perturbation of Wars as hath been said were not so well known nor distinctly observed nor deliver'd to Writing in those days as otherwise they might have been yet find I some mention tho' dispersed of three several Apostles of Christ to have Preached there to wit St. Peter St. Paul and St. Simon of Chananee sirnamed the Zealous two Apostolical Men also in these first troubled Times to have been sent thither Aristobulus a Roman whom St. Paul named in his Epistle to the Romans and Joseph of Arimathea a Nobleman of Jury that buried Christ Of all which Five we shall speak somewhat in order 20. And first of St. Peter himself to have been in England or Britanny and Preached Founded Churches and Ordained Priests and Dencons therein is recorded out of Greek Antiquities by Simeon Metaphrastes a Grecian And it seemeth to be somewhat confirmed by that which Innocentius I. Bishop of Rome hath left written above 1200 years agone saying That the first Churches of Italy France Spain Africa Sicilia and the Islands that lie betwixt them were founded by St. Peter or his Scholars or Successors For which cause Gulielmus Eysengrenius in his first Centuria or hundred years doth write also That the first Christian Churches of England were sounded by St. Peter under Nero. Whereunto it may be thought that the foresaid Gildas had relation when expostulating with the Britain Priests of his time for their Wickedness for which the Wrath of God had brought in the English Saxons upon them he objecteth among other things Quod sedem Petri Apostoli inverecundis pedibus usurpassent That they had usurped the Seat St. Peter with unshamefac'd feet meaning thereby either the whole Church of Britanny first founded by him or some particular place of Devotion or Church which he had erected And finally Alredus Rienuallus an English Abbot of the Order of Cisterce left written about 500 years agone a certain Revelation or Apparition of St. Peter to an holy man in the time of King Edward the Confessor shewing him how he had Preached himself in England and consequently the particular care he had of that Church and Nation c. 21. If any man ask What time it might be that St. Peter left Rome and went into Britanny and other Countries round about Cardinal Baronius a famous Learned Historiographer of our time thinketh that it was then when Claudius the Emperor banish'd all the Jews out of Rome as in the Acts of the Apostles it is recorded among whom it is like that St. Peter also being by Nation a Jew retired himself and took that occasion to go into divers Pagan Countries to preach the Faith of Christ that thing belonging especially to his Charge as Head of the Apostles according to his own words of himself Elegit Deus per os meum audire gentes verbum Evangelii credere God hath chosen and appointed that Gentiles shall hear and believe the Word of the Gospel by my mouth This then was the cause why he was so diligent and careful to go and preach every-where Christian Religion to the end he might fulfil and accomplish this Will and Ordination of his Master And this was one cause also to wit his absence from Rome why according to Baronius and other Learned Men St. Paul writing to the Romans did not name or salute him in his Epistle whereof our Heretics do brabble much And thus much of St. Peter 22. Of St. Paul's being in Britanny there are not so many particular Testimonies yet the foresaid Theodoretus doth affirm That from Rome he made certain Exoursions in Hispanias in Insulas quae in Mari jacent into Spain and the Islands lying in the Sea near about And in another place as the Magdeburgians do cite him he writeth expresly That St. Paul Preached to the Britains And the like hath Sophronius Bishop of Jerusalem in his Sermon of the Nativity of the Apostles Venantius also Fortunatus a most Learned and Holy. Man writing above a thousand years agone of St. Paul's Peregrination saith thus Transit Oceanum vel qua facit Insula portum Quasque Britannus habet terras atque ultima Thyle He pass'd over the Ocean-Sea to the Island that maketh a Haven on the other side even to the Lands which the Britains do possess c. For which respect Arnoldus Mirmannus in his Theatre of the Conversion of all Nations affirmeth St. Paul to have pass'd to Britanny in the fourth year of Nero Anno Domini 59 and there to have Preached and afterward to have returned again into Italy And so much of St. Paul who having twelve or thirteen years permitted him by Christ after his coming to Rome before his death for helping St. Peter and for assisting the West-parts of the World and St. Peter himself almost twice as much it is not unlike their Zeal being considered and the state of times weighed but that they made many Excursions as the former Authors do write And thus much of them 23. For the Preaching of the third Apostle Symon Chananaeus sirnamed the Zealous we have the Testimony of Nicephorus out of Greek Monuments to whom agreeth Dorotheus a very ancient Writer as also the Greek Martyrology as testifieth Baronius in his Annotations upon the Roman Martyrology And by this also we see that albeit St. Peter had undertaken to preach to the West-part of the World yet did other Apostles also help him therein as St. Paul in Italy and Spain and this Symon in Britanny and other places and St. Philip in France c. 24. Of Aristobulus also St. Peter's Scholar do testifie in like manner the foresaid Authors Mirmannus Dorotheus Baronius out of the Greek Martyrology that he was sent by St. Peter into Britanny and there made a Bishop And that Aristobulus was a principal known Christian in Rome before St. Paul's arrival there it appeareth by the Epistle of the said Apostle to the Romans where he saluteth him in these words Salute those that be of the house of Aristobulus Nor is it read that ever this Aristobulus came back from Britanny to Italy again And this of him 25. Of Joseph of Arimathea his coming into France and his sending thence into Great Britanny either by St. Philip as some say who preached then in Gaul or as Others hold by St. Peter himself as he passed that way to and from Britanny and how he obtained a place to exercise an Eremitical Life for him and his ten Companions in the Island called Avallonia where Glastonbury after was builded albeit I find no very certain or ancient Writer to affirm it yet because our later Historiographers for two hundred years past or more do hold it have come down by Tradition and namely Johannes Capgravius a Learned Man of the Order of St. Dominick and others after him I do not mean to dispute the matter here but rather to admire and praise the Heavenly Providence and
c. In the end Wilfrid in his Disputation prevailed by his Impostures having bewitched the two Kings that were present King Oswyn and King Egfrid Did you ever hear a more shameless tongue But this he wrote of St. Wilfrid Obiter and by the way in the Narration he maketh of B. Colman But when he cometh to talk of him in particular and severally he is far more bitter and impudent against him telling us first how that after Wilfrid had been in France Italy and Rome to study and there learned the Mathematical Calculations of times out of the Gospels Reversus in Patriam Romanas Consuetudines contra Quartadecimanos sic enim pios homines tunc derisorié vocabant disceptationibus in Synodo publicis defendebat gerebatque circa collum reliquiarum quas Roma tulerat capsulam quandam c. Et Archiepiscopus denique ob haec his similia constitutus bis infra spatium 45 annorum non ob Regum insolentiam ut Polidorus immodesté scribit sed ob suam temeritatem imò malitiam atque neguitias plures Archiepiscopatu pulsus est longo tandem confectus senio periit Anno Christi 710. He returning from Rome to his Country did defend by public Disputations in a Synod the Roman Customs against these men who being Pious and Godly were called scoffingly in those days Quartadecimans he carried about his Neck a certain Box of Saints Reliques which he brought with him from Rome And being for these and other like things made Archbishop he was driven out twice within 45 years from his Archbishopric and this not by the Insolency of the Kings that drave him out as Polidor doth immodestly write but rather for his own Rashness yea Malice and many Wickednesses c. And so at length being consumed with Old Age he perished in the year of Christ 710. 19. Behold here a Narration worthy the Spirit of a new Gospeller and old Apostata against so Venerable and Worthy a Pillar of our Primitive English Church as was St. Wilfrid Mark how he is tax'd for travelling and studying at Rome for defending by public Disputations the Roman Custom of celebrating Easter which yet was defended and decreed openly by the General Council of Nice as before you have heard and after shall be proved for bearing a Box of Reliques about his Neck brought from Rome which no doubt is one of the things that most troubleth the Spirit of John Bale as it did the Devils and wicked Spirits in England who cry'd and were cast out by the same as you may read in them that write his Life 20. Moreover he saith That for his own Wickedness he was driven out of his Archbishopric and so finally perished in the year 710. As for his perishing if he perished that lived so austere a Religious Life converted so many thousand English Heathens to Christian Faith wrought so many Miracles as are recorded of him then woe to Us that cannot imitate so great Holiness and woe to John Bale that ran out of Religion and being a Fryer took a Wench named Faithful Dorothy and that as himself braggeth Neque ab homine neque per hominem sed ex speciali Christi dono Neither from man nor by man but by the special Gift of Christ as tho' Christ did use to divide such Gifts to Fryers that had vowed Chastity And how good a Fellow he became afterward and how pleasant a Companion you may understand by his own words when writing of his Works he saith Facetias jocos sine certo numero feci I have written Jests and Pastimes without any certain number a fit Argument for a new Gospelling Fryer But yet how far this exercise of Jesting was from the Gravity and Holiness of St. Wilfrid no man can doubt And so himself miserable man may be thought to have perished while the other reigneth eternally in Heaven 21. And as for Refutation of the horrible Slander That for his Wickedness St. Wilfrid was driven out of his Archbishopric I have no better means present than to oppose against this lying Apostata the Universal Consent of all Antiquity especially those that wrote his Life as St. Bede and after him Hedius Odo Fridegenus Petrus Blesensis and others who have written both his Life and Death as of a great Saint and his Memory and Festival Celebration is held throughout the Universal Church upon the 12th day of October as all Martyrologies do testifie And thus much of the Insolency of John Bale against the person of St. Wilfrid 22. But now whereas further he is not ashamed to defend the Jewish Custom and the Quartadecimans condemned for it saying That they were pious men and were called by the nickname of Quartadecimans for a scoff only I am forced to deal further therein and to shew him first to be an Heretical and most shameless Calumniator for that the name of Quartadecimani or Quatuordecimani signifying those that observe the fourteenth day of the Moon of March to celebrate Easter is an old name appointed to those that held that Heretical Use for many Ages agone as may appear by St. Epiphanius that wrote 1200 years agone whose words are these Emersit rursus mundo alia Haeresis Tesseradecatitarum appellata quos Quartadecimanos quidam appellant There is another Heresie sprung up in the World of some that are called in Greek Tesseradecatites which others in Latin do call Quartadecimans c. The Explication of which words St. Augustin after him in his Book of Heresies written to Quod-vult-Deus doth set down thus Hinc appellati sunt quòd non nisi quartadecima Luna mense Martio Pascha celebrant These People are called by the Greek words Tesseradecatites and by the Latin Quartadecimans for that they do celebrate Easter upon the fourteenth day of the Moon of March. Unde etiam Quartadecimani cognominati sunt saith Nicephorus lib. 4. Histor cap. 36. for which cause they are called also Quartadecimans 23. And yet further the same men were called also by a third name of Paschatites as appeareth both by St. Philastrius Bishop of Brixia somewhat before St. Epiphanius who in his Catalogue of Heresies numbring up these Paschatites yieldeth the reason of their name in these words Qui asserunt quartadecima Luna celebrandum esse Pascha non autem sicuti Ecclesia Catholica celebrat Who affirm that Easter-day is to be celebrated upon the fourteenth of the Month of March upon whatsoever day it shall fall out and not as the Catholic Church doth accustom to expect the Sunday 24. Well then we see that St. Wilfrid and other Roman Catholics of his time did not invent the name of Quartadecimani for a scoff to disgrace godly men thereby as ungodly John Bale blusheth not to avouch but that it is an old name invented and appointed by the Universal Primitive Church to them that defended obstinatly the Jewish Custom of celebrating Easter-day strictly upon the
Britanny And forasmuch as this Church of St Martins was found fit to say Mass and Baptize in according to the use of Rome and for that the Britan Christians were never found to have reprehended or misliked this manner of serving God used by St. Augustin and his Fellows it is an evident Argument that the same was and had been in use also among them from all Antiquity neither was it a novelty brought in by St. Augustin 3. Moreover about the same time of the Romans going out of Britanny or soon after to wit about the year of Christ 440 it appeareth by Bede that the two French Bishops St. German and St. Lupus the first time and St. German and St. Severus the second time came into Britanny to resist the Pelagian Heresie and to reestablish the Catholic Faith that was among them before And so they did as well by working many Miracles as by their Preachings which Bede recounteth at large throughout many Chapters But now that these three holy Bishops the first of Antisiodore in France the second of Troy in Campany the third of Trevers in Germany were all of the Roman Religion and held in all Points of Controversie against the Protestants of our Time both in Doctrin and Practise is evident not only by that the Roman Church doth hold them all three for Canoniz'd Saints and celebrateth their Memories the First upon the 31 of July the Second upon the 29 of the same Month the Third upon the 15 of October which would never be permitted if they had been different in any one Point of Faith but also the same is clear as well by their own Writings that are extant and by their Lives written by others as also by divers things recounted by St. Bede in his Story of their Doings in England as namely where he writeth of St. German how he cured the Tribunes Daughter of Blindness by his Prayer and by applying the Relics of certain Saints unto her Eyes in the sight of all the People Deinde saith he Germanus plenus Spiritu sancto c. Then St. German full of the Holy Ghost did invoke the Name of the Blessed Trinity and presently took from his side a certain Box of Saints Relics that he was wont to carry about his neck and with his hands did put them upon the maids eyes which out of hand received perfect sight therewith Whereat the Parents of the maid rejoyced exceedingly and all the People did tremble at the sight of the miracle c. 4. Thus writeth St. Bede of that Act. And further that the said Bishop went to the Sepulcher of St. Alban which even at that time appeareth to have been kept with great Devotion prayed to the Saint largely and there left in his Sepulcher part of the Relics of all the Apostles and of divers other Saints which he had brought with him out of France and carried away with him in exchange thereof much of the earth that was died with the Blood of St. Alban Which he would not have done if he had been a Protestant And then yet further talking of another famous Miracle and Victory achieved by the said St. German against Heretics with sounding out the word Alleluia St. Bede saith Aderant Quadragesimae venerabiles dies quos religisiores reddebat praesentia sacerdotum c. The venerable days of Lent were come which the presence of these Priests of God made more religious c. 5. Behold here now almost 200 years before St. Augustin came into England the use of Relics of Saints of praying to Martyrs and honoring their Sepulchers the use of Alleluia the Religious Observation of Lent and such other Points recorded to be in practise among the Christian Britans Is this Protestant-like think you or can these men be presumed to have been of our new Religion But let us proceed to talk of some Britan Teachers and Pastors themselves 6. Geffrey of Monmouth in his British Story much esteemed and alledged by our Adversaries writeth that at a certain Feast of Pentecost at Chester about the year of Christ 522. as Bale holdeth King Arthur being present there was a great meeting of Princes Lords and Bishops for his Coronation and that of the three Archbishops of Britanny at that time which were London York and Chester Dubritius Archbishop of Chester did the Office of the Church that day of whom he saith Hic Britannia Primas Apostolicae Sedis Legatus tantâ religione clarebat ut quemcunque languore gravatum orationibus sanaret This Man being Primate of Britanny and Legate of the See Apostolic was so famous for his Religion and Sanctity as he did heal any sick Man by his Prayers 7. Lo here the Popes Legate among the Britans did also Miracles before the coming of St. Augustin And then further talking of the Church Solemnity that day he saith Postremo peract â processione tot organa tot cantus fiunt utrisque templis c. Lastly the Procession being ended there were so many Organs did sound and so great variety of Music heard in both Churches as was wonderful c. Behold Procession and Organs in Britanny before St. Augustin's coming This Man afterwards left of his own will the said Archbishoprick and became an Ermit as both Jeffrey and John Bale do testifie which Protestant Bishops are not wont to do 8. And further Bale writeth of him that he died the 18 day before the Calends of December Anno Domini 522. and that his Body afterward in the year of our Lord 1120 the Sixth of May was translated under Vrban Bishop of Rome to the Church of Landaff in Southwales All which could never have been done nor permitted by the Bishop of Rome if there had been any Suspicion that he had held any Point of Doctrin different from the Church and Faith of Rome at that time which maketh also the matter evident that the Heretical Custom of celebrating Easter according to the Jews which in St. Gregory's time was found in Britanny was a latter custom not held by all but by some few only 9. In this Man's place was made Archbishop the famous Man David Menevensis King Arthurs Unkle as Jeffrey and Bale do testifie who passed the said Archbishoprick from Chester to St. Davids and so it is called at this day of his Name This David saith Bale was a goodly Man of Stature about four cubits high learned and eloquent and after ten whole years Study in the Scripture expounded the same as a Trumpet carrying always the Text of the Gospel with him He extinguished the Relics of the Pelagian Heresies in Britanny preached incessantly cured many sick and built twelve Monasteries and was held for a very great Saint in his days and canonized afterward by Calixtus II. Bishop of Rome c. Per Calixtum secundum saith he Papisticorum deorum ascribitur in Catalogum He was put in the Catalogue of the Papistical Gods by
in this manner was Religion first planted among us according to that which St. Mark the Evangelist saith of the first Preachers and Preachings among other Nations and Gentiles in his time To wit Domino cooperante sermonem confirmante sequentibus signis Christ working with them and confirming their Preaching with Signs and Miracles And this Faith being once planted did take such deep Root by the said watering of Christ the Author thereof as it continued and held out from time to time through all difficulties and differences both of times Men and State and by Peril Divisions Enmities and cruel Wars that fell out every day between those Seven Kingdoms until they were united all under one Monarchy some 200 years after to wit under King Egbert King of the West-Saxons And from him again the same indured other 200 years unto King Edward the Confessor before the Conquest 17. And that which is worthy also the noteing in this case is that during the time of all this Enmity Emulation Suspicions Jealousie of Kingdoms and States and Bloody Battels between these Kingdoms for the space of the foresaid 200 years from their Conversion to Christianity until they came to be a Monarchy They all lived under one Arch-bishop and Primate of Canterbury holding their due subordination and good correspondence with him and by him with the See of Rome and other Catholic Countries for matters of Faith and Ecclesiastical Affairs no otherwise than if they had been all Friends yea Subjects and Provinces of one and the self same Kingdom and this is the vertue and force of Catholic Union Whereas amongst Sectaries every little difference of Temporal States yea of Towns Cities and Governments doth presently cause a diversity also in Faith and Religion As we see at this day that Saxony for example where the name of the Protestants first began being under a different Prince hath a great difference also in Religion from other parts of Germany that call themselves Protestants and the Kingdoms of Denmark and Swedeland tho' they profess all Lutheranism yet is the manner so different in these different States as not only the one will not depend of the other in any sort of subordination or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as in England we see they did but neither do they agree in any one Form of Religion or substance of belief in all points no nor in one state it self where all profess themselves to be Lutherans as in Saxony where the higher Saxons allow only rigid or streight Lutherans But the lower Saxony alloweth only the softer sort and expelleth the rigid or severe Lutherans as the other do them where they get Dominion 18. Geneva and Berne are both Cities and States of the Switzers and both of them profess Protestancy tho' not according to Luthers Doctrin But yet the Temporal State of the said two Towns being different the Magistrates have appointed a different and distinct Form. Which in England also we see by experience how much they differ from those of Scotland Holland and France who profess themselves Protestants of the same Calvinist School But every Nation and Church after his own fashion And finally what differences have risen in England it self during her Majesties only Government betwixt Puritans Brownists Family of Love and State Protestants as Thomas Diggs calleth them no Man can be ignorant But to what differences and divisions they would grow in two or three hundred years if Sects could last so long and that the States which profess them were Enemies in Temporal Affairs as it was in England is easie to guess But the reason hereof is manifest to wit that for so much as Sectaries making their own judgments and inventions the Rule of their Belief and Religion and their Temporal Princes their absolute Guiders and immediate Heads in Ecclesiastical matters it must needs follow that as these Princes or States do change or alter for any respect whatsoever as they do for many Religion also must needs alter and change for contentment or interest of the said States or Princes 19. But to return to our Deduction and Continuation of Catholic Religion among the English Saxons after they came to be a Monarchy to wit from the year of Christ 800 it is first to be noted that assoon as God had delivered them from one affliction which was the continual Civil Wars of one Kingdom with an other he sent them a second Calamity far greater perhaps than the first induring for other 200 years which was the continual incursions and devastations of the Danes Who pursued them not only for Temporal respects to get their Country from them but also for Religion it self the said Danes being then Pagans as appeareth by the cruel Murders and Martyrdoms as well of St. Edmund King of the East-angles Martyred by them about the year of Christ 885 as of Holy Elphegus Arch-bishop of Canterbury some Ages after about the year 1011 and of divers others overlong hear to recount And yet notwithstanding when the said Danes with their King Canutus Son of Swanus came once by Gods Holy grace to be Christians which was soon after the foresaid Martydom of the Holy Arch-bishop Elphegus they submitted themselves with Humility and fervor of Spirit to that very same Christian Faith of their Enemies the English-men which they had persecuted in them before taking them also for their instructors Which is a token that there was no other Christian Faith known in the World at that day for them to embrace but only that which the English professed to the embracing whereof there is no doubt but the Miracles wrought continually in confirmation of the truth of that Faith as well at the Tombs of the foresaid Martyrs St. Edmund and Elphegus slain by the Danes themselves as other ways also did greatly move and animate them 20. But whatsoever the chief motives were to move this Nation to embrace Christian Religion this is certain that soon after this time of St. Elphegus his Death God delivered the whole Kingdom of England into the Danes hands under the foresaid King Canutus about the year of Christ 1020. And he Reigned and held the same peaceably for almost twenty years In which time he being now Christian did many notable Acts of a good Religious King Went to Rome for Devotion to visit the Holy Sepulchres of St. Peter and St. Paul gave great Alms there and else where made just Laws in England loved and favored exceedingly the English Nation used them with all confidence both at home and abroad Married King Emma Mother to King Edward the Confessor thereby to unite himself the more to the Nation And finally became of a Persecutor and Conqueror one of the best Kings that England perhaps had in many Ages to Govern her 21. William of Malmesbury living as it hath been said some 500 years agone under King Henry the first Son to William the Conqueror writeth many most excellent Religious Acts
divers parts of the Realm and namely those of Devonshire seeing such alterations to be made in Religion under the Minority of a Child quite contrary to the Laws and Statutes left by King Henry the Eighth and that all things went backward both at home and abroad the Towns we had in France being lost or upon the point of losing they complained first and after took Arms for defence of their Ancient Religion in the beginning of the third year of this Kings Reign the people of Sommersetshire and Lincolnshire beginning first in the Month of May and then in July the people of Essex Kent Suffolk Norfolk Cornwall and Devonshire and in August those also of Yorkshire all crying and demanding to have the Catholic Religion remain as it was left by King Henry at least-wise until King Edward came to lawful age thereby to be able to determin and judge of matters of Religion which demand did wonderfully trouble and vex the Lord Seymour Protector and other new Gospellers who being hungry after Catholics Goods could abide no delay in making this desired Innovation 33. And albeit before these Insurrections fell out they did well see by divers attempts that the heart of the people was wholly against those their Innovations in Religion as appeareth plainly by a Speech of the Lord Rich then Chancellor to the Sheriffs and Justices of Peace of all Shires gathered together in London in the year 1548 being the second of King Edward's Reign as at large you may see in Fox yet such was their importunity in this behalf as they would needs go forward which thing pleasing John Fox well he writeth thus By this you may see what zealous care was in this young King and in the Lord Protector his Uncle concerning the Reformation of Christ's Church 34. The same Fox also setteth down in another place what the young King answered to the Devonshire-men that desir'd that the state of matters in Religion might remain as King Henry had ordained and left them and in particular they required that the Statute of Six Articles against Heretics might stand in force until King Edward came to full age Whereunto let us hear his Answer and consider thereby how matters went in those days To the first about the Statute of Six Articles made by his Father and inviolably kept all days of his life the little Child answered thus Know you what you require They were Laws made but quickly repented too bloody were they to be born of Our people You know they helped Vs to extend rigor and to draw Our Sword very often yea they were as a Whetstone unto Our Sword and for your Causes We have left to use them and sith Our mercy moved Vs to write Our Laws with Milk how be you blinded to ask them in Blood c 35. And then further he saith But to leave this manner of reasoning with you We let you wit That the same Laws have been annulled by Our Parliament with great rejoyce of Our Subjects and not now to be called by Our Subjects in question Dare any of you stand against an Act of Parliament c Assure you most surely that We of no earthly thing make such account as to have Our Laws obey'd for herein resteth Our Honor and shall any of you dare to breath against Our Honor c Lo how little account this little King Child was taught to make of his old Father's Laws and how thundringly to speak for the maintenance of his own But when they came to the second point about his Nonage he is yet more resolute for thus he writeth 36. In the end of your request saith he you would have Our Fathers Laws stand in force until Our full age But to this We think if ye knew what ye spake you would never have uttered that motion nor ever have given breath to such a thought For what think you of Our Kingdom Be We of less Authority for Our Age You must first know that as a King We have no difference of years nor time but as a natural Man and Creature of God We have Youth and by his sufferance shall have Age. We are your rightful King your leige Lord your King anointed your King crowned the sovereign King of England not by Our Age but by God's Ordinance We possess Our Crown not by Years but by the Blood and Descent from Our Father King Henry VIII c. 37. All this and much more did they make the innocent young King to talk and write in defence of their Innovations who had more Interest therein than He. And as for the Catholic People albeit they deny'd not but that he was a true King in his minority of Age yet no man was so foolish as to think notwithstanding all these preachings to the contrary but that it was a different thing for matters of Religion to be altered now in his Name than afterward by Himself when he should come to Age. 38. But among all others none urged this Argument so much nor with such Authority as the King 's eldest Sister the Princess Lady Mary Heir-apparent to the Crown who being a zealous Catholic and yet wishing well also to the Protector did by sundry Letters to be seen in Fox admonish both Him and the rest of the Council That they should look well what they did during the King's minority in altering the Will Laws and Ordinances of his and her Father King Henry for that afterward they were like enough to be called to account about the same when the King her Brother should come to full years Moreover she admonished them That they had no Authority to make such alteration in so great matters as they did but ought rather to conserve things in the state left unto them by King Henry her Father according as by solemn Oath they had sworn unto him before his death that they would do but especially about matters of Religion until the King her Brother came unto lawful Age. 39. By all which is clearly seen how the Catholic Religion remained in England most substantially rooted in King Edward's days and that Heresie entred only from the teeth outward and was maintained by violence of Temporal Authority and according to that was the success For after many toils and turmoils one killing another of those that governed when they thought they had laid a sure Platform to continue the same by excluding the Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth and thrusting in Jane the Duke of Suffolk's Daughter after King Edward's death and had so plotted and fortified that Design as they thought it sure the only Zeal of the common Catholic People for the recovering the use of Catholic Religion again overthrew all and placed Queen Mary as is notorious to the World. And afterward if we consider the end of most of them which in those days being Counsellors for Ambition or other respects were promoters of Heresie as Dudley Pembroke Winchester
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
Paganism to Christian Religion by the especial Diligence Labor and Industry of the same See. Once in the time of the Britans about 180 years after Christ at what time Eleutherius that holy Pope and Martyr converted King Lucius and his Subjects by the Preaching of St. Damianus and his Fellows sent from Rome to that effect And the second time 400 years after that again when our Predecessors the English Saxons were converted by St. Augustin and his Fellow-Preachers sent by St. Gregory the Great then Bishop of Rome to the same end And if it be most certain and cannot be denied that these two so great and universal benefits rightly considered are the highest under Heaven that our Land could receive from any mortal then and that the Obligation of this double Spiritual Birth of ours is so much greater than the Bond we owe to our carnal Parents by how much more weighty and important is our Eternal Salvation than our Temporal Life and Generation let all men consider the barbarous ingratitude of this man that barketh with such spite against the See of Rome the Mother of our Christianity and against her Bishops the Workers of so high a Blessing to us And with this consideration I leave the modest and discreet Readers to judge of the matter as Reason and Religion shall induce them and not as the rage of this and other such raving people would incite them 3. Thus I wrote then and to this declaration and conclusion of mine our Knight taketh upon him now to answer in these words Whereas this Roman Advocate saith That this Land ought to bear more reverence to the See of Rome than other Nations for that it hath received more singular benefits from thence namely that it was converted from Paganism to Christian Religion by the special Diligence Labor and Industry of the same See I answer First That it is apparent by sundry Testimonies that this Land was converted to the Faith long before that time by you specified and not by the Bishop of Rome Gildas testifieth that Britanny received the Gospel in the time of Tiberius the Emperor and that Joseph of Arimathea was sent by Philip the Apostle from France hither where he remained till his death And Bede our Country man likewise doth testifie That in his time this Land kept Easter after the manner of the East Church by which my be gathered that the first Preachers came hither from the East parts of the World and not from Rome More proofs might be set down but I spare them 4. Mark good Reader what manner of Answer this is to my former Speech and how directly these people do go to the matter I said before That the Isle of England wherein so many at this day do rail against Rome hath more obligation of Love towards the same for benefits received than divers other Countries for that the people of this Island have been twice converted by men sent from thence once under Pope Eleutherius almost 200 years after Christ and again under Pope Gregory the Great about the year of our Lord 600. Now to this the Kt. thinketh to have answered well by affirming two or three things First out of Gildas That Britanny received the Gospel in the time of Tiberius the Emperor before any or these two Conversions named by me Which how likely it is Tiberius living but five years after Christ's Ascension shall after be examined Secondly That Joseph of Arimathea was sent by Philip the Apostle out of France into Britanny which yet the true Gildas hath not But by these two Examples the Knight would shew That in Britanny the Faith of Christ was not first of all planted from Rome nor by the Popes thereof or by their industry And to the same effect he allegeth out of Bede the used of observing Easter after the manner of the East Church remaining amongst the Britans in his time whereof he inferreth as you see That it is most like that our first Preachers were from the East and not from the West Church 5. But suppose all these things were true do they overthrow that which I said before in my Ward-word that the Britans were converted under Pope Eleutherius or the Saxons under Pope Gregory and by several Preachers sent from Rome by them They prove only that before these two public Conversions which we owe to the Church and Popes of Rome there might be some sparkles of Christian Faith also in Britanny by other means which I never deny'd but only said that I would have English-men grateful to Rome for these two which Conversions no man can deny without apparent impudence as after more amply shall be shewed where also these Examples alleged out of Gildas and St. Bede shall be examined how far they are true or do make for the purpose here in hand 6. So that this first part of Sir Francis's Answer being nothing to the purpose as you see tho' all were granted which he allegeth Let us hear his second part Secondly saith he tho' it be granted that Eleutherius sending hither Preachers from Rome in King Lucius his time did frist convert this Land to the Christian Faith I say that there is not now the same Faith in Rome that was then There were then no Masses said no setting up of Images in Churches c. Here now if we will take Sir Francis's word we have a sure warrant by his I say that the Faith in Rome is not the same now that it was in Pope Eleutherius his time and that in particular there were neither Masses then nor Images Wherein you may note first that cunningly he holdeth his peace of the Conversion of English-men under St. Gregory which most concerneth us that be of this Nation for that he dareth not deny that both Mass and Images were in use in his time in the Roman Church and Faith and so brought into England by St. Augustin that converted us which is evident in St. Bede in every place of his Story and particularly where he relateth the first entrance of St. Augustin and his Fellows into Canterbury in Procession with a Cross and Image of our Savior in a Banner and that they said their first Masses there in an old Church of St. Martin builded as he saith by the old Christian Romans before their departure out of Britanny 7. And for the time of Eleutherius under whom the Britans were converted tho' it were not hard also to prove the same particulars yet will I not take that disputation now in hand but shall leave it to a better occasion afterward in this Treatise where without standing upon these particular two Doctrins of Mass and Images here mentioned by the Knight I shall shew more general and firm Arguments that the Faith of the Church of Rome under Eleutherius 200 years after Christ was the very same and no other than was that under St. Gregory 400 years after that again nor this
his Book contra Judaeos cited by Fox divers years after that again as Pamelius and others do demonstrate in his Life So as Eleutherius reigning fifteen years before Victor as all Authors do agree it followeth that he was Pope twenty five years before Tertullian was a Christian And forsomuch as the Conversion of England is assigned to have been in the fifth year of Eleutherius it followeth that Tertullian was not a Christian in twenty years after that time And thus much for his second Reason now let us hear his third 7. My third probation saith he I deduct out of Origen whose words are these Britanniam in Christianam consentire Religionem That Britanny did consent in Christian Religion whereby it appeareth the Faith of Christ was sparsed here in England before Eleutherius Mark his own Contradiction mark his Inference and note his Imposture He affirmeth out of Origen That Britanny did consent in Christian Religion and yet he saith in his Inference Whereby it appeareth it was sparsed in England Sparsing importeth that particular men here and there were converted Consent importeth a general Conversion So that by Origen's words of consent it may seem that he meant the public Conversion made by Eleutherius and by Fox's own false Interpretation and foolish Inference he is made to say that there were only certain sparkles of Christian Religion in his days in Britanny But the true words of Origen corrupted by Fox do make the matter more clear who disputing against the Jews urgeth them with this Question Quando enim terra Britanniae ante adventum Christi in unius Dei consensit Religionem For when did the Land of Britanny agree in the Religion of one God Before the coming of Christ 8. Here you see the words of Origen first not truly but corruptly alledged before by John Fox and secondly that Origen doth speak them of a consent in Religion throughout all the Land of Britanny and thereby seemeth to signifie not the particular Conversion of several men before Eleutherius his Time as Fox would enforce it but rather the public Conversion as I have said under King Lucius and Eleutherius which Conversion according to the former Account of Fox himself who saith it was in the year of Christ 180 was about 76 years before the Death of Origen for that as Eusebius testifieth Origen died in the year of Christ 256 and was of age 69 when he died so as he was born seven years after our said Conversion under Lucius and consequently he might mean of this Conversion in his former Homily And it is not only Ignorance but wilful Malice and Imposture also in John Fox to make his Reader believe as before in Tertullian so in this Man that he was either Equal or Elder than Pope Eleutherius And for this cause that Origen in his foresaid Homily must needs mean of a former Conversion of Britanny that came not from Rome Consider the Man's Honesty and Wit in these shifts 9. And albeit this may be sufficient and more than enough to shew his false Dealing and lack of Fidelity in every thing he handleth yet will I add his two last Arguments which he calleth his first and seventh and in which as I said before that not only the former two qualities of Impertinency and Error are to be found but manifest Fraud also and wilful Deceit Let us hear his words But first I must both pray and prevent the Reader to take in patience the hearing of one and the self-same thing many times repeated for that we having to deal with three several Parties that do tell us Tales by retail one to another of them to wit Sir Francis Sir Fox and Messieurs the Magdeburgians we cannot well see or set down what each of them saith and borroweth one of another but by repeating the same things yet shall it be very briefly Thus then writeth Fox in that which he calleth his first probation against the first Conversion of England by Eleutherius 10. My first probation saith he I take out of the Testimony of Gildas who in his History affirmeth plainly That Britanny received the Gospel in the time of Tiberius the Emperour and that Joseph of Arimathea was sent by Philip the Apostle from France to Britanny Gild. lib. de Victoria Aurel. Ambrosii Here you see first not only crambe recocta according to the Proverb that is to say Coleworts and other Trash twice sodden but many times also both sodden and set before us for all this you heard before more than once both out of Sir Francis and the Magdeburgians And when all is granted yet is the whole Argument but a vain and childish Cavil for it proveth only that Damianus and Fugatius sent by Eleutherius were not the very first of all that preached Christian Faith in Britanny which we never affirmed but only that Britanny was converted publicly under Eleutherius which this impugneth not And secondly for the receiving of Christ's Faith under Tiberius the Emperour I have shewed before that it is unlikely seeing Tiberius lived but five years after the Ascension of our Savior and that the place alledged for it out of Gildas if he mean the true Gildas now extant proveth it not but only that Christ himself appeared to the World in the time of Tiberius and that the Faith of Christ entred Britanny afterward under Claudius as may appear evidently to him that will read and examin the place with attention Which the Fox perceiving thought it not best to alledge us the said true Gildas published by Polydor Virgil and allowed by all Learned Men of Christendom whose Title is De excidio Britanniae but runneth to a forged Gildas De Victoria Aurelii Ambrosii to confirm his Allegation withal of which Gildas the said Polydor after due Examination of the matter writeth as followeth 11. Extat item alter libellus ut tempestive lectorem nefariae fraudis admoneamus qui falsissimè inscribitur Gildae commentarium haud dubie à quodam pessimo impostore compositum c. Sanè is nebulo longè post homines natos impudentissimus c. There is extant besides another Book also that I may by this occasion advertise the Reader in time of a wicked Imposture which is most falsly entituled The Commentary of Gildas devised no doubt by some naughty Deceiver c. Truly he was the most impudent Knave that ever lived c. Thus said Polydor of the Inventer of this Book and as much would he have said of Sir John Fox that obtrudeth the same for a true Author if he had lived in our days And seeing that the Calvinists themselves of Heidelberg in Germany taking upon them to set forth all the British Writers Anno 1587 as Gildas Geffrey of Monmouth Ponticus Virunnius and others durst not set forth this feigned Gildas alledged by Fox but only the former true Gildas printed before by Polydor it is a token that Fox is
the Infirmity of Their Cause and the Strength and Truth of Ours yet will we for greater satisfaction of all sorts pass over to the other part also of Positive and Affirmative Proofs which are so abundant in this behalf as if I would set them down all this only point would require a particular Treatise wherefore I mean to abreviate the matter as much as I may 2. For which respect whereas there are two means to set down these Proofs one out of the Authors themselves that lived in the same Age with Eleutherius and the next after and the other to cite the same out of Protestant Writers I have made choice of the second way in this place both for that it is shorter and seemeth also more sure and effectual For if I should cite the places as for Example in the second Age St. Irenaeus lib. 5. advers haeres for the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome and the same lib. 4. cap. 77. and with him Justinus Martyr q. 103. together with Theophilus Athenagoras Clemens Alexandrinus for Freewill and the same Clemens lib. 5. stromatum and divers others of that Age for the Merit of Good Works for the manner of doing Penance and the like and if I should alledge the said Irenaeus lib. 4. cap. 32. for the Sacrifice of the Mass and Justinus Martyr Apolog. 2. and Clemens Alexandrinus lib. 7. Stromatum about the Rites and Ceremonies of the said Mass and the same Justinus q. 136. and the same Irenaeus lib. 1. c. 18. for the Ceremonies of Baptism and Chrism used in those days If I say I should alledge these and other Authors of that time for positive Proofs of Catholic Articles against Protestants in Eleutherius's days the matter would first grow to be very long for that I must alledge the places at length seeing that otherwise the quarrelling Adversary would say that I left out the Antecedents and Consequents as themselves are wont to do when they mean not to have any Text rightly understood Secondly they would quarrel with us when they see themselves prest about the Authors Books whether they be truly theirs or no and thirdly about the Translation Words and Sense All which would bring a long Dispute 3. But now finding that certain Authors of their own Religion if they be of their Religion I mean the Magdeburgians called otherwise Centuriatores have taken upon them to set down the whole Story of the Church and have herewithal treated as well of the Doctrin as also the Doctors of every Age I have thought best to take my Proofs out of them being Confessions as it were against themselves and their Mates the Calvinists tho' not very friendly Mates in many matters of Doctrin as you shall hear and their Story being the very Ground and Fountain of all John Fox his Volume of Acts and Monuments except only those things which concern England in particular wherein whether he or they behave themselves with less Honesty or Conscience is hard to say but in this Treatise you shall have divers tasts of them both And this being spoken as it were by the way of Preface we shall now take in hand the matter proposed 4. These men being four Saxons whom before we have named gathered together in the City of Magdeburg to wit Flaccus Illyricus Joannes Vigandus Matthaeus Judex and Basilius Faber and in Religion strict or rigid Lutherans took upon them as hath been said to write the whole Ecclesiastical History from Christ to their Time by Centuries or Ages allowing 100 years to every Age whereof they are called Centuriatores And in every Age they handle these and like Chapters Of the Church and increase thereof or Doctrin therein taught Of Heresies and Heretics Of Doctors and Writers and the like But amongst other points especially to be noted to our purpose that presently after the Apostles in the second Century they make this Chapter repeating the same in every Age after Inclinatio Doctrinae complectens peculiares incommodas opiniones stipulas errores Doctorum quae palam quidem hoc est scriptis tradita sunt That is The declining of true Christian Doctrin containing the peculiar and incommodious Opinions of Doctors their Errors Straw or Stubble which were left publicly by them that is to say in their Writings 5. This is the Title of this Chapter in every Age and those last words seem to be added thereby to insinuate to the Reader that the said Doctors inwardly did hold perhaps many more Errors and Straw-opinions in these mens judgments than they left openly in writing And by this arrogant Title you may see these four good Fellows mean to judge and censure all from the beginning of Christian Religion unto their days and among others they will censure John Fox also and his Fellows as you may see in the Preface of one of their Centuries dedicated unto the Queen of England the third year of her Reign 1560 where having told her Majesty a long Tale of the Gospel and pure Word of God naming the same above half a hundred times if I have counted right in this one Epistle and shewing how Princes must have no other Rule of Government than the said Word but yet understood as these men will interpret it they tell her also that they now do bring her Antiquity to look upon yet complaining that few in ancient Times did write luculenter cum judicio perspicuously and with judgment And then again Sacrosanctae antiquitatis titulo plurimos quasi fascinari ut citra omnem attentionem rectumque judicium quantumvis tetris erroribus applaudant That very many are as it were so be witched with the holy Title of Antiquity that without all attention and upright judgment they do give willingly consent to never so foul Errors if they be set down by Antiquity 6. Lo here what an entrance this is of them that profess Antiquity to discredit by their Preface all Antiquity of Christian Religion and of the eldest and primitive Church whose Acts and Gests they promise to set down but the very point indeed is that they themselves will be Judges of all as the fashion of proud Heretics is and admit only so much as maketh for their particular Sect and discredit or reject the rest And in this point our English Calvinists are like to find as little favour at their hands as we that are Catholicks and less too for that by the whole course of Antiquity they do shew these men to be clearly Heretics and their Opinions about the Sacraments Invisibility of the Church and other like to be Heretical whereas our Doctrins which they find in ancient Fathers differing from them they call either incommodious Opinions Blots Stubble or Errors of Doctors as before you have heard and not lightly Heresies As in this their Preface to the Queen they admonish her Majesty more carefully to beware of Their Doctrin than of Ours in these words
by violence that he attended more to get tythes and oblations for Masses than to preach the Gospel and that he was cause of the slaughter of 1200 Monks and other such like reproachful lies against whom I could propose the whole stream of the best Authors ever since his time both domestical and extern if it were worth the striving with so contemptible an Adversary and if nothing would restrain the Liberty of so reproachful a Tongue yet at leastways the respect of our Nation converted by him and so many great miracles wrought by him to that effect as both St. Bede and others do recount and Fox dareth not deny ought to have some bridle to this shameless Apostata For that not only St. Bede Malmesbury Marianus Scotus Sigebert and others do recount them but even St. Gregory himself wrote the same by his own pen to Eulogius Archbishop of Alexandria who had written unto him of some like miracles wrought in Egypt also about that time in the Conversion of new Christians St. Gregory's words are these 12. Sed quoniam c. But for that truly the good which they do there is much encreased by the joy you take in other mens good also I will requite you with the like good News as you have written to me Know then that whereas the English Nation placed in the corner of the World have remained hitherto in their Infidelity worshipping stones and blocks I did by the help of your Prayers these days past God as I hope moving me thereunto send unto that Nation a Monk of my Monastery to preach unto them who upon my License afterward being made Bishop in the Countreys near unto them arrived at last unto that end of the world And now Letters are come unto us both of his Health and his Work that he hath in Hand and surely either he or they that were sent over with him do work so many miracles in that Nation as they may seem therein to imitate the Power and Miracles of the Apostles themselves and in this very last Solemnity of Christ's Nativity past there were above ten thousand Englishmen baptized by the hands of this our Brother and fellow Bishop c. 13. Thus far St. Gregory who is another manner of Witness than Fox or Bale tho Fox doth confess as you have heard before both the vertuous Life and Miracles of St. Augustin and his fellows And if he do so indeed and do think them to have been wrought by Gods Power and not by the operation of Satan then it is great Blasphemy both in him and his fellows to think that God would concurr by Miracles to the planting of false Doctrin and Error which scornfully they call the Papistical Faith. Whereof now we shall treat more in particular having disputed these things about Saint Augustin's Person 14. About which Doctrin these good Fellows seem to quarrel much more giving simple People to believe that he brought from Rome a different Christian Religion from that which was in Britanny before as out of Sir Francis own words alledged may appear And albeit John Fox in his History treating of this matter doth not dare to affirm it plainly but rather seeketh here and there to pick out some differences between the Roman Religion that St. Augustin brought in and that which is now as for example where he saith Note by the way Christian Reader that whereas it is said that Augustin baptized ten thousand English Saxons upon a Christmas day in a River it followeth saith he that then there was no use of Fonts c. Yet in a certain Preface of his which he calleth his Protestation to the whole church-of-Church-of-England he hath these words All this while about the space of 400 years after the Conversion of King Lucius Religion remained in Britanny uncorrupt and the Word of Christ truly preached till about the coming of Augustin and his Companions from Rome many of the said Britan Preachers were slain by the Saxons And after that began the Christian Faith to enter and spring amongst the Saxons after a certain Romish sort yet notwithstanding somewhat more tollerable than in other times which after followed c. 15. Thus writeth Fox maliciously enough as you see to bring in doubt and discredit our first Christian Religion planted by St. Augustin but yet hereby it is evident that if Englishmen were ever true Christians either at their first Conversion or for more than 900 years after they were Roman Christians But whether they were ever true Christians indeed or not that Point Fox dareth not plainly to determine in this place but only as the fashion of Hereticks is to call matters in question and leave them in doubt so doth he and as one said well To lay the Eggs for another to hatch the Serpents For that Fox his Scholars Holinshed Hooker and Harrison and other like have presumed upon this foundation to determine resolutely the matter that Englishmen were never true Christians indeed before Luther began his Doctrin which appeareth in these their words following speaking of the Inhabitants of Britanny When the sheep of Gods pasture say they would receive no wholsom fodder it pleased his Majesty to let them run on headlong from one iniquity to another Insomuch that after the Doctrin of Pelagius they received that of Rome also brought in by Austin and his Monks whereby it was to be seen how they fell from the Truth into Heresie and from one Heresie still into another until at last they were drowned in the pits of Error digged up by Antichrist c. 16. Thus do write these Companions of the first Conversion of Englishmen by St. Augustin but whether they mean of the Britans or of Englishmen or of both that fell into these pits it is not so easie to judge For they name both to determin or distinguish neither People and which way soever you take it it hath not only falshood and impiety but open contradictions also in it self For it they mean the Britans then it is evidently false that they were converted by St. Augustin and his Monks And if they mean of the English it is much more false that they ever received the Doctrin of Pelagius or fell from Truth to Heresie as these phantastical Men both ignorantly and maliciously do affirm But let us hear yet further their blasphemous and desperate Speeches of our first Apostle St. Augustin This Augustin say they after his arrival converted the Saxons indeed from Paganism but as the Proverb saith bringing them out of Gods Blessing into the warm Sun he imbued them with no less hurtful Superstition than they did know before For beside the only Name of Christ and external contempt of their pristin Idolatry he taught them nothing at all but rather an exchange from gross to subtil Treachery from open to secret Idolatry and from the name of Pagans to the bare Title of Christians c. 17.
these Men deny it flatly for so much as they say that our first Faith received from Rome was not the true Faith of Christ nor of Christendom but a particular Romish Faith full of Error Superstition and Idolatry as you have heard yea worse if we will believe Holinshed Hooker and Harrison than was the Paganism which Englishmen professed before their Conversion And then followeth that for so much as they hold also that the longer Religion endured in England the worse it waxed needs must they conclude that when Luther began his Gospel our Fathers and Grandfathers were no Christians at all and much less true Christians And this for them 23. But if we will talk of our selves that now live in England we must needs also conclude the same to wit that after all Mutations made in England about Religion since Luther began the Protestants cannot be sure with any Reason that they are true Christians or have yet received the right Faith or Gospel unto this day Which I prove thus First for that the Gospel preached by Luther was never yet admitted wholly into England For at the very beginning thereof under King Henry it was contradicted by him and the State during his whole Reign yea condemned for Heretical as by many Decrees as well of Parliaments as otherwise by particular Ordinances is manifest his Majesty always holding Luther's Opinions for Heresies and according thereunto burned the Professors thereof for Heretics unto his dying day as is notorious Tho' in one Article about the Popes Supremacy he concurred with them but not as taking the same from Luther or his Doctrin So as Luthers Gospel if it were a Gospel as John Fox calleth it every where in his Acts and Monuments was never yet received in England For that in King Edwards days the Doctrin of Zuinglius and not of Luther was admitted Which Doctrin Luther always held for opposite to his and for plain Heresie as before at large hath been declared 24. And as for her Majesties time that now is clear it is that neither of both the former Doctrins or Gospels have formally or fully been admitted I mean neither the Lutherans or Zwinglians but rather the Doctrin of a third opposite in many Points to them both to wit of John Calvin And yet neither hath this Gospel been so frankly or generally received or practised as the chief Professors thereof and such as take themselves to follow the same most exactly I mean the Puritans do remain content but rather complain that their true Doctrin indeed and Gospel was never hitherto truly established in our Country as in the first Encounter against Sir Francis we have shewed abundandtly 25. So as if the first Gospel of St. Augustin brought into England from Rome wherewith our Ancestors lived and professed Christianity for 900 years together were not the true Gospel of Christ indeed nor the other Gospel of Martin Luther that appeared to the World in the year 1517 was ever admitted into England in King Henry's time that died in the year 1547. And if from thence forward under King Edward Zwinglius's Doctrin and not Luthers was established for the English Gospel of that time And if under her Majesty that now is neither of these two but Calvins Doctrin and Gospel hath been admitted tho' yet with such Restrictions and Alterations as the purest Patrons thereof say it is not their Gospel but a patched thing as before at large we have declared what followeth then I say but that we Englishmen have yet no true Gospel at all nor ever had and consequently we were never yet true Christians nor are at this day For that the Christianity of the antient English from King Ethelbert to King Henry VIII was no true Christianity as these men say and much less will they grant of the Religion established by King Henry as opposite as well to Protestants as to Catholics That also of King Edward's days was different from all and that which now is in England is contradicted as well by Lutherans Zuinglians and Puritans as by Catholics Where then and among whom shall we find the true Gospel 26. One only shift these people do pretend which is to run to the Britans Religion at that time when St. Augustin came into England for this both Fox and Bale do acknowledge to have been the right Religion and to use their words the naked unspotted Gospel and far different from the Romish Religion that Augustin brought in from Gregory wherefore that point resteth now to be examined And albeit you have heard a little before how Holinshead accuseth the Britans Religion of Pelagianism and other Heresies yet Bale writeth thus Priùs illic fuerit Christianismus c. Christian Religion was in Britanny before the coming of Augustin and his Fellows But it was not to their commodity for that it was without Masses and without distinction of Meats or Days and the Britans observed the bare naked Gospel without Jewish Ceremonies c. 27. So writeth he And Fox as before you have heard said That for 400 years after Pope Eleutherius and King Lucius Religion remained in Britanny uncorrupt and the Word of Christ truly preached till about the coming of Augustin and his Fellows from Rome c. And yet he cannot deny but that in this space both the Pelagian and other Heresies had entred also among them and that some Reliques thereof remained even when Augustin arrived And whereas they say that the British Religion before the coming of Augustin was uncorrupt and free from all Jewish Ceremonies it is ridiculous forasmuch as we have shewed before that the chiefest difference between these two Religions at that day was about a Jewish Ceremony observ'd by the Britans against the Order and Faith of the Church of Rome to wit the superstitious keeping Easter day upon the fourteenth of the first Moon of March together with the Jews 28. But as for other substantial points of Faith especially such as be at this day in controversie between Us and Protestants as Mass Sacrifice Fasting observing of Holydays and the like here named the old Britans Religion did agree with that of Rome brought in by St. Augustin and so hath continued until this day and this shall we shew in the Chapter following So as if the old British Faith was the true Faith We have it among Catholics at this day and not Protestants as shall be declared CHAP. IX That the Roman Religion brought into England by St. Augustin under Pope Gregory was the very same that was brought in before under Pope Eleutherius by Fugatius and Damianus and continued afterward among the Britans until the coming of St. Augustin to the English Nation WE have shewed before how that the Christian Faith preached in England in the Apostles time was the Roman Faith and that the increase or public Establishment thereof again under King Lucius was also from Rome and finally that the third
quantáque animum tuum Regni Christi praemia in die Judicii manerent c. Thou didst vow to be a perpetual Monk before Almighty God in the sight both of Angels and Men. O how great a flame of heavenly-hope would burn in the hearts of them that now despair of thee if thou hadst remained in that good state O how great Rewards of Christ's Kingdom would remain for thee in the day of Judgment c. 14. Thus saith he And would Protestants think you speak thus also seeing John Fox doth so greatly condemn our ancient Kings and Princes of the English Nation for that so many of them in the fervour of the Primitive Church made themselves Monks Yet Gildas you see on the contrary side commendeth highly that Fact in the Prince Maglocunus and greatly condemneth him for leaving that holy state And hereby also is refuted that foolish refuge of Fox and his Companions who say and affirm without shame that Monks had no Vows in those days but only that Monasteries were Schooles and places of Learning without any Obligation to persevere therein or to abstain from Marriage c. But let him shew that every one of those 2000 Monks that he saith lived in the Monastery of Bangor together did ever marry or pretend to have Liberty so to do after they were professed Monks and then he saith somewhat And as for vowing and public profession made to God in the sight of his Angels and the whole Church the matter is evident enough in this place what was then in use among the Britans 15. But let us pass from Princes to Priests What saith Gildas of them You shall hear his Words Sacerdotes habet Britannia sed insipientes c. Ecclesiae domus habentes sed turpis lucri gratia eas adeuntes c. rarò sacrificantes nunquam puro corde inter altaria stantes c. Sedem Petri Apostoli immundis pedibus usurpantes c. Britanny hath Priests but without Wisdom c. They possess the houses of the Church but go unto them only for filthy lucre's sake c. They do seldom sacrifice but never go to the Altar with a pure heart c. They do usurp the Seat of Peter the Apostle with unclean feet c. 16. Lo here Massing and Sacrificing Priests in those days which are so hated and persecuted at this day in England tho' God be thanked free from these Vices of impure Life which here is objected to the Priests of that time But let us hear yet Gildas further In Apostolicis sanctionibus ob inscitiam hebetes They are dull in observing Apostolical Sanctions for that they are unlearned and understand them not Lo here Priests reprehended for lack of skill in the Ecclesiastical Canons and Apostolical Decrees And yet he goeth further Desperatiùs errant quo non ab Apostolis vel Apostolorum successoribus sed à Tyrannis à patre eorum diabolo emunt sacerdotia These Men do err the more desperately for that they buy unto themselves the Office of Priesthood not of the Apostles or their Successors as Simon Magus would have done the Holy Ghost but of Tyrant Princes and of the Devil their Father 17. Here you see that Priesthood in those days was not wont to be given by the Authority of Lay Princes but by the Successors of the Apostles to wit Bishops And then further he goeth forward shewing how these naughty Priests being once possessed of that Dignity and made proud thereby presumed to say Mass unworthily Manus non tam venerabilibus aris quam flammis inferni ultricibus dignas in tale schema positi sacrosanctis Christi sacrificiis extensuri These Priests being once put in this Dignity or Ornament they presume to stretch out their hands to the most holy Sacrifices of Christ tho their hands be more worthy of the burning flames of hell than to touch the venerable Altars 18. Thus he wrote of Altars and Sacrifice among the Britans in those days and divers other Points like unto this which for brevity's sake I omit only I would ask our Men in general whether this be spoken as of Protestants or no And then would I demand of John Fox in particular how that can be true which he affirmeth That the Britans had no Mass in those days seeing Gildas talketh so much of Priests that did Sacrifice upon Altars And if he will say that Gildas useth not the word Mass it is a plain Cavil seeing nothing is signified by the Mass but only the external Sacrifice of Christians here mentioned And that the word Mass was generally used in the Latin Church for Sacrifice long before this time of Gildas appeareth by many Authors but especially by St. Augustin the Doctor in divers places of his works whereof some in the Margent we shall note 19. I would ask also of John Bale how the Religion of the Britans was the pure and naked Gospel in those days for so he saith if it had in it not only that custom of the Jews before mentioned of the Quartadecimani but all these other Points also which his Church counteth for Errors to wit of Professed Monks and Consecrated Nuns of Sacrificing upon Altars and the like how I say could this British Church be accounted by him and his so pure and unspotted But little heed is there to be given to these Mens saying or unsaying but as the present occasion of necessity urgeth them And therefore we will go forward to shew some other Observations in this kind CHAP X. The continuation of the same matter wherein is shewed by divers Proofs and Examples that the Britans before St. Gregory's time were of the same Religion that he sent into England by St. Augustin to wit of the Roman AND first of all to begin with the first Entrance of our first English Apostles St. Bede writing of the City of Canterbury at the coming of St. Augustin before King Ethelbert was converted saith thus Erat autem propè ipsam civitatem ad orientem Ecclesia in honorem St. Martini antiquitus facta dum adhuc Romani Britanniam incolerent c. In hac ergo ipsi primò convenire psallere orare Missas facere praedicare baptizare coeperunt There was a Church near to the City on the East side built in old time in the honor of St. Martin while yet the Romans did hold Brittany c. Wherefore in this Church Augustin and his company did first use to meet together to sing Psalms to Pray to say Masses to preach and to baptize the People c. 2. Note here that seeing the Romans left England presently upon the destruction of Rome by the Goths to wit about the year of Christ 400 which was some fifty years before the entrance of the Saxons then was the use of building Churches in the Honor of Saints in practise among the Britans and Roman Christians of those days living in
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
Anselmus and so successively one after another none of them ever being noted to be contrary to his Predecessor in Religion until Thomas Cranmer in King Henry the Eighth's time Who applyed himself to the Religion which the State and Prince liked best to allow of in that time And after the Kings Death agreed to break his last Will and Testament in changing that Religion into Zuinglianism most detested by his Majesty And after again Conspired to put down and destroy all the Kings Children and to set up the Duke of Suffolks Daughter And finally was put to Death both for Heresie and Treason in Queen Maries time as after more particularly shall be shewed And this was the first change of Religion in any Arch-bishop of Canterbury from the beginning unto his days 28. So as from King Ethelbert the first Christned English King unto King Henry the Eighth being the Eighteenth from William the Conqueror and more than Eighty from the said Ethelbert one and the self same Faith endured in England and the self same Church florished under so many different both Kings and Nations as before hath been shewed And the like we have declared to have been for the first 600 years under the Britans to wit that they never were known to have changed their Religion Which being so the deduction and demonstration is so clear as any reasonable Man can either make or require for proof that one and the self same Religion endured from the beginning to the ending among them 29. Unto which kind of proof the Ancient Holy Father and Martyr St. Irenaeus giveth great Authority by a like Argument For that having made the like Enumeration of the Bishops of Rome as we do now of our Arch-bishops of Canterbury against the Heretics of his days and that from St. Peter downward to Pope Eleutherius that lived with him he inferreth this conclusion Est plenissima haec ostensio unam eandem vivificatricem fidem esse quae in Ecclesiis ab Apostolis conservata tradita in unitate c. This is a most full proof that one and the self same lively Faith hath been conserved in the Church from the Apostles days unto our time delivered from one to another in unity c. And if that were a most full proof and demonstration in St. Irenaeus judgment against the Heretics of his time The same is now much more to us having seen the Succession of so many Ages since and noted the manner of like proof and Argument in all other Fathers after him As namely of St. Augustin Numerate sacerdotes velab ipsa Petri Sede in ordine illo Patrum quis cui successit videte Number the Priests that have succeeded the one to the other even from the Seat of Peter himself And then further In hoc ordine Successionis nullus Donatista Episcopus invenitur No one Donatist Bishop is to be found in this rank of Succession And yet more 30. Et si in illum ordinem Episcoporum quisquam traditor per illa tempora subrepsisset nihil praejudicaret Ecclesiae And if any Traytor in those days should have crept into that order and rank of Roman Bishops for of them he speaketh it should not have prejudicated the Church of God. 31. Which saying of St. Austin may serve us not only to Answer whatsoever Heretics do or may object true or false against the Lives of any latter Roman Bishops but for defence also of the Rank and Succession of our Archbishops of Canterbury notwithstanding the Apostasie of Thomas Cranmer or any other his like that for these latter years may have crept in as St. Austin saith or been thrust in and by violence occupied that See and Seat unworthily either in respect of his life or Religion or both seeing that the former Succession as well of Men as of Doctrin from St. Austin to Cranmer is manifest and evident for the space of 900 years without interruption as also that they were united all this time in Faith and Doctrin with the Universal Church of Christendom as Members and Branches of their Head and Body and that the first breach and interruption made thereof in that See by Cranmer and continued after him by some of his followers was noted presently and contradicted yea censured and condemned also by Sentence of the whole Church and thereupon rejected and abhorred by the principal of his own people both Clergy and Laity at that time 32. And the same contradiction endureth to this day and will do ever in those that conserve their Ancient Faith and Religion and do adhere to the lawful Succession of his Predecessors against him and his partners until it please Almighty God to put the said order and lawful Succession in joynt again and restore that chief and head conduct of our Country to his former integrity whereby the Water of true Catholic Religion was wont to be derived to the people of our Land and will be again when Gods wrath for our sins shall be pacified and his mercy induce him to permit as often otherwise he hath done that all return to the accustomed Ancient course of Catholic Faith and Religion again seeing in very deed there is none but that for so much as Sects and new Religions are but inventions and entertainments of time whilst God punisheth some sins in his Servants and after all returneth where it was before 33. And this have we spoken by the way and by occasion of Cranmer that was the first Arch-bishop of Canterbury that ever brake from the Roman Faith but notwithstanding his Apostasie Catholic Religion was not extinguished in England by that but remained there still all King Henries time as also during the Reigns of his three Children King and Queens Edward Mary and Elizabeth unto these our days as in the next Chapter following more largly and particularly we are to demonstrate CHAP. XII How Catholic Religion hath continued and persevered in England during the times and Reigns of King Henry the Eighth and his three Children King Edward Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth notwithstanding all the troubles changes alterations and tribulations that have fallen out and that the same Religion is like to continue to the Worlds end if our sins hinder not THE deduction which we have hitherto made of Catholic Religion from our first Conversion under St. Gregory and King Ethelbert of Kent unto the Reign of King Henry the Eighth with whom concurred in the See of Rome Leo the Tenth and Clemens the Seventh and other Popes Successors of St. Gregory hath been for the most part in time of Peace and without any public discontinuance at all but now are we to prosecute the same matter from the alteration made by King Henry downward unto our days and therein to shew that albeit in the external Face and Form of Religion there have been divers Mutations as Tempestuous Winds and Storms for the present yet hath the Catholic
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
the first an earnest Lutheran the other two Zwinglians 14. All these demonstrations I say King Henry made this year of his Catholic Opinion and Judgment in all points except in matter of Supremacy which was his own Interest And for the other six years which he lived afterwards he vary'd not from this but rather confirm'd the same as we may see by his burning of Anne Askew for denying the Real Presence in the Sacrament not many months before his death and by his own hearing of Mass in his bed and receiving the blessed Sacrament on his knees when he was not able to stand on his feet but especially by that which Bishop Gardiner testified while he lived and preached the same in a public Sermon at Paul's Cross that the said King not long before his dying day when he sent him Embassador to a Diet in Germany gave him special Commission in secret to procure by the means of some Catholic Princes and of the Pope's Legat and Nuntio there some honorable condition for his Majesty's reconciliation with the Pope and See of Rome again which tho' God of his secret Judgment permitted him not to effectuate by the shortness of his life yet appeareth it by this what his sense in matters of Religion was 15. So then now we have that Catholic Church and Religion continued in England during King Henry's Reign both in Prince and People tho' much turmoil'd by Faction Schisms and Heresie wherein notwithstanding she no more lost her possession and continuance than she did in time of the raging Arians Donatists or other Sectaries that prevailed in power for the present time either generally or in some particular Provinces as Lutherans and Zwinglians also did in King Henry's days in divers places or do at this day which yet was and is so as they are easily distinguished from the other not only by the Divisions and Differences among themselves but also for that the Union of the Catholic Religion doth ever shew it self in some Regions adjoyning yea commonly also even in those very places where these Sects do range and bear most rule some Catholics do remain to contradict them openly and to plead for their old possession and the greater the Persecution is the greater and more eminent is this Catholic contradicting part stirred up and increased by the very Power and Vertue of the Cross of Christ in Persecution as before hath been noted 16. And this was the state of Catholic Religion in King Henry's Reign to wit that it was held and defended publicly except only the Article of Ecclesiastical Supremacy denied to the Pope whereunto notwithstanding many thousands of the Realm never agreed and consequently were truly Catholics Heretics also were punished especially those three Sects that principally ranged at that time to wit Lutherans Anabaptists and Zwinglians all three taking their Origin from Luther so as of all these three Sects King Henry burned many and albeit of the fourth sort of men that opposed themselves against him to wit Catholics he put divers also to death under the name of Papists yet both this very Name as also the different manner of their Deaths but above all the nature of their Cause doth evidently distinguish them from the other and shew that their Deaths were true Martyrdoms and the others due Punishment for their Wickedness 17. For first the name of Papists that signifieth them to hold with the Pope as Supreme Head of their Church importeth no more hurt or offence than if any Sedition moved within any Realm those that hold with the King should be called Kinglings or those for example that hold part with the Mayor of London when any Apprentices would raise Rebellion against him should scornfully be called Mayorists and generally for a man to hold with his Lawful Superiour cannot be termed a Faction and much less an Heresie 18. Secondly the very difference and manner of punishment used by King Henry towards both parts the one by Fire the others by Beheading and Hanging doth evidently shew what difference he made of them the one as of Heretics and the other as of men offending against his State and Person after he had made the Supremacy Ecclesiastical to be a matter of his State and of his Royal Dignity whereby also he shewed that he was no Gospeller 19. But now for the third point which is the most important of all the rest to shew the difference in these mens Causes and that the Catholics suffered innocently for their Conscience and consequently were true Martyrs and that the other sorts of Sectaries were punished deservedly as Malefactors it is not hard to prove to him that is of any mean consideration or indifferency in matters For first who will not grant but that he that is an honest and good man when he goeth to bed for example cannot easily be made an evil man in his sleep without any motive of his affection or free will at all And again He that is a good and true Subject towards his Prince and Countrey this day how can he well to morrow be judged a Traytor the highest sin of all other if in the mean space he change not his mind nor do any act of word or deed contrary to that he did before And yet this was the Cause of the Catholics put to death under King Henry for the Supremacy 20. As for Example Sir Thomas More was Prisoner in the Tower of London upon some displeasure in the year 1534 where he attending only to his Prayers as himself testifieth and to the Writing of some Spiritual Books pertaining to the contempt of this present transitory World there passed in the mean time a Statute in the Parliament-house appointing that whomsoever did not believe the King's Majesty to be Supreme Head of the Church of England in causes Ecclesiastical should be a Traitor and suffer death for it which seeming a new and strange thing unto him and contrary to the belief of all his Forefathers he could not so soon conform himself thereunto and consequently refused when he was demanded to subscribe to the Statute and to make so great a change in his Faith upon the change of others for which soon after he was put to death not for that he had attempted altered or innovated any thing as you see but for that he would not alter and make innovation And this was the proper true cause of all Catholics that suffered for the Supremacy under King Henry VIII 20. But on the contrary side the others that were put to death by him as Sectaries did wickedly and presumptuously alter and innovate of their own heads many things about Belief and Doctrin different from that which they had received and contrary to the Belief of all their Forefathers ancient Christians for many Ages together and that with such obstinacy as no Reason Authority Discipline or Order no Witness Human or Divine could prevail with them and albeit for this obstinacy
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
Arundel Shrewsbury Paget and others they all died Catholicly and most of them in this Queens days when with much favour of the State they might have shewed themselves Heretics 40. And thus much for the Reign of King Edward after whom Queen Mary succeeding restored Catholic Religon to her seat and ancient possession again which having endured only five years it pleased God to give another trial and probation to his Servants by a new alteration in the beginning of her Majesty's Reign that now is but yet not so forsaking them nor their Cause but he left sufficient testimony in our Realm at that time what Religion had born rule unto that day and how and when the change began For first of all the Bishops and chief Prelates of the Realm not only resisted this mutation but most of them suffered Imprisonment or Banishment for the same as London Winchester Durham Carlisle Worcester Lichfield Ely Lincoln Peterborough Asaph Chester tho' some few other were not at first put in Prison but detained only in Custody and deprived as York Exceter Bath and Wells I will omit other principal men as Deans and Archdeacons of Churches as Dr. Cole of London Dr. Steward of Winchester Dr. Robinson of Durham Dr. Setland of Worcester Dr. Rambridge of Litchfield Dr. John Harpesfield of Norwich Dr. Joliff of Bristol Dr. Boxall of Windsor Dr. Nicholas Harpesfield of Canterbury Dr. Dracott of York Dr. Peter of Buckingham Dr. Cheasey of Middlesex and many others which were over-long to rehearse all I omit also Dr. Fecknam Abbot of Westminster and the two learned Priors of the Carthusians Chasey and Wilson and many other Religious Men that left their Livings and the Realm not to be forced to yield to this change Which multitude of learned Witnesses not to speak of infinite others of less degree being the chief throughout all Shires of England where they dwelt did well shew by their constant profession unto their dying days what root and foundation Catholic Religion had in England at that time and hath yet I doubt not as after shall be shewed 41. And albeit in these forty years and more that have endured since the beginning of this change the Temporal State of our Realm hath for our sins been opposite and enemy to this Religion with full intent to extirpate and extinguish the same yet such is the everlasting force of Truth and so faithful is the holy Providence of Almighty God for defence thereof in times of most need and pressure that the Catholic Faith and Profession thereof hath never been more eminent and illustrious in England than in this time of so grievous affliction there having been above an hundred Priests not to speak of others of other Degree that have made profession thereof at the Bars and Benches of most of all the Tribunals and Judgment-seats of England and have sealed also their Confession with most willing offering of their Blood. 42. And indeed that which is most rare and worthy noting in this affair is that most of them were born and bred in England during the time of her Majesty's Reign and were brought up in the Religion that now is professed within the Realm divers of them also had study'd at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge where they had heard the adverse Part alledge for themselves what they could and themselves had read and examined with no small diligence what grounds the Protestants had for their Opinions which being done they went over the Seas to hear and see the Catholic Party and so resolve themselves more substantially in such matters as nearest concerned their eternal Salvation wherein being throughly satisfied in all their doubts they passed further and became Priests and so returned into England again to impart to others the hidden Treasure of Truth which themselves had found out And albeit divers of them were of that Kindred and Parentage and so qualified also in themselves that they might have lived both wealthily and at their ease if they would have followed the World and present course of Times yet made they choice rather to fall into manifold Dangers Imprisonments and Death it self than to forsake the truth of Catholic Religion or forbear to communicate the same to others which is another manner of ground and foundation for their Constancy than John Fox recounteth in many of his Martyrs who upon toys became Protestants and of meer ignorance and obstinacy went to the Fire for the same as namely Joan Lashford a married Maid as he saith of twenty years old that took aversion from the Mass when she was but eleven years old upon very good grounds you must imagin in those years of her Age as also Agnes Potten and Joan Trunchfield the Wives of a Beer-brewer and Shoe-maker of Ipswich resolved to go to the Fire upon a certain Vision that one Samuel a Minister told them that he had in the Prison with them And upon the same ground it seemeth another Wench called Rose Nottingham embraced the said Minister and kissed him in the street as he went towards burning 43. Andrew Hewit in like manner an Apprentice of London of nineteen years old determined to die with John Frith then in the Tower of London for the Opinions that he would die for tho' yet he did not know what his Opinions were William Hunter also another Apprentice of London and of the same age of nineteen years running away from his Master and finding an old English Bible lying in the Chappel of Burntwood fell to reading thereof and thereby presently became a Protestant in divers Opinions and would needs burn for the same Rawling White likewise is recounted by Fox to have been an old poor Fisher-man in Wales and hearing of a certain new fresh Doctrin to be had out of the Scriptures in English and grieved that himself was not able to read them he put his little Boy to School to learn to read who being somewhat instructed in that Art he caused him to read Scriptures unto him and profited so much therein within a little time that the old Fisher-man began to be a Preacher and so leaving his Occupation went up and down Wales with his Boy after him bearing the Bible out of which he took upon him to preach at every Town and Tavern thereof seeking thereby to pervert such as were no wiser than himself nor could he be restrained from his wilful folly until the Bishop of Cardiff apprehended him whom afterward also he was forced to burn for that he stood obstinate in his fantastical Opinions which were such as scarce agreed with any Sect whatsoever And finally Laurence Sanders a famous scarlet Martyr of theirs being a married Priest and seeing a little Bastard of his brought to him in Prison by the Woman that bare it he was so tenderly affected thereunto as in great vehemency of spirit he said to the standers by What man of my Vocation would not die to
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
by that Succession of Roman Bishops the true Succession of one and the self-same Catholic Faith to have endured not only in these several Countreys but also over all Christendom and that from Christ to those times esteeming this to be a most invincible Proof and certain Demonstration or to use St. Irenaeus his own words plenissimam ostensionem a most full probation against all Heretics whatsoever 7. According to which Principle and sure Foundation all other Fathers also that have ensued since from Age to Age have stood very resolutely upon this point of Succession against the Heretics of their times Brevem saith St. Hierom apertamque animi mei sententiam proferam in illa esse Ecclesia permanendum quae ab Apostolis fundata usque ad diem hanc durat I will utter briefly my sentence and judgment we must abide in that Church which being founded by the Apostles hath endured unto this day As if he had said We must be and abide in that Church which as it was visibly founded and spread over the World by the Apostles Preaching so it hath visibly been continued under her Bishops and Teachers unto this day Which sentence of his St. Augustin that lived with him tho' somewhat younger confirmeth in these words Dubitabimus nos illius Ecclesiae considere gremio quae ab Apostolica sede per Successiones Episcoporum frustra haereticis circumlatrantibus culmen Authoritatis obtinuit Shall we doubt still to rest in the lap of that Church which hath kept continually the height of her Authority by Succession of Bishops from the See-Apostolic unto this day notwithstanding the vain barking of Heretics on every side of her 8. Thus said St. Augustin of the visible Church in his days which had not continued much more than 400 years But what would he say if he liv'd in our days after almost 1200 years Succession more since he wrote this when he should hear far greater and more spiteful barking of Heretics against the same than he heard in his days tho' then also he heard much and much of that which we hear now But if St. Augustin should live now again there is no doubt of one thing which is that he would make this his Argument of Succession far more strong against our Heretics and esteem it so much the more by how much the Power of Christ hath shewed it self more Omnipotent in continuing the same since for so many Ages more after him amidst so many troubles and turmoils changes and alterations of Empires and Kingdoms and Temporal States as before we have noted And if in England we can number above seventy Archbishops of Canterbury all of one Religion the one succeeding the other since our first Conversion by St. Augustin our Apostle not to speak any thing of the British Church before us as you may see confessed by Cambden and other new heretical Writers of our own and that this English Church was the same in Faith and Belief with the British as before hath been shewed and both of them one with the Roman and General Church from the very beginning to this time what an Antiquity is this and how clear and evident a Succession And how would St. Augustin urge this Argument against our Protestants if he were now alive again 9. Sure I am that if any one Baron Earl or Duke in England could shew but the half of these years for the continuance and possession of any Temporal State Lordship or Land in England he would highly esteem thereof and thereby make a glorious defence against any wrangling Companion that should presume to pretend the same and deprive him thereof if he could truly say and prove as we do in the Cause of our Church that his Ancestors for 1300 years together had continued in that possession But no man can prescribe any such time in temporal matters and therefore are they well called Temporal for that they change in a little time And he that will read the foresaid Cambden's Story towards the end of every English Shire where he taketh upon him to recount the Earls or Dukes that have had their States and Titles over that Shire he shall see such a broken Succession in those States and Signories as it is pitiful to behold no Dukedom or Earldom continuing lightly three or four Generations together in any one Name or Family And this is the frailty and uncertainty of human things 10. But for matters of Religion appertaining to the Soul Almighty God hath given another manner of force unto Succession both of Men and Faith. As for example in the Law of Nature he made the same to endure by only Tradition without Writing for more than 2500 years under the ancient Patriarchs before and after the Flood of Noe. And afterward again in the written Law the Jews continued the possession of their Religion by Succession of Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governors from Moses unto Christ above 1500 years notwithstanding all varieties of times and calamities And no less from Christ to our Age hath he continued the same in a much more glorious sort and manner In which latter time of Christian Religion to speak only of this for the present so many mutations have been made both in the Roman Empire it self and all other Realms and Kingdoms round about us as all men know and may be seen in Histories And yet hath the Succession of the Catholic Church and Pastors thereof together with the Union of Faith therein taught been most miraculously conserved amongst all these tossings and turmoils breaches and divisions of Temporal Kingdoms which could never have been but by the Omnipotent Hand of our Savior that hath defended it especially considering withal the great multitude of Sects and Heresies that from time to time have risen and attempted to impugn the same but could never prevail And this is sufficient for this first and principal point of the vertue and force of Ecclesiastical Succession 11. The second point to be considered is That when Luther's new Religion began and could alledge no Successors of Bishops or ancient Teachers for it self but was much pressed with this other of the Catholics he devised a certain notorious and ridiculous shift to say that the true Church was invisible to the eye of man and only seen by God and consequently had no need of any visible or external Succession of Men. And this shift of his is discovered by that he writeth both against Erasmus and Catharinus and in his wicked Treatise de abroganda Missa privata for taking away private Masses where having had Conference with the Devil as himself confesseth he asketh very stoutly Who can shew us the Church seeing she is secret and to be believed only in Spirit To whom if any man would oppose S. Aug. that saith digito ostendimus Ecclesiam we can shew the Church with our finger should not Luther be well match'd think you 12. The like held
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
discipline of your Confederation that your Bishops must sacrifice in Gold and dispense Blood in Silver Cups and that in your Night-Vigils you have Waxen Torches in Golden Candlesticks c. And thus much of St. Laurence whose Persecutor speaketh like a perfect Protestant which is an Argument that himself was none 9. Now as for the other glorious Martyr and Bishop St. Cyprian who suffered under the same Emperour and in the same year that Pope Sixtus and St. Laurence did as appears by Pontius his Deacon that lived with him we have shewed before that the Magdeburgians do reprehend him sharply I mean St. Cyprian for this very point about offering Sacrifice for that he saith Sacerdotem vice Christi fungi Deo Patri sacrificium offerre lib. 2. ep 3. That the Priest doth perform the Office of Christ and offereth Sacrifice to God the Father So as now we have here three Massing or Sacrificing Priests which is the highest Crime objected to Priests now in England and a Massing Deacon that helpeth to Mass and all four most glorious Martyrs within these first 300 years to wit St. Andrew the Apostle by his own Confession St. Sixtus Bishop of Rome by the testimony of St. Laurence St. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage by the accusation of the Magdeburgians and St. Laurence the Deacon by testimony of Prudentius St. Ambrose and others And it were over-long to pass any further in this examination for that the Examples would be infinite this be-being sufficient to shew how little it maketh for John Fox his purpose to have brought in this so large and particular a story of all the Martyrs of the first ten Persecutions they being so opposite to his late Protestant Martyrs as they are 10. Well then this is sufficient for these Martyrs But what shall we say to the whole intent and drift of John Fox which should have been as you know to lay before us the continual descent throughout these first three Ages of his poor oppressed and persecuted and yet the only true Church of Christ almost scarce visible or known to worldly eyes c This I say he should have shewed and laid open to us for that we find no other Christian Church known in the World in these first 300 years but only One which tho' it were much persecuted yet was it neither obscure nor hidden from the eyes either of good or bad but most visible and apparent to all the World. And in the end of these 300 years to wit under Constantine the Emperour and Silvester the Pope of Rome the same came to be so magnificent and glorious as all the World remained astonished thereat which appeareth partly by that which Eusebius and all other Ecclesiastical Writers do recount in the Life of the said Constantine especially Eusebius that wrote four whole Books of the said Constantine's Life and Actions who was a most excellent Christian Emperour And amongst other points of his most pious Devotion it is recorded that he builded four goodly Churches within the City of Rome carrying Earth to the first Foundation of them with his own hands and adorning them with holy Images endowing the same with rich Possessions Furniture and Ecclesiastical Ornaments and consecrated precious Vessels for Divine Service dedicating the one of them which was his own Palace of Lateran unto our Savior and St. John Baptist the other to St. Peter the third to St. Paul and the fourth to St. Laurence all which do remain unto this day and the very manner of building thereof with their Altars Fonts Pictures and other such-like Antiquities do well shew without Books what manner of Religion was then in use 11. This was the known visible Church then of Christians in those days as glorious and renowned as can be imagined Of which Church one wrote at that time to Constantine himself thus Quis locus in terra est c What place is there in the whole Earth which hath not received the Faith of Christ either where the Sun riseth or where it falleth where the North-Pole is elevated or where the South all is filled with the Majesty of this God. The same writeth Optatus Concedite Deo c. Yield this unto Christ who is God that his Garden spread it self over all the World Can you deny unto him now but that Christians do possess both East West North and South as also the Provinces of innumerable Islands And the same hath St. Basil in his 72d and 75th Epistle and the like St. Hilary lib. 6. de Trinitate This then was the greatness of this Universal Catholic Church at that day and of this Church were counted the head Bishops for all these 300 years the Popes and Bishops of Rome as appeareth by the deductions made by Irenaeus Tertullian and others before mentioned and in this Church was held to be all Catholic Truth and none out of it Which being so I would gladly know what poor obscure trodden-down Church neglected in the World not regarded in Histories and almost scarce visible or known which yet he saith to be the only true Church of God can John Fox find us out in these first 300 years especially seeing he saith also that it must be different from the Church of Rome as from the Devil's Chappel and that it must come down from the Apostles time and always hold some sparkles of true Doctrin 12. For Example or Proof whereof notwithstanding he mentioneth no one Man Woman or Child that was of that Church in all these 300 years and consequently he driveth us to imagin or seek out who they are that made up this obscure Church of his different and opposite to the Roman And I can find none except the known Heretics of these first three Ages to whom the description of his Church may easily agree for first none will deny but that albeit they were many in number as Simon Magus and his Followers the Nicolaits Cerynthians Ebionites Menandrians Saturnians in the first Age Basilidians Gnosticks Cerdonists Marcionists Valentinians Encratites Montanists and others in the second Age as also Helchesits Novatians Sabellians Manichees and many more in the third Age and that in divers Countries and Provinces they had their Followers their Churches their Assemblies under the name of Reformed Christians Elect People and men of more perfection than the rest yet in respect of the glorious Catholic Church that shined throughout the World they were just as John Fox describeth his People here to wit a poor oppressed and persecuted Church c. Oppressed by force of Truth and persecuted by the famous Writings of Catholic Doctors against them as after the Apostles themselves St. Ignatius Justinus Martyr St. Dionyse of Corinth St. Polycarp Irenaeus Clem. Alexandrinus Tertullian Origen Cyprian Ammonius Pamphilus Arnobius and others They were persecuted also by the Excommunications and spiritual Censures of all Catholic Bishops throughout the World but especially by the
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
years next before the entrance of St. Augustin was for Him and His Church and not for Ours yea different from the Roman Religion brought in by Augustin as often you have heard him protest and here had been the proper place to have proved it if it had been provable And whereas in the same Protestation of his prefixed before his whole Volume he avouched as you have heard that the chief British Preachers and Teachers of these times before St. Augustin's coming as Fastidius Ninianus Patricius Dubritius Congellus David Asaphus Gildas and others before mentioned were true Teachers and taught the Gospel rightly according to the Protestant Faith and consequently were of his Religion he ought here to have proved the same by their Writings Lives Acts and Monuments as I have shewed the contrary by all these kind of Arguments and Proofs before But the Fox knowing the difficulty and peril of this Combat would not enter into the same nor take upon him to defend or justifie any thing at all tho' never so much promised or protested in his Prefaces and Preambles at the beginning Whereof the Reasons are these that ensue 11. First For that touching the British Church during these three Ages he had in truth nothing at all to write or relate but what would be manifestly against himself if he had written or related it and descended to particulars For according to that you have heard before in divers places of this Treatise that as the first Faith of the Britans came from Rome and thereby they were made Members of the Roman Church from the beginning so remained they united with the same in all points of Faith and Religion except some few abuses crept in among part of them towards the latter-end of these three Ages until the Conversion of the English by St. Augustin to the same Roman Faith. Which point is proved so evidently by so many Signs Arguments and Demonstrations as little comfort might John Fox have to enter into this Discourse or Examination and consequently tho' he had promised in the beginning to treat this Subject of the British Church yet coming to the place and time when he should have performed his promise he thought better to withdraw himself slightly by utter silence than to put himself in Briars by making any mention at all thereof And thus much for his silence concerning the Christian Church of Britanny in these three Ages 12. But for the general Catholic Church of Christendom tho' these times yield abundant matter as hath been said yet the whole stream and current thereof running quite against him he thought best in like manner to decline craftily the medling or wrestling therewith And so much the more for that he had seen the pitiful plight wherein his Masters the Magdeburgians had cast themselves in their fourth fifth and sixth Centuries by over-large relating the Acts and Gests of these three Ages against themselves and their own Religion being forc'd to spend a great part of their Labors not so much in relating what the Fathers of those Ages writ or held as to answer and refute the same and shew that it was not true nor the said Doctors and Fathers to be believed therein Which trouble John Fox like a wily Fox indeed thought best to avoid by Art of Silence I will in this place for examples sake only and to give you a taste of the said Magdeburgians dealing throughout their whole Work from which John Fox taketh the principal parts of his let you see some points taken out of their fourth Century dedicated to her Majesty of England with a sharp Invective as before hath been shewed used by them against the Calvinists therein which Century containeth the fourth Hundred year after Christ and the first of the three which now we have in hand from Constantine downward wherein they spend above 400 Leaves in Folio and more than twice as much in the other two Centuries that ensue John Fox not having bestow'd four Leaves upon all three Ages as you have heard 13. And that you may perceive how this one Century of the Magdeburgians cometh to make so great a Volume you must note that it is divided into certain large Chapters or Heads of different matters As for example first of the propagation of Christian Religion in that Age and the State thereof throughout all Countreys Kingdoms and Nations which is a large matter as you see comprehending the Stories of all Ecclesiastical Writers Secondly of Persecutions Troubles and Jars that have passed as also of Peace and Tranquility Then of Doctrin good or bad then of Heresies then of Rites and Ceremonies then of Ecclesiastical Government then of Schisms then of Synods and Councils then of Bishops Doctors and Teachers their Lives Works and Actions at large then of Heretics their beginnings and endings then of Martyrs then of Miracles then of Pagan Commonwealths also and other such points capable as you see of long Discourses Which I thought fit once to note to the end that those which have not read the Centuries may know in general what matters they handle and what method they use therein 14. Secondly it is to be noted about the same affair That in all these Heads and Chapters there be divers things which are not in controversie among us I mean between Catholics and Protestants but are common to us both at least in some degrees Other Points there are that they affirm and we deny or we affirm and they deny There is a third kind also of Points wherein tho' We and Protestants do not agree fully either in the Doctrin or in the Practice yet one Sect of them differeth more or less from us than the other And in all these three Points you shall see some brief Examples of the Magdeburgians manner of proceeding in this fourth Age Noting to you first by the way their own Testimony of the excellent Learning of the Doctors and Teachers thereof in these words Habuit haec aet as si quae unquam alia plurimos praestantes illustres Doctores ut Arnobium Lactantium c. This Age if ever any other had very many most excellent and famous Doctors as Arnobius Lactantius Eusebius Athanasius Hilarius Victorinus Basilius Nazianzenus Ambrosius Prudentius Epiphanius Theophilus Hieronymus Faustinus Didymus Ephrem Optatus and others out of which we shall shew and declare what was the form of Christian Doctrin used in this Age. 15. Lo there the Testimony of the Magdeburgians of the famous Doctors Teachers and Leaders of Christ's Church in this Age And being such as they say so excellently Learned and endued with Christ's Spirit for Guiding of his Church is it probable think you that these four German Magdeburgians Illyricus Wigandus Judex and Faber shall come to presume afterward to condemn them all of Ignorance and lack of Spirit when they speak against them Truly they cannot do it with any shame fac'dness or modesty at all or be believed
dived in the water that they must have Lamps lighted at their Baptism And for the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar they shew us How it was wont to be administred and sent when occasion was offered from one place to another how often it should be received and with what reverence and with what Vigils and Prayers before and how it was wont to be carried to them that lay on their Death-bed and how they were bound to confess it openly to be the true Body and Blood of Christ before they received it and what great Miracles fell out for proof and confirmation of the truth about this Real Presence These and almost infinite other points like unto these the Magdeburgians do prove at length to have been in use throughout this fourth Age by the Testimonies and Writings of the principal Doctors thereof 27. Wherefore I will leave the Reader to consider what manner of people these Lutheran Writers are who do record so many important Testimonies against themselves and having alledged them then they refute all again presently with this bare shift that they are either Jewish or Pagan Ceremonies brought in by the Fathers upon Superstition and so not to be regarded and this they think to be sufficient to refute them all As for Example talking of the Ceremony of Fasting in those days what Meats they did eat and how rigorously they abstained and how long these good fellows do write thus Jejunia observasse religiosiùs quidem seu superstitiosiùs quà m superioribus saeculis hujus aetatis Christianos Historiae testantur Histories do testifie unto us that the Christians of this Age did observe Fasting-days more religiously or rather more superstitiously than any Age before for that Human Traditions began now to be more multiplied and Epiphanius doth say that the Fast of Wednesdays and Fridays was observed at this time as a Tradition of the Apostles but we find no such thing in their Works Thus said these Germans that never perhaps fasted a day in their life nor ever abstained for Devotion-sake from any good morsel of Meat that their Lips could reach unto And so much of these men for they are not worth the spending of time to refute them Well then by these few Examples taken out of two Chapters only of the Magdeburgians about this fourth Age we see what may be gathered if we would go over all the three Centuries for these three Ages from Constantine to St. Gregory and thereby also we see the reason why Fox wrote so little of these three Ages being wholly against them 28. But now perhaps the Reader will ask how it falleth out that John Fox having dedicated a special Book to wit his second of Acts and Monuments unto these three Ages after Constantine for so is his Title how I say he could make up a distinct Book and yet say nothing of the Ecclesiastical Affairs therein contained Whereunto I answer That this is another Foxly fetch of his to promise and not perform and to do one thing for another for that despairing to have matter to his purpose out of the former three Ages as hath been shewed he slideth away slightly to another Argument which he had not promised in his Title to wit of some things fallen out in our English Church in the next 200 years after from the time of St. Augustin and King Ethelbert unto the time of King Egbert first Monarch of the English about the year of Christ 800. But for that these two Ages to wit the seventh and eighth do contain the times of our primitive English Church I think best to treat severally thereof in the next Chapter following this being sufficient to shew that in these second 300 years John Fox had as little room for his Church as in the former CHAP. IV. How matters passed in the Christian Church both abroad and at home in England during the third station of Time from Pope Gregory and Ethelbert King of Kent unto Egbert our first Monarch containing the space of two hundred years THere followeth in order the third distinction or station of Times appointed by John Fox in the beginning of his History and promised by him to be handled distinctly in the prosecution of his Work and so indeed this station ought to have been above the rest for that it containeth the time of our English primitive Church to wit the two first hundred years thereof from St. Augustin downward But as you have heard before he finding scarce any thing in these two Ages which delighted his heretical humor no not our very Conversion it self from Paganism to Christian Religion he shuffleth the same over in the end of his foresaid second Book together with the second 300 years after Christ from Constantine to Pope Gregory as before hath been shewed So as he includeth the Acts of 500 years of the most Famous and Glorious Times that ever were in the Church of God whether we respect the General and Universal Church or the Church of England in particular in a little Book of a dozen Leaves only of which dozen Leaves the least part doth concern this time whereas when he cometh down to handle the Acts and Gests of John Wickliff John Husse Hierom of Prague and other such paltry Heretics not worth the talking of he writeth whole Volumes and many hundred Leaves together but of these 200 years of our first Conversion and primitive Church Fathers Doctors and Saints thereof he writeth both very little and most contemptuously and yet wanted he not Authors to give him matter in this behalf seeing that St. Bede that lived in the first of these 200 years hath left five whole Books of the Acts and Gests thereof besides other that have ensued as Gosselinus Malmsbury Westmonasteriensis and others 2. But the truth is that John Fox seeing these times to be wholly against him and that they lay down more clearly before us if it may be than the rest especially to English-men the Truth and Evidence of the Catholic Roman Faith he had no heart nor courage to deal much therewith but sought to shuffle over in silence so much as he might conveniently and the rest to discredit by scoffs taunts corruption and falsification as after you shall see for I have thought good to make a distinct Chapter of these two Ages and thereby somewhat to let you see and behold what passed therein tho' very briefly and how John Fox doth behave himself in relating the same 3. First then if we consider the Universal Church of Christendom in these 200 years which are the 700 and 800 years of Christ there are recounted to have sitten in the Roman See Thirty-three Popes from Gregory I. to Leo III. and in the East Empire the West being decay'd before some Nineteen or Twenty Emperors reigned one after another from Mauritius to Constantine VI. and Irene his Mother in whose time Charles the Great of France was made Emperor of the
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
what he thought best in this little Sentence to make those Fathers seem to say as he would have them in favor of a condemn'd Heresie To which effect he putteth out as you have seen the word Dominica which maketh or marreth all the matter and then for post 14 Lunam written at large in St. Bede he putteth in prima 14 Luna short in numbers only to make it more obscure adding prima of his own and putting out post from the words of the Council thereby to make the sense more clear in favor of the Heresie for that prima 14 Luna Mensis primi which are his words do signifie the fourteenth day of the first Moon of March expresly And moreover he addeth of his own these words upon one certain day which the Decree hath not meaning thereby that this fourteenth day must be observed with such certainty as it may not be altered or deferred to any Sunday but must be observed as an immovable Feast which out of Luther we have shewed before also to be his meaning And thus much of the first Decree 17. The last and tenth Decree hath no less fraud and malice used against it by Fox than this first for the malicious shameless Fellow would make those Fathers of that Synod to favor the Doctrin and Practice of the Protestants in putting away their Wives for Fornication and marrying another for to this effect he citeth the Canon Tenthly That no man may put away his Wife for any cause except only for Fornication after the Rule of the Gospel And there breaketh off as tho' the Council had said no more nor added any further caution or explication of their meaning Whereof it would ensue as Protestants do infer that seeing a man may put away one Wife for Fornication and is not bound to live unmarried if he have not the gift of Continency he may lawfully take another Wife as the practice of Protestants is at this day in England But the Reader must know that immediatly after the former words by him recited there follow in the Canon others that mar all his Market for thus they lie together 18. Nullus conjugem propriam nifi ut sanctum Evangelium docet Fornicationis causa relinquat Quòd si quisquam propriam expulerit conjugem legitimo sibi matrimonio conjunctam si Christianus esse rectè voluerit nulli alteri copuletur sed ita permaneat aut propriae reconcilietur conjugi Let no man leave his own Wife but only as the holy Gospel teacheth us for the cause of Fornication and if any man should put away his Wife that is joyned unto him by lawful Marriage if he will be a true Christian let him not marry another but either remain so in Continency or be reconciled to his own Wife again 19. Lo here the fidelity of John Fox in relating matters This Canon determineth two things you see First That a man may not leave the company or cohabitation of his Wife but only for the sin of Fornication committed by her The second That being so separated he may not marry another for any cause but either must remain continent or be reconcil'd to his former Wife again And this was the Doctrin of the Catholic Church then and is now which our Fox would fain have concealed from his Reader and have made him believe that the old primitive English Church had been for Them and their Practice at this day But the poor Reynard is taken at every winding when he is followed which were impossible to do in all his false doublings And so these two Examples only shall suffice to shew his tricks in this first point of Falsification Let us pass to the second of wilful Omission 20. There remaineth to say a word or two of his Omissions whereby he leaveth out of purpose from his Story those things which might give Credit or Reputation to our English Church in these ancient times which he seeketh by all means to make ridiculous and contemptible As for Example the Number and Quality of the Prelates and Learned Men that then flourished and were present in these Synods the Reasons and Arguments and other like Circumstances partly set down by St. Bede and other Authors upon divers occasions and partly registred in the very Prefaces of the Synods themselves As for Example in this first Synod here cited they begin thus 21. In Nomine Domini Dei Salvatoris Jesu Christi c. In the Name of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ reigning for ever and governing his Church it pleased him that we should meet together according to the Custom of the Venerable Canons of the Church to handle necessary business of our English Church Wherefore we met together upon the 24th day of the Month of September in the first Indiction in a place called Herudfrod I Theodorus tho' unworthy appointed by the See-Apostolic Bishop of the Church of Canterbury and our Fellow-Bishop and Brother the most Reverend Bisy Bishop of the East-Angles and our Brother and Fellow Priest Wilfrid Bishop of the Nation of the Northumbers was present by his proper Legats there were present also our Brethren and Fellow-Priests Putta Bishop of the Castle of Kent commonly called Rhofessester Eleutherius also Bishop of the West-Saxons and Winfrid Bishop of the Mercians And when we were all come together and every man set according to his Order and Degree I said unto them Most dear Brethren I beseech you for the Fear and Love of our Savior that we may handle here in common the things that belong unto our Faith to the end that these things which have been decreed and defined by the Holy ancient Fathers about the same may be kept uncorrupt by us all c. 22. This is part of the Preface to the first Synod out of which the former Decrees related and corrupted by Fox as you have heard were taken and by the very words of this Entrance or Preface there is more serious gravity signified than Fox would seem to acknowledge at this day in England But seven years after this again the said Theodorus made another Synod passed over in silence by Fox but St. Bede relateth the same in these words 23. His temporibus audiens Theodorus c. At this time Theodorus the Archbishop hearing that the Church of Constantinople was greatly troubled by the Heresie of Eutyches that deny'd two Natures to be in Christ or that his Flesh was like ours and desiring greatly that the Churches of England over which he had Jurisdiction should continue free from such Infection he gathered together a Synod of very many Venerable Priests and Learned Bishops and finding them after diligent enquiry made to agree all together in one Catholic Faith he thought good to set the same down by Synodical Letters for Instruction and Memory of Posterity which began thus In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ our Savior in the Reign of our most
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
humor our latter Sectaries also have thought best to continue 23. But if we go to more ancient Writers such I mean as lived in the very time or soon after the matter is pretended to have fallen out that is to say with Leo IV. that held the See eight years six months and three days from the year of Christ 847 to 855 and with Pope Benedictus III. that immediately followed him after some few days of vacancy to wit from the year 855 to 858. These Authors I say do shew evidently that these two Popes being both Romans succeeded immediately one after another without any John or Joan coming in between them As for Example Anastasius Bibliothecarius a man of great Reputation that lived in both these Popes times and was present at both their Elections and wrote the particulars thereof sheweth amongst other points That Leo IV. died the 16th day before the Calends of August and that all the Clergy of Rome being gathered together he doth not say the Cardinals as foolish John Fox doth for that that kind of Election was not then in use with one consent did choose Benedict III. c. 24. Thus writeth Anastasius and with him do agree the Historiographers that followed next after him as Audomarus Luitprandus Rhegino Hermanus Contractus Lambertus Schafnabergensis Otho Frisengensis Conradus Abbas Vrspergensis and others long before Martinus Polonus who in their Chronologies do place Benedictus III. immediately after Leo IV. without admitting any other Man or Woman between them And the very same also doth write Ado Bishop of Vienna that lived at the same time Leone obeunte Benedictus in sede Apostolica constituitur Leo IV. being dead Benedict was placed for him in the Apostolical See. And as for Joannes VIII they do place him four Popes after Leo IV. to wit next to Adrianus II. and say he was a Roman and reigned ten years distinctly So as if they should miss in this count of Popes and Years the Error must needs be manifest in Chronology Yea not only Latin Writers but even the Greek Historiographers Zonaras Cedrenus Curopalatas and others that wrote before Martinus Polonus of matters concerning the Latin Church in those days and were no Friends to the same and would have been content of such an Advantage to object against it yet write they nothing thereof at all which is an evident proof that there was no such matter 25. But besides these Authorities of external Authors I have one Argument also of no small moment as it seemeth to me taken from our ancient English Histories written in the Latin Tongue to wit William of Malmsbury Henry Huntington Roger Hoveden Florentius Vigorniensis and Matthew of Westminster whereof the first four lived 500 years agone and are elder than Polonus and the latest of them 300 years and was equal with him and no one of them all maketh any mention of this Pope Joan which yet in reason they should have done above others for that they do all agree that in the time of Pope Leo IV. towards the end of his Reign about the year of Christ 853 King Ethelwolph before mentioned Son to King Egbert having put his Kingdom of England in the best order he could and left the Government thereof for his absence to his eldest Son Aethelbald assisted with the helps of his second and third Brothers Athelbricke and Athelred took his journey for Rome leading with him his fourth Son Alured or Alfred who afterward also was King which he loved most tenderly above the rest of his Children And coming to Rome he delivered the same Alfred being yet of very young Age according to the account of Matthew Westminster into the hands of the said Pope Leo IV. to be instructed and brought up by him as John Fox also relateth and that the said Pope received him with great kindness and was his Godfather in the Sacrament of Confirmation detaining him there with him But how long this Prince stay'd in Rome after his Father's return tho' it be not set down in particular yet that it was some number of years seemeth evident both for that he return'd more Learned and otherwise better qualified than any Saxon King had been before him and for that we find no mention of his Acts in England until in the Reign of his third Brother Athelred for all three reigned in order after Ethelwolf their Father upon the year 871 at the famous Battle of Reading in Barkshire fought against the Danes where he being present and Lieutenant to his Brother the King tho' he were but Twenty-two years old according to the account of Florentius and of Matthew Westminster yet seeing the Enemies Army to press upon him and his Brother to stay over long at Mass he gave them Battle in a very unequal place but with such Valour as he obtained a notable Victory c. But to our purpose of Pope Joan. 26. It is very like by that which I have said that this Prince Alfred living in Rome when Pope Leo IV. died and when Pope Benedict III. was chosen must needs have known also Pope Joan if any such had entred lived two years a half between them as Fox would have it And further that some of our ancient Historiographers writing of those Times so particularly as they do would have made some mention thereof especially if this She-Pope were an English-woman or called Joannes Anglus as Polonus saith or Anglicus as Platina relateth or if she were born brought up or had studied in England as the Magdeburgians and others of their Sect devise or if she went up and down the World in the company of an English Monk of the Monastery of Fulda as John Fox doth fable It is like I say that if any of these things had been true Prince Alfred or some of his Train residing then in Rome would have known her or been acquainted with her or with the Monk that led her about or at leastwise have received some special help at her hand when she came to be Pope which would have deserved some memory in our Histories But our foresaid Writers do not only not make any mention of her or of any John or Joan English Pope that came between Leo IV. and Benedict III. but do expresly exclude the same by placing the one immediately after the other and assigning them their distinct number of years before mentioned to wit eight years and three months to Leo and two years and six months immediately following to Benedictus III. For so doth Malmsbury in his Chronology and Florentius in his Chronicon and Matthew of Westminster in his History whose words are these Anno Gratiae 855 Leone Papa defuncto successit ei Benedictus annis duobus mensibus sex diebus decem In the year of Grace 855 Pope Leo IV. being dead Benedict III. did succeed him and sate two years six months and ten days c. Which agreeth with all the
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
throughout the World for Christ's Church are wicked and rebellious unto God and Acts of the Devil's Synagogue from the time that John Fox assigneth of her Fall and Apostacy and that on the contrary side all the Writings Actions and Gests of all sorts of Heretics against this Church from that time are the Acts and Monuments of the true Church of Christ Supposing all this I say as Fox doth there cannot want matter either on the one side or the other to fill up Volumes And the lower he passeth downward the more matter he findeth for that Sects and Sectaries increasing daily whom he registreth for Saints and Pillars of his Church the Volume of his Book must needs grow greatly And so is it seen by this fourth Book wherein from the Conquest to the latter-end of King Edward III's Reign when Wickliff began containing 300 years to wit from Anno Domini 1066 to 1370 there are spent above 100 Leaves of Paper which is much more than was in the former 1066 years But in the fifth Book from John Wickliff's time to King Henry VIII which are but 140 years are contained upon the point of 200 Leaves and then again from the beginning of King Henry's Reign to the entrance of Q. Elizabeth being but fifty years he spendeth above 600 Leaves And by this you may judge both of the Subject and Substance of John Fox's huge Volume tho' we are to look into the same somewhat more particularly also as we pass it over in this and the ensuing Chapters 3. Well then this being his device and resolution for the present to have no longer patience with our Church but wholly to deny the same his greatest difficulty seemeth to be about the Time and Causes to wit where or when or how or upon what occasion she perished or vanished away for seeing she hath continued by his Confession also for so many Years and Ages and come down unto our days under the self-same Succession of Bishops Pastors and Teachers as before and consequently also with the self-same Doctrin and Religion and with the same external Power and Majesty which it was wont it seemeth a very hard thing upon the sudden either to annihilate so Great and Mighty a Kingdom or which is much more difficult to make so strange a Metamorphosis and Mutation in her as that she having been hitherto the Church of Christ his Spouse his Kingdom his dearest Beloved and beautified with his Graces directed by his Spirit enriched with his most precious Gifts and Endowments and so acknowledged also by Fox ' himself in former Ages that now she should become Christ's Enemy and Adversary upon the sudden and the Kingdom of Satan his Eternal Foe and yet to retain still the Name Place Estimation and external Dignity which she had before professing with no less shew of duty her Obedience and Love to Christ than in former times she was wont This Change and Metamorphosis I say is most wonderful and incredible to all those that believe Christ to be God and to have been able to perform his promise that Hell-gates should never prevail against this Church Wherefore we are to examin somewhat more diligently in this Chapter how this matter could fall out and when and by what occasion come to pass for that so great and rare a Mutation as this is never fell out yet in the World before Tho' Temporal States and Kingdoms have had their changes nay all temporal mutations of Empires Kingdoms States and Monarchies have been made principally to shew the contrary stability and immutable continuation of Christ's Church once planted in the World as in part we have declared before shewing how that in all times and seasons in all variety and variations of States People Countries and Dominions as well in England as elsewhere the Christian Catholic Religion remained one and the same among them all To which effect also is that notable Prophesie of Daniel when foretelling first the breaking and overthrow of all four Monarchies by him mentioned he addeth as a notorious opposition to the same the stability and immortality of Christ's Church and Kingdom once set on foot in these words In the days of these Kingdoms God of Heaven shall raise up a Kingdom that shall never be dissipated neither shall this Kingdom be given to another people This Kingdom shall consume and wear out all the other Kingdoms but it self shall stand for ever 4. Thus saith Daniel and the most of these Points we have seen verified and fulfilled already for God of Heaven hath raised this Kingdom and visible Church of Christ which then seemed a strange matter he hath increased and continued the same for a thousand years and more as Fox will confess which is a longer time than any Temporal Monarchy lightly hath continued without change he hath overthrown in this time and consumed the other Kingdoms and Monarchies mentioned by him Now remain the other two Clauses to be fulfilled in like manner to wit That it shall stand for ever or as Christ expoundeth it usque and consummationem saeculi to to the Worlds end and then quod alteri populo non tradetur that this Kingdom shall not be delivered over to another People from that which possessed it from the beginning The quite contrary whereof teacheth here John Fox affirming this Church that hath been accounted the true Church and Kingdom of Christ for a thousand years past is now no more his Church or Kingdom nor these Popes Bishops and Pastors that are found in her to have come down by continual Succession are now no more the true and lawful Guides or Governors thereof but that it appertaineth to others and consequently this Kingdom of Christ is taken from them and delivered to another People to wit to the Berengarians to the Waldenses to the Albanenses to the Wickliffians Lutherans Zuinglians and other like people of latter Ages 5. This is John Fox his mad Assertion wherein you see he should prove two Points First That our Church is lost and fallen and our Men rightly dispossessed of the Interest thereof And then That his Men to wit these new Sectaries have entred into a just possession of that Name and Title of the true Church Both which Points we deny You shall see how he beginneth to prove the first that is to say the Fall and Overthrow of the Universal visible Church sirnamed the Roman And thus hitherto saith he stood the condition of the Church of Christ meaning the next Ages before the Conquest albeit not without some repugnance and difficulty yet in some mean state of the Truth and Verity till the time of Pope Hildebrand called Gregory VII which was near about the year 1080. and of Pope Innocentius III. in the year 1215. by whom all was turned upside down all Order broken true Doctrin defaced Christian Faith extinguished c. 6. Here you see John Fox to assign two Times and two Popes when and
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
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
the Records of the Chancery as the Act of Parliament it self whereby they were condemned of open Treason and confessed Rebellion for which sixty nine were condemned in one day by public Sentence and yet doth the mad fellow take upon him to excuse and defend them all by a long Discourse of many Leaves together scoffing and jesting as well at their Arraignment and Sentence given as also at the Act of Parliament holden at Leicester Anno 2 Hen. 5. cap. 7. and in the year of Christ 1415. And after all he setteth forth in contempt of this public Judgment a great painted Pageant or Picture of those that were hanged for that open Fact of Rebellion in St. Giles's Field in London as of true Saints and Martyrs namely of Sir Roger Acton and others pag. 540. And some Leaves after that again he setteth out another particular Pageant of the several Execution of Sir John Oldcastle with this Title The description of the cruel Martyrdom of Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham And more than this he appointeth unto them their several Festival Days in red Letters which were the days of their Hanging as unto solemn Martyrs The first upon the sixth of January with this Title Sir Roger Acton Knight Martyr And the other upon the fifth of February with this Inscription in his Calendar Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham Martyr Whereby we may see that these men do not measure things as they are in themselves but as they serve to maintain their Faction 15. And it is further to be noted That albeit these two Rebellious Knights Acton and Oldcastle besides all other their convicted Crimes did make public Profession of a far different Faith from John Fox as may be seen by the Confessions and Protestations set down by Fox himself yea and the latter of them also did openly recant all the Errors and Heresies that he had held before yet notwithstanding will not Fox so let them go but perforce will have them to be of his Church whether they will or no. It would be over long to rehearse many Examples some few shall you have for a tast 16. Page 512. Fox setteth down the Protestation of Sir John Oldcastle with this Title The Christian Belief of the Lord Cobham By which Title you may see that he liketh well of his Belief and holdeth it for truly Christian Well mark what followeth When after other Articles about the blessed Trinity and Christ's Deity Sir John Oldcastle cometh to treat of the Sacrament of the Altar he protesteth thus And forasmuch as I am falsly accused of a misbelief in the Sacrament of the Altar I signifie here to all men that this is my Faith concerning that I believe in that Sacrament to be contained very Christ's Body and Blood under the similitudes of Wine and Bread yea the same Body that was conceived of the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary hung on the Cross died and was buried arose the third day from the dead and now is glorified in Heaven This was his Confession and is related here by Fox And will Fox agree to this think you It may be he will for that he saith nothing against it at all in this place 17. But some Leaves after repeating another Testimonial of the said Oldcastle's Belief witnessed by his own Friends concerning this Article he writeth thus Furthermore He believeth that the blessed Sacrament of the Altar is verily and truly Christ's Body in form of Bread. Upon which words Fox maketh this Commentary in the Margin In form of Bread but not without Bread he meaneth Yea John is that his meaning How then standeth this with his former words Vnder the similitudes of Bread and Wine Is the Similitude of Bread true Bread Who seeth not this silly shift of a poor baited Fox that cannot tell whither to turn his head But mark yet a far worse shift 18. Sir John Oldcastle shewing his Belief about three sorts of Men the one of Saints now in Heaven the second in Purgatory the third here Militant upon Earth saith thus The holy Church I believe to be divided into three sorts or companies whereof the first are now in Heaven c. the second sort are in Purgatory abiding the Mercy of God and a full deliverance of pain the third upon Earth c. To this speech of Purgatory Fox thought best left it might disgrace his new Martyr to add this Parenthesis of his own if any such place be in the Scriptures c And by this you may perceive how he proceedeth in all the rest to wit most perfidiously like a Fox in all 19. Furthermore he setteth down at length a very ample and earnest Recantation of the said Sir John Oldcastle taken out of the Records as authentically made as can be devised Wherein he thus protested In Nomine Dei Amen I John Oldcastle denounced detected and convicted of and upon divers Articles savouring Heresie and Error c. I being evil seduced by divers Seditious Preachers have grievously erred heretically persisted blasphemously answered and obstinately rebelled c. And having recounted at length all his former condemned and heretical Opinions he endeth thus Over and besides all this I John Oldcastle utterly forsaking and renouncing all the aforesaid Errors and Heresies and all other like unto them lay my hand here upon this Book and Evangel of God and swear That I shall never more from henceforth hold these aforesaid Heresies nor yet any other like unto them wittingly c. All which Recantation and Abjuration being related at large by John Fox he saith nothing at all against it but only that it was devised by the Bishops without his consent alleging no one Author Witness Writing Record Reason or probable Conjecture for proof thereof but followeth the fond shift before touched by me against the Magdâ—burgenses of him that being accused of heinous Crimes bringeth in first the best Witnesses of all the City to prove the same against himself and then answereth all with only saying that they are Lyars and know not what they say In which kind I cannot omit to allege an Example or two more for your better satisfaction in this behalf 20. This Fox in his Protestation to the Church of England wherein he pretendeth to put the very sum of all his whole Volume being desirous to prove the Antiquity of this his visible Church not only by these Witnesses the Wickliffians Hussites Lollards and other Sectaries of that time above 200 years agone but also by the testimonies of divers Statutes and Acts of Parliaments made against them in England at the same time he citeth sundry Statutes and Acts of Parliament for that purpose and presently discrediteth the same again telling you That you must not believe Them but rather Him and His Words against them all You shall hear him in his own words 21. Let any man saith he peruse the Acts and Statutes of Parliaments passed in this
Realm of ancient times and therein consider the course of times where he may find and read Anno 5 Reg. Rich. 2. in the year of our Lord 1380 of a great number that there be called evil persons going about from Town to Town in Frize Gowns preaching unto the People c. Which Preachers tho' the words of the Statute do term them to be dissembling persons preaching divers Sermons containing Heresies and notorious Errors to the emblemishment of Christian Faith c. yet notwithstanding may every true Christian Reader conceive of those Preachers to have taught no other Doctrin than now they hear their own Preachers in Pulpits preach c. 22. Mark here three Points good Reader First That if all this were true that the Wickliffians had preached no other Doctrin than the Protestants do now yet nothing followeth of this but that Protestants Doctrin was condemned for Heresie not only by the Church-Laws but also by divers Acts of English Parliaments above 200 years past Which thing what help or credit it can bring to Fox his Religion which standeth chiefly in England by Authority of far latter Acts of Parliament I do not see for that hereof only may be inferred two Conclusions if his premises be true The first That Protestants were condemned for Heretics by Acts of Parliament 200 years agone The second If those ancient Acts of Parliament were of little force in matters of Religion then latter Acts that have established a different Religion may also be called in question and that with much more reason and probability 23. Secondly I say That this Assertion of Fox is most apparently false to wit that the Wickliffian Preachers taught no other Doctrin than the Protestant Preachers now teach if the Articles before alleged out of himself be truly written by him For neither do the Protestant Preachers in England at this day teach the Real Presence in the blessed Sacrament of the Altar or the Doctrin of Purgatory as you have heard Sir John Oldcastle a chief Wickliffian profess a little before nor yet do Protestants hold those Articles of John Wickliff himself which in this Chapter we have mentioned as held neither by Them nor Us. And much less do they hold any other Catholic Opinions which the Wickliffians did together with their Heresies So as this is a notorious untruth and cannot be denied or dissembled 24. Thirdly We may consider of the particular Point which before I noted That John Fox is not ashamed to cite a whole Parliament against himself and then in a word to reject the same as of no credit in the World in respect of Him and his Denial or Rejection The Parliament saith he calleth these Frize gown-Preachers the Wickliffians dissembling persons but you must think notwithstanding they were very honest men The Parliament saith That they preached Heresies and notorious Errors but John Fox saith it was true Christian Doctrin Whom shall we here believe either the whole Parliament who lived with them and examined both their Doctrin and doings or John Fox that cometh more than 200 years after them and will needs make himself their Brother whether they will or no and judge also of the Parliament But let us hear him yet further 25. Furthermore saith he you shall find likewise in Statuto anno 2 Hen. 4. cap. 15. in the year of our Lord 1402 another like Company of godly Preachers and faithful Defenders of true Doctrin whom albeit the words of the Statute there through corruption of time do falsly term to be false and perverse Preachers under dissembled Holiness teaching in those days openly and privily new Doctrin and heretical Opinions c. Yet notwithstanding whoever readeth Histories and the orderly descent of times shall understand these to be no false Teachers but faithful Witnesses of the Truth c. 26. Lo here the testimony of another Parliament of our Country held 22 years after the former which John Fox rejecteth with the same facility that he did the other For whereas the Parliament that had examined the matter protesteth That they had found them false perverse and dissembling People teaching new Doctrin and heretical Opinions Fox averreth the contrary That they were good Preachers and faithful Defenders of true Doctrin and holy Witnesses of God's Truth And for proof hereof he saith That whosoever readeth Histories and conferreth the Order and Descent of times shall understand thus much to be true But how and by what means a man shall gather this understanding he telleth us not And by the Historical Discourses and Conference of times which we have hitherto made in this Book we understand the contrary finding indeed by Descent and Order of times that these Opinions of Wickliff Husse and Lollards and the like were new heretical Opinions indeed and taken and judged so by Christendom at their up rising and appearance in the World. Wherefore this is plain impudence in Fox to say that by reading Histories and noting descent of Times these men are by him justified from being Sectaries 27. It followeth in Fox Of the like number also saith he of like true faithful favourers and followers of God's holy Word we find in the year of our Lord 1422 specified in a Letter sent from Henry Chichesley Archbishop of Canterbury to Pope Martin V. of many infected here in England as he said by the Heresies of Wickliff and Husse c. who tho' they be termed for Heretics and Schismatics yet served they the living Lord within the Ark of his true spiritual and visible Church And where is then the frivolous brag of the Papists which make so much of their painted Sheaths c 28. Do you see in what jollity of mind John Fox is put by finding out this Succession of his new visible Church for above 200 years downward Do you hear how he vaunteth of Antiquity and long Continuance albeit indeed he nameth not continuance nor can he for that I think he will not grant that the Wickliffian Church doth endure unto this day or that if a number of those Wickliffian holy Teachers and faithful Witnesses of the Truth so much praised here by him should come into England at this day or Scotland or into Germany or Geneva or among any other Sect or sort of Protestants whatsoever and should preach that Doctrin which they preached then to wit against the Church of Rome in many Points but yet defending that number of Sacraments which they did the Real Presence Sacrifice of the Mass together with those extravagant Articles also before mentioned to wit That it is against the Scriptures that Bishops or true Ministers should have any Temporal Lands and Livings and that Tythes are not due and that both Princes and Prelates do lose their Offices Authorities and Dignities whensoever they fall into mortal sin c. If these men I say that were so true Preachers and principal Guiders of the Ark of John Fox his true visible and spiritual Church
in those days should revive and preach again in these days would his Brethren the Protestants in England or out of England receive them think you And if it be certain that they would not how were they true Preachers then and not now or how can these and they be true Brethren of one Faith Religion or Church Doth not every simple Man or Woman see this Folly and absurd Contradiction 29. But to return to the matter in hand about rejecting Parliaments and other public Testimonies we see that John Fox with the same facility both reciteth and rejecteth the Letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury written to the Pope about those Wickliffians of his time twenty years after the former Parliament was held but yet in conformity of that which the said Parliament under King Henry IV. and the other before under King Richard II. did testifie as well of the said Sectaries Hypocrisie and Dissimulation as of their wicked Errors and Heresies All which Fox contemning saith to the contrary That they served faithfully the living Lord within the Ark of his true spiritual and visible Church c. 30. And it is to be noted that scarce ever throughout this whole Volume of Acts and Monuments from Christ downward for the space of 1400 years doth Fox talk of any visible Church on his side but only now when he cometh to these Wickliffians and other like Sectaries And yet to speak warily also he adjoyneth unto it the word spiritual to have some starting-hole to run out when he shall be pressed about the true nature of visible Succession which we mean to do in the next Chapter following But in the mean space it is a matter worth good laughter to hear him say That Papists do brag of their painted Sheath concerning their Churches Antiquity and Succession and that he hath sufficiently proved before by the continual descent of his Church after the Doctrin that now is reformed that it hath stood and been continued from the beginning for so are his words yea and that visibly as now he addeth Whereat I know no man can choose but laugh that hath read this our Treatise wherein we have shewed all the contrary to wit the visible Descent of the Roman Church by orderly Succession from the Apostles time and that John Fox hath not so much as named any different Succession or Descent of his Church distinct from the other until the time of Innocentius III. 1200 years after Christ And what manner of deduction or collection of Heretics and Sectaries he bringeth down from thence and how well they agree and hang together either in Time Place Function or Faith we shall examin a little after 31. But now before we end this Chapter we are to advertise the Reader that besides the Sects before named of the Petrobusians Henricians Waldensians or poor men of Lyons the Albigensians and Wickliffians there was another Sect in England called Lollards more famous than the rest in respect of Lollards Tower some what renowned in London for the Imprisonments of those Sectaries in that place But when and how this Sect of Heretics began is not so clear for that some as Prateolus and others seem to affirm that it took its Origin in England as a Brood of the Wickliffists for that they were more famous there than in other places And therefore he saith Lollardi ex Anglia ex Wickliffistarum Secta originem duxerunt The Lollards had their beginning from England and from the Sect of the Wickliffians And he addeth That it was about the year 1360 which cannot stand for that we have shewed before how Wickliff began to publish his Doctrin after this to wit about the year 1370. Wherefore the Abbot Tritemius a German Chronicler declareth the matter more particularly and truly saying That there was a certain Heretic in Germany called Gualter Lolhard who about the year of Christ 1315 taking certain Doctrin from the Albigenses and Waldenses that went before him and adding as the fashion is of Sectaries divers new Opinions of his own made a particular Sect who were called Lolhards Whereby it appeareth that this Sect began in Germany above fifty years before the Sect of Wickliff in England and hereby ensued that Wickliffians taking afterwards divers Opinions from the said Lolhards were commonly also called Lolhards And John Fox himself reciting the Sentence of Condemnation of Bishop Tresnant of Hereford against one William Swynderby an Apostata Priest for Wickliffian Heresies in the year of Christ 1391 the 24th of June he setteth down these words of the said Bishop We being excited through the Information of many credible and faithful Christians of our Diocese to root out pestiferous Plants as Sheep diseased with an incurable Sickness going about to infect the whole and sound Flock that is to say certain Preachers or more truly execrable Offenders of the new Sect vulgarly called Lolhards c. 32. Lo here Wickliffians at this time for such a one was this Swynderby were commonly called Lolhards twenty years and more after Wickliff had begun his Doctrin So as rather Wickliffians are to be said to have come forth of Lolhards than Lolhards of Wickliffians 33. And albeit these two Sects beginning as you have heard the one in Germany and the other in England with the distance of some fifty years of their Off-spring had many Opinions common to them both especially against the Roman Church against Invocation of Saints Fastings Prayers and the Sacraments of Penance Matrimony Extreme Unction and the like yet had they their peculiar Opinions also whereby they were made a several Sect. As for Example the Lolhards impugned not only the foresaid three Sacraments of Penance Matrimony and Extreme Unction as some Wickliffians did but Baptism and the Eucharist in like manner They held also for their peculiar Opinions as Tritemius saith That Lucifer and his Angels were injuriously thrust out of Heaven by Michael and his Angels and consequently to be restored again at the Day of Judgment and that Michael and his Angels are to be damned for the foresaid Injury and to be delivered over to everlasting Punishment from the Day of Judgment forward That our Lady could not bear Christ and remain a Virgin for that so he should have been an Angel and not a Man. That God having given the Earth to the use of Man according to the saying of the Psalm Terram autem dedit filiis hominum God hath given the Earth to the children of men he doth consequently punish such Wickedness as is done upon Earth but if any thing be done under ground it is not punishable And therefore in Caves and Cellars under ground they were accustomed to exercise all manner of Abomination And of this he relateth a certain Story happened in Germany which was That one Gisla a young woman of their Sect coming to be burned for Heresie she was asked whether she were a Virgin or no whereunto
Tythes and if any man will needs give he may give to whom he will excluding thereby their Curates Another Article also was of the said Brute That a Priest receiving by bargain any thing of Yearly Annuity is thereby a Schismatic and Excommunicate Which if it be true then are his Ministers in a hard case at this day in England who do bargain for their Service and Wages due thereunto 40. And so goeth Fox on from Point to Point to ratifie John Wickliff's Doctrin or at least the Professors thereof not considering simple Fellow how much they differ from him or make against him so they be contrary to the Pope of Rome or condemned by him For further proof of which Folly and blind Ignorance we shall pass now to treat in a several Chapter what manner of Continuance and Succession of his Church he deviseth thro'out the Rabble of these opposite Sects from the time of Pope Innocentius III. to the Reign of King Henry VIII whereby I doubt not but the Reader will remain sufficiently instructed of these Mens madness that of so contrary and repugnant Spirits will needs frame to themselves the Unity of a true Christian Church CHAP. X. The most absurd and ridiculous Succession of Sectaries appointed by John Fox for the Continuance of his Church from Pope Innocentius III. downward where also by this occasion is declared the true Nature and Conditions of lawful Ecclesiastical Succession HAving now followed John Fox throughout all this Treatise from Christ's time to ours to see what visible course and race he would set down as well of His Church as Ours according to his promise made in the beginning of his Acts and Monuments we have found him hitherto to have talked only in a manner of Our Church that is to say of the Universal Roman Church perspicuously come down by succession of Years and Ages from the Apostles to Us neither did John Fox for twelve hundred years together so much as name unto us any other Congregation of Men or Women small or great good or bad that in this time bare the Name of a Christian Church besides the other nor did he pretend any Succession fearing perhaps those words of Tertullian before recited Confingant tale aliquid Haeretici c. Let Heretics presume to feign or devise any such Succession of Bishops Teachers and Pastors for Their Church as we have alleged for Ours if they dare 2. But now from Pope Innocentius's time downwards John Fox presuming that all the other Church was fallen from God a great presumption indeed as before hath been shewed he bringeth us forth in place thereof another Company of Men which he saith in those days made the true Church for that they were condemned by the other Church which he holdeth for the false And these were a certain Rabblement of Sectaries different in Opinions and Professions not only from Us but also from John Fox and his Crew and most of all among themselves being of divers Countries Sects Times Ages Offices and Functions and cohering together in no other form at all of Succession but that one rose or sprung up after the other For which cause Fox himself in his Acts and Monuments doth not handle their Affairs as of any Congregation that ever met together or saw perhaps one another or had Conference Order Subordination or Succession among themselves but only tieth them together in a certain List or Catalogue as Sampson's Foxes were by the Tails Which List or Catalogue he setteth down in his foresaid Protestation to the Church of England telling us first That during the time of the last 400 years from Pope Innocentius downwards the true Church of Christ durst not openly appear in the face of the World being oppressed by Tyranny but yet that it remained from time to time visibly in certain chosen Members that not only bare secret good affection to sincere Doctrin but stood also in the defence of Truth against the Church of Rome 3. This is his Assertion which he proveth by a large List or Catalogue as I have said of sundry that were in this time censured and condemned in some part of Doctrin by the said Roman Church In which Catalogue saith he first to pretermit Bertramus and Berengarius which were before Pope Innocentius III. a Learned multitude of sufficient Witnesses here might be produced whose Names neither are obscure nor Doctrin unknown as Joachim Abbot of Calabria Almaricus a Learned Bishop that was judged an Heretic for holding against Images besides the Martyrs of Alsatia of whom we read an hundred to be burned by Pope Innocentius in one day Add likewise saith he to these the Waldenses and Albigenses Marsilius Patavinus Gulielmus de Sancto Amore Symon Tornacensis Arnoldus de nova Villa Joannes Semica besides divers others Preachers in Suevia standing against the Pope Anno 1240 c. 4. Thus beginneth Fox his Catalogue and then goeth he forward with Joannes Anglicus a Master of Paris Petrus Joannis a Minorite burned after his death Robert Grossehead Bishop of Lincoln called Malleus Romanorum c. And further he addeth Joannes de Ganduno Eudo Duke of Burgundy that counselled the French King to receive the Popes Extravagants Dante 's an Italian Poet that wrote against Popes Monks and Friars together with Petrarcha and them Conradus Hagaz imprisoned for preaching against the Mass Anno 1339 c. And to these again he coupleth Franciscus de Arcaterra and others burned for new Opinions Gregorius Ariminensis Armachanus Occham and others as tho' these had been all of the same Opinions And finally he falleth upon the Lollards Wickliffians Hussites and their Followers in England and Bohemia succeeding one after another now in this Country now in that now upon one occasion and now upon another until the Reign of King Henry III. when Martin Luther began his Profession who did agree and symbolize in divers Points with the said former Sects of Waldenses and Albigenses Lollards Wickliffians and Hussites and differed in others as before hath been declared And after the Lutherans did follow again others partly agreeing and partly disagreeing as Zuinglius Calvinus Beza Oecolampadius and others unto our days and every one affirming his Opinions to be the New Gospel 5. And this is the visible Succession forsooth which John Fox hath devised to set down for the proof of his new Church and the Antiquity thereof for 400 years past And it is like as if a man in England to disgrace the City of London should seek out the Records of all those that have been hanged at Tyburn for Theft or Murthers for 400 years and having found them out should produce them for Witnesses of the truth and for honest men and good Citizens condemning both the Judges and Jurors and whole Country that gave Sentence and Verdict against them And yet if you will see how John Fox playeth the Fool indeed and braggeth of this Succession
Religion from those downward to John Wickliffe were commonly infected with some points of these two general Sects the Waldenses or Albigenses it shall not be needful to stand upon the examination of every one of them seeing that their Opinions are known to be such as they could not possibly be of one Church with Fox and his Company Yet must we note this by the way also that Fox doth commit infinite confusion falshood and cosinage in all this his enumeration accounting some for Disciples of the Albigenses that lived 100. years before them As Marsilius Patavinus who lived under Pope Paschasius II. about the year 1110. which is more than an 100 years before Pope Innocentius III. as both Alvarus and Alphonsus de Castro do testifie and never held any points of the former Heresies but only some Propositions agiainst the Degrees and living of Ecclesiastical Persons And the like falshood is to be understood of Gulielmus de Sancto Amore who living about the year 1250. was a Catholic man in all points and only had some quarrellings with Religious Orders As in like sort Armachanus Archbishop of Armach in Ireland also had For which cause only Fox maketh him of his Church though in matters of Religion he held no one Article of the Protestant Faith with him different from the Catholic And consequently Fox doth extremely abuse them by conjoining them here with divers Heretics burned for the foresaid blasphemous Opinions 32. The like may be said of William Occam and Gregorius Arminensis two Catholic Scholmen and every day alleged for such in our Schools Robert Grossead also our Learned Bishop of Lincoln is in the same predicament as in like manner Dante 's and Petrarcha Italian Poets that never held any jot of Protestant Religion in the world And yet are brought in here by John Fox as men of his Church and Belief with the greatest falshood and foolery in the world And this forsooth for that in some place of their Works they reprehend the Manners of Rome or Lives of some Popes in those days Which is as good an Argument as if a man would prove that St. Paul was not of the Faith or Religion of the Corinthians for that he reprehended them sharply for Fornication used among them 33. Wherefore to leave the Rabble that followeth of this people as namely thirty six Citizens of Moguntia burned An. Dom. 1390. and another company of like people to wit one hundred and forty put in the Fire throughout the Province of Narbone and twenty four more put to death in Paris in the Year 1210. and other particular Saints of his Church recounted and Canonized by Fox To leave these I say and to come down to our Lolhards and Wickliffians and their followers in England we have treated of their Doctrin sufficiently in the precedent Chapter shewing how far different it was from that of Fox and his Fellows But now for their Actions we are to consider that the Lolhards began from the year of Christ 1320. or thereabout and Wickliff from the year 1370. and therewith raised infinite Troubles Garboils and Tumults in our Country As may appear by the lamentable Story set down by Thomas Walsingham of the whole people put in commotion in King Richard II. his time against the Nobility and Clergy by these kind of people under their Seditious Captains Jack Straw Wat Tiler and the rest And so again under some other Kings whilst this Heresie lasted And namely against the two valiant and most Catholic Princes King Henry IV. and King Henry V. his Son. In the first year of whose Reign to wit King Henry V. John Stow writeth thus 34. The favorers of Wickliffs Doctrin did nail up Schedules upon the Church Doors of London conteining that there were an hundred thousand ready to rise against all such as could not away with their Sect c. And hereon followed the open Rebellion of Sir John Oldcastle and Sir Roger Acton and others in S. Giles Field by Holborn which before we have touched And yet was the providence of God such as this Sect could never prevail in England neither then or after so Catholic were our Princes until some Points thereof being renewed by Luther and Zwinglius the later was admitted in K. Edward's days I mean the Sect of Zwinglius as all men know Being the first Sect that ever was admitted publickly in England either by Britans or Englishmen from Christ to that day For as for King Henry VIII though in the matter of the Popes Supremacy he admitted the Opinion of Luther yet in other things as before we have shewed at large he held in all Articles the Catholic Roman Faith with singular hatred against both Lollards Wickliffians and Lutherans but much more against Zwinglians and other such Sacramentary Sectaries As by his Laws made for their punishment and repression doth sufficiently appear 35. And albeit his Majesty having yielded once in that one Point of Ecclesiastical Supremacy and subordination which held before all the rest in joint it was no marvel though Sects and Sectaries did grow upon him so fast as with all his severe Laws he could hardly repress them in his own days yet much more were the Judgments of God seen after his death in that presently all was turned upside down in the Minority of his Son notwithstanding his Laws Testament and Ordinances to the contrary And that by those whom he most trusted on that behalf and who in his days had shewed themselves most earnest against Zwinglians and their Doctrin of the Sacrament as a thing most abhorred by the old King their Master I mean Cranmer Ridley Seymor and Dudley the chief changers of all in King Edwards days 36. But this is the common event where Princes be not careful at the beginning as Walsingham doth well note about the rising of Wickliff's Heresie in in the end of King Edward III.'s time when that old King was now impotent and wholly governed by Women leaving the care of his Kingdom in the Hands of his Son the Duke of Lancaster and others that followed him who having partly emulation and jars with the Bishops of Canterbury Winchester London and some other principal men of the Clergy and partly desiring to invade Church Livings which Wickliff preached to be lawful they were content to wink at him yea and to use him and his Doctrin openly against the said Bishops and Clergy as also against Monks and Abbots in the beginning of of K. Richard II.'s time as appeareth both in the said Walsingham and Stow who relate the calling of Wickliff to London for this effect where he was publicly and scandalously born out by the said Duke and Sir Henry Piercy and others of that Faction against the said Bishops Monks and Abbots which here we shall set down in Stows own words taken by him out of Walsingham and other Writers which do contain the very sum of
that Heresie but that he had so much as secretly and inwardly favored the same And for this very cause did King Henry use that solemn and sharp Judgment upon Lambert and made Cranmer to dispute so earnestly against him for the Real Presence whereof afterward he made also the said Cranmer write and print a Book for more evident Attestation therein and to the same end he made Cromwell to pronounce the Sentence that all men might see and know but especially his Favorites that whomsoever he found faulty in that behalf should expect no favor at his hand Whereupon when he had spoken to Lambert asking him What he had to say more for himself why he should not die And the other falling down on his knees remitted himself to his Princely Mercy The King answered with a loud Voice in these words as Fox relateth them If you remit your self to my Judgment you must die for I will be no Patron of Heretics And by and by turning himself to Cromwell he said Cromwell read the Sentence of Condemnation against him which Cromwell addeth Fox was at that time the chief Friend of the Gospellers who taking the Schedule of Condemnation in his hand read the same c. 12. Thus writeth Fox and putteth in the Margin this Note The King condemneth the Martyr of Christ John Lambert And again in another place Thus was John Lambert in this bloody Session by the King judged and condemned to death c. And then speaketh he very dishonorably of King Henry about this matter citing him to the last Day of Judgment to receive his Sentence for that Sentence So as howsoever they flatter the Memory of this King for glosing with her Majesty in outward words yet it is clear enough what they think of him in their hearts and speak of him in corners And howsoever Fox paint him out with their Gospel in his Lap and Sword in his hand to defend it calling him every-where Gospeller yet can they not deny but that the sharpest edge of the Sword fell upon them 13. And here I cannot omit to let you hear Fox's complaint of ill luck and misfortune in this behalf that the King with Cranmer and Cromwell and some others of his Gospel and Gospellers should so unluckily concur to the condemning and burning of this fervent Brother of their Gospel Lambert Here saith Fox it is much to be marvelled at to see how unfortunately it came to pass in this mattter that through the pestiferous and crafty Counsel of Gardyner Bishop of Winchester Sathan did here perform the Condemnation of this Lambert by no other Ministers than Gospellers themselves This is Fox his complaint laying all the fault as you see upon Bishop Gardyner as tho' he had been able to have induced all these Gospellers and among others the King himself and his Gospelling Counsellors to have concurred to the burning of their own Brother Lambert if they had been then of his Gospel But the truth is that none of them at that time were come so far forward as to be Zuinglians For as for the King himself he hated them deadly both then and unto his dying-day as also the Lutherans tho' he bare somewhat more with them than with the other in respect of their holding the Real Presence in the Sacrament whereunto he was most devout And as for Cranmer and Cromwell it may be that in those days they were a little touched with Lutheranism the former to enjoy his Woman which he kept secretly by whom he was also made a Zuinglian in King Edward's days the second for his Gain and Advancement Yet the said Cromwell coming soon after this to be beheaded on the Scaffold said these words among others as Fox relateth them And now I pray you that be here to bear me record that I die in the Catholic Faith not doubting of any Article of my Faith no nor doubting in any Sacrament of the Church Many have slandered me and reported that I have been a Bearer out of such as have maintained evil Opinions which is untrue c. And then a little after he addeth again The Devil is ready to seduce us and I have been seduced but bear me witness that I die in the Catholic Faith of the whole Church 14. Thus relateth Fox of his last Confession and putteth in his Margin this Note A true Christian Confession of the Lord Cromwell at his Death Which if John Fox mean truly indeed and that Cromwell himself meant it also truly and sincerely as he spake and was understood by the people then died he a Catholic in all points and believed all Sacraments of that Church which then in England was held for Catholic and opposite to the new Gospellers at that time by whom he confessed he had been somewhat seduced and yet denieth that ever he was a Bearer out of them as you see And if all this be true indeed how then can this Confession of the Lord Cromwell be called a true Christian Confession with John Fox seeing it is a Catholic Confession and renounceth Fox his Religion utterly And if it were a false feigned and dissembled Confession of Cromwell and meant contrary to the sound of his words at the hour of his death how was he a true Christian man in so dissembling and lying and this at his very going out of the World And here I would have John Fox to solve me this Dilemma both for his own and Cromwell's Credit whom notwithstanding all this Fox will needs enforce to be of his Gospel whether he will or no writing of him thus in another place In this Worthy and Noble Person besides divers other Eminent Virtues three things especially are to be considered his flourishing Authority his excelling Wisdom and his fervent Zeal to Christ and to his Gospel c. And so much of Him and his Fellow Cranmer the two chief Pillars and Under-props of John Fox's Gospel with King Henry 15. And hereby we may in part in contemplate the first Beginning Fountain Origin and Off-spring of John Fox's Gospel in England whereof we have spoken somewhat before in the last Chapter of the former Part of this Treatise where we alleged the words of William Tyndall written to John Fryth his Scholar at the very beginning when King Henry first seemed to favor the Gospel wherein Tyndall saith that he had smelled a certain Counsel taken against Papists but that Fryth must understand that it was not for God but for Revenge and to enjoy the spoil of the Church These were the first motives if we believe Tyndal whom John Fox holdeth and calleth an Apostle of England So as this testimony coming from Him must needs be also Apostolic if not Evangelical 16. But what was the progress of this Gospel so begun in England I have shewed before that not long after this beginning to wit in the year of Christ 1536 King Henry being disposed upon former motives to make some
with great difficulty Whereupon the said Parliament was continued in Disputation and Contention especially about this matter for the space of four Months and a half to wit from the 4. of November unto the 14. of March and in the mean space all was in suspence of what Religion England should be For as on the one side many that knew or suspected the Protectors inclination did think and lay Wagers that Zwinglianism would prevail so others hearing that Archbishop Cranmer and his party stood resolutely on the other side and had punished divers for speaking against the Mass and Real Presence in the Sacrament a little before to wit one Thomas Dobbe a Master of Art in Cambridge as Fox telleth us cast into the Counter by Cranmer and held there till he died and John Hume Imprisoned for the same Cause by the said Archbishop This I say made many to expect and Bett on the other side But especially this doubt and expectation was notorious in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge where Peter Martyr and Bucer had Read now for the space of a year and more and were oftentimes urged and pressed much by their Scholars whereof the far greater parts in those days were Catholics to declare themselves clearly of what Opinion they wear touching the Sacrament of the Altar and the Real Presence To wit whether they were Lutherans or Zwinglians But they kept themselves aloof and indifferent or rather doubtful so far as they could until the determination of the Parliament should come Yet was Peter Martyr put into a great strait thereby For that having taken upon him to Read and Expound to the Scholars of Oxford the first Epistle to the Corinthians wherein the Apostle in the Eleventh Chapter handleth the Institution of the Blessed Sacrament he had thought to have come to that place just at the very time when the Parliament should have determined this Controversie 34. But the Contention enduring longer by some Months than he expected he was come to the Eleventh Chapter long before they could end in London Whereupon many Posts went to and fro between him and Cranmer to require a speedy resolution alleging that he could not detain himself any longer but that being come to the words Hoc est Corpus meum he must needs declare himself a Lutheran or a Zuinglian But he was willed to stay and entertain himself in other matter until the Determination might come and so the poor Frier did with admiration and laughter of all his Scholars standing upon those precedent words Accepit Panem c. Et gratias agens c. Fregit c. Et dixit c. Accipite manducate c. discoursing largely of every one of these Points and bearing off from the other that ensued But when at length the Post came that Zuinglianism must be defended then stepped up Peter Martyr boldly the next day and said Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body interpreting it This is the Sign of my Body adding moreover that he wondred how any man could be of another Opinion seeing this Exposition was so clear Whereas if the Post had brought other News himself also would have taught the contrary Opinion And this Story was testified whil'st they were alive by Dr. Sanders Dr. Allen Dr. Stapleton and others that were present at this Trifling and Tergiversation of this Apostate-Frier And thus began our Zuinglian Gospel in England under King Edward VI. 35. Now let us hear a word or two out of the Statute it self about this Communion Book and profession of Zuinglianism establish'd in England after two years strife among the Protestants Whereas of long time saith the Act there hath been in this Realm of England divers Forms of Common Prayer commonly called the Service of the Church as well concerning the Mattins and Even-Song as also the holy Communion called the Mass c. And whereas the King's Majesty with the Advice of his most entirely-beloved Vncle the Lord Protector and others of his Highness's Council hath heretofore divers times assayed to stay Innovations or new Rites concerning the premises yet the same hath not had such good success as his Highness required in that behalf Whereupon his Highness by the most prudent Advice aforesaid being pleased to bear with the frailty and weakness of his Subjects in that behalf of his great Clemency hath been not only content to abstain from punishment in that behalf but also to the intent that an uniform quiet and godly Order should be had concerning the premisses hath appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury and certain of the most learned and discreet Bishops to consider and ponder the premises and thereupon having as well an eye and respect to the most sincere and pure Christian Religion taught by the Scriptures as to the Vsages of the Primitive Church should draw and make one convenient and meet Order Rite and Fashion of Common-Prayer and Administration of Sacraments to be used in England Wales c. The which at this time by the Aid of the Holy Ghost with uniform Agreement is by them concluded set forth and delivered to his Highness's great comfort and quietness of mind in a Book entituled The Book of Common-Prayer and Administration of Sacraments c. 36. This is the Preface to that Act of Parliament whereby you may see that this Communion-Book was devis'd first for bearing with the frailty of them that sought Innovations then that it was perform'd by uniform Consent Aid of the Holy Ghost according to the most sincere and pure Christian Religion taught in the Scriptures and lastly that the young Child-Prince received great comfort and quietness of mind thereby All which is ridiculous if you consider what a multitude of Errors and gross Absurdities the latter Protestants especially the preciser sort of them have gathered out against this Book yea after it was twice more reviewed altered and amended according to the pure Word of God as was pretended once in King Edward's days it self and then again in the beginning of her Majesties Reign whereof tho' I have spoken sufficiently in my Defence of the first Encounter against Sir F. Hastings yet cannot I omit to admonish the Reader in this place to read the ninth Chapter of the second Book entituled Dangerous Positions c. set forth by public Permission and printed in London Anno 1593. In which Chapter you shall see put together the words of divers new Gospellers concerning this Communion-Book affirm'd here in the Statute to be according to the most sincere and pure Christian Religion taught by the Scriptures But they say the contrary to wit that it is full of corruption and that many of the Contents thereof are against the Word of God the Sacraments wickedly mangled and prophaned therein the Lord's Supper not eaten but made a Pageant and Stage play that their public Baptism is full of childish superstitious toys 37. And finally not to stand any longer
enemies Diversity of States worketh diversity of Religion amongst Sectaries * In his humble motives an Domini 1601. Why Sectaries do change so often their Religion under different States Affliction by the Danes from the year 800 downward S. Edmund and S. Elphegus Martyred by Danes Osbertus in vita S. Elph. apud Sur. 21. April Malm. lib. 1. Pontif. Angl. pa. 116. Matth. West monast an Dom. 1011. 1012. The good Acts of King Canutus after his Conversion Malmes de gist Regum Angl. l. 2. c. 11. The building the Abby of Edmundbury and rich endowment thereof by King Canutus King Canutus his Letter from Rome Malm. ibid. fol. 14. How King Canutus performed his good desires when he returned from Rome Ibid. fol. 42. Stow in Chron. pag. 116. Ibidem apud Malm. fol. 41. King Canutus was Catholic 1043. The Succession of Catholic Religion since the conquest Thomas Cranmer Arch-bishop of Canterbury The conclusion of this deduction Iren. l. 3. adversus haeres cap. 3. Aug. in psal contra partem Donati Aug. ep 165. Aug. ibid. * Thomas Cranmer his Apostasie doth not prejudicate the See of Canterbury Anno Domini 600. Anno 1509. Anno Domini 1530. 1 Tim. 3. The Catholic faith groweth by persecution and affliction and heresie is overthrown King Henry zealous in Catholic Religion King Henries Book against Luther Dedicated to Leo 10. An. Dom. 1523. The beginning of the Kings breach with the Pope Stow An. Dom. 1530. King Henry winked for a time at some heretics Heretics burned An. Dom. 1531. Thomas Audley Thomas Cromwell Fa. Elstow contradicteth the Preacher in defence of the Pope before the King. Anno 1533. The beginning of Fox his Gospel in England Anno 1534. The first year of open breach with Rome Hol. pag. 964 The Franciscan Friars put out of their Convents Heretics burned an 1534. Stow an 1534. See the Letter of Tyndal to Frith set down by Fox p. 987. The Statute of six Articles An. 1540. The burning of Friar Barns a Lutheran with Gerard Jerom Zwinglians K. Henry gave Commission for his reconciliation with Rome Catholics increased by Persecution The name of Papist not justly punishable The different punishments upon Catholics and Protestants doth shew what K. Henry thought of them both * In his Epistles The true cause of Catholics suffering under K. Henry The condemnation of Anabaptists and Arians by K. Henry Absurd positions of Anabaptists Arrians in K. Henry's time grounded upon Scriptures pretended The condemnation of Lutherans and Zuinglians by King Henry The opinion of Tyndall and Frith agreeing with neither Lutherans nor Zwinglians Fox pag. 942. The different plea or defence of Catholics from heretics * Tertull. l. de praescript adversus haeres The disagreement of Fox his Calendar Martyrs King Edward the 6th his Reign The attempts of Cranmer and Ridley and others of their crew in King Edwards days The attempts of Seymor the Protector and John Bale in flattery towards him Bal. descript Brit. cent 5. fol. 237. See Stow and other Chroniclers in the year 1549. The general aversion of English-people against the entrance of Heresie Fox p. 1185. Fox ib. 1186. Fox p. 1189. K. Henry's Laws rejected by his Son K. Edward K. Edward's reply to the demand of the people of Devonshire Q. Mary's admonition unto the Protector and Council Heresie in K. Edward's days entred by violence Catholic Religion restored by Q. Mary Bishops and Archdeacons deprived and imprisoned for Cath. Faith An. 1560. The constancy of English Catholics in this time of Persecution The constant resolution of divers Catholic Priests Joan Lashford Fox p. 1547 1517. Agnes Potten Joan Trunchfield Rose Nottingham Fox p. 1547. William Hunter Fox p. 1395. an 1555. Rawling White Fox p. 1414. Heretical hastiness to burn for their Errors * Cap. 2. A great number of English Youths in Exile for Religion The Conclusion of the first Part of this Treatise The principal point to be noted of Succession St. Augustin's estimation of Succession Aug. ep cont Faust Manich. c. 4. tom 6. Aug. quaest 110 in nov vet Test Tert. l. de praescrip advers haeres Tert. ibid. Iren. l. 4. advers haeres c. 4. Ibid. c. 45. The force of Succession with Irenaeus other Fathers Hier. dia. ult cont Lucif Aug. l. de utilitate credent c. 17. Barking of Heretics against Succession as St. Augustin termeth it In descr Cantii A comparison between the durance of the Church temporal States The second principal point to be considered about the visibility of the Church (a) In defens l. de servo arbitr (b) Lib. cont Cathar * Part 1. Aug. in tract in ep Joan. * Cap. de Conciliis * In locis com loco 12. de Eccles (c) Cent. 1. l. 1. c. 4. (d) Apol. 1. part 3. Calv. l. 4. Inst c. 1. § 3. Why Lutherans left the Paradox of the invisibility of the Church Matt. 18. Act. 15.18 Evident Scriptures for the visibility of the Church Evident reasons that the true Church must be visible containing both good and bad (a) Marc. ult Ephes 4. 1. Pet. 3. (b) Rom. 10. Luc. 12. 1 Tim. 6. (c) Mat. 5. Luc. 11. Joan. 15. (d) Mat. 28. 1 Cor. 12. 1 Tim. 3.5 St. Augustin's Discourses about the visibility of the Church See St. Aug. in Psal 44 47. l. 2. cont Petil. c. 32 104. l. 2. cont Cresco c. 36. l. 4. c. 58. tract 1 2. in ep Joan. c. 4. collat 3. diei in Brevie A second fond device of Lutherans about an obscure Church The third point of John Fox's Opinion about the true Church A great perplexity of John Fox Illyr gloss in Matth. c. 1. Fox's new Opinion making the Church both visible and invisible Fox in his protestation to the Church of England p. 2. How Enemies and Persecutors do see the true Church Fox in the Title The purpose of John Fox in his Protest p. 3. What is to be handled about John Fox's Church The substance of John Fox's Book The division of 1060 years into four principal parts The first 300 years from Christ to Constantine Sup. c. 8 9. The impertinent course taken by John Fox Reasons to prove that the old Martyrs were of our Church and not of Fox's * Nisi integram inviolatamque servaverit absque dubio in aeternum peribit Who do more honor the ancient Martyrs See Fox's Calendar in the beginning of his Volume The second Reason Cap. 15. Tert. l. de fuga in persecut Epiph. in panar haeres 80. Aug. cont literas Petiliani l. 2. c. 83. cont 2. ep Gaudentit l. 2. c. 26. alibi Of heretical Martyrs * Supra c. 5 6. (a) The third Reason (b) St. Andrew (c) See the story of his passion written by the Church of Achaia in those days cited by Remigius in Psal 21. by Lanfrank lib. cont Berengar by St. Bernard Serm. de St. Andrea many others St. Laurence Amb. l. 1. Officior c.
41. l. 2. c. 28. Aug. tract 27. in Joan. Serm. de Sanctis St. Laurence speaketh like a flat Papist Prudent in hymn de Sancto Laurentio Pont. Diac. in vi◠Cyprian See also the 28 Epistle of S. Cyp. himself Supra p. 1. c. 6. * Cent. 3. c. 4. Old Martyrs massing Priests The glorious state of the Cath. Church under Constantine Euseb l. 4. de vit Constant Four Churches in Rome built by Constantine * Julius Firmicus l. ad Imp. de abol Idol Optat. l. 2. cont Parmen * Supra c. 4 5. The obscure mathematical Church of John Fox The chief Heretics of the first 300 years How old Heretics were persecuted How old Heretics agree to John Fox's Church Aug. l. 2. quaest Evang. c. 40. A point much to be noted Aug. l. de fide oper c. 14. de unico bap c. 10. Apud Thoed dial 3. Theod. l. 3. haeret fabulat c. 35. Old Heresies held formally again by Protestants Cornel. Papa apud Euseb l. 6. hist c. 35. Cyp. l. 4. ep 2. Hier. in prooem dialog contra Pelag. Chrys hom 43. in Joan. Aug. l. cont Manich. ep 28. Old Heresies fraudulently objected to Catholics The 1 fraud Aug. haeres 39. D. Thom. 2.2 q. 85. art 2. The 2 fraud Cent. 3. c. 4. § de Angelis About honorring and Invocation of Angels Cent. 3. c. 4. Epiph. l. 3. to 2. haeres 78 79. About the Heresie of the Collyridians Mark this discourse of Epiphanius about sacrificing in the New Law. Epiph. ib. Ibid. haeres 79. Christians Sacrifice The visible succession of the Church in the first 300 years The sum of that which hath been said hitherto * Part. 1. c. 5 6. The conclusion of this Chapter with an offer to Fox Part. 1. c. 8. The Fathers Doctors and Councils of the second 300 years after Christ John Fox findeth not a hole for his poor Church in those 300 years The Heretics of the second 300 years after Christ In his protestation to the English Church p. 9. Communication of Doctrin between Protestants and Heretics of the second 300 years after Christ Aug. lib. de haeres haer 69. Optat. l. 2. idem l. 6. Aug. haer 54. Pacian ep 1. 3. ad Simpron Aug. haer 53. Aug. haeres 82. Hier. lib. cont Jovinian Hier. lib. cont Vigilantium The poor shift of John Fox Fox pag. 95. John Fox's shift to fill up this second Book An. 180. Fox in the Title of his Acts and Monuments In his Protestation to the English Church pag. 10. What Fox should have treated in his second Book second 300 years after Christ Sup. part 1. cap. 5. Why Fox writeth nothing of the Church of Britanny in these three Ages Exc. 2. c. 5. sup p. 1. c. 6. The substance and method of the Magdeburgians Centuries Cent. c. 4. p. 159. The praise of the Doctors Fathers of the fourth Age by the Magdeburg About Free-will Cent. 4. p. 211. Ib. pag. 287 291. Cent. 4. p. 231. Cent. 4. c. 4. Cent. 4. p. 294. Ephr. l. 2. de compunctione cordis c. 3. The blessed Sacrament Cent. 4. pag. 242. Ambr. lib. 4. de Sacr. c. 4. Hil. l. 8. de Trinitate Nazianzen orat 1. in Juliam Ambr. lib. 5. ep 33. Nissen Orat. Catechistica Cent. 4. pag. 292. Hier. in cap. 3. ad Galat. Enc. 2. cap. 16. Cent. 4. pag. 293. Theoph. Alex. lib. 3. de Paschate Cent. 4. p. 242. Hil. in Ps 118. The Fathers condemn'd for divers Doctrins held against Protestants Cent. 4. p. 299. Epiph. tom 2. lib. 2. Cent. 4. p. 303. Cent. 4. cap. 6. p. 407. num 50 54. Euseb Athan. S. Basil Socr. l. 5. c. 22. Theod. l. 5. c. 18. Opt. l. 6. Zoz l 6. c. 6. Eus l. 4. de vit Constant Opt. l. 1. cont Parmen Basil Basil ep 63. Zozim l. 4. c. 16. Cent. 4. p. 118 119 120. p. 431 432.433 The ancient observation of Fasts Fox p. 95. How Fox filleth up his second Book with matter not to his purpose The third station of Times from K. Ethelbert an 600 to K. Egbert an 800. Why Jo. Fox shifted over these 200 years so slightly The contemptuous writing of John Fox in this station of 200 years Popes Emperors of these 200 years The chief Doctors from an 600 to 800. Council General Heretics of this time Conversion of England The growth and progress of the English primitive Church in this time Fox's scoffing story of the English primitive Church p. 107 113 c. Bed. l. 1. hist c. 21. Fox p. 113. Mat. 18. Bed. l. 4. hist c. 5. Malm. de gest Pont. Angl. l. 10. Fox p. 112. col 2. n. 63. Decrees of an English Synod an Dom. 680. out of Fox Fox p. 115 col 1. n. 84. The Decrees of a second Synod out of Fox an Dom. 747. Deceitful turnings windings of Fox Bed. l. 4. c. 5. Bed. ibid. Wilful Errors of John Fox Bed. l. 4. c. 5. Cambd. in desc Britan. Com. Hartf p. 302. Fox p. 112. Sup. c. 2 3 4. Bed. l. 4. hist c. 5. The wicked falsifying of S. Bede by Fox Fox is taken in his malicious dealing about the Decree of Observation of Easter Sup. c. 3. Fox 112. About marrying a second Wife the first being alive Bed. l. 4. c. 5. pag. 227. Guileful Omissions of John Fox Bed. l. 4. c. 5. A Synod holden at Herudfrod an 673. Bed. l. 4. c. 17. Leo PP epist 10. ad Flavian Theod. dial 2. Evagr. l. 2. c. 4. A second Council of Archbishop Theodorus The manner of decreeing in old Synods and National Councils according to their Ancestors (a) Anno 315. (b) Anno 380. (c) Anno 428. (d) Anno 457. (e) Anno 532. Fox p. 113. An. Dom. 682. The Council of Constantinople in Trullo Plat. in vit Agath PP Paul. Diac. l. 1. hist Malm. l. 1. de gest Pont. Angl. p. 112. Aug. l. de utilitate credendi c. 17. The fourth station from an Dom. 800 to 1066. Fox p. 121. The eighth General Council An. Dom. 870. The Heresies of these Ages The Fathers and Doctors of these Times The Archbishops of Canterbury in these Ages Kings of England in this Time. Fox in protest ad Eccl. Angl. pag. 10. What Fox handleth in these 300 years Martyrolog Rom. 5. Junii Willeb in ejus vita Vicelius in hagiolog Epitome operum Bed an 754. Adams Bremens hist Ecc. c. 4. St. Boniface an English-man an Apostle of Germany an 750. (a) St. Willebrord an 730. B. of Vtright Bed. l. 3. hist c. 27. l. 5. c. 23. Tritem de viris illust l. 3. c. 137. (b) St. Willebaldus an 760. B. of Ayste Democrit l. 2. de missa in catalog Episc de Ayste Marcell in vit S. Suneberti c. 6 14. (c) S. Willehad B. of Breme an 780. (d) Adam Bremens c. 9 11 12. St. Willericus B. of Breme an 790. Brem in hist c. 12. Erpold Lindenb in hist Archiep. Brem
the universal Church as also of England from the year of Christ 1066. downward The principal Learned Men of this time The Sects Sectaries of this time Aug. l. 1. quaest Evang. q. 38. tract 2. in Epist. Joan. A fit comparison expressing John Fox his Church Psal 47.88 Esay 61. Dan. 2. Mat. 16. 1 Tim. 3. Joan. 16. Mat. 18. St. Augustin impugneth the former absurdities Aug. l. 1. c. 1. contra Epist Parmen Ibid. ep 48. ad Vincent Aug. in Psal 101. conc 2. Aug. ib. Mat. 28. Absurdities Impieties ensuing upon the former Doctrin The patching up of Fox his Church in these Ages The substance of Fox's fourth Book containing 300 years from the Conquest to Wickliff Fox p. 236. Ibid. p. 241. Ibid. p. 255. Pope Gregory VII Fox p. 159. col 2. n. 10. Of Lanfrank Fox p. 167. Of St. Anselm see Edverus in vit S. Ansel apud sur tom 2. Edmund Cantuar. in vit Henr. de viris illust c. 7. Trit de viris illust l. 2. c. 101. l. 3. c. 329. Fox p. 175. Of St. Thomas Becket * Encount 2. c. 10 11 16. Fox p. 209. The state of the Roman Church when Wickliff began Emperours of these Ages The principal Learned Men of this Age. General Council of Florence General Council of Lateran Council of Trent Condemnation of Heretics Aug. de genes ad litteram c. 1. * In his Protest pag. 9. A starting-hole of Fox Fox pag. 390. col 2. n. 33. Fox pag. 400. col 2. Special Judges appointed to examin Wickliff's Doctrin Wickliff's heretical Articles Fox p. 400. Fox's Church made up of our Dunghil clouts Stow Walsing an 1414. Fox from p. 530 to 540. Fox p. 592. Fox maketh adversary Heretics of his Church whether they will or no. Sir John Oldcastle's Protestation at his death Fox p. 520. Fox p. 314. Fox's perfidious dealing Fox p. 529. The Abjuration of Sir John Oldcastle Supra part 1. c. 5. Fox in his Prot. p. 10. Fox's facility in rejecting Parliaments Fox p. 10. in Protest Another Parliament rejected by Fox Fox ib. p. 10. If Wickliffian Preachers were now alive the Protestants would not admit them How Fox hath found out a visible Church and from whence How the Members of Fox's visible Church do hang together Of Lollards their beginning in England Prat. l. 10. haeres p. 157. Trit in chron an Dom. 1315. Fox p. 429. col 1. n. 15. Wickliffians were called Lollards The peculiar Opinions of the Lollards Trit ib. Psal 113. Flagellants or whipping Heretics an Dom. 1350. Trit in chron an 1350. Aeneas Sylv. histor Bohem. cap. 35. The diversity of Sects amongst the Hussites Bon. Decad. 4. lib. 2. Luth. in respons ad Rofensem art 30. Melanct. epist ad Freder Mechonium Anno Dom. 1382. How Fox behaveth himself in defending Wickliffians their Doctrin Fox alloweth taking away of Tythes and Temporalities from the Clergy Fox p. 348. * Supra c. 10. Tertull. l. de Praescript Judic 15. Fox in Protest ad Eccl. Angl. Fox ib. p. 10. * What Learning they were of you shall see afterwards Mark what men Fox doth couple together as of one Faith. A fit similitude comparison Fond reasoning of Fox Two Points to be handled in this Chapter The conditions of Eccles Succession Aug in Psal 90. Conc. 2. ead ferè in Psa 56. True Succession of the Church must be Universal both in place and time Aug. l. de unit Eccles c. 4. Succession is understood principally of Bishops Aug. l. 1. cont advers Leg. Prophet c. 20. Iren. l. 3. c. 3. Tert. de praesc Opt. l. 2. cont Donat. Aug. ep 165. Aug. cont ep fundam c. 4. Aug. l. 2. cont Faust c. 2. Four Points required in true Succession of the Catholic Church The successive Pillars of Fox his Church have no connexion or coherence the one with the other Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent Rogatian Aug. ep 42. ad Mandrens tract 2. in ep Joan. A notable saying of S. Aug. touching Fox's Church The 3 Point required in Succession unity of Faith. Athan. in Symb. * Dom. Thom 22. q. 5. art 3. Caet in cundem Greg. de Valent. ead 4. disp 1. punct 3. Cyp. l. 1. ep 6. ad Magnum Luc. 11. Nazian tract de fide Hier. l. 3. Apol. contra Ruffin Aug. l. de haeres in fine A dreadful Censure of the Fathers against those that be infected with Heresie Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent Enc. 1. The catalogue of John Fox's Church-men Bertramus no Protestant Trit in verbo Bertramus Sand. de visib monarch haer 133. Berengarius no Protestant * De consecrat dist 2. c. Ego Berengarius Fox p. 146. Gerson l. cont Romant Cent. 11. c. 10. p. 527. Abbot Joachim no Protestant Extrav de Trinit Guido Carmel Bern. Luxem in Catalog haereticorum Almaricus was no Bishop nor condemned only for Images Caesar l. dial d. 5. Conc. Nicaen Can. 6. Gagnin l. 6. hist Franc. Gers tract 3. in Matt. Paul Aemil. l. 6. hist Galliae Geneb in chron an 1208. Naucler in hist Tritem in chron Monast Hirsang Geneb in chron an 1215. The Waldenses or poor men of Lyons Aen. Syl. l. 4. de orig Bohem. cap. 35. Vrsper in chron an 1212. Guido Carm. in haeres Waldens Anton. p. 3. sum ti 11. c. 7. Luxemb in haeres paup de Lugduno Absurd positions of the Waldenses Will Fox agree to all this Luc. 22. 1 Cor. 11. The Albigenses and their blasphemous Opinions and Actions Caesar Cistert 5 d. dial Anton. p. 3. tit 19. ca. 1. Vincent in spec l. 3. Caesar 5. dist dialog Luxem haeresi Albig Prateol Sand. ibidem Absurd Articles of the Albigenses and their Heresies The false dealing of J. Fox Marsilius of Padua Alvar. lib. 1. de planct Eccles Castr libr. 6. contra haereses Gulielmus de sancto amore Armachanus Catholic men abused by Fox 1. Cor. 5. The first public tumults of Lollards and Wickliffians in England An. Dom. 1381. Sto. An. Dom. 1414. Sup. c. 9. * Part. 1. cap. 12. The great inconveniences ensuing upon King Henry VIII yielding in one Point only to Heretics Heresies to be stopped at the beginning Sto. an Domini 1377. p. 425. Upon what Cause and Motives Wickliff began his Doctrin The Habit of the first Wickliffians Walsingham an ult Edov. 3. The first Motive of John Wickliff and his favourers Two Apostolical Breves written into England against Wicliffians Walsing in vit Rich. 2. an 1378. The Calamities in England by Wickliff his Doctrin Fox p. 716.717 deinceps The praise of K. Henry VII (a) Stat. an 5. Ricardi 2. an Christi 1390. an 2. Hen. 4. an Christi 1402. (b) Fox in his Protest p. 10. A false flattering Picture set out by Fox of K. Henry VIII Fox p. 732. Fox his Pageants examined See from p. 663. unto 751. That K. Henry's Sword was not for the new Gospel but against it Fox p. 764. See