say they be vitious they are but hay and stubble which nothing appertaine to the foundation of this euerlasting frame The Church may bee either more sound or more corrupt for them It cannot be more or lesse a Church The beauty or deformity of a Church may consist in them the strength the welfare of it doth not Surely whosoeuer willingly subscribes to the Word of God signed in the euerlasting monuments of Scripture to the ancient Creeds to the foure Generall Councells to the common consent of the Fathers for six hundred yeeres after Christ which we of the reformed Church religiously professe to doe if he may erre in small points yet he cannot be an Heretick Some particular Church may easily offend by imputing heresie to an vndeserued opinion whether perhaps true or lightly erroneous but neither soule nor Church can greatly erre while it treads in the steps of the most ancient and vniuersall Must hee therefore of necessity die a Romanist that would die a Catholick This is an idle fancy and worthy of no lesse than Bedlam Giue me leaue ye Reuerend Fathers The blessed Ghost of the most holy and latest Bishop of this See interrupts my speech and charges me not to suffer his ashes so shamefully to be wronged I can neither be silent for indignation nor speake for anger It was not onely rumor'd but bookes were cast abroad ouer the world concerning the reuolt of this worthy and excellent Prelate reporting that at his death hee reconciled himselfe to the Church of Rome and with many sighes renounced the Heresies of the Church of England and at last being absolued by a Popish Priest sweetly slept in the faith of the Church of Rome Neither did his departed soule want somewhere as is reported suffrages and oblations of Massmongers in this behalfe Oh immortall God! what blasphemy is here Can impudencie it selfe so cast off all shame as to raise so slanderous a lie thus boldly against the credit of so many witnesses against the solemne detestation of their owne Priest against the religious othes of his neerest friends and domestique seruants against the Sermon and publique writings of his Learned Sonne a sonne well worthy of such a Father Other lies haue some colour to plead for their credit This besides boldnesse hath none at all How many of vs sate by that faithfull Pastor of ours then breathing toward his last and receiued from his dying lips words of most constant piety And some of you reuerend Fathers deuoutly receiued with him that sacred Vinticum the last bread that euer hee tasted euen the bread of the Lord and were witnesses of the last motions of his soule then ready to depart and breathing toward his heauen Ours he liued Ours hee died and now as ours is crowned in heauen Goe on now yea mis-zealous spirits goe on to lie stoutly somewhat will alwaies stick fast to the accusers But in the meane time It cannot be truth that needs the props of lies Onely this by the way Let the boldest Sophister of the Romish Schoole come forth now and if hee can for shame let him vndertake to proue that those most noted additions of the Tridentine Faith which onely we reiect were receiued of all the Church in all Ages for necessary heads of Religion or let him confesse as he needs must that we haue still constantly persisted in the Communion of One Holy Catholick Church and faith Hee shall easily bewray his owne nouelty but neuer shall euince any Heresie of ours It is a golden saying of Cardinall Contarenus Harken I beseech you if any ingenuous spirit of you all be a friend to Rome Non opus est concilio non syllogismis ad sedandas hasce Lutheraâ—â—â—um turbas c. There needs no Councell saith he no Syllogismes to allay these broyles of the Lutherans but onely charity humility and a sincere minde that being void of all selfe-loue we may be perswaded to correct and reforme those things wherein we haue manifestly transgressed Thus he Thou art wise indeed O Contarenus would to God thy fellowes were so also But we forsooth are the disobedient and rebellious children of our mother the Church whose commands while wee disdaine to receiue and obey and reuerence her decrees we are enwrapped in a shamefull schisme and stricken with the curses of an angry Mother Surely this were an odious contumely But for vs wee haue not acknowledg'd her a Mother a Sister wee haue But grant wee were Sons yet wee are no slaues To forge a new faith and imperiously thrust it vpon her owne is not the part of an indulgent parent but of a Tyrant This lawlesse liberty we confesse we could neuer endure and therefore are wee openly thunder-stricken with more than one Anathema Neither haue they otherwise dealt with vs than that foolish fellow in Gerson who being very busie to driue away a fly from his neighbours forehead braind the man But lament ye with me my brethren the wofull case of that Church that hath learned to fit her faith to the Times and is more impatient of a remedy than of the disease Whilst they so eagerly persecute vs let vs heartily pitty them And let vs still wish to them that which they enuie and denie to vs Saluation Father forgiue them for they know not what they doe Our prayers our teares our admonitions must not bee wanting Returne to your selues now at last oh ye Christian soules Returne from whence you haue sensibly declined Recouer your first loue your first workes Suffer not your selues any longer to be mocked with the glorious title of a Church Frame your selues to that holy Vnity which hitherto you haue so stifly resisted which oh if once we might liue to see effected you should well finde as it runs in the law of the twelue Tables that the recouered should with vs haue the same priuileges with the healthfull Behold wee are ready as our gracious and peaceable King Iames piously vndertooke to meet you halfe way But if they shall still obstinately cast off all hope of Vnity and being set on fire with the hatred of peace shall goe on to delight themselues onely in the alarum of their sacred Trumpet as they call it why should not wee religiously and entirely keepe peace among our selues I speake to all the Sonnes of the purer Church wheresoeuer dispersed we professe this Church of ours by Gods grace reformed Reformed I say not new made as some emulous spirits spightfully slander vs. For me I am ready to forke to the very ground when I heare that hedge-row reproach Where was your Religion before Luther Where was your Church Heare oh ye ignorant Heare oh ye enuious Cauillers we desired the reformation of an old Religion not the formation of a new The Church accordingly was reform'd not new wrought It remaines therefore the same Church it was before but onely purged from some superfluous and pernitions additaments of error Is it a new face that was lately washed a new
there is betwixt vs and you How many hundred errors how many damnable heresies haue we euinced with you in that so compounded Church shew vs but one mis-mis-opinion in our Church that you can proue within the ken of the foundation Counterp p. 171. Let not zeale make you impudent Your Doctor could say ingenuously sure that in the Doctrines which she professeth she is far better and purer than the Whore Mother of Rome and your last Martyr yet better If you meane saith he by a Church as the most doe that publike profession whereby men doe professe saluation to be had by the death and righteousnesse of Iesus Christ I am free from denying any Church of Christ to be in this Land 1. Penry Exam. before M Fanshaw and Iust Young Fr. Iun. l. de Eccles M. Hooker Eccles pol. Du Plesses l. de Eccl. Iacob Armin. disput D Reynolds Thess D. Feild of the Church Reuel 3. 2. for I know the doctrine touching the holy Trinity the natures and offices of the Lord Iesus free iustification by him both the Sacraments c. published by her Maiesties authority and commanded by her lawes to bee the Lords blessed and vndoubted Truths without the knowledge and profession whereof no saluation is to be had Thus hee with some honesty though little sense If therefore your will doe not stand in your light you may well see why we should thus forsake their Communion and yet not you ours Yet though their corruptions be incomparably more we haue not dared to separate so farre from them as you haue done from vs for lesse Still we hold them euen a visible Church but vnsound sicke dying sicke not of a consumption onely but of a leprosie or plague so is the Papacie to the Church diseases not more deadly than infectious If they be not rather in Sardies taking of whom the spirit of God saith thou hast a name that thou liuest but thou art dead and yet in the next words bids them awake and strengthen the things which are ready to die And though our iudgement and practise haue forsaken their erronious doctrines and seruice yet our charity if you take that former distinction hath not vtterly forsaken and condemned their persons This is not our coolenesse but equality your reprobation of vs for them hath not more zeale than headstrong vncharitablenesse SEP And were not Luther Zuinglius Cranmer Latimer and the rest begot to the Lord in the Wombe of the Romish Church did they not receiue the knowledge of his truth when they stood actuall members of it whom notwithstanding afterwards they forsooke and that iustly for her fornication SECTION XXIV BVT how could you without blushing once name Cranmer Latimer The separation made by our holy Martyrs and those other holy Martyrs which haue beene so oft obiected to the conuiction of your Schisme Those Saints so forsooke the Romish Church as we haue done died witnesses of Gods Truth in that Church from which you are separated liued preached gouerned shed their bloud in the communion of the Church of England which you disclaime and condemne as no Church of God as meerely Antichristian Either of necessity they were no Martyrs yea no Christians or else your Separations and Censures of vs are wicked Chuse whether you will They were in the same case with vs we are in the same case with them no difference but in the time either their bloud will be vpon your heads or your owne this Church had then the same constitution the same confusion the same worship the same Ministerie the same gouernment which you brand with Antichristianisme swayed by the holy hands of these men of God condemne them or allow vs. For their Separation They found many maine errors of doctrine in the Church of Rome in the Papacie nothing but errors worth dying for shew vs one such in ours and we will not only approue your Separation but imitate it SEP But here in the name of the Church of England you wash your hands of all Babylonish abominations which you pretend you haue forsaken and her for them And in this regard you speake thus The Reformation you haue made of the many and maine corruptions of the Romish Church we doe ingenuously acknowledge and doe withall imbrace with you all the truths which to our knowledge you haue receiued instead of them But Rome was not built all in a day The mysterie of iniquitie did aduance it selfe by degrees and as the rise was so must the fall be That Man of Sinne and Lawlesse man must languish and die away of a consumption 2 Thess 2.8 And what though many of the highest Towers of Babel and of the strongest Pillars also beâ— demolished and pulled downe yet may the building stand still though tottering to and fro as it doth and onely vnderpropped and vpheld with the shoulder and arme of flesh without which in a very moment it would fall flat vpon and lie leuell with the earth SECTION XXV THE Church of England doth not now wash her hands of Babylonish abominations but rather shewes they are cleane What separation England hath made Would God they were no more foule with your slander than her owne Antichristianisme Here will be found not pretences but proofes of our forsaking Babylon of your forsaking vs not so much as well-coloured pretences You begin to be ingenuous while you confesse a reformation in the Church of England not of some corruptions but many and those many not slight but maine The gifts of Aduersaries are thanklesse As Ierome said of his Ruffinus so may wee of you that you wrong vs with praises This is no more praise than your next page giues to Antichrist himselfe Leaue out many and though your commendations bee more vncertaine we shall accept it so your indefinite proposition shall sound to vs as generall That wee haue reformed the maine corruptions of the Romish Church None therefore remaine vpon vs but slight and superficiall blemishes So you haue forsaken a Church of foule skin but of a sound heart for want of beautie not of truth But you say many not All that if you can picke a quarrell with one you might reiect all yet shew vs that one maine and substantiall error which wee haue not reformed and you doe not more embrace those truths with vs which we haue receiued than wee will condemne that falshood which you haue reiected and embrace the truth of that Separation which you haue practised The degrees whereby that strumpet of Babylon got on Horse-backe you haue learned of vs who haue both learned and taught that as Christ came not abruptly into the world but with many presages and prefigurations The day was long dawning ere this Sunne arose so his aduersarie that Antichrist breaks not suddenly vpon the Church but comes with much preparation and long expectance and as his rise so his fall must be graduall and leisurely Why say you then that the whole Church euery
to bee members of their Church which by this meanes becomes one bodie with such as bee deliuered vnto Satan therefore none of Christs bodie England can bee but a miscelline rabble of prophane men H. Ainsworth in his Counterpoyson The Dutch and French Churches are belike no better who can be worse than an vnrepentant Excommunicate Goe now and say It is the Apostasie of Antichrist to haue communion with the World in the holy things of God which are the peculiars of the Church and cannot without Sacriledge bee so prostituted and prophaned Goe say that the Plaguy-spirituall-leprosie of sinne rising vp in the foreheads of many in that Church vnshut vp vncouered yea wilfully let loose infects all both persons and things amongst them Goe now and flie out of this Babylon also as the He-Goates before the flocke or returne to ours But how-euer these errors be grosse perhaps they are tractable Not the sinne vndoes the Church but obstinacie here is no euasion For behold you doe no more accuse those Churches of corruption than of wilfulnesse for diuers times haue you dealt with them about these fearefull enormities yea you haue often desired that knowledge thereof might bee by themselues giuen to the whole bodie of their Church or that at least they would take order it might be done by you They haue refused both What remaines but they bee our fellow-Heathens and Publicans And not they alone but all Reformed Churches beside in Christendome which doe ioyntly partake in all these except one or two personall abominations will you neuer leaue till you haue wrangled your selues out of the world But now I feare I haue drawne you to say that the Hellish impieties both in the Citie and Church of Amsterdam arâ— but Frogs Lice Flies Murraine and other Aegyptian plagues not preiudicing your Goshen Say so if you dare I feare they would soone make the Ocean your Red Sea and Virginia your Wildernesse The Church is Noahs Arke which gaue safety to her Guests whereof ye are part but remember that it had vncleane beasts also and some sauage If the waues drowne you not yet me thinkes you should complaine of noisome societie Satans throne could not preiudice the Church of Pergamus but did not the Balaamites the Nicolaitans Yet their heauenly Communion stood and the Angell is sent away with but threats SEP It is the will of God and of Christ that his Church should abide in the world and conuerse with it in the affaires thereof which are common to both But it is the Apostasie of Antichrist to haue Câ—â—â—â—nion wiâ—h the World in the holy things of God which are the peculiars of the Church and 〈◊〉 without great sacriledge be so prostituteâ— and prophaned SECTION LIV. AS it were madnesse to deny that the Church should conuerse with the World in the affaires thereof So to deny her Communion in Gods Holy things Conuersation with the World with any of those of the World which professe Christianity as yet vnconsuted is a point of Anâ—baptisticall Apostasie such â—f the World are still of the Church As my censure cannot eiect them so their sinne after my priuate endeuour of redresse cannot defile me I speake of priuate Communicants If an vnbidden Guest come with a râ—gged garment and vnwashen hands shall I forbeare Gods heauenly dainties The Master of the Feast can say Friend how camest thou in hither not Friends why came you hither with such a Guest God bids mee come Hee hath imposed this necessity neuer allowed this excuse Duobus nodis non te maculat malus videlicet si non consentis si redâ—â—guis d. 23. q. 4. à maliâ— My teeth shall not beset on edge with the fowre Grapes of others If the Church cast not out the knowne vnworthy the sinne is hers If a man will come vnworthy the sinne is his But if I come not because he comes the sinne is mine I shall not answer for that others sinne I shall answer for mine owne neglect Another mans fault cannot dispense with my duty SEP The aire of the Gospell which you draw in is nothing so free and cleare as you make shew it is onely because you are vsed to it that makes you so iudge The thicke smoke of your Canons especially of such as are planted against the Kingdome of Christ the visible Church and the administration of it doe both obscure and poison the aire which you all draw in and wherein you breathe The plâ—gâ—y spirituall 〈◊〉 of seâ— rising vp in the forthâ—â—ds of so many thousands in the Church vnshut vp vncouered infects all both persons and things amongst you Leuit 13.45 46 47. 2 Cor. 6.17 The blasting Hierarchie suffers no good thing to grow or prosper but withers all both bud and branch The daily sacrifice of the Seruice-booke which in stead of spirituall Prayer sweâ—â— as Incense you offer vp Morning and Euening smels so stronâ— of the Popes Portuise as it makes many hundreds amongst your selues stop their noses as it and yet you boast of the free and cleere aire of the Gospell wherein you breathe SECTION LV. The impure mixtures of the Church of England AS there is no Element which is not through many mixtures departed from the first simplicity So no Church euer breathed in so pure an aire as that it might not iustly complaine of some thicke and vnwholsome euaporations of errour and sinne If you challenge an immunitie you are herein the true broode of the ancient Puritanes But if too many sinnes in practise haue thickned the aire of our Church yet not one Heresie that smoke of the bottomlesse pit hath neuer corrupted it and therefore iustly may I auerre that here you might draw in the cleare aire of the Gospell No where vpon earth more freely And if this be but the opinion of custome you whom absence hath helped with a more nice and dainty sent speake your worst Shew vs our Heresies and shame vs you haue done it and behold foure maine infections of our English aire 1. Canons The first the smoke of our Canons Wittily I feare the great Ordinances of the Church haue troubled you more with the blow than the smoke For you tell vs of their Plantation against the Kingdome of Christ What Kingdome The visible Church Which is that Not the Reformedst peece of ours whose best are but Goats and Swine Not the close Nicodemians of your owne Sect amongst vs which would be loth to be visible Not forrainers to them they extend not None therefore in all the World but the English Parlour-full at Amsterdam Can there be any truer Donatisme Cry you still out of their poysoning the aire We hold it the best cleansed by the batteries of your idle fancies by ridding you from our aire and by making this your Church inuisible to vs smart you thus till we complaine 2. Sinne vncensured The second is the plague or leprosie of sin vnshut vp and vncouered We know that
obscure he might auoid our nice slothfulnesse for there is scarce any thing that can be fetcht out of those obscurities which is not found most plainly spoken else-where And because Bellarmine takes exception at this Ferè Scarce compare this place with the former and with that which he hath in his third Epistle thus The manner of speech in which the Scripture is contriued is easie to be come to of all although it be throughly attained by few Those things which it containeth plaine and easie it speakes like a famliar friend without guile to the heart of the learned and vnlearned c. But it inuites all men with an humble manner of speech whom it doth not onely feede with manifest truth but exercise with secret hauing the same in readinesse which it hath in secrecie Thus AVSTEN To omit IRENEVS and ORIGEN CHRYSOSTOME whom BELLARMINE saith we alledge alone for vs besides many other plaine places writeth thus Who is there to whom all is not manifst which is written in the Gospell Chrysost Hom. 3. de Lazaro Cui non sunt manifesta quacunque in Euangel c. qâ— possis intelligâ—t quâ— ne leuiter quidem inspicâ—e vobis c. s◠〈◊〉 in â—us lege c. Citat ab ipso Bellarm Apostoli verò propheta omnis contra fâ—cerunt manifestae clarâ—que quae prâ—dideruÌ„t exposueruÌ„t exposueruÌ„t nobis veluti câ—nes orbis doctores vt per se quisque discâ—re possit ea quae dicuntur ex sola lectione Chrys hom 3. in Laz. Quaâ—obreÌ„ opus est concionatore omnia sunt plana ex scripturis diuinis sed quia delicatuli estis c. Hom. 3. in 2. Thess Bellarm. lib. 3. de verbo cap. 1. Necessario fatendum est Scripturas esse obscurissimas Lutherus duo effugia excogitauit vanâ— quod Scriptura etiamsi alicubi obscura tamen illud idem alibi clarè proponat c. ibid. § 2. Eckius in Euchirid c. 4 Lutherani coÌ„tendunt Scripturas sacras esse claras Dâ—aeus contr Whitak lib. 6. Rhemists in 2 Pet. 3.16 and in their Preface at large c. Homil. in 4. Dominic ab EpiphaÌ„ Amb. ser 35. Hieron in Psal Dominus narrabit que modo narrabit Non verbo sed scriptura in cuius scriptura in populorum c. Dominus narrabit in scripturis populorum in scripturis sanctis quae scriptura populis omnibus legitur hac est vt omnes intelligant non vt pauci intelligerent sed vt omnes in Psalm 86. Omnis quae post ascens c. quis fidelis vel etiam catechâ—menus antequam Spiritum Sanctum baptizatus accipiat non aequo animo c. Aug. tract in Ioh. 96. and to the same purpose l. 2. de Doct. Christ c. 8. Chrys hom 3. de Lazar Semper hortâ—r horâ—i non desâ—am vt non hic tantum attendatis c. Ego forensibus causis affixus sum c. who that shall heare Blessed are the meeke Blessed are the mercifull Blessed are the pure in heart and the rest would desire a teacher to learne any of these things which are here spoken As also the signes miracles histories are not they knowne and manifest to euery man This pretence and excuse is but the cloake of our slothfulnesse thou vnderstandest not those things which are written how shouldest thou vnderstand them which wilt not so much as slightly looke into them take the booke into thy hand reade all the history and what thou knowest remember and what is obscure run often ouer it So CHRYSOSTOME yea he makes this difference betwixt the Philosophers and Apostles the Philosophers speake obscurely but the Apostles and Prophets sayth hee contrarily make all things deliuered by them cleare manifest as the common teachers of the world haue so expounded all things that euery man may of himselfe by bare reading learne those things which are spoken yea lastly so farre hee goes in this point as that he asketh Wherefore needs a Preacher all things are cleare and plaine in the Diuine Scriptures but because ye are delicate hearers and seeke delight in hearing therefore ye seeke for Preachers You haue heard the old Religion now heare the new BELLARMINE hath these words It must needs be confessed that the Scriptures are most obscure Here therefore saith he LVTHER hath deuised two euasions One that the Scripture though it be obscure in one place yet that it doth clearely propound the same thing in another The second is that though the Scripture be cleare of it selfe yet to the proud and vnbeleeuers it is hard by reason of their blindnesse euill affections so the Lutherans saith Ecchius contend that the Scriptures are cleare and plaine so Duraeus against Whitakers so the Rhemists in their annotations and generally all Papists Iudge now if all these forenamed Fathers and so the ancient Church were not Lutherans in this point or rather we theirs and yeeld that this their old opinion by the new Church of Rome is condemned for hereticall and in all these say vpon your soule whether is the elder Let mee draw you on yet a little further Our question is whether it be necessary or fit that all men euen of the Laitie should haue libertie to heare and reade the Scriptures in a language which they vnderstand Heare first the voice of the old Religion To omit the direct charges of GREGORY NISSEN and AMBROSE thus hath IEROME vpon the Psalms The Lord will declare and how will he declare Not by word but by writing In whose writing In the writing of his people c. Our Lord and Sauiour therefore tells vs and speaketh in the Scriptures of his Princes Our Lord will declare it to vs in the Scriptures of his people in the holy Scriptures which Scripture is read to all the people that is so read as that all may vnderstand not that a few may vnderstand but all What faithfull man saith AVGVSTINE though he be but a Nouice before he be baptized and haue receiued the Holy Ghst doth not with an equall minde reade and heare all things which after the Ascension of our Lord are written in Canonicall truth and authority although as yet he vnderstands them not as he ought But of all other Saint CHRYSOSTOME is euery where most vehement and direct in this point Amongst infinite places heare what hee saith in one of his Homilies of LAzARVS I doe alwayes exhort and will neuer cease to exhort you saith hee that you will not heere only attend to those things which are spoken but when you are at home you continually busie your selues in reading of the holy Scriptures which practice also I haue not ceased to driue into them which come priuately to mee for let no man say Tush they are but idle words and many of them such as should be contemned Alas I am taken vp with law causes I am employed in publike affaires I follow my trade I maintaine a wife and children Vxorem alo
I need not be so mopish as not to beleeue rather the language of the hand than of the tongue He that saies well and doth well is without exception commendable but if one of these must be seuered from the other I like him well that doth well and saith nothing 52 That which they say of the Pelican that when the Shepherds in desire to catch her lay fire not farre from her nest which she finding and fearing the danger of her young seekes to blow out with her wings so long till she burne her selfe and makes her selfe a prey in an vnwise pitty to her young I see morally verified in experience of those which indiscreetly medling with the flame of dissention kindled in the Church rather increase than quench it rather fire their owne wings than helpe others I had rather bewaile the fire afarre off than stirre in the coles of it I would not grudge my ashes to it if those might abate the burning but since I see this is daily increased with partaking I will behold it with sorrow and meddle no otherwise than by praiers to God and intreaties to men seeking my owne safety and the peace of the Church in the freedome of my thought and silence of my tongue 53 That which is said of Lucillaes faction that anger bred it pride fostered it and couetousnesse confirm'd it is true of all Schismes though with some inuersion For the most are bred through pride whiles men vpon an high conceit of themselues scorne to goe in the common road and affect singularitie in opinion are confirmed through anger whiles they stomacke and grudge any contradiction and are nourished through couetousnesse whiles they seeke abilitie to beare out their part In some others againe couetousnesse obtaines the first place anger the second pride the last Herein therefore I haue beene alwaies wont to commend and admire the humilitie of those great and profound wits whom depth of knowledge hath not lead to by-paths in iudgement but walking in the beaten path of the Church haue bent all their forces to the establishment of receiued truths accounting it greater glorie to confirme an ancient veritie than to deuise a new opinion though neuer so profitable vnknowne to their predecessors I will not reiect a truth for meere noueltie Old truths may come newly to light neither is God tied to times for the gift of his illumination but I will suspect a nouell opinion of vntruth and not entertaine it vnlesse it may be deduced from ancient grounds 54 The eare and the eie are the minds receiuers but the tongue is onely busied in expending the treasure receiued If therefore the reuenues of the minde bee vttered as fast or faster than they are receiued it cannot bee but that the minde must needs bee held bare and can neuer lay vp for purchase But if the receiuers take in still with no vtterance the minde may soone grow a burthen to it selfe and vnprofitable to others I will not lay vp too much and vtter nothing lest I be couetous nor spend much and store vp little lest I be prodigall and poore 55 It is a vaine-glorious flatterie for a man to praise himselfe An enuious wrong to detract from others I will therefore speake no ill of others no good of my selfe 56 That which is the miserie of Trauellers to finde many Oasts and few friends is the estate of Christians in their pilgrimage to a better life Good friends may not therefore be easily forgone neither must they bee vsed as suits of apparell which when wee haue worne threed-bare wee cast off and call for new Nothing but death or villanie shall diuorce mee from an old friend but still I will follow him so farre as is either possible or honest and then I will leaue him with sorrow 57 True friendship necessarily requires Patience For there is no man in whom I shall not mislike somewhat and who shall not as iustly mislike somewhat in mee My friends faults therefore if little I will swallow and digest if great I will smother them howeuer I will winke at them to others but louingly notifie them to himselfe 58 Iniuries hurt not more in the receiuing than in the remembrance A small iniurie shall goe as it comes a great iniurie may dine or sup with me but none at all shall lodge with me Why should I vex my selfe because another hath vexed me 59 It is good dealing with that ouer which we haue the most power If my state will not be framed to my minde I will labour to frame my minde to my estate 60 It is a great miserie to be either alwaies or neuer alone societie of men hath not so much gaine as distraction In greatest companie I will bee alone to my selfe in greatest priuacie in companie with God 61 Griefe for things past that cannot be remedied and care for things to come that cannot be preuented may easily hurt can neuer benefit me I will therefore commit my selfe to God in both and enioy the present 62 Let my estate bee neuer so meane I will euer keepe my selfe rather beneath than either leuell or aboue it A man may rise when he will with honour but cannot fall without shame 63 Nothing doth so befoole a man as extreme passion This doth both make them fooles which otherwise are not and shew them to bee fooles that are so Violent passions if I cannot tame them that they may yeeld to my ease I will at least smother them by concealement that they may not appeare to my shame 64 The minde of man though infinite in desire yet is finite in capacitie Since I cannot hope to know all things I will labour first to know what I needs must for their vse next what I best may for their conuenience 65 Though time be precious to me as all irreuocable good things deserue to be and of all other things I would not be lauish of it yet I will account no time lost that is either lent to or bestowed vpon my friend 66 The practises of the best men are more subiect to errour than their speculations I will honour good examples but I will liue by good precepts 67 As charitie requires forgetfulnesse of euill deeds so patience requites forgetfulnesse of euill accidents I will remember euils past to humble me not to vex me 68 It is both a miserie and a shame for a man to bee a Bankrupt in loue which hee may easily pay and be neuer the more impouerished I will be in no mans debt for good will but will at least returne euery man his owne measure if not with vsurie It is much better to bee a Creditor than a Debtor in any thing but especially of this yet of this I will so bee content to bee a Debtor that I will alwaies bee paying it where I owe it and yet neuer will haue so paid it that I shall not owe it more 69 The Spanish Prouerbe is too true Dead men and absent finde no friends
perswade and pray these I will not faile of The rest to him that both can amend and punish To M. IONAS REIGESBERGIVS in ZELAND EP. VII Written some whiles since concerning some new opinions then broached in the Churches of HOLLAND and vnder the name of Arminius then liuing perswading all great wits to a study and care of the common peace of the Church and disswading from all affectation of singularity I Receiued lately a short relation of some new Paradoxes from your Leiden you would know what wee thinke I feare not to be censured as medling your truth is ours The Sea cannot diuide those Churches whom one faith vnites I know not how it comes to passe that most men while they too much affect ciuilitie turne flatterers and plaine truth is most-where counted rudenesse He that tels a sicke friend he lookes ill or termes an angry tumour the Gowt or a waterish swelling Dropsie is thought vnmannerly For my part I am glad that I was not borne to feed humors How euer you take your owne euils I must tell you we pitie you and thinke you haue iust cause of deiection and we for you not for any priuate cares but which touch a Christian neerest the Common-wealth of God Behold after all those hils of carkases and streames of blood your ciuill sword is sheathed wherein we neither congratulate nor feare your peace lo now in stead of that another while the spirituall sword is drawne and shaken and it is well if no more Now the politick State sits still the Church quarrels Oh! the insatiable hostilitie of our great enemy with what change of mischiefes doth he afflict miserable man No sooner did the Christian world begin to breathe from persecution but it was more punished with Arrianisme when the red Dragon cannot deuoure the childe hee tryes to drowne the mother and when the vvaters faile he raises warre Your famous Iunius had nothing more admirable then his loue of peace when our busie Separatists appealed him with what a sweet calmnesse did he reiect them and with a graue importunitie call'd them to moderation How it would haue vexed his holy soule now out of the danger of passions to haue foreseene his chaire troublesome God forbid that the Church should finde a Challenger in stead of a Champion Who vvould thinke but you should haue bin taught the benefit of peace by the long vvant But if your temporal state besides either hope or beleefe hath growne wealthy with warre like those Fowles which fatten vvith hard weather yet bee too sure that these spirituall broyles cannot but impouerish the Church yea affamish it It vvere pitie that your Holland should bee still the Amphitheatre of the world on whose scaffolds all other Nations should sit see varietie of bloody shews not without pitie and horror If I might challenge ought in that your acute and learned Arminius I would thus solicit and coniure him Alas that so wise a man should not know the worth of peace that so noble a sonne of the Church should not bee brought to light without ripping the vvombe of his mother What meane these subtil Nouelties If they make thee famous and the Church miserable vvho shall gaine by them Is singularitie so precious that it should cost no lesse then the safety and quiet of our common mother If it be truth thou affectest what alone Could neuer any eyes till thine be blessed with this obiect where hath that sacred veritie hid her selfe thus long from all her carefull Inquisitors that shee now first shewes her head to thee vnsought Hath the Gospell shined thus long and bright and left some corners vnseene Away with all new truths faire and plausible they may be sound they cannot some may admire thee for them none shall blesse thee But grant that some of these are no lesse true then nice points what doe these vnseasonable crochets and quauers trouble the harmonious plaine-songs of our peace Some quiet error may bee better then some vnruly truth Who binds vs to speake all we thinke So the Church may be still would God thou wert wise alone Did not our aduersaries quarrell enough before at our quarrels Were they not rich enough with our spoiles By the deare name of our common parents vvhat meanest thou Arminius Whither tend these new-rais'd dissensions Who shall thriue by them but they which insult vpon vs and rise by the fall of truth who shall be vndone but thy brethren By that most precious and bloodie ransome of our Sauiour and by that awfull appearance we shall once make before the glorious Tribunall of the Sonne of God remember thy selfe and the poore distracted limmes of the Church Let not those excellent parts wherewith God hath furnished thee lye in the narrow vvay and cause any weake one either to fall or stumble or erre For Gods sake either say nothing or the same How many great wits haue sought no by-paths and now are happy vvith their fellowes Let it bee no disparagement to goe vvith many to heauen What could he reply to so plaine a charge No distinction can auoid the power of simple truth I know he heares not this of me first Neither that learned and vvorthy Fran. Gomarus nor your other graue fraternitie of reuerend Diuines haue beene silent in so maine a cause I feare rather too much noise in any of these tumults There may too many contend not intreat Multitude of suters is commonly powerfull how much more in iust motions But if either he or you shal turne me home and bid mee spend my little moisture vpon our owne brands I grant there is both the same cause and the same need This counsell is no whit further from vs because it is directed to you Any Reader can change the person I lament to see that euery where peace hath not many clients but fewer louers yea euen many of those that praise her follow her not Of old the very Nouatian men women children brought stones and morter vvith the Orthodoxe to the building of the Church of the resurrection and ioyned louingly with them against the Arrians lesser quarrels diuide vs and euery diuision ends in blowes and euery blow is returned and none of all lights beside the Church Euen the best Apostles dissented neither knowledge nor holinesse can redresse all differences True but wisdome and charitie could teach vs to auoid their preiudice If we had but these two vertues quarrels should not hurt vs nor the Church by vs But alas selfe-loue is too strong for both these This alone opens the floud-gates of dissension and drownes the sweet but low valley of the Church Men esteeme of opinions because their owne and will haue truth serue not gouerne What they haue vndertaken must bee true Victory is sought for not satisfaction victory of the Author not of the cause Hee is a rare man that knowes to yeeld as well as to argue vvhat should we doe then but bestow our selues vpon that vvhich
Sauiour therefore as behooueth first shewes the falshood of their Glosses and the hollownesse of their profession and if both their life and doctrine be naught what free part is there in them And loe both of these so faulty that Except your righteousnesse exceed the righteousnesse of the Scribes and Pharises ye shall not enter into the kingdome of Heauen What were the men What was their righteousnesse What wanted it Follow me I beseech you in these three and if my discourse shall seeme for a while more thorny and perplexed remedy it with your attention Those things which are out of the ken of sense or memory must be fetcht from Story The Sect or order whether of the Pharises ceased with the Temple since that no man reads of a Pharise and now is growne so farre out of knowledge that the modern Iewes are more ready to learne of vs who they were There is no point wherein it is more difficult to auoid variety yea ostentation of reading without any curious trauersing of opinions I study for simple truth as one that will not lead you out of the rode-way to shew you the turnings Ezr. 6.7 Scribes were ancient Ezra is called Sopher â—ahir a prompt Scribe As long before him so euer since they continued till Christs time but in two rankes some were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some popular others legall Some the peoples others Gods the one Secretaries Recorders Notaries as 2 Chron 24. Ier. 8.8 11. Sopher hamelec the Kings Scribe The other Doctors of the Law of God The Law of the Lord is with vs in vaine made he it the penne of the Scribe is in vaine As the Pharises were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Law-masters so these are the same which Luke 11.45 are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 interpreters of the Law Tho to some not meane Critickes it seemes these should be a third sort which consider not that our Sauiour on purpose addressing his speech to the Pharises fell by the way vpon the Scribes and being admonished by one of them as of an ouer-sight now auerres right downe of the Scribes what before he had but indifferently glanced at Neh. 8.4 Mat. 23. â— Clerics Iudaeorâ— saith Ierome What they were is plaine by Ezraes pulpit and Moses his chaire These and Pharises differed not so much they agreed in some good but in more euill But the profession of Pharises because it is more obscure you shall giue me leaue to fetch somewhat further Euseb eccl hist l. 4. c. 22. Erant in circumcisione diuersae sententia quae maximè tribu Iudae aduersabantur c. vide Ios Scalig. resp ad SeraruÌ„ Orig. lib. 5. aduers Cels Christianos noÌ„ habere veraÌ„ religionem quòd in varias sectas diuisi essent Domus Samâ—rai Hillel Ar. Mont. in Euanâ— Anâ—e aduentum Chriâ—ti noâ—â—ot tam blasphemae haereses iren lib. â— Act. 15.5 There were saith old Egesippus as Eusebius cites him diuers opinions in the Circumcision which all crossed the Tribe of Iuda Essens Galileans Emerobaptists Masbutheans Samaritans Pharises Sadduces It were easie to helpe him with more Sebuaeans Cannaeans Sampsaeans and if need were yet more Where are those wauerers that stagger in their trust to the Church because of different opinions receiuing that rotten argument of profane Celsus against the Christians Say the Papists one saith I am Caluins another I am Luthers We disclaime we defie these titles these diuisions we are one in truth would God we were yet more one It is the lace and fringe of Christs garment that is questioned amongst vs the cloath is sound But what Was the Iewish Church before Christ Gods true Church or not If it were not which was it If it were lo that here rent in more then eight parts and one of them differing from it selfe in eighteene opinions and yet as Irenaeus well obserues before Christ there were neither so many heresies nor so blasphemous Shew me a Church on earth without these wrinkles of diuision and I will neuer seeke for it in heauen although to some Pharisaime seemes rather a seuerall order then a sect but S. Luke that knew it better hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sect of the Pharises When the Profession began no history recordeth Some would faine fetch them Esay 65.5 Touch me not for I am holter then thou But these straine too farre for in the verse before the same men eate Swines flesh which to the Pharises is more then piacular Heare briefly their name their original their office Their name though it might admit of other probable deriuations yet by consent of all * * In eam conseâ—tinâ—nt omnes Hebraâ— tâ—â—e Bahal Harneb Pagnin in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ar. Montanus Ios Scal. I. Drusius c. Hebrew Doctors I haue a great author for it is fetcht from separation tho vpon what grounds all agree not doubtlesse for the perfection of their doctrine and austerity of life Their originall is more intricate which after some scanning I haue thus learned of some great Masters of Iewish Antiquities Before there was any open breach in the old Iewish Church there were two generall and diuers conceits about Gods seruice One that tooke vp onely with the law of God and if they could keepe that thought they needed no more neither would they sapere supra scriptum be wiser then their Maker These were called Karraim of which sort there are diuers at this day in Constantinople and othere-where at deadly feode with the other Iewes which they now call Rabbinists The other that thought it small thankes to doe onely what they were bidden Gods Law was too straight for their holinesse It was nothing vnlesse they did more then content God earne him for these were popish Iewes and supererrogate of him These were therefore called Chasidim Holy aboue the Law They plyed God with vnbidden oblations gaue more then needed did more then was commanded yet so as both parts pleased themselues resisted not the other The more franke sort vpbraided not the other with too much niggardlinesse neither did the straiter-handed enuy the other for too much lauishnesse Would God we could doe thus They agreed though they differed But now when these voluntary seruices began to bee drawne into Canons as Scaliger speaketh and that which was before but arbitrarie was imposed as necessarie necessary for beleefe necessary for action questions arose and the rent began in the Iewes Those dogmaticall Doctors which stood for supererogation and traditions aboue Law were called Peruschim Pharises separate from the other in strict iudgement in superfluous holinesse These as they were the brood of those Chasidim whom wee finde first mentioned in the Machabees by the corrupt name of Asideans 1 Mac. 2.47 so from them againe in a second succession proceeded as their more refined issue the Essens Acts 26.5 Eruditius caeteris legem exponunt Phar. Ios l. 1. de bello
your leisure could allow you to walke along with me a while thorow these sweet and flowrie Meades of Vnity and happy conspiration of thoughts And yet I shall not so much bend the residue of my speech to the praise of vnity to what purpose were that waste as to the necessary vindication of it from the vniust challenges of the enemies of peace It is an heauy crime and of all other the most hainous wherewith we are charged by the Romanists That we are fallen off from the Catholick Church that we haue rent the seamlesse coat of Christ yea broken his bones and torne his very body in peeces whereof if we were indeed guilty how vnworthy were we to breathe in this aire how most worthy of the lowest Hell But we call heauen and earth to record how vniustly this calumny is cast vpon vs yea we protest before God and men that the enuie of this so foule a crimination lights most iustly vpon the heads of the accusers May it please you to heare a short Apologue A certaine man inuited to a feast one or two of his friends entertained them bountifully They sate together louingly they are together and were merry one with another In the second course as the custome is the Master offereth them wine sets before them an apple now a worme had somewhat eaten the apple and a spider by chance had falne into the cup The guest sees and balks it The Master vrgeth him Why doe you not eat quoth he why drinke you not I dare not saith the other t' is not safe to doe either seest thou not this vermine in the cup and that in the apple Tush saith the Master what so great matter is this It was I that set this before thee It was I that began to thee in the other Drinke it eat it at least for my sake But suffer me first replies the guest to take out this spider to cut out this worme the wine the apple likes me well enough the spider the worme I cannot away with Away with such ouer-nine and curious companions quoth he againe Fy vpon thee thou vngratefull fellow that dost so little regard my friendship so contemne my cheere and with that in a rage throwes the platters and pots in the very face of his guest and thrust him out of doores all wounded Tell me now I beseech you worthy Auditors whether of these violates the lawes of hospitality I dare say you haue easily applied it before me There was a time when we sate together in a familiar manner with these Romanists and fared well The spider in the cup The worme in the apple what else be they but superstition in their worship rotten and vnwholsome traditions in their faith without these the Religion pleaseth vs well But they will needs importunately thrust these vpon vs and we refusing are therefore scorned spit vpon beaten and cast out Had they but giuen vs leaue to take out this spider this worme we had still eaten and dranke together most gladly They obstinately resisted and prefer'd their owne headstrong will to our good and safety nay they repell vs with reproaches strike vs with their thundering Anathemaes condemne vs to the stakes what should we doe in this case Heare oh heauens and hearken oh earth and thou Almighty God the Maker and Gouernor of them both suffer thy selfe and thy glorious spirits to be called to the testimony of our innocencie We are compelled we are driuen away from the Communion of the Church of Rome They forced vs to goe from them who departed first from themselues We haue willingly departed from the communion of their errors from the Communion of the Church we haue not departed Let them renounce their erroneous doctrine we embrace their Church Let them but cast away their soule-slaying Traditions we will communicate with them in the right of one and the same Church and remaine so for euer But alas I must be forced to complaine and that not without extreme griefe of heart how that it cannot be determined whether those that boast themselues for Catholikes be greater enemies to Truth or to Charity To Truth in that they haue of late forged new errors and forced them vpon the Church To Charity in that they haue not stuck to condemne the aduerse part and to brand them with the black marke of Heresie I will speake if you please more plainly Three manner of waies doe these Romanists offend against Charity First that they will not remit any thing either of their most conuicted opinion or vitious practice no not for peace sake Secondly that for Articles of Christian faith they put vpon the Church certaine opinions of their owne false doubtfull and vncertaine peculiar onely to the schooles which doe no whit touch the foundation of Religion And lastly that if they meet with any faithfull and sound monitors which doe neuer so little gainsay these new Articles they cruelly cast them out of the bosome of the Church and throw them headlong into Hel Away with these Schismaticks Hereticks Acheists Iwis the Protestants haue no Church no faith no saluation Good Lord what fury what frenzy distempers Christians that they should be so impotently malicious against those who professe themselues to be redeemed by the ransome of the same most precious bloud At length At length O yee Christians be wise and acknowledge those whom the God and Father of mercies holds worthy of his armes yea of his bowels Let frantick error bawle what it list we are Christians we are Catholicks the vndiuided members of one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Let vs meet at this barre if you please Leâ— who will maintaine the plea What is it which maketh a Church What is it which maketh that Church One holy Catholick Apostolick Is it not one holy Catholick Apostolick saith But which is that Is it not the same which was deliuered by Christ and the Apostles to the whole world and was alwaies and euery where approued through all Ages euen vnto our times Wherefore are the Scriptures wherefore the Creeds wherefore were the primitiue Councells but that there might bee certaine markes whereby Catholicks might be vndoubtedly discerned from Hereticks You know the Epilogue of the Athanasian Creed This is the Catholick Faith If we may beleeue Leo the heads of all heresies are quite cut off with this one sword of the Creed How much more then with that two-edged sword of the Scriptures and of the Fathers their Interpreters What then Those that then were Catholicks can they in any age be condemned for Hereticks No Faith is alwaies constant to it selfe and so is the Church that is built vpon that Faith Did we euer deny or make doubt of any Article or clause of that Ancient Diuinity Either then Christ himselfe the Apostles Councells Fathers erred from the Catholick truth or wee yet remaine Catholicks What euer other opinions we meet withall concerning Religion neither make nor marre it Say they be false
garment that is but mended a new house that is repaired Blush if yee haue any shame who thus ignorantly and maliciously cast this in our teeth Goe to now my brethren wee are by Gods grace reformed Let vs take heed lest we be deformed againe by mutuall dissentions This is that which weakens and lames vs and which laies vs open to the insulting triumphs of our Aduersaries Yet lest wee should seeme to giue too much way to a spightfull slander these iarres of our 〈◊〉 so great as our enemies either desire or clamour Certainly what disconâ—â—â—ner hitherto haue troubled vs wee are beholding to none other for them but to these our kinde enemies who vpbraid vs with them For if they had but reacht forth vnto vs an helping hand in due time and ioyntly conferd their endeuours which then behooued them for the reforming of the Church all had run squarely on There had beene no iarres no grudgings no parts takings But they stifly refused and by their frowardnesse and pertinacy caused this so weighty a taske to be cast vpon some few and those both weak vnable and altogether vnfit for such a charge It could not therefore be otherwise but that the opinions of some single men not conferd together in such a businesse must needs somewhat differ But thankes be to thee O blessed God the Author of peace that hast vouchsafed by thy spirit so to bridle the distemperate affections of men that their busie spirits being stirred vp haue not boyled forth into more fearefull diuisions But what are these so great dissentions and blowes of bloudy warre which our aduersaries so cry out vpon Forsooth rather than want they can faine names of sects to themselues And where they can finde the least difference in the paper of any obscure Author of ours presently they cry out New schismes new sects What malice is this what eager desire of multiplying quarrels If it had been so of old so small hides had not serued to containe the volumes of Augustine Epiphanius Philastrius there had not beene fewer sects than teachers since the publishing of the Gospell But let vs passe ouer the number and come to the weight Let the malitious prattle what they will With some of ours the controuersie is not about any solid lims of Christian Faith but onely of the very skin with some others not about the skin but the garment rather nor about the garment it selfe neither but of the very hemme There are certaine scholasticall opinions of a middle ranck meere Theologicall Corollaries or perhaps some outward ceremonies wherein we dissent Principles of Christian Religion there are not And withall these controuersies are but such as that when the heat whether of zeale or anger shall abate and either part shall well vnderstand each other they will easily admit of a Reconciliation Neither haue these very Romanists lesser quarrels amongst themselues They can more hide their enmities not exercise them lesse If they bee more wise they are not more accordant Neither is there I dare say any head of Religion wherein they doe at once differ from vs and agree all with one another Finally our differences are no greater than were those of old among the holy Fathers of the Church whose quarrels notwithstanding are not so odiously blazoned by posterity I let passe the priuate scoldings of the Ancients not without some vnpleasing I had almost said misbeseeming tartnesse I had rather set before your eyes for good luck sake those publique altercations of the Churches and Fathers which afterward shut vp in a blessed concord What quarrels arose at the Councell of Ephesus betweene Cyril of Alexandria and Iohn of Antioch The Churches vnder both stuck not to counterthunder Anathemaes one against another Thereupon Theodoret thrust in his sickle into this haruest against whom Cyrillus by Enoptius instigation makes as strong opposition Theodoret accuseth Cyril of Apollinarisme Cyril accuses Theodoret of Nestorianisme The flame of their rage brake out more and more and almost drew the Christian world to parties so that afterwards when Theodoret would haue entred the Councell of Chalcedon the Egyptian and other reuerend Bishops cryed out We must cast out Cyril if we take in Theodoret The very Canons cast him forth God abhors him The like was done afterwards in the eighth Action The Bishops openly proclaiming He is an Heretick a Nestorian Away with the Heretick But when the matter was well scand and it was found that he willingly subscrib'd to the Orthodox Creeds and the Epistles of Leo The whole Synod with one accord cryed out Theodoret is well worthy of a See in the Church Let the Church receiue her Orthodox Pastor It is worthy of immortality that which Gregory Nazianzan â—â—t ordeth of holy Athanasius The Romans seem'd to the Easterne Churches to follow the heresies of Sobellius in denying three Hypostases The Easterne likewise seemed to the Romans to fauour too much of Arrius in denying three Persons The quarrell grew hot Then came that great dispenser of soules and hauing meekly and mildly calld forth both sides before him he so handled the businesse that granting them the free vse of their termes he tied them close to the matter and shewed them a light whereby they might behold one another vpon this without more adoe finding themselues both in the right they fall to mutuall embracements Neither would it speed otherwise with vs Brethren as I doe verily beleeue if some Athanasius from Heauen would but ioyne our hands together Oh if once the gates of intestine and horrid warres were shut vp and the religious Princes which are the Nursing-fathers of the reformed Churches would command by vertue of their authority a Synod to be assembled as Generall as it might wherein both parts freely and modestly might lay forth their opinions and such common termes might be agreed vpon as wherein both parts might freely rest without preiudice to either How easily then how happily might these grieuous stirs bee quietly pacified Let vs pray for this my brethren let vs pray deuoutly In the meane while let vs all sweetly incline our hearts to peace and vnity Let there be amongst vs as S. Augustine to Ierome pure brotherhood Neither let vs suffer our selues vpon euery slight quirke of opinion to be distracted or torne asunder Let vs forget that there were euer any such in respect of the deuotion of a Sect as Luther Melancton Caluin Zuinglius Arminius or if any other mortall name for what haue we to doe with man Let vs breathe nothing let vs affect nothing but Iesus Christ We Diuines are Pleyades as Gregory saith wittily Let vs therefore shine still together though not without some difference of place In a pomegranate are many graines vnder one rinde You know the mystery Let vs ioyne these pomegranates to our Bells Let vs be loud but consorted Let vs deuote for euer with one heart all our operations ministeries gifts to one God the Father Sonne and holy Ghost to
also procured the Bishops to helpe forward the same cause of decayed Doctrine with their diligent preaching and teaching of the people Goe now and say that suddenly in one day by Queene Elizabeths Trumpet or by the sound of a Bell in the name of Antichrist all were called to the Church Goe say with your Patriarch that we erect Religions by Proclamations and Parliaments Vpon these premises I dare conclude and doubt not to maintaine against all Separatists in the World that England to goe no higher had in the dayes of King Henry the Eighth a true visible Church of God and so by consequent their succeeding seed was by true Baptisme iustly admitted into the bosome thereof and therefore that euen of them without any further profession Gods Church was truly constituted If you shall say that the following idolatry of some of them in Queene Maries daies excluded them Consider how hard it wil be to proue that Gods couenant with any people is presently disanulled by the sinnes of the most whether of ignorance or weaknesse and if they had herein renounced God yet that God also mutually renounced them To shut vp your Constitution then Master Smith against R. Clifton Principl and Infer pag. 11. There is no remedie Either you must goe forward to Anabaptisme or come backe to vs. All your Rabbines cannot answer that charge of your rebaptized brother If we be a true Church you must returne if wee be not as a false Church is no Church of God you must rebaptize If our Baptisme bee good then is our constitution good Thus your owne Principles teach The outward part of a true visible Church is a Vow Promise Oath or Couenant betwixt God and the Saints Now I aske Is this made by vs in Baptisme or no If it be then we haue by your confession for so much as is outwardly required a true visible Church so your separation is vniust If it be not then you must rebaptize for the first Baptisme is a nullitie and if ours be not you were neuer thereby as yet entred into any visible Church SEP To the title of a Ring-leader wherewith it pleaseth this Pistler to stile me I answer that if the thing I haue done bee good it is good and commendable to haue beene forward in it if it bee euill let it be reproued by the light of Gods Word and that God to whom I haue done that I haue done will I doubt not giue me both to see and to heale mine errour by speedie Repentance if I haue fled away on foot I shall returne on Horse-backe But as I durst neuer set foot into this way but vpon a most sound and vnresistable conuiction of Conscience by the Word of God as I was perswaded so must my retiring bee wrought by more solid reasons from the same word than are to be found in a thousand such prettie Pamphlets and formall flourishes as this is SECTION XII AS For the title of Ring-leader wherewith I stiled this Pamphleter The answerers title if I haue giuen him too much honor in his Sect I am sorry Perhaps I should haue put him pardon an homely but in this sense not vnusuall word in the taile of this Traine Perhaps I should haue endorsed my Letter to Master Smith and his shadow So I perceiue he was Whatsoeuer whether he leade or follow God meets with him If he leade Behold Ier. 13.32 I will come against them that prophesie false dreames saith the Lord and doe tell them and cense my people to erre by their lyes If he come hehinde Thou shalt not follow a multitude in euill saith God If either or both or neither If hee will goe alone Woe vnto the foolish Prophets saith the Lord which follow their owne Spirits Ezech. 13.2 and haue seene nothing Howsoeuer your euill shall be reproued by the light of Gods word Your coniunction I cannot promise your reproofe I dare If thereupon you finde grace to see and heale your errours we should with all brotherly humblenesse attend on foot vpon your returne on Horse-backe but if the sway of your mis-resolued conscience be headie and vnresistable and your retiring hopelesse these not solide reasons these prettie Pamphlets these formall flourishes shall one day be fearefull and material euidences against you before that awefull Iudge which hath alreadie said Pro. 19.21 That iudgements are prepared for the Scorners and stripes for the backe of Fooles SEP Your pittying of vs and sorrowing for vs especially for the wrong done by vs were in you commendable affections if by vs iustly occasioned but if your Church be deeply drencht in Apostasie and you cry Peace Peace when suddaine and certaine desolation is at hand it is you that doe wrong though you make the complaint and so being cruell towards your selues and your own whom you flatter you cannot be truly pittifull towards others whom you bewaile But I will not discourage you in this affection lest we finde few in the same fault the most in stead of pittie and compassion affording vs nothing but furie and indignation SECTION XIII I PROFESSED to bestow pittie and sorrow vpon you and your wrong The Apostasie of the Church of England You entertaine both harshly and with a churlish repulse What should a man doe with such dispositions Let him stroke them on the backe they snarle at him and shew their teeth Let him shew them a Cudgell they flie in his face You allow not our actions and returne our wrong Ours is both the iniurie and complaint How can this bee You are the Agents we sit still and suffer in this rent Yet since the cause makes the Schisme let vs inquire not whose the action is but whos 's the desert Our Church is deepe drencht in Apostasie and we cry Peace Peace No lesse than a whole Church at once and that not sprinkled or wetshod but drencht in apostasie What did wee fall off from you or you from vs Tell me were we euer the true Church of God and were we then yours We cannot fall vnlesse we once stood Was your Church before this Apostasie Shew vs your Ancestors in opinion Name me but one that euer taught as you doe and I vow to separate Was it not Then we fell not from you Euery Apostasie of the Church must needs be from the true Church A true Church and not yours And yet can there be but one true See now whether in branding vs with Apostasie you haue not proued yours to be no true Church Still I am ignorant A Treatise of the Ministery of England against M. H. pag. 125. Queene Maries dayes you say had a true Church which separated from Poperie chose them Ministers serued God holily from thence was our Apostasie But were not the same also for the most part Christians in King Edwards dayes Did they then in that confused allowance of the Gospell separate Or I pray you were Cranmer Latimer Ridley Hooper and the rest
you thus Why doth the same Prayer written adde to the Word which spoken addeth not Because conceiued Prayer is commanded not the other But first not your particular Prayer Secondly without mention either of conception or memorie God commands vs to pray in spirit and with the heart These circumstances onely as they are deduced from his Generals so are ours But whence soeuer it please you to fetch our Booke of publike Prayer from Rome or Hell or to what Image soeuer you please to resemble it Let moderate spirits heare what the pretious IEVVEL of England saith of it We haue come as neere as we could to the Church of the Apostles Apolog. p. 170. Accessimus c. H. Burr against Gyfford c. neither onely haue we framed our Doctrine but also our Sacraments and the forme of publike Prayers according to their Rites and Institutions Let no Iew now obiect Swines-flesh to vs He is no iudicious man that I may omit the mention of Cranmer Bucer Ridley Taylor c. some of whose hands were in it all whose voyces were for it with whom one IEWEL will not ouer-weigh ten thousand Separatists SEP The number of Sacraments seemes greater amongst you by one at the least than Christ hath left in his Testament and that is Marriage which howsoeuer you doe not in expresse termes call a Sacrament no more did Christ and the Apostles call Baptisme and the Supper Sacraments yet doe you in truth create it a Sacrament in the administration and vse of it There are the parties to bee married and their marriage representing Christ and his Church and their spirituall vnion to which mysterie saith the Oracle of your Seruice-Booke expresly God hath consecrated them there is the Ring hallowed by the said Seruice-Booke whereon it must bee laid for the Element there are the words of consecration In the Name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost there is the place the Church the time vsually the Lords day the Minister the Parish Priest And being made as it is a part of Gods Worship and of the Ministers office what is it if it be not a Sacrament It is a part of Prayer or preaching and with a Sacrament it hath the greatest consimilitude but an Idoll I am sure it is in the celebration of it being made a Ministeriall duty and part of Gods worship without warrant call it by what name you will SECTION XXXVIII HOw did Confirmation escape this number how did Ordination Marriage not made a Sacrament by the Church of England it was your ouer-sight I feare not your charitie some things seeme and are not such is this your number of our Sacraments you will needs haue vs take-in marriage into this ranke why so wee doe not you confesse call it a Sacrament as the vulgar misinterpreting Pauls Mysterium Eph. 5. why should we not if we so esteemed it wherfore â—erue names but to denotate the nature of things if wee were not ashamed of the opinion we could not be ashamed of the word No more say you did Christ and his Apostles call Baptisme and the Supper Sacraments but we doe and you with vs See now whether this clause doe not confute your last where hath Christ euer said There are two Sacraments Yet you dare say so what is this but in your sense an addition to the word yea we say flatly there are but two yet we doe you say in truth create it a Sacrament how oft and how resolutely hath our Church maintained against Rome that none but Christ immediately can create Sacraments If they had this aduantage against vs how could we stand How wrongfull is this force to fasten an opinion vpon our Church which she hath condemned But wherein stands this our creation It is true the parties to bee married and their marriage represent Christ and his Church and their spirituall vnion Beware lest you strike God through our sides what hath Gods Spirit said either lesse or other then this Eph. 5.25 26 27 32. Doth he not make Christ the husband the Church his Spouse Doth he not from that sweete coniunction and the effects of it argue the deare respects that should bee in marriage Or what doth the Apostle aâ—â—nde else-where vnto when hee saies as Moses of Eue wee are flesh of Christs flesh and bone of his bone And how famous amongst the ancient is that resemblance of Eue taken out of Adams side sleeping to the Church taken out of Christs side sleeping on the Crosse Since marriage therefore so clearely represents this mysterie and this vse is holy and sacred what error is it to say that marriage is consecrated to this mysterie But what is the Element The Ring These things agree not you had before made the two parties to bee the matter of this sacrament What is the matter of the Sacrament but the Element If they be the matter they are the Element and so not the Ring both cannot be If you will make the two parties to be but the receiuers how doth all the mysterie lie in their representation Or if the Ring be the Element then all the mysterie must be in the Ring not in the parties Labor to bee more perfect ere you make any more new Sacraments but this Ring is laid vpon the Seruice-booke why not For readinesse not for holinesse Nay but it is hallowed you say by the booke If it bee a Sacramentall Element it rather hallowes the booke than the booke it you are not mindfull enough for this trade But what exorcismes are vsed in this hallowing Or who euer held it any other than a ciuill pledge of fidelitie Then follow the words of Consecration I pray you what difference is there betwixt hallowing and consecration The Ring was hallowed before the booke now it must be consecrated How iâ—ely By what words In the name of the Father c. These words you know are spoken after the Ring is put on was it euer heard of that a SacrameÌ„tall Element was consecrated after it was applied See how-il your slanders are digested by you The place is the Church the time is the Lords day the Minister is the actor and is it not thus in all â—â—her reformed Churches aswell as ours Behold wee are not alone all Churches in the world if this will doe it are guiltie of three Sacraments Tell me would you not haue marriage solemnized publikely You cannot mislike though your founder seemes to require nothing heere but notice giuen to witnesses then to bed Well if publike Brâ— state of Christians 17â— you account it withall a graue and weighty businesse therefore such as must be sanctified by publike praier What place is fitter for publike praier than the Church Who is fitter to offer vp the publike prayer than the Minister who should rather ioyne the parties in Mariage than the publike deputy of that God who solemnly ioyned the first couple who rather than hee which in the
it is vncapable either of sinne or pardon To lie vnburied or to be buried vnseemly is so much a punishment that the Heathens obiected it though vpon the hauocke and fury of Warre to the Christians as an argument of Gods neglect All that Authoritie can doe to the dead Rebell is to put his carcasse to shame and deny him the honour of seemely sepulture Thus doth the Church to those that will die in wilfull contempt Those Grecian virgins that feared not death Aug. de Ciu. l. 2. Athenienses decreuerunt ne siquis se interfecisset sepeliretur in agro attico c. were yet refrained with the feare of shame â—â—ter death it was a reall not imaginary curse of Iezabel The dogs shall eat Iezabel Now the absolution as you call it by an vnproper but malicious name is nothing else but a liberty giuen by the Church vpon repentance signified of the fault of the late offender of all those externall Rites of decent Funerall Death it selfe is capable of inequality and vnseemelinesse Suppose a iust Excommunication What reason is it that he which in his life and death would be as a Pagan should be as a Christiaâ— in his buriall What is any or all this to Purgatory The next intimation of our Purgatory is our Christian buriall in the place in the manner The place holy ground the Church Churchyard c. The manner Ringing Singing Praying ouer the corps Thus therefore you argue We bury the body in the Church or Churchyard c. therefore we hold a Purgatory of the Soule a proofe not lesse strange than the opinion We doe neither scorne the carcasses of our friends as the old Troglodites nor with the old Aegyptians respect them more than when they were enformed with a liuing soule but we keepe a meane course betwixt both vsing them as the remainders of dead men Sleeping-places Coemiteria Euseb l. 7. c. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Splendidissimae sepulturae tradidit Eus l. 7. c. 15 Curatio funeris conditio sepulturae pâ—â—npa exequiarum magis sunt viuâ—rum solatia quam subsidia mortuorum Aug. de ciuit l. 1. c. 12. Si enim paterna vestis annulus tanto charaest posteris nullo modo ipsa spernenda sunt corpora Aug. de Ciu. l. 1. c. 13. Orig. cont Cels l. 8. Rationalem animam honorare didicimus c. yet as dead Christians and as those which we hope one day to see glorious We haue learned to call no place holy in it selfe since the Temple but some more holy in their vse than others The old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Christians wherein their bodies slept in peace were not lesse esteemed of them than they are scorned of you Galienus thought he did them a great fauour and so they tooke it when he gaue them the liberty not only of their Churches but of their former burying places In the same booke Eusebius commends Astirius a noble Senator for his care and cost of Marinus his buriall Of all these rites of Funerall and choice of place we professe to hold with Augustine that they are onely the comforts of the liuing not helpes of the dead yet as Origen also teacheth vs wee haue learned to honour a reasonable much more a Christian soule and to commit the instrument or case of it honourably to the graue All this might haue taught our Answerer that we make account of an heauen of a resurrection not of a Purgatory But we ring hallowed bells for the Soule Doe not those bells hang in hallowed Steeples too and doe wee not ring them with hallowed ropes what fancie is this If Papists were so fond of old their folly and their belles for the most part are both out of date wee call them soule-belles for that they signifie the departure of the soule not for that they help the passage of the soule This is meere Boyes-play But we pray ouer or for the dead Doe we not sing to him also Pardon me I must needâ— tell you here is much spite and little wit To pray for the confâ—â—mation of the glory of all Gods elect What is it but Thy kingdome come How vainly doe you seeke a knot in a rush while you cauill at so holy a Petition Goe and learne how much better it is to call them our Brothers which are not in an harmelesse ouer-weening and ouer-hoping of charity than to call them no brothers which are in a proud censorious vncharitablenes you cannot be content to tell an vntruth but you must face it out Let any Reader iudge how farre our practice in this dissented from our doctrine would to God in nothing more Yes saith this good friend in the most other things our words professe our deeds denie at once you make vs hypocrites and your selues Pharises Let all the world know that the English Church at Amsterdam professeth nothing which it practiseth not we may not be so holy or so happy Generality is a notable shelter of vntruth Many mo you say Popish deuices yet name none No you cannot Aduanced aboue all that is called God surely this is a paradoxe of slanders you meant at once to shame vs with falshood and to appose vs with Riddles we say to the Highest Whom haue we in Heauen but thee and for earth your selfe haue granted we giue too much to Princes which are earthen Gods may come vnder Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Either name our Deitie or craue mercie for your wrong certainly though you haue not remorse yet you shall haue shame SEP You are far from doing to the Romish Idols as was done to the Aegyptian Idols MITHâ—â— and SERAPIS whose Priests were expelled their Ministerie and Monuments exposeâ—â—â— vtter scorne and desolation their Temples demolished and raced to the very foundation SECTION XLV The Churches still retained in England Socrat. Hist Ec. l. 5. c. 16.17 Bed hist Eccl. l. 1. Cit. Gregor Ep. Aug. suo c. 30. Edilâ—â—rto regi c. 32. Contra sibi c. Sed Haereticorum templa veâ—â—ata à Constantinâ— Eused l. 3. c. 63. THE Maiestie of Romish Petti-gods I truely told you was long agone with Mithra and Serapis exposed to the laughter of the vulgar you straine the comparison too farre yet we follow you Their Priests were expelled for as your Doctor yeeldeth other Actors came vpon the same stage others in religion else it had beene no change Their Ministerie and Monuments exposed to vtter scornâ— Their Masses their oblations their adorations their invocations their anoylings their exorcizings their sâ—rift their absolutions their Images Rood-lofts and whatsoeuer else of this kinde But the Temples of those olde Heathens were demolished and razâ—d Here is the quarrell ours stand still in their proud Maiestie Can you see no difference betwixt our Churches and their Temples Aug. de Ciuit. l. 8 c. 27. Hoâ—ker 5. b. c. 13. Id. Aug. coner Maximin Arrian Nonne si templum c. Optat. MileuitaÌ„ l.
onely by gesse hauing neuer so much as read ouer one Treatise published in our defence and yet sticke not to passe this your censorious dooâ—e both vpon vs and it I leaue it to the Reader to iudge whether you haue beene more lauish of your censure or credit Most vniust is the censure of a cause vnknowne though in it selfe neuer so blame-worthy which neuerthelesse may be praise-worthy for ought he knowes that censures it SECTION XLVII On what ground Separation or Ceremonies were obiected HEE that leaues the whole Church in a grosse and wilfull errour is an Heretike he that leaues a particular Church for appendances is a Schismaticke such are you both in the action and cause The act is yelded the cause hath beene in part scanned shall be more This I vainely pretended to be our consorting in Ceremonies with the Papists Behold here the ground of your lowd challenge of my ignorance Ignorance of your Iudgement and practice Here is my abuse of you of my Reader and how durst I Good words M. R. What I haue erred I will confesse I haue wronged you indeed but in my charitie I knew the cause of Brownisme but I knew not you For to say ingenuously I had heard and hoped that your cause had beene lesse desperate My intelligence was that in dislike of these Ceremonies obtruded and an hopelesnesse of future libertie you and your fellows had made a secession rather than a separation from our Church to a place where you might haue scope to professe and opportunitie to enioy your owne conceits whence it was that I termed you Ring-leaders of the late separation not followers of the first and made your plea against our Church imperfection not falshood I hoped you as not ours so not theirs not ours in place Inq. into M. White so not quite theirs in peeuish opinion I knew it to bee no new thing for men inclin ng to these fancies to beginne new Churches at Amsterdam seuerall from the rest witnesse the letters of some sometimes yours cited by your own Pastor I knew the former separation and hated it I hoped better of the later separation and pittied it My knowledge both of * * Which vpon the Loâ—ds Praye hath â—â—nfuted some 〈◊〉 of 〈…〉 M. Smith whom you followed and your selfe would not let me thinke of you as you deserued How durst I charge you with that which perhaps you might disauow It was my charity therefore that made my accusations easie it is your vncharitablenesse that accuses them of ignorance I knew why a Brownist is a true Schismaticke I knew not you were so true a Brownist But why then did I write Taking your separation at best I knew how iustly I might take occasion by it to disswade from separation to others good though not to yours Now I know you better or worse rather I thinke you heare more Forgiue mee my charity and make the worst of my ignorance I knew that this separation which now I know yours stands vpon foure grounds as some beasts vpon foure feet First God worshipped after a false manner Barr. and Grâ—en passim Penr Exam. Secondly Profane multitude receiued Thirdly Antichristian Ministery imposed Fourthly Subiection to Antichristian Gouernment The Ceremonies are but as some one paw in euery foot yet if we extend the word to the largest vse diuiding all Religion into Ceremony and Substance I may yet and doe auerre that your separation is meerely grounded vpon Ceremonies SEP And touching the ceremonies here spoken of howsoeuer we haue formerly refused them submitting as all others did and doe to the Prelates spirituall Iurisdiction herein through ignorance straining at Gnats and swallowing Camels yet are we verily perswaded of them and so were before we separated that they are but as leaues of that tree and as badges of that Man of sinne whereof the Pope is head and the Prelates shoulders And sowe for our parts see no reason why any of the Bishops sworne seruants as all the Ministers in the Church of England are Canonically should make nice to weare their Lords liueries Which Ceremonies notwithstanding we know well enough howsoeuer you for aduantage extenuate and debase them vnto vs to be aduanced and preferred in your Church before the preaching of the Gospell It is much that they being not so much as Reed nor any part of the building as you pretend should ouerturne the best builders amongst you as they doe The proportion betwixt Zoar and them holds well Zoar was a neighbour vnto Sodome both in place and sinne and obnoxious to the same destruction with it and it was Lots errour to desire to haue it spared Gen. 19.15 18 19 20. and so he neuer found rest nor peace in it but forsooke it for feare of the same iust iudgement which had ouertaken the rest of the Cities verse 30. The application of this to your Ceremonies I leaue to your selfe and them to that destruction to which they are deuoted by the Lord. SECTION XLVIII ANd touching Ceremonies you refused them formerly but not long Estimation of Ceremonies and subiection to the Prelates and when you did refuse them you knew not wherefore for immediately before your suspension you acknowledged them to be things indifferent and for matter of scandall by them you had not informed your selfe by your owne confession of a whole quarter of a yeere after Why refused you then but as the Poet made his playes to please the people or as Simon Magus was baptized for company But refusing them you submitted to the Prelates spirituall Iurisdiction there was your crime this was your Camell the other your Gnats Did euer any Prelate challenge spirituall rule ouer your conscience This they all appropriate to the great Bishop of our soules and if other grant them as your malice faineth what sinne is it to be the subiect of a Tyrant now vpon more grace refusing the Prelacy you haue branded the Ceremonies So you did before your separation Tell vs how long was it after your suspension and before your departure that you could haue beene content vpon condition to haue worne this linnen badge of your Man of sinne Was not this your resolution when you went from Norwich to Lincolneshire after your suspension Deny it not my witnesses are too strong But let vs take you as you are these Ceremonies though too vile for you yet are good enough for our Ministers of England As if you said Lord I thanke thee I am not as this Publican Why for our Ministers Because those are the Liueries and these the sworne seruants of the Antichristian Bishops 1 Cor. 4.1 Ier. in Psal 44. Heming Class 3. Potest Eccl. c. 10. Vt cuique suus clirus sua plebs in bis quae Domini sunt pie obsequerentur We haue indeed sworne obedience to our Ordinary in honest and lawfull Commandements but seruice to Christ But doth all obedience imply seruitude This obedience is as to spirituall
dare say wee want him Wherein I suppose in our censures Wee haue Peters keyes as his true successors both in office and doctrine our fault is that we vse them not as you would What Church doth so your first Martyr doth as zealously inueigh against the practise of Geneua Bar. Gyff ref So some of their owne haue termed their Excommunication Confess by M. Iohns Inquirie pag. 65. and all other Reformed Congregations in this point as against vs both for the woodden Dagger as he termes it of suspension and for their Consistoriall Excommunication Woe were to all the World if Christ should limit his presence onely to your fashions Here you found him and here you left him Would to God we did no more grieue him with our sins than you please him in your presumptuous censures in the rest you raile against our Prelates and vs Can any man thinke that Christ hath left peaceable spirits to goe dwell with Railers Indeed yours is free-hold so you would haue it free from subiection free from obedience This is loosenesse more than liberty You haue broken the bonds and cast the cords from you but you mis-call ouâ— tenure Wee hate villenage no lesse than you hate peace and hold in capite of him that is the head of his body Coloss 1.18 the Churchâ— vnder whose easie yoke wee doe willingly stoope in a sweet Christian freedome abhorring and reprouing and therefore notwithstanding our personall Communion auoiding all abominations In these two respects therefore of our confusion and bondage wee haue well seene in this Discourse how iustly your Sion accounts vs Babylon since it is apparent for the one that here is neither confusion nor Babylonish nor without separation For the other no bondage no seruility Our Prelates being our Fathers Amari Parens Episcopus debet non timeri Hier. ad Theophilum not our Masters and if Lords for their externall dignity yet not Lords of our Faith and if both these your respects were so yet so long as we doe inuiolably hold the foundation both directly and by necessary sequell any Railer may terme vs but no Separatist shall proue vs Babylon you may flie whither you lift would God yet further vnlesse you had more loue SEP Master H. hauing formerly expostulated with vs our supposed impietie in forsaking a ceremonious Babylon in England proceeds in the next place to lay downe our madnesse in chusing a substantiall Babylon in Amsterdam and if it be so found by due triall as he suggesteth it is hard to say whether our impietie or madnesse bee the greater Belike Master H. thinkes wee gather Churches here by towne-rowes as they doe in England and that all within the Parish Procession are of the same Church Wherfore else tels he vs of Iewes Arrians and Anabaptists with whom we haue nothing common but the Streets and Market place It is the condition of the Church to liue in the World and to haue ciuill society with the men of his World 1 Cor. 5.10 Ioh. 17.13 But what is this to the spirituall Communion of the Saints in the fellowship of the Gospell wherein they are separated and sanctified from the World vnto the Lord Ioh. 17.16 1 Cor. 1. 2 Cor. 6.17 18. SECTION LII I Need no better Analyser than your selfe saue that you doe not onely resolue my parts The veiw of the sinnes and disorders of others whereupon obiected and how far it should affect vs. but adde more whereas euery motion hath a double terme from whence and whither both these could not but all into our discourse Hauing therefore formerly expostulated with you for your since you will so terme it impietie in forsaking a ceremonious Babylon of your owne making in England I thought it not vnfit to compare your choice with your refusall England with Amsterdam which it pleaseth you to intitle a substantiall Babylon impiety and madnesse are titles of your owne choice let your guiltinesse be your owne accuser The truth is my charity and your vncharitablenesse haue caused vs to mistake each other My charity thus Hearing both at Middleburgh and here that certaine companies from the parts of Nottingham and Lincolne which Harbinger had beene newly in Zeland before me meant to retire themselues to Amsterdam for their full liberty not for the full approbation of your Church not fauouring your maine opinions but emulating your freedome in too much hate of our Ceremonies and too much accordance to some grounds of your hatred I hoped you had beene one of their Guides both because Lincolneshire was your Countrey and Master Smith your Oracle and Generall Not daring therefore to charge you with perfect Brownisme what could I thinke might bee a greater motiue to this your supposed change than the view of our so oft proclaimed wickednesse and the hope of lesse cause of offence in those forraine parts this I vrged fearing to goe deeper than I might be sure to warrant Now comes my charitable Answerer and imputes this easinesse of my challenge to my ignorance and therefore will needes perswade his Christian Reader that I knew nothing of the first separation because I obiected so little to the second It were strange if I should thinke you gather Churches there by Towne-rowes as wee in England who know that some one Prison might hold all your refined Flocke you gathered here by Hedge-rowes but there it is easier to tell how you diuide than how you gather let your Church be an intire body inioying her owne spirituall Communion yet if it be not a corrosiue to your heart to conuerse in the same streets and to bee ranged in the same Towne-rowes with Iewes Arrians Anabaptists c. you are to whit of kinne to him that vexed his righteous soule with the vncleannesses of foule Sodme That good man had nothing but ciuill societie with those impure Neighbours hee differed from them in Religion in practise yet could he not so carelesly turne off this torment His house was Gods Church wherein they had the spirituall Communion of the Saints yet whiles the Citie was so vncleane his heart was vnquiet Separation from the world how required Iohn 17.16 We may you grant haue ciuill societie with ill men spirituall Communion onely with Saints Those must be accounted the world these onely the Church your owne allegations shall condemne you They are not of the World saith Christ as I am not of the World Both Christ and they were parts of the Iewish Church The Iewish Church was not so sanctified but the most were extremely vncleane therefore wee may bee parts of a Visible vnsanctified Church and yet bee separate from the World 1 Cor. 1.2 Saint Paul writes to his Corinthians sanctified in Christ Saints by calling True 1 Cor. 3.3 but not long after he can say Ye are yet carnall In his second Epistle Come out saith he from among them But from whom From Infidels by profession not corrupted Christians SEP Wee indeed
parties written to and their crime 551 The Kindes of separation and which is iust 552 The Antiquity and examples of separation 553 What separation is to be made by Churches in their planting c 555 What separation the Church of England hath made 556 Consititution of a Church 557 Order 2. Part of constitution how farre requisite c. ibid. Constraint requisite 558 Constitution of the Church of England 559 The Answerers Title 561 The Apostasie of the Church of England ibid. The Separatists acknowledgements of the graces of the Church of England 564 The vnnaturalnesse of some principall Separatists 565 What the Separatists thinke themselues beholden to the church of England for ibid. The motherhood of the Church of England how farre it obligeth vs. 566 The want of pretended Ordinances of God whether sinfull to vs c. 567 The bonds of Gods word vniustly pleaded by the Separatists 568 The necessity of their pretended Ordinances 569 The enormities of the Church in common ibid. The Church of England is the Spouse of Christ 570 How the Church of England hath separated from Babylon 571 The separation made by our holy Martyrs 573 What separation England hath made ibid. The maine grounds of separation 574 The truth and warrant of the Ministery of England 575 Confused Communion of the profane 576 Our Errors intermingled with Truth 577 Whether our Prelacy be Antichristian 578 The iudgement and practise of other Reformed Churches 579 Our Synods determination of things indifferent 580 Sinnes sold in our Courts 581 Our loyalty to Princes cleered theirs questioned 582 Erros of free-will c. fained vpon the Church of England 583 Kneeling at the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 583 Whether our Ordinarie and Seruice-booke be made Idols by vs. 584 Marriage not made a Sacrament by the Church of England 587 Commutation of Penance in our Church 588 Oath ex Officio ibid. Holy-dayes how obserued in the Church of England 589 Our approbation of an vnlearned Ministerie disproued 590 Penances inioyned in the Church of England ibid. The practises of the Church of England concerning the Funerals of the Dead 591 The Churches still retained in England 592 The Founders and Furnitures of our Churches 593 On what ground Separation or Ceremonies was obiected 594 Estimation of Ceremonies and subiection to the Prelates 595 The state of the Temple and of our Church in resemblance 597 Whether Ministers should endure themselues silenced ibid. Power of reforming abuses giuen to the Church and the issue of the neglect of it 598 The view of the sinnes and disorders of others wherevpon obiected and how farre it should affect vs. 600 The neerenesse of the State and Church and the great errors found by the Separatists in the French and Dutch Churches 601 Conuersation with the World 603 The impure mixtures of the Church of England 604 The iudgement of our owne and our neighbours of our Church 605 The issue of Separation 607 The Brownists scornefull opinion of our people 608 The Conclusion from the fearefull answer of Separation ibid. A SERIOVS DISSWASIVE FROM POPERIE To W. D. Revolted c. YOV challenged me for my bold assertion of your manifold diuisions I doe here make it good with vsurie Those mouthes that say they teach you the truth say also and you haue beleeued them that they all teach the same As you finde them true in this so trust them in the other For me I cannot without indignation see that in this light of the Gospell God and his truth should thus bee losers by you and that a miserable soule should suffer it selfe thus grossely cozened of it selfe and glory Many can write to you with more profoundnesse none with more sincere feruencie and desire to saue you I call heauen and earth to record against you this day that if you relent or answer not your perishing is wilfull Wee may pittie your weaknesse but God shall plague your Apostasie if you had bin bred in blindnesse your ignorance had bin but lamentable now your choice and loue of darknes is fearefull and desperate Alas you cannot be condemned without our sorrow and shame What should we doe We can but intreat perswade protest mourne and gage our soules for yours if these auaile not who can remedie that which will perish Here this yet you weake Revolter if there be any care left in you of that soule which you haue thus prostituted to error if you haue any regard to that God whose simple truth you haue contemned and forsken what is this that hath driuen you from vs allured you to them For Gods sake let me but expostulate a little ere my silence Either be conuicted or inexcusable Our bad liues haue set you off Woe is me that they are no holier I bewaile our wickednes I defend it not Onely aske how they liue in Italie if they be not for the more part filths to the worst of ours goe with them and prosper Let all indifferent tongues say whether that very See whereon your faith depends euen within the smoke of his Holinesse be not for vitiousnes the sin be of the world we may condemne our selues their liues shal iustifie vs But you list not to looke so farre you see their liues at home you see ours The comparison is not equall They take this for the time of their persecution we of our prosperitie The stubbornest Israelite and the most godlesse Mariner could call vpon God in his trouble we are all worse with liberty Looke backe and see how they liued in former times while they prospered No Turkes saith ERASMVS more abominably though now as the worsâ— how 〈…〉 profeâ— might you 〈…〉 which would scorne that the most 〈…〉 should goe before them in a gracious life and in true 〈…〉 amon◠〈◊〉 there will be one Deuill I wish they were so good that wee â—gâ—ulate them but for my part I neuer yet could know that Papist which made conscience of all Gods ten morrall lawes Shortly whatsoeuer is vpraided to vs the truth is pure though men be vnholy and God is where he was whatsoeuer becomes of men For you if you had not fallen to coole affections and a loose life you had beene still ours It is iust with God to punish your secure negligence with error and delusion and to suffer you thus to lose the truth who had lost your care of obedience and first loue And now you doe well to shift off this blame to others sins which haue most cause to accuse your owne From maners to looke towards our doctrine the noueltie of our Religion you say hath discouraged you theirs hath drawne you with reuerence of her age It is a free challenge betwixt vs let the elder haue vs both if there be any point of our Religion yonger than the Patriarchs and Prophets CHRIST and his Apostles the Fathers and Doctors of the Primitiue Church let it be accursed and condemned for an vpstart shew vs euidence of more credit and age and
be read in the Catholike Church and as they are had in the old vulgar Latine Edition for holy and Canonicall let him be accursed Thus she Iudge you now of our age and say whether the opinion of the ancient Church that is ours be not a direct enemie to Popery and flatly accursed by the Romish Passe on yet a little further Our question is whether the Hebrew and Greeke Originals be corrupted and whether those first Copies of Sciptures be not to be followed aboue all Translations Heare first the ancient Church with vs But saith Saint AVGVSTINE how soeuer it be taken whether it be beleeued to bee so done or not beleeued or lastly whether it were so or not so I hold it a right course that when any thing is found different in either bookes the Hebrew and Septuagint since for the certaintie of things done there can be but one truth that tongue should rather be beleeued from whence the Translation was made into another language Vpon which words LVDOVICVS VIVES yet a Papist saith thus The same saith he doth HIEROM proclaime euery where and reason it selfe teacheth it and there is none of found iudgement that will gainsay it but in vain doth the consent of all good wits teach this for the stubborne blockishnesse of men opposeth against it Let HIEROM himselfe then a greater Linguist be heard speake And if there bee any man saith he that will say the Hebrew bookes were afterwards corrupted by the Iewes let him heare ORIGEN what he answeres in the eight volume of his explanations of ESAY to this question that the Lord and his Apostles which reproue other faults in the Scribes and Pharises would neuer haue beene silent in this which were the greatest crime that could be But if they say that the Hebrewes falsified them after the comming of Christ and Preaching of the Apostles I cannot hold from laughter that our Sauiour and the Euangelists and Apostles should so cite testimonies of Scripture as the Iewes would afterwards depraue them Thus IEROME And the Canon law it selfe hath this determination that the truth and credit of the bookes of the old Testament should bee examined by the Hebrew Volumes of the new by the Greeke And Pope INNOCENTIVS as he is cited by GRATIAN could say Haue recourse to the diuine Scriptures in their Original Greeke The same lastly by BELLARMINES owne confession Bellar. l. de verb. Dei 2. cap. 11. §. 3. the Fathers teach euery where As IEROME in his booke against HELVIDIVS and in his Epistle to MARCELLA that the Latine Edition of the Gospell is to be called backe to the Greeke fountaines and the Latine Edition of the old Testament is to be amended by the Hebrew in his Comment vpon ZACHARY 8. The very same hath AVSTEN in his second booke of Christian doctrine Chap. 11.12.15 and Epist 19. and elsewhere This was the old Religion and ours now heare the new The present Church of Rome hath thus The holy Synod decreeth that the old vulgar Latine Edition in all Lectures Dispuations Sermons Expositions be held for Authenticall saith the Councell of Trent And her Champion BELLARMINE hath these words That the fountaine of the Originals in many places runne muddy and impure wee haue formerly shewed and indeede it can scarce be doubted Accedit quod patres passim docent ad fontes Hebraeos Graeces esse recurrendum Hieron in lib. contr Heluid in Epist ad Marcellam c. Concil Trid. sess 4. Sacrosancta Synodus statuit vt haec ipsa vetus c. pro authentica habeatur Bell de verb. l. 2. c. 11. Nunc autem fontes multis in locis turbidos fluere c. Omnino contendunt Iudaeos in odium Christianae relig studiose deprauasse ita docet Iacobus Christop litanus Canus c. Bell. 2. de verb. Dei p. 100. So Raynolds in his refutation pag. 303. against Isaac Valla Andradius Monta c. Haeretici huius temporis odio vulgatae editionis nimium tribuunt editiâ—i Hebraicae c. omnia exaâ—â—nari vâ—lunt ad Hebraeum textum quem non semel purissimum fontem appellant Bell. l. 2. de verb. c. 2. Epiphan contr Anomaeos Haeres 76. Omnia sunt clara lucida c. Basil in Ascet oâ— Regul breuiores quae ambiguè obscurê videntur dici in quibusdam locis sacrae script reg 267. Aug. Ep. 3. Non tenta in scriptâ—â—is difficultate perueniter ad ea quae necessaria sunt saluti c. Aug. de doctr Christ l. 2. c. 9. In ijs quae â—pertè in scriptura positá siâ—â—t invenâ—tur illa 〈◊〉 quae continent fidem moresque vinendi Magnificè salubriter spirit sanctui ita script c. De doctr Christ lib. 2. cap. 4. Aug. Epist 3. Modus ipse dicendi quo sancta Scriptura c. Sed invitat omnes humili sermone but that as the Latine Church hath beene more constant in keeping the faith than the Greeke so it hath beene more vigilant in defending her bookes from corruption Yea some of the Popish Doctors maintaine that the Iewes in hatred of the Christian faith did on purpose corrupt many places of Scripture so holds GREGORY de VALENTIA IACOBVS CHRISTOPOLITANVS in his Preface to the Psalmes CANVS in the second booke of his common places But in stead of all BELLARMINE shall shut vp all with these words The Heretikes of this time in hatred of the vulgar Edition giue too much to the Hebrew Edition as CALVIN CHEMNITIVS GEORGIVS MAIOR All which would haue euery thing examined and amended by the Hebrew text which they commonly call a most pure fountaine See now whether that which BELLARMINE confesses to haue bin the Iudgement of HIEROME AVSTEN and all the ancient Fathers be not here condemned by him as the opinion of the Heretikes Ours was theirs and theirs is condemned vnder our names Iudge whether in this also Popery be not an vpstart Yet one step more Our question is whether the Scripture be easie or most obscure and whether in all essentiall poynts it doe not interpret it selfe so as what is hard in one place is openly laid forth in another Heare the Iudgment of the old Church and ours All things are cleare and plaine and nothing contrary in the Scriptures saith EPIPHANIVS Those things which seeme doubtfully and obscurely spoken in some places of Scripture are expounded by them which in other places are open and plaine saith BASIL What could CALVIN and LVTHER say more There is no so great hardnesse in the Scriptures to come to those things which are necessary to saluation saith AVSTEN In those things which are openly laid downe in Scripture are found all those things which containe our faith and rules of our life saith the same Father who yet againe also saith thus The Spirit of God hath Royally and wholsomely tempered the holy Scriptures so as both by the plaine places he might preuent our hunger and by the
c. Bell. de effectu Sacram. l. 2. cap. 25. pag. 300. Omnium Dogmatum firmitas c. So Pigh l. 1. de Hier. et Stapl. l. 9. Princ. doct c. 1. Compertum est ab his damnata vt haeretica in Lutheri libri◠quae in Bernardi Augustinique libris vt Orthodoxa imo vt pia leguntur Erasm Epist ad Card. Mogunt pag. 401. AVSTIN betwixt vs and the Donatists where the Church in What shall we do then shall we seeke her in her owne words or in the words of her Head the Lord Iesus Christ I suppose we ought to seeke her rather in his words which is the Truth and knowes best his own body for the Lord knowes who are his wee will not haue the Church sought in our words And in the same Booke Whether the Donatists hold the Church saith the same Father let them not shew but by the Canonicall Bookes of Diuine Scriptures for neither do we therefore say they should beleeue vs that we are in the Church of Christ because OPTATVS or AMBROSE hath commended this Church vnto vs which we now hold or because it is acknowledged by the Councels of our fellow Teachers or because so great miracles are done in it it is not therefore manifested to bee true and Catholike but the Lord Iesus himselfe iudged that his Disciples should rather be confirmed by the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets These are the rules of our cause these are the foundations these are the confirmations And vpon the Psalmes Lest thou shouldest erre saith the same AVGVSTINE in thy iudgement of the Church lest any man should say to thee This is Christ which is not Christ or this is the Church which is not the Church for many c. Heare the voyce of the Shepheard himselfe which is clothed in flesh c. He shewes himselfe to thee handle him and see Hee shewes his Church lest any man should deceiue thee vnder the name of the Church c. yet CHRYSOSTOME more directly thus Hee that would know which is the true Church of Christ whence may he know it in the similitude of so great confusion but onely by the Scriptures Now the working of miracles is altogether ceased yea they are rather found to bee fainedly wrought of them which are but false Christians Whence then shal he know it but only by the Scriptures The Lord Iesus therefore knowing what great confusion of things would bee in the last dayes therefore commands that those which are Christians and would receiue confirmation of their true faith should flye to nothing but to the Scriptures Otherwise if they flye to any other helpe they shall be offended and perish not vnderstanding which is the true Church This is the old faith Now heare the new contradicting it vs. The Scripture saith ECKIVS a Popish Doctor is not authenticall without the authoritie of the Church for the Canonicall Writers are members of the Church Whereupon let it be obiected to an Heretike that wil striue against the decrees of the Church by what weapons hee will fight against the Church hee will say By the Canonicall Scriptures of the foure Gospels and Pauls Epistles Let it be straight obiected to him how hee knowes these to be Canonicall but by the Church And a while after The Scripture saith hee defined in a Councell it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to vs that you abstaine from things offered to Idols and bloud and strangled the Church by her authority altred a thing so cleerely defined expressed for it vseth both strāgled and bloud Behold the power of the Church is aboue the Scripture thus ECKIVS And besides CVSANVS BELLARMINE saith thus If wee take away the authoritie of the present Church and of the present Councell of Trent all the Decrees of all other Councels and the whole Christian faith may be called into doubt And in the same place a little after The strength of all ancient Councels and the certaintie of all opinions depends on the authority of the present Church You haue heard both speake say now with whom is true antiquitie and on Gods name detest the newer of both It were as easie to bring the same if not greater euidence for the perfection and all-sufficiencie of Scripture and so to deliuer all the bodie of our religion by the tongues and pens of the Fathers that either you must bee forced to hold them Nouelists with vs or your selues such against them How honest and ingenuous is that confession of your ERASMVS who in his Epistle to the Bishop and Cardinall of Mentz could say It is plainly found that many things in LVTHERS Bookes are condemned for Hereticall which in the bookes of BERNARD and AVSTEN are read for Holy and Orthodoxe This is too much for a taste If your appetite stand to it I dare promise you full dishes Let me therefore appeale to you if light and darkenesse be more contrary than these points of your Religion to true Antiquitie No no Let your Authors glose as they list Popery is but a yong faction corruptly raysed out of ancient grounds And if it haue as wee grant some ancient errours falshood cannot bee bettered with Age there is no prescription against God and Truth What we can proue to be erroneous we need not proue new some hundreths of yeeres is an idle Plea against the Ancient of dayes What can you plead yet more for your change Their numbers perhaps and our handfuls You heard all the World was theirs scarce any corner ours How could you but suspect a few These are but idle brags we dare and can share equally with them in Christendome And if we could not this rule will teach you to aduance Turcisme aboue Christianity and Paganisme aboue that the World aboue the Church Hell aboue Heauen If any proofe can be drawne from numbers He that knowes all sayes the best are fewest The Peace of Rome left out because it was but a Translation in this Editiō c. What then could stirre you Our diuisions and their vnity If this my following labour doe not make it good to all the World that their peace is lesse than ours their dissension more by the confession of their owne months bee you theirs still and let mee follow you I stand not vpon the scoldings of Priests and Iesuites nor the late Venetian iarres nor the pragmaticall differences now on foote in the view of all Christendome betwixt their owne cardinalls in their Sacred conclaue and all their Clergie concerning the Popes temporall power Neyther doe I call any friend to bee our Aduocate none but Bellarmine and Nauarrus shall be my Orators and if these plead not this cause enough let it fall See heere dangerous rifts and flawes not in the outward barke onely but in the very heart and pith of your Religion and if so many be confessed by one or two what might bee gathered out of all and if so many bee acknowledged thinke how many
termes whereof if any be probable some are impossible Oh miserable grounds of Popish faith whereof the best can haue but this praise that perhaps it may be true A Religion that hath bin oft dyed in the bloud of Princes that in some cases teaches and allowes Rebellion against Gods Anointed and both suborneth Treasons and excuses pities honors rewards the Actors A Religion that ouerloades mens consciences with heauy burdens of infinite vnnecessary Traditions far more than euer Moses commented vpon by all the Iewish Masters imposing them with no lesse authoritie and exacting them with more rigor than any of the royall lawes of their Maker A Religion that coozens the vulgar with nothing but shadowes of Holinesse in Pilgrimages Processions Offerings Holy-water Latine Seruices Images Tapers rich Vestures garish Altars Crosses Censings and a thousand such like fit for Children and Fooles robbing them in the meane time of the sound and plaine helps of true pietie and saluation A Religion that cares not by what wilfull falshoods it maintaines a part as Wickliffes blasphemie Luthers aduice from the Deuill Tindals communitie Caluins fained Miracle and blasphemous death Bucers necke broken Bezaes revolt the blasting of Huguenots Englands want of Churches and Christendome Queene ELIzABETHS vnwomanlinesse her Episcopall Iurisdiction her secret fruitfulnesse English Catholikes cast in Beares skins to Doggs Plesses shamefull ouerthrow Garnets Straw the Lutherans obscene night-revels Scories drunken ordination in a Tauerne the Edict of our Gracious King IAMES Anno 87. for the establishment of Poperie our casting the Crusts of our Sacrament to Doggs and ten thousand of this nature maliciously raised and defended against knowledge and conscience for the disgrace of those whom they would haue hated ere knowne A Religion that in the conscience of her owne vntruth goes about to falsifie and depraue all Authors that might giue euidence against her to out-face all ancient truths to foist in Gibeonitish witnesses of their owne forging and leaues nothing vnattempted against Heauen or Earth that might aduantage her faction disable her innocent Aduersarie Loe this is your choice If the zeale of your losse haue made me sharpe yet not malicious not fasle God is my Record I haue not to knowledge charged you with the least vntruth and if I haue wronged accuse mee and if I cleere not my selfe and my challenge let me be branded for a Slanderer In the meane time what spirituall phrensie hath ouertaken you that you can finde no beautie but in this Monster of Errors It is to you and your fellowes that God speakes by his Prophet O yee Heauens be astonied at this be afraid and vtterly confounded saith the Lord for my people hath committed two euils they haue forsaken me the Fountaine of liuing Waters to digge them pits euen broken pits that can hold no water what shall bee the issue Et tu Domine deduces eos in puteum interitus Thou O God shalt bring them downe into the pit of destruction If you will thus wilfully leaue God there I must leaue you But if you had not rather dye returne and saue one returne to God returne to his Truth returne to his Church your bloud be vpon my head if you perish AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER THe Reader may please to take notice that in the former Edition there was added vnto this Discourse a iust Volume of aboue three hundred Contradictions and dissentions of the Romish Doctors vnder the name of The Peace of Rome which because it was but a collection out of Bellarmine and Navar and no otherwise mine but as a Gatherer and Translator I haue here thought good to omit FINIS NO PEACE WITH ROME WHEREIN IS PROVED THAT AS TERMES NOW Stand there can be no Reconciliation of the REFORMED RELIGION with the ROMISH And that the Romanists are in all the fault Written first in Latine by J. H. And now Englished SIC ELEVABITVR FILIVS HOMINIS Io 3. ANCHORA FIDEI LONDON Printed for THOMAS PAVIER MILES FLESHER and John Haviland 1624. TO THE TRVE SOVND AND HOLY CHVRCH OF GOD wheresoeuer warfaring vpon Earth I Present vnto thee deare and holy Mother this poore vnworthy token of my loue and loialtie the not so pleasing as true report of thy future broiles How much gladder should I haue beene if thy Spouse had so thought good to haue beene the messenger of thy Peace and securitie But since the great and wise Moderator of all things hath thought a Palme fitter for thee than an Oliue it is for thee to thinke of victory not of rest Thou shalt once triumph in heauen and rest for all but in the meane time here is nothing to bee lookt for but ambushes skirmishes tumults And how cheerefully must thou needs both beare and ouercome all oppositions that art not more sure of the necessitie of thy warfare than of the happinesse of thy successe whilest thou seest thy glorious husband not onely the leader of this field but a most iust and mercifull crowner of thy Conquest Certainly it is as vnpossible for thee to miscarry as to sit still and not fight Behold all the forces of heauen and earth conspire and reioyce to come voluntaries vnto this holy warre of thine and promise thee a most happy issue addresse thy selfe therefore as thou art wont couragiously to this worke of God But remember first to inquire as thou dost of ABEL Spare no teares to thy desperate Sister now thine enemie and calling heauen and earth to witnesse vpon thy knees beseech and intreat her by her owne soule and by the deare bowels of CHRIST by those precious drops of his bloudy sweat by that common price of our eternall redemption that she would at the last returne to her selfe and that good disposition which she hath now too long abandoned that she would forbeare any more as I feare shee hath hitherto wilfully done to fight against God but if shee shall still persist to stop her eares against thee and to harden her selfe in rebellion against her God forget if thou canst who shee once was and flie mercilesly vpon this daughter of Beliall that vaunts her selfe proudly in the glory of her munition Goe smite destroy conquer and reigne as the worthy partner of thine husbands Throne For mee I shall in the meane time be as one of thy rude Trumpets whose noise shall both awaken thy courage vnto this spirituall battell and whose ioyfull gratulations shall after thy rich spoiles applaud thine happy returne in the day of thy victory J. H. THE SVMME OF THE following Sections SECTION I. THe state of the now-Roman Church SECTION II. The commodities and conditions of Peace SECTION III. The obstinate and Peace-hating disposition of Papists SECTION IV. That the Confession of the same Creed is not with them sufficient to Peace SECTION V. The imputation or corruption of the Roman Church and their impossibility of Reconciliation arising from that wilfull fable of the Popes infallibilitie SECTION VI. That the other Opinions
of the Romish Church will not admit Reconciliation SECTION VII The Romish Heresie concerning Iustification SECTION VIII Concerning Free-will SECTION IX Concerning Merits SECTION X. Concerning Satisfaction SECTION XI Concerning Purgatorie SECTION XII Concerning Pardons SECTION XIII Concerning the distinction of Mortall and Veniall sinne SECTION XIV Concerning the Canon of the Scripture SECTION XV. Concerning the insufficiencie of Scripture SECTION XVI Concerning the authoritie of Scripture SECTION XVII Concerning Transsubstantiation SECTION XVIII Concerning the Multi-presence of Christs bodie SECTION XIX Concerning the sacrifice of the Masse SECTION XX. Concerning the number of Mediators and the Inuocation of Saints SECTION XXI Concerning the Superstitious Heathenish and ridiculous worship of the Papists SECTION XXII Concerning the impossibilitie of the meanes of Reconciliation THE OPINION OF George Cassander A LEARNED PAPIST AND GRAVE DIVINE That by two seuerall Emperors FERDINAND and MAXIMILIAN was set on worke to compose these quarrels of the CHVRCH In his consultation pag. 56. 57. YEt J cannot denie but that in the beginning many out of a godly zeale and care were driuen to a sharpe and seuere reproofe of certaine manifest abuses and that the principall cause of this calamitie and distraction of the Church is to bee laid vpon those which being puffed vp with a vaine insolent conceit of their Ecclesiasticall power proudly and scornefully contemned and reiected them which did rightly and modestly admonish their reformation Wherefore my opinion is that the Church can neuer hope for any firme Peace vnlesse they make the beginning which haue giuen the cause of the distraction that is vnlesse those which are in place of Ecclesiasticall Gouernment will bee content to remit something of their too much rigor and yeeld somewhat to the Peace of the Church and hearkening vnto the earnest Prayers and Admonitions of many godly men will set themselues to correct manifest abuses according to the rule of Diuine Scriptures and of the ancient Church from which they haue swarued NO PEACE WITH ROME SECT I. The state of the now-Roman Church THERE is no one question doth so racke the mindes of men G. Cassand l. de Consult Art 7. Ex articulo hoc de Ecclesia omnis haec distractio quae hodie est in republica Christiana originem ducit at this day as this of the Church The infancy of the Church was sore and long vexed with heresies of an higher nature concerning God concerning Christ which stil strook at the head but her vigorous hoary age is exercised with a slighter quarrell concerning our selues which yet raiseth vp the greater broyles euery where by how much euery man naturally loues himselfe more than God Not to meddle with any forraine questions of this nature Too many seeme vnto me to mis-conceiue the state of our Church the Romish as if they had beene alwaies two as if from their first foundations they had been sensibly seuered in time and place like to Babylon and Hierusalem Aug. de Ciuit. or those two famous Cities opposed in S. Austens learned discourse Hence are those idle demands of some smattering questionists Where our Church hath thus long hid it selfe What yeere and day it came to light in which age that other Church lost it selfe Why we haue withdrawne our selues no further from them What is become of our sorefathers Which was the religion of the former world From hence haue those sharpe and rigorous censures passed on both sides whether of nouelty or of the desperate condition of those soules which haue departed out of our owne way Alas what monsters both of opinions and questions haue risen hence and haue vexed not their owne Authors onely for the Delphick Oracle said well It is fit a man should haue as he doth Iulian Caes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iudicum si quis quae secit perferat aequum est but together with them the whole Church of God How many silly soules haue splitted vpon this rocke which had neuer needed any votiue monument of their wracke if they had but learned to hold no other difference betwixt vs and Rome than must needs be granted betwixt a Church miserably corrupted and happily purged betwixt a sickly languished and dying Church and one that is healthfull strong and flourishing Neither therefore did that Valdus of France nor Wickliffe of England nor Hierom of Prague Anno. Do. 1160. nor Luther of Germany euer goe about to frame a new Church to themselues which was not but onely endeuoured not without happy successe to cleanse scoure restore reforme that Church which was from that filthy soyle both of disorder errors wherewith it was shamefully blemished Al these rather desired to be accounted Physitians to heale than parents to beget a Church And the same haue we carefully done euer since do seriously and ingenuously professe of our selues this day Rome is alike to vs as it was of old to Hierome with Eugubium Rhegium Alexandria saue that this citie is both more famous Hierom. Epist ad Euagr. more neere vs Places do not varie either faith or title What Church soeuer God shall call daughter wee will call sister and so we safely may How many honest and chaste matrons haue we knowne that haue beene ashamed of a lewd sister and haue abhorred filthinesse in one of their owne bloud So it fareth now with vs Rome is ouergone with heresie with Idolatrie Let her practise her whoredome at home by her selfe It was not for vs with the safegard of our honestie to dwell with such a partner Not onely her wickednesse hath thrust vs out but her violence We yeeld therefore and sorrowfully complaine with the Prophet Esa 21.22 How is the faithfull citie become an harlot It was full of iudgement and iustice lodged therein but now it is full of murderers Thy siluer is become drosse and thy wine is brewed with water Away with the imperious name of a mother Wee are all the same Church by the virtue of our outward vocation whosoeuer all the world ouer worship Iesus Christ the onely Sonne of God and Sauiour of the world and professe the same common Creed some of vs doe this more purely Iren. l. 1. c. 2.3 others more corruptly In the meane time we are all Christians but sound Christians wee are not But how harslhly doth this sound to a weake Reader and more than seemes to need reconciliation with it selfe that the Church should be one and yet cannot be reconciled certainly yet so it is The dignitie of the outward forme which comprehends this vnitie in it selfe auailes nothing to grace nothing to saluation nothing to the soundnesse of doctrine The net doth not straight make all to bee fish that it hath dragged together ye shall finde in it vile weeds and whatsoeuer else that deuouring Element hath disgorged The Church is at once One in respect of the common principles of faith and yet in respect of consequences Cyp.l. 3.
ep 13. Nullo concordia glutine aut vnitatis vinculo copulari possunt and that rabble of Opinions which they haue raked together so opposed that it cannot by any glew of concord as Cyprian speaketh nor bond of vnity be conioyned That which Rome holds with vs makes it a Church That which it obtrudes vpon vs makes it hereticall The truth of principles makes it one the error and impiety of additions makes it irreconcileable Neither do 〈◊〉 this late and spurious brood of traditions more oppose vs than it doth those very Principles of Religion which the authors themselues desire to establish Looke on the face therefore of the Roman Church she is ours and Gods Looke on her back she is quite contrary Antichristian More plainly for it is no disputing in Metaphors as Clemens said well Rome doth both hold the foundation and destroy it she holds it directly destroies it by consequent In that she holds it she is a true Church howsoeuer imputed In that she destroyes it what-euer semblance shee makes of piety and holinesse she is a Church of malignants Psal 26.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If shee did altogether hold it she should be sound and Orthodox If altogether she destroyed it she should be either no Church or deuillish but now that she professes to hold those things directly which by inference of her consequences shee closely ouerthrowes she is a truly visible Church but an vnsound In what shee holds the principles we embrace her in what she destroyes them we pitty her error and hate her obstinate The common bond of Christianitie neuer ties vs to fauour grosse errors so much as with silence there is no such slauerie in the deare name of a sister that it should binde vs to giue either aid Eph. 5.11 or countenance to lewdnesse Haue no such fellowship saith S. Paul but rather reproue So wee haue done both modestly and earnestly The same is befalne vs which befell the blessed Apostle we are become their enemies for telling the truth Gal. 4.16 Behold now we are thrust out of doore spet vpon rayled at and when opportunitie serues persecuted with most curious torments And lest any mischiefe should be wanting obstinacie is now at last added vnto error and a cruel rage arising from impatience and now their wickednesse began to please them the more because it displeased vs. And what should we now doe in such a case wee the despised and reiected Patrons of this spirituall chastitie To let fall so iust a cause wee might not vnlesse wee would cast off that God who challenges this plea for onely his To yeeld and giue in were no other than to betray the truth of God and damne our owne soules No course remaines but this one and here is our onely safety with all our courage and skill to oppose the wicked Paradoxes and Idolatrous practises of the Romish Church till either she be ashamed of her selfe or repent that euer she was SECT II. The Commodities and Conditions of Peace BEAVTIFVLL is the name of Peace as Hilary speaketh and truly sacred Hilar. cit a Cal. de vera pacific Iudic. 6.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Sam 18.29 Iud. 19.29 1 Chr. 12.18 Luc. 2.14 Ioh. 14.27 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 13.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iam. 3.18 Rom. 14 19. 1 Pet. 3.11 and such as scarce sauoureth of the earth Neither did the Hebrewes by any other terme choose rather to expresse all happinesse and perfection of liuing Neither is there any thing which the Angels did more gladly congratulate vnto men or which Christ did more carefully bequeath or the Apostles more earnestly enioyne How oft and how vehemently doth the Spirit intreat and command vs to haue peace But this thou sayest is euery mans wish to haue peace but what if peace will not be had Loe then Saint Iames charges vs to make peace by our endeuours by our patience Once made and had what if it will not stay with vs Then Saint Paul bids to follow those things which concerne peace What if it will needs away and hide it selfe yet then Saint Peter commands to follow and inquire after it What if once found it refuse to come as Abrahams seruant presupposed of Rebecca Euen then study to be quiet saith Saint Paul or as the word implies Be ambitious of Peace 1 Thes 4.11 So let the Author of Peace loue vs as we loue Peace Socr. l. 1. c. 4. Socr. l. 3. c. 21. Who is there that would not rather wish with Constantine quiet daies and nights free from care and vexation It was a speech worthy of an Emperour and a Christian that fell from Iouianus about that querelous libell of the Macedonians I hate contention and those that are inclined to concord I loue and reuerence Our aduersaries would make vs beleeue they professe and desire no lesse with an equall zeale of charitie and agreement God bee Iudge betwixt vs both and whethersoeuer persists to hate peace let him perish from the face of God and his holy Angels Yea that this imprecation may be needlesse he is already perished Cypr. de simplic prae l. Ad Pacis praemium venâ—re non possunt qui pacem Dâ—mini discordiae furore ruperunt In Psal 28. For as Cyprian according to his wont grauely they cannot come to the reward of Peace which haue broken the Peace of God with the fury of discord And surely what but the flames of hell can determine the ambition of these fiery and boyling spirits Basil obserues well that Gods fire gaue light and burned not contrarily the fire of hell burneth without light and therefore is well worthy of those who despising the light of truth delight themselues in the flames of contentions Those are the true haters of Peace which doe wilfully patronize errors contrary to the Christian faith So long as wee must dwell by these tents of Kedar wee shall too iustly complaine with the Psalmist Psal 120. I loue Peace but in the meane while they are bent to Warre And as for vs which professe our selues the ingenuous clients of Peace since wee must needs fight it is not for vs to doe nothing For that blessed Quire of Angels before their Peace vpon earth Luc. 2.14 Iam. 3.17 well sung Glory to God in the highest Heauens and Saint Iames describes the wisdome of God to bee first pure then peaceable And that chosen vessell implies no lesse when to his charge of Peace hee addes If it bee possible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12.18 That is as impossible to euery good man which ought not to be done as that which cannot bee done neither indeed as the rule of Lawyers runnes can we be said to be able to doe that which we cannot honestly doe God saith S. Paul is not the Author of confusion but of Peace It is a wicked peace it is no peace that necessarily breeds confusion That Peace is worthy of a
if our Traueller meet not with some one that shall claime kinred or Country of him in a more intire fashion The Society welcomes him with more than ordinary curtesie neither can he refuse except he will be vnciuill to be their guest He cannot mislike the loue of his Country men he cannot fault their carriage And now that they haue mollified the stiffenesse of his preiudice and with much tempting fitted him for their mold he is a tasâ—e meet for one of their best workmen who willingly vndertaking it hath learned to handle him so sweetly as if he would haue him thinke it a pleasure to be seduced Do we thinke this Doctor will begin first with the infallibility of their great Master and perswade him that a Necromancer an Heretike an Atheist cannot erre in Peters Chaire or tell him that hee may buy off his sinnes as familiarly as hee may buy wares in the market or teach him that a man may and must both make and eat his God to his breakfast This hard meat is for stronger mawes He knowes how first to beginne with the spoone and to offer nothing to a weake stomacke but discourse of easie digestion As first that a Catholike so liuing and dying by our confession may bee saued That there is but one Church as but one Christ and that out of this Arke there is no way but drowning That this one Church is more likely to be found in all the world than in a corner in all ages than in the last Century of yeeres in vnity than in diuision And now comes in the glorious brag of the Roman Vniuersality their inuiolate Antiquity their recorded successions their harmonious vnity their confessed magnificence That there is the mother Church as to the rest of Christendome so especially to the English How well a Monarchy the best forme of gouernment beseemes the Church How vnlikely it is that Christ would leaue his Spouse in the confusion of many heads or of none And now that we are but a rag torne from their coat and where was our religion before Luther lay with Bora And what miserable subdiuisions are there in our Protestancie and what a gleaning are we to the haruest of Christendome with infinite suggestions of this nature able as they are plausibly vrged to shake an vngrounded iudgement which if they haue so farre preuailed as that the hearer will abide himselfe hood-winkt with this vaile of the Church how easily shall time leade him into those hatefuller absurdities SECT XVII IN all which proceeding these impostors haue a double aduantage First that they deliuer the opinion of their Church with such mitigation and fauour as those that care to please not to informe forming the voice of the Church to the liking of the hearer not the iudgement of the hearer to the voice of the Church wherein it is not hard to obserue that Popery spoken and written are two things In discourse nothing is more ordinary than to disclaime some of their receiued positions to blanch others It is the malice of an aduersary that mis-reports them they doe not hold that images should bee adored that the wood of the Crosse should be worshipped with the very same deuotion that is due to Christ himselfe that the Church is the Iudge of Gods writings that Paul the fift cannot erre that a man may merit of his maker much lesse supererogate that a mouse may run away with that which either is or was God Almighty that it is lawfull to kill an hereticall King and all other those monsters of opinion which their most classicke Authors haue both hatcht and shamelesly thrust into the light of the world They defie those ridiculous Legends which we father vpon their Church how much do they scorne S. Francis his Bird or his Wolfe or his wounds or his Apostles of Assise Pope Ioane was but a fancy Neuer Pope was an hereticke If now we cry out of impudence and call their allowed Writers to witnes Loe euen they also are forged by vs and are taught to play booty on our side Thus resolued to out-face all euidence they make faire weather of their foulest opinions and inueigh against nothing so much as the spightfulnesse of our slanders It is not possible that any wise stranger should be in loue with the face of their Church if he might see her in her owne likenes and therefore they haue cunningly masked one part of it and painted another so as those features of hers which are vgly and offensiue shal not appeare to any but her own eyes And because bookes are dangerous blabs and will be telling the generations to come how strangely that face is altered with Age and Art therefore their tongues are clipped also and made to speake none but her owne words Out of this licence Exemplar Esist scriptae ad Dominum Paulinum quondam datarium sub Clementis 8. beatae memorie Pontificatu Ibid. Ibid. and hope to winne they can fit their dishes to euery palate and are so sawcy as to make the Church belie it selfe Hence it was that a Spanish Father could teach that it is not of the necessity of faith to beleeue that the present Pope is the Vicar of Christ and the successor of Peter That Hostius the Iesuite could say that the Pope abused his keyes and the authority of the Church in receiuing Henry the fourth That another of his fellowes in a discourse with a French Bishop could disparage the decision of his Holinesse in comparison of a Generall Councell That Menas the Reader of Diuinity at Valledolid following Salas the Iesuite could affirme the lawfulnesse of the mariage of religious persons vpon a doubtfull reuelation That more than one of that Order haue dared to broach Confession by letters against the Bull of Clement the 8. And if these men bee not sparing of their contradictions to that Vice-God of theirs whose vassals they are by peculiar profession how much more boldly will they swimme against the streame of any common opinion that may concerne the bodie of that head SECT XVIII THeir second aduantage is that they regard not with what vntruths they make good their own assertions It is all one with what morter or rubbish they build vp a side From hence flow the confident reports both of their miracles to conuince vs and their slanders to disgrace vs. Father Hayndius a Iesuite of 33. yeeres standing amongst 52. complaints which out of an honest remorse he put vp against his owne Society to their Generall Aquaviua findes this not the least that his fellowes shamed not to seeke the honour of their Order by cogging of miracles What packets flie about daily of their Indian wonders Euen Cardinall Bellarmine can abide to come in as an auoucher of these couzenages who dares auerre that his fellow Xauier had not only healed the deafe dumbe and blinde but raised the dead whiles his brother Acosta after many yeeres spent in those parts can pull him by
Deuils It is true they miscall Mariage a Sacrament So as wee may well wonder at these two extreames in one doctrine and study in vaine how the same thing should be Sacred in a Ceremonious inchoation and in the reall consummation morally impure how a Sacrament should bee incompatible with a sacred Person These Sphyngian Riddles are for better Heads With what Brow then can my Detector adde * * Refut p. 19. That with Saint Chrysostome and Saint Austin they do but compare mariage they doe not condemne it Onely teaching Mariage to be good Virginity better with Fulgentius not so comparing Virginity to Corne that they count Mariage Cockle In this where should they find an aduersary But if Luxury Filthinesse Vncleannesse Contagion Beastlinesse Vice Obscenity be the stiles of good we can well allow them to the honour of C. Es. Virginity and are content our Mariages should passe for euill SECT V. MY second vntruth he saith is That I make the single Life of Priests the brand of Antichristianisme Shamelesse mouth Where did I euer say so My words are Were it not for this opinion the Church of Rome would want one euident brand of her Antichristianisme Refut p. 19.20 The life is one thing the opinion another Single life is good the opinion of the necessity of single life and the vnlawfulnesse of the Maried is Antichristian What can be more plaine yet this wilfull slanderer tels the World that I make the profession of Continence Antichristian Whereas we doe willingly professe that true profession of true Continency is truely laudable that the forceable imposition of it as necessary to some state of men sauours strongly of that Man of sin Now let my Reader iudge whose vntruths my Aduersary hath hitherto detected Neither can I â—ate that word of mine vnlesse I would renounce the Apostle who seemes purposely to decipher our Romanists by these lines For hauing immediately before described the condition of Bishops and Deacons with their Wiues and Children allowing them indifferently with others a maried estate hee presently as foreseeing that Point which would bee most subiect to contradiction foretels that the seducing spirits of Antichristianisme would forbid mariage and this hee fore-prophesies shall bee done in the latter or as their Vulgar and Rhemists turne it in the last Times and that by them which shall speake lyes in hypocrisie Neither of which can so exactly agree to those first Heretikes who as they were early in time And if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may agree to all the Ages of the Church after Christ yet most to the last and that other addition seemes to strengthen this sense so also grosse in their Doctrine wherein there was more open impiety then secret dissimulation SECT VI. IN vaine therefore doth my Refuter bring in S. Paul as an a better of his forced Continence whiles he saith of yonger Widowes Refut p. 21. that When they haue begun to wax wanton against Christ they will marry hauing damnation because they haue forsaken their first faith In which place boulted before to the Bran by many Controuersers mine Aduersary hath learned of his Bellarmine to triumph aboue measure This first faith saith he all the Fathers without exception vnderstand to be a Vow or Promise made to God of Continence in the state of Widowhood It is a wide word All the Fathers I had thought I had read in holy x x L. C. de Trinitate de Beat. tâ—t Dei 〈◊〉 Tiâ—â—ophâ—lum Et instrumenta libertatu semel concessa per iterationem infirmatâ—â— Athanasius Vae vobis qui primam fidem baptismi coelitus institutam irritam facitis Woe to you that make void the first faith of Baptisme ordained from heauen I had thought y y Non sunt digni fide qui primam fidem Baptismi irritam secerunt Marcionem loquor Basilidem Hier. Prooem in Epist ad Tit. Hierome had somewhere said They are not worthy of beliefe which haue voided their first beliefe Marcion I meane and Bâ—silides whom yet I neuer found condemned for the breach of any Vow of Continence I had thought the Author of the Interlinear Glosse would not haue crossed all the Fathers in expounding it Fidem baptismi The faith of Baptisme which is indeed the first Faith and the Apostle saith the first not the former as for that other which hee imagines a Vow of continued Viduity it was neither Faith nor First let him instance if he can where our Apostle takes Faith for a Vow Rather as if he meant to expound his owne word in this very Scripture and this occasion he cleeres this doubt whiles he speakes of the wilfully improuident Man that he hath denyed the Faith and is worse then an Infidel and now in the same Context he speakes of these peruerted Widowes that they haue forsaken the Faith Much lesse is it the First whether in Time or Dignity For they could not haue beene Church-Widowes if not Christians and they could not be Christians if they should haue valued the Vow of their Widowhood aboue the vow of their Christendome yea so farre was this from the first Vow if it had beene one as that it was the last of all for according to them their first Faith must be to their Husband their second to Christ in their initiation to Religion their last in the Vow of Widowhood So as here is a fayned vow made Faith and last made first and all to vphold a crazy conceit of our Romanists which hath no other ground but this one ambiguity Chrysostome indeed calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Pactum a couenant but what couenant Refut p. 20. or with whom he expresses nor whether of Christianity or of Widowhood or of Ministration Some of the others that followed him spake according to the Glosse which the corrupt conceit of the Times had set vpon him But what need my Refuter stand vpon particular Authors he sayes when he may bring 214 Bishops all sitting in Councell at Carthage all agreeing in this exposition Refut p. 21. poynting vs to the fourth Councell of Carthage Canone vlt. His Gratian had wont to tell vs for the more Grace that it was in the third Councell of Carthage Can. 4. Now he is taught to change this note So doth C. E. with his Binius tell vs it was the 4. Councell and the last Canon We haue reason to suspect it was in neither The very stile and manner of discourse so different from the rest of those briefe Canons and the fashion of those Times cary in it open likelihood of Bastardie It was an easie fraud to patch it to the end of thoâ—e Canons neither which learned Iunius taught mee first to obserue is it found among the Greeke then which there cannot be a worse signe But that I may at once answer this vaunt of Antiquity and stop the mouth of this Cauiller Let me aske him whether those Fathers whom hee cites
soule in death the same day The same day was Q. Elizabeths Initium Regni her Coronation Ianuary 15 following That leasure enough might be taken in these great affaires the See of Canterbury continued void aboue a yeare At last in the second yeare of Q. Elizabeth 1559 December 17 was Matthew Parker legally consecrated Archb. of Canterbury by foure Bishops William Barlow formerly Bishop of Bathe then elect of Chichester Iohn Scory before of Chichester now elect of Hereford Miles Couerdale Bishop of Exeter Iohn Hodgeskins Suffragan of Bedford Mathew Parker thus irrefragably setled in the Archiepiscopall See with three other Bishops in the same Moneth of December solemnely consecrated Edmund Grindall and Edwin Sands The publike Records are euident and particular relating the Time Sunday morning after Prayers The place Lambeth-Chappell The manner Imposition of hands The consecrators Mathew Cant. William Chichester Iohn Hereford Iohn Bedford The Preacher at the Consecration Alexander Nowell afterwards the worthy Deane of Pauls The Text Take heed to your selves and to all the flocke c. The Communion lastly administred by the Archbishop For Bishop Iewel he was consecrated the Moneth following in the same forme by Mathew Cant. Edmund London Richard Ely Iohn Bedford Lastly for Bishop Horne he was consecrated a whole yeare after this by Mathew Cant. Thomas S. Dauids Edmund London Thomas Couentry and Lichfield The circumstances Time Place Form Preacher Text seuerally recorded The particulars whereof I referre to the faithfull and cleare relation of Master Francis Mason whose learned and full discourse of this subiect might haue satisfied all eyes and stopped all mouthes What incredible impudency is this then for those which pretend not Christianitie onely but the Consecration of God wilfully to raise such shamefull slanders from the pit of Hell to the disgrace of Truth to the disparagement of our holy calling Let me therefore challenge my Detector in this so important a point wherein his zeale hath so farre out-run his wit and with him all the Brats of that proud Harlot that no Church vnder Heauen can shew a more cleere eeuen vncontrolable vntroubled line of the iust succession of her Sacred Orders then this of ours if his Rome for her tyrannous Primacie could bring forth but such Cards the world vvould bee too straight for her He shall maugre be forced to confesse that either there were neuer true Orders in the Church of England which he dares not say or else that they are still Ours The Bishops in the time of King Henry the eight were vndoubted If they left Rome in some corrected opinions their Character was yet by confession a a Quis ignorat Cathol c. similiter Ordinatos verè esse Ordinatos quando Ordinator verè Episcopus fuerat adhuc erat saltem quantum ad characterem Bellar. de Rom. Pont. l. 4. c. 10. indeleble They laid their hands according to Ecclesiasticall constitution vpon the Bishops in King Edwards dayes And they both vpon the Bishops in the beginning of Queene Elizabeths They againe vpon the succeeding Inheritors of their holy Sees and they lastly vpon vs so as neuer man could shew a more certaine and exquisite Pedigree from his great Grand-father then wee can from the acknowledged Bishops of King Henries time and thence vpwards to hundreds of Generations I confesse indeed our Archbishops and Bishops haue wanted some Aaronicall accustrements Gloues Rings Sandals Miters and Pall and such other trash and our inferiours Orders haue wanted Gâ—eazing and Shauing and some other pelting Ceremonies But let C. E. proue these essentiall which we want or those Acts and Formes not essentiall vvhich we haue Et Phyllida solus habeto In the meane time the Church of England is blessed with a true Clergy and glorious and such a one as his Italian generation may impotently enuy and snarle at shall neuer presume to compete vvith in worthinesse and honour And as Doctor Taylor that couragious Martyr said at his parting Blessed bee God for holy Matrimonie SECT XVIII MY Cauiller purposely mistakes my rule of Basil the Great Refut p. 90. 91. and my Text of the Great Apostle whiles from both I resolue thus I passe not what I heare Men or Angels say while I heare God say Let him be the Husband of one Wife he wil needs so construe it as if I tooke this of S. Pauls for a command not for an allowance As if I meant to imply from hence that euery Bishop is bound to haue a Wife Who is so blind as the wilfull Their Leo b b Leo ep 87. abaâ— 85. Tam sacra semper est habita ista Praeceptio calls these words a Preception I did not If hee knew any thing he could not be ignorant that this sense is against the streame of our Church and no lesse then a Grecian errour Who knowes not the extreames of Greece and Rome and the Track of Truth betwixt them both The Greeke Church saith Hee cannot be in holy Orders that is not maried The Romish Church saith He cannot bee in holy Orders that is maried The Church Reformed sayes Hee may bee in holy Orders that is maried and conuertibly Some good friends vvould needs fetch vs into this idle Grecisme and to the societie of the old Frisons c c Espenc lib. 1. de Contin c. 1. and if Saint Ierome take it aright of Vigilantius Espencaeus and Bellarmine and our Rhemists free vs. There is no lesse difference betwixt them and vs then betwixt May and Must Libertie and Necessitie If then Let him be the Husband of one Wife argue that a Bishop may bee a maried man I haue vvhat I would and passe not for the contrarie from Men and Angels We willingly grant vvith Luther that this charge is negatiue Refut p. 91 92. Non velut sanciens dicit saith Chrysostome But this negatiue charge implyes an affirmatiue allowance we seeke for no more As for the authorities which my Detector hath borrowed of his Vncles of Rhemes they might haue beene well spared He tels vs Saint Ierom sayes Qui vâ—am habuerit non habeat He who hath had one Wife not hee that hath one I tell him Saint Paul saith d d Tit. 1.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any man be the Husband of one Wife not If hee haue beene Let e e Chrysost in 1. Tit. homil 2. Saint Chrysostome therein answer Hierome and Epiphanius and all other pretended opposites Obstruere prorsus intendit haereticorum era qui nuptias damnaâ—t c. He purpos'd in this to stop the mouthes of Heretikes that condemned mariage shewing that that estate is faultlesse yea so precious that with it a man might bee aduanced to the holy Episcopall Chaire Thus he whom their learned f f Esp vbi supra Bishop Espencaeus seconds and by the true force of the Text cleareth this sense against all contradiction Nec enim Paulini de Episcopis c. For
some points necessarily vnsound whose ingenuity yet in this businesse I haue formerly shewed SECT XXVIII Refut p. 118. FRom the practice of the Apostles which is yet cleare for vs we descended to their Canons It troubles my Refuter that I say the Romish Church fathers these vpon the Apostles and that their Iesuit Turrian sweats to defend it insinuating my contrary opinion and yet that I cite them for my selfe whereas his wisdome might haue considered that their force is no whit lesse strong against them notwithstanding our doubt or denyall For example The Trent Canons rore terribly to them to vs or the French they are but as the Pot-guns of Boyes wee may cite these to them as Gospell they may cite them to vs as Alchoran By this it appeares how farre not onely Schoole-learning but euen Logicke transcends this poore Refuters capacity who could not distinguish betweene disputing ad rem and ad hominem What I sayd in my Epistle to my reuerend and worthy friend Master Doctor Iames the incomparably industrious and learned Bibliothecary of Oxford a man whom their Posseuine thought so well of that he hath handsomely stolne a booke of his and clapt it out for his owne a man whom so base a Tongue as my Detectors cannot disgrace I professe still that I hold those Canons of the Apostles vncanonicall And doe I hold this alone Doth not his Pope Gelasius so Doth not Isidore Bishop of Hispalis so Doth not Leo the Ninth so Are not some of them at pleasure reiected by Posseuine Baronius Bellarmine Or in a word if they be the true issue of the Apostles Can. 65 67 c. are they accordingly respected and obserued of the Roman Church Doth not his g g Mic. Med. de sacr hom Contin l 5. Vix sex â—ut octo Latiâ— a Ecclesia nunc obseruat Medina grant to their shame that the Latine Church scarce obserues six or eight of them These Canons then I doe not hold Apostolicall I doe hold ancient and not vnworthy of respect and such as I wonder they haue escaped the Roman Purgations As for those other nine or ten noted Counterfeits which I ioyned herewith for company in that Epistle his shame would serue him to iustifie if his leasure would whereas there is scarce one of them whom his owne Authors haue not branded My Refuter must haue a fling Ref. p. 120 121. vsque ad 125. In an idle excursion therefore he iustly rayles on the Protestant practice in reiecting those Fathers for Bastardie one while whom otherwhiles they cite for curraÌ„t when his own eminent impudency in the very passage next going before and in the next following to goe no further offends in the same kind The truth is The Protestants take libertie to refuse those Fathers whom euen ingenuous Papists haue censured as base The Papists take libertie when they list to reiect the authority of those Fathers whose truth they cannot deny The instances hereof would be endlesse But with what face can any Papist taxe vs for this when all the World may see aboue three hundred and twenty of their Authors whom after the first allowance they haue either suppressed or censured To their eternall and open conuiction Doctor Iames whom they may reuile but shall neuer answer hath collected and published the names and pages SECT XXIX NOt to follow therefore this babling vagary of my Aduersary against Zuinglius Refu p. 126 127. Apost Can. 5. Luther Musculus Whitakers what Puppy cannot barke at a dead Lyon we come close to the Canon That no Bishop Presbyter or Deacon shall forsake or cast off his Wife in pretence of Religion or Pietie vpon paine of deposition Wherewith how much my Refuter is pressed appeares in that hee is faine with Baronius to auoyd it with Apocryphorum non est tanta authoritas There is no so great authority in Apocryphall Canons Where is the man that euen now vpbrayded vs with the lawlesse reiection of ancient Records and by name would vndertake to iustifie those whom my Epistle taxed for adulterine whereof these Canons of the Apostles were a part now hee is faine to change his note Apocryphorum non est tanta authoritas Hee hath cast off Ignatius already anon you shall find him reiecting Socrates Sozomen Nicephorus Gratian Sigebert H. Huntingdon and whom not vpon euery occasion shamelesly practizing that which he censures If Lalleage the sixth generall Councell that of Constantinople proclaming this sense truely Apostolicall euen the sixth generall Councell is reiected as neither sixth nor generall nor Councell That this Apostolicall Canon is bent against the deniall of Matrimoniall conuersation is apparantly expressed in those Canons of Constantinople how-euer the extent of it in regard of some persons is restrained There is no way therefore to vntie this knot but by cutting it and my cauilling Priest with his Iesuits may gnaw long enough vpon this bone ere they sucke in any thing from hence but the blood of their owne iawes Any of those words single might be auoided but so set together will abide no elusion Let him not vpon pretence of Religion eiect his Wife The shift that C. E. borrowes from Bellarmine is grosse Refut p. 128. and such as his owne heart cannot trust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he that is * * In pâ—â—tence of headinesse praetextu cautionis Looke ouer all the Copies all interpretatioÌ„s of these Canons that of Dionysius Exiguus that of Gentianus Heruetus that of Caranza that which Gratian whom my either gracelesse or ignorant aduersarie dares name against me citeth from hence all of them runne praetextu religionis How cleere is that of their owne h h Dist 28. Sub obtentu religionis propriam vxorem cortemnere Law Si quis docuit Sacerdotem c. If any man shall teach that a Priest vnder pretence of Religion may contemne his owne Wife let him be accursed And Zonaras whom both our Iunius and their Espencaeus cite out of Quintinus his Exposition is most cleere Hoc enim videtur in calumniam fieri nuptiarum c. For this eiection saith he would seeme to bee done in reproach of mariage as if the Matrimoniall knowledge of Man and Wife caused any vncleannesse Thus he Where it is plaine that he takes it not of maintenance but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Coniugall act The necessity of which sense also is euicted by their owne * * Espenc l. 1. de Câ—nt c. 4. Espencaeus out of Saint Chrysostome in his second Homily vpon Titus And i i In Canon Apost in Phot. in noâ—o Can. Balsamon no lesse directly Because saith he before that Law of Iustinian it was lawfull for a man vpon any cause to diuorce his Wife therefore the present Canon giues charge that it shall not be lawfull for a Bishop Priest or Deacon vpon pretence of Pietie to put away his Wife Thus he From all which it is not hard to
condition She watches for them all and breakes her mid-night sleepe to preuent their last One wise and faithfull person does well in an house where all are carelesse there is no comfort but in perishing together It had been an ill nature in Rahab if she had been content to be saued alone that her loue might be a match to her faith shee couenants for all her Family and so returnes life to those of whom shee receiued it But the bond of nature and of grace will draw al ours to the participation of the same good with our selues It had been neuer the better for the Spies if after this nights lodging they had been turned out of doores to the hazard of the way For so the pursuers had light vpon them and preuented their returne with their death Rahabs counsell therefore was better then her harbour which sent them no doubt with victuals in their hands to seek safety in the mountaines till the heat of that search were past He that hath giuen vs charge of our liues will not suffer vs to cast them vpon wilfull aduentures Had not these Spyes hid themselues in those Desart hils Israel had wanted directors for their enterprises There is nothing more expedient for the Church then that some of Gods faithfull messengers should withdraw themselues and giue way to persecutions Courage in those that must die is not a greater aduantage to the Gospell then a prudent retiring of those which may suruiue to maintaine and propagate it It was a iust and reasonable transaction betwixt them that her life should bee saued by them which had saued theirs They owe no lesse to her to whom they were not so much ghests as prisoners And now they passe not their promise onely but their oath They were strangers to Rahab and for ought she knew might haue been godlesse yet she dares trust her life vpon their oath So sacred and inuiolable hath this bond euer beene that an heathen woman thought her selfe secure vpon the oath of an Israelite Neither is she more confident of their oath taken then they are carefull both of taking and performing it So farre are they from desiring to salue vp any breach of promise by equiuocation that they explaine all conditions and would preuent all possibilities of violation All Rahabs Family must be gathered into her house and that red cord which was an instrument of their deliuerie must be a signe of hers Behold this is the sauing colour The destroying Angell sees the doore-cheekes of the Israelites sprinkled with red and passes them ouer The Warriours of Israel see the window of Rahab dyed with red and saue her Family from the common destruction If our soules haue this tincture of the precious blood of our Sauiour vpon our doores or windows we are safe But if any 〈…〉 the brethren of Rahab shall fly from this red flag and roue about the City and not containe himselfe vndet that roofe which hid the Spyes it is vaine for him to tell the auengers that he is Rahabs brother That title will not saue him in the street within doores it will If we will wander out of the limits that God hath set vs we cast our selues out of his protection we cannot challenge the benefit of his gracious Preseruation and our most precious Redemption when we fly out into the by-wayes of our owne hearts Not for innocence but for safety and harbour the Church is that house of Rahab which is saued when all Iericho shall perish Whiles we keepe vs in the lists thereof we cannot miscary through mis-mis-opinion but when once we runne out of it let vs looke for iudgement from God and errour in our owne iudgement Of Jordan diuided THe two Spies returned with newes of the victory that should be I doe not heare them say The Land is vnpeopled or the people are vnfurnished with armes vnskilfull of the discipline of warre but They faint because of vs therefore their Land is ours Either successe or discomfiture begins euer at the heart A mans inward disposition doth more then presage the euent As a man raises vp his owne heart before his fall and depresses it before his glory so God raises it vp before his exaltation and casts it downe before his ruine It is no otherwise in our spirituall conflicts If Satan see vs once faint hee giues himselfe the day There is no way to safety but that our hearts bee the last that shall yeeld That which the heathens attributed to Fortune we may iustly to the hand of God That he speedeth those that are forward All the ground that we lose is giuen to our aduersaries This newes is brought but ouer-night Ioshua is on his way by morning and preuents the Sunne for haste Delayes whether in the businesse of God or our owne are hatefull and preiudiciall Many a one loses the Land of Promise by lingring if we neglect Gods time it is iust with him to crosse vs in ours Ioshua hastens till he haue brought Israel to the verge of the promised Land Nothing parts them now but the riuer of Iordan There he stayes a time that the Israelites might feed themselues a while with the sight of that which they should afterwards enioy That which they had beene forty yeares in seeking may not be seized vpon too suddenly God loues to giue vs cooles and heats in our desires and will so allay our ioyes that their fruition hurt vs not He knowes that as it is in meats the long forbearance where of causes a surfet when we come to full feed so it fares in the contentments of the mind therefore he feeds vs not with the dish but with the spoon and will haue vs neither cloyed nor famished If the mercy of God haue brought vs within fight of heauen let vs bee content to pause a while and vpon the banks of Iordan fit our selues for our entrance Now that Israel is brought to the brim of Canaan the cloud is vanished which led them all the way And as soone as they haue but crossed Iordan the Manna ceaseth which nourisht them all the way The cloud and Manna were for their passage not for their rest for the Wildernesse not for Canaan It were as easie for God to worke miracles alwayes but he knowes that custome were the way to make them no miracles He goes by wayes but till he haue brought vs into the Roade and then he refers vs to his ordinary proceedings That Israelite should haue beene very foolish that would still haue said I will not stirre till I see the cloud I wil not eate vnlesse I may haue that food of Angels Wherefore serues the Arke but for their direction Wherefore serues the Wheat of Canaan but for bread So fond is that Christian that will still depend vpon expectation of miracles after the fulnesse of Gods Kingdome If God beare vs in his armes when we are children yet when we are well-growne he looks we should goe on our owne