Mr. Doctor In such a state as a flock is in which hath no Shepherd as the ship which hath no Pilot to guide it or the sucking-child which hath no nurse to feed it even in such state are your souls if you have not the Ministery of Gods Word Laborers they must be and not loiterers for Christ compareth the teaching of his people to things that be of great labor as to plowing to planting Therefore if they be Pastors let them feed the flock if they be Doctors consider Sir let them teach the people This is the way to build up the Church of Christ Common-prayer will not do it This is the only instrument wherewith we may cut down and have in the harvest of God For all mans devices acts laws or commandments good Doctor let the Convocation know so much be the authority thereof never so great yet are not sufficient to content one mans conscience why then Mr. Doctor do you talk of obstinacy and willfull humour Aristotle the great wise Philosopher on a time being sick when the Physitian came to him to minister him a potion and shewed him not what was in it began to chafe and take on with him why said he heal not me as thou wouldft heal an Ox or a Horse but shew me what thou givest me Even so must the people be healed of their errors Fides faith Berâ— suadenda est non imponenda faith may not be compulsed by force or rigor but gently brought in by perswasion Saint Paul saith Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God Let us follow him in his next Sermon on Luke 11. 15. He casteth out Devils through Beelzebub c. The Religon of the Jews was the true worship of the only God yet Pliny saith it was Contemptus omnium numinum the despsing of all the gods The Jews suffered no images to be in their Churches because God had forbidden them yet Cornelius Tacitus said they worship their God in the form of an Ass others said they worship a God whom they call Sabaoth in the shape and fashion of an Hogg and therefore that they were forbidden to eat Swines-flesh others that they worship Saturnus because they were com manded to keep holy Saturday The wicked and cruel Haman to bring the people of God into hatred with the King Ahashuerus made his complaint of them in this wise May it please your Majesty saith he to understand you have a people here in your Realm that useth a new kind of Religion and will not be ordered by your Graces Laws This is Gods holy will that for our exercise whatsoever we say or do be it never so well it shall be ill taken Iulian the Apostate found fault with the simplicity and rudeness of Gods Word Tertullian saith the Heathens in the time of the Primitive Church were wont to paint out in mockery the God of the Christians with an Asses head and a Book in his hand in token that the Christians professed learning but indeed were Asses rude and ignorant And do not our Adversaries the like this day against all those that profess the Gospel of Jesus Christ O say they who are they that favour this way None but Shoemakers Taylors Weavers Appren tices such as never were in the University but be altogether ignorant and void of Learning Thus you have been born in hand that you might be brought to mistrust the Go spel Saint Paul was counted a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition Tertullian saith that in his time the Christians were called hostes publici that is enemies and destroyers of all common States And these reports they did not only scatter among the common people but also dropt them into the Magistrates and Princes ears that they might have an ill opinion of Christian Religion and suppress Note Sir the Ministers and Preachers of it So unkind commonly men have been towards the Messengers of Gods Word In these latter times it hath been laid to Preachers and Professors of Christs Gospel that they have been Godless seditious rebells despisers of good orders Such things as would not be believed spoken of a thief or murtherer will soon be believed of him that professeth the name and Gospel of Jesus Christ. Despise not good Brethren despise not to hear Gods Word not a word of the Liturgy as you tender your own souls be diligent to come to Sermons WE might Sir have been much more plentiful in our gatherings out of this holy Bishop there is not a waste line in all his Sermons Some we have not touched upon at all but so much we thought good to present unto you that you may see both the complexion and constitution of the Church of England in the time of Queen Elisabeth You see by the judgement of the best Bishop the rarest Iewel the Church of England ever had who was an eye-eye-witness lived and preach ed and writ in the prime of his age for he was not full fifty years old when he dyed a good part of her reign the Church of England to be full of blindness disorder prophane con tempt of the Word of God yea to have something of Rome remaining in her of necessity to be purged out And truly Sir when we have read over the Sermons of this Reverend Bishop and your History we should rather judge you to be the Pupil of Doctor Harding whom you would be thought to oppose then of Bishop Iewel whom you do seem to reverence Bishop Iewel doth not think he fouls either his tongue or his pen in naming the Gospel of Jesus Christ But how oft in your History do you by way of scorn tell us of the Zuinglian Gospellers as if this were some reproach to them and you had nothing to do with the Gospel which in an hun dred places your Doctor Harding upbraids Bishop Iewel with There are some parcells and odd passages in your History which we shall only mention and refer you to learned Iewel to answer your self out of him page 53. part 1. you say The Zuinglian Churches were in an error in that they deny ed a Real presence and held there was nothing else in the blessed Eucharist but signs and figures and that Ridley whom you encline to affirmed That in the Sacrament are truly and verily the body and blood of Christ made forth effectually by Grace and Spirit Sir Harding saith the very same as you do See Iewels reply to Harding page 235 in the Article of Real presence and there you shall see how Iewel takes him up and you will understand to speak more like a Protestant Doctor and in page 262. of the Defence saith he to Harding You call our doctrine naked and cold for that we say the Sacrament is a figure You will there see how pitifully he baffles Harding Mr. Doctor it was wont to be said sursum corda but now it is deorsum corpora your stickling for a Real presence effectually made forth by Grace and
instruct the people The Preachers abovementioned were more particularly instructed to perswade the people from praying to Saints for the dead from adoring of Images from the use of Beads Ashes and Processions from Mass Dirges praying in unknown languages All which was done to this intent That the people in all places being prepared by little and little might with more ease and less opposition admit the total alteration which was intended in due time to be introduced You mention also certain injunctions appointed for the Bishops that they should personally preach once a quarter in their Diocess that they should cause their Chaplains to Preach that they should Ordain none but such as were learned in the Scriptures There was also a Form of Bidding-prayer prescribed or bidding of the Beads as you say it was then commonly called in page 37. You lead us next to the Parliament page 47. which took beginning the 4. of November in which you tell us of packing the Cardes by Sir Ralph Sadler that this Parliament without any sensible alteration of the Members continued till the death of the King and you say page 48. a great part of the Nobility and not a few of the chief Gentry were cordially affected to the Church of Rome In the same page you tell us that several Acts were repeal'd which touched the Subject in life or liberty for matter of conscience by which repeal you say all men had a liberty of reading Scriptures and being in a manner their own Expositors which you scruple whether it may be counted for a felicity There was an Act you say in the same page and following page against such as spake against the Sacrament of the Altar and for the receipt thereof in both kinds with these Provisoes notwithstanding If necessity did not otherwise require as in the case of suddain sickness and other such like extremities that wine could not be provided for the use of the Sacrament nor the sick man depart this life in peace without it And secondly that the permitting of this liberty to the people of England should not be construed to the condemning of any other Church in which the contrary was observed The next great business you say page 50. was the receiving of a Statute made in the 27. year of Henry 8. By which all Chanteries Colledges Free-Chappels and Hospitals were permitted to the King during his life but dying before he had taken many of them into his hands the great ones of the Court not being willing to lose so rich a booty it was set on foot again and carried in this present Parliament And you say page 51. these Chanteries consisted of Salaries allowed to one or more Priests to say daily Mass for the souls of their deceased Founders and their friends But in the same page you say That which made the greatest alteration and threatned most danger to the State Ecclesiastical was the Act for Election of Bishops and what seals and styles should be used by Spiritual persons In the compounding of which Act you say in the same page there was more danger couched then at first appeared for you say it was the intent of the Contrivers to weaken the authority of the Episcopal Order by forcing them from their strong Hold of Divine Institution and making them no other then the Kings Ministers only his Ecclesiastical Sheriffs and such use was made of this Act that the Bishops were not in a capacity of conferring Orders but as they were impowered by especial Licence the tenour whereof you mention page 52. and in the same place you say The true drift of the design of this Act was to make Deans and Chapters useless for the time to come and thereby to prepare them for dissolution The next Church-business you mention is page 55. where you tell us the first heats of the Visitation beginning to cool there were two Orders sent forth for the taking down of Images Page 57. you tell us Some godly Bishops and other learned and Religious men were busily imploy'd in the Castle of Windsor appointed by the Kings Command to consult about one uniform Order for the administring the holy Communion in the English Tongue under both kindes of Bread and Winde according to Act of Parliament before mentioned You are in the dark who the persons were but you think they were the same which made the Liturgy in this Kings time and you say being convened together taking into consideration as well the right rule of Scripture as the usage of the Primitive Church How doth this appear good Dector agreed on such a form and order as might comply with the intention of the King and the Act of Parliament without giving note these following words good Sir any just offence to the Romish party for they so ordered it that the whole office of the Mass should proceed as formerly in the Latine Tongue even to the very end of the Canon and the receiving of the Sacrament by the Priest himself which being passed over they began with an exhortation Dearly beloved in the Lord ye coming to this holy Communion which afterwards remained in the publick Liturgy Then followed the invitation You that do truly repent c. proceeding to the general confession distribution of the Sacrament to the people upon their knees which godly Form you say was presented to the King and published by Proclamation which Proclamation you have at large page 58 59. The next care was you say page 59. to send abroad printed copies to the several Bishops But now you come to handle the chief Key to the whole work of Reformation the Liturgy as you phrase it page 65. and the same men which drew up the Order for the holy Communion were now again imploy'd as you confess page 64. Calvin being rejected though offering his assistance The Liturgy you say is finished accepted by the King Enacted by Lords and Commons then assembled in Parliament though you say the passing of the Act gave great offence to the Romish Party not that they could except against it in regard either of the matter or manner of it but because it was communicated to the people in the vulgar Tongue page 66. Which exception you take a great deal of pains to prove to be an error You tell us page 106. That the Reformation under King Edward proceeded more vigorously then before by reviewing the Liturgy and composing of a book of Articles You say page 107. Calvin and his followers had taken some offence at some parts thereof and did excite the King and Council to a further Reformation And you say he prevaild so far in the first two years that in the Convocation there were debates about such doubts as had arisen about some things contained in the Common-prayer book but you say page 107. and 108. not one alteration made in it For though you say it was brought under a review and being so reviewed was ratified by Act of Parliament
a Reformation according to the Word of God and the Primitive practice but in all your book there are but three instances of the conformity of the Reformation to the rule of the Sacred Scriptures and they are only in point of Doctrine and not in Discipline or Worship The first instance is p. 49 of your History of Edward the sixth where having mentioned an Act of Parliament declaring that it is according to Scripture that the Sacrament be administered to all Christian people under both the kinds of Bread and Wine you spend a great many lines borrowed out of Bishop Iewel to prove that this Declaration of Parliament and the words by which it was enacted do every way agree with Christs institution no Protestant not John Calvin your great eyesore will deny you this The second instance is p. 66. where you mention the Popish exceptions against the Act confirming the Common Prayer not to be upon any other account but because it was in the vulgar tongue and then you run out into a large discourse to prove that prayer ought to be made in a tongue understood of the common people the like you do p. 157. part 2. Calvin and Cartwright that firebrand as you call him will conform Mr. Doctor to this Reformation The third instance is p. 67. where you take notice of an Act for advancing the work of Reformation which took away all Laws forbidding Ministers marriage in allowance whereof you spend many lines in this Mr. Doctor the Calvinian and Zuinglian faction concur with you These are all the Presidents of Scripture or Primitive practice you alledge in your whole book for the Reformation of the Church and in matters of this nature so evident and clear out of the word of God amongst all the Zuinglian Gospellers as you call them you shall not have one dissenter or Nonformist And because you mention a memorable challenge publishled by Bishop Iewel against the Romish Clergy who injuriously you say pag. 129. part 2. upbraided the Church of England with the imputation of Novelty and charged it with teaching such opinion as were not to be found before Luthers time the Calvinian and Zuinglian faction which you so blot with your learned pen will willingly be his seconds in this challenge Nay Sir the Zuinglian Gospellers do renew this Challenge against the sacred Hierarchy as you call it in the same terms as you deliver the stout and gallant challenge of that Learned Prelate Iewel against the Romish Clergy The Zuinglian Gospellers challenge If any learned man of our Adversaries be able to bring one sufficient sentence out of the holy Scripture or any one example of any Bishop Minister or Martyr either in the time of King Edward the sixth viz. Cranmer Latimer Ridley Hooper Farrar Philpot Bradford Taylor or any other or in the times of Queen Elizabeth out of Reverend Jewel who do directly and ex professo plead for and commend the present Liturgie in the frame of it or that Episcopacy is Jure divino or for Adoration toward the Altar Bowing at the name of Iesus signing with the sign of the Cross wearing of Caps and Surplices kneeling at the Sacrament or for the exercise of Church power by lay-Chancellors if you Reverend Sir or any other be able to produce any such authority or example contending as you do professedly for these things the Zuinglian Gospellers will be then content to yield and subscribe These are the things M. Doctor which administer trouble to the Church of God at this day Satisfie but our consciences that these things ought to be continued in the Church we have done We beseech you read this passage of Reverend Iewel in a Sermon preached by him in St. Maries in Oxford it is in the beginning of the Book called his Defence of the Apology pag. 6. This only saith he will I speak and that in a word They which brought in Transubstantiation Masses calling upon Saints sole life Purtory Images Vows trifles follies bables into the Church of God have delivered new things and which the Scriptures never heard of whatsoever they Crie or Crake they bring not a jot out of the Word of God And these as I have said are the things wherewith the Church of God is disquieted at this day upon these lieth the watch and ward of the Church These they honour instead of the Scriptures and force them on the people instead of the word of God upon these men suppose their salvation and the summ of Religion to be grounded And that which is much more grievous notwithstanding at this present by the great goodness of God religion is restored note Mr. Doctor almost not to the lustre you Mr. Doctor imagine to her former dignity and light yet poor and pitifull fouls they set great store by these things they to them again and teach them do you see Mr. Doctor as though without them the Church could not be in safety O if the Word of God might be heard among so many clamours and in so great a Hurly burly if we would suffer God himself to sit as Judge in his own case the matter would be passed over with less tumult a great deal and more easily might we agree about the whole matter Wherefore if all the worship of God all godliness all religion be to be sought out of the word of God if the institutions of men have miserably perverted all things in all times let us my Brethren beware Doctor unto whom the office of teaching is allotted Consider how dangerous a thing it is to speak more and let all who will be and will have themselves accounted to be Christians remember how dangerous a thing it is to believe more You say Mr. Doctor pag. 130 131. Reverend Iewel in his learned writings is a magazin of all sorts of learning and that all our Controversors have since he wrote furnisht themselves with Arguments and authorities from him If you have been so well acquainted with his writings as you pretend to in your history you would not have presented the Churches reformation to be so glorious and splendid as you have done and would have pitcht it on a better bottom then the authority of two acts of Parliaments the members whereof you have rendred in your history to be too much swayed in their votings and actings by wordly Popish and politick respects We do highly reverence the memory of our first Reformers but is it meet to Idolize them why should not the Parliaments of succeding times do the work of the Lords house according to the light and temper of their generation as well as they did in theirs and why should not the present Bishops who according to the character of his most Excellent Majesty our Gracious Soveraign are known to be men of great sufficiency for Learning prompt them and put them on such a work Is it not a dishonour to the Church of England after so many years standing to be fed with the