Christ 1032. 23. Thus far writeth William of Malmesbury of this Kings Pious disposition after his coming from Rome And John Stow addeth out of Henry of Huntington as followeth After this time Canutus never bare Crown upon his Head but he set the same upon the Head of the Crucifix at Winchester c. And thus much of his Piety and other Fruits of true Christian Faith which he had received And it is no small Argument of the Divine Power thereof that it could so mollifie and change so fierce a Warriour and cruel a Persecutor as this King was before his Conversion 26. So as now we have brought down the continuance and succession of one and the self same Christian Religion in England from St. Augustin and King Ethelbert unto King Canutus for the space of 400 years And that this was no particular Religion of England alone but the Common General Faith not only of Rome but of all Christendom besides at that day and consequently the only Catholic Religion of those Ages appeareth in like manner by other words of the Kings former Letter Recorded by Malmesbury where he saith Sit autem vobis notum c. Be it known unto you that in this last solemnity of Easter there was a great Assembly of Nobility here in Rome together with Pope John and the Emperor Conrade to wit all the greatest Princes from the Hill Garganus unto this other next the Sea all which did receive me most honorably and did present me with Magnificent Gifts c. Thus wrote the King Whereby we may easily perceive that King Canutus was held in all Points for a perfect Catholic Prince seeing that both Pope John the 20th and the Emperor Conrade the 2d did esteem and honor him so highly 27. After Canutus succeeded in the Kingdom of England his two Sons Harold and Hardicanutus for two or three years And then King Edward the Confessor for Twenty-three years together After whose Death the second Harold Son of Earl Goodwin holding the Kingdom by violence against both English and Danes scarce one year William Duke of Normandy came in as all Men know and Conquered the Land towards the end of the year 1066. and held the same all days of his Life and so hath his posterity after him by Male or Female unto our time and have continued the same Religion which he found or brought into England for all was one for the space of 500 years unto King Henry the Eighth's time which may be proved beside other ways by the Succession of our Arch-bishops of Canterbury Stigand an English Man being the Twenty-third from St. Augustin holding the same when William the Conqueror got the Crown to whom succeeded Lanfranc and to him
Religion held firm her continuance throughout all these Tempests yea shewed her self more clear eminent and notorious by the Confession of her most constant Members then she did before in peace which is the proper privilege and excellency of truth and of the Catholic Church that is the Pilar of Truth above all Sects and Heresies as St. Cyprian St. Austin and other Fathers do note to come out of Persecution as Gold out of Fire more bright illustrious and eminent than before or as an excellent Ship well Tackled and skilfully guided breaketh thorow the Waves without hurt at all 2. And this hath been proved now by the experience of 1600 years wherein this Ship of the Catholic Church hath passed thorow no fewer storms than there are years and overcome them all whereas many hundred Sects and Sectaries in the meane space have been broken in pieces perished and consumed either by division among themselves or with a little externe Persecution or Discipline of the Church whereof I shall not need to alledge many examples for that the World is full of them and all Histories do testifie and our former deduction hath made it clear and one Domestical example of our own days there is before our eyes which may serve for all the rest to wit that some severity being begun by our State against two opposite Religions in England the Catholics and Puritans tho' much more rigorous against the former than the second yet hath Catholic Religion increased thereby and Puritanism been broken and in a manner dissolved The Reason of which different success we shall touch afterwards Now to the purpose we have in hand 3. For the first Twenty years of King Henries Reign unto the year of Christ 1530 no Man can deny but that the integrity of Catholic Religion Union and Communion with the rest of Christendom and perfect subordination to the See Apostolic of Rome remained in England whole as the said King had received it from the most prudent Religious and Victorious Prince his Father King Henry the Seventh and he again from his renowned Ancestors whom yet King Henry the Eighth as he did excel in knowledge of Learning So was he nothing inferior to them in zeal of defending the purity of Catholic Faith as may appear by the multitude of Sectaries and Heretics as well Waldensians Arrians Anabaptists Lollards and Wickliffians as Lutherans Zuinglians Calvinists and the like burned by him for dissenting from the universal known Church and Roman Religion in the first said Twenty years of his Reign which Fox setteth down with great complaint and regret and we shall after declare more at large in the Second and Third parts of this Treatise 4. And when Luther afterward rose up in the Eighth year of this glorious Kings Reign which was the year of Christ 1517 King Henry caused first the Famous Learned Bishop John Fisher of Rochester to confute the Mad fellow and after he vouchsafed to do the same himself by a most excellent Book which I have Read and seen subscribed with his own hand with the Dedication thereof by his Ambassador Dr. Clark after Bishop of Bath and Wells unto Pope Leo the Tenth who in gratification thereof gave his Majesty and all his Posterity the most Honorable Style and Title of Defender of the Faith. 5. And thus continued King Henry and the Religion under him in England until the foresaid year 1530. at what time there happened a most fatal and unfortunate contention between Clement the Seventh the Pope and him about his Divorce from Queen Katherine He began first to shew his grief and displeasure against Cardinal Wolsey and secondly against the whole Clergy of England Condemning the one and the other in the Forfeiture of Premunire who in their submission and supplication for Pardon either of fear or flattery called him Supreme Head of their Church of England 6. The King also began to shew openly his disgust with the Pope for not yielding to his pretence and Petition But what Was the Kings Religion changed by this Or did he alter his judgment in Faith for this disaffection towards the Pope No truly as well appeareth by his other actions For he frequented the Mass no less than before he burned Heretics more than ever as appeareth by Fox his accompt and so you shall see in all the residue of his Life which were Sixteen years after this And albeit at this time being much troubled with this breach with the Pope he attended less to repress Heresie for some years than he had done before yet was his judgment no less against them than from the beginning and the longer he lived the more grew his aversion from them as may easily appear to him that will but look over the years that ensued after this disgust and breach with Pope Clement the Seventh For albeit in the next year after to wit 1531 he proceeded to shew his aversion from that Pope yet did not he neglect the punishment of Lutherans as may appear by the burning of David Foster Valentine Freese John Tenkesbury the old Man of Buckingham and other which Fox doth complain of 7. In the year 1532. The King proceeding in the same discontentment with the Pope did certain things rather to terrifie him than to make any change of Religion as making Sir Thomas Audley Chancellor in the place of Sir Thomas More which Audley was suspected to favor Lutheranism In using also familiarly Thomas Cromwell a Man of the same humor or worse To which end also he going over into France conferred with Francis the French King and persuaded him to Summon the Pope to a General Council but he would not whereupon King Henry returning into England not only spake open words against Pope Clement but suffered one Dr. Cutwyn Dean of Hertfort to Preach publickly against him in a Sermon before the King himself in the Church of the Franciscan Friers of Greenwich who passed so far in that vein as a grave Religious Father Named Elstow reprehended him publickly out of the Quire or Roodloft for which he was sent to Prison And this was the first open contradiction that King Henry had within his Realm about this Controversie with the Pope and yet doth Fox recount unto us divers of his Martyrs most opposite to the Pope that were burnt by the Kings Authority this year as namely James Baynam Robert Debnam Nicolas Marish Robert King and others 8. There followed the year 1533 wherein his Majesty was Married to Queen Ann Bullen and consequently this year passed most in Triumph about Coronation of the said Queen as also the Birth and Baptism of her Majesty that now is So as little was done in matters of Religion any way but a great Gate seemed to be opened to the Protestants and to Luthers favorers by this Marriage in so much that Fox doth assign the ground of his Gospel principally from this year in respect both
of the Kings and Queens inclination as he presumeth and of the great Authority of Cranmer Cromwell and some other that he calleth his Gospellers or Patrons rather of his Gospel And yet if you behold the external Face of the English Church at this day all these named and others held the Catholic Faith Use and Rites and both King and Queen Cranmer and Cromwell went as Devoutly to Mass as ever before and so remained they in outward shew I mean the former three even to their Deaths And Cromwell when he was to die protested on the Scaffold that he was a good Catholic Man and never doubted of any of the Church Sacraments then used and the like would Cranmer have done no doubt if he had been brought to the Scaffold in King Henries days as he was to the Fire afterwards in Queen Maries which had been a happy case for him 9. There ensued the year 1534 which was the year indeed of open breach with Rome for that an Excommunication being set forth by Pope Clement VII against King Henry VIII upon notice given of his Marriage and the said Excommunication set up in Dunkirk and other Towns in Flanders which did import the consent also and concurrence of Charles the Emperour and then certain Prophesies being blown about at home as coming from Elizabeth Barton sirnamed the holy Maid of Kent about the King's Deprivation he was much more exasperated than before and so calling a Parliament caused the Pope's Authority to be wholly extinguished and transferred to himself and made divers Bishops in order to preach at Paul's Cross against the Pope's Supremacy over the Catholic Church But what may we think that these Bishops did in so small a time change their belief in matters of Faith The King also being angry with divers Friars as namely with F. Elstow beforenamed that contradicted Cutwyne the Preacher when he inveighed against the Pope's Authority did this year upon the 11th of August ordain That all the observant Friars of St. Francis's Order should be thrust out of their Convents beginning with Greenwich where the said contradiction was made and to seem somewhat to favour the Augustin-Friars of whose Order Luther had been he commanded them for the present to be put in their places yet did he at the very same time cause John Frith to be burn'd in Smithfield for denying the Blessed Sacrament and this by his own particular order which Frith and his Master Tyndal were the greatest Enemies that Friars had 10. He burned also this year Henry Poyle William Tracy and other Protestants as Fox testifieth in his Calendar So as we may see that the King's Faith was as before and tho' he were content to suffer some new-fangl'd Spirits to ruffle at this time as namely Friar Barnes in London where he preach'd most seditiously and Hugh Latimer in Bristol where as Stow saith he stirred a notorious Tumult causing the Mayor to suffer Lay men to preach and to prohibit and imprison Priests and other like Disorders yet what the King thought inwardly of them he declared afterwards by his acts when he burned Barns and cast Latimer into the Tower and kept him there with evident danger of his life so long as himself lived which disposition of King Henry Tyndal smelling at the same season wrote from Flanders to his Scholar John Frith Prisoner in the Tower of London in these words And now methinketh I smell a counsel to be taken c. But you must understand that it is not of a pure heart and the love of Truth but to avenge themselves and to eat the Whores flesh and to suck the marrow of her bones c. So wrote that honest man signifying that King Henry was resolved to make an outward shew in favouring the Gospellers not for love or liking he had of them but to revenge himself of the Pope and to enjoy the Goods of Monasteries and other spiritual Livings which he in his blasphemous heretical vein calleth the Whores flesh and marrow of her bones 11. Well then this was the beginning of their Gospel in England by their own Confession and Interpretation and so whatsoever was done from this year forward against Catholics or Catholic Religion unto the 31st year of his Reign which was of Christ 1540 to wit for five whole years was upon these grounds and to the former ends of Revenge and Interest if we believe Protestants themselves in which point notwithstanding for that divers Godly Learned and Zealous men could not be content to follow the King's affections as others did and namely Bishop Fisher of Rochester Sir Thomas More late Chancellor of England and divers most Reverend and Venerable Abbots Priors and Doctors and other their like they were content to give their Blood in defence of Catholic Unity against this Schism as the Abbots of Glastenbury of Whaley of Reading Dr. Forest Queen Catharine's Confessor Dr. Powel and the like 12. Some others and amongst them one most near to the King himself both in Blood and Affection namely Cardinal Pool opposed himself by public Writing from Padua as we may see by those three learned Books left by him in Latin De Unitate Ecclesiae Others also of the same Blood-Royal as the Marquess of Exceter and Countess of Salisbury the said Cardinal's Mother shewed their dislike which afterwards was the cause of their ruin and many Shires also of the Realm at this time not being so patient as to bear these Innovations took Arms and fell into great Commotions as in Lincolnshire Yorkshire Somersetshire and some other Provinces making all their Quarrels for matters of Religion 13. So as by this we see that Catholic Religion remained still in England both in Prince and People but that the Prince for a time thought good for other ends to tolerate and wink at disorders therein until the aforesaid year of 1540 when calling all his Realm together both Spiritual and Temporal to examin well this matter of Religion they decreed that famous Statute both in Parliament and Consistory Ecclesiastical called the Statute of six Articles or as John Fox nameth it the whip with six strings or lashes in which Decree are condemned for detestable Heresies all the most substantial points of Protestants Doctrin especially of Zwinglians and Calvinists and most severe punishment of Death appointed unto the Defenders and Maintainers thereof whereby the Catholic Judgment and Censure of the whole Realm in that behalf was seen and the King himself made further declaration thereof presently for his own part by putting away his German Wife Anne of Cleve by which the Gospellers had thought to have drawn him further into League and Religion with the Protestant German Princes and by punishing Cromwell the Head and Fountain of most of these Innovations by the loss of his Head. He burned also immediately after this Statute in Smithfield upon the promulgation thereof three famous Heretics Barns Jerom and Gerard
be altered it must be done by the same Authority by which it was delivered to them to wit by the whole Church Councils and General Pastors thereof 26. This was the Defence and Pleading of Catholics under King Henry the Eighth to excuse themselves from Treason objected against them for holding the Popes Supremacy wherein you see divers notorious differences between the Defence of the Sectaries and them for that amongst the Sectaries every one held what himself thought best of things invented by themselves every one cited Scriptures and interpreted them as he listed without Authority President or Example of former Ages and consequently they are justly called Heretics that is to say choosers For that they chose to themselves what to believe in every Sect and reduced the last and final resolution of all things to their own Wills and Wits which in matters of belief is the highest Crime that against God and his Church can be committed 27. But on the other side the state and condition of the Catholics and their cause is quite opposite to this for that they stick to Authority Obedience Integrity Example of their Ancestors they bring nothing of their own they invent or innovate nothing They stand only upon that which they have found Established to them not by this or that Man or by this or that Author of any Sect or by this or that particular Congregation fellowship or Faction or by this or that Town City Province Kingdom or Country but generally by the whole universal Church and Pastors thereof and therefore properly and truly are called Catholics which is to say Vniversal and general 28. And this shall suffice to shew the difference between the Catholic Martyrs and Heretical Malefactors put to death in King Henries time whereof yet we shall Treat more largely in the third part of this Treatise where we are to handle the particular Stories of Fox his Calendar-Martyrs and to compare and paralell them with ours shewing that yet never Dogs and Cats nor yet Sampsons Foxes did ever so disagree in natures and conditions as these good Martyrs did in Faction and contrariety of opinions amongst themselves and consequently could not be Martyrs or witnesses of any one Faith whatsoever 29. And with this also will we end the Discourse of King Henries Life having sufficiently shewed as to me it seemeth that the Catholic Religion held her footing and continuance also under ther Reign of this King no less perhaps than before yea she shewed her self much more to the World by the Persecution which then she suffered than before in the time of peace for that the Famous and Illustrious Martyrdoms of such excellent Men as were Bishop Fisher Sir Thomas More Dr. Forest and many other such Worthies that suffered Martyrdom in those days did more Illustrate her and made extern Nations to talk more of the Zeal and Constancy of English Catholics than ever they would have done if that Persecution had not fallen out and the like success hath happened since both under King Edward the Sixth and her Majesty that now is as briefly we shall here declare 30. And as for King Edwards Reign as it was but short and the first passage from Catholic Religion to open Profession of Heresie So was it not so sharp for effusion of Blood as under King Henry For that the King being very young and those that Governed in his Name not thorowly settled in their States and Affairs troubled also with much Division and Emulation among themselves could not attend to prosecute matters so exactly against Catholics as some of their desires and Appetites were yet began they very well as we may see by the most unjust Persecutions and Deprivations of two principal Bishops Gardiner of Winchester and Bonner of London by such violent Calumnious manner as was proper for Heretics to use The particulars whereof John Fox doth set down at large whereby a Man may take a taste what they meant to have done if they had had time For that Cranmer and Ridley that had been Bishops in King Henries time and followed his Religion and humor while he lived being now also resolved to enjoy the Preferment and Sensuality of this time so far as any way they might attain unto getting Authority into their hands by the Protector and others that were in most Power began to lay lustily about them and to pull down all them both of the Clergy and others whom they thought to be able or likely to stand in their way or resist their inventions 31. And hereupon divers were laid hands on and Imprisoned divers fled over Seas sundry most Captious and Calumnious Questions and Demands were devised to entangle Men As Namely Whether a King of one year old were not as truly a King as at Forty or Fifty which if you did grant concerning the Title and Right of his Crown which is true then presently they inferred that King Edward being but Nine years old wanting yet discretion might also be lawful Head of the Church and determine Controversies of Religion yea change the Faith and Religion which his Father and all his Ancestors Kings and Princes of England all Parliaments Synods and Councils before his days had left unto him for the space of a Thousand years and more And albeit he had not sufficient judgment to understand what Religion meant yet was he made judge thereof by vertue of his Birth and Succession to the Crown And this Point was wonderfully urged by the Protector Seymor to all Preachers Prelats and Bishops of that time that they should inculcate the same to the people in their Sermons to the end that himself taking all the said Child Kings Authority upon him might be Head and Judge in his place Whereunto that he might seem the more fit and able for his excellent learning John Bale the Apostata Friar that lived under him was not ashamed to Publish in Print and place him for a Learned Author amongst his Illustrious British Writters for that some Proclamations perhaps passed by his hands tho' otherwise he was known to be so unlearned as he could scarce Write or Read. 32. But yet as I said this Doctrin or rather Paradox of the Child Kings supereminent ability high Authority and Supreme Ecclesiastical Power to determin alter change and dispose of matters of Religion at his pleasure tho' he were but of one year old was sounded in Pulpits every where at this time whereof Sir John Cheke the Kings School-master amongst others Wrote a several Treatise besides the large Message sent in the Kings Name but of his Writing to the Catholic people of Devonshire as after shall be shewed The same also was objected grievously against Bishop Gardiner and Bishop Bonner by Name that they had not in their Sermons appointed unto them by the Protector so sufficiently urged this Point of the Kings Ecclesiastical Power in his Nonage as was required And this especially for that the people in
make this little Boy legitimate and prove his Mother to be no Whore 44. And of this I might give infinit Examples out of John Fox what substantial grounds and motives many of his Martyrs had to run to the Fire or rather how without all ground or probable reason in the world but only wilful Pride and Obstinacy most of them thrust themselves to death no less than in old times did the Massilians Montanists Circumcellians and Martyrians most famous Heretics upon the like madness as after we are to shew more at large in the third Part where I am to treat of these matters more particularly and to give you if I be not deceived large matters of laughter or rather of compassion in this behalf Now this shall be sufficient to shew both the great number and respective quality of domestical Witnesses for the Catholic Faith and continuance thereof in our Countrey during the time of this sharp Persecution under her Majesty and that never more than in this time hath the Catholic Church been perspicuous honorable and eminent in our Realm which is altogether contrary to that which John Fox ascribeth to his Church whose Invisibility Obscurity and lurking from the eyes of men he both granteth and excuseth by the presence of Persecution against her whereas we hold on the other side that the true Church and consequently Ours is ever more visible and notoriously known in time of Affliction and Persecution than in Peace 45. And so we have shewed by Example of our English Church especially in this present Age wherein not only domestical sufferings at home have come by Fame Books and Writings to the knowledge of Foreign Nations and thereby also the notice of so many worthy constant Catholics that are within the Realm but whole Troops also both of English Men and Women in Exile for their Consciences do represent the same daily to their eyes as it were by a lively spectacle to the wonder of the Christian World. But above all the rest they must needs be greatly moved with the sight of whole Companies Families and Communities of English of both Sexes of tender Age and those for the most part of very principal good Birth and Parentage that have come forth of our Countrey for the love of Religion and lived with great Edification in other Nations partly in Colleges and Seminaries partly in Religious Convents and Monasteries yielding great admiration to strangers for their rare Vertues of Piety Patience Contentment and Devotion And as for Colledges and Seminaries those of St. Omers and Doway in Flanders of Rhemes in France of Rome in Italy of Valliadolid Sevill and St. Lucars in Spain and of Lisbon in Portugal do sufficiently testifie And as for Monasteries both of Men and Women they are not unknown as that venerable Company of English Carthusians in Mechlyn the honorable Religious Houses of English Noble and Gentlewomen in Bruxells Lovain and Lisbon whose rare Vertues do singularly edifie all those that know them and greatly illustrate the Name of our Countrey for Religious Piety with Foreign Nations All these I say do bear witness at this day to the whole World and to us also that God be thanked the fire and fervor of Catholic Religion which Christ came to plant upon Earth is not extinguished by so long and grievous Persecution in our Countrey but rather increased at least in Intention as Philosophers do speak tho' not in Extension 46. And truly when I consider the matter more seriously with my self I doubt much whether England if it had continued Catholic had ever enjoy'd such excellent Education for their Youth at home as by occasion of this Tribulation God hath given them abroad in Foreign Nations Certainly the Example is rare and never heard of in former times and at this day the like is seen in few other Nations besides Us but in none of those that have suffered for Catholic Religion is this Blessing found so abundantly as in Ours God make us grateful for it for if our Ingratitude turn not the course of his Mercies hitherto used towards us it seemeth evident that he will not suffer the Seed of Catholic Religion to be extinguished in England having conserved the same so potently and strangely unto this day which is from the first preaching of the Apostles and Apostolic-men to the Britans unto the time of Pope Gregory I. under whom our English Nation was converted as hath been declared and from thence again downward unto Us which is more than a thousand years and so I doubt not but he will to the Worlds end if our sins deserve not the contrary And this shall serve for this first Part containing the Deduction and Continuance of Catholic Religion in England without interruption for more than fifteen hundred years together Now will we pass to the second Part to examin the same Succession in Protestants Religion throughout all these Ages if it may be found making our Conclusion as after you shall see That as our Religion entred first and hath never left England unto this hour so the Religion of John Fox in the form that he would have it was never yet admitted into England publicly by any Prince or Potentate whatsoever until this present day nor ever like to be And this shall serve for the first Part of our Treatise The End of the First Part. The Second PART of this TREATISE CONTAINING The SEARCH after the Protestants Church From the beginning of Christendom to Our Days The ARGUMENT HAving declared in the former Part of this Treatise how the Faith of Christ was first preached to the Britans at two several times and then to the English Nation and all by Roman Preachers and that the same Faith hath continued from Age to Age in a visible conspicuous Church until our days there remaineth now that we examin in this second Part Where the Protestants Church was in all this time and whether they had any at all And if they had of what sort of men it consisted and whether it were the same with the Church before-described or partly the same partly different or whether they could stand together being opposite in any one point of Faith Moreover whether the one did persecute the other or might be reconciled or agreed together And finally what is the state of the one and the other at this day For examination of which points we shall have occasion to run over again with more advice all the former sixteen Ages from Christ downward and therein to see and consider What Church either flourished or prevailed throughout every Age either Ours or that of John Fox and which of them is likeliest to have come down from the Apostles As also Whether that Church which was visibly founded by the Apostles and put on foot by them and theirs could perish or vanish away to give place to another And these are the principal Points of this second Part discussed in the Chapters following
race and course of the Church c. yet hath the whole Book but seventeen Leaves in all which is little more than one Leaf to every twenty years race and course of the whole Church And surely he that so courseth over an Ecclesiastical History may be called rather a Courser indeed than an Historiographer 9. Nay further he is so envious to the famous Acts of our English Church in these days especially with Foreign Nations as he either concealeth utterly the same or maketh reproachful mention thereof As for Example when he speaketh of the most Famous and Renowned Saint of our English Nation St. Wenfride called afterward Bonifacius and accounted by all Authors the Apostle of Germany for that he began principally their Conversion and was afterward most gloriously Martyred by the Pagans for preaching Christ's Gospel with above Fifty Fellows the most of them English-men Of this man I say how speaketh Fox You shall hear presently But first shall you see the words of a German Writer in his praise Primus omnium saith he qui Australes Germaniae partes c. The first of all that brought the Southern parts of Germany to the knowledge of Christian Religion from Idolatry was Wenfride an English man by Nation a true Philosopher of our Savior and after for his Vertue called Boniface and Archbishop of Moguntia And albeit some Authors do name some others that preached in sundry places before him yet this man as another Paul the Apostle did go before all in Labour of Preaching c. 10. So writeth Adam Bremensis a Saxon a Canon of the First and Head Church that was builded in Saxony after their Conversion by the preaching of English-men for so he sheweth in particular that English-men were their Converters but especially four most famous Learned Preachers and fervent Zeâ—lots in multiplying the Christian Faith to wit Willebrordus Willebaldus Willericus and Willehadus all which were renowned Apostolical Bishops in Germany Willebrord was sent over out of England with eleven Companions towards the Conversion of Germany by the holy Abbot St. Egbert as both St. Bede and other Authors after him do testifie and by Pope Sergius II. was made Bishop of Vltraiectum in Frisia and was the Apostle of that Country as also a principal Converter of the Kingdom of Denmark 11. Willebaldus was Bishop of Ayste in Saxony where he converted many thousands to Christian Faith and was canonized with universal joy of all that Country by Pope Leo VII in the year of Christ 1004 as Authors do recount 12 St. Willehad and St. Willerike were both Bishops of Breme in Saxony Post Passionem Sancti Bonifacii saith our foresaid German Author Willehadus ipse Angligena fervens amore Martyrii properavit in Frisiam c. After the Passion of St. Boniface St. Willehad an English-man also burning with the love of Martyrdom made hast also to come into Frisia where the other was Martyred c. And then sheweth he how this blessed man after the Conversion of many Thousands was sent by the Emperour Charles the Great to preach to the Northern Parts of Saxony which he did with great fervour till Windekind a Pagan Tyrant of that Country moving War against Charles drove him out upon which occasion he retired himself to a contemplative Life for two years together in France until after he was called out again by the said Charles to be Bishop of Breme in which Charge he both lived and died most holily 13. And next to him succeeded one of his Disciples Willericus and led an Apostolical Life in the same Charge for the space of 50 years together as Adam Bremensis Erpoldus Lindenbrughensis and others do testifie These Mens Acts then and other such-like had been fit matter for John Fox to have handled in his Ecclesiastical History of these Ages especially if he could have shewed that any one of these that wrought so infinite Miracles both alive and dead as the former Authors do testifie had been of his Religion But Fox doth pass over all with silence I mean both Them and their Actions but only that he taketh occasion to speak contemptuously of the first and Father of the rest St. Boniface For having spoken of the latter Synod of those two which we mentioned in the former Chapter to have been held in England by Theodorus and S. Cuthbert Archbishops of Canterbury he writeth thus Cuthbert the Archbishop of Canterbury sent the Copy of the Synod to Boniface otherwise named Winfride an English man then Archbishop of Mentz and after made a Martyr as the Popish Stories term him 14. Behold John Fox scarce counteth him a Martyr tho' he were put to death by Pagans for preaching Christian Faith. And a little after meaning to put down a certain Godly Epistle of the said Boniface or Wenfride written to Ethelbald King of the Mercians reprehending him for his licentious Life Fox writeth thus I thought this Epistle not unworthy here to be inserted not so much for the Authors sake as for that some good matter peradventure may be picked thereout for other Princes to behold and consider c. 15. Here now you see the Estimation and Affection of John Fox to Boniface of whom the Christian World of those Times both thought and spoke so reverendly for so many Ages But let us hear what John Bale will say for he being an Apostata will be more contumelious I trow Winifridus Bonifacius saith he claro Anglorum sanguine Londini natus c. Winifrid called also Boniface was born at London of Noble English Blood and afterward went to Rome where Pope Gregory II. having try'd the Man's Faith and seen his Magnificence of Mind or rather his shameless Pride thought him a Fellow fit for his Affairs and so sent him with full Authority into Germany to a wild People as then they were called to force them to his Faith. Neither hath there been any man since the Birth of Christ that hath more properly expressed the second Beast in the Apocalypse with two Horns than he for that the Pope being the great Antichrist he was the second c. He did sign with the Pope's Character a hundred thousand men in Bavaria only adjoyning them to the Kingdom of Antichrist rather by Fear than by pious Doctrin c. He built the Monastery of Fulda where no Woman might enter c. 16. Still you see one quarrel of John Bale against Monks is for shutting out Women from their Monasteries which as it was holily instituted and observed by ancient Monks so if it had been well kept in his Monastery of Norwich it may be he had continued a Monk as he began and never come acquainted with Dorothy that drew him out from thence as himself confesseth But is there any wicked tongue in the world that can speak more impiously than this Fellow doth of so rare an Apostolic Man and of his Actions yea of
Church which was gathered together of all Nations from the beginning is not now it hath perished or fallen from Christ thus say they which are not in her O impudent Speech Is she no longer a Church for that thou art not in her 24. Here I trow Fox will be ashamed or his Fellows for him seeing this is their ordinary speech That this great visible Church began by Christ and his Apostles held on well for a time but at length fell to Apostacy as St. Augustin saith of his Heretics in the same place Dicunt impletae sunt Scripturae crediderunt omnes gentes sed apostatavit periit Ecclesia These Heretics say that the Scriptures were fulfilled that all Nations believed and entred into this Church but that after a time it fell to Apostacy and perished But what answereth St. Augustin to this impudent Objection He opposeth the words of Christ himself Ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem saeculi Behold I am with you to the end of the World. As who would say By this Doctrin they make Christ a Lyar and a Deceiver that promised more than he could perform nay in very deed they deny hereby his whole Deity and do evacuate all the Mysteries of his whole Incarnation Life Passion Resurrection Ascension and sending of the Holy Ghost c. 25. For to what end was all this done but to gather together found establish and to conserve this Church unto the end of the World For what was Christ incarnate and God made Man but to be Head of this Church Why did he preach gather his Apostles and Disciples instruct them pray for them and their continuance leave Sacraments among them but that they should visibly begin this Church Why did Christ send the Holy Ghost but to direct and confirm the same not for one Age or Two but to the Worlds end How did Christ command men under pain of Damnation to enter into this Church and absolutely to hear and obey the same if it were only to endure for certain Ages and then to perish How should Pagans Infidels Jews Turks Moors or other like people if by God's Inspiration they should have a desire to be Christians know what to do or whither to go or where to be truly instructed if they came after the time appointed by Fox when the visible Roman Church had perished to wit after the time of Pope Gregory VII when Fox saith That Christian Faith was now extinguished in the Vniversal visible Church above 500 years agone And yet on the other side this new Church of Wickliffians Hussites and others of that Sect which he putteth to be the true Church was not yet born by two or three hundred years So as then he must needs confess that either there was no Christian Church at all for some Ages or that he must place it in some other obscure Heretics and Sectaries of that time named by me before yet he doth not agree at all in their Articles of Religion 26. Well then this shall be sufficient to shew the absurdity of John Fox his device for overthrow of our Church and setting up of his own patching it up of the Heretics of these latter Ages And yet you must note that for the first three hundred years next after the Conquest to this time of the rising of Wickliff which contain the whole substance of his fourth Book and therein a hundred Leaves of Paper he scarce findeth any Heretics whom he dareth to challenge for Members of his Church fully tho' some liking he sheweth to the foresaid Waldenses and Albigenses So as all the substantial building of his Church beginneth only from Wickliff downward of whom we shall talk more particularly in the Chapter following 27. But perhaps then you will ask me How doth he fill up these hundred Leaves of Paper in this his fourth Book if here also he allege so little for his visible Church I shall tell you briefly He goeth from King to King and from Archbishop to Archbishop shewing what strifes or disagreements suits or controversies fell out between our two Archbishops of Canterbury and York between our Kings Archbishops Religious Orders and Secular Priests Canons and their Bishops and other such quarrels in those times making scornful Notes upon every Point and then he putteth down a Bead-roll of all the particular Orders of Religious Men in England entituling the same The Rabblement of Religious Orders Then cometh he in with a complaint of the Nobles of England against the Exactions and Covetousness of Popes in those days and many Letters and Writings about the same but citeth commonly no Author for any thing Then bringeth he in what variance at divers times there passed between the Popes and the Citizens of Rome what strifes between some Popes and Emperours betwixt Kings of France and Kings of England and such like other matter little to the purpose he took in hand which was to set down the race and course of his Church 28. But the greatest part of this Book doth take up the particular Lying Treatise against Pope Gregory VII against Lanfrank Anselm and Thomas Becket Archbishops of Canterbury the counterfeit devised poysoning of King John by a Monk or Friar the Story or Persecution as he calleth it of the Heretics named Waldenses or poor Men of Lyons and Albigenses of Tholosa and the like We shall say a word or two to each Point 29. As for Pope Gregory called before Hildebrand he so raileth upon him as if he had been the wickedest man that ever lived and the Emperour the best and yet have you heard the grave testimonies before of the principal ancient Authors to the contrary in them both But do you hear Fox himself speak Now let us proceed saith he to the contentions between wicked Hildebrand and the godly Emperour c. Lo how he sanctifieth the Emperour for hatred to the Pope 30. Of Archbishop Lanfrank so highly commended by all Writers for his Vertue and rare Learning whereby he confuted most excellently the new risen Heresie of Berengarius Fox writeth thus I think that unless Lanfrank had brought with him less Superstition and more sincere Science into Christ's Church he might have kept him still is his Country and have confuted Berengarius at home Do you see how wise a confutation this is 31. St. Anselm followed after Lanfrank in the Archbishopric of Canterbury and was banished by William Rufus and died upon the 22 of April in the year 1109 and is held for a Saint by all Posterity and his said day kept Festival throughout Christendom And yet so writeth Fox his Story as tho' King Rufus whose manners yet all English Historiographers both Heretics and Catholics do greatly blame had had the right and Anselmus had offered the wrong insomuch as in one place Fox maketh this Marginal Note against this holy Man The proud stoutness of a Prelate in a
That the chief Heads thereof must be Bishops Secondly They must succeed orderly one to another Thirdly They must come down from the very Apostles as before hath been shewed Fourthly Christian Nations must agree in the same Faith under them All which four Points are to be found in the Succession of the Universal Roman Church as you have seen but no one of them and much less all are to be found in this Rabble of Heresies and Sectaries scrap'd together by Fox in his former Catalogue For neither were they Bishops at all but private men as after shall be shewed tho' Fox most falsly doth affirm one of them to have been a Learned Bishop Nor did they succeed in Office Function Charge or Jurisdiction the one to the other or concurred in one Time Country or place but one in one corner and another in another One stept up in Germany another in France another in Italy and another in England the one a Priest another a Friar another a Merchant and the other a Souldier or Crafts-man of different States Professions and Conditions yea of different Faith and Religion also as presently shall be shewed Neither had they any relation one to the other more than Botley to Billingsgate or Canterbury to Constantinople And as for Antiquity and coming down by Succession from the Apostles they are far from it as Fox himself confesseth in that he beginneth his Catalogue only from Pope Innocentius 1200 years after Christ as you have heard So as if Christ had any visible Church before this time it must needs be Ours by Fox's own confession 14. And finally the last Point mentioned here and so highly esteemed by St. Augustin of the consent of People and Nations tot populorum consensione firmatur whereof he maketh such account in another place as he saith Anathema erit quisquis annunciaverit Ecclesiam praeter Communicationem omnium gentium He shall be accursed whosoever shall say the Church to be any other but the Communication of all Nations This quality I say he that shall consider and examin in these poor Fellows alleged by Fox who were but a few Outcasts of every Country where they sprung shall find it so ridiculous and contemptible a thing in respect of the main consent of Nations under the Roman Church as without laughter it cannot be spoken of 15. Finally of this ridiculous Succession of Heretics the same holy Father writeth fitly in these words Videtis certè multos praecisos à radice Christianae Societatis quae per Sedes Apostolorum Successiones Episcoporum certa per Orbem propagatione diffunditur de sola figura Originis sub Christiano nomine quasi arescentia sarmenta gloriari quas Haereses Schismata nominamus Truly you see many cut off from the root of this Christian Society the Church which Society is spread over all the World by the Seats of the Apostles and Succession of Bishops as it were by a most certain Propagation or Generation and these Fellows do brag of a certain figure or similitude of a Beginning or Succession under the name of Christians but are indeed wither'd Branches cut off from the Vine and these we call Heretics and Schismatics Thus saith St. Augustin And could any man describe better the Apish Imitation of John Fox endeavouring to bring in his Succession of a few condemned Heretics de sola figura Originis sub Christiano nomine gloriantes bragging only of a certain similitude of Beginning and Succession under the name of reformed Christians but indeed cast out and condemned by the Universal Church 16. This then is the second Point to be noted about the quality of Ecclesiastical Succession But another there is of no less moment but rather more And this is That those who succeed one another in the self-same Church be also of one Faith and Belief in all Articles of Religion For if they differ tho' it were but in any one substantial Point they cannot be of one Church nor of one Communion nor be saved together for that as there is but one God one Christ one Church and one Baptism as the Apostle testifieth so is there but one only Faith in the same Church to be saved by which all men must hold unitedly wholly and inviolably or else as in the Creed of St. Athanasius is affirmed absque dubio in aeternum peribit without doubt he shall perish eternally that disagreeth or dissenteth 17. It were a long matter to stand here upon the proof of this Point to wit how exact and severe the Catholic Church is and ever hath been in defending this strict Simplicity Union and Conformity of Faith in all those that will be her Children St. Thomas handleth the matter at large and very substantially and so do other School-men after him shewing That whosoever erreth in any one Article of Catholic Faith obstinately loseth his whole Faith in all the rest which he seemeth to believe And yieldeth most evident reasons for the same And of the same severity were the ancient Fathers in this behalf as St. Cyprian who applying to this purpose those words of Christ Qui non est mecum adversum me est He that is not with me is against me saith It was meant by Christ of all sorts of Heretics whatsoever Gregory Nazianzen also writeth Qui uno verbo tanquam veneni gutta inficiunt c. They who by any one word as with a drop of Poyson do infect the simple Faith of Christ are to be cast out of the Church as Heretics c. And St. Hierom Propter unum etiam verbum aut duo c. For one word or two contrary to the Catholic Faith many Heresies have been cast out of the Church And finally St. Augustin having reckon'd up Eighty particular Heresies in his Book to Quod-vult-deus he saith That there may chance to lurk many other petty Heresies unknown to him Quarum aliquam quisquis tenuerit Christianus Catholicus non erit Of which Heresies whosoever shall hold any one he shall not be a Catholic Christian and consequently cannot be saved 18. Mark the severity of this holy Man affirming That whosoever holdeth any the least hidden Heresie whatsoever cannot be saved A dreadful Sentence no doubt for many of our Country-men at this day if well they thought of their own case who think it lawful or at leastwise not much dangerous to hold private Opinions at their own pleasure yea many of them thinking as the old Donatists did which St. Augustin relateth and greatly condemneth Nihil interesse credentes in qua quisque parte Christianus sit believing that it is not of great importance in what part Sect or Faction soever a man be a Christian so he believe in Christ Thus thought the Donatists and are much reprehended by St. Augustin for it And this no doubt is the Opinion of many English-men at this day who being tossed hither and thither with
to divert these Prophesies from the true Antichrist and apply them to certain Bishops of Rome do beat their heads how to devise out some new Expositions of these numbers never heard or thought of before And namely John Fox more fondly than the rest will have the number of 42 Months to import 294 years that is every Month to signifie seven years or as fantastically he calleth it a Sabbath of Years For proof whereof having neither Authority nor any one Example of Scripture he confirmeth it by a Revelation of his own as after you shall hear 10. His device therefore is That the 1000 years wherein Sathan is said in the Ayocalypse to be ty'd up must begin as you see after the said 294 years of Heathen Persecution were ended So that the loosing out of Sathan against the Church again must fall in the year of Christ 1294 when Bonifacius VIII was chosen Pope or as the Monks Prophesie was upon the year 1260 when Antichrist was born Which is both contrary to that he said before that he was loosed about the year 900 as also that the Popes Gregory VII and Innocentius III. by Sathan's help no doubt overthrew the Church about the year of Christ 1080 or 1215 For if that Sathan was bound and not loosed until the year of Christ 1294 how could he overthrow the Church before 11. Wherefore all these new Interpretations of the words of the Apocalypse are but fantastical devices of wrangling Heretics seeing the ancient Fathers do interpret all these things far otherwise And first they put the binding up of Sathan for 1000 years there mentioned before the other number of 42 Months given to Antichrist to work his will and do say that the said loosing of Sathan began from the very Death and Passion of Christ when the power of Sathan was bound according to the saying of Christ himself in St. John's Gospel drawing near to his Passion Now the Prince of this World shall be cast forth And secondly they do interpret these 1000 Years not to signifie any certain time but generally to signifie all the whole course of time between the death of Christ and the coming of Antichrist three years and a half before the Day of Judgment according to the ordinary phrase of Scripture As for Example Quod mandavit Deus in mille generationes God hath commanded his Precept to be kept for a thousand Generations that is to say to the Worlds end and not for any certain time And again in Job If a Just man should contend with God he cannot answer him one for a thousand 12. This then is the ancient Interpretation of holy Doctors quite contrary to these new fancies of John Fox whose Expositions are both contrary to himself as in part you have seen and opposite to the words and sense of Scripture it self For whereas first these 42 Months importing by his Account 294 years were given to Sathan to work his will against the Saints of God the Scripture saith they were given to the Beast that is to say to Antichrist by the Dragon and not to the Dragon himself And secondly whereas he would needs have the 42 Months to signifie 294 years the Scriptures do expound them by 1260 days which make just three years and a half as hath been said 13. Thirdly Fox shall never find any place or example in Scripture where the word Month either in Greek or Latin doth signifie seven Days Weeks or Years as in Daniel the Greek word Hebdomada doth and may by its proper signification And yet is John Fox so fond and resolute in his device as all other proofs and probabilities failing him he will needs confirm it by a Revelation from God which he recounteth in these words following 14. Because the matter saith he being of no small importance greatly appertaineth unto the public utility of the Church and lest any should misdoubt me herein to follow any private Interpretations of my own I thought good to communicate to the Reader that which hath been imparted unto me in the opening of these Mystical Numbers in the foresaid Book of Revelation contained by occasion as followeth c. 15. As I was in hand with these Histories c. being vexed and turmoiled in spirit about the reckoning of these Numbers and Years it so happened upon a Sunday in the morning lying in my Bed and musing about these Numbers suddenly it was answered to my mind as with a majesty thus saying inwardly within me Thou Fool count these Months by Sabboths as the Weeks of Daniel are counted by Sabboths The Lord I take to witness thus it was Whereupon thus being admonished I began to reckon the 42 Months by Sabboths first of the Months and that would not serve and then by Sabboths of Years and then I began to feel some probable understanding Yet not satisfied herewith eftsoons I repaired to certain Merchants of my acquaintance of whom one is departed a true and faithful Servant of the Lord the other two yet alive and Witnesses hereof to whom the number of these foresaid Months being propounded and examined by Sabboths of Years the whole Sum was found to surmount to 294 years containing the full and just time of the foresaid Persecutions neither more nor less c. 16. And thus you have the Revelation made to John Fox which he saith that he relateth unto us for that we shall not misdoubt the truth thereof nor think that he followeth any private Interpretation of his own but that it came from God immediately And this is the first Dream of John Fox in his Bed. And the second ridiculous point is that he went to three Merchants to confer this Revelation and that they approved the same The third point is open Folly where he saith that this number of 294 containeth the full and just time of the first Persecution of Christians under Pagan Emperours neither more nor less which before hath been confuted and is evident in it self seeing that from Christ to the Victory of Constantine against Maxentius there are assigned by Eusebius 318 years and yet did not this Persecution of Christians cease then neither but continued under Licinius and other Tyrants for divers years after See then how just these Numbers fall out neither more nor less All which being considered I find no one thing so true or credible in all this Revelation as those words of the Spirit unto him saying Thou Fool for that this maketh him a Fool indeed by Revelation And so much of him and of this whole matter of binding and loosing Sathan and Reign of Antichrist Now let us return to the continuation of our Conference with John Fox about his Church 17. The deduction of the Catholic Roman Church from William the Conqueror downward unto John Wickliff's time is no less easie and clear but rather more than the former deduction from Christ to the Conquest for that the Church was now more spread and