POPERY ANATOMIZED OR A LEARNED PIOUS AND ELABORAT Treatise wherein many of the greatest and weightiest points of Controversie between us and Papists are handled and the truth of our Doctrine clearly proved And the falshood of their Religion and Doctrine anatomized and laid open and most evidently convicted and confuted by Scripture Fathers and also by some of their own Popes Doctors Cardinals and of their own Writers In answer to M. Gilbert Brown Priest By that learned singularly pious and eminently faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. John Welsch Minister of the Gospel first at Kirkubright next at Air in Scotland and last at S. John d'Angely in France The second Edition revised corrected and divided into Sections To which is annexed A Discovery of the bloody rebellious and treasonable principles and practises of Papists in dissolving Oaths committing Treasons raising Warrs and Commotions and using imparalleled cruelties toward Protestants By MATTHEW CRAFORD GLASGOW By ROBERT SANDERS Printer to the City and University 1â—72 In hanc pij docti Auctoris Diatriben pij docti viri M. Matth. Crafordij additamentum decastichon Latino-Scoticum ROmulidum qui sacra oupis cognoscere sacra Et fugere haec sancti perlege scripta viri Perspicuè solidè Babylonia scita refedit Queîs miseras animas turba dolosa capit Quae nunc heu passim nullo prohibente vagatur Pro sapidis dapibus toxica tetra ferens Non minimas CRAFORDI etiam vir docte mereris Grates addideris quòd bona multa libro Vulnera quò capiat meretrix Romana nefandi Propinans stupri pocula plena sui The same in English WHo cursed Rome and Romish rites would know And them eschew this Book will clearly show It Babels doctrine truly doth declare Wherewith poor souls false Papists do ensnare Who now alace run freely as they will For wholsome food with poyson them to kill Great thanks also should learned CRAFORD get For these good things he to the Book hath set Which may help much to give Romes Whoor a wound Whose whoordoms so doth in the Land abound J. A. THE PREFACE TO THE LOVERS OF THE REformed Religion in Britain and Ireland DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD The name and memory of that Apostolick and singularly godly and faithful servant of JESUS CHRIST M. John Welsch who now is attending his Masters work in the Upper-House without wearying night and day is so precious in the Church of CHRIST that the revising republishing of any of his works who praise him in the gate will I hope be very acceptable to all the learned and godly especially this subsequent Treatise wherein many of the greatest and weightiest points of Controversie betwixt us and Papists are learnedly and solidly debated and the truth of our Doctrine evidently demonstrated and the error superstition and idolatry of the Church of Rome excellently anatomized and solidly refuted especially in such a time as this when Popery so much every where prevaileth and the Pope and his Agents are most active and diligent using all-means to get their deadly wound cured sending over to these Nations dayly swarms of Priests and Jesuits with books beads medals and the like Romish trash thereby to seduce the poor people who are in great hazard partly through their ignorance of the Controversies betwixt us and Papists partly through the lamentable decay of zeal against Antichrist and love to the truth partly through the sad divisions and distractions that are among our selves whereby the poor people are sorely brangled and tempted to Scepteiism and is made use of by Priests and Jesuits as a strong motive to perswade them to Popery although there be far greater divisions among Papists then among us as I have elsewhere demonstrated We shal not detain you long in the entry but only speak a little of the Author and of this Treatise and the causes that moved the reviving and republishing thereof at this time The now triumphing and glorified Author needeth none of our commendation he being among the spirits of just men before the throne and his memory being deservedly very precious in the Church of Christ But because the lives of godly men are useful for imitation we shal give a short description of his life He was descended of an ancient and respective family being a son of an ancient house of the name of Welsch in Nithsdale He was born a little after that blessed work of Reformation began in Scotland and being trained up at Schools he profited very much so that he was excellently accomplished in all kind of literature and eminent for piety and zeal for the Kingdom of Christ And being called to the Ministery of the Gospel about the year 1588. at the town of Kirkubright he was most diligent and laborious in preaching catechising visiting the sick and disputing and convincing of Papists which that Countrey abounded with And his labors were singularly blessed of God for many were brought by his Ministery to see the error superstition and idolatry of Popery and to embrace the truth and many were really converted to God and others were edified and built up confirmed comforted and strenthened so that he as a shining and burning light did inlighten that whole Countrey who at that time was in many places destitut of Pastors After he had remained there several years the General Assembly thought fit to transport him to Air as a Town of greater note and more populous where he was most assiduous and diligent in the work of the Ministery for he preached not only twise on the Lords day but also twise on every day of the week from nine to ten in the morning and from four to five at night where the Lord wonderfully blessed his labors for both in Air and in the Countrey about many were converted by him some of whom were as eminent and lively Christians as readily have been known of latter times After he had continued in the work of the Ministery several years at Air he was commissioned by the Presbytery with some other of his brethren to keep the Assembly indicted at Aberdene anno 1605. for which he with M. John Forbes M. Andrew Duncan M. John Sharp M. Robert Dury and M. Alexander Strachan were arraigned imprisoned and at length banished anno 1606. whereupon he went to France and in a very short time learned the French tongue and acquired such a facility therein as was thought strange by these who knew it He was called to the Ministery in S. John d' Angely a Protestant town in France where his Ministery was much blessed with success But the Civil Warrs arising while he was there that City was besieged on the Protestant interest M. Welsch did much encourage the people and told them that their adversaries should not prevail But in process of time the town was sore straitned and ready to be taken the enemy having raised a battery and by a close approach had made a great breach in the wall M. Welsch hearing
thereof lest the people should be discouraged and faint went himself with the Canonier up the walls and desired he should charge such a piece of Canon and shoot for GOD should direct that shot and cause it to prosper which accordingly did to the astonishment of on-lookers dismount that battery and the Lord so ordered things after that the King did parley on favorable terms with the City and did only himself with his Court come in without doing any violence Upon the LORDS day thereafter some of the godly in that place fearing M. Welsch his hazard did seriously deal with him that he would forbear to go forth and preach the Court being there But he would by no means be hindered showing them he would adventure to preach the Word to his people and trust the Lord with what concerned himself Therefore he went forth and preached having a very great Auditory both of friends and others who came upon the fame of such a man But in time of Sermon a great man of the Court with some of the Kings own guard was sent to bring him forthwith before the King and whilst he was entering the Church which had some difficulty by reason of the multitude M. Welsch did turn himself toward that entry and desired the people to give way to one of the great Peers of France that was coming in But after whilst he was coming near the Pulpit to execute his Commission he did with great authority speak to him before all the people and in the Name of his Master JESUS CHRIST charged him that he would not disturb the worship of GOD. Wherewith he was so affrighted that he fell a shaking yea was forced to crutch down and make no further trouble Sermon being ended M. Welsch with much submission went to the King who was then greatly incensed and with a threatning countenance asked What he was And how he durst preach Heresie so near his person and with such contumacy carry himself To which with due reverence bowing himself he did answer I am Sir the servant and Minister of JESUS CHRIST whose truth I preached this day which if your Majesty rightly knew ye would have judged it your duty to have come your self and heard And for my doctrine I did this day preach these three truths to your people First that man is fallen and by nature in a lost condition yea by his own power and abilities is not able to help himself from that estat Secondly that there is no salvation or deliverance from wrath by our own merits but by JESUS CHRIST and his merit alone Thirdly I did also preach this day the just liberties of the Kingdom of France that your Majesty oweth obedience to Christ only who is the Head of the Church and that the Pope as he is an enemy to Christ and his truth so also to the Kings of the earth whom he keepeth under slavery to his usurped power Whereat the King for a time keeping silence with great astonishment turned to some about him and said Surely this is a man of GOD. Yea after did commune with him and with great respect dismissed him The next year the differences betwixt the King and Protestants growing greater the City was again besieged M. Welsch intreated the Citizens to make peace with the King for God had a controversie with them for their unthankfulness and not walking answerably to the Gospel therefore he was not with them as formerly but had given them up to their enemies and if they stood out their City should be taken But the City not hearkening to him was taken and in part sacked At which time the King passed a solemn order that none should in the least wrong M. Welsch nor any thing that belonged to him under highest pains and said to him as Nebuzaradan to Jeremiah All the land is before thee whither it seemeth good and convenient for thee to go thither go But M. Welsch being grown exceedingly infirm in his body and the Physicians advising that only his native air could help him choised to go over to England whereupon the King granted him a safe-conduct So he came over to London where he remained a certain space but not being permitted to return to Scotland his sickness encreased and he died During the time of his sickness he was so filled and overcome with the sensible enjoyment of GOD that he was sometimes over-heard in prayer to have these words LORD hold thy hand it is enough thy servant it a clay vessel and can hold no more He was a man for piety converse and communion with GOD most singular and rare M. Rutherfurd in his Epistle prefixed to his Survey of Antinomianism showeth that from the witnesses of his life he had this account that of every twenty-four hours he gave usually eight to prayer if other necessary and urgent duties did not hinder Yea he spent many dayes and nights which he set apart in fasting and prayer for the condition of the Church and the sufferings of the Reformed Churches abroad He used even in the coldest winter nights to rise for prayer as the Author of the fulfilling of the Scripture testifieth and oft times his wife hath risen to seek after him where he hath been found lying on the ground weeping and wrestling with the LORD yea some times would have been much of the night alone in the Church of Air on that account One time especially his wife finding him overcharged with grief he told her he had that to press him which she had not the souls of three thousand people to answer for whilst he knew not how it was with many of them And at another time whilst she found him alone his spirit almost overcharged with anguish and grief upon her serious enquiry said That the times which were to come on Scotland were heavy and sad though she should not see them and this for the contempt of the Gospel While he was in France a Frier travelling through the Countrey came to his house and M. Welsch being very hospital permitted him to stay all night The Friers bed being not far from M. Welsch his chamber heard a noyse with many deep sighs and groans all night which he supposed to have been an evil spirit and therefore arose early in the morning and would needs be gone a Scots Gentle-man being in the house and seeing the Frier troubled enquired what the matter meant that he would be gone so soon He answered he would not stay in a Huguenots house any longer for they had converse with evil spirits The Gentle-man understanding the matter told him that it was M. Welsch whose ordinary it was to pray all night and desired him to stay the next night and he should see the truth thereof which accordingly he did and was so much astonished at M. Welsch his piety that he forsook Popery and embraced the Reformed Religion As he conversed with GOD and dwelt in the Mount by prayer and wrestling with GOD night and
I delivered it to his Majesty but he was in a passion and it seems it hath fallen by for I have not gotten an answer Nay my Lord said M. Welsch you should not lie to God and to me I know you delivered it not I am sory My Lord for your lot I warned you not to be false to God and now I tell you God shal take your estat and honors in Scotland and shal give them to your neighbor and this in your own time This troubled the Lord Ochiltrie and came truly to pass for he being the eldest son of the good Lord Ochiltrie a Reformer was forced in his own time to quite all and give both estat and honors to James the son of Captain James the second brother who was the last of that house VI. While he was Minister at Air the plague was sore in the Countrey but no infection was in the Town but it came to pass that two men coming with packs of cloth to the Town from a neighboring place where there was yet no suspicion thereof The sentry on the Bridge held them out notwithstanding they had a pass while the Magistrat came who though he could not disprove their pass yet would not permit them to enter the Town till he sent for M. Welsch So the Bailly bids them disburden their beasts till he considered what was to be done A little after M. Welsch coming the Bailly saith to him Sir here are men come from such a place we have heard of no plague there besides they have a pass from known men What shal we do M. Welsch made no answer but uncovering his head stood in the midst of the company that followed him and having his eyes directed to heaven yet speaking nothing near half a quarter of an hour at last said Bailly cause these men put on their packs again and be gone for if GOD be in heaven the plague of GOD is in these packs These men returned and opened their packs at Cumnock and it was observed that such contagion was therein that all the people of that Village died there was not a man left to bury the dead VII While he was in prison John Stewart an eminent Christian wo lived at Air being come to visit him found him in a more then ordinary way troubled and sad and upon his enquiry thereanent he saith John ye should not be here go home to Air for the plague of GOD is broken up in that place and cause Hew Kennedy Provest of that Town who was also a very singular Christian convean the people to the streets and pray together and the Lord shal hear Hew Kennedy and remove the stroke This at first did something astonish the said John and put him to question its truth having so lately come out of that place but at his return found it so and accordingly in every thing it fell out as the man of GOD had shewed These instances are recorded in the fulfilling of the Scriptures to which I add one no less true then the rest it is this VIII While M. VVelsch was Minister at Air there was much profanation of the LORDS Day committed by reason of great confluence of people at a Gentle-mans house about eight miles distance from Air to the foot-ball and other games and pastimes whereupon M. VVelsch did several times write to the Gentle-man desiring him to suppress the profanation of the LORDS Day at his house but he not loving to be called a Puritan slighted it wherefore M. VVelsch came on a day to his gate and called for the Gentle-man who coming to him he told him that he had a message from GOD to him to show him that because he slighted the advise given him from the LORD and would not restrain the profanation of the LORDS Day committed in his bounds therefore the LORD would cast him out of his house and estat and none of his posterity should ever enjoy it Which came to pass for although the Gentle-man was in a very good external condition at that time yet from that day forward all things crossed him while at length he was necessitat to sell his estat and while he was giving the buyer possession thereof he told before his wife and children with tears that he had found M. VVelsch a true Prophet This was related by the Gentle-mans own son a godly and reverent Minister who was present when his father told it with tears He longed much to be in heaven and to be rid of a body of death as witnesseth among others these expressions in that fore-cited letter My desire to remain here is not great knowing that so long as I am in this house of clay I am absent from the LORD and if it were dissolved I look for a building not made with hands eternal in the heavens In this I groan desiring to be clothed upon with my house which is in heaven If so be that being clothed I shal not be found naked For I that am within this tabernacle do oft times groan and sigh within my self being oft times burdened not that I would be unclothed but clothed upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life I long to eat the fruit of that tree which is planted in the midst of the Paradise of GOD and to drink of the pure river clear as crystal that runs through the streets of that new Jerusalem I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shal stand at the last day on the earth and that after my skin worms destroy my body yet in my flesh shal I see GOD whom I shal see for my self and not another for me And mine eyes shal behold him though my reins be consumed within me I long to be refreshed with the souls of them that are under the altar who were slain for the Word of GOD and the testimony they held And to have these long white robes given me that I may walk in white with these glorious Saints who have washed their garments and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Why should I think it a strange thing to be removed from this place to that wherein is my hope my joy my crown my eldest brother my Head my Father my Comforter and all the glorified Saints and where the song of Moses and the Lamb is sung joyfully Where we shal not be compelled to sit by the rivers of Babylon nor to hing up our harps on willow trees but shal take them and sing the new Halelujah Blessing honor glory and power to him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for ever What is under this old vault of the heavens and in this old worn earth which is under the bondage of corruption groaning and travelling in pain and as it were still shooting out the head looking waiting and longing for the redemption of the sons of GOD VVhat is there I say that should make me remain here I expect that new heaven and that new earth where righteousness
the Temple which were shut up restored the worship of GOD sent messengers with letters throughout all Israel to convert them to the LORD their GOD restored the Priests and Levites in their Ministery as the LORD had commanded by his Prophets spake to their hearts strengthened them in their offices provided for their maintenance that they might be encouraged in the Law of the LORD Follow these examples Sir send Pastors throughout all the borders of your Kingdom to teach your subjects the Law of their LORD and the Gospel of their salvation establish Religion and Justice in all the Cities of your Kingdom Cause the waters of life to run from the heart of your Countrey unto the borders thereof that publickly and privatly the LORD may be but one and his Name one and he may be a soveraign King in all your Land as it was prophesied and promised Zech. 14.8.6 Establish Pastors in all your Kingdom strengthen them in their offices and speak to their hearts Provide for their maintenance that they be not distracted but may be encouraged in the Law of their GOD and in the execution of their Ministery And when it is reported to your Majesty or ye hear of any be they many or be they few be they man or be they wife be it publickly or be it secretly in any of the Cities or parts in your Majesties Kingdom that they have gone out to entise others to Idolatry or have committed Idolatry themselves ye try it search it seek it out most diligently for so the LORD hath most straitly commanded And if it be true and certain that such abomination is done in your Kingdom Take evil out of Israel that he may have mercy on us and multiply his blessings to us And then may ye Sir having done all these things take GOD to record that you are clean from the blood of all your people because you have kept no mean back from them which your calling craved but hath caused the whole counsel of GOD to be shewed to them so that if they perish their own blood may be upon their own heads And then shal forrain Nations and strangers say of you Sir as Hiram and the Queen of Sheba said of Solomon 1. Kings 5.7 and 10.8 Blessed be the LORD GOD who hath set such a wise and understanding Prince over Scotland to build his Church and to exercise Justice and judgement there It was for the love the LORD had to his Church there that he set such a wise and understanding Prince over them Yea the generations to come Psal 78.4 shal tell to their children and their childrens children the great work of the LORD which he hath done by you Sir in this Land I have heard your Majesty gravely protest before GOD in two General Assemblies that it was one of your Majesties greatest desires and ye were even as it were ambitious of that work to plant every Parochin within your Kingdom with a Pastor that the posterities to come might say King JAMES the sixth hath done such a notable work in his days Confirm your self Sir in that purpose For ye know Sir who hath said I will honor them that honor me There is no question Sir and I speak with confidence if ye honor him in this Kingdom and be faithful to him in the Government of it he shal honor you not only by making you to reign in that everlasting Kingdom but also by lifting you up to be Ruler over mo Kingdoms here The LORD anoynted David King over all Israel yet he gave not the possession of it all at once after the death of Saul but first proved him with the Government of one Tribe seven years and an half and then finding him faithful over that he placed him Ruler over all the rest and established all Israel in his hand So there is no question and I am sure of it if ye honor the LORD to the uttermost of your power in the Government of this Kingdom and give him a proof of your fidelity therein that as he hath given you the undoubted right by birth to be a King over mo Kingdoms then this so shal he make you Ruler of them and establish them in your hands Only Sir Be ye strong and couragious to do with all diligence as the LORD hath commanded you in his Word Josh 1.6.7.8.9 and as ye see these faithful Kings have done before you Decline neither to the right hand nor to the left and then assuredly I dare promise you in the Name of the LORD he shal not leave you nor forsake you all your days and none shal be able to stand before your face And as he was with Josua and David so shal he be with you For the LORD is true who hath promised then shalt thou prosper in all thy ways And consider upon the other part who ever prospered unto the end but these that walked as the LORD had commanded For true is that which the LORD spake by his Prophet to Asa He is with you while ye be with him and if ye seek him he will be found but if ye will forsake him he will forsake you 2. Chron. 1.4.2 Was the LORD any longer with Saul Joash Amatzia Uzzia all Kings of Juda then they were with him No no but from time they forsook him he forsook them Because Saul despised the word of the LORD in sparing whom he should not have spared the LORD despised him from being King over Israel and the Spirit of the LORD forsook him 1. Sam. 15.23 and 16.15 Because Joash forsook the LORD 2. Chron. 24.20 in permitting Idolatrie at the request of his Princes the LORD forsook him and his Kingdom and delivered them into the hands of their enemies Because Amatzia did evil and obeyed not the counsel of the Prophet 2. Chron. 5.16 when he admonished him the LORD determined to destroy him Vzzia all the dayes that he sought the LORD the LORD prospered him 2. Chron. 26.5.16.18 but from time he lifted up himself to corrupt himself to trespass against the LORD his GOD in passing the limits of his calling and invading the Priests office he had no honor of the LORD but was smitten with leprosie But let all these things be far from your Majesty since you see what every one of these have done to Kings and Kingdoms before you let your heart be constant before the LORD your GOD all the dayes of your life that priores posteriores 2. Chron. 25.26 be never registrat of your Majesty as it was of them neither in the Books of the LORDS Commentary before him neither in the Chronicles of the Kings of Scotland but that both your former and latter may be that which is good and right in the eyes of the LORD That both the LORD may give this testimony to your own conscience and to the conscience of all his children that he gave of David I have found you a man according to mine own heart that will
the beautie of Sion and the glorious presence of his Redeemer fill your privie chambers with strong cryes and many tears Cause heaven and earth to be filled with groans and sighs of his own Spirit in you and take a claught of that Prince of life ere he remove altogether and before he have stollen himself far away that he cannot be found again And wrestle with him as Jacob did and let him not depart out of your hearts entreat him yea enforce him as it were by your tears and sorrowful cryes not to leave his own Tents and Tabernacles in this Land not to give over his glorious Gospel which is his strength and glorie into captivity in the hands of their enemies Remember that he cannot abide the intercession of his own Spirit in his own He cannot hide his eyes from his own flesh and blood he can deny nothing to his own beloved Son that makes intercession for his Saints Let us therefore step up to that Throne of grace with all confidence and assuredly as he is true who hath promised we shal find grace and mercy in the time of this our need both comfort to our own hearts and it may be peace in our dayes that our eyes shal not see the evils that are to come and at that bright appearing of our LORD of life all tears shal be wiped away from our eyes We shal be clothed with those long white robes and shal be fed with the fatness of his house and shal drink of the rivers of his pleasures which is at his right hand for evermore For Sions sake in this Land Christian Reader have I thus written unto thee and for Jerusalems cause have I not kept silence at this time that her glory and wonted brightness may be renewed that the Church of Scotland which was the beauty of Europe and the praise of the whole earth for her liberty purity and discipline might be established in the same and her salvation and righteousness might break forth as a burning lamp to all the Nations of the earth and that other Churches in other Kingdoms which desired to see our beauty and spiritual glory and accounted them blessed which might have had the occasion to have dwelt in our Tents to have seen and enjoyed the same yea who would have been content to have bought it with the price of their blood to their posteritie that they I say may see the continuance thereof and may rejoice Turn thou O LORD our GOD our hearts unto thee that thy glorious presence may be continued with us for ever for JESUS CHRIST his sake our LORD and Redeemer to whom be all praise and glory for ever and ever Amen Now I come to this matter in hand the occasion of it was this There was one who was sometimes an hearer of the word with me who shew me that he had been in conference with a Papist and he had brought him thus far that if he would show him of any that professed our Religion before Martin Luther he would renounce his Papistry and therefore desired me to set them down in writ The which I did and set it down in this form as thou seest it here So this being carried to M. Gilbert Brown he writs an answer to it and sent it to me Unto the which I have made this reply Thou hast them all three here first that which I did write then his answer to it and then my reply to his answer Indeed it is true Christian Reader that there was many things that did hinder me withdraw me from this resolution either to make any answer to it at all or yet to let it go forth to the light As first that so many things have been written already by the lights lanterns of this age against that ruinous Babel that all further cōvictions seemed to be superfluous Next the conscience of my own tenuitie and weakness together with a continual burden of a fourfold teaching every week in my ordinary charge beside others both privat and publick duties which not only my own people but also this desolat Countrey craved whereby I was let to afford that time and studie unto it as the gravity of such a matter required And last of all the consideration both of the person and work of the adversary that neither the one nor the other would be accounted worthy of any answer at all himself being both rejected and excommunicated according to the express commandment of the holy Ghost as an Heretick being perverted and damned in his own conscience and delivered over unto Satan that he might learn if it were possible not to blaspheme the everlasting truth of GOD any more Tit. 3.10.11.12 1. Cor. 5.5 1. Tim. 1.20 And also denounced his rebel for his treasonable attempts both against this Church and Kingdom his work also being so foolish in its self as both I heard his Majestie affirm that he was a foolish reasoner in it and also I hope the indifferent Reader shal see the same his reasons arguments being also so oft answered unto by the learned of our side so that it seemed but actum agere to make any further answer thereunto yet notwithstanding of all these impediments these motions and reasons prevailed with me at the last both to answer it and also to let it go forth to the open view and sight of all men to wit the conscience of that duty which I ow unto the truth of GOD being so highly blasphemed and evil spoken of the unfained love of the salvation of my Countrey-men who for the most part are blinded with the smoke of the darkness of that bottomless pit the railing and thrasonical bragging of the adversary both by word and writ that it would never be answered and that the Ministery would never suffer an answer to come to light because they knew the answer to be unworthy and none other was able to answer to it the most earnest pressing of a great many of my brethren who knew the lamentable estat of this blind Countrey the constant desire of all men in this Countrey to see the same together with his Majesties most gracious acceptation of my endeavor and most favorable judgement of this my labor and most humane counsel to publish the same which did not a little incourage me and last of all the express commandment of the holy Ghost Answer a fool according to his follie lest he seem wise in his own eyes the which if it have place in any thing it must have place here where not only this seeming wise in his own eyes would undoubtedly follow upon my silence but also a seeming wise in the eyes of all this part of the Countrey almost both to the prejudice of the everlasting truth of GOD and also to the stumbling of the weak the further obduring of the obstinat and the wounding of the hearts of the godly therein Augustin lib. de Trinitate cap. 3. lib. cont Mend. cap. 6. hath
INTRODVCTION M. Gilbert Brown An Answer to a certain Libel or Writing sent by M. JOHN WELSCH to a Catholick as an Answer to an objection of the Roman Church c. I received a little scrol which was sent to you by M. John Welsch Minister at Kirkubright in the which there is much promised and little done And because it may appear to some to be something I will God willing answer the same in particular M. John Welsch his Reply AS to your judgement and censure of this my answer to your objection wherein ye think there is much promised and little done I do not regard it For so long as your heart is bewitched with the pleasures of Babel your light is but darkness so while the Lord anoint your eyes with that eye-salve promised in the Revelation 3. and purge your heart by faith ye cannot discern of things different and give upright judgement What I promised I am now by the grace of God ready to perform And whether it was something or nothing much or little that I did let work bear witness and let them that love the truth judge M. Gilbert Brown First he tittles his libel An answer to an objection of the Roman Church whereby they go about to deface the verity of that only true Religion which we profess God forbid that we Catholicks whom he calls the Roman Church seeing that we are the only defenders of the truth as our predecessors the Pastors of the true Church was before us should go about to deface the truth But we go about to impugn all false doctrine repugnant to the truth as the holy Fathers of the primitive Church did before us against the hereticks in their dayes as Ireneus Cyprian Ambrose Augustine Hierome Basile Gregory Chrysostome with the rest of the true Pastors of the Church And seeing that the Ministers of this new Evangel have not only invented some heresies themselves but also have renewed many old condemned heresies confuted by them before as they cannot deny as I shal give some examples afterward as the heresie of Simon Magus of Manicheus Pelagius Aerius Jovinianus Vigilantius with many others what less can we do nor impugn the same as our predecessors did before M. John Welsch his Reply As to your answer First ye deny it and detest it as a blasphemy Next ye go about to clear your selves from the suspicion of it Thirdly ye challenge us and our doctrine with the crimes of novelty and heresie And so ye conclud ye could do no less nor impugn it As to your denying of the defacing of the truth of God so doth the whorish woman Prov. 30.20 after she hath eaten she wipes her mouth and saith she hath not sinned which is true as well in spiritual as in bodily fornication So notwithstanding your Church hath buried the truth of God in the graves of darkness and did overcover it with their traditions and glosses these many years by gone yet you wipe your mouthes and say you have not sinned But look to it in time for ignorance and zeal without knowledge will not excuse you in the day of the Lord. That you detest it as a blasphemy so did the high Priest rent his clothes and said Christ blasphemed Matth. 26.65 when he spake but the truth As for your golden styles which you take to your selves of Catholicks defenders of the truth successors to the Pastors of the true Church and impugners of all false doctrine Your doctrine indeed could not deceive so many if it were not covered with these styles your poyson and abomination would not be drunken so universally if it were not in such a golden cup as this Rev. 17.4 So these are the hyssop wherewith ye would wash you from this iniquity and cleanse you from this sin But may not false Prophets come in sheeps clothing Matth. 7.15 And the ministers of Satan can they not transform themselves as though they were the ministers of Christ 2. Cor. 11.13.14 The Scriptures have fore-told it And did not the false Apostles in Ephesus call themselves the Apostles of Christ and yet they were found lyars And did not the synagogue of Satan call her self the synagogue of the Jews Rev. 2.4.9 that is the Church of God and yet they were not so but the synagogue of the devil Yea and did not Abrahams seed and they that sate in Moses chair and was the successors of Aaron condemn the Savior of the world John 8.37 Matth. 23.2 Therefore not by your styles but by your fruits ye must be tryed Matth. 7.16 For if ye be Catholicks c. ye will teach the doctrine of that good Pastor and chief shepherd the Lord Jesus John 10.14 So it is your doctrine and not your styles that must defend you SECTION II. Whither the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church ANd because Christian Reader by this style of Catholick which they ascrive only to their Church they cause the simple to err and leads many blind-fold to damnation therefore I will take this visard from them Ye are not the Catholick Church as ye style your self and thus I prove it Pope Pius the fifth who wrote a Catechism according to the decree of the Council of Trent Catechism Conc. Trident. in expositione Symb. He there saith That the Church which is called the body of Christ whereof he is the head is called Catholick because it is spread in the light of one faith from the East to the West receiving men of all sorts containing all the faithful which have been from Adam even until this day or shal be hereafter to the end of the world professing the true faith c. Now I reason thus The Catholick Church comprehends all the faithful from Adam till now and that shal be hereafter to the end of the world or else Pope Pius and the Fathers of Trent errs But the Roman Church comprehends not all the faithful from Adam till now and that shal be hereafter Therefore the Roman Church is not the Catholick Church Choose you now which of these ye will deny The proposition I suppose ye will not for then ye should bring two inconveniencies the one upon Pope Pius and the Fathers of Trent that they have erred in defining the Catholick Church and so the Church and the Pope may err The other is upon your self who said that your Church hath not erred And so ye lose your styl of a defender of the Catholick faith for this is a chief point of their faith that the Church cannot err I hope therefore that these are Labyrinths which ye will not wittingly cast your self into and so you must hold fast the proposition All the question is then of the assumption Whither the Roman Church comprehends all the faithful from Adam till now and which shal be to the end of the world or not First I say a particular Church comprehends not all the faithful from Adam c. But the Roman Church is a particular Church or
him see so much of his light in the face of Christ as may save him But yet so long as they are in this house of clay they see but in part that part which they see is but obscurely and dimly as the Apostle speaketh 1. Cor. 13.12 So that as long as they are in this world they are subject to sin ignorance and errors But as there are two sorts of men in the visible Church some called and chosen some called and not chosen and as in the diseases of the body some are curable whereof men recovers some are deadly whereof men dies so it is in the errors of the militant Church some are deadly some are curable The chosen that are called may err but their errors are not deadly as the errors of the Apostles were Acts 1.6 and 10. and 11. Gal. 2. Rev. 19. and 22. they recovered by grace from them The called that are not chosen may err and err deadly and never recover as these of whom John speaketh They went out from us saith he because they were not of us c. John 2.19 Now seeing the visible Church here beneath stands but of these two sorts to wit of these that are called and chosen and these that are called but not chosen and both may err Therefore it is manifest that the Church militant here beneath may err And to prove this more amply that she hath erred before the Law under the Law in Christs time and after Christ First Adam being made in perfect holiness and integritie how grievously did he err when contrarie Gods commandment giving more credit to the Devil then to his Maker he brake that first covenant For Tertullian saith Who will doubt to call Adams fall an heresie Contra Marcionem lib. 1. Now if Adam in his full light did not stand but so foullie erred which is he that is come forth of his loyns born in ignorance and blindness that dare challenge this prerogative to himself that he cannot err except the man of sin and son of perdition that is the Popes of Rome Now he being thrust out of Paradise hath two sons the elder Cain for the murther of his brother is accursed of God and the author of the Synagogue of Babel that is the wicked The Church of God remained in the posteritie of Seth Gen. 5. and at the last Religion began to be so prophaned that at length it grew to such a hight that Religion being contracted only in the familie of Noah it could be punished with no less then with an universal destruction of all living creatures by the flood except only these that were preserved in the Ark with him Gen. 6. Of Noahs three children two of them fell both themselves and their posterity The true Church and Religion remained in the family of Sem and neither were they free from Idolatrie God calling Gen. 12. Abraham out of his own countrey serving strange Gods Josu 24.2.3 His eldest son Ismael being circumcised is commanded to be casten out of the Church of God Gen. 21.12 and 25.23 and 31.34 and 35.2 Isaac hath two sons the elder is refused the youngest is chosen and so the elder with his posteritie fell away Jacobs familie was not clean neither from Idolatrie being polluted with strange Gods by his wife Rachel till he cleansed his house And as for his posteritie what stiff-neckedness what rebellion what Idolatrie was among them so that no threatning no blessing no correction nor teaching could keep them in the puritie of Gods worship and Religion In the Church under the Law the people are Idolaters the hie-Priest Aaron the maker of the Idol to the people Exod. 32. In the time of the Judges after the death of Josua they worshipped Baal and strange Gods Judges 1.12.13 and every man did that which seemed good in his own eyes when there was not a King in Israel which was very oft in those dayes and therefore they are given over to the crueltie and tyrannie of their enemies round about them In the time of Heli there was no open vision 1 Samuel 3.1 And Solomon saith Where there is no vision the people perish Prov. 29.18 In Sauls time the Ark of the Lord was not sought 1. Chro. 13.3 and so there wanted a chief part of the publick worship of God for God was consulted at the Ark. And in the time of Solomon in his old age when his heart was turned from the Lord the Scripture testifieth that they forsook the Lord and worshipped strange Gods of the Ammonites 1. Kings 11. Such like in the time of Rehoboam Solomons son Juda committed Idolatrie and built hie places wherein they worshipped contrary to Gods commandment Jehoram King of Juda made Juda and Jerusalem to commit spiritual fornication and Idolatrie 1. Kings 14 22.23 as the house of Ahab made Israel to commit Idolatrie Seeing then the worship of God was corrupted both in Juda and in Israel and there was no other visible Churches upon the earth except in Juda and Israel will it not follow then that all the particular Churches on the earth may err and fall also to Idolatrie Such like in the time of Achaz a strange altar is placed in the temple of the Lord at the commandment of the King by Vriah the Priest and the King with the whole people at the Kings commandment offers upon that altar and the altar of the Lord is removed out of his place 2. Kings 16.10.11 c. In the time of Joash both the King and the Nobilitie forsake the house of the Lord and worship Idols so that the hot wrath of the Lord was kindled against Juda and Jerusalem for their Idolatrie 2. Chro. 24. Such like in the time of Achaz he made hie places in all the corners of Jerusalem and in all the cities of Juda and there burnt incense to strange Gods 2. Chro. 28. In the time of Manasses the whole publick worship of God was so defaced and Idolatrie so universallie set up that the Scriptures testifie Juda sinned more hainouslie then the very nations did whom the Lord cast out before their face Chron. 33.9 The whole host of heaven was worshipped in stead of the true God I beseech thee Reader to read this chapter and there thou shalt find that there was not so much as an outward face of a Church at that time Yea in the very time of good Kings as Joash and Amasia who both in the beginning embraced the worship of God but yet made defection in the end The hie places were not removed 2. Kings 12.3.4 and 14.4 which was an error in the worship of God The Scripture testifies that the feast of the Passover was not kept so preciselie according to the Word of God since the days of Samuel no not in the reign of the best Kings as it was in the 18. year of Josias Chr. 35.18 and there was 400. years and more between Also the Scripture testifieth that the feast of the
Tabernacles was not so kept as it was then since the dayes of Josua which was more then a thousand years Nehem. 8.18 And all the time of the captivitie where was there any publick face of the Church of God with his publick worship uncorrupted in all things as the Lord commanded it As concerning the Kingdom of Israel from the time of their renting asunder by Jeroboam from the Kingdom of Juda they never had the worship of God in integritie but first worshipped God in the places where they should not have worshipped him and after another manner and by other Priests then they were commanded Next they fell to the worshipping of Idols till they were transported out of their land and scattered upon the face of the earth What shal I pursue the sayings of the Prophets how the only visible Church in the world is called an harlot Isai 1. the Temple a den of thieves Jer. 7. the Prophets all blind guides and dumb dogs that cannot bark Isai 57.10.11 Hosea 2. Now when God of his infinit mercy sent his only begotten Son in the world the light the life the salvation of the world what did the Church and the Clergie the Scribes and the Pharisies that sate in the chair of Moses Mat. 23. Surely Christ had none so great enemies as they were who were the Doctors the lights the successors of Aaron to whom the Law was concredited When Christ testified of himself that he was the light of the world they said his testimony was not true John 8.13 When others believed in him they said they were deceived John 7.47 They ordain that if any man should confess Christ he should be excōmunicat John 9.22 So that many that did believe in him durst not for them confess him John 12.42 They watched him of purpose that they might have matter of accusation against him Luke 6.7 And when he cast out Devils the Scribes and the Pharisies said that he did cast out Devils by Beelzebub the Prince of Devils Mark 3.22 Mat. 12.24 They said they found him a man perverting the nation and forbidding to pay tribut to Cesar Luke 32.2 They condemn him in a solemn Council as worthy of death Mark 14.64 Yea as Christ testifies of them they neither entred in the Kingdom of heaven themselves nor suffered others to enter in Mat. 23.13 And yet they are these that if ye look to their antiquitie they have their beginning from Abraham if to their succession they succeeded to Aaron if to their callings they were Scribes and Pharisies and sate in the chair of Moses Mat. 23 if to the place it was to the house of God if to the people whom they taught they were the only people of God if to their prerogatives to them appertained the adoption and the glorie and the covenant and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises of whom are the Fathers and of whom is Christ according to the flesh who is God over all blessed forever Amen Rom. 9.4.5 And if ye will look to their Council they were solemnlie called together where they condemned the Lord of life and crucified the Prince of glorie What can you say to these That they erred in the person of Christ but not in the exponing of the Law as some of you saith But first Moses did write of Christ John 5.46 and Christ is the end of the Law Rom. 10.4 So that if they had not erred in exponing of the Law they had not erred in the person of Christ because the Law testified of Christ he was the end of it Next the Scripture testifies that they erred in exponing of the Law that they both brake the Law and teached others so to do Mat. 5. And therefore Christ saith Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisies ye cannot enter in the Kingdom of heaven Mat. 5.20 For whereas the Law of God counts hatred murther and lust adultery and rash swearing unlawful swearing and our enemies our neighbors whom we ought to love and to do good unto They by the contrary taught that our friends was only our neighbors whom we should love and therefore they said that we should hate our enemies vers 43. That hatred was not the breaking of the sixth command and lust no breaking of the seventh command and rash swearing no breaking of the third command And therefore the Lord Jesus in that fifth chapter of Matthew doth vindicat the true meaning of the commandments from their false expositions And he testifies of them that they did abrogat the Law of God through their traditions and so in vain they worshipped God teaching for Gods Law which he calls doctrine mens precepts Mat. 15.6 which he proves there by an example of abrogating and annulling of that duty which we ow to father and mother commanded us in the fifth commandment by their tradition And therefore he gives charge to his disciples to beware of the leaven that is the doctrine of the Pharisies Mat. 15.6 Seeing then they who had their ordinary succession from Aaron erred how can the Doctors of your Church yea your Popes be priviledged from erring But it may be ye grant all this for how can ye deny it that the Church before the Law under the Law in the time of Moses in the time of the Judges in the time of the Kings in the time of the captivitie and in the time of Christ erred but yet the Christian Church hath greater priviledges and promises that it cannot err Let us examine this also whither the Christian Church be priviledged from erring or not And certainlie if any Christian Church at any time had this prerogative appearantlie the primitive Church which was in the dayes of Christ and of his Apostles should have had it But they had it not Therefore what Church since under the heaven can challenge it For in the time of Christs suffering the Apostles and Disciples who only then were the Christian Church yea after that they had been Apostles and after that they had been sent to preach the Gospel and work miracles yet in that time did they not err in the article of Christs resurrection Mat. 10 And erred they not concerning the estat of Christs kingdom after the resurrection Acts 1.6 and 11. And concerning the teaching of the Gentils after they had received the holy Ghost Acts 10. Gal. 2. And Peter himself as hath been shown And sundrie Papists as Alex. Hallensis in 3. parte quaest ult art 2. Johan de Turrecrem in lib. 1. de Eccl. cap. 30. 1. Cor. 3. in lib. 3. cap. 61. saith that true faith remained only in the heart of Marie in the time of Christs suffering Was not here then an universal erring Now to go forward did not the Church of the Corinthians err in building hay and stubble on the foundation and in the use of the Lords Supper and some of them also concerning the resurrection of the dead 1. Cor.
Mass-Priest any longer for they all agree in this that the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross hath accomplished all the sacrifices of the Old Law and that the vertue of it is everlasting and therefore should not be reiterat and that the sacrifice of Christians are not propiciatory but only spiritual Seeing therefore the sacrifice of the Mass was so long unknown to the Church of Christ it remains now that we show by what degrees it crap in For as after the going down of the Sun darkness comes not in immediatly but there is a twi-light before the darkness come even so after the bright stars of the primitive Church had ended their course in process of time and piece and piece first the third part of the Sun Moon and Stars were darkened till at the last the bottomless pit was opened and that great darkness came up as the smoak of a great furnace that darkened both the Sun and the air Out of the which this great abomination of the sacrifice of the Mass did proceed For Bertram who lived between the 800. and 900. years after Christ saith Our Savior hath done it once in offering up himself for he hath once offered up himself for the sins of the people and this oblation is always celebrat every day but in a mystery And he saith That once oblation of Christ is handled every day by the celebration of these mysteries or Sacraments in the remembrance of his Passion Bertram de corp sang Dom. in Heb. 7. There he oppones a real sacrifice to a mystery and Christs sacrifice once made to a dayly commemoration or remembrance of his suffering Haymo such like reckoning out the sacrifices of Christians he calls there The praises of the believers the penitence of sinners the tears of supplications their prayers and alms Haymo in cap. 5. Ose in cap. 2. Abac. Malac. 1. Theophilact who lived in the 900. year after Christ he saith in Joan. cap 81. That there is but one sacrifice and not many because Christ hath offered up himself once And he saith in another place ab Heb. cap. 10. Christ hath offered up himself once a sufficient sacrifice for ever and we have need of no other sacrifice to wit propiciatory And Anselm who lived in the thousand year of God and after he saith That which we offer every day is the remembrance of the death of Christ and that there is but one sacrifice not many for it hath been once only offered up And again Our Lord saith he bade take eat not sacrifice◠and offer up to God Anselm◠in Epist ad Heb. cap. 10. So this was the doctrine of the most learned who lived a thousand years after Christ that Christ offers up himself but once and that sacrifice was sufficient and everlasting and the sacrifices of Christians are spiritual and the Sacrament which they called sometimes a sacrifice was a commemoration of Christs one sacrifice once offered up upon the cross But from thence unto this time this abuse and sacrifice of their Mass crap in but by diverse degrees and by the concurrence of many causes SECTION XI Concerning the Degrees and Means whereby the Sacrifice of the Mass crap in First I will set down the estat of the publick worship of God in the primitive Church the first three hundred or four hundred years after Christ and then the means and degrees whereby this abominable Sacrifice crap in FIrst it is manifest that in the primitive Church the Communion or Sacrament of the Lords Supper was ministred ever week once upon the Lords day and in some place it was ministred every day as appears by these Authors Justin Martyr in Apolog. 2. Tertull. apolog Aug. de consecrat dist 2. cap. Quotidie And therefore Ambrose who lived in the three hundred age exhorteth to a dayly receiving of it Ambros lib. 5 cap. 4. de sacrament Next from the Communion was excluded◠first these who were not sufficiently instructed in the grounds of Christianity who were called Catechumeni that is catechised and instructed by questions and answers Next these who had not ended out their repentance◠and satisfaction to the Church who were called Poenitentes that is penitents And thirdly these who were possessed with an evil spirit who were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All these after that the first prayer the reading of the Scripture the sermon and the rehearsing of the Creed at the which they were present were ended they were commanded by the Deacon to retire themselves and to depart out of the Assembly or Congregation that place might be given to the faithful who was to cōmunicat in these words Ite missa est that is Go your way depart And from this first came the word Mass in the Church of God and this Bellarmin confesses lib. 1. de missa cap. 1. that the word in Latin is called missio or dimissio or missa and in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the Pagans used that same word after their sacrifice was ended in Apule l. 11. de metamorph And the abuse easily growing in the frequent using of this word it came to pass by time that all the worship of God as the first prayers the singing of the Psalmes the reading of the Scripture the preaching of the Word the rehearsing of the Symbole which was performed in the Assembly before the dimission of these who were catechised was called Missa Catechumenorum As Bellarm. confesses lib. 1. de missa cap. 1. And the rest of the worship of God which was done after their departure to the demission of the faithful as the celebration of the Supper c. was called Missa Fidelium Conc. Valent. cap. 1. Bellarm. ibidem Alcuinus de officijs Eccles cap. de celebratione Missa So then this word Mass which the Church of Rome ascribes now unto their pretended sacrifice came first from the demission or skailing of the people as they call it from the Lords service and was never heard of in the Church of Christ nor read of in any Author Hebrew Greek or Latin for the space of 400. years almost after Christ And Jerome who lived in the year 422. and was an Elder in Rome who writ so many volumes made no mention of this word Mass at all For that Commentary of the Proverbes which is ascribed unto him where mention is made of the Mass is not his See Marianus Victorius Reat in praefat in 8 tom operum Hier. For beside other things there mention is made of Gregory who lived almost 200. years after him And Ambrose makes mention of it only once S. Augustin twise or thrise for all the volums which they writ if these book be theirs For Erasmus in his censures upon the sermons de Tempore saith that many of them are found under the names of others Authors savors little either of Augustines learning or phrase See James Gillotius in praefat ad Ambros And that neither of them in the
our Ministers in Scotland except they be put to death by the Pope they bear not the testimony of Christ For these are M. Johns own words And S. John saith That the beast shal slay the two Witnesses Rev. 11.7.8 Now by M. John the beast is the Pope and the Witnesses is the Ministers therefore the Pope must slay the Ministers and after that their bodies must ly three dayes and an half not in Scotland but in Jerusalem for there was the Lord of these two Witnesses slain Rev 11.19.11.12 And after they must revive and ascend up to heaven in a cloud in the sight of their enemies and so forth Which things I trust shal come to pass to none of them in our dayes nor long after the Laird of Merchistons doomsday in his 14. Prop. Master John Welsch his Reply As for the first thing which you infer here concerning the invisibility of the Church because you have the same argument afterward I refer the answer of it to that place As for the second thing which ye infer that except the Ministers of Scotland be put to death by the Pope they bear not the testimony of Christ I answer As it is true that it is prophesied of the Antichrist that he shal slay the two Witnesses of God Rev. 11.7 and that he shal make war with the Saints and overcome them Rev. 11.12.13.15.17 so is it likewise prophesied that his cruelty shal not always continue but at the last The Lord shal take his Kingdom in his own hand and the Gospel shal be preached to them that dwel upon the earth and Babel that great city shal fall Rev. 13.6.8.9 and 18.21 So that the blood which your Church hath spilt of the Saints of God already in all the parts of Europe these three hundred years by past and that in such abundance that suppose the Lord may number them yet no man is able to number them And the patience and suffering of our brethren is a sufficient evidence that both your Popes are the Antichrist and they are the Ministers of Christ suppose they slay no mo of them And although the Lord hath shortened your power yet ye want no good will to spill the blood of the rest That ransacking of Germany that cruel persecution of Queen Mary and bloody Inquisition of Spain in the Low Countreys and that most savage and cruel massacre of Paris and that Spanish Navy which the Lord discomfited with his own mighty and outstretched arm in the 1588. year of God doth sufficiently testifie what heart ye bear to the Ministers of Scotland if your power were according to your malice But fulfill ye the measure of your fathers that the blood of all the righteous may come upon you As for the Prophesie of the ignominious handling of the bodies of these Witnesses after their slaughter it is also fulfilled by your Popes and their authority upon the carcasses of the Saints of God which in all parts almost where ever their blood was shed was most ignominiously handled as though they had been not the bodies of men but the dead carions of dogs and swine Let both Histories and some who yet live bear witness of this As for the time and place and their reviving and ascending up to heaven it is to be understood after the manner of prophesies mystically and figuratively as I have proved before The time of three days and an half signifying all the time of your tyrannous cruelty The place of their ignominy is the streets of that great City which is here called Sodom and Egypt and the place where our Lord was crucified not literally but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritually as the text saith Rev. 17.9 18. And also called Babylon in the 14. and 17. and 18. of the Revelation which is literally that seven hilled City which hath dominion over the Kings of the earth Rev. 11.8 and 17 5. which as Bellarmin lib. de Rom Pont. cap. 2. confesses is Rome properly So as this great City is neither Sodom nor Egypt nor Babylon suppose it be called so literally but only mystically and spiritually as the Scripture saith and your self will not deny for the likeness between them Sodom for her filthiness and uncleanness Egypt and Babylon for her tyranny and cruelty over the Saints of God wherein she resembles them So is she not literally the place where Christ was crucified but only mystically and spiritually for the likeness between them that as by the authority of the Emperor of Rome his Deputy Pilat our Lord was crucified for the false challenge of treason against the Emperor which was falsly and wickedly laid to his charge and therefore is said here by the holy Ghost to be crucified at Rome that is by the authority of the Rulers at Rome So by the authority of the Popes who now reign and have reigned these many years at Rome Christ is crucified again in his members because they will not receive his mark and worship him And as Jerusalem boasted her self to be a holy City and the spouse of Christ and yet was an harlot a murderer and a persecuter of the Saints so Rome doth boast her self to be an holy City and the spouse of Christ and the Head of all and yet is now and is long since become an harlot and a murderer and a persecuter of the Saints And if ye will ask When did the bodies of the Saints ly in the streets of Rome I answer As by the gates in the city in the fourth command Exod 20. is not meant the gates of the City properly but the authority and jurisdiction of the City so by the streets of Rome is not only meant the gates within the walls of Rome but all the places and parts whither his power dominion hath spread its self So that all the places where the Popes of Rome have exercised their tyranny over the Saints are called here the streets of that great City All these therefore who have been cruelly murdered by the Popes authority in England Scotland France the Low Countreys c. and whose bodies have been cast out and whose bodies have been ignominiously handled they have lyen in the streets of that great City And as all the rest of this Prophesie is to be understood spiritually so is this reviving and ascending of these Witnesses to heaven in the sight of their enemies to be understood not literally but spiritually So this is not the meaning of the holy Ghost that these Witnesses whom the Antichrist shal slay shal be raised up again in their own persons which yet shal be at the last day in the general resurrection but that the Lord shal raise up other Witnesses indued with that same Spirit which they were indued with preaching the same truth and maintaining the same cause against Antichrist as that Prophesie in the 3. of Malachie of the sending of Elias before the coming of Christ was fulfilled as our Savior testifies Matth. 11.10.14 not in the
time and the relicks of Martyrs Julian the Apostat was of the same opinion as Cyrillus contra Julian declares The same Julian despised the image of Christ and his Saints as the fore-said Cyrillus lib. 9. contra Julian makes mention Master John Welsch his Reply As to this fourth heresie they took away all the liberty and freedom of the will in man but this is not our doctrine For we affirm that man hath a liberty and freedom in his will in natural moral and sinful actions but not in these things which pleaseth God before he be renewed This is your fourth calumnie As for the fifth Jovinian taught as Augustin haeres 82. and Jerome in his 8. Epist. in his defence of his Books against Jovinian set it down and Bellarmin de Ecclesia militant lib. 4. cap. 9 reports that the married estat was equal with virginity Unto the which we answer That true and undefiled virginity we prefer always as the more noble and excellent gift in them to whom it is given but we doubt not to say but that marriage is better in them that cannot contain And generally we dare prefer the honest marriage of Christians before the proud and fained virginity of many Monastical votaries as Augustin in Psal 99. saith Lowly and humble marriage is better then proud and hauty virginity As to the second point he affirmed indeed that the choise of meats and fasting was no merit and this is no heresie But if this be heresie then the doctrine of the Scripture is heresie For it teacheth us That life everlasting is the free gift of God Rom. 6 23. as hath been proved before This is your fifth calumny As for the sixth of Vigilantius heresies if the denying of prayer to be made to Saints be an heresie then it is an old heresie for it is the Lords who is the ancient of days for this is his doctrine Call upon me in the day of thy trouble and I will deliver thee Psal 50.15 Isa 42.8 And let Augustin also go for an heretick who saith That the Saints are not called upon Aug. de civitate Dei lib. 22. cap. 20. As for the despising of the burning of lights and candles in the Churches in the day time I know not to what use it serves except to be a sign that ye are blinded of the Lord who in the midst of the day light your candles Did Jesus Christ or his Apostles so And this was the custom of Pagans which you have taken from them Irenaeus lib. 6 cap. 2. As for the despising of the relicks of Martyrs if he despised these then he erred for we both teach and practise that the bodies of the Saints should be honorably buried and we do not despise them But if he taught that they should not be worshipped then I say he is not an heretick in this but you are hereticks and idolaters who express contrary the Commandment of God do worship the creature Matth 4.10 Deut. 6 13. And Vigilantius was no heretick nor his opinions condemned as heresies only there was a hot contention between him and Jerome And as for Julian he calumniated the Christians that they adored dead men for Gods and the tree of the cross Unto whom Cyrillus answered That they adored not the sign of the cross but God only So this was but Julians calumny against them But if he had lived in your dayes he might justly have objected it unto you Master Gilbert Brown 7. Valentinus the heretick denyed the very body of Christ to be in the Sacrament as Irenaeus saith lib 4 cap. 34. 8. Simon Magus Marcion and the Manichees held that God compelled man both to do evil and good as S. Augustin haeres 46. Vincentius Lirinensis S. Clement of Rome in recognit and Epiphanius haeres 42. have in their works which is the doctâ—ine of the most learned of the Protestants as Melancthon Calvin Beza in lib. de praedest contra Calv. sycophant and others 9. The Novatians denyed pennance as S. Augustin haeres 38. affirms 10. The Manichees denyed the necessity of Baptism as the same S. Augustin haeres 46. reports 11. Aërius Eustathius and the Manichees condemned fasting days ordained by the Church as Leo Epist 93 cap 4. Epiphanius haeres 75. the Council of Gangr in praefat as S. Augustin lib. 10. cap. 3. cont Faust Manich. records 12. The Manichees used to fast on the Sunday only as S. Augustin haeres and S. Leo ser 4. de qua witness Read for this also Concil Gang. cap. 13. de consecrat dist 3. ne quis Ignatius ad Philip. de consâ—crat distinct 3. jejunium 13. The Pepusians and Collyridians denyed holy Orders and made it no Sacrament as S. Augustin haeres 4.24 and Epiphanius haeres 44.79 write 14. The Pelagians denyed that confession should be made to a Priest as our Chronicle writer testifies Hect. Boet. lib. 9 cap. 19. They deny also that Baptism was needful to children or infants as S. Augustin reports haeres 88. 15. The Donatists denâ—ed the order of Monks and other religious persons as S. Augustin in Psal 132. and S Chrysostome write Tom. 5. against the dispraiser of the monastical life Master John Welsch his Reply Whether Valentinus taught so or not I contend not but the question is of this doctrine of the real presence whether it be contrary to Gods Word or not the which I have proved sufficiently before in the fourth point of doctrine and so the denying of it is no heresie But yet it appears not by this testimony of Irenaeus which ye cite here that he taught such doctrine As for the 8. heresie it is a calumny to ascribe it to us for Melancthon Calvin and Beza have no such doctrine You are not ashamed M. Gilbert of impudent lying As for the 9. of Novatus heresie that is a calumny to ascribe it to us For Novatus denyed that there was any place of repentance to these who after they were baptized fell from the faith by any infirmity or violence of persecution as Epiphanius testifies of him that he said No man who hath fallen after Baptism can any more obtain mercy But our doctrine is contrare to this for we teach that there is place to repentance for any sin except the sin against the holy Ghost which is ever punished with final impenitency As for the 10. of the Manichees heresie their doctrine was as Augustin saith there That Baptism served nothing for salvation to any and that none who followed their sect should be baptized and therefore they brought in a contempt of Baptism which is contrary to our doctrine For we teach that Christians and their children is to be baptized and that the contempt of it is damnable suppose not the want of it As for the 11. and 12 heresies we contemn not fastings that are appointed by the Church for lawful causes but we deny that they should be tyed to certain and prefixed dayes as your Church doth and we think
day for he used to say He wondered how a Christian could ly in bed all night without rising to spend some of the night in prayer and praise so he was admitted to very intimat nearness with him and to speak with reverence put upon his secrets so that he had very many things revealed to him both concerning the Church and Kingdom of Scotland and concerning particular places and persons several instances thereof are recorded I. In his letter to my Lady Fleeming he fore-telleth the judgement coming on Scotland for he thus speaketh Alace for the Kingdom of Scotland my testimony doth not differ from that of many before this time who said that the judgement of Scotland should be blood This Kingdom shal be drowned in blood A forbished and glistering sword is dight and already drawn out of the sheath which shal not return until it be made drunk with the blood of the men within this Land First the heavy intestin sword and then the fury of a stranger O doleful Scotland well were he that were removed far from thee that his eyes might not see â—â—r his ears hear all the evils that are to come upon thee Neither the strong man by his strength nor the rich man by his riches nor the Noble by his blood shal be delivered from the judgement There is a great sacrifice to be made in Bozra in thee O Scotland of the blood of all sorts in the Land Ephraim shal consume Manasse and Manasse Ephraim Brother against brother and every man in the judgement of the LORD shal be armed to thrust his sword in the side of his neighbor and all for the contempt of the most glorious Gospel and that blood which was offered to thee O Scotland in so plentiful a manner that the like thereof hath not been offered to any Nation therefore thy judgement shal be the greater The fulfilling whereof at least in part hath since been very sensible and is known by many alive who had that letter long before the late troubles did begin II. On a certain night being under an extraordinary pressure of spirit to go and powr forth his heart to GOD he left his wife in bed and going out to a garden spent most of the night in that exercise but his wife weary at last went to seek for him but missing him in his ordinary place went into other gardens by such passages as she knew at last she heard a voyce and drawing near to it could but hear him speak a few words but with great force and fervency mixed and accompanied with floods of tears which were these O GOD wilt thou not give me Scotland O GOD wilt thou not give me Scotland She being weary and afraid to interrupt him went home and heard not the close At last he came home and reentering to his bed his wife began to reprove his unmercifulness to his own body then asked him what was he saying for she told she heard him Well said he ye had better have been in your bed but since ye heard I tell you I have endured a great fight for Scotland this night and hardly could I get a remnant reserved yet he will be gracious III. After this he arose another night but went not out of doors but in a chamber he travelled and groaned so as his wife impatient did rise several times calling him to bed but he waited his time And when he came she began a modest expostulation with him for tarrying Hold thy peace said he it will be well with us but I shal never preach another preaching in Air. And having fallen asleep before he awaked the messenger was come who by command carryed him prisoner to the Castle of Edinburgh IV. When he was prisoner in the Castle of Edinburgh for holding the Assembly of Aberdene The Lord Ochiltrie being at that time Captain of the Castle caused M. Welsch to sup with him one night in the Castle being related to him for M. Welsch mother in law M. Knoxs wife was his sister where were also several other Gentle-men and among them a Popish youth sate toward the lower end of the table M. Welsch being by the Captain set at the upper end entertained the company with grave and edifying discourse which all delighted to hear save the young Papist who with laughter and derision labored to silence him which was little regarded by M. Welsch But after supper while the guests sate a little this youth stood up at the lower end of the table and while M. Welsch proceeded from grave to gracious entertainment of them at table the youth came to that hight of insolency as with the finger to point at him and with the face to make flouting grimaces whereby he grieved the holy man so as on a sudden he was forced to a silence The whole company who heard him with delight were silent with him Within a little M. Welsch as moved by the Spirit of GOD broke forth into these words Gentle-men the Spirit of GOD is provoked against us and I shal intreat you not to be afraid to see what GOD shal do among you before you rise from the table for he will smite some one of you with death before you go home All were silently astonished waiting to see the issue with fear and while every man feared himself except the insolent youth he fell down dead suddenly at the foot of the table to show the power of GODS jealousie against the mockers of his Spirit and the offers of his grace V. One day while M. Welsch looked out at his chamber window in the Castle he hapned to see the Captain and called unto him saying God save you my Lord. The Captain acknowledging his neglect and asking for M. Welsch welfare desired to know how he might serve him In nothing said M. Welsch if you be well except you would carry my petition to his Majesty intreating for liberty to preach the Gospel I willingly will said the Captain therefore send it to me Nay said M. Welsch I am your kinsman I love you so well as to warn you not to take it in charge except you resolve to deal truly in delivering it and getting me an answer I shal bear the blame said the Captain if I do it not I beseech you my Lord said the other under-take it not except you mind to do it for the hazard is great Well Ochiltry takes it but not coming in an opportune season for he came when the King was passionatly moved on another occasion he thought not fit then to give it and as at that time he deferred so thereafter he neglected and at last quite forgot to deliver it at all For which his heart smiting him he durst hardly be seen of M. Welsch for three moneths Yet conscience forgetting as well as he he came to the same place where M. Welsch at first called him and now M. Welsch asked how he did and what was become of his petition The Captain surprised answered
dwelleth wherein I shal rest for evermore I look to get entry at the new Jerusalem at one of these twelve gates whereupon are written the names of the twelve Tribes of the children of Israel I know CHRIST JESUS hath prepared rowm for me why may I not then with boldness in his blood step in unto that glory where my Head and LORD hath gone before me JESUS CHRIST is the door and the Porter who then shal hold me out VVill he let them perish for whom he hath died VVill he let that poor sheep be plucked out of his hand for whom he hath laid down his life VVho shal condemn the man whom GOD hath justified VVho shal lay any thing to the charge of the man for whom CHRIST hath died or rather risen again I know I have grievously transgressed but where sin aboundeth grace superaboundeth I know my sins are red as scarlet and crimson yet the red blood of CHRIST my LORD can make me as white as snow as wool VVhom have I in heaven but him Or whom desire I in earth beside him O thou the fairest among the children of men the light of the Gentils the glory of the Jews the life of the dead the joy of Angels and Saints My soul panteth to be with thee I will put my spirit into thy hands and thou wilt nâ—â— put it out of thy presence I will come unto thee for thou casts none away that comes unto thee O thou the only delight of mankind Thou camest to seek and save that which is lost Thou seeking me hast found me and now being found by thee I hope O LORD thou wilt not let me perish I desire to be with thee and do long for the fruition of thy blessed presence and joy of thy countenance Thou the only good Shepherd art full of grace and truth therefore I trust thou wilt not thrust me out of the door of thy presence and grace The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth by thee VVho shal separat me from thy love Shal tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword Nay in all these things I am more then a conqueror through thy Majesty that hath loved me For I am perswaded that neither death nor life Principalities nor Powers nor hight nor depth nor things present nor things to come nor any other creature is able to separat me from the love of thy Majesty w ich is in CHRIST JESUS my LORD I refuse not to die with thee that I may live with thee I refuse not to suffer with thee that I may rejoyce with thee Shal not all things be pleasant to me which may be my last step by which or upon which I may come unto thee When shal I be satiat with thy face When shal I be drunk with thy pleasures Come LORD JESUS and tarry not The Spirit saith Come the Bride saith Come Even so LORD JESUS come quickly and tarry not Why should the multitude of mine iniquities or the greatness of them affright me Why should I faint in this mine adversity to be with thee The greater sinner I have been the greater glory will thy grace be to me unto all eternity Oh! unspeakable joy endless infinit and bottomless compassion O Ocean of never-fading pleasure O love of loves O the hight and depth and breadth and length of that love of thine that passeth knowledge O uncreated Love Beginning without beginning and ending without end Thou art my glory my joy and my gain and my crown Thou hast set me under thy shadow with great delight and thy fruit is sweet unto my taste Thou hast brought me into thy banqueting-house and placed me in thine orchard Stay me with thy flagons and comfort me with thine apples for I am sick and my soul is wounded with thy love Behold thou art fair my Love Behold thou art fair thou hast doves eyes Behold thou art fair my Love yea pleasant also our bed is green The beams of our house are Cedars and our rasters are of firr How fair and how pleasant art thou O Love for delights my heart is ravished with thee O when shal I see thy face How long will thou delay to be to me as a Roe or a young Hart leaping upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills As a bundle of myrrh be thou to me and ly all night between my breasts Because of the savor of thy good oyntments thy name is as oyntment powred out therefore desire I to go out of the desert and through to the place where thou sittest at thy repose and where thou makes thy flocks to rest at noon When shal I be filled with thy love Certainly if a man knew how precious it were he would count all things dross and dung to gain it I would long for that scaffold or that ax or that cord that might be to me that last step of this my wearisom journey to go to thee my LORD Thou who knowst the meaning of the spirit give answer to the speaking sighing and groaning of the spirit Thou who hast inflamed my heart to speak to thee in this silent yet love-language of ardent and fervent desires speak again unto my heart and answer my desirs which thou hast made me speak to thee O Death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of Death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law but thanks be to GOD that giveth me the victory through JESUS CHRIST What can be troublesome to me since my LORD looks upon me with so amiable a countenance And how greatly do I long for these embracements of my LORD O that he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for his love is better then wine O that my soul were the throne wherein he might dwel eternally O that my heart were the Temple wherein he might be magnified and dwel for ever c. If there were no more but these heavenly breathings of soul they do speak forth what earnest desires and groanings this holy Man had for the full enjoyments of GOD and what full assurance of faith he enjoyed As he was extraordinary in prayer so he was marvellously diligent in the rest of his Masters Work For as I was assured by an old reverend and godly Minister who knew the truth thereof he preached twise every week day from nine to ten in the morning and from four to five at night beside his work on the LORDS Day and catechising and visiting of families and of the sick In his preaching he had a deep impression of the great and dreadful Majesty of GOD upon his spirit that made him speak with great boldness and authority The learned and godly M. Boyd of Trochrig relateth in his Commentary upon the Ephesians chap 6. vers 19.20 praelect 91. pag. 1101. how that M. Welsch being called to preach before the University of Saumur one of the most learned Auditories in France although he
do all my will And also that it may be written of your Majesty in the Chronicles of the Kings of Scotland as it was written of David Ezechias Josias in the Chronicles of the Kings of Juda That King JAMES the sixth his heart was perfect toward the LORD his GOD all his dayes and his Government was in such Peace and Justice that after him there was none like him of all the Kings of Scotland Neither was there any such before him who did cleave unto the LORD his GOD with all his heart and followed all his Commandments and neither declined to the right hand nor to the left Now the LORD grant to your Majesty that ye may find this favor in his eyes for his CHRISTS sake I have now taken this boldness to offer these my labors unto your Majesty as a testimony of my most humble and loyal heart unto your Majesty as GOD the searcher of the heart knows Your Majesty did exceedingly encourage me to let it go forth unto the light what by your Majesties most gracious acceptation of mine endeavor and most favorable censure and approbation of my labors what by your Majesties humane counsel and advise confirmed by your Majesties Priviledge and authority to me to publish the same Such was Your Majesties humanity to me not only in these but in all your actions both publick and privat with all your subjects of whatsoever rank or degree Ye shew such humanity and affability that that saying of Trajanus the Emperor That a Prince should behave himself so to his subjects as he would have them to do to him if he were a privat man is verified in you Sir wherein certainly ye need not to give place to any of whatsoever rank You express it so lively in all your actions and I have found it for my own part by experience So that Your Majesty hath often caused me to remember that notable saying of Titus that Roman Emperor A subject should never go sad-hearted from the speech of his Prince The which experience makes me to conceive hope that Your Majesty will pardon this my boldness will accept in good part this my smal mite I therefore most humbly desire Your Majesty to accept it as from Your Majesties most humble obedient servant and subject For whose peace and prosperity I am always earnest with the LORD Now the GOD of all Peace even that KING of Kings powr all light and grace in all abundance more and more upon Your Majesty and so root and ground your heart in JESUS CHRIST that ye may honor him more and more in your life and calling here that ye may be honored of him again both in this life and in that day with immortal and everlasting glory Amen From Air the 18. of November 1602. Your Majesties most humble subject M. JOHN WELSCH UNTO THE GODLY AND CHRISTIAN READER IN THIS LAND Grace Mercy and Peace from GOD the Father and JESVS CHRIST his Son our LORD and only Savior Amen WHen I think Christian Reader of the unsearchable mercies for so I may call them which the LORD according to his rich grace whereby he hath been abundant towards us if ever towards any hath vouchsafed upon us and of our great ingratitude and manifold iniquities wherewith we have recompensed him again I cannot but tremble to think of these most fearful judgements of GOD which we have most justly deserved and which cannot but most assuredly fall upon us unless with most speedy and earnest repentance of all sorts they be prevented and averted For unto what Kingdom or Nation under heaven hath GOD been more liberal in communicating the insearchable riches of his dear Son in his Gospel Eph. 3 8. as unto us in this Nation Nay unto what one Kingdom under heaven hath God been so rich and superabundant in mercy as unto this There are but few Kingdoms upon whom the Lord hath caused the glorious light of his Gospel to shine upon a gross darkness covering the most part of the Kingdoms of the earth and yet Scotland hath found this favor in the eyes of the most high GOD. So that that may be most truely said of us which is written of the land of Zabulon and Nephthali Matth. 4.16 A people that sate in darkness saw great light and unto them which sate in the region of death light is risen up Many Kingdoms upon whom this light is risen are but in part delivered from the bondage of that second beast Rev. 13.11 17.4 and from that abomination of Babel a part worshipping the LORD and a part worshipping Baal I mean the idol of the Mass and their idols of stock and stone But our deliverance was full from that bondage for that was fulfilled in us which was promised and prophesied of old Zech. 14 9. That the LORD should be but one and his Name one And in these Kingdoms where the LORD is but one and his Name one that is where he only is worshipped some of them have embraced him but as a Prophet to teach them and as a Priest to satisfie for their sins and to interceed for them but not as a soveraign King to rule them and govern them by that form of government which he hath prescribed in his Word with his own Lawes Offices and Officers retaining yet a part of that hierarchie of Babel with some of her Lawes Offices and Officers But the LORD was rich in mercy towards us in bestowing himself upon us not only as a Prophet to teach us and as a Priest to satisfie for our sins and to interceed for us but also as a soveraign King to govern us with that self same form of government which he hath commanded in his Word and unto the which only he hath annexed the promises of his blessing and presence with his own Laws Offices and Officers So that as the Prophet saith Zech. 14.9 He was not only one in us and his Name one but also a soveraign King in our land O Scotland what Nation was like unto thee that had the Gospel so freely preached his Sacraments so purely ministred his censures and all the priviledges of his Kingdom in such liberty executed as thou hadst For what one Nation under heaven hath God done so great things as for thee What one Kingdom is to be found in the whole earth where Idolatry was so fully rooted out wherein all the means of his glory and all the priviledges of his Kingdom was so fully restored to their own integrity and perfection as they were first instituted wherein all these means of the Word Sacraments and Discipline hath continued for so long a space in such peace in such purity in such liberty without heresie or schism as in thee O Scotland So that thy day hath been like the day of Joshua When the Sun stood in Gibeon and the Moon in Aialon Josua 10.12 For I know not if ever Nation or Kingdom hath had so long a day of the Gospel in such peace
purity and liberty as thou hast had Or if ever Nation after us shal have so long a day after such a manner again And it seems to me that as the LORD confirmed Ezechiah of his promise by causing 2. Kings 20. the Sun to return back again miraculously by the degrees whereby it went down So the LORD hath confirmed his superabundant love towards us in causing the light of the Gospel to return again as it were oft times and that most wonderfully and miraculously by the degrees whereby our iniquities in the righteous judgement of God did hasten it to go down upon us Yea the blessing of Abraham hath come upon us For he hath blessed them that blessed us and hath cursed them who hath cursed us he hath striven against them who hath striven against us and hath made our oppressors to eat their own flesh and to drink their own blood no instrument formed against thee O Church of Scotland hath ever prospered and the tongue that hath risen against thee the LORD hath condemned that all flesh might know that GOD was thy Savior and the strong GOD of Jacob thy avenger And certainly if ever people might have been called Jephzibas Esai 62.6 that is the LORDS delight or their land Beula that is married unto him the Church and Kingdom of Scotland might have been so called For the LORD had delight in us and our land hath a husband even the LORD our Redeemer he was an ornament unto us Esa 60 19. he set his beautie on us Ezech. 16.14 he crowned us with glory and a Diadem by the hand of our GOD was set upon our heads Esai 6.2 And true is that of us which our Savior spake to his disciples Luke 10.24 Many Kings and Prophets hath desired to see the things that we have seen and hear the things that we have heard and have not seen them nor heard them So who are so ladened with mercy and kindness as we have been for we have been made the head and not the tail Deut. 28.13 as the LORD promised And surely if ever people should have been Joshurim Deut. 32.15 that is upright and straight in the eyes of the LORD we should have been so No who should have been so holy as we Who so strong in CHRIST and rooted and grounded in him as we Coloss 2.7 Who so rich in all grace and fruitful in all good works as we For who had so many and so glorious means to have made us to have abounded in all grace as we had What could the LORD have done more to us then he hath done Isai 5.4 For we wanted no mean that ever the LORD commanded in his Word either to have bred grace in us or to have preserved it and increased it But they to whom much is given much shal be required at their hands again For as the LORD made us a spectacle of his mercy wherein he did demonstrat the riches of his free grace in CHRIST JESUS unto all the Kingdoms of the earth and above them all So it had been our part proportionably to have met him with thankfulness again and to have been examples of all grace godliness righteousness and of all good works unto all others and above all others But alace sinful Nation laden with iniquities Esai 1.4 who is so sinful as thou art What Nation so polluted with all abomination and wickedness as thou art Thy iniquities are mo then the sand of the sea they are grown up so high that the top of them reach up to the very heavens Hosea 9.7 and the cry of them is like yea beyond the cry of Sodom there is such a burden of iniquity upon this Land that considering all circumstances both of the means and of the time and space the LORD hath given us to repent I know not if ever Nation was so great in the eyes of the LORD as this Land is For may not that which the Prophet spake of Juda. Ezechiel 22. be most justly said of thee O Scotland For art thou not replenished with blood from corner to corner so that blood touches blood Are not thy Nobles in thee every one ready to shed blood In thee the father and the mother are despised in the midst of thee the widow and the fatherless are oppressed In thee the very abominations of the Gentils are committed The discovering of the Fathers shame and adultery with thy neighbors wife thou art so laden with adulteries incests and whoredooms that the Land groans under thee thou hast prophaned his Sabaths despised his Law contemned his Gospel withholden from him the fruits of his Kingdom and hast trodden under foot the blood of CHRIST and hast grieved that Spirit of grace So that when I think of the number and greatness of our sins I cannot but wonder that the LORD should not have withdrawn his Kingdom long since from us and have given it unto others that would have brought forth the fruits thereof Matth. 21.41 Yea I wonder that he hath not caused the Land to vomit us out for the abominations and sins wherewith we have defiled it in so great a light And surely when I think of the severity of the Justice of GOD in punishing other Nations and Kingdoms for the contempt of his Gospel and the withholding of the fruits of his Kingdom from him my soul trembles For wherefore did the LORD reject the natural branches that chosen generation of whom the Fathers was and of whom CHRIST was according to the flesh Rom. 11 2â— 9.5 and gave them and their posterity over to the hardness of their hearts this 1500. years and more to be damned for ever and ever in that everlasting darkness and yet his wrath is not turned back but because they would not be gathered and knew not in that their day the things that belonged to their peace and would not render to him the fruits of his Kingdom in due season Matth. 23.37 Luke 19.42.43 Mat. 21.41 And wherefore did the LORD remove his Candlestick Rev. 2.5 from a great many of the Churches both of the East and of the West which were planted by the Apostles and were once lanterns of light and hath given them over to strong delusions to believe lies 2. Thes 2.10.12 the one to the impiety of Mahomet and the savage Tyrant of the Church the other to the bondage of that second beast and fearful darkness of that bottomless pit Rev. 13.11 9.1 But because they received not the love of the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness as the Apostle saith 2. Thes 2.12 Now if GOD spared not them but gave them over to a most fearful bondage both of soul and body both spiritual and corporal temporal and eternal how should we not fear as great or rather greater judgements seeing we had all these as examples before us to have fore-warned us and to have made us to fear For we are not to think as our Savior saith to the Galileans that they
were greater sinners then we but unless we all repent we shal likewise perish Luke 13.3 And as though all our former sins were too light to pull down and to hasten the LORDS fearful departing from us this darkness of the bottomless pit Rev. 9.1 which is spreading it self again in this corner of the Countrey and this abomination of desolation the idol of the Mass which is set up in the privat families of this Countrey is added unto all the rest and above all the rest So that it is to be feared unless it be prevented by a most speedy and earnest repentance of all sorts in this Land that as we have been lifted up to heaven through his Gospel Matth. 11.23 so shal we be thrown down in the bottomless gulf of the LORDS fearful wrath and vengeance and as we have been made a spectacle of his mercy unto all Nations and above all other so we shal be made a most fearful spectacle of his wrath unto all other Nations and above all other O therefore that the LORD would powr upon us that Spirit of grace and deprecation that even from the house of David to the house of Levi Zech. 12.10.11.12 that is from the Kings house to the Ministerie and from them to the people from man to wife that we might all look up to him whom we have pierced through with our iniquities and mourn upon him as for our first or only begotten son and that we might mourn publickly privatly together and a part every Congregation by themselves and every family by themselves and every person by himself Oh that we had hearts to repent at the least in the evening of this our day before the Sun went down altogether upon us and then there is no question the LORD would not remove his Candlestick from us Rev. 2.5 nor make his glory to depart 1. Sam. 4.22 but would continue his covenant with us and our posterity and would cover all our enemies faces with shame as with a garment yea he would scatter that darkness that is beginning to overspread this Land again and Dagon should fall before the ark of the Lord 1. Sam. 5.3.4 and his last fall should be worse then his first Let me therefore be bold with you to beseech you yea to charge you in the bowels of JESUS CHRIST by the price of his blood and by his glorious appearing to judgement as ye would have it comfortable to you and as ye would have his glory to remain with us and our posteritie yea as ye would not be arraigned guilty in that great day of the LORDS banishment and removing of his glorious presence out of this Land For if we repent not the LORD as he hath begun to depart from a great part of this Countrey so shal he most assuredly depart from the rest of this Land I say Let me beseech you that every one of you would try and search your sins by the light of his Spirit in his Word both the sins of our persons and callings that we would humble our hearts for them and powr them out as water in his bosom mourning for them and for the sins of the Land Ezec. 9.4 and that we would turn our feet to walk in all his precepts and commandments And let us who are the Watch-men over the house of Israel begin first Ezec. 3.2 33. For the judgement of GOD will begin at his own house and at the Sanctuary For if we that are the lights of our people be darkness how great must their darkness be And if we that is the salt of the earth to season them with grace become unsavory wherewith shal either they or we be seasoned Matth. 5.14 6.23 And if that we that is the stomack and the heart as it were become senseless and dead is it any wonder suppose all the rest of the members be dead and senseless Let us therefore first convert our selves and then let us with tears and mourning cry aloud to our Congregations and spare not Let us lift up our voices as a Trumpet that the deafest and deadest may hear Let us show them their sins and defections that at the least they perish not for want of warning and so their blood be craved at our hands Ezec. 3.3.4.5 Let us be instant in season and out of season to preach the Word improve rebuke exhort with all doctrine and long-suffering as we are most gravely charged by the Spirit of GOD. Let us admonish every man and instruct every man publickly and privatly that we may do our endeavor at the least to present every man perfect Col. 1.28 as a pure Virgin to JESUS CHRIST And if they will not hear let us say to the earth Earth earth hear the word of the LORD let us rise up and contend with the mountains and let us make the hills to hear our voice and take them as witnesses against them And then shal we have this comfort in the dayes of our afflictions that we have not kept back the word of the holy One Job 6.10 And then shal we be a sweet smelling savor in CHRIST as well in them that perish as in them that are saved Let you that are the people walk worthy of that great salvation that is brought unto you and be fruitful in all good works denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts living godly soberly and righteously waiting for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of that great GOD our Savior the LORD JESUS 1. Thess 2.12 Heb. 2.3 Tit. 2.11.12 And you that are Princes of the Land and Magistrats of the Countrey Remove iniquity from your tents and let not your families be houses of iniquity Job 11.14 Mic. 26.10 Mat. 5.16 Phil. 2.15 Shine before your tenants servants and house-holders as lanterns of light for such Master such servant Be examples to them of godliness sobriety and righteousness Cleanse your hearts and hands from blood oppressions whoredoms adulteries Be an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame and a staff of comfort to the oppressed Deal your bread to the hungry and hide not your eyes from your own flesh Esai 58.7 maintain the godly and be a terror to the wicked Rom. 13.3.4 That your faces may chase away iniquity and fin may hide its self from your presence Take vengeance on all evil doers and spare not where the LORD bids strike And because a great many of you through your most cruel and barbarous covetousness sacrilege the like whereof I think hath not been heard of no not among the Turks and barbarous Americans that they spoil their GOD and let their worship decay for want of maintenance as ye do in Scotland are the causes of the everlasting damnation of a great part of the poor people for want of the preaching of the Word of salvation unto them For their blood are found under your wings Jerem. 2.34 and their blood cry more strongly from the low hells to the high heavens
against you for wrath and vengeance then ever Abels blood did against his brother Cain Gen. 4.10 Now therefore at the last repent you of it Purge your hands of it and at the least vouchsafe so much upon every Church as may sustain a Pastor to break the bread of life unto them and think the damnation of so many millions of souls of your poor brethren who might have been saved for ought that ye know if they had had the Gospel of salvation preached unto them too great guiltiness suppose ye had not blood upon blood Otherwise if ye will not I call heaven and earth to witness against you Deut. 30.19 that the indignation of the LORD shal root you and your posterity out of the land of the living and their blood that perish for want of teaching shal be laid to your charge and ye shal be arraigned as murderers of their souls in that great day And not only that curse shal fall upon you which was commanded to be pronounced upon Mount Hebal Deut. 27.23.18 for causing the blind to go out of the way whereunto all the people should say Amen But also that most fearful and irrevocable sentence shal be pronounced and executed upon you in that great day by the Judge of the whole earth Depart from me ye cursed in that everlasting fire of hell to be damned with the Devil and his Angels for evermore Matth. 25.41 Lay it therefore to your hearts and flatter not your selves in a carnal and vain presumption Be not cruel to your own souls and to the souls of the poor people any more otherwise ye shal most assuredly drink of the wine of the wrath of God and be casten in the great wine-fat of his wrath where there ye shal be tormented day and night Let every one of us therefore in the conscience of so great and singular mercies which the LORD hath vouchsafed upon us in such a plentiful measure Harden not our hearts while it is called to day but let us rent them and turn them unto the LORD our GOD Heb. 4.7 Joel 2.13 and let us not delay it while he calls upon us by his word and spreads out his arms unto us Otherwise if we will not but despise the day of our salvation then I protest unto you in the Name of the great GOD that he will hear the cry of our sins and will abhor us greatly as he did Israel that he shal forsake his glorious Tents and Tabernacles in this land and first give over his strength to captivitie and his glory to the hands of our enemies Psal 78.49.60.61 c. And then accounting no more of us then of the myre in the street he shal deliver us over both old and young Pastor and people to the sword of the enemie For this I dare say if he take his Kingdom from us he shal not let Scotland be a free Kingdom Matth. 21.43 as it hath been before For true is he who hath said it The Nation and Kingdom that will not serve thee shal perish and these Nations shal be utterly destroyed Esai 60.12 And if he spare not his own strength and glory I mean his glorious Gospel but deliver it over into captivity into the hands of his enemies he shal have no compassion of us but shal surrender us over to the edge of the sword to be consumed thereby and as the LORD hath been more abundant in his mercy towards us then towards any others so shal his wrath be accordingly For if other Kingdoms or Nations yea if Tyrus or Sidon Sodom or Gomorrha Matth. 11.21.22 yea if the Turks or barbarous Americans had heard the things that we have heard they would have repented long since in sackcloth and ashes and therefore our condemnation shal be heavier then any condemnation under heaven Now therefore if there be any consolation in CHRIST if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit Philip. 2.1 if any love to his glorie to his blood to his Gospel and if there be any compassion and mercy in your hearts to this poor and sinful land and his poor Church and Kingdom therein repent you of your sins reconcile you to GOD take hold of his blood wash you and cleanse you in it until ye be white and bright in his eyes Rev. 7.14 Bring him into the chambers of your hearts and make him to dwell in you Eph. 3.17 Galat. 6.14 that he may crucifie your sins and bury them in the grave with him Col 2.12.13 and may quicken and raise you up together wiâ—h him and may set you in those heavenly places with himself Eph. 2 5 6. And then having rooted and grounded your hearts in him Col. 2.7 and having filled your souls with the abundance of his presence bring him out first to your families and then to your tenants servants neighbors and people According to your callings instruct them rebuke them admonish them correct them and reform them and rest not till ye have set him up as a LORD and a King in their hearts or at the least till you have obtained this assurance in your consciences that ye have been so faithful and sincere in your callings that if CHRIST be hid from any to whom your callings or occasions have reached he is hid from such only as perish Now oh that the LORD would give us these hearts and so purge us that we might be thus fruitful to the praise of his glory then assuredly would he repent him of all the evil that he hath thought against us then should he have delight in us in our posterity and then these Canaanites I mean the relicks of that cursed generation of Babel the Church of Rome which is yet left unrooted out of this land to try us and tempt us if we will serve the LORD our GOD and to be pricks and thorns in our side should not bring us in bondage again but should be made tributaries to JESUS CHRIST yea our latter estat should be more glorious then the former Now let us find this favor in thy eyes O LORD our Redeemer and glorifie thy great Name among us by converting our hearts at the least the hearts of all thy children in mercy rather then by confounding and consuming of us in thy wrath and indignation For wherefore should thy enemies say Take up their GOD and their Gospel Wherefore should they O LORD our GOD blaspheme thy holy Name when they shal see thee angrie with thy own inheritance and redeemed ones Oh! turn us unto thee and put us not away from thy face and let not those that are thy enemies triumph over us Purchase thy self an everlasting Name through our conversion and repentance that the enemie and the avenger may be still and our hearts may be inlarged and our mouthes may be opened to proclaim the everlasting mercies and to shout forth thy praises Turn you unto him you that are his children and delight in his Tents You that love
abundance of the rivers of the Scriptures of God quench and satisfie this your desire but that you must go unto the unpure fountains of mens writings as though the Scriptures were not sufficient not only to make a man wise unto salvation but to make him perfect in every thing These things I am sure will satisfie the souls of them that love the truth But because you give no credit to the Scriptures but counts them as a nose of wax and as one of your Popes speaking to Bembus a Cardinal called them a fable of Christ and yet such a fable as hath inriched your treasures And Sylvester Prierias writing against Luther saith That the Roman Church and Pope is of greater authority then the Scriptures O horrible blasphemies of the holy truth of God Therefore we will go to the Histories and see what they have testified of these circumstances And although all things here be not expressed to the full yet there is so much left uncorrupted and unscraped out by the gracious providence of God that would not want his witness in all ages out of the Fathers and your own Writers that I hope will satisfie the consciences of all the modest and godly Clemens Alexandrinus saith lib. 1. strom that the Apostles successors received the doctrine from them as the sons from their fathers But he subjoyns That there was very few children that was like their fathers Aegesippus as Nicephorus reports saith lib. 3. cap. 16. That the Church remained a pure virgin as long as the Apostles lived unto Trajans time but they being dead he writes that it was speedily corrupted So if ye credit the testimonies of these men ye see the Church remaineth not long in her integrity And if you would hear any thing of your Roman Church Socrates lib. 7. cap. 11. saith That Celestin your Pope past the bounds of his Priesthood Read Basilius de Spiritu sancto cap. ult and there ye may see what change of Religion was in his time Augustin testifies epist 119. c. 19. That the multitude of ceremonies grew so in his time that the condition of the Jews seemed to be more tollerable then the condition of the Church Now did not this sickness suppose ye grow by time And to come to your own Writers Bernard saith in Cant. 33. That the Ministers of Christ meaning of the Roman Church serves Antichrist And to the Pope himself Eugenius the 3. he saith lib. 4. And thou the shepherd goeth forth being clothed with a glorious attyr if I durst say it these are the feeding places of Devils rather then of sheep Thy court is accustomed rather to receive good men then to make them good not the evil profits but the good decays there And in another place he saith From the sole of the foot speaking of the Church of Rome to the crown of the head there is no health nor soundness And de conv Pauli Psal 91. ser 6. he saith What remains now speaking of the corruption of that Church of Rome but that the man of sin be revealed the man of perdition Daemonium non modò diurnum sed meridianum that is a devilry not only in the day-tyde but in the very noon-tyde And lib. 4. to Eugenius the Pope he saith In these secular attyrs and powers thou hast not succeeded to Peter but to Constantine The day would sooner fail me then the writing of his complaints against the Church of Rome Pope Adrian the 6. in his instructions to his Legats who were sent to the Council of Noremberg he grants and bids them say to the Council That we know that in this chair meaning Peters Sea in Rome for certain years many abominable things have been in it the abuse in spiritual things the excess in commandments and in a word all things are changed in a worse And the Council of the Cardinals to Paul the third they say Out of this fountain holy Father as from the Troyan horse hath broken so many abuses in the Church of God such heavy diseases whereby we see now that she is despaired almost of health Aeneas Sylvius a Cardinal who also was Pope afterward saith of your Church That all faith hath perished in her and love is grown yce-cold And Cornelius Bitontinus Bishop who was present at the Council of Trent saith Would to God speaking of your Church that unanimes velut prorsus c. all with one heart all utterly they had not declined from Religion to superstition from Faith to infidelity from Christ to Antichrist What would ye have more Will ye yet be so shameless as to boast of the purity of your Church and from God to Epicurism ex Epistola 54 ad Caspar Schlick Oratio Cornelii Epis Bitonti 3. Dom. advent I leave the rest as Platin Genebrard Frier Mantuan Nicolaus Clemangis Franciscus Petrarcha Aventinus and a number of others who are full of complaints of the abominations of your Church of Rome that certainly I cānot but wonder at your shamelesness in opening of your mouth and saying That your Church had the truth in all things and never failed nor was interrupted against such a cloud of witnesses whose testimonies ye dare not refuse But I leave you to the Lord. The lips of a liar is abomination to the Lord Prov. 20 So your own mouthes shal rise up in the day of the Lord and condemn you that saith Your Church hath not failed in any substantial point of Religion But you require more distinctly the time place and persons c. that hath brought in this mutation and change If these are to be accounted authors of your erroneous doctrines who were the chief defenders thereof then I say the Popes of Rome for the most part are the authors of the same for they were the chief defenders thereof suppose they had not been the first teachers thereof For otherwise Luther cannot be said to be the author of our Religion as ye say because he was not the first that taught the same and that by your own confession For ye say that sundry other hereticks before Luther taught the same heads of doctrine which he taught and which we profess now as that fasting should be free that only faith justifieth that man hath not free will c. Next because it were too longsome to go through the whole heads of your Religion therefore I will only bring a few examples and that in some of the substantial points thereof As for the sacrifice of the Mass and the ceremonies thereof I have shown the authors thereof in another place therefore I omit that now The first that ever took upon him to exercise jurisdiction over the Churches of the East was Pope Victor anno 200. or 198. who took upon him to excommunicat the Bishops of the East because they would not follow his fashion in the celebration of Easter There the person time and place resisted by Irenaeus Bishop of Lions in France and the Bishops of the East and the brethren
good heed what ground is in the institution for this their sacrifice for if they prove it not here it will never be proved by the Scripture You say therefore that Christ took bread and wine we grant that yet here is no sacrifice What then He gave thanks yet here is no sacrifice What next He blessed it Yet here is no sacrifice And whereas ye say that by this blessing and his heavenly words the bread and wine is changed in the body and blood of Christ that I have sufficiently as I hope overthrown already But to return to the words of the institution after the blessing of the bread which Luke expones by giving of thanks the text saith He gave What gave he but that which he took and had blessed And what took he and blessed he but the bread And therefore the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 10. The bread which we bless c. So then it was bread which he gave and not his own body and blood corporally And unto whom gave he it The text saith unto his disciples both in Matthew Mark and Luke all with one consent Now that which was given to his Disciples was not properly offered up in a sacrifice for a sacrifice is an offering to God And the text saith here He gave it to his Disciples So there is not a syllable in the institution that can make for your pretended sacrifice You here corrupt the word of Jesus Christ wonderfully For first you expone by giving offering up in a sacrifice Next whereas the Scripture in Matthew Mark and Luke have but giving once refers this giving not to God but to the Disciples And he gave it to the Disciples you alledge here two givings the one to God which is your own invention whereof the Scripture makes no mention the other to the Disciples which is the form of a Sacrament and not of a sacrifice for a Sacrament is given to us a sacrifice to God So all the grounds of your sacrifice of the Mass is two the one is your devised transubstantiation so one error leans upon another the other is not the words of Christ And he gave it to his Disciples but your own words and your own exposition only And he gave or offered up himself then for them These are your own words and not the words of the holy Ghost So this sacrifice of your Mass hath not the words of Jesus Christ as Matthew Mark and Luke have set them down to be the ground of it but only your own words and your own interpretation For how dare ye be so impudent as to affirm that Christ gave it twise once in an offering for his Disciples and another time in a Sacrament to his Disciples seeing we will believe Matthew Mark and Luke the sworn pen-men of the holy Ghost who say only he gave it to his Disciples as a Sacrament and makes no mention at all that he gave it to God as a sacrifice Do you think the Lord will never take an account of you for such a manifest lie of the Son of God of his Scripture of his Apostles and holy Writers who writ it they all saying He gave it to his Disciples and you affirming beside that giving to them that he gave it that is offered it up for them O sinful man Who will venter the salvation of his soul upon so smal a threed yea upon so impudent a lie as ye make of the Son of God O repent or else you shal one day feel the fierceness of the Lords hot wrath and indignation upon your soul and carcass for evermore Leave off therefore to be the cause of the damnation of souls for you deceive them and makes them believe that this monstrous abomination of your Mass hath Jesus Christ to be the Author of it while it hath not so much as a syllable in the whole institution that gives so much as an inkling of it Are you wiser then the wisest of your generation Bellarmin who for all the arguments that he brings never so much as once gives an inkling of this your argument For he thought it was too plain a lie to affirm a double giving here out of the words of the institution and too absurd an exposition to expone He gave that is he offered it up And therefore he hath no such reasoning for his sacrifice of the Mass Yea that which ye think is plain out of the institution that Christ offered up his body and his blood in the Supper he saith That the action of offering cannot be easily distinguished and separated from the other actions which was done joyntly there together by the words of the institution Bellar. lib. 1. de missa cap. 12. fol. 669. And more plainly he saith That the Evangelists have not expresly said that Christ offered up himself unto the Father in the Supper lib. 1. de missa cap. 24. fol. 706. This is a plain speaking Now your sacrifice of the Mass hath no express warrant out of the institution of Christ if you will believe him whose controversies are allowed by the Pope to be printed But it may be ye thought that this your doctrine would have been swallowed up without further tryal therefore you regarded not what you writ You have stoln your self in such credit with the simple among you who are deceived and blinded by your lies that ye are not ashamed to be plain enough in speaking untruths lies of the Word of God But the Lord will recōpence this one day But now to return to the rest of the words of the institution as ye rehearse them And last of all ye say He gave his body and blood to his Disciples to be eaten He gave it spiritually and they did eat it spiritually and he gave them Sacraments of his body and blood the bread and wine corporally to them and they did eat them corporally suppose for a spiritual use and end For that which he gave they did eat he gave the bread and wine therefore it was bread and wine which they did eat and drink And therefore the Apostle saith plainly For whosoever shal eat of this bread c. 1. Cor. 11. He calls it bread that is eaten And our Savior saith Verily verily from henceforth shal I not drink of the fruit of this vine with you Matth. 26.29 That which he gave his Apostles to drink corporally in the latter Supper was the fruit of the vine so the Evangelists saith But Christs blood was not the fruit of the vine therefore it was not his his blood which they corporally drank but wine which was the fruit of the vine-tree I go forward And when he had done this ye say He cōmanded his Disciples that is the lawful Pastors of the Church to do the same for the remembrance of him to the end of the world That is true that which he did here he commanded to be done by his Disciples to the end of the world but never a syllable
their own doctrine they make the people to commit idolatry in worshipping of their breaden God About the year 1536. there was four Augustin Friers hanged in Sevil in Spain who had secretly by night murthered their Provincial The day following to avoid all suspicion of the murther they all four said Mass but they had no intention to consecrat as they themselves afterward confessed and so there was no Transubstantiation there by their own doctrine and therefore all these that heard their Mass that day by their own doctrine committed idolatry because there was no consecration there I will set down another example There was a certain Priest who being deposed for his filthy life wherein he had continued for the space of 30. years with a harlot being demanded by one if he had truly repented him of this his abominable life and if he had put away this his concubine from him with intent never to receive her again He never had said he any such purpose Being asked again how then said he Mass every day and made he no scruple to eat the bread of the Lord and drink of his holy cup his conscience accusing him of such an erroneous sin At the last he confessed that to avoid the unworthy receiving of the body and blood of the Lord he did not pronounce the sacramental words wherewith it is consecrat And being urged again how he durst commit so horrible a wickedness as to give so great an occasion of so horrible idolatry to the people who kneeling on their knees casting themselves on the earth lifting up their hands toward the altar striking their breasts did worship the unconsecrated bread and cup Unto whom he answered that it was not so great a fault as he said of it and that he was not alone but many mo did the same which thought it not so abominable an offence as he made of it These two Histories I find written by a Spanish Author one Cyprian Valera the title whereof is Of the Pope and his authority and of the Mass and the holiness thereof All these then that heard the Masses of these men and adored the Sacrament which they lifted up committed idolatry by their own Canons and Decrees For the last did not pronounce the words of consecration and the other four had not the intent to consecrat and therefore there was no transubstantiation there by their own doctrine and so they worshipped bread and wine as their great Redeemer and Creator But what a miserable Religion is this that depends upon the intention of another And therefore who can be certain by their own doctrine whither it be God they worship or not in their Sacrament And this made a certain Inquisitor an enemy to the truth fearing when he heard Mass whither the Priest had intention to consecrat or not to say O Lord if thou be there I adore thee and so by this subtilty he thought to escape committing of idolatry In the time of the Council of Constance there was three Popes that the Council for their abominations did depose and elected another These three not being Popes could not ordain Priests nor give them authority to consecrat so that by their own Canons all they that heard Masses of such Priests as had their authority from them committed idolatry This same may be said of them that heard the Masses of all these Priests that were ordained by Pope Constantin the first and the whore Pope John the 8. For neither of these had power to ordain Priests by their own Canons And as for Pope John there is no controversie of it because she was a woman not capable of that authority by their own Canons And as for Constantin the first he was a laick man who without receiving any orders was by force named Pope He not being a Priest himself could not give this authority to others And so by their own doctrine all these that heard the Masses of such Priests did commit horrible idolatry And howsoever the Pope and his Clergy affirms it to be God and not bread and wine which they adore yet ye shal see what estimation they have themselves of that breaden God of theirs by some examples Pope Gregory the seventh used it for conjuration and sought a response of it and because it would give him none he cast it in the fire and burnt it and so burnt his Creator They use it to revenge their wrongs hatred and malice by it and therefore Pope Victor the third in the year 1088. was poisoned in the calice by his Sub-deacon Such like the Archbishop of York poisoned in the calice Such like Henry the seventh poisoned by a Dominican Frier in the Sacrament They use it for an Harvenger sending it one or mo days journey before with the basest sort of the people The Dominican Friers of the town Auxerra in France in the year 1536. did burn it being vomit out by a Frier that said Mass And the Franciscans de alia Villa burnt the Cow which had eaten up the Sacrament out of the Priests hand and so in burning her did burn their Creator with her Molon one of the Spanish Inquisition 35 years since being to go into procession upon the day of Corpus Christi and the hoste that was to be put in the box being so great that it could not be placed in the same he being impatient to await while another hoste had been consecrat demanded a pair of shears and clipped his God and Creator and so went on forward to their procession Of the which we gather two things First that their Popes and Ecclesiastical rable is without all God and Religion that makes so light of their God as to clip it and burn it and use it as the instruments of their malice and revenge Secondly that this consecrat bread of theirs which they sell to the people to be worshipped and adored is most abominable Idolatry whereof one day they shal give a reckoning to God And thus much for the tenth abuse of their idolatrous Mass The eleventh abuse is that in your cōmunions First contrary the institution of Christ ye give not the bread to the hands of the people to take but puts it in theirs mouthes as though their mouthes were holier then their hands Next ye spoil the poor people of a sweet pledge of their salvation the Sacrament of the wine giving them only bread contrary first the express command of Jesus Christ Drink ye all of this Matth. 26.27 Mark 14.23 next contrary the doctrine of the Fathers August in lib. seu prosp your own Canon Law de consecrat dist 2. can Dumfrangitur hostia Cyprian serm 5 de lapsis and Pope Gelasius de consecrat dist 2. can Comperimus The second is that in your Mass suppose ye speak of a communion and communicants yet there is none at all for your Priest eats and drinks out all And therefore have ye added to the words of Christ eat all drink all contrary the express
bound to lay down our life one for another much more to ware out for him such things as may serve for the comfort of this life in such an extremity And the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. John 3.16 is not to supererogat as ye take it but to ware out further expenses So your blindness is gross in this And as for that of David in praising God night and day so often he was so far from thinking of himself that he had done more then the Law required of him that he never thought of himself that he had fully obeyed the Law And therefore how often prays he in that Psalm that the Lord would open his eyes to understand the Law and give him grace to perform the same Psal 119.12.17.18.27 And in other Psalms he saith My sins are mo then the hairs of my head Psal 40.12 And if thou mark iniquity who can stand Psal 130.3 And therefore this was no work of supererogation And if you knew M. Gilbert but the Lord hath blinded you either the perfection of the Law of God or our inability to perform it or the unsearchable love and kindness of God which hath obliged us to mo duties then ever we are able to do For when we have done all which is commanded us yet we are but unprofitable servants you would be so far from defending these your works of supererogation that ye would abhor and detest this doctrine SECTION XIX Concerning Christs descending into Hell Master Gilbert Brown THirteenthly our doctrine is that Christ our Savior according to the soul descended to the Hells as we have in our Belief And this was the doctrine of the Apostles for S. Peter saith That God hath raised him up loosing the sorrows of Hell according as it was impossible that he should be held of it Acts 2.24 And this he proves by the Psalms of David Behold thou wilt not leave my soul in hell saith David nor give thy holy One to see corruption Psal 16.10 This same is the doctrine of S Paul also And that he ascended what is it but because he descended also first into the inferior parts of the earth He that descended the same is he also which is ascended above all the heavens that he might fill all things Eph. 4.9.10 Ye see in these and all the rest of our doctrine wherein they differ from us that the touch-stone beares witness to us and proves ours only to be the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and not their denying thereof Master John Welsch his Reply Bellarmin grants that we all agree that Christ after a certain manner descended into hell but the whole controversie is of the sense and meaning of it We say that he suffered the pains of hell in his soul upon the cross and lay under the bondage of death and was held captive in the grave which in the Hebrew is called SCHEOL which signifieth sometime hell in the Scripture and sometime the grave for the space of three days and in this sense we grant he descended into hell and in this sense it is taken in our Belief But your doctrine is That he descended locally into hell according to his soul first to give to the souls of the Fathers essential blessedness and to deliver them out of that prison and bring them to heaven Bellarm. lib. 4. de Christo cap. 16. And this we say is neither the meaning of that article of your Belief neither yet hath it so much as a syllable in the whole Scripture to warrant it And as for the article it self Bellarmin confesses that this article was not in the Creed with all Churches as he proves there by the testimonies of Ireneus Origen Tertullian and Augustin who all exponed the Creed And Augustin exponed it five times and yet never mentions this article And Ruffinus an ancient writer testifies That this article was neither in the Creed of the Roman Church nor of the East Churches And also it is not in the Nicene Creed which is more then 300. years after Christ And Perkins a learned man in his exposition of the Creed affirms that threescore Creeds of the most ancient Councils and Fathers wants this clause Whereby it is most clear that this article was not put in at that time when the rest of the articles were gathered together but hath crept in since and that more then 300. years after the days of the Apostles For Augustin lived in the 400. years and the Nicene Creed was more then 300. years after Christ And yet because it hath continued a long time and hath been received by the consent of the Churches of God and doth also carry with it a fit understanding and sense as hath been spoken therefore it is to be retained but not in that sense as ye expone it For first if this local descension of Christ according to his soul into hell were true and that it were an article of our Faith as ye say then the four Evangelists which are the sworn pen-men of the history of his death and resurrection and especially Luke who as he saith himself Luke 1 3. intended to make an exact narration of the same who also did amply set down the same with all the circumstances thereof they would not have omitted it being a special article of our Faith if your doctrine be true seeing the end of their writing as John saith was that we might believe and by believing have eternal life John 10.31 But they never mention it as your selves cannot deny Therefore it cannot be that he locally descended into hell Secondly the Scripture makes it plain that Christs soul was in Paradise at that time with the thief For he saith unto him This night shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luke 23.43 For this cannot be meant of his God-head for it is every where neither of his body for it was in the grave Seeing therefore his soul was at that time in Paradise it could not be in hell except you will say that Paradise and hell are both one which I suppose ye will not say Thirdly if the souls of the Fathers were not in hell then Christ descended not thither For ye say That he descended thither for that effect to deliver them Bellar. lib. 4. de Christo cap. 16. but they were not in hell but in heaven which our Savior calls Abrahams bosome where Lazarus was betwixt the which and hell the Scripture testifies there is a great gulf Luke 16.23 therefore he descended not locally into hell Fourthly some of your own learned Doctors have seen this error of yours and have gone from it as Durandus by name who affirms in 3. distinct 22. quaest 3. That Christs soul descended not to hell in substance but in vertue and proves it by reasons And last of all you are at such variance among your selves concerning this point that some of you affirms That Christs soul suffered pain in hell when it was there as Cajetan in
ye say if they prophesie at any time it is of evil and not of good so said Achab of the Prophet of the Lord 1. Kings 22.8 and therefore he hated him so you speak with the same spirit against us that Achab spake with against the Lords Prophet And what good can be spoken of your Babel since the Lord hath fore-told the ruine of it in part hath been accomplished And some of your own number as Hildegardis Briget Catherine de Sens have fore-told of the destruction of your Church the reformation of the Church of Christ As for the time it was spoken of before and I suppose ye have thought it too long and yet be in patience M. Gilbert for it must continue and your Babel must down As for the clothing of sackcloth it was the apparel of such as was in dolor and in mourning whereby is signified the sorrow and dolor that should arise to the true Ministers of Christ through the persecution of the Antichrist his members their idolatrie and abominations The which hath been so clearly fulfilled in the Preachers of the Gospel since John Hus his dayes and before also even to this day that he must be blinded of the Lord who sees it not And whereas ye cast up the clothing of the Ministry in this land ye have forgotten your self and your Clergy and your Head the Pope with his triple Crown with all the rable of his Prelats Abbots Bishops Cardinals c. as full of riotous pride and pomp as ever were the Persian Kings See Bernard de confid ad Eugen. lib. 4. Platin. de vita Pontif. in Paulo 2. His clothes be made of precious stones his gorgeous Miter dight With jewels rare with glistering gold and with 1 A precious stone called a Carbuncle of the which kind one that fell out of the Popes Miter by a mischance at his coronation was worth 6000. crowns Platin. in vita Clementis 5. Pyropus bright O very Troyan trulls no Troyans The pomp and glory of whose Court doth surmount all the pomp and glory of all the Princes in Europe as some that have seen it reports How then can ye justly quarrel our attire Can you say that we pass the bounds of that modesty and comeliness which the Apostle requires in the over-seers of the Church of Christ seeing you will have all the outward pomp and glory of your Popes and Prelats according as it was prophesied of you Rev. 17. to be comprehended within the definition of comeliness and modestie But you are like the Lamians of whom it is reported that they had but one eye and when they went forth they took it with them to look upon others and when they came in their own houses they laid it beside them You look to your neighbors but ye over-see your self So for all the differences which ye have yet assigned it remains sure that by these two Witnesses here are signified the Ministers of the Gospel Master Gilbert Brown But note here I pray you how well these new Evangelists agree in the exposition of this Revelation of S. John for all their grounds proofs is upon prophesies and dark speakings Young Merchiston in his book upon the Revelation chap. 11. vers 3. expones these Witnesses to be the Old and New Testament as he proves in the 21. Proposition and M. John will have them the Ministers Merchiston saith that to be clad in sackcloth is to preach the Word of God with the obscurity of mens traditions and colored glosses M. John saith here that the sackcloth signifies persecution for the preaching of the Word The notes on their Geneva Bibles printed at London expones the sackcloth to signifie poor and simple apparel And Bale upon the same place writes that this sackcloth signifies sober conversation God knows if this and the like be wholsome doctrine to preach to the poor people some one way and some another according to the invention of their own brains without any proofs Maister John Welsch his Reply As for these diverse expositions which ye mark in us that have so stirred up your affections that ye cry out God knows whether this be wholsome doctrine to teach the poor people or not I answer That these diverse expositions of ours are all agreeable to the analogie of faith as your self will not deny and therefore cannot be called unwholsome doctrine Otherwise not only the Fathers but also your own Doctors and Bishops and Popes have delivered unwholsome doctrine by your reason for they have exponed innumerable places of Scripture diversly which is so manifest that I need not prove it and your self also hath delivered unwholsome doctrine here for ye expone blessing and thanksgiving for two contrary things and yet Bellarmin saith that some Catholicks take them both for one And what shal I say of your diverse expositions which were tolerable so being they were according to the proportion of faith your contradictions one to another and that not only in exponing the Scripture but in the main points of your Religion some holding one thing and some another as partly hath and partly shal be marked are manifold And if diverse expositions of a place of Scripture be unwholsome doctrine as ye say then surely this point of your Catholick doctrine which teaches that the Scripture hath a five-fold sense and that it may be five diverse ways exponed must be unwholsome doctrine and then ye lose more then you can win by this Beware M. Gilbert that by this dealing ye bring not your self in suspicion that ye are forsaking your Catholick Faith For this is a point of it as Bellarmin reports lib. 3. de interpret verb. cap. 3. As for your calumnies first in calling us new Evangelists I answered to that before next in saying that all our proofs and grounds are upon prophesies and dark sayings First you injure the holy Ghost in calling his prophesies dark for the cause of this is not in them but in our blindness Secondly ye speak too plain an untruth for it is more then manifest that not only prophesies but also the plain and simple doctrine of the whole Scripture is the grounds and proofs of our Religion as is manifest by the points of doctrine which we have handled here Master Gilbert Brown And it follows in M. John And at the last saith he they shal be put to death c. Here is two things to be noted First that the Church shal not be invisible in the time of Antichrist for if the Pastors of the Church be invisible how shal they be taken and put to death If the Antichrist and his members shal slay them how can they do the same except they know and may see them To be invisible is not to be known or seen but they will see and know them or else they cannot discern them from their own whereby they may put them to death and save their own The second thing to be noted that
world and of the stability and perpetuity of Christs Kingdom But yet it follows not but both the Catholick Church is invisible as I said before and that the visible Churches may be obscured and darkened as it was fore-told in the time of the Antichrist As for the 18. of Matthew 17. Go tell the Church c. The Church is here taken for the Pastors and Governors of particular Churches which we grant are visible but yet it follows not but that both they and the professors may be obscured and darkened either through heresie or through extream persecution or through both together as it was fore-told in the time of the Antichrist and hath been fulfilled by your Church As for the true Church unto whom we should joyn our selves I answer We can have no salvation unless we joyn our selves first to the Catholick Church that is unto Jesus and his members by a spiritual communion without the which there is no salvation Next unto some particular visible Church by the outward communion of the Word and Sacraments c if we know it and possibly can joyn our selves unto it For if either we know it or may not as these seven thousand that bowed not their knee to Baal then I say salvation is not perilled As for your last reason The true Church may never want the true preaching of the Word and right administration of the Sacraments I answer First there is not the like necessity of the Sacraments as there is of the Word Next suppose they have it and thereby are known among themselves and some of them also to their adversaries yet it follows not that they are so openly visible that they are patent and known to all As for example There is no question but these seven thousand that did not bow their knee to Baal 1. Kings 19.18 and these hundred Prophets who was hid in the caves 1. Kings 18.13 and the Apostles when all were scattered through that persecution as Luke testifies Acts 8.1 had the exercise of the Word among them And it is not likely that the Apostles wanted some to teach suppose they were not known to all no not to their persecuters otherwise they would have been persecuted And such like we doubt not but in the time of Queen Maries persecution in England and in other parts under that Antichristian tyranny but the Lord had his own both Pastor and people among whom the truth was preached suppose neither we nor their adversaries knew them all For it is oft-times for the safety of the Church to lurk and to be hid that she may escape the fury and rage of her enemies As for Augustin Cyprian Origen Chrysostome and Jerome which ye quote here they speak either of the perpetuity and eternity of the Catholick Church or else of the largeness and clearness of the particular Churches which were in those days which is neither against the invisibility of the Catholick Church nor yet against the obscure estat and smal handful of the Church of Christ whereunto she should be brought in the days of the Antichrist as was fore-told by the Scripture and fulfilled in your Papistical Kingdom For we grant that in their dayes the Churches of Christ was frequent and glorious but yet they did not ay remain in that estat For the Churches of the East are almost overthrown by the Mahomet and the Churches of the West by the Antichrist So that partly by the one and partly by the other the Church of Christ hath been redacted to a smal handful as hath been said SECTION XXIV Where our Religion was before Luther Or a Catalogue of them who professed our Religion in the midst of Popery Master John Welsch Last of all I will set you down the names of these worthy men that in the midst of Popery spake against their errors and preached the same Religion which we preach I will but only name a few of them that was in the midst of Popery when it was come to the hight anno 1158. Gerardus and Dulcimus Navarrensis M John hath not the right dyet of these his holy Fathers Answer If it was so as you write it it was error in scribendo and that which I writ afterward might have taught you this when I said this was 400. years past did preach earnestly against the Church of Rome and called the Pope the Antichrist and taught also that the Clergy of Rome was become the whore of Babylon fore-spoken in the Revelation this was 400. years past In the year of our Lord 1160. one * This Waldus and his sect had wives and all things common and so must M. John if he follow him Answer This is falsly alledged of him and his followers but either your Canon Law errs Causa 12. qu. 1. Dilectissimis or else Pope Clement was of this mind and so if you be of his Religion you must be so for albeit ye have no wives yet other mens wives have been made common to your Popes and your Clergy in horrible adulteries Waldus a citizen of Lyons in France with a great number taught that same doctrine which we teach now condemned the Mass to be wicked the Pope to be the Antichrist and Rome to be Babylon They were persecuted by the Pope and remained long in Bohemia In the year 1112. the Pope caused an hundred persons in the Countrey of Alsatia whereof many were noble-men to be burnt in one day for the maintaining of that same doctrine that we now maintain against the Church of Rome About the year of our Lord 1230. almost all the Churches of the Grecians which with the rest of the Churches of Asia and Africk who do not acknowledge the supremacy of your Pope are mo then the Churches of Europe who submit themselves to him did all renounce the Pope and the Romish Church because of their execrable simony and idolatry in the year 1240. In the Countrey of Swevia there were many Preachers that taught freely against the Pope and affirmed he and his Clergy were hereticks and simoniacks in the year 1251. or thereabout Arnoldus de Villanova a learned Spaniard taught freely against the Church of Rome and among the rest that the Pope led the people to hell for the which cause the Pope condemned him as an heretick about the same time Gulielmus de Sancto Amore Master and chief Ruler of that University taught that all the testimonies of the Scripture spoken of the Antichrist should be applyed to the Pope and his Clergy and so taught them to be the Antichrist and the whore of Babel anno 1290. Laurence an English-man and Master of the University in Paris proved mightily that the Pope was the Antichrist and his Clergy the Synagogue of Babylon About the same time Robertus Gallus a man of noble parentage taught the Pope was an Idol and said the judgement of God would fall upon him and his Clergy Because I have no time to write the doctrine of the rest
it no heresie to fast on the Lords day more then other dayes both to stir up our repentance and to make us more meet to holy and spiritual exercises because it is not contrary to the Word of God As for Leo his Epistle it is wrong quoted for it should be Epist 91. and their fasting on the Lords day is not like ours for they fasted on the Lords day because they believed not that Christ was a true man as Leo in that same place testifies which you will not say your self that we do for we acknowledge him to be a true man As for the 13. heresie of the Pepusians and Collyridians their doctrine was that women might be Bishops and Elders and might use these publick functions as these places which ye have quoted testifie which is not our doctrine but rather yours who permit women to baptize in case of necessity That they denyed Orders to be a Sacrament there is no such thing to be found in these places which ye quote here As for the 14. heresie of the Pelagians if they denyed that these who were accused of any scandalous offence and guilty thereof should make their confession of it to God his Ministers and the Congregation for to take away the offence of it then they erred and our doctrine and practise condemn this but if they denyed the absolut necessity of your auricular confession then is it no error because there is no such thing commanded in the whole Scriptures of God Now as for the testimony of Boëtius I have not seen it As for their second heresie concerning Baptism they taught as Augustin reports in that place That Baptism was not needful to children because they were born without original sin as they taught which is an heresie indeed but this is a calumny to ascribe it to us for we teach that children are born in original sin and so should be baptized And surely this heresie rather agrees to you who teach that Mary was not born in original sin and therefore she needed not to be baptized As for the last of the Donatists denying the order of Monks I answer First your Papistical and idolatrous Monks are far different from these which Augustin and Chrysostome defended and these of the primitive Church Bellarmin lib. 1. cap. 2. de indulgentijs For first they were bound to no prescript form of dyet apparel or any thing else by solemn vowes of wilful poverty and perpetual continency as yours are Next the former Monks remained in the order of privat men and laicks and had nothing to do with Ecclesiastical charges which was afterward broken by Pope Boniface the fourth anno 606. But yours are not so they have Ecclesiastical charges and are more then privat men And last of all suppose their kind of life was mixed with some superstition for the envious man soon sowed the popple among the good seed and the mystery of iniquity began soon to work yet their Religion was not defiled with Idolatry worshipping of Images prayers to Saints opinion of merit the sacrifice of the Mass and other abominations wherewith your Papistical Monks are defiled Next I say these Monks and religious Orders of yours have not their foundation within the four corners of the Scripture of God Master Gilbert Brown These and many the like new renewed heresies by the Ministers was old condemned heresies in the primitive Church of the former hereticks as testifie the ancient Fathers and therefore this is a true argument What ever was heresie in old times is heresie yet and the defenders thereof hereticks as they were of old But these former heads that I have set down with many the like was heresies in old times and the defenders thereof hereticks as testifie the ancient Fathers Therefore they are heresies yet and the defenders thereof hereticks Master John Welsch his Reply Now here was all the cause Christian Reader that made M. Gilbert so oft to cry out of us that we renewed old condemned heresies whereof some are such as we our selves condemn and some are such which do better agree unto themselves then unto us And some heresies he forceth upon us which we never taught nor maintained and some are such which are not heresies indeed but agreeable to the Scriptures of God So that if we err in these suffer us to err with Jesus Christ and his Apostles Now to answer to your argument which ye bring What ever was heresie in old times is heresie yet and the defenders thereof hereticks I answer If ye define heresie to be an error obstinatly maintained against the Scriptures of God I grant your proposition But if ye define heresies in general to be whatsoever any one Father or Doctor or some more have rebuked as an heresie then I deny it for sundrie of the Fathers have maintained errors themselves against the Scripture and have accused some doctrine to be heresies which have been agreeable to the truth of God which you will not deny I hope For if you would I could prove it both of the Fathers Councils and your own Popes Now to your assumption But these former heads say ye which ye have set down with many the like was heresies in old times and the defenders thereof hereticks as testifie the ancient Fathers I answer That some of these are heresies indeed and we abhor and condemn them more then ye and some of these as falsly laid to our charge and some of these are not heresies indeed but agreeable to the Scripture And therefore your conclusion falls not upon us who have renewed no old condemned heresies and therefore is not hereticks And where you say many other like I answer It is true they are like for they are both calumnies and horrible untruths and lies as these have been whereof one day ye shal make answer to the great God that judgeth the quick and the dead But the pit which you digged for others you have fallen in it your self For certainly in this you do as thieves do who the better to eschew the crime of theft which is justly laid to their charge and that they may the more easily escape in a fray do cry out and shout out upon others Common thieves common thieves Even so do you for these crimes whereof ye are guilty your selves you falsly charge us with SECTION XXVI That the Church of Rome hath renewed and maintaineth old condemned Heresies THat all men may see that not we but the Church of Rome hath renewed and doth maintain old condemned Heresies I shal not do as you have done to us that is either to lay to your charge such heresies as ye maintain not or such things to be heresies which are not heresies indeed which ye did to us But in this I will deal sincerely with you faining nothing neither of them nor of you 1. Simoniani worshipped the Image of Simon and Selene whose heresie they followed Ederus in Baby pag. 5. so do your religious Orders worship the
make them Intercessors but Mediators at whom and for whose merits they seek salvation And upon this ground came that Paganism which they have brought in the Church of God whereby every Nation Village Family every Estat and every malady or affliction have their own Saint to be a Patron for them Upon the which also hath proceeded this canonizing of Saints that is to make men Gods For they say that this canonizing of them is to let men understand that they should be adored and called upon as one of their own Archbishops Antonius saith part 5. summa tit 12. For he saith that seven things appertain to the canonizing of Saints 1. To be reputed publickly to be a Saint 2. To be prayed to by the Church 3. To have Temples and Altars 4. To have offerings and sacrifices offered to their honor 5. To have a festival day 6. To have an Image with a candle in sign of their glory 7. To have their relicks And they say That they may be directly prayed unto with the Lords Prayer which our Savior formed only to be said to God the Father Now how shal they be excused from vile idolatry in this Pope Innocent saith That to the worship which is only proper to God appertains Temples Altars sacrifices feasts And Durandus a Papist saith the same lib. 5. cap. 4. If this then be true which this Pope and this Papist say how then can they be cleared from idolatry that give unto Saints that service which by their own confession is only proper to God as Temples Altars Festival dayes c. And what shal we say to Franciscus and Dominicus two of their canonized Saints in whose persons they have done that lay in them to have abolished the merit the Name of Christ Of this Franciscus they say in their Book of Conformities That he is greater then John the Baptist And preferring him in many things to him they say That John received the word of repentance of Christ but Franciscus say they received it of Christ and of the Pope quod plus est which is more Of John it was revealed by an Angel to his father what he should be but of Franciscus it was revealed to his mother and his servants by Jesus Christ John was like the friend of the bridegroom but Franciscus was like the bridegroom himself They say He is better then all the Apostles for they left but their boats but he left all to his very hose They call him Typicus Jesus a typical Savior a singular crucified one who received in vision the same wounds which Christ hath suffered the same dolors who is the way of life who is the image of Christ as Christ is the image of the Father Yea which is more they prefer him to Christ Jesus They say Christ did but pray but Franciscus by prayer obtained They say The Baptism of Christ forgives original sin but Franciscus hood much more It is written also upon the port of the Cordeliers of Bloys of this Franciscus That his sin shal be sought for but it shal not be found which is only proper to Christ Now these are not particular opinions but approved by the Church of Rome For Pope Gregory the 9. Alexander the 4. and Nicolas the 3. ordained all the faithful under the pain of heresie to believe all Franciscus marks And their Books are set forth by their priviledges As for Dominicus Antoninus who was of that Order compares him with Christ and in a manner prefers him to him Hist. 3. pars tit 23. cap. 1. part 1. 3. Christ saith he did raise in all but three from the dead Dominicus raised three in Rome and by his prayer restored forty to life Christ after the resurrection being immortal went twise to his disciples the doors being shut but Dominicus saith he having as yet but a mortal body which saith he is more marvellous went into the Church in the night the doors being shut that he should not waken his brethren c. And such like of the rest of the miracles wherein he not only compares but in a māner prefers him to Christ Christ saith he said after his death all power is given to me in heaven earth This power saith he is not in a little cōmunicat to Dominicus above all heavenly earthly infernal things that in this same life for he had the Angels to serve him the elements obeyed him And in the end he applyes that which is only spoken of Christ in the 45. Psalm He is more beautiful then the sons of men Also he saith That there was two Images the one of Paul the other of Dominicus At the foot of Pauls Image it was written Per istumitur ad Christum By this man is the way to Christ At the foot of the Image of Dominicus it was written By this man the way is made easie to Christ And marvel not saith he at this for the doctrine of Paul and the rest of the Apostles induceth men to believe and to obey the precepts of Christ but the doctrine of Dominicus induceth men to keep the counsels of Christ and therefore the way to Christ by him is easier So he prefers him to Christ in miracles and to the Apostles But what shal we say to that that follows He is called saith he Dominicus because he is like our Lord and he hath possessive and in possession that which Christ hath absolutly and by authority Christ saith I am the light of the world The Church saith he sings of Dominicus Ye are the light of the world The Prophets testified of Christ and so did they also saith he of Dominicus and of his Order as in the 11. chapter of Zachary where it is spoken of Christ I have taken unto me two rods and I called one the staff of beauty and the other the staff of bands The staff of beauty saith he is the Order of Dominicus the staff of bands is the Order of Franciscus So they abuse the Scripture He compares him also with Christ and in a manner prefers him to him Christ saith he was born upon the bare earth but lest he had been over much hurt by cold he was put into the crib by his mother But Dominicus saith he being in the custody of his nurse even then abhorring the pleasures of the flesh was found oft-times lying upon the bare earth When Christ was born a star appeared signifying that he should illuminat the whole world But saith he when Dominicus was born his Godmother saw a star in his fore-head a prognostication of a new light of the world The prayer of the Lord was ever heard when it pleased him but yet did not ever obtain that which he prayed for as when in the garden he prayed that the cup might be transferred from him But saith he Dominicus desired nothing of God but that which he obtained perfectly according to his desire Christ loved us and washed us from our sins in his
and her Son unto them What horrible blasphemy is this Who can give Christ but only God the Father They say God will give them that worship her a reward here and heaven hereafter How shal I praise the redeemed by thee speaking of Mary And in the prose of the Mass they have this prayer Jure matris impera Redemptori that is By thy motherly authority command the Redeemer And as concerning her Psalteries how horrible is it to see all that David spake of the Father Son and holy Spirit to be transferred and applyed to her without exception from the beginning to the end changing only the style of the eternal Lord in the style of our Lady blaspheming Blessed is he who loves Mary fears her and praises her name who hopes in her The heavens declare thy glory and the earth and the fulness thereof Blessed are all they who love thee because thou hast washen their sins in thy mercies Have mercy on me O mother of mercy and according to the bowels of thy compassions wash me from all mine iniquities Save me for thy names sake Let Mary be lifted up and all her enemies will be scattered Lord give thy judgement to thy Son and thy mercy to the Queen his mother Lady salvation and life is in thy hand O how good is God to them that worship his mother God is the God of vengeance but thou art the Queen of mercy Come let us worship the Lady let us praise the Virgin who hath saved us let us confess our sins unto her The Lord said unto our Lady Sit here my mother on my right hand O mankind rejoyce because God hath given to thee such a Mediatrix and at the name of Mary let all knees bow in heaven in earth and in Hell This Lady Psalter was compyled by a Cardinal of Rome Bonaventure who was canonized for a Saint by Pope Sixtus the fourth anno 1470. After the same manner have they corrupted the Songs of the Prophets of Simeon and of the Virgin blaspheming after this manner My soul rejoyceth in my Lady My soul magnifie my Lady c. Now letst thou O Lord the servant of Mary depart in peace because my eyes have seen the salvation of Mary And to put an end to these abominations they ascribe unto the Virgin that which the holy Ghost hath spoken only of Jesus Christ the everlasting wisdom of his Father The Lord hath possessed me in the beginning of his way before he made any thing I was ordained from everlasting Prov. 8.22 And Pope Leo the 10. calls her Deam a Goddess Epist 17. In the General Council of Lateran in stead of praying to God through Christ for the assistance of his Spirit they crave the help and assistance of Mary Concil Lateran sub Julio 2. Leone 10. Sess 9.10 c. And Pope Pius the fifth acknowledgeth her for the victory of the Christians against the Turk in their combat which was stricken on the sea and for that victory hath ordained a yearly rememberance of her to be kept Martyrologium Rom. act 7. And Antoninus one of their Archbishops saith Hist. part 3. tit 23. cap. 3. That Christ sitting at the right hand of God the Father rose up angry to have slain all the sinners in the earth and when none was able to resist his mother came to him and pacified him till two of his servants Franciscus and Dominicus might be sent to them and that Christ answered Behold I am pacified and have accepted thy face I appeal your conscience M. Gilbert before the Lord Jesus Christ as ye must appear before him in that great day whether these speeches be not the speeches and blasphemies of the Dragon or not And whether this doctrine and Religion of yours be not idolatrous blasphemous and Antichristian or not Not only have they spoyled the Lord Jesus of his mediation intercession and of his glory due to him and mankind of their salvation purchased by his blood in ascribing it to Saints Angels and to the Virgin Mary but also in ascribing them unto their consecrat things as their holy water the tree of the Cross the sign of the Cross their golden silver and stony Crosses For unto the Cross they give the worship of Latria as themselves testifie which by their own confession is only proper to God Thomas in part 3. summae quaest 25. artic 4. Cajet in comment in illum locum Thomae Andradius in lib. 9. orthod explic And their prayer to the Cross and the sign of the Cross is to help them defend them and save them and they adore it and worship it They pray such like that the holy water may be salvation unto them and that by the sparging of the same the health of their soul the strengthening of their faith the security of their hope may be given them Unto the Images and relicks of the Saints they offer sacrifice in burning incense unto them which the Scripture calles an oblation only proper to the living God Mark 9 49. Therefore Ezechias brake the brazen serpent because they burnt incense unto it 2. Kings 18.4 And the burning of incense to Baal is counted idolatry 2. Kings 23.5 They pray for their golden silver and stony crosses that as the world was purged from the guiltiness of sin by the Cross of Christ so by the merit of this Cross these who offer it up may be forgiven of all their actual sins Pontif. Rom. part 2 tit de benedict novae crucis Careat omni peccato perpetrato Is not this to set up their stony c. Crosses in the room of the blood of Jesus Christ They ascribe to the tree of the Cross that which is only proper to God saying Salva catervam that is Give salvation to the assembly gathered together in thy praises Brevia Rom. in fest invent exalt sanctae crucis They worship their images after the same manner as the Heathens did their Idols And as the Heathens Baruc. 6.3 bure their golden silver and timber Idols upon their shoulders so do the Papists Baron nota Marti Rom. Sleidan com lib. 9. Jodoc meg peregr Hieros cap. 3. Pellic. in Baruc cap. 6. The Heathens worshipped their idols the Papists do the same in falling down before the images of Saints Conc. Trid. Sess 25. The Heathens decked their idols with vestiments as though they had been men so do the Papists with their images which some of themselves think to be an abuse and would have it abolished Molin Epist Valen. Salig Espen hist Eccles Ecclesia reform in Gallia lib. 4. They lighted candles before their idols which their idols saw not so do the Papists Erasm colloq peregrin relig ergo Polyd. Virg. de invent rer lib. 2. cap. 23. lib. 6. cap. 13. There the faces of their Gods were made black through the smoke of their incense which was burnt in their worship as it is exponed by some so do the Papists burn incense to their golden
the undoubted Antichrist This for the fourth mark The fifth mark of the Antichrist as he is described by the Apostle is in these words Ye know saith the Apostle what withholdeth namely that he might be revealed in his own time This Tertullian de resurrect cap. 24. Jerome ad Gelasium and Chrysostom upon this same place and so also Ambrose upon this place and August de civit Dei lib. 20. cap. 29. expone it of the Roman Empire the which as long as it flowrished and was in full strength the Antichrist could not climb up to this his full hight and preeminence So that it behoved that Empire first to be translated and piece and piece diminished before the Antichrist could come up to his hight for that stayed him Now it is manifest out of the 17. chap. of the Revelation that Rome should be the seat of the Antichrist and Bellarmin and the Rhemists do not deny it and Rome was the seat of the Roman Empire before So then it behoved the Empire to translate his seat from Rome that Rome which was first the seat of the Empire might be the seat of the Antichrist Now the issue and event is a sure and clear interpretation of this Prophesie For Constantin the Emperor of Rome translated his seat from Rome to Byzantium called Constantinople in Greece And piece and piece that Empire of the Greek Emperor began to decay and was translated from the Greeks to the French-men by the Popes and then from them to the Germans by the Popes also So that both Rome and a great part of Italy and at the last a great part of the Empire is fallen in the Popes hand So that now he vaunts himself to be Monarch of the whole world and all Kings and Princes gave him their oath of alleageance and the Emperors and Kings held their Empires and Kingdoms of him and are but his vassals as their Canon Law saith So that by the taking away of the Roman Empire the Popes did then climb up to their supremacy and make themselves manifest that they were the Antichrist And so this doth also agree to the Pope of Rome and to none other He is the Antichrist whose climbing up was letted by the Roman Empire and who is built up upon the ruines of the same But the Papacy is such Therefore the Papacy is that Antichristian Kingdom It is said sixthly that this mystery began to work in the dayes of the Apostles that is the foundations of that apostasie was begun to be laid in these dayes and that he shal continue to the Lords coming for he shal not be abolished but by the brightness of his coming suppose he shal be first consumed with the sword of his mouth that is discovered and sore beaten by the Lords Word All which agrees unto Papistrie For that Kingdom is that Apostasie and Antichristian Monarchy whose foundation was beginning to be laid in the Apostles dayes which should be first consumed by the Word of God and utterly abolished by the brightness of his coming But the Papacy is such therefore it is that Antichristian Kingdom Matth. 18.1.2.3.4 and 20.25.26.27 Mark 10.41 Luke 22.25 2 Cor. 1 24. 1 Pet. 3.2.3 For the foundations of it was soon laid both of that Hierarchie and supremacy of the Pope and also of his damnable and erroneous doctrine For that superiority of the Ministery one over another of Bishops over Pastors forbidden by Jesus Christ soon crept in which was the foundation or rather staires by the which the Pope clamb up to his Popedom and supremacy the old condemned heresies which sprang up in the primitive Church many of them were the foundation of these damnable doctrines which the Popes brought in afterward as is proved in the end of the first part And as to his consuming by the Lord his mouth the Lord hath accomplished that already in some measure and shal assuredly fulfil it dayly more and more For since the time of the burning of John Hus and Jerome of Prague about the year of God 1415. and since the time the Lord stirred up Martin Luther and sundry others his faithful servants to preach the Gospel of Christ which was as it were buried in the darkness of Papistry the supremacy of the Pope hath taken such a dayly consumption that many of the Kingdoms of Europe now have forsaken her and the Lord hath put in their hearts to hate her But yet we know the dreggs of it shal not be abolished utterly while the bright coming of the Son of God It followes seventhly the manner how his Kingdom and tyranny shal be promoved upholden and established To wit By the effectual working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness among them that perish Which the Apostle calles strong delusions And with this that of the Rev. 13.13.14 in the description of the second beast whereby it is meaned the Antichristian Kingdom doth agree that he did great wonders and deceived them that dwelt upon the earth by the signs which was permitted him to do Now certainly nothing can be spoken more aptly of the Popes Kingdom then this For unless the Pope had had an effectual power strong and devilish also by signs and lying wonders and unless his unrighteousness that is his false doctrine had been exceeding deceiveable that is covered with a fair color of godliness and unless his delusions had been strong his Kingdom had never been so far enlarged and so firmly established as we see it hath been and his damnable doctrine and errors would never have deâ—eived so many Nations as they have done For what is more common and usual in their mouthes then miracles What is it they vaunt so much of as of their miracles So that they make it an infallible mark of the Church And how I pray you have a great part of their errors and superstitions as the praying to Saints and worshipping of Images and pilgrimages and other of their superstitions and idolatries as Purgatory the real presence their monstrous Transubstantiation c. how I say have they been so confirmed and so rooted in the hearts of ignorant people but by their lying wonders and miracles which they fain was done Whereof their golden Legends are full and sundry yet live who have been eye-witnesses of the falshood of their miracles I will only set down for example some of the false miracles of two Nuns here the one of Magdalena de la Cruz Abbess of the Monastery of the Franciscan Nuns who was condemned by the Inquisitors of Cordoua for her enormous offences and covenant which she made with the Devil as they say in their sentence against her She by the aid of the Devil with whom she made a covenant when she was nine years old became a singular hypocrit and by his help wrought many miracles as that she appeared unto Mariners in a storm being invocated and so the storm calmed that she
much less do we hold that the Pope may loose all subjects from their oath of loyalty and command that a Jesuit stob or poyson a King when he turneth enemy to the Roman faith Satan himself cannot charge us with these therefore we intreat that none would hearken to the Author of Philanax Anglicus or the like who endeavor to traduce and calumniat us as if the Protestants of integrity did teach and practise rebellion c. Look to our Confessions and the approved writings of our Doctors and to the practises of Protestants in the Kingdoms and Common-wealths where they live and they will be forced to confess we own no such doctrine Who more loyal subjects then the Protestants in France to King Henry the third and King Henry the fourth They owned them assisted and fought for them when almost all others abandoned them How faithful were our predecessors in Scotland to King James they crowned him in his cradle they preserved him owned and assisted him and made him a glory to Europe for understanding learning and wisdom I shal not insist further on this seeing Peter du Moulin hath learnedly vindicated the Reformed Churches from this false aspersion hatched in hell of purpose to alienat the affections of the Magistrat from us But this only say as we desire to render to God the things that are Gods so we desire to render to Cesar the things that are Cesars But to conclud Doth not the truth and honor of God which ought to be dearer to us then our own salvation our own and posterities welfare and safety in body soul and all that is near and dear to us call us to consider and seriously to lay to heart the increase and prevalency of Popery Since the Reformation there was never generally more prevailing of Popery and more hazard of being ruined thereby then now and yet never less sense thereof zeal against it In former times the least appearance of the prevalency of Popery did alarm all to deal according to their place and station most seriously for suppressing thereof I shal not insist in shewing how zealous our predecessors in Scotland were against Popery and how they left no mean unessayed for total extirpation thereof out of the land nor how ready they were upon the least appearance of any danger to discover the danger and petition and supplicat the Kings Majesty and Estats of Parliament for remedy For instance when news came of the preparation of the Spanish Armado 1588. what fasting praying and humiliation was all the Land over and all other means essayed for preventing that dismal-like stroke And anno 1592. when the plots of the Popish Lords who had conspired to bring in the Spaniards in the Kingdom was discovered what zeal and forwardness did all the Land show for defence of the Reformed Religion and suppressing of Popery I will not I say insist at large on these seeing the Acts of our Parliaments wherein there are so many excellent statuts and laws made against Popery and the Histories of these times doth abundantly declare what zeâ—l and hatred all ranks and degrees had against that Romish Whoor But I shal only make this inference If they had such love to the truth and such zeal against Antichrist who had not such light and were not so strongly engaged as we are shal they not arise in judgement against us and condemn us For should not the truths of God be as precious to us as to our predecessors Are there not as many obligations lying upon us as was upon them Is not Popery that same damnable Antichristian idolatry now that it was then Why then are we so dreadfully lukewarm and indifferent and so little zealous against it Should we be silent when Christ suffers If in any thing and at any time we be obliged to confess him before men and to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints is it not in this thing and at this time when Antichrist is endeavoring to rob us of the purity of the Gospel and to entangle us with the yoke of his Idolatry and superstition Do we not see what we may expect if Popery prevail notwithstanding of all their specious pretences and fair and plausible insinuations The massacre of Paris the Spanish Inquisition and their unheard-of cruelty in Ireland to our own flesh and blood together with the Marian days in England ought never to be forgotten by us but alwayes raise in us a perfect detestation of and holy zeal and indignation against that Scarlet Whoor What may we expect if Popery prevail but that sad Dilemma either to be burnt at a stake or loose our souls and bodies eternally for the portion of these that worship the Beast and receive his mark is to be casten in that lake that burneth night and day Rev. 14.10.11 THE CONCLVSION NOw although we can expect nothing but either loss of life and all that is near and dear to us or to loose our souls eternally if Popery prevail yet how little concerned are we in these matters How luke warm and indifferent are we in this age and generation as to any Religion How few are they that are stirred up to deal with God by prayer and supplication for continuing of the Gospel in purity with us and to lay seriously to heart the abounding iniquity of these days that may justly provoke the Lord to give us up to the tyranny of Antichrist It is true many apprehend no hazard from Antichrist and think that all the noyse that is made of the prevalency of Popery is without any real ground and cause But let such think what they please yet really our hazard is not so little as is apprehended if we consider the diligence activity and vigilancy of Antichrist upon the one hand and the lightness unstability lukewarmness and Gallio-like temper of this generation together with the dreadful evils whereby the Lord is provoked to remove the candlestick and give us up to strong delusions to believe lies on the o her hand I. First I say if we consider the diligence and activity of Antichrist for is not Antichrist as active and diligent as ever Hath he not been still endeavoring by all manner of way to get his deadly wound cured and the Reformed Churches brought again under his subjection and especially Britain and Ireland which he looks upon as his great eye-sore Therefore he hath erected for educating of the children of Scots and English Papists a Colledge at Doway in Flanders another at Rome the third at Valladolit in old Castile a fourth in Sevil in Spain a fifth in S. Omers in Artois a sixth in Madrid in new Castile in Spain a seventh in Lovain in Brabant an eight in Liege in Luikland a ninth in Ghent in Flanders Now these that are educated in these Colledges especially at Rome they are bound by oath to come over to Britain and Ireland for propagating of Popery and accordingly some comes over to
the light of the Gospel shine among us which mauger many oppositions he hath alwayes kept among us in purity to this day expecting that we should have brought forth the fruits thereof But alace was ever a people followed with so much mercy and gave such evil recompence and unanswerable dealing to the Lords goodness as we have done Was ever more wickedness and prophanity among a people then is among us Is not many very ignorant of GOD and the way of salvation holden out in the Gospel notwithstanding of all the pains that have been taken on them Hath not prophanity like Jordan overflowed all its banks I know not if there be so much swearing drinking whooring blasphemy revelling c. among Heathens that never heard of the Gospel as is among us And is there not an universal almost contempt and undervaluing of the Gospel and a deriding and mocking of Religion Many are now grown so Atheistical that they have casten off all fear of GOD Heaven Hell or regard of salvation or damnation Did GOD threaten to remove Ephesus candlestick out of its place because of falling from her first love And ought we not to tremble lest ours be removed Did he threaten to spew Laodicea out of his mouth because of lukewarmness and being neither cold nor hot and can we conceive that he will spare us who are so universally lukewarm Did GOD cut off the Jews who were the natural branches for their unfruitfulness and other sins and suppose we that he will spare us Is it enough to constitut a Reformed Protestant to cast off the idolatry error and superstition of the Church of Rome and not also to reform from the prophanity and wickedness that reigns in the world and to use all endeavors to have our conversation according to the Gospel For the great end of the appearing of the grace of GOD in the Gospel is to teach us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present life c. The Magdeburg Century-Writers in praefat ad Cent. 5. observe that before Antichrist came to his hight and infected the Christian world with his idolatry these following iniquities reigned every where Verbi Divini contemptus c. The contempt and depravation of the Word of the LORD the inventing and defending of corruptions the toleration and reverencing of seducers the persecution and oppression of faithful Teachers and finally Epicurism and collusion with the ungodly upon which followed as a deserved punishment the substitution of humane traditions in place of GODS Word the giving liberty and rewards to impostors the hindering the confession of the truth the giving over to a reprobat sense and to blindness and being deceived by the efficacious illusions of the Devil which punishments were accompanied with idolatry superstitious worship Phanatick and more then Ethnick furies also civil punishments and calamities on the Kingdoms and Common-wealths in which these sins did abound The Author of the Book intituled Consideratio causarum Belli Bohemici points out the abounding among them of the subsequent sins as one main cause of the destruction of Bohemia by Antichrist The chief sins saith he part 2. pag. 24. that abounded in Bohemia before its devastation were as the godly often confessed ingratitude and unthankfulness for the Gospel and contempt of the Ministery that they did not esteem it as became excess in meat and clothing especially in great persons oppression of their subjects and smal care of the poor doing to their neighbor what they would not had them doing to them remissness and slackness in discipline and giving a licence to sin but especially cold rifeness and lukewarmness in reference to the interest of Christ and defence and maintenance of the Gospel Now if God was so provoked by these above-mentioned sins that he gave up almost all the Christian world to the delusions of Antichrist and removed his Candlestick from Bohemia which was such a famous Church and had witnessed for the truth against Antichrist for so long a time may we not tremble lest he be provoked to give up with us Is not the Word and Ordinances much contemned and despised among us Have not many errors and corruptions sprung up and like a flood overspred many places in these Lands Was there ever more ingratitude and unthankfulness for the Gospel and contempt of the Ministery among a people then is among us Is not gluttony drunkenness vanity of apparel and oppression turned Epidemick among all ranks and degrees of persons Were ever any more coldrife and lukewarm in reference to the interests of Christ then we are Yea we are guilty of many of these things for which the Lord threatneth to depart and to remove his Candlestick as will appear if we a little consider some of the special sins that the Lord threatneth with his removeal 1. Ignorance of God and of the necessary truths of the Gospel is threatned with his removeal Jer. 6.8 Be instructed O Jerusalem lest my soul depart from thee c. Isai 27.11 It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will have no mercy on them and he that formed them will show them no favor Now for all the light of the Gospel that hath shined among us these hundred years and above the Word being line upon line precept upon precept c. yet what gross and palpable ignorance is every where to be found the generality of people ignorant even of the fundamentals of Religion 2. Barrenness and unfruitfulness under the Gospel is threatned with the removeal thereof Isai 5.6 7. I looked for grapes but behold wild grapes And now go to I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and it shal be eaten up and breakdown the wall thereof and it shal be troden down And I will lay it waste it shal not be pruned nor digged c. The fig tree that was three years fruitless is commanded to be cut down Luke 13.7 And the earth that drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it and bringeth forth nothing but thorns and thistles is rejected and near unto cursing Heb. 6.8 Now was ever people more rained upon then we And yet is there any that is more barren and unfruitful then we are Are not the most part of us empty vines that bring forth fruit to themselves How few are there that the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath taught to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly to be crucified to the flesh with the lusts and affections thereof to have their conversation in heaven 3. Slighting loathing and wearying of the precious things of God and of his Ordinances is a sin for which the Lord threatens to remove from a people Amos 8.4.5.6.9 11.12 Hear this O ye that swallow up the needy c. saying When will the new Moon be gone that we may sell corn and the
Sabbath that we may set forth wheat c. Vers 9. I will cause the Sun to go down at noon and darken the earth in the clear day And I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs to lamentations c. And vers 11. I will send a famin in the land not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water but of hearing the Word of the Lord. And they shal wander from sea to sea and from the North even to the East they shal run to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord and shal not find it Zech. 11.8 Their soul abhorred me then said I I will not feed you that that dieth let it die Now is not the wearying despising slighting and contemning of the Ordinances of Christ so evident among us that he that runs may read it 4. A fourth sin for which the Lord threatens to give up with folk is formality and lukewarmness contenting themselves with a form of godliness without the power thereof 2. Thess 2.10.11.12 Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved and for this cause God shal send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie c. And Laodicea is threatned for her lukewarmness to be spewed out of Christs mouth Rev 3.16 Now what age or generation could ever parallel this for formality and lukewarmness in the matters of God And may we not be justly given up to the delusions of Antichrist 5 A fifth sin is unbelief and disobedience to the call of God in the Gospel Hosea 9.17 My God will cast them away because they did not hearken unto him and they shal wander among the Nations Was it not for this sin that the Lord upbraided those Cities wherein most of his mighty works were done and threatens to bring desolation on them Matth. 11.21.22.23.24 Were not the Jews cut off for their unbelief Rom. 11.20 And is there no sad evidences and symptoms of this sin every where How few are they that have received Christ by faith is endeavoring Gospel-obedience And may we not fear lest the judgement of Chorazin Capernaum and Bethsaida be ours 6. A sixth sin for which the Lord threatens to remove the Candlestick is falling from our first love Rev. 2.4 Now have we not declined not only from the love and zeal which our fathers had but also even from that love zeal and diligence in duty that once we our selves had 7. A seventh sin is stupidity and impenitency under all Gods dispensations whether of mercy or judgement Jer. 8.5.6 7. And is not this sin so manifest that he that runs may read it Who is smiting on his thigh and saying What have I done How few are noticing what God is contending for or laying their iniquities to heart Several others might be instanced but these may suffice to show us what ground of fear we may have of Gods giving us up to the delusions of Antichrist yea is he not in a great measure departed from us Hath he not sore cracked if not broken the staves of beauty and bands our unity and authority We are divided in his anger and contempt is powred upon us Is not the blessing of Ordinances much restrained How few are converted and built up by the Gospel Yea what deadness decay and withering is upon all even the Lords people And how many are content to live without God and suffer him to be gone Now lay all these together and we will see that the ground of fear is greater then is apprehended by many Therefore let us be laying the hazard of the Church and of our selves and posterity to heart and let us be stirring up our selves to deal with the Lord by mourning and repentance prayer and supplications for the turning away of his wrath and for the powring out of his vials upon Antichrist If ever there was a time wherein repentance and mourning for our sins and the sins of the Land was called for it is now For are not our sins very great And is not the cry of them come up to heaven And is not the Lord hearkning and hearing if any man will repent him 〈◊〉 the evil of his doings and say What evil have I done For he is waiting to see what we will do before he leave us altogether For he hath in a great measure left us already For are we not stricken with blindness confusion and astonishment and trembling of heart Is he not in a great measure departed from his Ordinances For is not that light darkned that life withered that strength abated that presence evanished that tenderness gone these influences withholden that sometimes were wont to be felt in Ordinances Yea is not prayer restrained and love waxed exceeding cold and hardness of heart grown universal delight in God and in his Word and in the exercises of godliness grown exceeding rare Doth not God hide his fâ—ce from us and answer us with terrible things in righteousness All which speak that the glory of the Lord is departed from the Temple to the threshold Let us therefore lay these things seriously to heart and break up our fallow ground and circumcise our selves to the Lord and take away the fore-skins of our hearts lest his fury break forth like fire and burn that none can quench it Jer. 4.3 For is he not crying both by his Word and dispensations Be instructed O Jerusalem O Britain lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolat a land not inhabited Jer. 6 8. Repentance and Reformation is only the mean to prevent our ruine therefore let us be dealing with him who is the Prince exalted to give repentance and remission of sins for the powring out of that spirit upon the land O! if we were all about this work then there might yet be hope in Israel concerning us The Lord who is rich in mercy grant us mercy so as to be stirred up to true mourning and repentance and to be laying more seriously to heart the grounds of his contention Amen FINIS Errata Page 1. line 7. for Churches read Church p. 9. r. Rev. 14.11 p. 33. l. 19. r. Arim. p. 37. l. 30. r. Bellarmins p. 58. l. 32. r. Sacramentis p. 92. l. 23. r. imports p. 128. l. 5. r. naturis p. 151. l. 9. r. is p. 172. l. 18. r. books p. 212. l. 9. r. The eleventh p. 388. l. 7. r. if it be of works p. 393. l. 32. r. one p. 413. l. 33. r. Ephes p. 443 l. 6. r. so great and l. 13. r. King p. 481. l. 33. r. gravest p. 484. l. 10. r. persecute p. 489. l. 22. r. Protestants of integrity