Reader to set down here the particular sayings of every one of them And if ye had formed your arguments out of them I should have formed my answer by the grace of God to every one of them And thus much concerning your ground and the proofs of it Now I come to that which ye gather of it SECTION IV. Whither the Church of Rome be the only true Church and the Reformed not true Churches OF this we collect that our Church must be the only true Church and not theirs because ours hath never been interrupted nor hath failed in any substantial point of faith and Religion since Christ and his Apostles dayes and theirs hath done To confirm this I say that M. John nor no Minister in Scotland can be able to assign to us the circumstances of all mutations and changes in Religion That is to say 1. The author who first began our Religion 2. The time when it was begun 3. The place where it began 4. The true Church who said against the same 5. The matter it self which was changed or begun 6. Nor the faithful number from whom they departed All these things we shal assign to their Religion and that since Christ and his Apostles 1. The first auâ—hor of their Religion albeit not in all things was Martin Luther an Augustine Frier 2. He began his Religion in the year of God 1517. 3. He began the same in Saxony in the countrey of Almanie 4. The Church of Rome Italie France Spain Scotland England Denmark Sweden Pole a great part of Almanie with the east and west Indies which were the true Church said against him 5. The heads of Religion which he first said against were Pardons He affirmed that man was only justified by Faith He denied the Supper of our Lord to be a sacrifice c. 6. He departed himself from all the Christian Churches in Europe in the Indies and other places and therefore he had no predecessors of his own Religion as we read in the Apologie of the English Protestants that he and Zuinglius were the first that came to the knowledge of the Evangel and therefore none immediatly before them Then seeing that there was none of his profession in the earth before him immediatly neither visible nor invisible he and his could not be the Church of Christ for it hath ever stood and never failed no not the space of one day universally because our Savior saith I shal be with you every day to the consummation of the world M. John Welsch his Reply As to your collection the form of it must be this That Church only must be the true Church that hath never been interrupted nor failed in any substantial head of faith and Religion since Christ and his Apostles But say ye yours is such and ours not Therefore your Church is the true Church and ours not The proposition I grant But all the controversie lyes in the probation of your assumption Yea in stead of proving ye say it is not possible to me nor to no Minister in Scotland to assign to you the circumstances of all mutations and changes in your Religion as the person time place c. And then ye attempt to assign all these circumstances of our Religion upon the which ye conclud the falsehood of it So we will first see how ye prove your own and then see how ye disprove ours Indeed this argument of yours is of such account with you that there are not many of your Writers but they have set it as it were in the vant-guard of their host and among the greatest of their strengths and bulwarks for to uphold their ruinous Babel So Hammilton and Hay in their demands to the Ministers of Scotland so Campion so Duraeus Scotus against Whitaker in his defence so your Rhemists upon the 28. of the Acts and on 1. John 2. and so Bellarmin lib. 4. de Eccles cap. 5. Whereby it may be seen of what account this argument of yours is in the judgement of your Church But to answer to your argument first I say If there be no mutations or changes in your Religion since Christ and his Apostles then your Religion and doctrine will be one with that which is set down in the Scripture of God For you will not deny I hope but the Scripture doth sufficiently testifie what doctrine and Religion was in Christs and his Apostles dayes And so let it once be put in the ballance of the Scripture and tryed thereby and then I hope it will soon be made manifest how far it is changed So and you dare M. Gilbert let once your Religion be set upon the pannel and let it once have an assise of the Scripture and then the plea will end I hope Next I say it will not follow We cannot assign all the circumstances of changes in your Religion Therefore your Religion is uncorrupted For it suffiseth if we can prove the first only that is the matter or doctrine it self which is changed and that by comparing it with the Scriptures of God suppose we could not assign all the rest of the circumstances of the mutation as the time place author c. for the changes of many things are most notorious and yet all the circumstances of the change thereof not known We say then it is not needful to seek the beginnings and circumstances of the decays and corruptions in your Church when the corruption and change it self is so manifest by comparing your doctrine with the written Word of God that it cannot be denyed For will you say that he who is deadly diseased is whole and sound because I cannot tell you the first article of time the place and first occasion of the disease When it is manifest that a city is full of misorder and confusion will ye say that ye will not believe it to be so unless you know the first beginnings and progress of these misorders If you saw a ruinous house would ye say Prove me and tell me all the circumstances of the change of it otherwise I will not believe it Will ye deny that a ship could be drowned unless it were told you all the circumstances of the change of the leck where through it drowned If any found a man fallen in a pit shal he not believe that he is fallen whom nevertheless he sees to be there unless it were told him when and by whom he was cast into the same Even so will ye not believe or will ye hinder all others to believe that your Church and Religion is ruinous consumed rotten dead drowned and full of misorder heresie and confusion unless the first beginnings of these changes can be told you We say therefore it is sufficient to prove the ruine and consumption of your Church and Religion if by comparing your doctrine with the truth of God in the Scripture we make evident the direct opposition betwixt them suppose we could not assign all the circumstances of the change of
be the beast Rev. 13.11 and your head to be the Antichrist your doctrine to be delusions 2. Thess 2.3.4.11 and your Rome to be that mystical Babylon Rev. 18 4. And so the Lord hath made them believe and give obedience to that commandment of his Go out of her my people c. That ye call these the true Church that spake against him that lyes in the weights and ballance yet betwixt us For ere ye prove them to be the true Church ye must first prove your doctrine which they then professed to have the warrant out of the Word of God So let them have the name of a Church but of an impure and corrupted Church of a Church infected by the pest of your doctrine oppressed by the tyranny of your Pope and Clergy and consumed by the rotten humors of your Idolatry So then it was not the true Church that is the called ones by the light of the Gospel for they are the true Church that spake against him but only these that were infected and poysoned with your abominations the which I grant did over-spread these Nations as it was fore-told of her Rev. 17.2 and 18.3 and 13.14 And as for these first heads of Religion which he oppugned Of your pardons justification by works and the sacrifice of the Mass their condemnation is set down in the great Register and Testament of Jesus Christ the Lord of life as shal be proved hereafter So that he was not the first that oppugned them Now as to the last the Churches from whom he departed he departed not from their body but from the consumption of your heresie that consumed the body Not from the Church but from the corruptions of your Idolatry and abominations in the Church Not from the Commonwealth of Israel but from your tyranny and oppression of the Commonwealth Not from the city of God but from the pest of your doctrine that infected the city And last of all not from the spiritual communion and society of the Saints of God in these parts but from the communion with Babel with Antichrist with the beast and with the dragon and that at the commandment of the Lord Flie from idolatry Go out of Babel my people 1. Tim. 6.3.4.5 Matth. 7.15 Acts 19. and 8.9 1. Cor. 10.14 2. Cor. 5.14.15.16.17.18 Hosea 4.15 Rev. 18.4 Now after you have assigned the mutations of our Religion since Christ and his Apostles as you think you gather the whole force of it together and makes the stream of your argument to run as strongly as it can upon our Church and Religion that the face and form of it might be so washen away that it be not known to be a true Church Your reason then is this The true Church of Christ hath never failed universally for the space of one day because our Savior hath promised to be with it to the end of the world But our Church was never before Martin Luthers dayes therefore it is not the true Church of Christ As to your proposition if ye take failing for erring in matters of doctrine then I deny your proposition for I hope I have proved sufficiently before that the Church both may err and hath erred in all ages But if you take failing to be utterly abolished and rooted out of the face of the earth then I grant your proposition that God hath ever a Church the Church of his elect with whom he will be to the end of the world And as to your assumption that our Church was never before Martin Luthers dayes I deny it Let us see how ye prove it There was none say ye before his dayes neither visible nor invisible that professed his Religion But how do ye prove that for that is still denied to you For if your Religion hath the Old and New Testament to bear witness to it and Jesus Christ to be the author of it in every point as shal be made manifest by the grace of God then I say whosoever they were from the beginning of the world to this day visible or invisible that professed the true Jesus the true Savior his true doctrine and Sacraments wherein Religion stands they are our predecessors and are of our profession and Religion so then ye should first if ye had gone squarely to work have disproved the heads of our Religion not to have their warrant from the tables of Christs Testament ere ye had concluded that we had none of our profession and Religion before Martin Luther And this is the point you should have begun at for it is not the Church that makes the Religion but the Religion that makes the Church Have we a warrant out of the Word of God for our Religion then are we the true Church and the successors of all them who ever from the beginning of the world have professed the same Have we not this warrant then I grant you we have no true Church So there is the point of our controversie whither our doctrine be from God out of his Word or not But how prove ye that Martin Luther had none of his profession before him First you gathered upon the former things that all the true Churches said against him and that he departed from them unto the which I answered before that these was not the true Church but only so many of every Nation who was deceived by your doctrine and whereof the Lord did cure a great many by his ministery and by the ministery of others whom the Lord did stir up since so that neither did the true Church who saw the truth speak against nor yet did he depart from their societie Next as the Lord had a true Church in Israel in the time of Elias even these who did not bow their knee to Baal 1. Kings 19 10.18 who was neither known to Elias the Prophet nor yet to the persecuters so did the Lord in the midst of your darkness and Idolatry reserve to himself a true Church even these hundred forty and four thousand which John saw standing with the Lamb on mount Sion Rev. 14 1. who did not defile themselves with your Idolatry and did not worship the beast and receive his mark which suppose neither ye nor we had known yet the Lord did reserve them as he promised Thirdly I say Martin Luther had sundry who professed his Religion immediatly before him who was even known to the world as I shal prove afterward Your next proof is taken from a testimony of one of our own Writers where ye alledge that it is written of Martin Luther and Zuinglius that they were the first that came to the knowledge of the Gospel I say ye are not faithful in citing of this testimony for it saith not that they were the first that came to the knowledge of the Gospel but these are the words That it was an easie thing to them meaning of your Church to devise against us meaning the English Protestants as ye call them these cursed speaches
when Martin Luther and Zuinglius first came to the Gospel The Latin words are cum Martinus Luther Zuinglius primum accessissent ad Evangelium So it saith not that they were the first that came to the Gospel but that it was easie to you to spew out cursed speaches when they came first to the Gospel So that this word primum that is first is not in comparison with them that knew the Gospel before but in comparison with that time in the which they themselves knew not the Gospel It is an adverb of time and you take it for an adjective noun But there is a vail over your eyes that ye can neither see what we or your selves writes So then to conclud seeing the Religion which Martin Luther taught hath the warrant from Christs Testament and seeing all that ever professed the true Religion that hath Christ to be the author of it in his Scripture visible or invisible are his predecessors Therefore the Religion which Martin Luther taught was the true Religion And seeing your Religion hath not Christ to be the author of it in his latter Testament but is that apostasie and defection that Antichristian Kingdom that was fore-spoken of in the Scripture Therefore I conclud that your Church and Religion which he oppugned is not the true Church and Religion but that Antichristian Kingdom And this for the first part of your objection Now we come to the second M. Gilbert Brown As for the other part of the objection which he alledges to be ours that is that our Religion was never said against we say not so for why all hereticks and others infected with false doctrine have ever said against the same almost at all times For how soon that Christ our Savior planted the truth the Devil immediatly sew popple in the same according to the parable set down in S. Matthew M. John Welsch his Reply I come now to that part which ye say is untruly alledged of you which moved you to say that either I knew not your proofs or if I knew them that I altered the same that I might the better oppugn my own invention Of my knowledge of your proofs I will speak nothing But let us see whither this be my invention or not or rather your own proof You for the confirmation of the truth of your Church and Religion brought in this as a proof that I nor no Minister in Scotland was able to assign the true Church that spake against it Either then ye prove nothing or else this must be one of your proofs because it was never spoken against by a true Church Now compare these words with mine and see whither I speak ignorantly or untruly of your proofs I said that ye affirmed your Religion to be true because it was never spoken against Here our words are one except this that ye add be a true Church I understand the same and therefore I gave the instances first of Christ and his Apostles next of the primitive Church thirdly of these that lived in Popery which spake against your Religion all which I appeal your conscience whither think ye that I judge them a true Church or not Now in that ye expound it otherwise of hereticks this is neither my words nor meaning but your own invention So that by this it may appear that either ye have not understood my words alledging your objection or else ye have altered the meaning of the same that ye might the more easily answer to your own inventions and gain-say my words M. John Welsch his Answer to the objection Your Religion of the Roman Church was never instistituted nor preached neither by Christ nor by his Apostles as I offer me to prove by their writings which is the only touchstone whereby all Religion should be and must be tryed M. Gilbert Brown I think in this M. John takes upon him an impossibility for it is said that it is impossible to prove a negative proposition except it be set down in the Word of God which is of authority and that I am sure he cannot find because Papistry by him is not so old as the Word of God is But in the mean time M. John proves nothing He offers very fair and when ever he proves any thing contrary to us with Gods grace he shal get an answer And note here that M. John can say nothing to our argument for to it he gives no answer M. John Welsch his Reply In your answer to this Section First ye think it impossible because of the form of it Next ye say it is but an offer and I prove nothing Thirdly that I answer nothing to your argument nor can answer nothing Now of all these in order And first to the form ye think it impossible to prove because it is a negative proposition Is not this a negative proposition that the Popes of Rome are not the Antichrist You cannot deny it Again I ask is this sentence to be found in the whole Scripture I suppose ye will never be able to find it Then I say if it be true that ye say then ye your self in your book and this your answer and Bellarmin lib. 3. de Rom. Pont. and Sanderus 40. demonstrations and all the rest of you that takes in hand to prove the Pope not to be the Antichrist takes in hand in your judgement an impossibility and so do you indeed not because it is a negative proposition but because he is the Antichrist in very truth What would the Pope your head think of you if he heard you say so Certainly I think he would not inrol your name among the defenders of his Catholick faith whereof this is the foundation Secondly is there not many formal syllogisms that have the proposition or assumption negatives and will you say they cannot be proved if the matter be true because they are negatives What is this but to raise the foundation of Logick and Raison Logick is not Rhetorick and Physick is not Logick both these are negative propositions and I suppose neither of them are so found in the Scripture and will you say that it is impossible to prove them because they are negatives What you mean by this I understand not unless you do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strive about words prove and improve forbidden by the Apostle 2. Tim. 2.14 Thirdly ye except these negative propositions which are set down in the Word of God which hath authority as ye say I assume But your Religion in substance is condemned in the Word of God therefore by your own confession it may be proved suppose it be negative For Nazianzen saith lib. 5. de Theologia That these sentences that are collected out of the Scripture by a necessary consequence are of the same truth and authority with these sentences that are expresly set down in the Scripture And whereas ye say Papistrie by me is not so old as the Scripture I grant that What then Therefore it is not
was 630. Bishops Of Constantinople 6. Canon 36. anno 681. where there was 289. Bishops Of Nicene 2. Canon 1. anno 781. where was present 350. Bishops Of Constantinople 8. Canon 27. anno where was present 383. Bishops anno 870. Of the Council of Constance Sess 4.5 where was a thousand Fathers almost anno 1418. And of Basel Sess 2.18 anno 1431. all General Councils condemning your Popes Supremacy as your Church now affirms of him some more some less And also it is condemned by Provincial Councils as of Antioch Canon 6.12.13.14.15.19.20 and of Carthage 2. Canon 12. anno 404. and 3. confirmed in the General Council of Trullan Canon 26. and 6. and by the Council of Milevis Canon 22. condemned also by the Universities of Paris Appellat Univers Paris olione 10. ad futur Concil infastic rerum expe ca. fugi and Lovane Aeneas Sylvius de gestis Basil Concil lib. 1. and Colen and Vienna Histor de Europa cap. 22. and Cracovia Comer de rebus Polonorum lib. 21. So then by the authority of Councils General and Provincial and of Universities the Monarchie and Superioritie of the Pope over all General Councils is disallowed And suppose the Churches of France and Germany did honor them and gave them some preeminence both of honor and power being blinded at that time with the smoke that came out of the bottomless pit yet it may appear by their supplication ad Ludovicum 11. pro libertate Ecclesiae Gallicanae adversus Rom. aulam defensio Parisiensis curiae Gravamina nationis Germaniae exhibita Maxim 1. that they did not allow that full Monarchie of his but misliked it and hated the same yea France made laws against it in Conventu Bituricensi Now these are such whom your selves do hold for Catholicks and yet they acknowledged not the Monarchie of your Pope The Churches of Graecia and of Asia in the East Chalcon conc de reb Turc lib. 1. 6. and of Muscovia Jovius in Muscovia in the North and of Ethiopia in the South Alvarez in descriptione Aethiopiae cap. 77. 83. and of Boheme Aeneas Sylvius hist Bohem. cap. 32. Provence Sleydan comment lib. 16. Piemont M. Fox in the acts and monuments lib. 7. And the Reformed Churches that are this day in France Flanders England Scotland and so forth throughout Europe all have condemned your Popes Supremacie So that if his Supremacie were to be put to tryal by the judgement and will of men so many thousands of Pastors Doctors Synods Councils Universities and Churches through all ages in all Countreys of all sorts and estats may suffice to put the Pope from his Supremacie So that I think you may blush M. Gilbert that hath so boldly written that he hath been alwayes acknowledged by the visible Church to be the visible Head of the Church seeing his Monarchie was never fully acknowledged until the Lateran Council under Leo the 10. 1516. years after Christ But seeing the Word of God is the only just tryal of it and seeing it is not written in the book of life therefore I conclud that his Supremacie is not a citizen of that new Jerusalem but a child of Babel and therefore they are blessed that shal dash it against the stones M. Gilbert Brown That the Church at any time may be invisible it is repugnant to the Word of God in many places and to M. John also For he gives examples afterward of sundry as he saith that was of his Religion and opponed themselves to the Pope and his Clergy and that saith he when he was come to the hight If the true Church opponed its self to the Antichristian Church then it was visible and known and if it was known when the Popes Kingdom was at the highest much more when it was low and so it was always known by M. Johns self Master John Welsch his Reply Whether oppugn ye your own imagination M. Gilbert here or that which I write If the first then you are foolish who fight against your self as ye do indeed If the second then I say that which I said was this That no man should think that the Church of God was ever open and visible in that flowrishing estat as it is now For this is our doctrine concerning the invisibility of the Church the which because you know not therefore you stumble at it and oppugns only your own invention and not our doctrine and therefore your reasons and Scriptures which ye bring here serve to no purpose for they make nothing against us We say that the Catholick Church which comprehends all the elect is always invisible both because the principal part thereof is in heaven and also because the senses of men cannot discern who are true members of the Catholick Church here their effectual calling their faith love hope and inward graces their union with Christ their Head their spiritual armor weapons and warfare and their Head Christ Jesus and their whole glorie is inward and invisible and they shal never be seen all gathered together until that great day Ephes 5.25.26.27.32 Psal 45.13 John 10.27 2. Tim. 2.19 Luke 11.28 Matth. 7. Ephes 6.12 2. Cor. 12.3.4 So that suppose they may be seen outwardlie as they are men and sometimes in respect of their outward ministerie yet in so far as they are a part of the Catholick Church that is in so far as they are chosen and sanctified c. as hath been said they cannot be discerned by the senses of men and so are invisible Next we say that the particular visible Churches are not always in one outward estat sometimes outwardlie glorious sometimes more obscure sometimes openly known and seen by all sometimes known and seen but by a few sometimes frequent and consisting in many sometimes rare and consisting in few sometimes adorned with outward ornaments of peace largeness outward glory and multitude sometimes again wanting this outward glory under persecution but yet having that inward glory of these inward graces So that when we say these particular Churches are sometimes invisible we do not mean as though they were known to none for that is not our doctrine M. Gilbert as ye imagine but that they are not so openly known that they are patent to all to be the true Church but known unto them with whom they have to do and who profess the truth with them Yea sometimes some of them are known unto the very persecuters and enemies by their constancy and perseverance in their sufferings suppose they allow not their profession And in this state was the Church of Israel in the time of Elias when he complained that he knew none left but himself of the true worshippers of God 1. Kings 19.10 And the Church of Juda in the days of Achaz and Manasseh Kings of Judah 2. Chron. 28.24 2. Kings 16.10 And such like in the time of Christ both in the time of his living among them as also in the time of his death and resurrection the Church
a notable sentence to this purpose It is to be wished saith he where heresie flowrishes that all these who have any gift of writing that they all write suppose they should write not only of the self-same matters or questions but also the self-same things or arguments suppose perchance in other words For saith he it is expedient that Hereticks understand that there are not only one or two but many in the camps of the Catholicks who dare with open face meet them And he saith There is another commodity that comes by the writing of many to wit that by this means the Catholicks books themselves are more shortly and easily brought unto the hands of all men so that while as some fall upon one and some fall upon others yet notwithstanding they are all instructed to use the same weapons in their common dangers The which how fitly it agrees unto this purpose of mine I leave it to the judgement of all men who know the estat of this blinded Countrey wherein that darkness of the Antichristian Kingdom is so far spred the confident brags of the adversary are so universally credited the people scattered as sheep without shepherdâ— Matth. 9.36 lying wide open to all the assaults of the Devil and the deceits of these ravenous wolves and their hands so full of Papistical books the deadly weapons of their own destruction without any one book almost for ought that I know whereby either these that are perverted may be revoked from their errors or these that are assaulted may be sustained from yeelding to the adversary or those that are weak may be confirmed Not unlike the miserable estate wherein the Hebrews were brought unto through the tyranny of the Philistims wanting both sword and spear in the time of their warfare having no smiths in their whole land whereby they were compelled to go to their enemies to sharpen their cowter and sock and other instruments 1. Sam. 13.19.20 22. Now as for the work it self I say nothing of it but only recommend it to the blessing of GOD in all your hearts and consciences The which also hath been my earnest desire to GOD from the first time that I put in hand to the pen continually that his effectual presencâ— might be joyned therewith both to convict the contraâ—â— minded and to confirm the godly Read ye it therefâ—â—â— with that affection of heart wherewith it was written anâ— desire ye that blessing in the reading of it as I did in thâ— writing of it and then I hope through GODS blessing ye shal reap some profit by it Now the GOD of all mercy and the Father of all light illuminat all our eyes more and more and cause the light of his glorious Gospel to shine in our hearts and bless all the means thereof that we may be the children of light here and may be partakers of that everlasting weight of glory hereafter in CHRIST JESUS Amen From Air the 18. December 1602. Yours in the Lord M. Iohn Welsch Preacher of Christs Gospel AN INDEX OF THE SECTIONS of M. Welsch Treatise SEction I. The Introduction page 1. Section II. Whither the Church of Rome be a true Church page 4 Section III. Concerning the infallibility of the Church and her immunity from error page 12 Section IV. Whither the Church of Rome be the only true Church and the Reformed not true Churches page 44 Section V. Concerning the Judge of Controversies namely Whither God speaking in the Scriptures be Judge of Controversies page 71 Section VI. Concerning the necessity of Baptism to Infants page 85 Section VII Whither a man by the help of the grace of God may perfectly keep the Commandments page 93 Section VIII Whither a man by his free-will may resist the will of God page 104 Section IX Concerning transubstantiation and Christs real and substantial body and blood in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper page 106 Section X. Concerning the sacrifice of the Mass page 131 Section XI Concerning the degrees and means whereby the sacrifice of the Mass crap in page 170 Section XII Of the manifold abuses of the Mass page 189 Section XIII Concerning Confession and Absolution by the Priest page 219 Section XIV Of Extreme-unction whither it be a Sacrament page 2â—1 Section XV. Concerning Imposition of hands whither it be a Sacrament page 226 Section XVI Concerning Marriage whither it be a Sacrament page 231 Section XVII Concerning the merit of Good Works page 240 Section XVIII Concerning works of Supererogation page 246 Section XIX Concerning Christs descending into Hell page 253 Section XX. Concerning the difference betwixt Popery and the Reformed Religion page 258 Section XXI Concerning Justification by Faith page 263 Section XXII Concerning the authority of the Fathers page 270 Section XXIII Concerning the visibility of the Church and which â—he visible Church may make defection page 278 Section XXIV Where our Religion was before Luther Or a Catalogue of them who professed our Religion in the midst of Popery page 314 Section XXV That the Reformed Churches have not renewed old condemned Heresies page 328 Section XXVI That the Church of Rome renewed and maintaineth old condemned Heresies page 337 Section XXVII Concerning Antichrist page 343 Section XXVIII That the Pope is Antichrist page 346 An Index of the Sections contained in M. Crafords Treatise SEction I. Showing that the principles of Papists are bloody treasonable and rebellious against the person and authority of Princes and peace of Kingdoms And the excuses of H. T. the Author of the Manual of Controversies are proved to be frivolous page 445 Section II. Showing that no Oath or Bond can oblige a Papist and that they hold it as a principle that no faith is to be kept to Hereticks page 457 Section III. Showing that the Pope and Synagogue of Rome have been the grand Authors of Warrs and Combustions and Confusions in the Christian world both before and since the Reformation page 465 Section IV. That the continual practise of Papists ever since the Reformation hath been to plot and practise bloody and treasonable Conspiracies Affassinations and Murders both of Princes and People who profeâ— the Reformed Religion page 474 Section V. Containing some instances in particular of the barbarous and inhumane cruelty of Papists to Protestants where they had the power over them page 490 The Conclusion Holding forth the hazard that the Churches of Britain and Ireland are in of being ruined by Antichrist page 5â—8 A LEARNED PIOUS AND ELABORAT Treatise wherein many of the greatest and weightiest points of Controversie betwixt the Reformed Churches and Papists are solidly debated and the truth of the doctrine of the Reformed Churches especially of the Churches of Scotland evidently demonstrated and the falshood and error of the Popish Religion and doctrine plainly discovered and solidly refuted by Scripture Fathers and also by some of their own Popes Doctors Cardinals and other Popish Writers By way of Reply to one M. Gilbert Brown Priest SECTION I. THE
INTRODVCTION M. Gilbert Brown An Answer to a certain Libel or Writing sent by M. JOHN WELSCH to a Catholick as an Answer to an objection of the Roman Church c. I received a little scrol which was sent to you by M. John Welsch Minister at Kirkubright in the which there is much promised and little done And because it may appear to some to be something I will God willing answer the same in particular M. John Welsch his Reply AS to your judgement and censure of this my answer to your objection wherein ye think there is much promised and little done I do not regard it For so long as your heart is bewitched with the pleasures of Babel your light is but darkness so while the Lord anoint your eyes with that eye-salve promised in the Revelation 3. and purge your heart by faith ye cannot discern of things different and give upright judgement What I promised I am now by the grace of God ready to perform And whether it was something or nothing much or little that I did let work bear witness and let them that love the truth judge M. Gilbert Brown First he tittles his libel An answer to an objection of the Roman Church whereby they go about to deface the verity of that only true Religion which we profess God forbid that we Catholicks whom he calls the Roman Church seeing that we are the only defenders of the truth as our predecessors the Pastors of the true Church was before us should go about to deface the truth But we go about to impugn all false doctrine repugnant to the truth as the holy Fathers of the primitive Church did before us against the hereticks in their dayes as Ireneus Cyprian Ambrose Augustine Hierome Basile Gregory Chrysostome with the rest of the true Pastors of the Church And seeing that the Ministers of this new Evangel have not only invented some heresies themselves but also have renewed many old condemned heresies confuted by them before as they cannot deny as I shal give some examples afterward as the heresie of Simon Magus of Manicheus Pelagius Aerius Jovinianus Vigilantius with many others what less can we do nor impugn the same as our predecessors did before M. John Welsch his Reply As to your answer First ye deny it and detest it as a blasphemy Next ye go about to clear your selves from the suspicion of it Thirdly ye challenge us and our doctrine with the crimes of novelty and heresie And so ye conclud ye could do no less nor impugn it As to your denying of the defacing of the truth of God so doth the whorish woman Prov. 30.20 after she hath eaten she wipes her mouth and saith she hath not sinned which is true as well in spiritual as in bodily fornication So notwithstanding your Church hath buried the truth of God in the graves of darkness and did overcover it with their traditions and glosses these many years by gone yet you wipe your mouthes and say you have not sinned But look to it in time for ignorance and zeal without knowledge will not excuse you in the day of the Lord. That you detest it as a blasphemy so did the high Priest rent his clothes and said Christ blasphemed Matth. 26.65 when he spake but the truth As for your golden styles which you take to your selves of Catholicks defenders of the truth successors to the Pastors of the true Church and impugners of all false doctrine Your doctrine indeed could not deceive so many if it were not covered with these styles your poyson and abomination would not be drunken so universally if it were not in such a golden cup as this Rev. 17.4 So these are the hyssop wherewith ye would wash you from this iniquity and cleanse you from this sin But may not false Prophets come in sheeps clothing Matth. 7.15 And the ministers of Satan can they not transform themselves as though they were the ministers of Christ 2. Cor. 11.13.14 The Scriptures have fore-told it And did not the false Apostles in Ephesus call themselves the Apostles of Christ and yet they were found lyars And did not the synagogue of Satan call her self the synagogue of the Jews Rev. 2.4.9 that is the Church of God and yet they were not so but the synagogue of the devil Yea and did not Abrahams seed and they that sate in Moses chair and was the successors of Aaron condemn the Savior of the world John 8.37 Matth. 23.2 Therefore not by your styles but by your fruits ye must be tryed Matth. 7.16 For if ye be Catholicks c. ye will teach the doctrine of that good Pastor and chief shepherd the Lord Jesus John 10.14 So it is your doctrine and not your styles that must defend you SECTION II. Whither the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church ANd because Christian Reader by this style of Catholick which they ascrive only to their Church they cause the simple to err and leads many blind-fold to damnation therefore I will take this visard from them Ye are not the Catholick Church as ye style your self and thus I prove it Pope Pius the fifth who wrote a Catechism according to the decree of the Council of Trent Catechism Conc. Trident. in expositione Symb. He there saith That the Church which is called the body of Christ whereof he is the head is called Catholick because it is spread in the light of one faith from the East to the West receiving men of all sorts containing all the faithful which have been from Adam even until this day or shal be hereafter to the end of the world professing the true faith c. Now I reason thus The Catholick Church comprehends all the faithful from Adam till now and that shal be hereafter to the end of the world or else Pope Pius and the Fathers of Trent errs But the Roman Church comprehends not all the faithful from Adam till now and that shal be hereafter Therefore the Roman Church is not the Catholick Church Choose you now which of these ye will deny The proposition I suppose ye will not for then ye should bring two inconveniencies the one upon Pope Pius and the Fathers of Trent that they have erred in defining the Catholick Church and so the Church and the Pope may err The other is upon your self who said that your Church hath not erred And so ye lose your styl of a defender of the Catholick faith for this is a chief point of their faith that the Church cannot err I hope therefore that these are Labyrinths which ye will not wittingly cast your self into and so you must hold fast the proposition All the question is then of the assumption Whither the Roman Church comprehends all the faithful from Adam till now and which shal be to the end of the world or not First I say a particular Church comprehends not all the faithful from Adam c. But the Roman Church is a particular Church or
Apostles till now never interrupted never spoken against but of late since Martin Luthers dayes But yours say they is newlie forged and invented never heard tell of but since Luther and Calvins dayes Therefore yours cannot be the true Religion and ours must be the only true Religion M. Gilbert Brown This objection consists partly of a truth and partly of an untruth It appears by this that either M. John knows not our proofs or if he doth he alters the same that he may the better oppugn his own invention Our objection or rather one of our proofs whereby we prove that we Catholicks is the only true Church of Christ and have the only truth in all things is this We have aboundantly set down to us by the Prophets and Apostles in the holy writ that the kingdom and Church of Christ shal never fail in this earth and that the gates of hell shal not prevail against it But shal be permanent for ever and shal have alwayes the presence and assistance of the Father Son and holy Ghost who shal teach it all truth and remain with it for ever as may be perceived by these places noted here which were over longsome to be set down at length To the which I adjoyn some of the ancient Fathers exponing the same Out of the Old Testament Psal 60.5 read August upon this Psal 88. v. 1.2.3.4.5.19.30.31.32.33.34.35.36.37.38 read Aug. on these places Psal 104. ver 8. read Aug. Psal 110.9 Esa 9.7 read S. Hier. on Esa 51.7.8 read S. Hier. on Esa 54.8.9 read Hier. on Esa 55.3.13 Esa 59.21 read Hier. on Jer. 31.3.36 read Hier. on Ezec. 37.25.26 Dan. 2.44 Dan. 7.14.27 Mich. 4.7 Out of the New Testament Luc. 1.33 read S. August upon the 109. Psal Matth. 10.18 read here Saint Hierome upon this place Luke 22.32 John 14.16.17 John 17.18.19.20 Matth. 28.20 1. Tim. 3.15 Acts 5.39 Some of the ancient Fathers Hilar. de Trinitat lib. 7. August de utili credent cap. 87. Ambros lib. 9. cap. 20. Chrysost in serm de pente Clem. Alex. lib. 6. strom in the end And because the Scriptures and the ancient Fathers of the primitive Church concurrs and agrees in one unitie I would wish M. John to consider the same that the Church of Christ by all mens judgements shal never fail nor be interrupted nor broken M. John Welsch his Reply I will follow your footsteps and first answer to that part which ye say is true and then unto that which ye say is false And as to the first the ground which ye laid down whereupon ye go about to build the truth of your Religion is the Church of Christ shal never fail nor be interrupted c. It is recorded in Histories Athenaeus dipnosophist lib. 12. of one Thrasilaus a frantick man among the Greeks whensoever he saw any ships arrive at the haven of Athens he thought them all his own and took an inventarie of their wares and met them with great joy Even so it is with you wheresoever you see the name of the Church in the holy Scripture the promises of God made unto the same ye take all to be yours and books the treasures of it and boasts thereof as though they were your own crying The gates of hell shal never prevail against it It shal never fail It hath always the holy Ghost to lead it in all truth To remove you therefore out of the haven and to give every merchant his own ware and his own ship and to set the Church it self in possession of the Church we must distinguish the name of the Church The Church therefore is taken sometimes for the companie of the elect and chosen whereof a part is in heaven triumphing with Christ their Lord a part here in the earth fighting her battels lying in her camp and awaiting for the victorie And these are termed the invisible Church because Gods election cannot be discerned by the judgement of mans senses or eyes and we cannot know who are his chosen And unto this Church that is to the chosen appertains all the promises set down in the Scripture and in them only are they fulfilled And sometimes it is taken for the company of them who professes the true Religion wherein both the chaff and the wheat the popple and the good seed Matth. 3.12 and 13.24.25 the dregs and the wine the good and the evil are mixed together the which suppose they be in the Church yet they are not of the Church no more then the superfluous humors of the bodie are true and livelie members thereof So then if ye mean by the Church The Church of the elect and if ye mean by this That it shal never fail nor be interrupted c. only this that it shal never be utterly abolished but shal have alwayes the presence of the holy Ghost to lead her in all truth yea and in all holiness also in so far as shal serve for her salvation We grant that with you as Bellarmin confesseth of us and therefore he saith Lib. 3. de Eccles milit cap. 13. That many of their number spend but time while as they go about to prove that the Church here beneath absolutelie cannot perish or make absolute defection for Calvin saith he and the rest of the hereticks grant that but they speak and mean saith he of the invisible Church So if ye mean no further but this then Bellarmin telleth you that all the testimonies of Scripture and Fathers that ye have heaped up here to prove the same is but to spend the time so are fetched as needless witnesses in a matter â—â—at is not doubt some or called in question And if ye had understood his language ye needed not to have cumbred your self in fetching of this mortar and stone to build up your Babel For this was not required at your hands But because it is Babel which ye are bigging a tower of confusion therefore the Lord hath sent such a confusion of language among you that few of you understands what another sayes when some cryes for mortar others brings stone Bellarmin the great maister-builder cryes for proofs to prove that the visible Church here beneath cannot err neither in the matters which are needful to salvation neither in the matters which are not needful which she propones to be believed or to be done whither they be doctrine contained in the Scripture or extra scripturam that is not contained in the Scripture He cryes to prove that and ye cumber your self in bringing in a number of Scriptures to prove that the Church shal alwayes remain till the end of the world whereas in the examination of your proofs it will be found that they will go no further with you But if ye mean of the visible Church that it shal never fail c. that is it shal never fail in doctrine nor be interrupted in the same not only in the matters needful to salvation but in all truth as ye affirm of your
him see so much of his light in the face of Christ as may save him But yet so long as they are in this house of clay they see but in part that part which they see is but obscurely and dimly as the Apostle speaketh 1. Cor. 13.12 So that as long as they are in this world they are subject to sin ignorance and errors But as there are two sorts of men in the visible Church some called and chosen some called and not chosen and as in the diseases of the body some are curable whereof men recovers some are deadly whereof men dies so it is in the errors of the militant Church some are deadly some are curable The chosen that are called may err but their errors are not deadly as the errors of the Apostles were Acts 1.6 and 10. and 11. Gal. 2. Rev. 19. and 22. they recovered by grace from them The called that are not chosen may err and err deadly and never recover as these of whom John speaketh They went out from us saith he because they were not of us c. John 2.19 Now seeing the visible Church here beneath stands but of these two sorts to wit of these that are called and chosen and these that are called but not chosen and both may err Therefore it is manifest that the Church militant here beneath may err And to prove this more amply that she hath erred before the Law under the Law in Christs time and after Christ First Adam being made in perfect holiness and integritie how grievously did he err when contrarie Gods commandment giving more credit to the Devil then to his Maker he brake that first covenant For Tertullian saith Who will doubt to call Adams fall an heresie Contra Marcionem lib. 1. Now if Adam in his full light did not stand but so foullie erred which is he that is come forth of his loyns born in ignorance and blindness that dare challenge this prerogative to himself that he cannot err except the man of sin and son of perdition that is the Popes of Rome Now he being thrust out of Paradise hath two sons the elder Cain for the murther of his brother is accursed of God and the author of the Synagogue of Babel that is the wicked The Church of God remained in the posteritie of Seth Gen. 5. and at the last Religion began to be so prophaned that at length it grew to such a hight that Religion being contracted only in the familie of Noah it could be punished with no less then with an universal destruction of all living creatures by the flood except only these that were preserved in the Ark with him Gen. 6. Of Noahs three children two of them fell both themselves and their posterity The true Church and Religion remained in the family of Sem and neither were they free from Idolatrie God calling Gen. 12. Abraham out of his own countrey serving strange Gods Josu 24.2.3 His eldest son Ismael being circumcised is commanded to be casten out of the Church of God Gen. 21.12 and 25.23 and 31.34 and 35.2 Isaac hath two sons the elder is refused the youngest is chosen and so the elder with his posteritie fell away Jacobs familie was not clean neither from Idolatrie being polluted with strange Gods by his wife Rachel till he cleansed his house And as for his posteritie what stiff-neckedness what rebellion what Idolatrie was among them so that no threatning no blessing no correction nor teaching could keep them in the puritie of Gods worship and Religion In the Church under the Law the people are Idolaters the hie-Priest Aaron the maker of the Idol to the people Exod. 32. In the time of the Judges after the death of Josua they worshipped Baal and strange Gods Judges 1.12.13 and every man did that which seemed good in his own eyes when there was not a King in Israel which was very oft in those dayes and therefore they are given over to the crueltie and tyrannie of their enemies round about them In the time of Heli there was no open vision 1 Samuel 3.1 And Solomon saith Where there is no vision the people perish Prov. 29.18 In Sauls time the Ark of the Lord was not sought 1. Chro. 13.3 and so there wanted a chief part of the publick worship of God for God was consulted at the Ark. And in the time of Solomon in his old age when his heart was turned from the Lord the Scripture testifieth that they forsook the Lord and worshipped strange Gods of the Ammonites 1. Kings 11. Such like in the time of Rehoboam Solomons son Juda committed Idolatrie and built hie places wherein they worshipped contrary to Gods commandment Jehoram King of Juda made Juda and Jerusalem to commit spiritual fornication and Idolatrie 1. Kings 14 22.23 as the house of Ahab made Israel to commit Idolatrie Seeing then the worship of God was corrupted both in Juda and in Israel and there was no other visible Churches upon the earth except in Juda and Israel will it not follow then that all the particular Churches on the earth may err and fall also to Idolatrie Such like in the time of Achaz a strange altar is placed in the temple of the Lord at the commandment of the King by Vriah the Priest and the King with the whole people at the Kings commandment offers upon that altar and the altar of the Lord is removed out of his place 2. Kings 16.10.11 c. In the time of Joash both the King and the Nobilitie forsake the house of the Lord and worship Idols so that the hot wrath of the Lord was kindled against Juda and Jerusalem for their Idolatrie 2. Chro. 24. Such like in the time of Achaz he made hie places in all the corners of Jerusalem and in all the cities of Juda and there burnt incense to strange Gods 2. Chro. 28. In the time of Manasses the whole publick worship of God was so defaced and Idolatrie so universallie set up that the Scriptures testifie Juda sinned more hainouslie then the very nations did whom the Lord cast out before their face Chron. 33.9 The whole host of heaven was worshipped in stead of the true God I beseech thee Reader to read this chapter and there thou shalt find that there was not so much as an outward face of a Church at that time Yea in the very time of good Kings as Joash and Amasia who both in the beginning embraced the worship of God but yet made defection in the end The hie places were not removed 2. Kings 12.3.4 and 14.4 which was an error in the worship of God The Scripture testifies that the feast of the Passover was not kept so preciselie according to the Word of God since the days of Samuel no not in the reign of the best Kings as it was in the 18. year of Josias Chr. 35.18 and there was 400. years and more between Also the Scripture testifieth that the feast of the
condemned in the Scripture I deny that For Antichrist and his Kingdom are not so old as the Scripture and yet the Scripture condemned it For not only condemns it present heresies but also the heresies that was to come And seeing Papistrie is that Antichristian Religion as shal be made manifest by Gods grace therefore it hath the express condemnation of it in the Word of God The form therefore of it no wayes will make it impossible to be proved As for the next thing that I prove nothing bu offers very fair I answer it was not my purpose then but I hope ye shal have a proof now of that which I offered then As to the third then that I can say nothing to your argument which ye would hâ—ve the Reader to mark When I read this I marked this that ye would earnestly have the Reader perswaded of the invincibleness of your argument and my inability to answer But what bring ye with you to perswade him of the same Your reason is because I have not answered it Will this follow I have not suppose it were so as ye say therefore I cannot It will not follow I have not answered I cannot answer to it But as you have a new Theology so have you a new Logick But said I nothing to your argument What is not answered sufficiently in the same Your argument was the antiquity of your Religion and continuance of it from Christ by a lineal succession never interrupted c. and the novelty of ours My answer was Yours was not institut by Christ nor his Apostles in his Scripture as ours was and yours was gain-said in the chief points by the testimonies of the Fathers the first six hundred years and the principal points of our Religion confirmed by sundry of their testimonies Thirdly yours was that Antichristian apostasie that the Scripture fore told should come and in the hight of your tyranny and Idolatry was gain-said by many before Martin Luther and ours was professed by sundry before him whose names I set down all which I offered to prove and now shal do by Gods grace Now you say this is no answer But is that no answer that cuts the very throat of your Religion if it be verified and invalidities your argument that it do never stand up to under-prop your Religion again For that Religion which is not instituted by Christ in the Scripture whose main foundations is gain-said by the testimonies of sundry of the Fathers of the first 600. year which is Antichristian and which was gain-said by the Saints that they persecuted and slew hath not the continuance from Christ by a lineal succession never interrupted nor spoken against by a true Church till Martin Luthers days This I am sure ye will not deny But your Religion is such as I offered then to prove and now have in some points and shal in other some points by Gods grace The which if it be verified then I hope ye will not deny but that your Religion hath neither antiquity continuance nor succession from Christ till Martin Luthers dayes And that Religion cannot be newly forged and invented since Martin Luthers dayes which hath the warrant and institution of it in the Scripture c. This you cannot deny But our Religion is such as then I offered to prove and now have done in some points and shal do in other some points by Gods grace Therefore our Religion cannot be newly forged and invented c. but is the only true Religion So that this answer if it be proved doth sufficiently vindicat our Religion from novelty Now if this be no answer to your argument then I say no more but ye will answer it the sooner And because ye formed your own argument your self in your answer to me and I have answered to it else therefore I will now insist no further upon it And as for your lineal succession of Bishops it will come in question afterward therefore I omit it now SECTION V. Concerning the Judge of Controversies namely whither GOD speaking in the Scripture be Judge of Controversies Maister Gilbert Brown AS for the written Word it is true that it is a most faithful witness and it be not corrupted to Christ and his Church as our Savior testifies himself John 5.39 of the which opinion there is sundry Protestants chiefly young Merchiston in his discourse upon the Revelation in the 21. proposition and other places 2. Cor. 3.6 John 6.63 But that it ought to be Judge to decide all controversies in Religion M. John hath no Scripture for the same It is the holy Ghost that must be Judge and the holy Writ must bear witness thereto For this cause the holy Ghost was given to the Church by the Father and the Son that he might teach it all truth John 14.25.26 This holy Ghost gives judgement by the Pastors of the true Church as he did by the Apostles and Priests at the Council of Jerusalem It hath pleased the holy Ghost and us saith the Apostle Acts 15.19.28 and so he hath ever done since the beginning of the Church when it was troubled with heresies and false doctrine as the Councils of Nice Constantinople Ephesus and Chalcedon M. John Welsch his Reply You first here decline the Scripture as Judge to decide all controversies in Religion And you are not the first that have done this but all your Roman Clergy with you And suppose there were not another thing to make the consciences of men suspect your Religion that it is not found in the book of God yet this is a great presumption that ye give out of it your selves For what may all men think of the same but that if ye were perswaded in your conscience to justify your Religion to be from Jesus Christ in his written Word ye would never decline the judicatorie of it and the declining of the same is an evident demonstration that ye are privy to your selves in your own consciences that it is not from God in his written Word But wherefore say I that ye are privy to your selves of this Ye have made it known to the world by your confession in your own books that many of the chief points of your Religion controverted between you and us which ye maintain have not their original beginning nor authors in the Scriptures but in your unwritten traditions So Petrus a Soto a Papist of great name confessed He calls all these observations Apostolick traditions whose beginning principium origo author cannot be found in the whole Scriptures in his book against Brentius And then he reckons out a number of the chief and principal heads of their Religion saying Of the which sort are the oblation of the sacrifice of the altar the invocation or prayers to Saints the prayer for the dead the supremacie of the Pope of Rome the consecration of the water in baptism the whole sacraments of orders matrimonie pennance confirmation and extream unction the merits of works
only means and instrument whereby the holy Ghost works faith in our hearts Thus I reason therefore He only can be Judge in controversies of Religion whose authority is such that none may appeal from the same whose judgement is infallible true who will not be partial nor favor parties and who is able to convict and perswade the conscience of the truth and make the party to rest in the same But only the holy Ghost in by the Scripture hath these proprieties no other Therefore the holy Ghost in and by the Scripture is only Judge And whereas you say that the holy Writ must bear witn ss to it What will you say then to all the chief points of your Religion almost which the learned and great defenders of your faith before cited have confessed are unwritten traditions which have not their beginning nor authority from the Scripture nor cannot be defended by the same Upon the which I reason thus That doctrine is not the holie Ghosts which the Scripture bears not witness to this ye say your self for ye say The Scripture must bear witness to it But all the chief points almost of your Religion as the supremacy of the Pope the sacrifice of the Mass invocation of Saints the five bastard Sacraments the worshipping of Images Transubstantiation Communion under one kind Satisfactions Pardons Purgatory Merits of works c. have not their authoritie from the Scripture nor cannot be defended by the same as your own Catholicks as ye call them testifies Therefore your Doctrine and Religion is not the holie Ghosts and that by your own testimonie Now trulie M. Gilbert I fear ye lose your style if you defend your Religion no better then this And whereas you say That the holy Ghost gives out his judgement by the Pastors of the true Church I grant indeed that the Pastors gives out publick sentence in controversies of Religion because they are the Lords witnesses messengers and mouthes to testifie proclaim interpret and discern his truth from falshood But first the rule of this their judgement should be the Word of God unto the which they are bound in all their testimonies and judgements from the which if their judgements swerve but an inch-broad they are not the judgements of the holie Ghost so that all their decreets and determinations in the worship of God and man his salvation should onlie be received accordinglie as they agree or dissent from the same For the Apostle pronounces him accursed suppose he were an Angel that would preach another Gospel then that which he preached Gal. 1 8. And he preached nothing but out of the Scripture Acts 26.22 But your Roman Church by the contrary saith That their decreets and sentences should be taken without all tryal and examination because whatsoever they decree say they in manners or doctrine whither they be comprehended in the Scripture or not they cannot err Bellar. de Eccles lib. 1. de Consil cap. 18. lib. 3. c. 14. Next if it be asked of you whom ye judge to be the Pastors of the true Church You will answer as ye do that your Church is the only true Church and your Bishops and Popes the only true Pastors so that they only must be the Judge to end all controversies And Bellarmin is plain in this for he saith lib 3. de verbi interpret cap. 5. 9. lib. 4 de Rom. Pont. c. 2. The Pope is chief Judge in all controversies in Religion either he himself alone or with his Council and that in his judgement and sentence all men should rest and he should be obediently heard of all the faithful in all matters of controversie whether he can err or not And their Canon Law hath decreeted That no man should rebuke him suppose he should carry with him innumerable souls to hell And they teach that their decreets should not be examined of any whither they be agreeable to the Scripture or not but that they should be received as the express Word of God and the Gospel Dist 40. cap. Si Papa Bellar. lib. 1. de Concil cap. 18. Rhemist annotat in 2. Thess 2. v. 12. Joannes Maria verractus editus anno 1561. Hosius lib. de express verb. Dei pag. 97. But first judge thou Reader in what suspicion they have their Religion in their own hearts They have declined the holy Ghost speaking in the Scripture and that not only as Judge but in the authentick Greek and Hebrew as witness So their Religion cannot stand if the Lord be either as Judge in his Scripture to give out sentence of it or as witness in the authentick copies to hold his hand at the bar and depone against it Now whom would they have as Judges Their own Pastors and the Pope and all their determinations to be received without a tryal as the Gospel and express Word of God as though their Religion could not be justified unless the Fathers and forgers thereof the Popes and Bishops of Rome were set on the bench to be Judges thereof Now what an unrighteous thing is this both to be partie and Judge For the chief controversie is of themselves whither he be the Antichrist or not And his Ministers and Church Antichristian or not But what show of reason can you have for this The Prince of life the Son of God who is the righteous Judge of the whole world in that great controversie wherein it is called in question whether he was the Messias or not desired not to be the Judge For he said If I testifie of my self much more if I judge of my self my testimony is not true John 3.31 but referred this controversie to the Scripture saying Search the Scriptures c. John 5.32 And yet you that are but flesh and blood dust and ashes yea monsters and incarnat Devils as your own Writers and Councils have testified of some of your Popes who may err and have been hereticks as some of your Popes have been and that by your own testimonies you will not only bear witness of your selves but also be Judges in the controversies of your selves rejecting the judgement of the holy Ghost in the Scripture All men saith the Apostle are liars How then shal I certainlie know but they may lie How shal my conscience rest in their judgement Shal I have no better warrant for my salvation then the testimonies of your Bishops and Popes who are but men and so may lie who are partie and so never will condemn themselves who of all men have most foully erred What is this but to make the voice of your Bishops and Popes of greater authoritie then the voice of God in his Scripture For seeing it is the sense of the Scripture that is called in controversie and the sense of the Scripture is the Scripture it self And your doctrine is that I must embrace such and such interpretations of the Scripture that are called in controversie and my conscience must rest in the same
was brought to a smal handful The Princes Priests and Scribes who only was in dignity and authority being persecuters of Christ condemned him and crucified him And such like in the time of the persecution of Dioclesian the Emperor and in the time of the Arrian heresie which over-spred as it were the whole world The which also our Savior fore-told should come to pass When the Son of man saith he shal come shal he find faith in the world Matth. 18.8 and 24 11.12 And by the Apostle also 2. Thess 2. 1. Tim. 4. And John in the Revelation in the time of the Antichrist Rev. 9 1.2.3.4 and 12.6 and 13 14.15.16.17 and 14 8. and 17.2 and 18.3 Confessed also by the learned of your own Church as Bellarmin and the Rhemists as they have been quoted before and by your self also who confessed that the Church of Christ should be redacted to a smal number as it were in a wilderness in the time of the Antichrist This now is our doctrine concerning the invisibility of the Church which is neither repugnant to the Word of God nor yet to the examples which I brought in afterward against your Religion For both these M. Gilbert are true and neither of them repugning one another that the particular Churches in the time of the Antichrist are not so openly known and so outwardly glorious and flowrishing as they were before but redacted to a smal number more obscure and more latent partly through that universal defection and partly through that extream persecution of your Church and Head and that there was some that opponed themselves to the Pope and his Clergy and that even when he was come to the hight If you will make these repugnant which are not adversa but only diversa secundum magis minus then I say ye are repugnant to all rules of reasoning and to the light of nature it self Master Gilbert Brown Of this I may justly make an argument against M. John that the Pope is not the Antichrist The woman that fled to the wilderness is the true Church and to flie to the wilderness is to be invisible as M. John saith Now young Merchiston hath that this invisibility indured from the year of God 316. till our days the space of 1260. years which was by him all the time of the Antichrist But by M. John Welsch there was many in that time that opponed themselves to the Pope and said against him and his Religion and Clergy and therefore was known Of the which the Popes did slay many as he saith Therefore it must follow that either the Pope is not the Antichrist because he did persecute but visible things or else the Church was not invisible all the time fore-said Master John Welsch his Reply Let us see the force of this argument that ye make for your Pope that he is not the Antichrist The woman ye say that fled to the wilderness is the true Church That I grant and to flie into the wilderness is to be invisible by me I answer By me it is to be latent and to lurk to eschew the rage of her persecuters and not to be openlie conversant as that all the world may know her and yet not to be so latent but that some of them are known both among themselves as also to their enemies And this is our meaning as I have said before when we affirm that the particular Churches sometimes become invisible But you take it as though our meaning were that the Church is so invisible that it is known to none which is your invention M. Gilbert and not our doctrine and therefore you fight without an adversarie in this point But to go forward to the rest of your argument you say that by me there was sundrie that oppugned the Pope and his Clergie and was put to death by them This is true and therefore the blood of the Saints is found in your Church Now what will you gather of all this Therefore say you the Pope is not the Antichrist because he persecutes but visible things or else the Church is not invisible I deny that either the one or the other will follow And because you made an argument against your Pope I should have said with him that he is not the Antichrist which is grounded upon your own invention mistaking our doctrine and therefore hath no feet I will make another for him that he is the Antichrist the which you nor all your Clergy will not be able to disprove He is that undoubted Antichrist which hath redacted the Church of Christ as it were in a wilderness to a smal handful partly through the pest of his damnable doctrine partly through his extream persecution so that they were compelled to lurk and hide themselves from the cruelty of his power This you cannot deny because the Scripture affirms this of the Antichrist But I assume that the Popes of Rome have done this these many hundred years as I have proved before and in the other part of my answer therefore of necessity it must follow that the Popes of Rome are the Antichrist that the Scripture fore told should come Answer this if you can And as for the time of this invisibilitie it hath relation to the beginning and grouth and hight of your Antichristian Kingdom For as it grew the Church was more and more obscured and when it was at the hight the Church was in her eclipse and as it hath decayed now since she hath accordingly spred her self abroad If the Apostle be true that Mystery of Iniquity began to work in his days 2. Thess 2.7 1. John 4 3. For first the manifold heresies which were sown in the primitive Church whereof the Popes of Rome have renewed a great many as shal be proved hereafter was the first step to that Antichristian Kingdom Next the loving of preeminence in the Ministery over their brethren as the Scripture testifies of Dictrephes who loved preeminence 3. of John 9. and specially the aspiring of the Bishops of Rome to a Domination and Lordship over their brethren forbidden by Christ which was manifestly kythed in Pope Victor who did take upon him to excommunicat the Bishops of Asia for a light dissention of the celebration of Easter anno 198. And in others as Cornelius Zosimus Bonifacius and Celestin Popes who did receive to their Communion those who were excommunicat in Africa was the second step Thirdly if it be true that these impious and superstitious Decreets which your Church ascribes to the Popes of Rome before Constantine be theirs as is not likely that such superstitions did creep into the Church of Christ it being under persecution then I say the Popes of Rome even before Sylvester by their superstitious Decreets made a further entry to that Antichristian Kingdom And because the Roman Empire was the let that hindered Antichrist to step up to his throne 2. Thess 2.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the City of Rome behoved
Sixtus Senesis in lib. Operis Biblioth Cajetanus in fine comment Veter Test Arias Montanus in editione quadam Hebr. Bibli cum interlineari Hugo Cardinalis are against you and with us in the books of Apocrypha Gelasius de duabus naturis in Christo is against your Transubstantiation also against your Communion under one kind And Pope Adrian the 6. against this that the Pope cannot err and teach heresies Panormitan against this that it is not lawful to Ministers to marry after their ordination Bellarm. lib. 1. de Clericis cap. 19. Idem lib. 2. de purg cap. 4. Michael Bai Gerson and Roffensis all Papists against your venial sins Bellarm. lib. de imaginibus cap. 8. Abulensis and Durandus and Peresius Papists against your making of the Images of the Trinity A great many of you as Alexander Thomas Cajetan Bonaventure Marsilius Almain Carthusianus and Capreolus teach That that same worship should be given to the Image which is given to that which the Image represents And yet Durandus and Alphonsus a Castro and others is against this Therefore either the one or the other is not of your Religion And ye your self if ye be measured by this measure is not a right Papist because you dissent from many of them in many things as hath been proved before And certainly M. Gilbert if this reason of yours hold forth you shal cut off from your profession such a number of Popes Councils Jesuits Cardinals and Doctors from your Religion that it is to be feared that they cut you off from being a right defender of their Catholick Faith yea from being a member of their Synagogue that for the defence thereof is compelled to cut off so many from the same And secondly I say your reports concerning their doctrine is not to be credited but their own Apologies and Writings whereby it appears that it hath been always your fashion the more to discredit them to charge them with a number of absurd opinions which they never held As for example you charge here Waldus and his followers to have had their wives and all other things common which is your calumny of them and not their practise or doctrine For Gulielmus Parvus writeth that their life was commendable And Reynerus in his Book of Inquisitions one of your own Religion a Writer of 300. years ago who was often at the examination of them as he himself saith confesseth That they had great show of holy life and that they believed all things well of God and all the articles contained in the Creed and lived justly before men and chargeth them that they hated and blasphemed solam Romanam Ecclesiam the Romish Church only So then if his report be true as I hope ye will not gainsay they were both far from that error for that were neither to believe all things well of God nor yet to have a show of holy life and to live justly before men and also they were of our Religion in all things And where you say that we renew many old condemned heresies I answer That neither the doctrine which I affirmed they taught here was heresies nor yet themselves hereticks But you and your Church who have condemned them for the truth of God and have renewed old condemned heresies as shal be proved afterward And we have renewed no heresie at all but only the truth of God which your Church hath obscured and buried Therefore your conclusion is false that our Religion was never professed in all points as it is now in Scotland before in no Countrey no not say you by any one man For it was taught and professed by Christ and his Apostles and also by all the primitive Churches in their dayes in all points throughout all the parts of the world where they preached the Gospel as it is now in Scotland as we offer to prove by their writings and I have proved the same in sundry heads here Next the substance thereof was continued many hundred years in the Churches of Christ while partly by the heresies that sprang up for the popple was soon sown among the good seed and the Mystery of Iniquity began to work in the Apostles dayes and partly by the Mahomet and partly by the darkness of Popery it was corrupted piece and piece And what difference can you find between the Religion that the Waldenses professed and us if ye will give credit to their Apologies and Reynerus testimonies of them As for M. Robert Bruces testimony which ye produce it serves no wise to confirm your purpose but seeing ye abuse the testimonies of Scripture it is no wonder suppose ye abuse the testimonies of men For it is most true which he affirms that the truth of God hath continued for that space in this Kingdom without heresie or schism as we never read it did in any Nation in the earth in such purity without heresie and schism for such a long space And yet it follows not but it hath dwelt in sundry Churches in such purity before suppose not so long together which you omit in your conclusion Doth it follow by his testimonie but that our Religion hath been preached and professed in all true Churches in all points suppose not so long in such purity as it is in Scotland Neither doth it follow but that the substantial and main points of our Religion have been professed in all Christian Churches longer then that space suppose mixed either with some heresies or schismes So you must coin a new Logick M Gilbert before ye can confirm your proposition by his testimonie Master Gilbert Brown But here it is to be noted also that M. John can find none before the year of Christ 1158. that said against the Pope and his Religion and none immediatly before Luther the space of an hundred years and more So the Church was without his Doctors eleven hundred years and fifty or thereabout And such like Martin Luther had no predecessors to whom he succeeded in his Religion Master John Welsch his Reply You not two things here which are both false The one that I can find none that said against the Pope and his Religion before the year of Christ 1158. For our Savior and his Apostles and sundry learned Fathers in all ages and Councils both General and Provincial and some of your own Doctors and Popes have spoken against the Monarchie of your Pope and your Doctrine and Religion as I have proved before And Reynerus a man of your own Religion testifies that some said The Waldenses who had the same Religion which we profess was continued from Sylvesters dayes who lived about the 320. year of God And some said that it continued even from the Apostles days Therefore the first is false The second thing is that I can find none before Luther immediatly the space of an hundred years and more I see you are not ashamed to speak any thing for the defence of your Kingdom were it never so manifestly false
thirty Parishions in some places should be compelled to go to one if they were desirous to drink the waters of life this I say is a judgement heavy enough But what a judgement would this be if they were compelled to bide at home and it were but in their own families by that abominable Mass the round bread the Gods of Babel Surely a great many of the people of this Countrey do not halt now between these two thoughts whither GOD be the LORD or Baal 1. Kings 18.21 but have forsaken the LORD and his Gospel and in their heart desires the opportunity to say to their round bread These are our Gods who have redeemed us from Hell and these will we worship at least secretly till our strength grow and our number increase The rest of the iniquities of this Land were too great to provoke the LORD of Hosts suppose this impiety which the LORD forbid for his CHRISTS sake be not added unto all the rest and above all the rest For what sin is comparable to Idolatrie Or what iniquity hath been ever so severely punished as Idolatrie A sin that is immediatly against GOD against CHRIST against his Glory A sin that made 24000. of the LORDS own chosen inheritance to fall in the wilderness for the golden Calf and Baal-Peor Exod. 32.28 Num. 25.9 A sin that provoked the LORD in such a high measure that it made him deliver his own people whom he had planted in that Land of Promise and to whom he had sworn to be their GOD over in the hands of their enemies round about them Judges 2.11.12.13.14.15 so that whithersoever they went the hand of the LORD was sore against them A sin that rent the Kingdom of David asunder 1. Kings 11.5.11 and made ten parts of it to be given to Jeroboam the son of Nebat suppose the person was called Jedidiah the beloved of the LORD 2. Sam. 12.25 And the promise was made unto him that his house and throne should stand for ever 2. Sam. 7.13 And finally a sin that first moved the LORD to put away Israel from before his face and caused their land to vomit them out without all hope ever to return again and then made his wrath so hot against Juda 2. Chron. 36.16.17.18 2. Kings 25.10 till there was no remedy but the Temple the Kings House and the houses of all the Nobles were burnt with fire the Kings sons first slain before his eyes then his own eyes put out himself bound with chains of steel and he and his people carried captives to Babel where there they remained for the space of seventy years Are not these things fallen forth as examples to us And are they not written for our instruction as the Apostle saith 1. Cor. 10.11 upon whom the ends of the world is fallen And is not the abomination of Babel Rev. 17.4 their idolatrous Mass as great abomination in the eyes of the LORD as Milcom the abomination of the Ammonits 1. Kings 11.5 Is it less Idolatrie to worship a golden Calf the Gods of Egypt or a graven sheep Ashtaroth the Gods of the Sidonians Exod. 32.4 1. Kings 11.5 Judg. 2.13 then to worship a bit of bread made of wheat ground in the mill baken in the oven conjured and erected up by an idolatrous Priest which is the God of Babel the Church of Rome Is there any more God-head in the one then in the other Hath their Idol of the Mass any more life feeling or moving then the Idols of Egypt and Sidon had And doth not the Church of Rome give as great yea rather greater worship and Religion to their round bread then Juda or Israel gave to their golden Calf or to Ashtaroth the graven sheep for they worship it as their Creator and Redeemer And as the worship of the golden Calf is called the worship of Devils in Moses song Deut. 32.17 so the Idolatry of the Church of Rome whereof their round bread in their Mass is one of the principal is called the worship of Devils Rev. 9.20 by the voyce that came from the four horns of the golden Altar For what Church or Kingdom under heaven is there to be found who in the time of the blast of the sixth Trumpet when that fearful Army of the Turks was loosed to overrun Christendom do worship Idols of gold and silver of brass of wood and of stone but the Church of Rome And if the worship of GOD by Images as Israel did in the golden Calf which is but the break of the second Command be called the worship of Devils shal not the worship of a false Creator and Redeemer as they do in their Mass which is not only the break of the first Command but also the treading under foot of the Son of GOD in the Gospel be most justly called the worship of Devils And is not the LORD as jealous of his glory now as he was then And hath he not sworn that he will not give it to another Esai 42.8 And hath he not threatned as severe judgements against the Whoor of Babel and the worshippers of the Beast and his Image and them that receive his mark openly or privatly as ever he did against Juda or Israel Rev. 13.14.15.16 and 14.8.9.10.12 and 16.1.2.10.19 and 17.1.2 and 18.11.2.3.5.6.21 and 19.19.20.21 and 21.21 Did he not cause it to be proclaimed by an Angel with a loud voyce that the foundations of the earth might hear it and tremble that they shal drink of the wine of the wrath of GOD yea of that pure wine powred out in the cup of his wrath and they shal be tormented day and night before the holy Angels and before the Lamb and the smoke of their torment shal ascend for evermore and they shal have no rest day nor night that worship the Beast and his Image And heard not John him that sate upon the Throne the Judge of the whole earth say That Idolaters shal have their portion in the lake that burnes with fire and brimstone which is the second death And seeing the knowledge of our Redemption surmounteth the knowledge of our Creation and the benefit of our Redemption exceeds by many degrees the benefit of our Creation shal not the worship of an Idol Redeemer and of a false Jesus as they do in their Mass surmount by many degrees the worship of an Idol Creator as Juda and Israel did For the greater the light be and the greater the mercy be that is bestowed upon any their sin must be the greater And as the light of the Gospel is more glorious then the light of the Law 2. Cor. 3.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.13 so the Idolatry of these that are under the Gospel must be more abominable then the Idolatry of these that were under the Law Theirs was but the despising of Moses Law Heb. 10.28 But this Idolatry of their Mass is the treading under foot of the blood of CHRIST and so worthy of sorer punishment as the Apostle saith Heb. 10.29 And
Babel and therefore one day she shal be recompensed for all her iniquity Rev. 17.6 and 18.24 Go out of her therefore and save thy soul that thou be not tormented in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone with her for evermore Rev 18.45 Otherwise I call heaven and earth to witness against thee that thou shalt die in her sin and the smoke of thy torment shal ascend for evermore Rev. 14.1 What now will you say to these things that your Church is not the Catholick Church but a part of it only and is only Catholick because of the Catholick doctrine that she professes But if this be true wherefore then did your general Council condemn it in John Hus and burn him for that doctrine which both your self must confess to be true and is agreeable to Scripture Fathers and your own Popes Next I say suppose when ye are brought to this strait ye must say so yet for all this not only call ye your Church Catholick because of the soundness of doctrine which ye suppose she professes but also and speciallie to make the simple believe that there is no salvation out of her As appeareth by the Epistle of Cardinal Cusanus writing to the Bohemians Cochlaeus histor Hussitar lib. 21. Therefore ye call it the only true Church and the Catholick Church for out of the particular Church there is salvation but out of the Catholick Church there is no salvation Thirdlie I say as the Epistles of Peter John James and Jude are intituled Catholick not because of the soundness of their doctrine which is common to the Epistles of Paul also and all the rest of the Scripture which in that respect may also be called Catholick but because they are written generallie to all So the Church is called Catholick properly not because of the soundness of doctrine for that is common to all the particular Churches that have the puritie of Religion but because it comprehends all the particular Churches and all the elect And also to put a difference between the Church of the Jewes which did comprehend but one certain people and the Christian Church since the coming of Christ which is not bound to any certain place or nation or people but indifferently receives all both Jew and Gentil that believes and therefore is it called Catholick and therefore in our Belief we say not I believe the Catholick doctrine but the Catholick Church So by this she is properlie distinguished from particular Churches as the mother from the daughters and the whole body from the particular members So then if you would speak properlie of your Church and not make your styles snares to catch the souls of the simple call her but a particular Church and a member of the Catholick Church but yet dead and rotten as shal be shown afterward by the grace of God Otherwise if you will but call her the Catholick Church you first rob the mother for she is properly Catholick and also injures the rest of the daughters For in respect of the soundness of faith they may also challenge the same to them And thirdly ye deceive the souls of the simple thereby by making them believe there is not one other Church but yours And last of all you are sacrilegious in decking an adulteress with the styles of the spouse of Christ As to the third point wherein ye calumniate the truth of God which we profess in calling it a new Evangel and old renewed and new invented heresies of our own These are indeed heavie words wherewith ye blaspheme the word of the Lord Acts 18.6 and 19.9 and speak evil of it to the people of this Countrey And therefore as the Apostle saith of them that blasphemed his doctrine Your damnation is just Rom. 3.8 For a wo by Gods own mouth is pronounced against them that call good evil and evil good truth falshood and falshood truth and darkness light and light darkness Isai 5.20 But as the Archangel when he strave with Satan about the body of Moses did not blame him with cursed speaking but said The Lord rebuke thee Jude 9. so we will not blame you with cursed speaking but the Lord rebuke you For ye speak here the vision of your own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord And ye are not the first that hath blasphemed the truth of God for so did the Jewes before you call the doctrine of the Gospel a sect a heresie and the Gentiles called it strange Gods and a new doctrine and the preachers thereof a setter forth of strange Gods and of new doctrine and a babler Acts 28. and 14. and 17. The Jews said that Christ had a Devil and yet as our Lord testifies it was they that were the children of the Devil John 8.44 Ye say that we preach a new Evangel and old new heresies but this is the sin the doctrine of your Church For to let that pass of that new everlasting Gospel which your Friers invented devised as testifieth Guliel de sancto Amore in his book de pericul noviss temp anno 1192. wherein was contained such blasphemies as the heaven and earth abhorrs to hear them That God the Father reigned under the law God the Son under grace And the holy Ghost was then that year to begin his kingdom and to continue to the end of the world And that Jesus Christ was not God his Sacrament nothing and his Evangel not a true Evangel O horrible blasphemie the which if God had not raised up some men in those days to have resisted it as the Waldenses and others which ye call hereticks and infamous men the Gospel of Christ had been lost and in stead of it we would have gotten a new Gospel the dreggs whereof yet remains in your Church But I will let this pass because the wise men of Babel I mean your Clergy of Rome saw that that was too plain an iniquitie therefore they caused it quietlie to be removed and buried and yet they not condemned as hereticks that preached it But by the contrary the Waldenses and others that withstood it was condemned as hereticks and their books burnt To let this pass I say which testifieth what the world might have looked for at your hands if the Lord had not provided better for his poor Church Your whole doctrine is Antichristian as shal be proved hereafter your Church Babel Rev. 17. your Kingdom that second beast Rev. 13.11 that hath two horns like the Lamb and yet speaks like the dragon and your head the man of sin 2. Thess 2. and son of perdition And ye are they that have renewed old condemned heresies and have invented new of your own as shal be proved afterward by Gods grace SECTION III. Concerning the Churches infallibility and immunity from error M. John Welsch SAy they our Religion is so ancient that it hath continued ever by a lineal succession of Pastors and Bishops from the dayes of Christ and his
Church and as Bellarmin sayes as hath been said before If ye go this far as ye do indeed and as Bellarmin doth and your self must do if ye be a right defender of your Catholick faith here or else there is no ground whereupon ye can build the puretie and truth of your Church and Religion Then I say that your ground is as false and erroneous as the stuff that ye build upon it for both they have failed and have been interrupted as shal be proved afterward And mark this Christian reader as the Philistins Church wherein they praised their God Judg. 16. and mocked Samson the Lords servant had two chief pillars whereon the whole house leaned and was born up so hath the Church of Rome two chief pillars whereon the whole weight of their Church and Religion hings the one whereof is this that the Church cannot err the other that the Pope is the head of the Church Take these two from them their house must fall and their Religion can stand no longer For when they are brought to this strait that they see they cannot defend their Religion neither by the testimonies of the Scripture nor yet by the examples of the Church of God when she was in her greater purity and sincerity they are compelled to lay this as a ground to hold all their errors on that the Church of Christ cannot err So take this ground from them their Church and Religion cannot stand Now as to the testimonies which ye quote out of the Old Testament out of Luke 1.33 in the New Testament they only prove that the Church and Kingdom of Christ shal endure for evermore and that his covenant made with her is everlasting The which cannot exeem the militant Church from erring in points of doctrine for both the chaff and evil seed in the Church that is these that are called but not chosen may err and that to death and damnation and yet his Church and Kingdom and his covenant remaineth sure stable and inviolate for the Lord only offers his covenant unto them and they through incredulitie reject it and so he is not bound to sanctifie or save them much less to keep them from error And as for these who are called and chosen all these promises are made and performed in every one of them and the covenant of God is so sure in every one of them that our Savior saith None of them can perish John 10.28 And yet for all this every one of them may err in doctrine suppose not to death and damnation which ye will not deny And if ye would infinit examples not only of the Saints of God of the laicks as ye call them but also of the Priests Prophets Apostles yea and of Popes also and of your own Doctors and Bishops as a cloud of witnesses would stand up and avow the same in your face Now I gather seeing that the militant Church here on earth hath but two sorts of persons in her these that are called and chosen and these that are only called but not chosen and both may err in points of doctrine the one finally to death and damnation the other may err suppose not finally to death and damnation and yet the covenant of God remain sure everlasting and inviolate with his Church Therefore I say the promises of the stabilitie of Christs Kingdom and the perpetuitie of his covenant made with her cannot exeem the militant Church from erring in points of doctrine So ye have lost your vantguard Let us come to the rest and see if they will favor your cause any better then the former hath done The next place ye quote is Matth. 16.18 Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shal not prevail against it And because ye trust that there is not a testimony of Scripture which shal fight more for you then this let us therefore try it to the uttermost and see how far it can be stretched out What argument will ye frame out of this place For if you gather no more but this Christ hath promised that the gates of hell shal never prevail against the Church that is built on the Rock that is on Christ Therefore the Church that is built on him shal never be all utterlie extinguished and abolished by Satan Then Bellarmin tells you that ye spend but time in proving of this for we grant it That the Church of the chosen shal never perish But if you go further and say That the Church of Christ shal never err because Christ hath promised that the gates of hell shal not prevail against it then I say either that exposition is false or else the gates of hell should have prevailed long since against your Church for when it prevailed against the rock whereon the Church was built it prevailed against the Church For raze and overturn the foundation of a house the house cannot stand seeing the standing of the house consists on the firmness sureness of the foundation thereof Now the rock whereon ye say the Church is built unto whom this promise is made is Peter and his successors the Popes of Rome for so ye all with one consent expone the same Rhemists annotation upon this place Seeing then that they are the foundation of the Church as ye say and the gates of hell hath prevailed against them as I shal prove by the grace of God it must follow if your exposition be true that the gates of hell hath prevailed not once only but at many times against â—he Church For first Peter himself erred in a matter of doctrine when he thought with the rest of the Apostles after the resurrection of Christ the Kingdom of Christ not to be heavenlie but earthlie not spiritual but like the Kingdoms of this world proper to Israel Acts 1.6 not common to all by vertue of the promise and also he is commanded to preach the Gospel to the Gentils doubting nothing Acts 10.20 Which testifies that he doubted before whither the Gospel should be preached to them or not and therefore erred in a matter of faith and that after he had received the promise of the holy Ghost And also he erred in the abrogation of the Ceremonial Law Acts 10.14 for he believed that some meats were unclean after the death and resurrection of Christ and therefore he refused to eat thereof And this was a matter of faith also And last of all the holy Ghost testifies that he went not a right foot to the truth of the Gospel Gal. 2.11 and therefore was rebuked by the Apostle Paul to his face And as for them whom ye call his successors the Popes of Rome not only may they be hereticks but also some of them have been hereticks And therefore if your argument be good the gates of hell both may and have prevailed against them That they may be hereticks I will fetch no other witnesses but your own Councils Canons Cardinals
and your own Popes for they shal be your Judges in this matter Bellarmin saith lib. 7. de Rom. Pontif. cap. 30. that the Pope being a manifest heretick ceaseth to be Pope and to be head of the Church Caietan a Cardinal saith lib. de authoritate Papae Consilij cap. 20. 21. That the Pope being a manifest heretick should be deposed by the Church Johannes de Turrecremata a Cardinal saith lib. 4 part 2. cap. 20. That when the Pope falls in heresie he is deposed of God Alphonsus de Castro saith lib. 1. cap. 2. That the Pope as he is a Pope may be an heretick and teach heresie which also hath sometimes saith he fallen out in them Innocentius the 3. serm 2. de consecr Pontificis And Hadrian the 2. Popes as also the 6. and 8. Synode and their own Canon Law Dist. 40. cap. Si Papa do testifie that they may be hereticks And also Pope Hadrian 6. Bellar. lib. 4. de Romano Pontif. cap. 2. And some of them have been hereticks also Zepherinus a Montanist Tertuli ad prax Marcellinus one that sacrificed â—o Devils the Idols of the Gentils Damasus Concil Sinuessâ—num Liberius an Arrien that denyed the Godhead of the Son Athanas in Epist. ad solit vita Hieron in Catal. Script Fascic tem aetate sexta Hermannus contractus Marianus Scotus compilatio Chronologica Supplementum chronic Platina Anastasius a favorer of the Nestorian heresie Platina in vita Anastas supplement Chronic distinct 19. cap. Anastasius Fascic temp Vigilius an Eutychian whose heresie was that after the incarnation of Christ there was but one nature in Christ made of his Divinity and Humanity which overthrows the foundation of our salvation Liberatus in Breviario cap. 22. Honorius a Monothelite and therefore damned and accursed in the sixth Council of Constantinople act 13. John the 22. held that the souls of the blessed being separat from their bodies did not see the Lord before the resurrection Occam in opere 93. dierum Adrian de confirmatione circa finem Gerson in sermone de Pascha John the 23. denyed eternal life whereof he was accused and deposed in the Council of Constance Sessione 11. Eugenius the 4. deposed in the Council of Basile for heresie Sessione 34. I omit the rest Seeing then these whom ye call the rock and foundation of your Church have erred and that in matters of doctrine and Religion and in the principal points thereof and that by the testimonies both of the Scripture and of your own Councils Doctors Cardinals and Popes Therefore if your argument hold forth then I say the gates of hell hath prevailed against your Church because they have prevailed against the rocks and foundations thereof for they have erred as hath been proved the which I suppose ye will not grant And therefore the furthest that ye can gather here is but this That the gates of hell that is the power of condemnation shal not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is totally and finally overcome So that suppose they may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is be strong and make them to fail in many things yet they cannot prevail totally and finally against the Church of God that is the elect and chosen who are built not on the Pope but on the immoveable Rock the Lord Jesus I say further this promise is made and performed in every one of the elect For the gates of hell shal not prevail that is get the final and full victory over any of them And therefore our Savior saith None of my sheep shal perish John 10 28. and yet ye will not deny but every one of the elect may err Therefore this promise doth not priviledge the Church of God from erring but the chaff and evil seed that is these that are called and not chosen may err and err finally because this promise is not made unto them for they are not built upon this Rock but upon the sand for none is built upon this Rock but these who are blessed and heareth the word and doth it Matth. 7. as our Savior testifieth And the good seed which are these that are called and chosen may err suppose not finally and totally The next place which ye quote is that prayer of Christ for Peter Luke 22.32 But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matth. 26. It is true he prayed It is true also that Peters faith failed not but yet it swooned as it were when he denyed his Lord and that by perjuring and cursing of himself and yet he erred both in the qualitie of Christs Kingdom in the calling of the Gentils and in the abrogation of the Ceremonial Law Acts 10 14. As also he went not rightly to the truth of the Gospel Gal. 2.11 as hath been proved So this prayer was not that he should be kept absolutely from all erring for then it shal follow that Christ obtained not that which he prayed for seeing he erred which is impious to think but that his faith should not decay finally and totally Secondly the Lord Jesus prayed also for all believers John 17.18.19.20 which place ye also quote and yet there is not one of the believers but they may err as your selves cannot deny and we have proved by examples of your own Popes for if any were exeemed from erring in your judgement it should be these that are the foundation of your Church which ye call your Popes but they may err and have erred as hath been proved Thirdly I say it will not follow Christ prayed for Peters faith that it should not fail Therefore he prayed for the Popes whom ye will have to be successors to Peter that their faith should not fail for that is the thing ye would be at for their faith hath failed For if by faith ye understand the doctrine of the faith of Christ as it is taken sometimes in the Scripture 1. Tim. 4. then I say your own Doctors Canons Councils Cardinals and Popes themselves as they have been cited before testifieth that not only they may err but also that some of them have erred and have been hereticks And if by that faith which our Lord prayed for ye understand that lively faith that embraceth the promises of Gods mercie in Christ which worketh by love and showeth forth the self by good works as by keeping of Christs commandments and by loving one another Rom. 3.25 Gal. 5.6 1. John 2.4 Then I say your own writers friends favorers and Cardinals testifieth of them Platin Genebrard Crantz that they have gone from Peters steps that they got the Popedom by brybery and bargaining with the Devil That they were monstrous and prodigious men yea rather beasts and monsters So that of all men that ever professed the faith of Jesus they have failed most foully in that lively faith as I have proved in another place concerning the Antichrist As to that place which ye quote John 14.16.17 where the Spirit of Christ is
promised to the Apostles to dwel with them and to remain with them for ever And in the 16. chap. vers 13. that he shal lead them in all truth I answer first that was the Apostles prerogative the Maister-builders of the Church of Christ that in writing and teaching the doctrine of salvation they should be led in all truth and in none ever since promised nor performed in that high measure Secondly this promise of the Spirit of truth to dwel and remain in them for ever and to lead them in all truth is made and performed in all believers in so far as may sanctifie them and save them and yet ye will not deny but that every one of the believers may err Therefore this promise will not reach so far as to keep the Church from impossibility of erring As to that place in the 17. of John I answered to it before As to the 28. of Matthew I will be with you to the end of the world I answer the same thing to it which I answered to the former that this promise is made not to any visible and ordinar succession for that is to ty the promises of God to persons and places but to the Pastors of the Church whom he sends forth and to all the faithful and is performed in them in so far forth as may save them and inable them for his work But yet this will not exeem them from all possibility of erring As to that in the 1. Tim. 3. vers 15. the Church is called the pillar and ground of truth therefore ye gather It cannot err First I will ask you to whom the Apostle speaks so and upon what occasion he speaks it Ye must say To Timothie that he might know how to behave himself in the house of God which is the Church 2. Tim. 3.14 for so the Apostle writes Then I ask Is not that Church wherein Timothy should have behaved himself called the ground and pillar of truth So the Scripture calls it and ye cannot deny it Now this Church was the Church of Ephesus then the Church of Ephesus is called the ground and pillar of truth But first the Church of Ephesus fell from her first love and the candlestick is threatned to be removed from her unless she repent Rev. 2.5 She did not repent but in time became worse and worse and so heaped fault upon fault till Christ hath now removed his candlestick from her and delivered her over to darkness and death by taking his own elect to himself and giving over the reprobat that hated the truth to the blindness of their own mind so that city is left desolat to the impiety of Mahomet and she that was once called by Gods Spirit the pillar and ground of truth hath now lost the truth Now I say that which may befall one Church may befall any other Church Then that which is befallen to the Church of Ephesus may befall any other But the Church of Ephesus was first craised and then by little and little utterly overthrown and being bereft of the light of Christ is now a Church no longer Therefore I say that there is no Church on the face of the earth howsoever they flatter themselves with glorious styles of Catholick pillars and ground of the truth whose body that is the elect and chosen in it may not be overshadowed with darkness and overtaken with faintness whose chaff that is the hypocrits in it may not be wholly consumed with rottenness and destruction and whose whole frame and outward government may not loose both their strength and beauty Thirdly I say if the Church cannot err as ye say because it is the ground and pillar of truth and if the Church of Ephesus be called the pillar and ground of truth as the Scripture saith and seeing the Church of Ephesus with all the Churches of the East as ye cannot deny hath condemned the Popes supremacy as heresie Therefore one of these two must follow either that the Church that is the pillar and ground of the truth not only may err but hath erred or else it is an heresie condemned many hūdred years ago That the Pope is the head of the Church so Popery is heresie Judge ye which of these ye will choose Last of all I say the Church is called the pillar and ground of truth because it is her office and duty to hold out the word of truth as lanterns and light Philip. 2.16 by preaching it and practising it as the Priest is called the Messenger of the Lord of hosts because his lips should preserve knowledge and declare the message of God Malach. 2.7 But as there were Priests which shew not forth the message of God but caused many to err in the Law and corrupted the covenant of Levi so there may be Churches and have been which have not upheld and maintained the truth but have fallen therefrom Now I come to your last testimony of Scripture Acts 5.39 In that counsel of Gamaliel to the Council of the Scribes and Pharisies That if the doctrine of the Apostles be of God that it cannot be destroyed What do you gather here That the truth doth remain for ever Bellarmin telleth you that ye spend but time in proving that for we grant it unto you It cannot I grant be destroyed but yet it can be persecuted and removed out of places where it was before and obscured and corrupted by mens glosses and traditions as it hath been these 1500. years by the Jews to whom this was spoken That if the doctrine of the Apostles was of God they could not destroy it and yet as was said they banished it and made the Lord to deprive them thereof and to give them over to the blindness and hardness of their hearts because they would not embrace the truth when it was offered Seeing then there is not a syllab in Gods Word that will uphold this main foundation of your Church that the Church cannot err take heed to your self M. Gilbert in time and build not the damnation of your own soul and the damnation of the souls of many others upon a point of doctrine that hath not God to bear witness to it in the whole Scripture I might end here but because this point as I said before is the main pillar that upholds the whole weight of their Church and Religion therefore I will utterly overthrow the same and I will prove out of the Word of God That the Church in all ages both may err and hath erred And first the Scripture testifieth that it is only proper to God alone by nature to be perfectly holy and true and free from all errors Mark 10.18 And contrariwise man by nature is unholy a liar prone to deceive and to be deceived Rom. 3.4 9.10.11.17 and 19. vers so that by nature he is nothing else but a mass of blindness and corruption so that the light he hath he hath it by free grace by Gods Spirit to make
3. and 11. and 15. And the Church of Galatia erred in being carried away to another Gospel and in joyning the Ceremonies of the law with grace in justification Gal. 1. and 3. And what will ye say when the heresie of Arrius who denied Christ to be the Son of God equal to his Father spread its self so far that it is testified by Theodor. hist. Eccles lib. 2. Hier. dial contra Lucif cap. 7. in chron Athanas Epist de Synod Alim Seleu. that the Bishops of the whole world became Arrians that the whole world did grieve and wonder at it self that it was become an Arrian What will ye say unto all the Christian Churches of the East Grecia Asia and Africa Churches planted by the Apostles I mean not now of them that have professed Mahometism but of them that admits the Scripture acknowledges Christ their Savior who have their ordinar succession of Patriarks and Bishops as well as your Church of Rome hath who in number far exceeds these Churches which acknowledges your Pope to be the head of the Church For first yours is but in Europe except ye will claim to the New-found land and not all Europe for all the Churches in Greece which is a great part of Europe acknowledges not your supremacy Now take the Greek Churches from you next the Reformed Churches in Scotland England Germany Denmark France Zeland Holland and other places which have gone out of Babel which are all in Europe your number will not be many that acknowledges your supremacy And next take all Asia and Africa from you which is the two parts of the world your number will be smal in comparison of these that are against your supremacy Now all these detests your supremacy as tyranny and the worship of Images your transubstantiation in the Sacrament the Communion under one kind the single life of Priests Either therefore ye must grant that the greatest number of Christian Churches have erred and doth err or else that your Roman Church doth err and your supremacy yea your Religion which depends upon your supremacy is the head of heresie But it may be ye will say that all other Christian Churches may err but that it is only proper to your Church not to err First therefore let me ask at you what can be the cause of that singular priviledge which the Church of Rome hath beside all other Churches which ever have been is or shal be Yea above Adam when he was in his integrity for he erred yea above the Angels for they remained not in the truth Jude 6 Above the Patriarcks Abraham Isaac and Jacob yea above Aaron and the Church in the wilderness above the Church under the Law yea above the Apostles and Peter himself before Christs suffering in the time of his suffering after the resurrection after the receiving of the holy Ghost for they erred in all these times Yea above the Christian Churches that have been founded by the Apostles as well as yours that had the promise the covenant the service of God once in as great purity as ever yours had that have their ordinar succession their antiquity their vocation ordinar as well as yours hath unto this day Great surely must be that priviledge given unto the Church of Rome that hath exeemed her from error others having erred What is then your prerogative above all other Churches I know that ye will say because of Peters chair that was there wherein the Popes sits after him First then if Peters chair hath such a prerogative that the Pastors who sits in it and the Church that cleaves to it cannot err I think surely the Lords chair which was at Jerusalem which was called the Temple and seat of God and Moses chair wherein the Scribes and Pharisees sate should rather have that prerogative to free the Churches and Pastors sitting in these chairs from erring yea the Church which the truth it self Jesus Christ founded whom he taught with his own mouth and among whom he was crucified should with far greater right claim to that prerogative But since all their seats have erred for the Temple became a den of thieves the Scribes and Pharisees that sate in Moses chair condemned the Lord of glory and Jerusalem it self cryed out Crucifie crucifie him And the Christian Church gathered there are long since far from the way of salvation So that if neither the chair of God nor Moses freed the Church of the Jews from erring nor the chair of Christ freed the Christian Church there gathered from erring How then can Peters chair have this prerogative above them all as to exeem that Church and Pastors that sits therein from possibility of erring What is this but to prefer him before them all whose seat hath a priviledge that neither God nor his sons nor Moses seat had O high blasphemy to be detested and abhorred of all Christian hearts But let us see if it hath this prerogative which they ascribe unto it or not And first if it could have exeemed any from erring should it not have exeemed himself especially from erring But as it hath been shown he erred Acts 1.6 Gal. 2. therefore it cannot exeem neither his successors not yet the Church that acknowledges them from erring Secondly if it had exeemed any Church from erring should it not have exeemed the Church of Antiochia especially for surely Antiochia hath better right to claim to this prerogative then your Church hath For first it was Peters first seat Next the Scripture bears witness to it that he was there Gal. 2.11 But neither was Rome Peters first seat nor is there so much as a syllab in all the Scriptures to prove that ever Peter was in Rome But suppose Peter was there for we will not examine this now whither is this prerogative not to err given to your head that is to the Popes or to the body that is the people or to both If ye say to the head as ye do indeed then what will ye answer to your own Writers and Fathers to your own Councils and Popes to your own Canon Law affirming that Popes may err and be hereticks and should be deposed and are deposed when they are manifest hereticks as hath been proved before And what will ye say to your Popes that have been hereticks indeed one of them an Arrian another an Eutychian the third a Nestorian the fourth a Montanist the fifth deposed as an heretick the sixth denying that the souls of the children of God saw Gods face while after the resurrection the seventh denying life everlasting and others giving themselves over in the hands of the Devil for the Popedom others repelling and abrogating the decrees of their predecessors others such monsters and beasts so cruel to the dead and to the living that your own friends calls them monsters and affirms of one of them that the Devil shot him through while he was abusing another mans wife and so died without repentance Dare you
third he permits one to have two wives if the first be sickly decret causa 32. quaest 7. cap. Quod proposuisti contrary both to the Gospel Matth. 19. and to another decreet of the Canon Law Decretal lib. 4. tit 9. cap. Quoniam Pope Nicolas saith Dist 40. cap. A quodam Judaeo that that Baptism which is ministred without express mention of the three persons of the Trinity is firm and sure enough But Pope Zacharie Dist eadem de consecrat cap. In Synodo hath decreed the contrary All these decreets are set down in their Canon Law and hath the strength of a law in the Roman Church not as privat mens but as Popes decreets And yet some of them are directly repugnant to the Word of God that themselves cannot deny but they are heresies and some of them so directly repugnant to the decreets of other Popes that either the one or the other must be heresie But it may be ye will answer that suppose the Pope may err as he is Pope and that in matters of doctrine yet he cannot err with his Council either Provincial or General as Bellarmin saith Whereunto I answer first if General Councils lawfully conveaned together may err in matters of doctrine unless they be confirmed by the Pope as Bellarmin grants and if the Popes may err themselves alone and that judicially in matters of doctrine as hath been proved why may they not err also being joyned together seeing Councils have this priviledge only by his confirmation and allowance As Bellarmin saith lib. 4. de Rom. Pontif. cap. 3. Secondly I say either Pope Steven the 6. with his Council erred in condemning of Formosus and his acts which he made as Pope and in decreeing his ordinations to be void and null because the man was wicked by whom they were ordained Sigebert in Chron. which is an error of the Donatists or else Pope John the 9. with his Council of 72. Bishops erred in justifying Formosus and his decreets and condemning the acts of Pope Steven with his Council Last of all since General Councils that have been confirmed by their Popes have erred the sixth General Council confirmed by Pope Hadrian in epist. ad Thracium quae est in 2. actione 7. Syn. Canon 2. hath sundry errors which they themselves will not defend as the rebaptizing of hereticks For the counsel of Cyprian is confirmed there wherein this is decreeted And also it is ordained Canon 13. that Elders Deacons Subdeacons should not separat from their wives contrary to the Canon of the Roman Church as is said there And the marriage of Catholicks and Hereticks is judged null and voyd Canon 67. which your self cannot deny to be an error contrary to the express truth of God 1. Cor. 7.13 And the forbidding of Ministers to remain with their wives Canon 12. contrary to the sixth Canon of the Apostles Either therefore a General Council confirmed by a Pope hath erred or else the Apostles have erred in this Canon for they judge them to be the Canons of the Apostles The first General Council of Constantinople and the General Council of Chalcedon which are both by their own confession approved by the Popes Bellarm lib. 1. de Concilijs cap. 5. And yet both these have decreeed that the Bishop of Constantinople should have equal priviledges of authority honor and dignity in Ecclesiastical affaires with the Bishop of Rome except only the first place or seat the which by their own confession is an error Therefore either lawful General Councils confirmed by the Pope have erred or else the Pope is not the head of the Church and hath not a preeminence of authority over the rest for they have made the Bishop of Constantinople equal with him or else there are two heads of thier Church the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of Constantinople I omit the rest Augustin saith de baptismo contra Donatistas lib. 2. cap. 3. That Provincial Councils may be corrected by General Councils and of General Councils the former may be amended by the latter If they may be mended then they may err And here he speaks not of a matter of fact but of a matter of faith For he speaks of the baptism of hereticks Now to conclud seeing the Churches in all ages before the Law in the time of the Law and in the time of grace yea and the Apostles and Peter himself have erred and seeing the Church of Rome that claims this priviledge of not erring above all other Churches hath erred also and that not only her people which they call Laicks but also her Clergy severally and together in Councils as well Provincial as General And seeing the head which as they say is the Rock and foundation of the Church hath erred in life in Office in matters of Faith and Religion not as privat men only but as Popes both by themselves alone as also with their Councils as well Provincial as General Seeing I hope I have proved all these things sufficiently then may I not with the judgement of all men safely conclud that that main pillar whereupon the whole weight and pillar of your Religion depends that the Church cannot err that it is an error and such a dangerous and damnable error whereupon all the errors of your Religion is built that whosoever will believe it they hazard the endless salvation of their souls Ground then Christian Reader thy salvation not upon this that the Church cannot err for that is false but upon this that as long as she sticks to the Word of God written in the Old and New Testament she errs not and when she swerves and it were but an inch broad from the Scripture then she errs And therefore two learned Papists Gerson de examinat part 1. consid 5. and Panorm affirms the one saith Simplici non authorizato sed excellenter in sacris literis erudito c. that is that more credit is to be given to one unlearned and simple but yet excellently beseen in the holy Writ in a point of doctrine then to the Pope And such a learned man saith he ought to oppone himself to a General Council if he perceive the greater part to decline to the contrary of the Gospel either of malice or of ignorance The other saith extra de elect cap. Significasti That more credit is to be given to an unlearned and simple man that brings for him the Scripture then to a whole General Council And this for answer to the testimonies of Scripture which ye cited Now as concerning the Fathers testimonies which ye bring in they will serve you no further then the Scripture hath done For they will go no further with you then this that the Church of Christ and his covenant with her shal endure for ever the which we grant and they that will read them will find them so And if ye prove any further out of them it shal be answered by Gods grace For it were too fashous to the
it out of the histories leaving it free to Historiographers to write what they please and omit what they please Thirdly it is manifest that the Church of the Jewes in the time of Christ was changed both in doctrine and manners from that estat that it was in the time of Aaron Eleazar and sundry others and also the Churches of Galatia and Corinth that they were changed from the estat wherein they were And yet I suppose that neither ye nor any Papist in the earth is able to assign to me all the circumstances of the mutations and changes in the same as the first authors time place c. and yet there was a great change in doctrine and Religion in all these Churches as hath been proved before And we read that our Savior and the Apostles convicted them of a change and yet they designed not the first authors time and place c. The like I say of the Church of Greece Asia and Africa which in number exceeds yours That there is a wonderful change in their Church and Religion ye will not deny or else your Religion is heresie For as said is they acknowledge not your Popes supremacy transubstantiation c. And yet I suppose ye nor no Papist in the earth is able to assign all the circumstances of changes in their Church and Religion which they have presently yea more unable to do this then we are able to do the same in yours I mean not the heresies of Arrius Samosatenus Nestorius Eutyches Sergius and the rest which long ago were damned by the Councils of the Greek Churches For I suppose ye shal not be able to prove that they now maintain these heresies which they condemned and refuted long ago But I mean of the present errors and corruptions in their worship and Religion which now they maintain and profess If then ye judge the Churches of the East heretical because they are not agreeable to your doctrine and Religion of Rome and yet not be able to assign the circumstances of the changes and mutations of the same will ye not grant the same liberty to us to account and judge your Church and Religion failed because it is not agreeable to the doctrine of Jesus Christ set down in the Scripture suppose we could not assign to you the circumstances of the changes of the same Fourthly I say if you have read Epiphanius there ye shal find many heresies which I omit for shortness which he accounts heresies whose beginnings and authors are unknown Fifthly there is such an universal complaint of the monstrous abominations decays in your Religion discipline and manners and that by your own Councils Concil Constant sess 4. 5. Trident. sess 6. Basil sess 2. 3. Fathers Bernard in Cant. 33. Popes Cardinals and Friers that I would have thought it uncredible unless I had read them that either your own mouthes should have so condemned your selves or else that the posterity afterward should have been so shameless as to have boasted of the purity of their Church and Religion Therefore the Council of Trent hath proclaimed it to the world in writ that the Church hath need to be reformed in the head and members Now I ask that of you concerning these abuses in discipline and manners which ye ask of us concerning your doctrine Show me all the circumstances of mutation and change distinctly if ye can what time what place by what author c. such monstrous abominations first brake in in your Church and Religion Now seeing there is no man who hath a spark of judgement that will doubt of that incredible change of manners and discipline in your Church and yet the circumstances of the changes unknown think ye then that ye shal assure men that no changes could fall in your doctrine unless we knew the circumstances of the changes of the same Sixthly the Scripture testifies Matth. 13.27.28 that even the tares which is the evil seed doth not appear so soon as they are sown and that neither the times nor the first author of them was known no not to the most diligent laborers of the Lords ground at the first and yet it was enough to know them to be evil seed by the difference that was seen betwixt them and the good seed suppose the time place and author was unknown at the first So it is proof enough against your doctrine that it is but tares if the difference be made manifest between it and the Lords truth in the Scripture suppose the circumstances of the changes of it cannot be assigned Seventhly error is likened to leaven and a canker which doth not all at once infect the whole mass and fester the whole body but piece and piece so your corruption came not in all at once but piece and piece infected your Church and festered your Religion And therefore it is no wonder suppose the beginnings of infection and circumstances of it hath not been marked For if they had broken in all at once and suddenly overthrown the whole Church it had been no difficulty to have assigned the circumstances of the overthrow of it For if any having a whole constitution with a stroke were slain if a ship with a wave were drowned it were no difficulty to assign the circumstances of the sudden changes But in a consumption and in a leck that hath come in piece and piece in the body and in the ship the beginnings thereof cannot be so easily perceived For a little leck in process of time will sink a great ship And if it be so hard to discern the beginnings of these things which our senses may grope how much more hard is it to perceive the beginnings of these spiritual corruptions which cannot be perceived by the natural man but only by the light of Gods Spirit by the spiritual man Eightly if now it be so in other heresies as the Scripture testifies of them that their beginnings are ofttimes unknown even unto the most diligent laborers of the Lords husbandrie and that they come in by little and little and doth not infect all at once how much more is this true in your Antichristian Religion which as it was fore-told should deceive all Nations and make them drunken with the wine of her fornication And therefore your doctrine is termed in the Scripture an iniquitie but a secret iniquitie an unrighteousness but yet a deceivable unrighteousness a delusion but yet a strong delusion 2. Thess an abomination and spiritual fornication Rev. 17. but yet put in a golden cup that is having the show of godliness and Religion and your Church is called a harlot but yet finely decked in purple c. not like a harlot but a Queen Your Kingdō is called a beast that speaks like the dragon but yet like the lamb in his horns resembling the power and authority of the Lord Jesus Seeing then your Church Kingdom and Doctrine is such a mystery of iniquity hath such a show of godliness hath such a
resemblance with the lamb hath such clokes of styles is so deceivable and is such a strong delusion as the Scripture testifies of it Is it any wonder suppose the beginnings of this mystery and of the whoredoms of this Queen be not distinctly marked and set down Ninthly it is likely enough that the great credit wherein the first Bishops of Rome was for their piety and godliness and the lofty estat of their successors after them together with their cruelty and tyranny did so dazel on the one side the eyes of the godly that they were not inquisitive in marking the changes and beginnings of their corruptions and so bridled the mouthes of other some that they durst not write the things they saw and if they writ any thing they writ it but barely and corruptly for the tyranny of your Church was such that none durst mutter against your Church and Religion but he was taken without further as an heretick and condemned and executed where ever your tyranny reached Last of all suppose they had been written by the Histories of every age and that distinctly yet considering the universal power craft and policy of your Church and Kingdom is it any wonder suppose they be not now extant at all but either burnt or else so falsified and corrupted that the beginnings thereof should not have been perceived For seeing in the purer times when the power and dominion of your Church was not yet come to the hight such was the ambition and falshood of your Popes that in the presence of a Council of 217. Bishops in Carthage anno 430. where Augustin was present they did alledge a false Canon of the Council of Nice for to have established their supremacy and under one of their hands sent it to the Council by their Legats the which was espyed and found out by the whole Council that not only it was decreed and ordained in that Council he should have no prerogative over the Churches of Africk and that none should appeal to him under the pain of deposition and excommunication but alâ—o he was rebuked by the Fathers of that Council in their letters to him If he was so bold then what marvel suppose since he hath falsified and corrupted every History and Writing that he saw might bear any wayes witness of the corruptions tyrannies and abominations of that Church and Religion of his And hence it is I am sure that we find so little written of the beginnings of their corruptions and of them that resisted it And your Index expurgatorius devised in the Council of Trent for blotting out every thing in the writings of men that might testifie of your corruptions doth also sufficiently witness unto the world what ye did in the former times So to conclud this suppose we could not assign to you the circumstances of the changes of your Religion yet it follows not but your Religion and Church may be corrupted and decayed But to satisfie your demand suppose I hope the things already said will satisfie the consciences of the godly What crave you that all the circumstances of changes in your Religion may be assigned to you First then I say there is nothing that may serve either to make the man of God wâ—se unto salvation or yet that may make him perfect in every good work but the Scripture testifies For it is able to do both these If these circumstances then serve either for salvation or perfection I say they are set down in the Scripture so that we need not to go to Histories to search the same The first then ye crave is the time when the change began The Scripture tells you That the mystery of iniquity began to work even then in the Apostles days and that it doth already work and so grew on from degree to degree till he that withheld it was removed that is till the Empire of Rome began to decay and the seat of it removed from thence as the Fathers expounded it Augustin Chrysostome Jerome and so the city left to the Pope the man of sin for him to set his throne there for Rome that seven hilled City Rev. 17 9 behoved to be the seat of the Antichrist as it was fore told by the Scripture So if you will believe the Scripture you have the time What crave you next The place I say the Scripture testifieth of the same that that mystical Babylon which Bellarmin lib. 2. de Rom. Pontif. cap 2. Rev. 17. your chief champion grants to be Rome that sits upon sâ—ven hills that had the dominion over the Kings of the earth that is the place where first your Church and Religion began to decay So there the place if you will believe the Scripture What crave you next The author The Scripture also hath fore told That the beast that came out of the bottomless pit and slew the witnesses of God and made war with the Saints and overcame them and made all to worship the image of the beast and the harlot Babel the city of Rome the mother of whoredoms who made all Nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication Rev. 12 7. and 14.8 That is your head and Church they are the authors and mothers of this decay and corruption What is the fourth thing ye require The Church that said against the same The Scripture will tell you that too The two witnesses of God whom she killed the woman that fled in the wilderness the Saints with whom she made war and who would not worship the beast nor receive his image the hundred forty and four thousand that John saw standing with the Lamb on mount Sion who was not defiled with your idolatry but followed the Lamb whithâ—rsoever he went Rev. 11. and 12 and 13. and 14. These then are the true Church which spake against your corruptions who are like unto Eliahs seven thousand that had not bowed their knees to Baal What crave you more The matter it self they said against The Scripture and ye will believe will satisfie you in this point also The doctrine then that was said against Was the mystery of iniquity that deceivableness of unrighteousness that strong delusion 1. Thess 2 Rev. 13. That doctrine of the dragon that spiritual idolatrie and abomination Rev. 17.18 That doctrine of Devils in forbidding marriage and commanding abstinence of meat c. 1. Tim. 4. What crave you last The number from whom they departed The Scripture will also bear witness of this seeing your Religion is a departure from the faith 1. Thess 2. then all these that ever professed the faith of Jesus set down in his written Word even the Lord Jesus the head the Apostles the layers of the foundation the primitive Churh the woman that fled in the wilderness the Saints with whom ye made war and all the elect and chosen of God that abhorred your idolatrie These are the true Churches from whom you departed What now crave you more Will not the
abundance of the rivers of the Scriptures of God quench and satisfie this your desire but that you must go unto the unpure fountains of mens writings as though the Scriptures were not sufficient not only to make a man wise unto salvation but to make him perfect in every thing These things I am sure will satisfie the souls of them that love the truth But because you give no credit to the Scriptures but counts them as a nose of wax and as one of your Popes speaking to Bembus a Cardinal called them a fable of Christ and yet such a fable as hath inriched your treasures And Sylvester Prierias writing against Luther saith That the Roman Church and Pope is of greater authority then the Scriptures O horrible blasphemies of the holy truth of God Therefore we will go to the Histories and see what they have testified of these circumstances And although all things here be not expressed to the full yet there is so much left uncorrupted and unscraped out by the gracious providence of God that would not want his witness in all ages out of the Fathers and your own Writers that I hope will satisfie the consciences of all the modest and godly Clemens Alexandrinus saith lib. 1. strom that the Apostles successors received the doctrine from them as the sons from their fathers But he subjoyns That there was very few children that was like their fathers Aegesippus as Nicephorus reports saith lib. 3. cap. 16. That the Church remained a pure virgin as long as the Apostles lived unto Trajans time but they being dead he writes that it was speedily corrupted So if ye credit the testimonies of these men ye see the Church remaineth not long in her integrity And if you would hear any thing of your Roman Church Socrates lib. 7. cap. 11. saith That Celestin your Pope past the bounds of his Priesthood Read Basilius de Spiritu sancto cap. ult and there ye may see what change of Religion was in his time Augustin testifies epist 119. c. 19. That the multitude of ceremonies grew so in his time that the condition of the Jews seemed to be more tollerable then the condition of the Church Now did not this sickness suppose ye grow by time And to come to your own Writers Bernard saith in Cant. 33. That the Ministers of Christ meaning of the Roman Church serves Antichrist And to the Pope himself Eugenius the 3. he saith lib. 4. And thou the shepherd goeth forth being clothed with a glorious attyr if I durst say it these are the feeding places of Devils rather then of sheep Thy court is accustomed rather to receive good men then to make them good not the evil profits but the good decays there And in another place he saith From the sole of the foot speaking of the Church of Rome to the crown of the head there is no health nor soundness And de conv Pauli Psal 91. ser 6. he saith What remains now speaking of the corruption of that Church of Rome but that the man of sin be revealed the man of perdition Daemonium non modò diurnum sed meridianum that is a devilry not only in the day-tyde but in the very noon-tyde And lib. 4. to Eugenius the Pope he saith In these secular attyrs and powers thou hast not succeeded to Peter but to Constantine The day would sooner fail me then the writing of his complaints against the Church of Rome Pope Adrian the 6. in his instructions to his Legats who were sent to the Council of Noremberg he grants and bids them say to the Council That we know that in this chair meaning Peters Sea in Rome for certain years many abominable things have been in it the abuse in spiritual things the excess in commandments and in a word all things are changed in a worse And the Council of the Cardinals to Paul the third they say Out of this fountain holy Father as from the Troyan horse hath broken so many abuses in the Church of God such heavy diseases whereby we see now that she is despaired almost of health Aeneas Sylvius a Cardinal who also was Pope afterward saith of your Church That all faith hath perished in her and love is grown yce-cold And Cornelius Bitontinus Bishop who was present at the Council of Trent saith Would to God speaking of your Church that unanimes velut prorsus c. all with one heart all utterly they had not declined from Religion to superstition from Faith to infidelity from Christ to Antichrist What would ye have more Will ye yet be so shameless as to boast of the purity of your Church and from God to Epicurism ex Epistola 54 ad Caspar Schlick Oratio Cornelii Epis Bitonti 3. Dom. advent I leave the rest as Platin Genebrard Frier Mantuan Nicolaus Clemangis Franciscus Petrarcha Aventinus and a number of others who are full of complaints of the abominations of your Church of Rome that certainly I cānot but wonder at your shamelesness in opening of your mouth and saying That your Church had the truth in all things and never failed nor was interrupted against such a cloud of witnesses whose testimonies ye dare not refuse But I leave you to the Lord. The lips of a liar is abomination to the Lord Prov. 20 So your own mouthes shal rise up in the day of the Lord and condemn you that saith Your Church hath not failed in any substantial point of Religion But you require more distinctly the time place and persons c. that hath brought in this mutation and change If these are to be accounted authors of your erroneous doctrines who were the chief defenders thereof then I say the Popes of Rome for the most part are the authors of the same for they were the chief defenders thereof suppose they had not been the first teachers thereof For otherwise Luther cannot be said to be the author of our Religion as ye say because he was not the first that taught the same and that by your own confession For ye say that sundry other hereticks before Luther taught the same heads of doctrine which he taught and which we profess now as that fasting should be free that only faith justifieth that man hath not free will c. Next because it were too longsome to go through the whole heads of your Religion therefore I will only bring a few examples and that in some of the substantial points thereof As for the sacrifice of the Mass and the ceremonies thereof I have shown the authors thereof in another place therefore I omit that now The first that ever took upon him to exercise jurisdiction over the Churches of the East was Pope Victor anno 200. or 198. who took upon him to excommunicat the Bishops of the East because they would not follow his fashion in the celebration of Easter There the person time and place resisted by Irenaeus Bishop of Lions in France and the Bishops of the East and the brethren
there Polycarpus and sundrie others Euseb lib. 5. cap. 25.26 The first that took upon him the style to be called Universal Bishop was the Bishop of Constantinople anno 581. resisted by Pelagius and after him by Gregorius Bishops of Rome lib. 4. epistola 32.38 39. And yet for all this Boniface the 3. anno 607. obtained this style of Phocas the Emperor the murtherer of his predecessor Platina Sabellicus Marianus Scotus complained of by the Church of Ravenna in Italie and resisted by sundrie as shal be proved afterwards The first that appointed laws of fasting was Montanus the heretick anno 145. Euseb lib. 5. cap. 17. accounted heresie by Apolonius and Augustine against the fasting of the Manicheans The Manicheans were the first we read of that ministred the Communion under one kind as the Papists do now so forth of many other old condemned heresies which your Church hath renewed as shal be proved afterward The first that gave the rise to Transubstantiation was Mark a notable Magician anno 115. who by his inchantment having first caused a cup of white wine to bear the color of blood made his followers believe that by his invocation over it that grace which is above all things had powred his blood into the cup refuted by Epiphanius Haeres 34. and Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 8. The first that decreed Transubstantiation in effect was Pope Nicolaus the 2. anno 1090. in causing Berengarius to recant De consecrat Distinct 2. cap. Ego Berengarius but yet it was not decreed as an universal doctrine before Pope Innocent the 3. his time in a Council of Lateran anno 1215. as Tonstal witnesses de Sacramenta The Greek Church never consented to it Bertramus Berengarius Waldensis withstood it The first that decreed the worshipping of Images was Hadrian in the 2. Council of Nice against the express Scripture after the example of Marcellina an heretick who worshipped the Image of Jesus resisted by sundry Fathers and Councils Concil Eliber Concil Constant Conc. Francof The first that imposed single life and condemned marriage in their Clergy was Pope Syricius anno 290. distinct 82. cap. Proposuisti as the Manichees did before him resisted by sundrie Sigebert H. Mutius Let these examples serve as a taste to the reader How stronglie now ye have manned and fortified your own Church and Religion by your proofs let the reader judge Now let us see how ye disprove ours The question now comes in of the truth of our Church and Religion whither it be from Jesus Christ or not You say it is not from him but from others since his time If ye had gone the straight way to have proved this and to have satisfied the consciences of men you would at the nearest have run to the Scripture and by the same have disproved it But you in stead of this go a far by-way and would father our Religion on flesh and blood dust and ashes in pointing us out Martin Luther to be the father and author of the same as though it had not an ancienter pedegre to reckon unto nor had not the beginning and foundation of it from the root of Jesse the bud of the Lord from whom it hath sprung And for to get your self the better credit you busie your self in marking the circumstances of his preaching as time place matter opposition c. Now that ye are so skilled and acquainted with that history of Martin Luther that you can assign all these circumstances it is no wonder for that was the most notable and remarkable period of the decaying of your Babel and of the erecting up again of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ which your head and Clergy had stamped under foot for so many years which suppose the beginning of it was but like a little leaven and as a grain of mustard seed which of all seeds is the least yet now since it hath so sowred almost the whole mass even the most part of the Kingdoms of Europe which once was under your spiritual bondage and hath grown up into such a high tree having fair and great branches under the which the Lords sheep may get rest and warmness and in the which his souls that mounts upwards to that Kingdom doth build their nests so that neither can all your purgations nor yet all your axes of fire and sword of buls and pardons of preachings and writings stay the spreading of the one nor cut down the branches and root of the other That M. Luther began at that time and in that place and preached against these doctrines we do not deny and that is not controverted But here lyes all the question whither if that doctrine that he preached against was Antichristian or not and whither that Religion which he neither invented nor yet first preached for sundry before him did preach that same doctrine whose names I set down in my answer to your objection but only raised it out of the grave of darkness wherein ye had buried the truth of God Here then I say is the question whither that Religion which he preached hath the warrant from Jesus Christ in his Testament or not The which if ye ever disprove by the written Word of God then shal we grant you all that ye say the which is as impossible to you to do no not suppose your King would call all your wise men and Clergy together as it was to all the wise men of Babel to tell and interpret Nebuchadnezar his dream yea suppose your King would reward you gloriously with honor and riches if ye could do it yet are ye not able to win your wages yea suppose he would tear you in pieces and make your house a jakes unless ye did it as the wise men of Babel was because they could not tell and interpret the Kings dream This is therefore the point which lyes in question betwixt us which ye should have proved if ye could But know ye for a truth that suppose he raised out of the grave the truth of God which ye had buried yet was he neither the inventer nor the first preacher of it but it hath for the beginning and Author of it Jesus Christ the Son of God and the foundation of it in the New Testament of his holy Scripture This for the Author time and place which ye assign Now to the Churches that spake against him I answer They were but such as was made drunken with the wine of your fornication and deluded by your strong delusions being deceived by the golden cup wherein you propined them to be drunken out as it was prophesied of you Rev. 17.4 But the measure of your iniquity being full and the time of the lurking of the truth of God being run out God of his infinit mercy by his ministery and the rest that followed since hath opened the eyes of a great part of these Kingdoms who first said against him to see your Church to be the whore Rev. 17.1 your Kingdom to
without further tryal because he hath so decreed it What is this but not only to make him equal to the Lord For God only hath that priviledge to be believed because he so speaks mans testimony so far only is to be credited as it may be warranted by the Scripture but also to preferr his authoritie to the voice of God in his Scripture seeing he is Judge of the same and not that onlie but to hang my salvation upon his voice and testimonie And seeing ye will have them Judges what is the cause that their Canons Laws and determinations are not as authentick as the Scripture and insert in the Canon of the Scripture But let us see your reasons First you say That the holy Ghost was given to the Church by the Father and the Son that he might teach it all truth I grant this that the holy Ghost is given to every one of the elect as wel Pastor as people to lead them in all truth in so far as may bring them to salvation And yet ye will not make every one of them Judges next every one of the elect may err notwithstanding of this promise suppose not totally and finally and therefore cannot be Judges of Religion Secondly you alledge the example of the Council of the Apostles and Elders It is true in that controversie that arose among the Christians concerning the observing of the ceremonies of the law of Moses that the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church after reasoning defined the same and writes the same to be observed by the Disciples everie where but first they were Apostles and was infallibly governed by Gods Spirit that they could not err in teaching and writing but your Pastors are not Apostles and may err Next they assemble with the Elders and the whole Church and all with one accord defines Acts 15.12.22.23 You in your Council excludes all except your Bishops to be ordinary Judges to give out judgement and your Popes neither Elder nor brethren having power of voting with you Bellarm. lib. 1. de Concil cap. 1. Thirdly they define according to the Scripture saying As it is written c. Act. 15.15 This controversie to make us to understand if we will not be more then blind that this rule should be followed in all Councils to determine in controversies according to the Scripture Upon the which I reason if the Apostles who had that high measure of Gods Spirit which never man had since so that in writing and teaching they could not err if they I say did determine the controversies of Religion according to the Scripture how much more then are all Pastors since who may err both severally and jointly together in a Council bound to follow the same rule And whereas ye call their Elders Priests you stile them not as the holy Ghost hath stiled them there so there they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Elders and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is sacrificing Priests as ye suppone Your third reason is the practise and custom of the Church in deciding the controversies of Religion in Councils we grant that this is a very commodious mean to search and find out the truth by the Scripture For first the more they are that seek the truth it is the more easily found Next the consent of many in determining a truth will be of greater authority to repress hereticks then if it were agreed upon only by a few But yet they should determine nothing but that which is warranted by the Scripture and their determinations only in so far forth to be received as is agreeable to the same And this we grant hath been done in the Council of the primitive Church And therefore the Emperor Constantine speaking to the Fathers of the Council of Nice saith Sunt libri Prophetici Apostolici qui apertè quid credendum sit docent c. That is there are the Books of the Prophets and Apostles who teacheth plainly what we should believe All contention therefore laid aside let us take the soveraign decision of these things which are called in controversie out of the Scriptures which are inspired by God And this we grant and this we require But that Councils ought to determin any thing of their own authority in matters of Religion which binds the conscience without the warrant of the Word that we deny Master Gilbert Brown It is a wonder that M. John will refer any thing to the written Word seeing that he and his have no warrant that the same is the Word of God but by the authority of the Roman or Papist Church For understand there was no Church worthie of credit immediatly before Luther but that Church Master John Welsch his Reply You wonder that I refer any thing to the Scripture But what a wōder is this that ye are so far blinded of God that you think that a wonder in me which Abraham hath done which the Prophets have done which our Savior and his Apostles have done and which the Fathers have done for all these have referred the infallible testimony and decision of the will of God concerning his worship unto the Scriptures Luke 16 29. John 5 39. Acts 26.22 Rom. 12. and 16.26 2. Tim. 3.16 2. Pet. 1.10 Rev. 1 3. cap. ult yea which your self also hath done for ye make it a witness But what hath moved you to think this a wonder in me which so many and your self also have done before me Because say ye that he and his that is our Church have no warrant that it is the Word of God but by the authoritie of the Roman or Papist Church I grant indeed that you and your Church are plunged in this blindness and miserie that all the warrant that you have not only of the Scriptures themselves that they are inspired of God but also of all your doctrine and Religion is the testimony of your Roman Church that is of your Pope and Clergy for so ye interpret the Church So Bellarmin grants de Sacr. lib. 2. cap. 25. That all the certainty of all doctrine depends upon the authority of the present Church meaning the Pope and his Clergy And Stapleton saith lib. 1 contra Whitak de author script cap. 10. That it is no absurd thing not to believe God but for the testimony of the Church Pigius saith That it is not needful to believe all that Matthew and John writ in their Gospels to be true because that they might fail in memory and lie as all men may do Ecclesiast hierar lib. 1. cap. 2. And Hermannus saith That the Scripture would be of no more authority then the fables of Esop were not the testimony of the Church And so blind and miserable must you be that hangs the certaintie of all Religion and of man his salvation upon so smal a threed as the testimony of your Popes and Clergy What peace in conscience can any man have that professes your Religion which teaches that the
certainty and warrant of all the doctrine in the Scripture and the Scripture it self that they are of God but the testimony of your Popes and Clergy What is it to expone the certainty of the Lords Scripture and of all Religion comprehended in the same to the mocking and derision of the wicked if this be not Yea is not this to prefer the voice and authoritie of your Popes and Clergie to the voice of God himself For what is the testimonie of your Church but the testimonie of men And is not the Scripture the testimonie and voice of God himself Do ye not therefore lift up the authoritie of your Church that is your Popes and Clergie above the authoritie of God in his Word which as you say that there is no other warrant of the Divinitie of the Scripture but only the testimonie of your Church But God be thanked in Christ Jesus who hath delivered us from this blindness for we have other warrants whereupon the certaintie of our salvation and the Divinitie of the Scripture depends then by the testimonie of the true Church much less the testimonie of your Church which is Antichristian and given over of God to believe lies and so worthy of no credit But how prove ye it Ye say there was no other Church immediatly before Luther but that of yours which was worthy of credit Whereunto I answer first that is false for there was a true Church immediatly before him which ye persecuted as I have proved else where Next I say your argument will not follow there was no other Church immediatly before him c. Ergo we have no other warrant that the Scripture is the written Word of God For we have also the testimony of the Church of the Jews concerning the Old Testament and of the primitive Church in all ages concerning both the Old and New Testament which are not only other warrants then the testimonies of your Roman Church but also worthie of more credit Next I say we have many more principal and more effectual warrants that the Scripture is of God then the testimony of the Church either past or present As first the testimonie of the holy Ghost crying testifying and sealing up in all consciences of the godly not only the truth of the doctrine contained in them but also the Divinitie of the Scripture which Stapleton lib. 1. de authorit script cap. 1.6.7 denyes not and therefore the Scripture saith That the Spirit that is the holy Ghost hears witness that the Spirit that it is the doctrine is truth 1. John 5 6. Secondly the testimony of the Scripture it self warranting and testifying of it self the whole Scripture is inspired of God 2. Tim. 3.16 The Old Testament warranted both by the testimony of its self the histories and prophesies testifying of the books of Moses and also by the testimony of the New Testament both in general 2. Pet. 1.19 Luke 24.44 and 16 29 John 5.39 and also in particular as the books of Moses Matth. 1.5 and 19.7 and 22. John 3.14 and the historical books as the history of the Queen of Saba Matth. 12. and of the widow of Sarepta Luke 4. and of the Psalms in sundry places Acts 2. and 13. and of sundrie of the books of the Old Testament Heb. 11. and Ruth also Matth. 1. and out of Isaiah Ezechiel and Jeremy many testimonies are cited and out of the Books of the smal Prophets Acts 7.42 And such like the New Testament hath the confirmation of it out of the Old Testament For whatsoever thing were prophesied in the Old Testament concerning the Messias are fulfilled in the New Testament so if the Old Testament hath authority the New Testament also hath authority And such like Peter by his testimonie confirmes the Epistles of Paul to be the written Word of God Thirdly the majestie of the doctrine which shines in it the simplicitie puritie and heavenliness of the speach therein which is not to be found in any other writings whatsoever the ancientness and antiquitie of them as the Books of Moses far ancienter then any other writing The accomplishment of the Prophesies and Oracles in them as they were fore-told their miracles and wonders whereof they testifie the testimonies of the holy Martyrs that shed their blood in the defense of the truth of them their wonderful preservation notwithstanding of the rage and cruelty of sundry tyrants who sought them out most diligently to have destroyed them all testifying of the Divinity of the holy Scripture So then to conclud this seeing we have the testimony of Gods Spirit sealing up the truth of them in our hearts and the testimony of the Scripture it self testifying of its self so many manner of wayes and sundry other arguments out of the Scripture it self and the testimony of the Church in all ages all warranting to us the Divinity of the holy Scripture I cannot but wonder at the unsearchable judgement of God in blinding you so far that ye have set it down in writ that we have no other warrant of the holy Scripture but the authority of your Church SECTION VI. Concerning the necessity of Baptism to Infants Master Gilbert Brown ANd albeit here it were not necessary to me to prove any heads of our Religion by the Word of God because M. John hath promised to improve the same by the Word which he is no ways able to perform yet to satisfie the Christian Reader and that he may know that the Word of God is only on our side and with us so that their exposition and notes be taken from the same I will set down God willing some heads for examples cause that that same doctrine which we teach and practise is the same that our Savior and his Apostles preached before and is written in the same that he calls the touchstone Master John Welsch his Reply Howsoever ye say this M. Gilbert that that doctrine which ye teach and practise in your Church is that same which our Savior and his Apostles teached before and is written in the Scripture yet in very truth there is nothing less in your conscience For if you and your Roman Church were so perswaded wherefore then should ye have declined to have it tryed by the same And wherefore have some of your own chief pillars and defenders of your Roman Religion who knows the certaintie of the same wherefore I say would they have proclaimed it by writ unto the world that the most part and the principal heads of their Religion are unwritten traditions which have neither their original beginning nor authoritie in the Scripture nor cannot be defended by the same And wherefore would your Roman Church have heapt up so many false accusations and blasphemies against the same And wherefore last of all would ye have set up your Pope and his Bishops to be supream and soveraign Judge over the same as you do But this you do because you know that if ye rejected the Scripture
as far in word as ye do in deed the consciences of the poor people would at the last withdraw themselves from under your tyranny and would go out of your fellowship for the safety of their souls so under the cloke and pretence of the Scripture ye keep them in your communion And surelie were not for this cause only you would regard no more of the testimony of the Scripture then of the testimony of the fables of Esop For the chief authority and all the surety and certainty of all Religion with you as Bellarmin de sacr lib. 2. cap. 25. and Stapleton lib. 1. cont Whitaker cap. 10. confesses is not the testimony of the Scripture but the authority of your own Church So I assure thee Reader it is but for a show that they bring forth the Scripture to prove the heads of their Religion Let the matter therefore be tryed betwixt us by these examples which ye set down here M. Gilbert Brown 1. We say with Saint Augustin Epist 28. ad Hier. that the Sacrament of Baptism is so necessary to infants that they cannot come to heaven without the same which is contrary to their negative saith where they call it the Popes cruel judgement against infants departing without the Sacrament First I say that Christ taught the same doctrine in these words Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter in the Kingdom of God John 3.5 We say this is spoken properly of the Sacrament of Baptism because there is no regeneration of water and the Spirit of God but in Baptism The same is the doctrine of the Apostles also When they exspected the patience of God saith S. Peter in the days of Noe when the Ark was building in the which few that is eight souls were saved by water whereunto Baptism being of the like form now saves you also 1. Pet. 3.20.21 And S. Paul saith For as many of you as are baptized in Christ have put on Christ Galat 3.27 And Ananias said to S. Paul And now what tarriest thou rise up and be baptized and wash away thy sins invocating his name Acts 22.17 and 2.38 And S. Paul himself in another place Christ hath saved us by the washing of regeneration and renovation of the holy Ghost Tit. 3.5 Rom. 6.3.4 1. Cor. 6.11 Mark 16.16 I think there is no Christian reader that sees these places but he must say that Baptism is most necessary to infants except he will believe rather the exposition of the Ministers then the Word of God Maister John Welsch his Reply First ye begin at the necessity of the Sacrament of Baptism whereof ye affirm that it is so necessary that infants cannot come to heaven without the same As for Baptism we grant that it is a most effectual seal and pledge of our ingrafting in Christ Jesus and of the remission of our sins through his blood and regeneration through his Spirit so that either the neglect or the contempt of it because it is the neglect and contempt of the covenant it self and of Christ Jesus the foundation of the covenant is damnable But that it is so absolutly necessary to infants that without it they cannot come to heaven to wit these whom he hath predestinat it being neither neglected nor contemned but death preventing the receiving of it that we allutterly deny as impious ungodly and cruel For first I say there is none that is in the covenant of grace and who hath God to be their God and are holy that can perish This you cannot deny But the children of the faithful who are of his secret election are such before they be baptized And this I prove The Lord promised to Abraham I will be thy God and the God of thy seed Gen. 17.17 And this Peter also testifies The promise saith he is made to you and to your children Acts 2.39 And the Apostle saith That the children of the faithful are holy 1. Cor. 7.14 Therefore the children of the faithful who are of Gods secret election suppose they die without Baptism do not perish Secondlie if Baptism were absolutly necessary to salvation then the grace of God were bound to the Sacrament This cannot be denyed But your Master of Sentences saith that the grace of God is not bound to the Sacraments and it is impious so to think that Gods free grace and salvation is bound to the instrument Thirdlie if Circumcision was not absolutly necessary to salvation in the Old Testament then Baptism is not absolutly necessary now because Circumcision was as straitly enjoyned to them as Baptism is enjoyned to us and Baptism is suceeded in the room of the same but Circumcision is not absolutly necessarie For Lombardus is rebuked by the Doctors of Paris because he so thought And David doubts not to say of his child who died the seventh day and so before he was circumcised I shal go to him c. and so he pronounced that he was saved and all the time that they were in the wilderness almost 40 years Circumcision was neglected which plainly shows that it was not so absolutly necessary that salvation could not be obtained without it Therefore Baptism is not so absolutly necessary to salvation as ye suppose for the grace of God is of no less force in the New Testament then it was in the Old Fourthlie we read of sundry that received the holy Ghost before they were baptized and seeing the holy Ghost where he is regenerats to eternal life Therefore life eternal is not bound absolutly to Baptism Fifthlie what a cross and disturbance is this that your doctrine brings to the consciences of all these parents whose children have been prevented by death before they could be offered to be baptized If they believe your doctrine how often will this come in their mind that their children are damned And seeing the infants themselves are not in the cause that they are not baptized but their death preventing by Gods providence or the Parents neglecting or contemning the same or persecution or one impediment or other hindering wherefore are ye so cruel to judge them to be damned for that whereof themselves are causeless And last of all if ye be acquainted in the Histories of the Church of God in the first age ye will find many that delayed to be baptized until their latter age which they would never have done if they had thought it simpliciter necessary to salvation as ye do And Ambrosius doubts not to say That Valentinian wanted not the grace of Baptism suppose he wanted Baptism it self the which he would never have said if he had thought it absolutly necessary to salvation And Bernard saith I cannot altogether despair of the salvation of them who wants Baptism not through contempt but only through impossibility to get it And in that same place he saith So also if our Savior Christ for this cause when he had said he that believeth and is baptized shal be saved did
26.26.27 bread and wine and having given (f) Luke 22.19 thanks to his Father of heaven (g) Mark 14.22 blessed the same by the which (h) 1. Cor. 10.16 blessing and heavenly words he made them his body and blood as I said before and (i) Luke 22.29 gave or offered himself then for them that is for his And last of all gave the same body and blood to his Apostles to be eaten which we call to (k) 1. Cor 10.16 communicat And when he had done the same he commanded his Apostles and by them the lawful Pastors of the Church till the worlds end to do the same for the (l) Luke 22.19 remembrance of him And seeing that our Priests do the same as our Savior did how can M. John say that our Religion in this was not instituted by Christ Master John Welsch his Reply I come to another point of your doctrine concerning the sacrifice of the Mass which suppose ye call blessed yet is it most abominable idolatry as by the grace of God shal be made manifest And first concerning the word it self MASS you are of such variety of opinions among your selves concerning it that (a) As Doctor Bellarmin in his answer to Duplessis Mornay de Eucharist lib. 11. cap. 1. Genebrard in Liturg. S. Denis from the word MISSAH Deut. 16.10 that properly signifieth sufficiency but Bellarmin refutes this lib. 1. de Missa cap. 1. some of you saith it is taken from the Hebrew some (b) Bulinger ibidem from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that signifies a secret sanctificatioÌ„ from the which comes mystery from the Greek some (c) As Bellarmin ibidem and sundry others from mitto missio or dimissio from the Latin and (d) Some because the sacrifice and prayers is sent to God in the same as Hugo de S. Victor de sacram lib. 2. part 8. cap. ult some saith it is called the Mass for one cause and (e) Some because an angel as they say is sent unto the same as Lombard in 4. sent dist 13. Thomas part 3. quaest 83. And some because the people is dismissed and sent forth as Bellar. lib. 1. de Missa cap. 1. some for another I will only speak this of it that it is usually taken by the ancient Writers for the dismission or skailing as we call it of the Church after the publick service was done to God as Bellarmin grants in the first acception of this word Mass And therefore in the end of your Mass the Deacon crys Ite missa est that is Go your way the Congregation is dismissed But now the Papists takes not the word in this sense for the skailing of the Church or dismission of the people after the service of preaching prayer and so forth but for that abominable sacrifice of theirs wherein as they suppone they offer up Christ his very body and blood in a sacrifice for the quick and the dead as M. Gilbert doth here And for this cause they call this sacrifice the Mass that is first sent from the Father to us that Christ his body and blood might be with us next sent from us to the Father that he may interceed and may be for us with the Father as Durandus lib. 4. ration divin testifieth But how can he be sent from them to heaven seeing he descends in the mouth stomack and belly of the Priest for to be sent down to the belly of the Priest to be sent up to heaveÌ„ are things contrary So by this stile of the Mass as they take it it is plain that either Christ descends from heaven in the earth dayly in the Mass which some of them grants also Turrian 1 tract cap. 11 fol. 59. which is contrary to an article of our faith That he sits at the right hand of hâ—s Father whom the heavens must contain until the time that all things be restored Acts 3.21 or else their Mass-Priests dust and ashes are the creators of their Creator which is a blasphemy Thus much now for the name of the Mass which all Christians should abhor according to that of David That he would not take the name of false Gods in his mouth Psal 16 4. For that word which is proponed by men for an Article of our Faith which is not found in the Scripture neither in proper terms nor yet in substance and by necessary consequence out of the same should be rejected by the Church of God as a profane and a bastard word But the Mass is such For it is proponed by the Church of Rome as an Article of our Faith and yet it is neither found in proper termes nor in substance nor by any necessary consequence out of the Scripture Therefore it should be rejected as profane and idolatrous by the Church of God This for the name Now to the matter This is one of the greatest controversies betwixt you and us concerning your sacrifice of the Mass which as ye account it most heavenly so we account it most abominable as that which injures the Son of God which derogats from his death and passion which is injurious to his everlasting Priesthood which is idolatrous vain needless and fruitless which hinders and overthrows the true service of God all which shal be made plain of it by Gods grace The matter of our controversie therefore is Whither Jesus Christ God and man his body and blood be personally and corporally offered up in your sacrifice of the Mass as ye call it And whither this your sacrifice be a propiciatory sacrifice for the sins of the quick and the dead This your Church affirms and holds and this we deny Now let us see your reasons first and then we will set down what reasons we have for us out of the Word of God to the contrary As to yours First ye say it way prefigured by the Law of Moses Next prophesied of by the Prophets And thirdly done and instituted by Christ our Savior and commanded by him to be done to the end of the world As to the first This sacrifice was prefigured by the sacrifices of the Old Testament for the which purpose ye quote Levit. 2. and 6.20 Unto the which I answer That the sacrifices of the Old Testament were figures and shadows of that great and bloody sacrifice of Christ Jesus ones offered up upon the cross never to be offered up again as the Apostle saith Heb. 9.25.26.27.28 and of our spiritual sacrifices and service to God whereof the Apostle speaks in these places here cited Rom. 12.1 Heb. 13.15.16 The which also were fulfilled in that one and only sacrifice of himself upon the cross for the sins of the world and are fulfilled in our spiritual sacrifices of our selves and of the calves of out lips continually But that these were figures of your abominable sacrifice in the Mass there is not a syllable in the whole Scripture to prove the same For that which was prefigured
Sacrament And because in this your abominable sacrifice of the Mass as hath been said there is no communion For the Priest takes all And because you affirm the personal and corporal presence of Christs flesh and blood in your sacrifice and the corporal eating and drinking of it which is Capernaitical and more then carnal contrary to the Scripture contrary the nature of a Sacrament contrary the truth of Christ his humanity and contrary the Articles of our Faith of his ascension sitting at his right hand and there remaining till his returning in the last day all which your sacrifice of the Mass and transubstantiation in your communion overthroweth Therefore you have not the true institution of Jesus Christ according to the Scripture I might end here but because ye account the sacrifice of your Mass most heavenly and the principal part of the worship of God and we account it a most abominable idolatry therefore I will set down some arguments against the same whereby if you will you may perceive the abomination of it First I say all lawful sacrifices have the express testimonies of the Scripture to warrant the institution of them to be of God But your sacrifice of the Mass hath no express testimony of the Scripture whereby it may be made manifest that it is instituted of God therefore it is not lawful What now will you say to this The proposition you cannot deny for our Savior saith In vain worship ye me teaching for doctrine mens commandments Matth. 15.9 And Jeremie reproves the Jewes that they would not walk according as the Lord commanded them but according to their own will Jer. 7 24. And the Apostle condemns all voluntary Religion Col. 2.23 Therefore this is most certain that that Religion or sacrifice which hath not express Scripture whereby it may be made plain that it is instituted of God is not lawful For all that is done without faith is sin Rom. 14.23 and faith hath only the Word of God to lean to Rom. 10.17 And dare the creature be so bold as to appoint a mean to worship God without the warrant of his will in his Word Now to the assumption what can you say to it Bring me an express testimony out of the Scripture that God hath instituted your Mass and take it to you Yea if it be instituted in any place of the Scripture it is instituted in the last Supper for this you grant your selves But there is not a syllable in the whole institution that Christ offered up himself in a sacrifice in the same as hath been proved and Bellarmin the learnedest of your Church confesses plainly that the Evangelists have not said expresly that Christ offered up himself in the Supper in a sacrifice Bellarm. lib. 1. de missa cap. 24. And therefore others of your own Religion Petrus a Soto in his book against Brentius Lindanus lib. 4. Panopliae Papists of great name have reckoned the sacrifice of the Mass among the traditions which have not their beginning nor author in the Scriptures So then by your own confession the sacrifice of the Mass hath not express Scripture to warrant it yea it is a tradition which hath neither the beginning nor author of it in the Scriptures of God And I would ask this question of you What can be the cause wherefore the typical sacrifices and all the rites and ceremonies thereof is so expresly set down in the Scripture of the Old Testament which you will not deny and this sacrifice of yours which ye account more excellent then all these not to have been expresly set down in the New Testament neither the sacrifice nor the rites and ceremonies thereof yea not so much as the very name of it Is the New Testament think ye more obscure then the Old Testament which is absurd to say Shal the Old Testament be clear in setting down the sacrifices and all the rites thereof which is but the shadow And should not the New Testament have been at the least as clear in setting down the sacrifice of the New Testament which ye affirm to be the Mass if it were such What an absurd thing is this Christian Reader assure thy self the Lord Jesus would have dealt as lovingly and plainly with thee in setting down the sacrifice of the Mass in the New Testament if ever he had instituted such a sacrifice as he was in setting down the sacrifices of the Old Testament But thou may assure thy self and thy conscience may lean unto it since he hath not so much as once expressed it in all the New Testament therefore he hath never appointed it Secondly I say in all the places of Scripture wheresoever the Apostles speaks of the sacrifices which Christians should offer up they ever speak of spiritual sacrifices and never speak of this external sacrifice of the Mass They never remember of this their sacrifice of the offering up of Christ in the Mass Look throughout the whole New Testament and thou shalt not find this as namely in these places Rom. 12. Heb. 1â— Phil. 4. Rom. 15.1 Pet. 2. Rev. 5. Are you and your Mass Priests more wise then the Apostles are Whither should we then think and speak as they spake and thought or as ye would have us They never spake of your sacrifice of the Mass and bring one instance if ye can therefore neither should we We will believe them rather then you Thirdly that doctrine which is expresly gain-said by the Scripture must be false This you cannot deny But this your doctrine concerning the often and dayly offering up of Jesus Christ his body and blood in sacrifice in your Mass is expresly gain-said by the Scripture For the Scripture saith in sundry places That he hath once offered up himself never to offer up himself again Heb. 10.10 By the which will we are sanctified even by the offering up of Jesus Christ once made 11. And every Priest standeth dayly ministring and oft times offereth one manner of offering which cannot take away sin 12. But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sin sitteth for ever at the right hand of God 10. For with one offering hath he consecrated for ever them that are sanctified Heb. 9.24 Christ hath entred into the very heaven to appear now in the sight of God for us not that he should offer himself often c. 28. So Christ was once offered to take away the sins of many Heb. 7.27 Christ died once when he offered up himself Seeing the Scripture therefore affirms so plainly that Christ once offered up himself and you affirm that in your abominable sacrifice he offers up himself often since the Scripture saith the offering up of Christ is once only ye say it is often in your Mass therefore this doctrine of yours is plain against the express sayings of the Scripture For suppose ye will have an unbloody offering up of Christ yet the Scripture only acknowledges this bloody offering up of himself
Acts 2. and Thomas of Aquin 3. part quaest 52. art 1. 3. two great Papists and yet Bonaventure in 3. distinct 22. quaest 4. and Bellarmin lib. 4. de Christo cap. 16. affirms the contrary That his soul was in the place of pain and yet suffered no pain Next Thomas of Aquin affirms 3. part qu. 52. That Christ descended only into that place of hell called Limbus Patrum but Bellarmin saith It is more probable that he went to all the parts of hell And this is the consent which you Papists have among your selves not only in this point but almost in all the points of your doctrine Now as to the places of Scripture which ye quote they serve nothing to this purpose For the 2. of the Acts it speaks of that bondage of the grave which kept him under until he rose again and therefore the Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth death and not hell as ye translate it here and Peter saith whom God raised up The Apostle speaks then of that part of Christ which had fallen and was raised up but it was the body only and not the soul which fell down and was raised up therefore he speaks of the sorrows of death whereby his body was kept in bondage and not of any local descension of Christs soul As for the places of the Psalms which ye quote here Peter brings them not in to prove this local descension as ye say whereof he makes no mention but to prove his resurrection as he saith in the 31. verse most plainly He knowing this before speaking of David spake of the resurrection of Christ that his soul should not remain in grave neither his flesh should see corruption So if ye will believe the Spirit of God in the Apostle interpreting these places they speak of the resurrection of Christ and not of the delivering of the soul out of hell for he was in Paradise as he saith himself and it is the body that was raised and not the soul And the Hebrew word is NEPHESCH which not only signifieth the soul but also the life as Gen. 37.21 Let us smite his soul that is take away his life And it signifieth also the body of the dead wherein there was life as Levit. 21.1.11 And this word Hell is SCHEOL in Hebrew which most usually is taken in the Scripture for the grave So then the meaning is this The Lord will not leave his Nephesch that is the body wherein his life was in Scheol that is in the grave which speech is usual in the Scripture Now as to the other Psalm 29.3 it is spoken properly of David where he thanketh God who had saved his life from the hands of his enemies which by a borrowed speech frequented in the Scripture is called the delivery of his soul from the grave As for the 4. of the Ephesians these lower parts of the earth is not Hell as ye expone it but the earth it self which in respect of the world is the lowest part and so it is taken in the Psalm 139 15. where David saith Thou hast fashioned me beneath in the lower parts of the earth where here it is not taken for Hell as you take it in that place of the Ephesians otherwise ye must say that David was born in Hell which I suppose ye will not say So hereby is meant then the lowest and basest degree of his humiliation So now to conclud this neither in these points M. Gilbert nor in any point of doctrine wherein ye differ from us is your doctrine agreeable to Christs doctrine and his Apostles as hath been I hope proved sufficiently You must therefore provide you for better weapons and armor and stronger defences for the overthrow of our doctrine and uphold of yours then ye have done otherwise your shots will be but as shots of paper and your bulwarks but of intempered morter which suddenly will rush down at the light of the truth of God The Lord open your eyes to see the truth and suffer you not to continue any longer to cause the blind go out of the way as you have done Amen SECTION XX. Concerning the difference betwixt Popery and the Reformed Religion Master John Welsch ANd our Religion which we profess and all the particular heads of it was instituted by Jesus Christ and his Apostles which I offer me also to prove either by word or writ against whosoever will plead the contrary The which if I fail in I will be content to lose my life therefore by his grace Master Gilbert Brown There is much promised here but nothing done and it is a thing impossible to him to do For why the difference chiefly that the Protestants differ from us is in denying abhorring or detesting as may be seen in their Confession of Faith which they compel all men to swear and subscribe As we detest and refuse the usurped authority of that Roman Antichrist upon the Scriptures of God upon the Church the civil Magistrat c. except such things were expresly contained in the Word of God M. John Welsch his Reply As for my promise and performance I answere◠〈◊〉 that before and whither that be a thing unpossible 〈◊〉 or not let this my answer be a tryal thereof You are bold enough indeed in affirming it to be impossible but what have ye for you You say because the difference chiefly that we differ from you is in denying and abhorring What a raison is this Can we not prove our Religion out of the Scripture because we deny yours which is contrary to the same Is it impossible to prove the truth because falshood is denyed and abhorred What new Logick or Divinity is this I would never have believed that ye had been such an unskilful reasoner if your self had not bewrayed the same And certainly your Church is not beholden to you For if your reason hold forth it will follow that it is impossible to you or any man else to prove the heads of your Religion by the Scripture For in your Confession of Faith and form of abjuration set down by the Monks of Burdeaux anno 1585. there they deny and abhor the Protestants and their doctrine and compel all men who desire the fellowship of the Roman Church and their absolution to abjure renounce and subscribe the same But I suppose your Church will not allow this manner of reasoning of yours And whereas you say that the chief difference wherein we differ from you is in denying and abhorring c. of your Religion I ask you Doth not our Religion differ as far from yours as yours doth from us This you cannot deny For are not two contraries equally different one from another Doth not light differ as far from darkness white from black Christ from Antichrist as darkness from light black from white and Antichrist from Christ And are not yours and our Religions contrary one to another But your self will not deny and Bellarmin confesseth in
his Preface before the Controversies and in his Preface de 〈◊〉 Pontifice that you differ from us in the main and â—â—â—â—tantial points of Religion therefore of necessity we must also differ from you in the main substantial points of our Religion And so the chief difference wherein we differ from you is not in denying and abhorring but in the main and fundamental grounds of our Religion Otherwise it shal follow that the chief difference that ye differ from us is in denying and abhorring of our Religion which I think your Church will not digest Whereas you say that this may be seen by our Confession of Faith Our Confession hath not only the detesting and denying of your abominable errors in general and particular but also the confession of our Faith in general referring the particular heads thereof to that confession which is ratified and established by Act of Parliament And so here M. Gilberts untruth and calumny of our Confession may be seen As for this form of exacting of an oath and subscription to Religion if you find fault with it you not only gain-say the Scriptures of God impaires Princes lawful authority and the Church of their Jurisdiction and lawful power the example of Moses Deut. 29.10 and of Josua 24.25 Jehoiada the High-Priest 2. Kings 11.17 Josia 2. of the Kings 23.3 Asa 2. Chron. 15.12 And of the people returning from the captivity of Babel with Nehemias chap. 10. But also blots your own Church who as may be seen in that Confession of Faith and form of abjuration set out by the Monks of Burdeaux whereof we spake before doth the same As for this exception which ye put in here I answered to it before Master Gilbert Brown For if this be a true ground of theirs that nothing ought to be done or believed but such things as are expresly contained in the Word of God but their general Confession or their negative faith is not expresly contained in the Word of God therefore it ought not to be done nor believed M. John Welsch his Reply As for this ground which ye alledge to be ours it appeareth certainly M. Gilbert that as ye said of me either ye know not our grounds or else ye wilfully invert them for your own advantage For our ground is that nothing ought to be done or believed in Religion but that which may be warranted by the testimony of the Scripture either in words and sense together or else by a necessary collection out of the same The which with Nazianzene we say Are of the same truth and authority with the first And according to this sense we say That all the heads of our Religion as well negative as affirmative are expresly contained in the Scripture and so ought both to be believed and practised These are but silly shifts M. Gilbert which ye bring to discredit the truth of our Religion You knew full well the blindness and simpleness of the people in this Countrey and therefore you regarded not how silly and simple your reasons were Master Gilbert Brown That their faith is contained in the Word of God so far as it differs from ours he will never be able to prove neither by word nor writ And if he will cause our Kings Majesty to suspend his acts against us that we may be as free to speak our mind as he he shal have a proof hereof If not let him prove the same by writ and he shal have an answer by Gods grace As for his life we desire not the same but rather his conversion to the truth M. John Welsch his Reply As for our ability to prove the truth of our doctrine I answered it before Judge thou Christian Reader of the same by this my answer As for the suspending of his Majesties acts against you that is not in our hands and for all the good ye could do you have but too much liberty And if you speak no better for your Religion then you have done else in this your answer your Church will be but little beholden to you for it And certainly if you will bind and oblige your self to face your own cause and defend your Religion by word I hope that licence of a safe passage and conduct would be granted to you by his Majesty to let you speak for your self what ye have for you for the defence of it for that space without any danger to your person and that surer and with greater safety then John Hus had who notwithstanding of his safe-conduct yet was burnt And whereas you promise an answer do what you can M. Gilbert for now it is time to plead for your Baal And let your answer be more firm then this or else ye will lose more then ye will win by it That you desire not my life I am beholden to you if you speak truth considering the bloody generation of your Roman Church who these many years by past hath spilt the blood of the Saints of God in such abundance that if any can tell the starrs of heaven he may number them whom your Church hath slain for the testimony of the Word of God And as for that which ye call conversion it is aversion from the truth and the losing of salvation the which I hope shal be dearer to me then a thousand lives suppose they were all included in one Master John Welsch Secondly I offer me to prove that there be very few points of controversie betwixt the Roman Church and us wherein we dissent but I shal get testimonies of sundry Fathers of the first six hundred years against them and proving the heads of Religion which we profess Let any man therefore set me down any weighty point of controversie one or mo and he shal have the proof of this SECTION XXI Concerning Justification by Faith Master Gilbert Brown WHom M. John calls Fathers here I know not except Simon Magus Novatus Aerius Jovinianus Pelagius Vigilantius and such For indeed there is none of these and many the like but they were against us and with them in some heads But I am sure S Ireneus S. Cyprian S. Ambrose S. Augustine S. Jerome S. Basile S. Chrysostome with the rest of the holy Fathers is no way with them and against us as M. John will not be able to prove for all his offer As for example it is a chief ground in their Religion that only faith justifieth This I say can neither be proved by the Scriptures nor ancient Fathers of the first six hundred years For why the contrary is expresly contained in the Word of God Do ye see saith S. James that by works a man is justified and not by faith only James 2.24 with many other places that agrees with the same Matth. 7.21 and 19.17 and 34.35 John 14.15.21 1. John 2.3.4 Rom. 2.13 1. Cor. 13.2 and 1.19 Gal. 5.6 Tit. 1.16 And S. Augustin saith himself de fide operibus cap. 14. That this Justification by faith only was an
sufficient to obtain salvation without works neglecting to live well and to hold the way of God by good works and being secure of salvation which is in faith had not a care to live well as he saith And in the end of that chapter he concluds the whole matter saying How far therefore are they deceived who promise to themselves everlasting life through a dead faith The which error we condemn also with you For we acknowledge the necessity of good works as the fruits of a living Faith but not as the efficient formal or instrumental cause of our justification SECTION XXII Concerning the Authority of the Fathers M. Gilbert Brown FUrther I say since the difference chiefly in Religion betwixt us and them is about the understanding of the Word of God * Not we M. Gilbert but one of the chief pillers of your own Church Cajetan a Cardinal which was sent in Germany against Luther the Popes Legat who saith in plain words That the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews doth gather insufficient arguments to prove Christ to be the Son of God that the 2. and 3. Epistle of John is not Canonical Scripture that the Epistle of Jude is Apocrypha that the last chapter of Mark is not of sound authority that the history of the adulterous woman in S. John is not authentical and of S. James Epistle that the salutation of it is profane albeit they deny a great part of the same to us what is the cause that they will not abide the tryal of the ancient Fathers of the first six hundred years seeing that they were of his Religion as he affirms If he be as good as his word the matter will be soon ended And if our Religion be not sound consonant to theirs in all things wherein they differ from us we shal reform the same Master John Welsch his Reply You said a little before M. Gilbert that the chief difference wherein we differ from you is in denying abhorring or detesting c. Now you say that the difference chiefly of Religion betwixt us is about the understanding of the Word of God How well these two agree let the Reader judge It is no wonder suppose you dissent from your brethren as I have proved in sundry points before seeing ye dissent from your self It is true indeed that many of our controversies are about the right sense and understanding of the Scripture but yet if Petrus a Soto Lindanus Peresius Canisius all great and learned Papists speak truth the most part of the weightiest and chiefest points of your Religion which are in controversie between us are but unwritten traditions which have not their beginning nor author in the Scripture and cannot be defended by the same And whereas ye would have us to refer the controversies about the sense and right meaning of the Scriptures to be decided by the writings of the Fathers of the first six hundred years we receive their monuments and writings gladly but yet so that we put a difference between them and the writings of the holy Ghost in the Scripture For as I have proved sufficiently before as I hope that only the Scriptures of God have this prerogative to be the supreme Judge of all controversies in Religion and no other and the best way to learn the sense of the Scripture is by the Scripture it self for seeing all the Scripture is inspired of God therefore it ought to be exponed by God in the same For he who made the Law can best interpret the Law And the Levits practised this in the Old Testament who exponed the Scripture by the Scripture Nehem. 8.8 and the Apostles in the New Testament who taught nothing but that which the Prophets said should come to pass Acts 26.28 And if a Father yea a Saint yea if an Angel would preach beside that which the Apostles preached let him be accursed So then nothing can be a warrant to us of the truth of the sense of the Scripture but the Scripture it self And as for the Fathers expositions as they may not be Judge as hath been said because they may err and have erred as hath been proved and your selves will not deny and they dissent oftentimes one from another in the exposition of the same So let their expositions be taken in so far as they agree with the Scripture For would ye have us ascribe that unto them which they themselves have refused and have ascribed unto the Scriptures only Hear therefore what Optatus the Bishop of the Church of Milevitan a learned man who lived about the year of God 369. saith writing against the Donatists who claimed to themselves only the title of the Church of Christ as ye do They called for a Judge he brings the Testament of Christ for a Judge and speaking to them of a point of Religion that was controverted whither one should be twise baptized or not He saith You saith he affirm it is lawful we affirm it is not lawful between your say it is lawful and our say it is not lawful the peoples souls do doubt and waver Let none believe you nor us we are all contentious men Judges must be sought for If Christians they cannot be given on both sides for truth is hindred by affection A Judge without must be sought for If a Pagan he cannot know the Christian mystery If a Jew he is an enemy to Christianity No Judge therefore of this matter can be found in earth A Judge from heaven must be sought for But why knock we at heaven when here we have his Testament in the Gospel Optatus lib. 5. contra Parmenianum And he renders a reason of this in that same Book Christ saith he hath dealt with us as an earthly father is wont to do with his children who fearing left his children should fall out after his decease doth set down his will in writing under witness and if there arise debate among the brethren they go to the Testament He whose word must end our controversie is Christ Let his will be sought in his Testament saith he Augustin in Psal 21. expos 2. urgeth the same reason of Optatus against the Donatists We are brethren saith he to them why do we strive Our father died not untestate he made a Testament and so died Men do strive about the goods of the dead while their Testament be brought forth When that is brought forth they yeeld to have it opened and read The Judge doth hearken the Counsellers be silent the Cryer biddeth peace All the people is attentive that the words of the dead man may be read and heard He lyeth void of life and feeling and his words prevail Christ sitteth in heaven and is his Testament gain-said Open it let us read We are brethren why do we strive Let our minds be pacified Our Father hath not left us without a Testament He that made the Testament is living for ever he doth hear our words He doth know his own word
saying in Philosophy that a conditional Proposition proves nothing It appears he hath been in haste that he might not have leasure to (a) I proved all that was required at my hands prove any head for example of his promise For we understand that M. John is a man who may err as many man hath done before by his judgement and therefore he must have no (b) I desire no credit without warrant as your Popes and your Church do of her disciples credence of us except he bring his warrant and ye shal be (c) M. Gilbert is once beguiled for this is performed sure that he is never able to perform his sayings Master John Welsch his Reply This my Reply I hope satisfies for answer to this section SECTION XXIII Concerning the Visibility of the Church and whither the Visible Church may make defection Master John Welsch THirdly I answer The Spirit of God fore-tels that when the Antichrist shal come the defection shal be universal and all Nations shal be drunken with the wine of her fornication M. Gilbert Brown Where this is written M John tells not For I am sure as it is set down here there is no such thing in our Bibles no not in their own corrupted Bibles except they have augmented them of new That there shal be an universal defection it is altogether repugnant to the Word of God as I have shewed before in proving the Church always to continue For the same place where I believe he alledges to hath these words And it was given unto him to make war with the Saints and to overcome them And power was given him upon every tribe and people and tongue and nation and all that inhabit the earth adored it whose names be not written in the book of life of the Lamb Rev. 13 7.8 Here any man may see that the Saints of God that shal be persecute by the Antichrist such that is written in the book of life shal not make defection then it shal not be an universal defectioÌ„ And also M. John afterward in finding some of his Religion that said against the Antichrist the Pope the time bygone is contrary to himself here that the defection shal not be universal And where he saith that all Nations shal be drunkâ—n with the wine of her fornication the text is otherwise Because all Nations have drunken of the wine of the wrath of her fornication that is that the people of all Nations that have obeyed her shal be punished with the wrath of God and not that all the world should make defection M. John Welsch his Reply You fight against your own shadow M. Gilbert and whereas ye can find nothing justly to quarrel in my words being rightly taken and taken as the Scripture takes them you devise a meaning of your own brain and would father it upon me that ye may the more easily have somewhat to speak against For I neither spake it nor meant it that the elect should make defection in the time of the Antichrist I am so far from it that suppose I believe assuredly that this prophesie is fulfilled in your own Church yet I know assuredly that the Lord reserved his own elect to himself who was kept free from your Idolatry as he promised Rev. 14. and Histories record of some whereof I did set down some of their names But this is the doctrine of one of your own Church Dominicus a Soto in lib. 4. sent dist 46. quaest 1. art 1. who believed it assuredly That the faith of Jesus Christ and Religion should be utterly extinguished through the persecution of the Antichrist if Bellarmin speak true of him lib. 3. de Rom. Pont. cap. 17. And so turn the point of your sword M. Gilbert upon your own brother who so taught and not upon me who is far from it And if ye will say wherefore then called I it universal I answer Because the Scripture calls it a defection without any addition or restraint and your Rhemists grant That this defection shal be a revolting of Kings People and Provinces and the publick intercourse of the faithful with the Church of Rome shal cease And that the dayly sacrifice shal be abolished most universally throughout all Nations and Churches of the world by Antichrist himself Annot. upon 2. Thess 2. And Bellarmin saith lib. 3. cap. 16. That he shal be Monarch of the whole world Therefore this Kingdom by your own confession shal be universal and seeing his Kingdom is an apostasie or defection for as many as shal obey him shal make defection from the faith therefore by the doctrine of your own Church it must be an universal defection And the Scripture saith expresly That he shal make all both smal and great c. to receive a mark on their right hand and on their fore-heads and that no man may buy or sell c. and that all Nations have drunken of the wine of the wrath of her fornication Rev. 13.16 and 14.8 and 18.3 Now whither I might call that universal which the Scripture calls all and your Rhemists and Bellarmin makes so general and universal that it shal possess all the Kingdoms of the earth let the Christian Reader judge And let me ask you M. Gilbert Do you not believe that the Church is Catholick or Universal And do you not think with one of your own number to wit Costerus a Jesuit in Enchirid. that the Church is called Universal because the faith of the Church is scattered in all Nations and yet for all this all particular Nations and all particular men receives not this faith and yet notwithstanding it is Universal and is called Universal still And doth not the Scripture prophesie that in Abraham all the Nations shal be blessed Gal. 3.8 and yet for all this there were and is millions of the Gentils that are not blessed in him Why then in like manner may not the defection in the time of the Antichrist be called universal although the elect be exeemed from it But wherefore insist I to refute this vain quarrelling of words which serves to no purpose So then this that I said is both in your Translation and ours in substance and is not contrary to that which I said afterward As for that place of Scripture which ye cite here Rev. 3.7 8. it is not spoken here of the Antichrist but of the persecution of the Roman Emperors As for that calumny of yours in calling our Bibles corrupted and augmented this is your sin M. Gilbert whereof one day ye shal make an account to the Majesty of God for the slandering and bearing false witness of the truth of God And to speak the truth this is true of you For both you have added to the Scriptures of God first the Apocrypha next your traditions which your Church hath decreed to be received with equal reverence and godliness with the Scripture Concil Trident. sess 4. thirdly the Decretal Epistles of your Popes which
world and of the stability and perpetuity of Christs Kingdom But yet it follows not but both the Catholick Church is invisible as I said before and that the visible Churches may be obscured and darkened as it was fore-told in the time of the Antichrist As for the 18. of Matthew 17. Go tell the Church c. The Church is here taken for the Pastors and Governors of particular Churches which we grant are visible but yet it follows not but that both they and the professors may be obscured and darkened either through heresie or through extream persecution or through both together as it was fore-told in the time of the Antichrist and hath been fulfilled by your Church As for the true Church unto whom we should joyn our selves I answer We can have no salvation unless we joyn our selves first to the Catholick Church that is unto Jesus and his members by a spiritual communion without the which there is no salvation Next unto some particular visible Church by the outward communion of the Word and Sacraments c if we know it and possibly can joyn our selves unto it For if either we know it or may not as these seven thousand that bowed not their knee to Baal then I say salvation is not perilled As for your last reason The true Church may never want the true preaching of the Word and right administration of the Sacraments I answer First there is not the like necessity of the Sacraments as there is of the Word Next suppose they have it and thereby are known among themselves and some of them also to their adversaries yet it follows not that they are so openly visible that they are patent and known to all As for example There is no question but these seven thousand that did not bow their knee to Baal 1. Kings 19.18 and these hundred Prophets who was hid in the caves 1. Kings 18.13 and the Apostles when all were scattered through that persecution as Luke testifies Acts 8.1 had the exercise of the Word among them And it is not likely that the Apostles wanted some to teach suppose they were not known to all no not to their persecuters otherwise they would have been persecuted And such like we doubt not but in the time of Queen Maries persecution in England and in other parts under that Antichristian tyranny but the Lord had his own both Pastor and people among whom the truth was preached suppose neither we nor their adversaries knew them all For it is oft-times for the safety of the Church to lurk and to be hid that she may escape the fury and rage of her enemies As for Augustin Cyprian Origen Chrysostome and Jerome which ye quote here they speak either of the perpetuity and eternity of the Catholick Church or else of the largeness and clearness of the particular Churches which were in those days which is neither against the invisibility of the Catholick Church nor yet against the obscure estat and smal handful of the Church of Christ whereunto she should be brought in the days of the Antichrist as was fore-told by the Scripture and fulfilled in your Papistical Kingdom For we grant that in their dayes the Churches of Christ was frequent and glorious but yet they did not ay remain in that estat For the Churches of the East are almost overthrown by the Mahomet and the Churches of the West by the Antichrist So that partly by the one and partly by the other the Church of Christ hath been redacted to a smal handful as hath been said SECTION XXIV Where our Religion was before Luther Or a Catalogue of them who professed our Religion in the midst of Popery Master John Welsch Last of all I will set you down the names of these worthy men that in the midst of Popery spake against their errors and preached the same Religion which we preach I will but only name a few of them that was in the midst of Popery when it was come to the hight anno 1158. Gerardus and Dulcimus Navarrensis M John hath not the right dyet of these his holy Fathers Answer If it was so as you write it it was error in scribendo and that which I writ afterward might have taught you this when I said this was 400. years past did preach earnestly against the Church of Rome and called the Pope the Antichrist and taught also that the Clergy of Rome was become the whore of Babylon fore-spoken in the Revelation this was 400. years past In the year of our Lord 1160. one * This Waldus and his sect had wives and all things common and so must M. John if he follow him Answer This is falsly alledged of him and his followers but either your Canon Law errs Causa 12. qu. 1. Dilectissimis or else Pope Clement was of this mind and so if you be of his Religion you must be so for albeit ye have no wives yet other mens wives have been made common to your Popes and your Clergy in horrible adulteries Waldus a citizen of Lyons in France with a great number taught that same doctrine which we teach now condemned the Mass to be wicked the Pope to be the Antichrist and Rome to be Babylon They were persecuted by the Pope and remained long in Bohemia In the year 1112. the Pope caused an hundred persons in the Countrey of Alsatia whereof many were noble-men to be burnt in one day for the maintaining of that same doctrine that we now maintain against the Church of Rome About the year of our Lord 1230. almost all the Churches of the Grecians which with the rest of the Churches of Asia and Africk who do not acknowledge the supremacy of your Pope are mo then the Churches of Europe who submit themselves to him did all renounce the Pope and the Romish Church because of their execrable simony and idolatry in the year 1240. In the Countrey of Swevia there were many Preachers that taught freely against the Pope and affirmed he and his Clergy were hereticks and simoniacks in the year 1251. or thereabout Arnoldus de Villanova a learned Spaniard taught freely against the Church of Rome and among the rest that the Pope led the people to hell for the which cause the Pope condemned him as an heretick about the same time Gulielmus de Sancto Amore Master and chief Ruler of that University taught that all the testimonies of the Scripture spoken of the Antichrist should be applyed to the Pope and his Clergy and so taught them to be the Antichrist and the whore of Babel anno 1290. Laurence an English-man and Master of the University in Paris proved mightily that the Pope was the Antichrist and his Clergy the Synagogue of Babylon About the same time Robertus Gallus a man of noble parentage taught the Pope was an Idol and said the judgement of God would fall upon him and his Clergy Because I have no time to write the doctrine of the rest
that spake against the Pope I will but note their persons Robert Grosshed John Gryllis a pâ—eaching Frier anno 1253. Gregory Ariminensis Franciscus de Rupe Scissa Taulerus in Germany Gerardus Rhidit Michael de Cesena Petrus de Carbona and Joannes de Poliaco Joannes Rithetalanda anno 1360. Armachanus the Archbish p in Ireland 1360. Nicolas Orem Matthias Parisiensis Nilus Aâ—chbishop of Thessalonica John Wicleff and the Lord Cobham and sundry others Master Gilbert Brown M. John hath set down here a number of (a) It is false obscure and infamous persons for the most part justly (b) And this also condemned for heresies without their works or books whereby they affirm this that he alledges and all (c) This is also false for Gerard and Dulcimus Navarrensis which I first cited was almost 400. years before M. Luther and Calvin and the Waldenses was more then 300. years before them two hundred years before Calvin began their Religion or thereabout Of the which I contend not whether they spake against the Pope or not For all hereticks from the beginning have barked against the Pope But our contention is whether such heads of Religion as they denyed were heresies or not which as yet M. John hath not (d) But these heads is proven that the Pope is the Antichrist and Rome Babel they are not hereticks therefore our Religion was before Martin Luther proved nor is not able to defend these whom he calls his worthy men for appearantly by this all hereticks are worthy men by him albeit they be not of his Religion in all things Master John Welsch his Reply You calumniat our Religion of novelty and say Martin Luther begin it anno 1517. Unto the which I answered That our Religion hath Christ Jesus in the Old and New Testament to be the Author thereof and hath the primitive Church many hundred years thereafter to be the teachers and professors thereof the which I have proved already by some examples and that even till the smoak of that Antichristian darkness of yours did overspread all as it was fore-told by the holy Ghost At the which time also the Lord did reserve his own elect to himself even these hundred and forty and four thousand which did not bow their knees to your Baal as it was fore-prophesied whereof also a great many is recorded in Histories and of whom I set down some examples here Upon the which I reason That Religion which is warranted by the Scripture and professed in the primitive Church c. and hath sundry that taught and professed it and that even in the midst of Popery when it was at the hight thereof is not a new Religion nor invented by Martin Luther But ours is such as hath been proved Therefore unrighteous and blasphemous must ye be who slanders the Lords truth and Religion of novelty and fathers it upon flesh and blood whereof he is the Author Your answer to the first two we have examined Now let us see your answer to this First you say they are obscure men I answer If you call them obscure because they wanted the outward glory wealth and renown of this world Then suppose it were so yet have they Jesus Christ the Prince of life who was called a carpenters son Matth. 13.54 55 56. and his Prophets of whom some were herd-men Amos 1.2 and his Apostles who were fisher-men Mat. 4.18.21 his Church which consists not of many wise mighty or noble but of the foolish weak and vile of the world for them God hath chosen to confound the wise and noble 1. Cor. 1.26.27.28 to be companions with them and so they are the liker both the Head and the members It is true indeed your Popes and Clergy are not obscure for they have the wealth and glory of the world But as Bernard said to the Pope In this they succeed not to Christ or Peter but to Constantine But they receive their good things in this life with the rich gluttâ—n and therefore they must receive their pain with hâ—m in the life to come But why do you call these obscure whom I named here Are not some of them Friers some of them Provincials of Gray-Friers some of them Masters and Rulers of Universities some of them excellently learned which your own Church cannot deny some of them Bishops and Archbishops some of them Noble-men and some of them as namely the Greek and Eastern Churches in number learning purity of doctrine and godliness far exceeding your Papistical Church Who is worthy or famous if these be obscure Are all men obscure and infamous to you but your Popes and those who submit their necks to him And if you think these too obscure men to be called worthy men then behold yet M. Gilbert more noble personages who have resisted your Popes Monarchy As King Philip le Bell of France the Prelats of France joyning with him in his Dominions about the year of God 1300. And Edward the third King of England despised the Popes curse and appealed from him to God about the year of God 1346. And also sundry Emperors as Constantine the fifth Leo his son and Constantine the sixth in the East and Henry the 4. and Henry the 5. and Frederick the 2. in the West Will you call these Kings and Princes of the whole world obscure men So all sorts of men M. Gilbert both rich and poor Princes and subjects and these also within your own bowels being overcome with the strength of the truth of God have spoken against your Religion Why you call them infamous and hereticks justly condemned I know not except it be because they taught and professed the truth of God and condemned your Antichristian idolatry and abominations But all are not infamous and hereticks whom ye call so and surely if murderers hereticks adulterers Sodomites open bargainers with the Devil and the vile monsters of the earth is to be called obscure infamous and hereticks then your Popes are to be called so who of all men that ever the earth hath born have been the vilest monsters and hereticks as I have proved in my other Treatise concerning the Mass and the Antichrist You say next that you contend not whether they have spoken against the Pope or not for all hereticks have ever barked against him that sore against your heart M. Gilbert because you cannot deny but ye have taught this doctrine with us and if it be so M. Gilbert that these men and Churches and many thousands more of all sorts have taught this doctrine with us many hundred years before Martin Luther for the first two which I named was almost 400. years before him then why were you so shameless both to write it and also speak it to blind your poor Countrey-men to their and your damnation that our Religion was begun by Martin Luther and never professed before him So leave off M. Gilbert to beguile the simple and ignorant people with this sottish and
For if appears that either ye are not acquainted with the Histories of that age or else ye dissemble it of purpose for John Wicleff he left so many behind him in England who professed our Religion that though your Prelats did molest them what they could yet they and their favorers in short time grew to such strength and multitude that by the year 1422. which was an hundred years immediatly before Luther Henry Chichesley the Archbishop of Canterbury wrot to the Pope that they all could not be suppressed they were so many but by force of war The professors of our Religion began to gather so great force in Bohemia after the burning of John Hus and Jerome of Prague at the Council of Constance which was about the year 1417. which was just an hundred years immediatly before Luther that they were able not only to defend themselves by force of armes against the tyrannie of your Popes but also obtained many notable victories against the strongest power that the Pope did raise against them In England William Taylor was burnt anno 1422. and two years after that William White was burnt And betwixt that time and 1430. Father Abraham of Colchester John Wadden and Richard Hovington were burnt And after that Richard Wiche and John Goose one Braban and one Jerome and others with him were burnt Hieronymus Savanarola a Monk in Italie with two others named Dominick and Sylvester were condemned to death at Florence in the year 1500. with sundry others whom for shortness I omit here Now surely I cannot but wonder M. Gilbert that ye should have been so impudent as to have set it down in writ that I could get none that professed our Religion an hundred years immediatly before Martin Luther But the Reader may gather what credit he may give to your notes and yet with such impudent lies ye blind the poor people Upon the which I gather that both these conclusions of yours is false For the Church of Christ in all ages even from the Apostles days to this day hath ever had her own teachers and professors unto whom Martin Luther hath succeeded in his Religion suppose not in the like frequencie and puritie and that by reason partly of the smoke of that bottemless pit that is of your doctrine which darkned both the Sun and the air Rev. 9.2 that is both teachers and people and partly by your extream persecution whereby ye made war with the Saints of God and overcame them Rev 13 7. But your smoke will evanish away at the last and the clear light of the Lord shal shine more and more maugre all your hearts SECTION XXV That the Reformed Churches have not renewed old condemned Heresies Master Gilbert Brown BUt that M. John shal not think that we slander him and his â—iâ—h old condemned heresies let him read S. Augustin Epiphanius and others noted here as of these and many the like 1. Novatus forsook the Pope of Rome Cornelius and caused others do the like as Eusebius hist lib. 6. cap. 33. and Nicephorus report lib. 6. cap. 30. 2. Aërus the heretick denyed that offering or prayers should be done for the dead and that fasting should be free as S. Augustine and Epiphane declare haeres 75. 3. Eunomius and Aërius held that only faith justifieth as Augustin haeres 55. lib. de fide operibus and Epiphanius haeres 76. write Master John Welsch his Reply Now are we by Gods grace come unto your last calumnie in affirming that we renew old condemned heresies This is indeed M. Gilbert a heavie challenge if it were true but it is but like the rest of your calumnies yea it hath less appearance of truth then any thing which ye have spoken against us A liar M. Gilbert shal not enter in that heavenly city but his portion shal be in that lake that burne with fire and brimstone Rev. 19.20 22.15 And he that slandereth his neighbor much more then he who slandereth the truth of God shal not rest in the Lords holy mountain Psal 15 3. But to come to the first Novatus intruded himself in another mans charge and caused set up himself against Cornelius the lawful Pastor of the Church in Rome then and that craftily and withdrew many of his flock from him which is as contrary to our doctrine as black to white For we teach that every Pastor should have his own particular flock as Cornelius had then in Rome and no man should intrude himself in another mans charge as he did So this is a calumny M. Gilbert But your Popes are like Novatus who not only have disturbed all the Christian Congregations in Europe almost by setting up and thrusting down such Pastors as they would but also all the Kingdoms in Europe As for this doctrine of Aerius I answer you as ye did me I contend not whether he taught this doctrine or not for the Scriptures have taught the same But our contention is whether they be heresie or not which you have not proved nor ever will be able to prove by the Scripture It is true Epiphanius and Augustin following him reckon him among hereticks but Theodoretus in his Book de fabulis Judaeorum and the Ecclesiastical History reckon him not among hereticks and he was not condemned for an heretick in any Council that therefore which he taught according to the Scripture we imbrace But as for the errors of the Aërians which are errors indeed and which are ascribed unto them as the damning of marriage urging of continency requiring them whom they receive to their fellowship to forsake their own proper things These heresies I say your Church hath renewed who damns marriage and urges continency in your Clergy and receives none to your religious Orders but such as refuse their own proper things As to the third the Aërian and Eunomian heresies they secluded holiness of life from that faith of theirs and taught such a faith that might stand with whatsoever sins and with perseverance in them Will you stand to this M. Gilbert before the Lord that we teach such doctrine Is not this our doctrine that only living faith which works by love and brings forth good fruits doth justifie But you are like to them that know no other justifying faith but such a faith as both the reprobats and the Devils may have So this is your third calumnie M. Gilbert Brown 4. Simon Magus Marcion and Manichaeus denyed that man had free-will as Augustin haeres 46. Jerome and Epiphanius haeres 42. make mention 5. Jovinianus affirmed that Priests marriage was lawful after the lawful vow of chastity He moved sundry Nuns to marry in the city of Rome He made fasting and abstinence from meat superfluous as Augustin writes of him haeres 82. item lib. 1. cap. 7 de peccat merit remiss 6. Vigilantius denyed the prayer to Saints as S. Jerome contra Vigilantium writes He despised the burning of lights and candles in the Churches in the day
did not obey the other As also a number of the Fathers of your own Religion who in two General Councils the one of Constance where there was almost a thousand Fathers the other of Basel did not obey the Pope in defining General Councils to be above the Pope So if ye speak truth infinit millions of Christians in all ages and innumerable Churches and thousands of your own Religion are condemned to Hell But this is false M. Gilbert and who will believe you And to the end now my conclusion yet holds sure That seeing his Kingdom is that second beast that hath two horns like the Lamb and speaks like the Dragon Rev. 13.11 And himself is that man of sin and son of perdition that adversary and Antichrist that was to come 2. Thess 2.3.4 And his doctrine is that Apostasie and abomination sore-told in the Scripture Rev. 17. And his seat that Harlot and mystical Babylon that mother of whoredoms who is drunken with the blood of the Martyrs of Jesus Whosoever receives his mark on his fore-head or hand that is openly or privatly professes obedience unto him shal as the Angel proclaimed drink of the wine of the wrath of God yea of that pure wine in the cup of his wrath and he shal be tormented with fire and brimstone before the holy angels and before the Lamb. And the smoak of his torment shal ascend for evermore and they shal have no rest day nor night which worship the beast or his image And as for your prayer I beseech God M. Gilbert that he may open my eyes and inlarge my heart to understand and imbrace his truth more and more and to make me to grow up in that spiritual communion with Christ and his members more and more But that which ye call truth is heresie and that which ye call the true Church is Babel and therefore that doctrine and Church of yours is that strong delusion and whore of Babel with the which whosoever shal communicat is excluded from the merits of Christ and shal be partaker of her plagues and finally shal be damned SECTION XXVIII That the Pope is Antichrist Master Gilbert Brown IF the Pope be the Antichrist what is the cause that M. John would not set down some place out of the Word of God that proves the same But good Reader I will let you see how far M. John is against the Word of God in this and that by some examples only First our Savior shew unto the Jews that albeit he came in the name of his Father yet they would not receive him If another saith he shal come in his own name him ye will receive This no doubt as Augustin expones the same is meant of the Antichrist that the Jews shal receive Now it is out of all controversie that the Jews never received the Pope Therefore the Pope is not the Antichrist Again the Pope came never in his own name but in the Name of Christ for he is called the Vicare of Christ and the servant of the servants of God therefore he cannot be the Antichrist Master John Welsch his Reply I come now to prove that which I offered before to prove to wit that your Popes which ye will have to be the Head of the Church of Christ are the self-same Antichrist that the Scripture fore-told should come Thou wouldest know Christian Reader of what weight this controversie is Whether the Pope be the Antichrist or not For this supremacy of his unto them is the foundation whereupon their Religion and the safety of their whole Church depends so that they call it The Rock whereupon the Church is built against which the gates of Hell shal not prevail Rhemist annot upon Matth. 16. And Bellarmin calls him in his Preface before the controversie of the Popes supremacy The foundation which upholds the house of God the Pastor which feeds his flock the Emperor which governes his host the Sun which gives light to the starrs that is to the Ministers of the Church the Head which gives life to his body So that remove his supremacy the house of God must fall the flock of Christ must be scattered the host of the Lord must be discomfited the starrs that is the Ministery must be darkened and the body must ly still without motion And he applyes these Prophesies Isai 28.16 and 8.14.15 spoken and fulfilled only in the Son of God unto him a calling him that foundation stone in Sion upon the which the whole Church is built and that proved stone against the which the gates of Hell hath never nor never shal prevail and that corner stone which joyns both Jew and Gentil as two walls together in a Christian Church and that precious stone from whence the infinit treasure of grace is most plenteously derived unto the whole Church as unity in doctrine the bond of peace the unity of faith which is salvation it self and the very life of Religion And he saith There is no way to Christ but by Peter in whose room their Popes succeed So that in their judgement there is no way to Christ but by the Pope And he calls him that rock of offence and stumbling stone spoken of in Isai chap. 8. Upon the which whosoever shal fall shal be broken and on whom it shal fall it shal dash him in pieces O blasphemous mouth Let the heavens be confounded at this And therefore this is of such a weight that Boniface the 8 hath made it an article of our Faith whose words are these We declare we affirm we define and pronounce that it is altogether needful to salvation to all creatures to be under the Pope of Rome Extra de minoritate obedientia cap. unam sanctam So that Bellarmin saith when the Popes supremacy is called in controversie The sum of all Christianity is called in question and when that is controverted Then it is controverted whether the Church should stand any longer or not or fall and dissolve Unto them therefore it is an article of Faith which must be believed and practised under the pain of the loss of salvation And unto us he is that self-same Antichrist which the Scripture hath fore-told time hath made manifest and the Church hath suffered Unto them he is the Head of the body of Christ the Pastor of his flock the Sun that gives light to the starrs the foundation of the house of God and a mortal God among men Unto us he is Gods enemy the son of perdition the second beast and false prophet 2 Thess 2.13 Rev. 13.11 the adversary of true Religion a pest in the body a tyrant in the Common-wealth and Antichrist in the Church So thou sees Christian Reader of what weight this controversie is Let us see then how he defends him from being the Antichrist and then you shal hear our reasons to the contrary You ask wherefore I set not down some places of Scripture to prove the Pope to be the Antichrist I answer Not
is worshipped c. which no manner of way can agree with the Pope For he calls himself the servant of God and prays most humbly to Christ and desires support at his holy Mother and Saints If he deny this I cannot tell what any man can say to him but whether God will or not he will have the Pope to be the Antichrist albeit it be repugnant to the Word of God These are no dark prophesies but manifest sayings of Christ and his Apostles I would wish M. John to read S. Augustin de Antichristo Tom. 9. Master John Welsch his Reply I come to your third raison The Antichrist shal be an adversary and is extolled above all that is called God I grant that But the Pope is not an adversary c. This I deny the which if you prove then shal I grant he is not the Antichrist Let us see your proofs then for they had need to be sure seeing all your Religion and safety of your Church depend upon it and if ye cannot clear him from being an adversary to God and from lifting up himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped then your Head and your Religion is gone You say he is not an adversary to God because he calls himself the servant of God and prays most humbly to Christ We answered to this before It is not his stiles which he sacrilegiously claims to himself nor yet his form of godliness that can free him from this for wolves will be clad in sheep skins Matth. 7.15 And false Apostles and Prophets have pretended the authority and calling of God And the Apostle testifies That there are many which profess God in word Tit. 1.16 and Satan can transform himself in an angel of light 2. Cor. 11.14 And it was fore-told that the Antichrist should sit in the temple of God 2. Thess 2.4 that is in an eminent and high room in the Church of God and that he should have two horns like the Lamb Rev. 13.11 that is as he interprets it in Apoc. homil 11. two testaments as the Church hath but yet speaks like the Dragon that is as he interprets it who under the name of a Christian pretends the Lamb that he may spout in more secretly the poyson of the Dragon and that harlot who makes all Nations drunken with the wine of her fornication should have a golden cup that is a show of godliness that he might the more easily deceive And Origen saith upon Matthew treatise 28. and treatise 24. The Antichrist holds nothing but the Name of Christ neither doth he his works nor teaches his truth Christ is the truth and the Antichrist is a disaguised truth a disaguised justice and mercy He takes the testimonies of his false doctrine out of the Scripture for these that will not be pleased otherwise and he sitteth upon the chair of the Scriptures showing himself as though he were God And Cyprian saith Epist 7. That they teach despair under the pretence of hope and perfidy under the pretence of faith and the night for the day and perdition in stead of salvation the Antichrist under the Name of Christ So then if ye will believe either the Scripture or these testimonies of the Fathers neither the stiles nor yet the show of godliness which your Popes have will clear them from being the Antichrist And as to his humility towards men we have heard somewhat of it before And as to his humility to God we shal hear of it hereafter whether he be so humble as he pretends or not And certainly it had not been possible that his spiritual idolatry and abominations had been so greedily drunken out by all Nations if they had not been put in a golden cup Rev. 17.4 and his delusions had not been so strong to deceive and they had not been a deceiveable unrighteousness 2. Thess 2.10 and 11. that is such an unrighteousness as had the show of righteousness that it might the more easily deceive and the doctrine of the Dragon had not been so easily and universally embraced if he had not had two horns like the Lamb Rev. 13.11 that is the pretence of the Royal and Priestly authority of the Son of God So he hath taken on these masks that he may the more easily deceive It is not then these visards and masks that will be able to hide him from these whose eyes the Lord hath opened And as for the third thing the invocation of Saints departed I say this argument is so far from clearing him from being an adversary to God that if there were no more it is sufficient to convict your Popes and your Church that they are adversaries to God For he is an adversary to God who robs God of any portion of his glory and gives it to his creatures My glory saith the Lord I will not give to another Isai 42.8 But the Pope and his Church do so in giving invocation or prayers which is a part of Gods glory and worship unto the Saints departed For the Lord saith Call upon me in the day of thy trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me Psal 50.14.15 Therefore your Popes and your Church are adversaries to God in this point For we ought to call upon them only in whom only we ought to believe Rom. 10.14 But we ought only to believe in God Jer. 17.5 therefore we should only pray to him through Jesus Christ And he only should be called upon who knows our necessities and is able to hear our prayers and to grant them But only God in Christ the searcher of the heart doth these things therefore he only ought to be called upon Here therefore ye give out a sufficient evidence against your Popes and your Church that you are Antichristian and adversaries unto God For that which ye bring here to cleanse him doth fyle him Indeed I will neither deny the hypocrisie nor idolatry of your Popes for they both agree unto them and that which Origen saith of the Antichrist is true of them For they hold nothing of Christ but his Name They neither do his works nor teach his truth And yet for all their hypocrisie and pretence of godliness and humility these notes and marks of the Antichrist as the Word of God hath described him doth every way agree to them So that if the Word of God be true in setting down the marks of the Antichrist your Popes who bear these marks of necessity must be the same You wish me in the end to read S. Augustin de Antichristo tom 9. It would appear that you think that the reading of that work would have altered my mind somewhat concerning your Popes that they are not the Antichrist and it appears to me by that your earnest desire that the doctrine set down in that Treatise is worthy of all credit and authority and that your self is of that self-same judgement concerning the Antichrist with the Author of that Treatise
for I think you would not have wished me to read that thing which ye your self believes not to be true I therefore read it and read it over again And beside many other things I find this in it that the Antichrist should be born of a Virgin by the help of the Devil as Christ was born of the Virgin by the work of the holy Ghost I wondered that you should have wished me to read that Book in the which there was so manifest an error and that contrary the doctrine of your own Church You should beware of this M. Gilbert for if your Head and Church get wit of it they will not only count you a bad defender of the Catholick Faith as you say you are but also it may be they suspect you of heresie who do wish your adversaries to read that Book wherein so manifest an error is and that against the doctrine of your own Church For who will think of you but that ye are of that same opinion your self seeing you are so earnest with others to read the same Bellarmin that great defender of your Catholick Faith was more wise then you in this point For first he saith lib. 3. de Rom. Pont. cap. 12. There is a manifest error in that treatise Next he saith It is certain that that treatise cannot be Augustins but it is probable saith he that it is Rabanus his work So to conclud this I assure you M. Gilbert I am of the same mind that I was concerning your Popes for all the reading of that work But I am not of the same mind towards you that I was before the reading of the same for either I think you have been very foolish in wishing me to read that which you believed not your self to be true or else that ye defend a manifest error not only against the truth but also against the doctrine of your own Church And let your Pope who is the bond of unity among you see to this how to reconcile you and Bellarmin two defenders of his Catholick Faith you saying that that work is Augustins and Bellarmin flatly denying it and affirming that it cannot be his you wishing your adversary to read it and Bellarmin confuting a manifest error in it But betwixt you be it Now this is all that you have said for the defense of your Pope which are but as figg leaves which cannot hide his nakedness Now I will let thee see Christian Reader what we have for us wherefore we affirm and teach and is ready also as thousands have done before us to seal it with our blood that the Popes of Rome are the Antichrist which the Scripture hath fore-told should come time hath made manifest and the Lord his mouth hath in a part consumed And first I will lay this ground which M. Gilbert cannot gain say and the conscience of all men will subscribe to That as the true Christ is sufficiently described in the Old and New Testament so the Antichrist is sufficiently described there also And as he is to be believed under the pain of the endless damnation of their souls to be the true Christ to whom the prophesies of the Old Testament concerning the Savior to come doth agree and of whom the New Testament testifieth that they are accomplished so he must be that Antichrist which the Scripture fore-told was to come to whom every one of the marks and properties of the Antichrist set down in the same do agree and in whom they are found to be accomplished Let us therefore out of the Scripture search the marks of the Antichrist and then let us see whether their Popes of Rome be stamped with these marks or not I speak not now of the many Antichrists whereof John speaks 1. John 2.18 which were fore-runners of that great defection which was fore-told should come in the Church of God but of that chief and great Antichrist who not in one or two things only but almost in all the points of his Religion should be contrary to Jesus Christ whom these places of Scripture 1. John 4.3 2. Thess 2. Rev. 11.13.17.18 do describe And while as I affirm that the Popes of Rome are this great Antichrist I understand it thus That they are the Prince and Head of that defection and apostasie which the Scripture fore-shew and fore-told was to come in the Church For I do not think that all the strength and force of the Antichrist is included in the Pope but the Pope and his Kingdom which is contrary to the Kingdom of Christ is most truly called the Antichrist whereof because the Pope is the Prince and Head therefore by that figure taking the part for the whole I call him the Antichrist And in this we follow the Scripture for the Scripture speaking of the Antichrist sometimes calls it a defection and a mystery of iniquity and the second beast that hath horns like the Lamb and the Harlot and sometimes points out the principal and chief in this Kingdom on whom the whole body of iniquity doth hang as when he writes here the man of sin and son of perdition which is an adversary who extolls himself above all c. which is most properly spoken not of the body but of the Head Having shown now in what sense we take the Antichrist we will go to the matter And first to that 2. Thess 2.3.4 where he is described and that by no dark prophesies as you say but by plain sayings First therefore the Scripture calls him there a man of sin a son of perdition The which to be accomplished in your Popes your own Histories Cardinals Councils Favorers Friers Friends and themselves do sufficiently testifie So that if they speak true of themselves which you cannot deny then of all the monsters that ever the earth hath born some of your Popes have been the greatest monsters For in this point M. Gilbert we deal not with you as ye deal with us for ye cite our enemies as witnesses of us which should have no credit and we cite your own friends and these of your own Religion So that they shal be fetched out as witnesses against you in this point whether your Popes be the men of sin and sons of perdition or not What Commandment is there of the first or second Table which they have not violated in the highest degree 1. Whoremongers 2. Adulterers 3. Sodomits 4. Incestuous 5. Fosterers and maintainers of harlots 6. Tyrants 7. Devilish and Sorcerers 8. In pride passing all creatures under heaven 9. Atheists without God 10. Perjured 11. Burreaus 12. Bawds and merchants of whores 13. Sacrilegious 14. Traitors 15. Seditious 16. Blasphemous 17. Parricides 18. Poysoners of Emperors Senators Cardinals yea of their own parents and sisters 19. Helpers of the Turks 20. Drunkards 21. Simoniacks 22. Monsters 23. Bastards 24. Arrians 25. Idolaters 26. And so contentious that sometimes there was two sometimes three and sometimes four all Popes striving for the Popedom together
wickedness who was all wickedness and vice together Alexander the 6. he made a covenant with the Devil and gave himself over to the Devil that by his help he might obtain the Popedom the which when he had obtained he so holily led his life that he preased to do nothing without first he had asked the advise of the Devil A Simoniack an Atheist also of whom it is written Vendit Alexander cruces altaria Christum Emerat ille prius vendere jure potest That is He sold the Cross Altars and Christ himself he bought them first and therefore he might sell them again A traytor also for two hundred thousand Ducats which he received from the Turk he poysons the Turks brother Gemen Bajazets being then captive in Rome Who also called for the Turks to assist him against the French King He committed vile incest with his own daughter Lucretia of whom it is written in her Epitaph Alexandri filia sponsa nurus He made one of his sons Prince of Sicile and another a Cardinal He gave liberty to Petrus Mendoza a Spaniard a Cardinal whose lust could not be satisfied neither with a troup of harlots neither with the Queen her self to commit Sodomitry with his own bastard son Zanathensis O horrible impiety He commanded to poyson some of the Senators of Rome and of his own Cardinals who were at a banket together with himself But in the righteous judgement of God the flagon being changed at unawares by him that filled the cups he himself was poysoned and so perisheth His Epitaph saith Famae contemptor honestae c. Contemner of honesty and all wickedness it self And in another of his Epitaphs it is written That he destroyed Cities and Kingdoms and wasted the world with sword fire and robbery to enrich his bastard children and that he took away the laws both of God and men and the Gods themselves that he might more licentiously sin Julius the 2. committed Sodomitry with two youths of an honorable linage which the Queen of France sent to a Cardinal to be informed He was such a cruel Tyrant that by his tyranny in the space of seven years there was two hundred thousand Christian men slain Of whom it is written that when he went to the warrs he cast Peters keys in Tybris with this voyce Saint Peters keys help not let Pauls sword defend us Of whose pardons it is written Vendit enim coelos non habet ipse tamen He selleth heaven but hath not heaven himself Leo the 10. a beastly man born to all licentiousness a drunkard and Atheist without God when one of his Cardinals Petrus Rembus was repeating a sentence out of the Gospel he answered blasphemously What profit that fable of Christ hath brought to us and our Church it is sufficiently known to all ages Whereby though all the world should deny it this horrible monster sufficiently declares that he is that man of sin and son of perdition Clemens the 8. and after some the 7. it is written of him that he was a bastard a venefician a Sodomit a murderer a bawd a simoniack an harlot perjured a sacrilegious man a diviner and a crafts-man of all wickedness Of whom Pasquillus writes in his Epitaph Hic est per quem tot prostant in urbe puellae c. That is A defiler of maidens a banisher of honesty and chastity a honorer of all unclean persons the infamy of the world the decay of the Empire a contemner of God a man of wickedness a publick enemy a false and ungrate man a Tyrant and such a man as there was never a worse in the world Paul the 3. a vile beastly monster as ever the earth did bear he sold his sister to be an harlot to Pope Alexander the sixth that he might be made a Cardinal He deceived a certain maid of honorable parentage and deflored her under the hope of marriage of whom he begat Petrus Aloysius that vile Sodomit He poysoned his mother and sister that he might enjoy all the heritage himself He committed incest with another of his sisters and afterward poysoned her because she loved others more then him He committed vile incest and adultery both with his niece Nicolaus Quercaeus his wife who being deprehended in the very act by her husband was so wounded by him that he kept the mark thereof to his very end He committed also incest and adultery with his own daughter Constantia And that he might the more licentiously enjoy his beastly lust with her he poysoned her husband named Bosius Sforsia He exceeded Heliogabalus and Commodus in filthiness defiling his own sister niece and daughter He had 45. thousand harlots on a row of whom he received tribut and toll every moneth who were familiar with him day and night Julius the third what better was he who against the will of all his Cardinals made one Innocent with whom he had done villany Cardinal and admitted him to his domestick familiarity Vergerius writes he abstained not from his own Cardinals and that he used such horrible blasphemies as the most vile bawds and the most filthy villains use in the contempt of God When he missed his dish of bacon which was not set at the table at the command of his Physician he brast forth in this blasphemy Bring me my dish al dispetto de Dio that is In despite of God Again when he missed a dish of a cold peacock which he had commanded to keep to him having other new rosted peacocks he vomit out most horrible blasphemy against God And when one of his Cardinals answered Let not your Holiness be offended at so light a matter He replyed If God was so angry for the eating of one apple that he cast out our first parents out of Paradise wherefore shal it not be lawful to me who is his Vicar to be angry for a peacock seeing it is far greater then an apple Now let men judge whether the Popes of Rome bear this mark of the Antichrist or not that is whether they be men of sin and sons of perdition or not Much more might I have brought for the manifesting of this point as the thirty Schismes among their Church which never Church had so many their mutual contentions strifes cruelties exercised one towards another But I hope this will suffice to satisfie the conscience of all men that the Popes are that man of sin and son of perdition And certainly if others had written their abominations then men of their own Religion their own flatterers and friends it would have seemed incredible But their own Writers have by Gods providence so discovered their abominations that I think the consciences of all men may be at a point in this This for the first mark The second property of the Antichrist as he is described in that same place is to be an adversary to God 2. Thess 2.4 For as the Devil is called Satan that is an adversary to God so his chief Lieutenant
Antichrist is called an adversary that is opposed and contrary to God and that not in life only but in doctrine Religion and government and that not in one point only but almost in all the substantial points thereof The which mark the Popes of Rome bear and that not only in their lives but also in the whole substantial points of Religion And to make this clear besides that which hath been spoken we shal compare the doctrine of Jesus Christ and the government of his Kingdom set down in the Scripture with the doctrine of the Popes and the manner of their government that the contrariety of them may be known so that it shal be seen that cold is no more contrary to heat and black to white then Papism to Christianity and the Religion of the Church of Rome to the Religion of Christ Jesus The doctrine of Christ stands especially in these two things in the knowledge of his person and in the knowledge of his offices And therefore the Apostle saith I desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified 1. Cor. 2.2 And Christ himself saith It is life eternal to know thee to be the only true God and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ John 17 3. The doctrine of the Popes of Rome overthrows both And first to prove this concerning his person the Scripture testifies that Jesus Christ is conceived of the substance of the Virgin Mary and that he hath but one true body made of the seed of David and of the seed of the woman Rom. 1.3 Gal. 4. 4 and not many and that he is like unto us in all things except sin Heb. 2.17 The doctrine of the Church of Rome is that Christ Jesus his body is made of the bread and wine in the Sacrament their doctrine makes him to have as many bodies as there is bits of bread in the Sacrament and not to be like his brethren in all things except sin Bellar. lib. 3. de Eucharistia fol. 399. Pope John 22. lib. orat in scr antidotarius animae for his brethren can be but in one place at once with their own due proportion visibly But their doctrine of Transubstantiation makes him to be both in heaven and earth at once in heaven visibly in earth invisibly in heaven with his own quantity and proportion in earth without his natural proportion and not in one place of the earth only but in innumerable places thereof at once so that this main foundation of mans salvation without the which there is no eternal life concerning the truth of Christs manhood made of the woman is utterly defaced and overthrown by the doctrine of the Popes of Rome in making him to have infinit bodies not made of the feed of the woman but of bread and wine or at the least made of two diverse substances And as they overthrow the doctrine of his person so they overthrow the doctrine of his offices His offices are three a Prophet a Priest and a King which are all overthrown by them As he is a Prophet he hath revealed his Fathers whole will unto his servants John 1.18 and hath left it in register in his latter Testament and hath forbidden to add empair or to alter the same Deut. 4.2 and hath pronounced a wo a curse unto them that adds empairs or alters the same Rev. 22.18 Gal. 1.8 and that because it is sufficient to make a man wise unto salvation and to make the man of God perfect unto every good work 2. Tim. 3.15.16 and because it is pure and perfect and easie to all them that will understand it Prov. 8.9 Psal 19.8.9 13. 119. But they have many wayes corrupted this Testament of Christ by mingling and adulterating the same First in that they give divine authority to the Books called Apocrypha which are humain Concil Trident. Sess 4. Next in receiving and commanding others to receive traditions with equal reverence and affection with the Scripture Thirdly in their corrupt Latin translation which they have made authentical which some of themselves confess have missed sometimes the meaning of the holy Ghost Bud. annot prior in Pandect Andrad lib. 4. Arias Montanus Tom. 8. Bibl. Reg. in praefat Fourthly in joyning with the Commandments of God their own commandments and that not as things indifferent but as necessary to salvation Concil Trident. Sess 6 cap. 10. Fifthly in condemning all sense and meaning of the holy Scripture but that which they hold themselves Sess 4. Last of all in quarrelling the Scripture of imperfection obscurity and ambiguity calling it dead and dumb like a nose of wax They therefore who have altered added and corrupted the Testament of Jesus Christ confirmed by his death which he hath left in writ for to instruct his Church in all things and to make her wise to salvation and perfect to every good work doth spoil the Lord Jesus of his Prophetical office But the doctrine of the Church of Rome hath done so Ergo they spoyl Jesus Christ of his Prophetical office Thirdly they are no less sacrilegious and injurious to his Priesthood His Priesthood stands in two things First in purchasing unto us by the vertue of that one sacrifice once offered up upon the Cross an everlasting redemption Next in making continual intercession for us with his Father Heb. 9.11.12 15.24.25.26.27.28 the which both are overthrown by the doctrine of the Church of Rome As to the first it is overthrown many wayes as first our Savior saith That his soul was sorrowful unto the death and that he swat drops of blood Matth. 26.37.38 and he sent up strong cryes and supplications with tears in the dayes of his flesh Heb. 5.7 Luke 22.44 and therefore he thrise upon his knees prays That if it had been possible that cup might be removed from him Matth. 27.39 And upon the Cross through the sense and feeling of that wrath he breaks forth in that complaint My God my God why hast thou forsaken me All which do testifie that he suffered more then a common death to wit the terrors of the wrath of God which was due to the sins of all the elect But the doctrine of the Church of Rome ranverseth this doctrine of our salvation and teacheth that Christ suffered not the wrath of God upon his soul which if it be true then Christ hath not payed our debt sufficiently for our debt was not only the natural death of the body but the wrath of God upon the soul and therefore the Scripture saith The soul that sinneth shal die the death Ezech. 18.20 Secondly the Scripture testifieth that Christs death and blood is a sufficient ransom for our sins and a sufficient satisfaction unto the justice of God Heb. 10.10.14 John 19.28 1. Tim. 2.6 1. Pet. 2.24 1. John 1.7 They by the contrary joyn to his satisfaction the satisfactions of men both in this life and in the life to come in Purgatory and that not only for their own sins but for
silver and copper idols Miss Rom. de rit servand in celebrat Missae And to be short in this as their Priests had their heads and their beards shaven how like are the Papist Priests in this Pontif. 20. part 1. Pier. Valer. pro sacerd barbis They worship also the image of Christ with the worship of Latria Thom. Aquin. part 3. quaest 25. art 3. 4. Ant. Possev Bibl. select lib. 1. cap. 10. which themselves confess to be proper only to God confessed by one of their own number a learned Jesuit Gregor de Valent. lib. 2. cap. 7. And therefore he defends that some kind of Idolatry is lawful And Bellarmin saith lib. 1. de Eccles trium cap. 23. That the worship of Latria is given truly to the Image of the Cross and the Crucifix suppose he saith he thinks it not safe to preach this to the people They style the Image of the Crucifix with the styles only proper to God The King of glory the Lord that is strong and mighty in battel the Lord of strength Conrad Brun. de imagin cap. 7. Such like when the Image of the Dove at the Pentecost is let down in the Temple with fire and water then the Priest saith Receive the holy Ghost Ibidem So do the Popes give the style of the immaculat Lamb to the Images of wax Sacra cerem Eccles 20. lib. 1. tit 7. The second Council of Nice Act. 4. saith of the Image of Christ This is Christ And the Council of Trent Sessio 25. And in their consecration of their Images of wax ibid. sacra they pray to God the Father Let these immaculat Lambs speaking of the Images receive that self-same vertue against all the crafts and deceits of the Devil wherewith that innocent Lamb his own Son Jesus Christ delivered from the power of the Devil our first parents And they sing of every one of these wax Images which they call their Agnus Dei omne malignum that is these wax Images break and annul every sin as Christs blood doth And to fill up the heap of their iniquities not only do they worship the thing signified by the Images but the Images themselves as themselves testifie Polydor. Virg. de invent lib. 6. cap. 13. And Pius 2. saith Comment lib. 2. that in the Church of S. Mary c. there is an Image of the Virgin which the people worship mirâ Religione with a marvellous Religion as the giver of rain and fair weather And Bellarmin saith lib. 2. de imag cap. 21. That the images of Christ and the Saints ought to be worshipped properly and by themselves as they are considered in themselves and not only as they represent another thing And he saith cap. 13. That the Image it self should be worshipped with that same kind of worship properly with the which the thing it self represented thereby should be worshipped The second General Council of Nice is of the same mind Marinaeus Siculus de rebus Hisp lib. 5. testifies that in Spain in a certain Temple the Crucifix of Christ is adored And he saith Cujus imaginis invocato numine At the invocation of the Godhead of the which Image sundry received their health Pope John the 22. formed a prayer to be said to the Image of Christs face kept in a shirt which they call Veronica and hath granted ten thousand dayes pardon to them that say this prayer devoutly Salve sancta facies Redemptoris nostri c. In the which prayer first these styles are given to this Image as the face of our Redeemer wherein shines the brightness of the Godhead the beauty of the world the glass of the Saints wherein the heavenly spirit desire to look in the strength of our Christian faith the destroyer of hereticks our joy in this life Secondly they pray to this Image to purge us from all the spots of our sins to joyn us to the company of the blessed to powr in light in our hearts by that vertue which is given to it to increase our merit and to lead us to heaven When shal we tumble our selves out of the gulf of these abominations and idolatries Blind now must they be that see not their doctrine to be the doctrine of the Dragon Therefore do I strive with you saith the Lord and with your posterity For go through all the regions of the earth and see if there be the like abominations as is among them For they have changed the glory of God into unprofitable Idols O ye heavens be astonished at this and be confounded and be ye desolat For two evils have they done they have forsaken the Lord and Christ his Son the fountain of living waters and have made unto themselves broken pits which can hold no water that is they have made unto themselves false Gods and false Christs which cannot bring salvation unto them They have given his glory unto others so that of all Idolaters that ever have been they are the greatest It is no wonder therefore suppose the Lord hath caused it to be proclaimed by an Angel That he that worshippeth the beast and his image shal be tormented in fire and brimstone day and night and the smoke of their torment shal ascend for evermore and they shal have no rest Rev. 14 10.11 I hope now the second point is sufficiently cleared that they have spoyled Christ of his Priesthood and of that glory and honor that is due unto him Now as they have spoyled him of his Priestly office so have they robbed him of his Kingly office His Kingly office stands in two things The one is in the inward operation of his Spirit The other is in the exercise and ministery of the Word Sacraments and Discipline which he hath ordained for that end As for the first He by his Spirit prepares the heart by bringing us to a sight and sense of our misery that we may run to him to seek for mercy And then he by his Spirit works that living faith which makes us fully assured of salvation which works by love and brings forth the fruits of holiness and righteousness whereof prayer is one special All which is taken away by their doctrine As to the first No sufficient knowledge of their misery among them For first their doctrine is That we are not dead in sin but man hath free-will and then that concupiscence after Baptism is not sin and that the adoring and worshipping of Images is not the breaking of the second command And that the reward of every sin is not everlasting death And that men even without faith may merit the favor of God and that after they have obtained faith they may not only fulfill the Law perfectly but also do more yea love God with a greater love then he hath commanded and lead a more strait and heavenly life then either the Law of God or man prescribes as Bellarmin saith And that men may not only satisfie God for their own sins and merit everlasting life to
of ryot pride extortion and simony Ammian Marcel lib. 27. Baptist. Mant. Fast lib. 5. Bern. Epist 42. Conc. Basil Sess 21. And as for excommunication he hath used it not against the wicked Bernard ad Eugen. lib. 1. 3. Mantuan sylvar lib. 2. of whom a sink hath flowed at all times in Rome not against thieves of whom Rome is made a den not against murderers for whom there is a sanctuary in the houses of Cardinals at Rome Aeneas Sylvius hist de Asia min. cap. 77. not against adulterers not against whores whereof the Pope received such tribut as hath been spoken but against Emperors Estats Nations who would not serve him at a beck against any man that denyed his Parish Priest a little tiends against whole assemblies of the faithful whom he by most villanous cruelty and treachery as if they had been sheep appointed for the slaughter hath rid away by fire by torment by sword And to end this what shal I speak of his tyrannical laws whereby he hath oppressed the Church of God as of single life auricular confession choise of meats apparel dayes of new and strange canonizing of Saints of pilgrimage to the holy Land of the vows of Monks Nuns of the estates and rites of marriage and of innumerable ceremonies partly unfruitful partly foolish partly impious And what shal I speak of his dispensations against the Old Testament against the Epistles of Paul against all right and equity That a brother may marry his own brothers wife King Henry the 8. and an uncle his sisters daughter Philip King of Spain And Pope Martin the fifth approved the marriage of one with his sister germain That Church offices and livings may be given to boyes to simonical merchants and unlearned persons Bernard Epist 42. de consid ad Eugen. lib. 1. 3. That one may have plurality of Benefices Dist 70. cap. Sacerdotum cap. de mult de praeb That he who hath the Benefice needs not to attend the office cap. relatum de cler cap. licet Canon de elect in Sexto That promise may be broken with God and man That subjects may be discharged of their oath to their Princes Conc. Constant. Sess 19. And last of all what shal I speak of his Indulgences and Pardons in granting so many hundred and thousand years pardon of their sins to them that will devoutly say their idolatrous prayers Some giving three hundred dayes pardon as Pope Celestin Some seven hundred years pardon as Pope Boniface Some ten thousand years pardon as Boniface the 6. Some thirtytwo thousand seven hundred fiftyfive years pardon And Sixtus the 4 hath doubled the time of this fore-said pardon And some ten hundred thousand years pardon for deadly sins as Pope John 22. Portuus book of Sarum printed anno 1520. Here is pardon for all sins so that there be money And as the Revelation saith The very souls of men are made merchandise of Rev. 18.13 And one of their own friends saith venalia Romae Templa Sacerdâ—tes Altaria sacra coronae Ignes thura preces coelum est venale Deúsque Baptist Mantuan calam temp lib. 3. That is Churches Priests Altars crowns fire incense prayers heaven and God are to be sold in the Church of Rome To conclud this then he is the Antichrist whose Doctrine and Religion Ministery and Discipline is directly contrary to the Doctrine Religion Ministery and Discipline of Jesus Christ Again he is the undoubted Antichrist whose doctrine spoyls Jesus Christ of the truth of his humanity of his Prophetical Kingly and Priestly Offices and sets himself and others up in the same offices and whose doctrine spoils him of the glory which is due to him only for our creation and redemption and gives it to creatures and last of all he whose doctrine spoyls men of their salvation must be that undoubted Antichrist But the Doctrine and Religion of the Popes of Rome and his Clergy as hath been proved sufficiently are such Therefore they are that undoubted Antichrist which the Scripture fore-told was to come And this for the second mark The third mark of the Antichrist is That he exalts himself above all that is called God and is worshipped that is above all powers and majesties both heavenly and earthly He saith not Above God himself but above all that is called God that is above all powers heavenly and earthly as hath been said He then is the undoubted Antichrist whom the Scripture fore-told should come who lifts up himself above all powers as well heavenly as earthly this you cannot deny because the Scripture so affirms But the Pope of Rome have lifted up themselves above all powers both heavenly and earthly the which if it shal be proved then of necessity it must follow that the Popes of Rome are that undoubted Antichrist Now for proof hereof we shal set none other upon their assise to file or cleanse them in this point but their own Canon Law their own Writers their own Bishops and themselves Antonius Archbishop of Florence saith Sum. part 3. tit 22. cap. 5. That his power is greater then any created power and that it extends its self to heavenly earthly and infernal things Of whom saith he that is true which is spoken of Christ in the 8. Psalm 6. Thou hast subjected all things under his feet that are in heaven in earth or in hell applying it to the Pope What needs more This is conviction enough But yet we will proceed and see how far he hath lifted up himself above all these As for them in the earth there are two special powers the temporal power and the spiritual power He claims superiority over both as is manifest by their own doctrine The Pope is over the world in stead of Christ Anton in sum part 3. tit 22. cap. 5. I am Cesar all the power in the heaven and in the earth is mine Boniface 8. We affirm and define that it stands all creatures upon the necessity of their salvation to be subject to the Pope Extra de majorit unam sanct The Pope should judge all and be judged of none unless he be found an heretick And suppose he should draw after him innumerable souls by heaps unto Hell yet no mortal man should be so bold as to say to him Lord why dost thou this Dist 40. cap. Si. Papa Gloss extravagant ad Apost How far he hath lifted up himself above the temporal power Kings Princes and Emperors let both their doctrine and practise bear witness The Pope is as the Sun to rule over the day that is the spirituality and the Emperor as the Moon to rule over the night that is the temporality And as the earth is seven times greater then the Moon and the Sun eight times greater then the earth so is the Pope forty seven times greater then the Emperor And as the Emperor or Roman Princes take of me their approbation unction and Imperial Crown so they must not
As to the second who is he that hath caused all to worship the first Beast that is hath brought again that tyrānous cruelty dominion over the poor Church of God in setting up idolatry and abolishing the true worship of God which the Heathen Emperors did but the Popes of Rome For was not the Emperor of the East excommunicat because he would not suffer Images in the Temples Have not they filled the world with their Idolatry as hath been proved Who have made war with the Saints oppressed them in all the parts where their dominion might reach but they France Germany England Scotland the Low Countreys and all Europe bear witness unto this As to the third who by lying wonders have deceived the world but they And as to the fourth who hath healed the deadly wound of the first Beast in setting up an Empire here in the West in the person of Charles the Great which was more then three hundred years so deadly wounded through the incursion of other Nations that there was no Empire in the West Who I say did all this but the Popes of Rome Giving unto them the style or bare name but taking by little and little the substance of the whole Empire to themselves so that Theodorick à Niem saith lib. 3. cap. 43. The Roman Empire is so little now in Almany that there is some Bishops or Archbishops that will spend twise as much as they will do of all the lands that is under their subjection And some Princes have more land then the Emperor hath And if ye will look to Rome saith he and Italy it was once the seat of the Empire but now the Emperor hath nothing of it but the style As to the fifth Who is he who hath caused make the Image of the Beast and given a spirit unto it that it should speak That is who have set up a very Image of the Roman Monarchy and Hierarchy in the whole frame of their government in the Church of God but the Popes of Rome So that the whole frame of their government and Hierarchy is a lively pattern and image of the Roman Empire For as in the Roman Empire there was an Emperor whom all did worship as God unto whom there was joyned a Senat who was next in authority to him so is the frame of the government of the Papistical Kingdom There is a Monarch the Pope whom all are compelled when they come in his sight to worship as an earthly God to whose sentence all must stand to who judgeth all but can be judged of none who hath joyned with him a Senat of Cardinals who are next him in authority Secondly as in the Roman Monarchy the Emperor took upon him not only the highest Kingly authority in all matters civil but also the Priestly authority and power over Religion and not that only but also to be Tribuns over the people who had the power of forbidding and annulling of all decrees made by other Magistrats Even so the Popes of Rome have usurped all these three First the highest Royal authority over all Kings and Princes next to be Lords over Religion so that as Antoninus one of his Archbishops saith Summa part 3. tit 22. c. 5. He may creat new Religions thirdly to be Tribuns that is to disanul whatsoever decree or judgement of any Bishop or inferior Judges yea of Synodal and General Councils if they be not ratified by him Thirdly as in Rome was the head of the Empire the Emperor and his Senat with him and as the Emperors had their Magistrats under them in all their Provinces and places of their dominions from whom all their authority was and who was at their beck and commandment So in the Popes Kingdom the Pope who is the head and the Senat of Cardinals which is next him in authority have their seat in Rome and they according to the old pattern of the Roman Empire have their Bishops Archbishops Abbots Priors Monks Friers c. in all the places of their dominion under them who have their whole authority from him and who all are his sworn men So here is then the lively image of the former beast And as to the sixth Who did kill all them that would not worship the image and this frame of government of Popes Cardinals Bishops Archbishops c. and their Religion but the Popes of Rome The blood of infinit thousands do testifie this And what hath brought all under their bondage both one and other that none might buy or sell that is neither brook Civil nor Ecclesiastical offices but those who were marked with his mark that is took on them his profession and was Catholicks as he termes them Is not this sufficiently known that none might have offices nor benefices in the Church but they that received his mark orders from him And none might brook their Kingdoms and civil dignities in so far as lay in his power but these that were of his profession Rex venit ante fores surans prius urbis honores Post homo fit Papae recipit quo dante coronam Clement lib. 2. tit 9. And Erasmus saith in his Adagles That neither Baptism nor marriage nor sacrifice nor psalms nor prayer nor Sacrament nor grave in the Papistical Kingdom are given without money Now last of all to what Kingdom or Church under heaven since this Revelation was written doth the number of the name of the Beast here set down agree but to the Latin Kingdom of the Popes and their Latin Church for here is set down the name of the Kingdom of Antichrist The number of the name of the Beast here set down is 666. and the λ α τ ε ι 30 1 300 5 10  ν ο σ.   50 70 200.  all which being joyned together maketh 666. letters of the name of this Antichristian Kingdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amounts to the same number of 666. For what is the name of the Popish Kingdom and Hierarchie Is not the Church called the Latin Church Is not all the exercises of their Religion almost in Latin And suppose the Old Testament be written in Hebrew and the New in Greek yet have they not condemned the Originals as corrupted And have they not authorized the Latin interpretation as only authentical So that Papacie is the very Kingdom of Latins Now the letters of this Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Latin for the Revelation was written in Greek doth amount to the same number 666. And what other Kingdom or Monarchy under heaven can show whose name is such that the letters thereof amounteth to this number Ireneus an ancient Writer yea so ancient that he saw and heard Polycarpus who was one of Johns Disciples who received this Revelation mentioneth that the name of this Beast in this prophesie is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iren. lib. 5. cap. 25. Sed Latinis nomen 666. numerum habet valde verisimile est quia
verissimum regnum hoc Ε χ χ λ η.  5 20 20 30 8  σ ι α Ι Ï„ α. 200 10 1 10 300 1 λ ι η α.   30 10 20 1   habet vocabulum Latini enim sunt qui nunc regnant And as the letters of this Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amounteth to this number 666. so doth the letters of these Latin words Ecclesia Italica written in Greek letters and of the Hebrew word ROMIITH that signifieth R O M I 200 6 40 10 I TH   10 400   Romam Is not this much now that this number of 666 agrees to the name of the Papistical Kingdom both in Hebrew Greek and Latin In Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Latin in Hebrew ROMIITH that is Rome in Latin Ecclesia Italica that is the Italian Church For Italie is called Latium that is Latin What more would any man require Will not this suffice to make it manifest that the Popes are the Antichrist to whom every thing prophesied of the Antichrist by the Apostle Paul and this Revelation of the second Beast do so fitly agree So that there can be none under heaven unto whom they can be applyed but only to the Popes of Rome But yet for the full manifestation of this point we will go to the 17. of the Revelation For as his Kingdom was figured under a Beast that had two horns like the Lamb in the 13. chapter so there is the principal throne and seat of his Kingdom figured under a great harlot with whom the Kings and Nations of the earth have committed fornication The which harlot is most gloriously decked and richly apparelled Who hath a cup of gold in her hand full of abomination in whose fore-head a name is written A Mystery that Babylon that mother of whoredoms who is drunken with the blood of the Saints and Martyrs of Jesus which is that great city which reigneth over the Kings of the earth which sitteth upon seven mountains For the maintenance of whose Kingdom ten Kings yeelded up their power and authority to fight against the Lamb and to overcome him That this great City is the City of Rome it is so plain that he is more then blind that sees it not For what City did reign over the Nations when this Revelation was received but Rome And what City since the Pope clamb up to his Kingdom hath done the same but Rome And what City sitteth upon seven hills but Rome whose names are yet known As testifieth Capitolinus Palatinus Aventinus Caelius Exquilinus Quirinalis Viminalis And what City hath been the mother of all spiritual and bodily fornication of all idolatry and abomination but Rome Yea what City hath been so enriched with gold purple and precious stones but Rome And what City hath been drunken with the blood of the Martyrs and Saints but Rome All these things are so manifest that not only some of the Fathers as Jerome in praefat ad Didymum in Epist ad Algasium and Tertullian contra Marci lib. 13. advers Judaeos cap. 9. saw it But some of themselves confess it that this Babylon is Rome Both Bellarmin grants it plainly and also the Rhemists do not deny it For that great Jesuit Bellarmin saith lib. 1. cap. 2. That John in the Revelation every where calls Rome Babylon and confirms this first by the testimony of Tertullian and then by the circumstances of the text For saith he there was no other City at that time that did reign over the Nations but Rome And it is most notorious saith he that Rome sits on seven hills Lib. 4. cap. 4. What now would ye have more And in another place It appears saith he that in the time of the Antichrist Rome shal be made desolat and shal be burnt as it is gathered out of the 17. of the Revelation and this shal not be until the end of the world These are plain speeches And I say this great City of Rome which is called here mystical Babylon is not described here as she was the seat of the Heathen Emperors when they reigned in her as the Roman Church saith but as she is and hath been the seat of the Antichrist For in the time of the Emperors she made not the Kings of the earth commit fornication with her that is she did not pollute them with her idolatry and Religion as it is fore-told of this Rome for she left every Kingdom free to use their own Idolatry and superstition But Rome since she began to be the throne and seat of the Antichrist the Popes of Rome have propagated her idolatry and worship to all Nations and have made all Nations drunken with the wine of her fornication and have obtruded her Religion to all Nations against their will with fire and sword And from thence have proceeded all the wars and blood-sheds in many Nations of Europe because they did go out of her and departed from their idolatry Further all the parts of her description here agrees to Rome having the show of Christianity and not as she was Heathen under the Heathen Emperors as that purple and scarlet wherewith she was clad that gilding with gold and precious stones and pearls which the Archbishop of Ratisbon Albertus Magnus and the Gloss interprets of the simulation of piety and meekness the spiritual graces of God as faith hope charity all which say they she shal in hypocrisie pretend but yet in truth have nothing such but cruelty and ungodliness the which can no wayes agree with Rome as she was in her Gentilism therefore of necessity Papistical Rome is here described and not Heathen Rome Thirdly that Rome is here described which was upholden by the Beast unto whom the ten Kings yeelded up their power to fight against the Lamb as is manifest by the 12. and 13 verses of that 17 chapter But this Beast is not the Empire of Rome but the Antichristian Kingdom for these ten Kings had not received their Kingdoms all that time that the Roman Emperors were Heathen and long after Therefore Rome as it is the seat of the Antichrist and not as it was the seat of the Roman Empire is here descrybed And the Rhemists say in their annotations upon this place that some expons these ten Kings of ten Kingdoms into which the Roman Empire shal be divided which shal all serve Antichrist therefore Rome as it is here described mâ—st be the seat of the Antichrist Last of all the Revelation speaks here of that Rome that shal be burnt with fire and be made desolat by the ten Kingdoms which God should stir up to hate her and he speaks here of that Rome which shal be casten in the midst of the sea after the which shal follow the day of Judgement But this cannot be Rome as it was the seat of the Roman Empire but as it is the seat of the Antichristian Kingdom for it is more then a thousand years since
of Rome he saith They only desire to reign They cannot abide peace They will not cease till they have stamped all under their feet that they may sit in the Temple of God and be lifted up above all that is called God or that is worshipped He who is the servant of servants is the Lord of Lords and desires to be thought of as if he were God And he saith That man whom they use to call Antichrist he speaketh great things as though he were God in whose fore-head that name of blasphemie is written I am God I cannot err Franciscus Petrarcha a light of that age for his manifold learning calls the Court of Rome Babylon and that harlot of Babel that sitteth upon many waters the mother of Idolatry and whoredom the refuge of heresies and errors And Petrus Joannes pronounced the Pope to be the Antichrist and the synagogue of Rome to be that great Babylon And Matthias Parisiensis saith That Antichrist hath seduced all the Universities and Colledges of the learned so that they teach nothing soundly now And the Edict of the Empire under Lodowick the fourth speaking of Pope John the 22. saith Christians cannot keep the peace which is given them of God for this Antichrist meaning the Pope And in another Edict it is written As he is a disaguised Pastor so is he a mystical Antichrist and we declars him being the author of that Antichristian Empire to be damned of heresie and deposed by our right by the Council sentence and common consent of the Princes and Prelats of Germanie the Priests of Italie and people of Rome so desiring And Aventinus in the history of Hildebrand writes That almost all the plain just simple and upright have written that then to wit when he was Pope the Empire of the Antichrist began because they saw that come to pass at that time which our Savior fore-told so many years before And to conclud this Hadrian the 6. Pope in his instructions of his Legats to the Convention at Norimberg he saith Thou shalt say that we grant freely that God hath suffered this persecution to come upon the Church for the sins of men and especially of the Priests and Prelats of the Church And again he saith We know that in this seat speaking of that Pontifical seat in Rome many abominable things have been for some years as abuse in spiritual things excess in commandments and last of all all things changed in worse And the Popes Cardinals speaking to Paul the third say From this fountain holy Father as from the Trojan horse so many abuses have rushed into the Church and so heavy diseases wherewith as we may see she is brought into a disperat estat I omit the rest Ye may see the truth is strong that hath made their own mouthes to fyle themselves To conclud this then He must be the undoubted Antichrist and his Kingdom Antichristian unto whom the whole markes of the Antichrist as he is described in the Scripture by the Apostle Paul and John in the Revelation doth agree But they all agree unto the Popes of Rome and his Kingdom as hath been proved Therefore they must be that undoubted Antichrist who was to come Secondly he must be that undoubted Antichrist whom his own Friers Bishops Cardinals and some of themselves do call Antichrist and ascribe these things unto him that belongs properly to the Antichrist But his own Friers Bishops Cardinals and some of themselves have so testified as hath been proved also Therefore out of their own mouthes they are condemned to be that Antichrist and their Kingdom Antichristian Now to put an end to this my reply That Religion is false which hath neither unity succession nor antiquitie this you cannot deny because you make them the marks of your Church But your Religion hath neither unity for that is broken by your manifold contradictions and dissentions among your selves whereof I have marked some and the diligent Reader of your works may gather many mo Chrachtovius in his book called Bellum Jesuiticum hath gathered of two heads to wit the Mass and Antichrist 205. contradictions let the Christian Reader judge then what may be gathered of the rest no succession neither personal broken by their Popes who was Atheists Schismaticks Hereticks and by a woman Pope neither in doctrine being direct contrary to the doctrine of Christ no antiquitie for the authors and origine of sundry main points of your Religion is set down here and all your Roman Clergy have not satisfied M. Jewels challenge these thirty years ago concerning the novelty of twenty and seven of your opinions Therefore since it hath neither unity succession nor antiquity it is a false Religion by your own doctrine Secondly that Religion which is contrary the Scripture contrary the practise of the primitive Church which opens a door to all licentiousness which can bring no true peace and consolation unto the consciences of men which blusheth to be known and made manifest which maintaineth many great absurdities horrible blasphemies abominable idolatry that is the doctrine of Antichrist and the doctrine of Devils which by their own mouthes is condemned must be erroneous and false But the Religion of the Church of Rome is such as hath been evidently proved before therefore it must be false Wo therefore belongeth to their souls that profess it openly or secretly REVEL 14.8 And there followed another Angel saying Babylon is fallen is fallen that great City because she made all Nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication Vers 9. And the third Angel followed them saying with a loud voyce If any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in his fore-head or in his hand Vers 10. The same shal drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is powred out without mixture into the cup of his indignation and he shal be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy Angels and in the presence of the Lamb Vers 11. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever And they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name FINIS A BRIEF DISCOVERY OF THE BLOODY REBELLIOUS AND TREASONABLE Principles and Practises of Papists Wherein is evidently demonstrated That they teach and commit Treasons and Rebellions against the lives of Princes and peace of Nations and dissolve the obligation of all Oaths and Bonds and making Perjury and Rebellion duties and meritorious works they have been the Authors of Warrs Commotions and Combustions both before and ever since the Reformation in Kingdoms and Common-wealths and have used unparalleled cruelty and unheard-of inhumanity towards Protestants where ever they had the upper-hand And the excuses of H.T. the Author of the Manual of Controversies are evidenced to be false and frivolous 2. Tim. 3.1 In the last dayes perillous times shal come For men shal be lovers of their
own selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to parents unthankful unholy Without natural affection truce-breakers false accusers incontinent c. Traitors heady high-minded c. From such turn away TO THE LOVERS OF THE Reformed Religion in Britain and Ireland Grace mercy and peace DEarly beloved in the Lord The great increase of Popery every where is so visibly seen and so evidently known that to speak any thing to prove and evidence the same were altogether needless seeing he is a great stranger in our Israel that knoweth it not But alace there is very great decay of zeal and hatred against that Whore that if our glorious Predecessors whose excellent Motto it always was No peace with Rome were alive they would wonder to see us so brutish and sensless indifferent and lukewarm in ae matter of so great moment wherein the honor and glory of God the eternal happiness and felicity of our own and our posterities souls and the safety and preservation of Kings Kingdoms our lives estats and all that is near and dear to us is so much and so nearly concerned Therefore for letting us see our hazard in all and every one of these as we have revised and republished the above written excellent Treatise of that learned godly and eminently zealous and faithful servant of Christ M. John Welsch whose memory is very precious in the Church of Christ who doth learnedly and plainly to any ordinary capacity discover the abominations of that Whore and solidly prove her doctrine both to be most heretical and damnable and her self to be the very Antichrist that all who love the truth of God and the salvation of their immortal souls may be stirred up to a just zeal and indignation against her So we have thought fit to subjoyn this following Treatise for discovering to all and every one who love the Reformed Religion and resolve to adhere thereto what treasonable and bloody principles and inhumane and matchlesly cruel practises are maintained and committed by Papists in reference both to Kings Princes and People who profess the Reformed Religion and consequently what all and every one of us may expect to meet with if Popery prevail that so being convinced of our hazard both in body and soul and in all that is near and dear to us we may be stirred up to a real hatred and indignation against that Whore and may be much in the exercise of prayer repentance and other lawful and commanded duties for the putting a stop to the growth of the spreading abominations of that Whore which is earnestly prayed for by Yours for the truth M. C. A BRIEF DISCOVERY OF THE BLOODY REBELlious and treasonable Principles and Practises of Papists SECTION I. Showing that the principles of Papists are treasonable and rebellious against the person and authority of Princes and peace of Kingdoms c. And the excuses of H. T. the Author of the Manual of Controversies are proved to be frivolous and naught THE Church of Rome was formerly most hateful to the Churches of Christ in Britain and Ireland not only because of her most damnable and heretical doctrine but also because of the rebellious and treasonable principles and practises maintained and committed by her against the persons and authority of Princes and peace of Kingdoms her faith being accounted faction and her Religion rebellion Therefore Papists of late have endeavored by all means to ingratiat themselves in the favor of Princes and Magistrats making ample profession of loyalty and fidelity and charging Protestants with the odious crime of disloyalty And thus we see their late Writers denying and disowning the doctrine of Rebellion and Parricide that our Divines have justly charged them with For H T. the Author of the Manual of Controversies c. printed at Doway 1671 calleth it a loud slander to charge Papists with maintaining that if the Pope excommunicat a Tyrant or heretical Prince his own subjects may lawfully kill him Therefore to unmask a little the bloody rebellious and treasonable principles of Papists we shal prove First that it is no slander but a real truth that the Church of Rome holdeth that if the Pope excōmunicateth a King his own subjects may lawfully kill him 2. That the Pope can dispense with the alleageance of subjects to their Princes and if he so dispense then they are loosed from subjection and alleageance to them 3. That no faith nor oath is to be kept with Hereticks 4 That the Pope and Synagogue of Rome have been the Authors of warrs combustions and confusions in Christian Churches and Kingdoms all Europe over 5. That their continual practise ever since the Reformation hath been to plot and practise treasons and rebellions assassinations and murders both of Princes and people who professed the Reformed Religion 6. That whereever they got the upper-hand and dominion in any Kingdom or Common-wealth they have practised most unheard-of cruelties and barbarous inhumanities against the professors of the Protestant Reformed Religion For the first and second of these points to wit that Papists hold that if the Pope excommunicat a King his own subjects may lawfully kill him And that the Pope can dispense with the alleageance of subjects to their Princes and if he so dispense then they are loosed from subjection and alleageance to them I shal evidence it to be their commonly received doctrine both by the writings of their approved Doctors and Bulls of their Popes and their dayly practises And lest they say we wrong them we shal for the most part set down the words of the Authors themselves 1. I shal begin with Doctor Ranchin a Papist and a famous Lawyer in France in his Book intituled A review of the Council of Trent lib. 2. cap. 10. who setteth down these following positions as commonly received in the Church of Rome to wit That it is necessare to salvation to believe that every creature is subject to the Pope of Rome That he it set over Emperors and Kingdoms That he carryeth both the temporal and spiritual sword That he may depose Emperors c. and transfer their Empires and Dominions from one line to another That he may absolve subjects from their oath of alleageance That upon just cause be may set up a King in every Kingdom for he is the overseer of all Kingdoms in Gods stead That it belongeth to the Pope to correct Kings when they offend Much more hath this Author to this purpose 2. But let us hear their own Doctors themselves Augustinus Triumphus de potest Eccles quaest 46. art 2. as Doctor Usher citeth him saith There is no doubt but that the Pope may depose all Kings when there is a reasonable cause so to do Thomas Aquinas their Angelical Doctor holdeth 22. quast 12 art 2. That so soon as a Prince is denounced excommunicat for Apostasie ipso facto his subjects are free from his soverainity and absolved from the oath of alleageance which they are bound to him Bannes and
that the Jesuit Varadius wrote to Barerius Non posse ab aliquo fieri ullum magis meritorium opus quà m si Regem intersecerit That there could not be a more meritorious work then for him to kill a King Cresuel in his Philopat sect 2. num 160. 162. affirmeth That subjects may not only lawfully dethrone heretical Princes but also are obliged by divine precepts yea even upon the greatest hazard of their souls His words are Obligati sunt subditi ad Principos haereticos depellendos hujusmodi Principes suos non tantum legitimè possunt deturbare sed etiam ad hoc praecepto divino ac vinculo arctissimo ac-extremo animarum periculo tenentur But let us hear what H. T. replyeth First saith he art 7. p. 100. What this or that particular Doctor may hold or the Popes flatterers if he have any adds nothing to the creed of Catholicks nor is it justly chargeable on the whole Church Answer Sir if you had not the whores fore head that refuseth to be ashamed ye could not write so for this is so well known to be the commonly received doctrine of your Church that Cresuel Eudem ingenuously confesseth it For Cresuel plainly avoweth That it is the universal opinion of your Divines and an article of your Faith that any Prince who openly maketh defection from the Roman Catholick Religion and would withdraw others from the same doth presently fall from all his power and dignity by vertue both of Divine and Humane law and that before any sentence of the Pope and their subjects are all free of any obligation of oath to obedience and they ought to cast such a man out of their dominions as an Apostat lest he infect others Now lest ye think we wrong him not citing his words faithfully we shal set down his own words Universa Theologorum Schola tenet est certum ac de fide quemcunque Principem Christianum si de Romano Catholica Religione manifestè deflexerit alios avocare voluerit excidere statim ab omni potestate dignitate ex ipsa vi juris divini ac humani Hocque ante omnem sententiam Pontificis subditos quoscunque liberos esse ab omni juramenti obligatione quod de obedientia praestitissent posséque ac debere hujusmodi hominem tanquam apostatam ex dominatu eficere ne alios inficiat Cresuel Philop. num 37. Likewise Eudem affirmeth Apol. cap. 3. Non est propria Jesuitarum sed totius Ecclesiae quidem ab antiquissimis temporibus consensione recepta nostra doctrina That this is not the peculiar doctrine of the Jesuits but of the whole Church of Rome received from ancient times 2. But if the testimony of these two Doctors be not sufficient I hope the infallible judgement of two Popes è Cathedra will abundantly convince that this is the doctrine of the Romish Church The first is Pope Urban who Can. 23. quast 5. Can. excommunicatorum saith We esteem them not murderers who being possessed with the zeal of their mother the Catholick Church against these that are excommunicat shal happen to kill any of them The second is Pope Sixtus the fifth who when he heard that King Henry the third of France was killed by the Monk he went to his Consistory where before his Cardinals at Rome Sept. 11. 1589 he had a Panegyrick Oration which he began thus Animo meo saepe c. When I pondered in my mind and was intent upon the thoughts of these things which lately have fallen out by God providence I thought I might make use of that of the Prophet Habakkuk There shal be a work done in your dayes which none shal believe when it shal be told The King of France is dead by the hands of a Monk for to that may the words of the Prophet be rightly applyed c. a brave application of Scripture indeed And a little after We with grief truly did often fore-tell that as he was the last of his family so he should have an unusual and shameful end See more of this Oration cited by learned Hornbeck contra Bullam Pap. Innocent 10. Now can any Papist for his heart disown this treasonable doctrine which the Pope approveth except he disown his faith and Religion For doth not the faith and Religion of Papists depend on the Popes decrees so strongly and with such a spirit of delusion that he can make the most pestilent doctrines pass with them for Evangelical truths and the most abominable actions for patterns of holiness For Bellarmin expresly affirmeth and no Papist that I heard of did ever disallow it That if the Pope did err in commanding vices or prohibiting vertues the Church should be obliged to believe that vices are good and vertues evil unless she should speak against conscience Bellarm. lib. 4. de Pontif. cap. 5. And that in good sense Christ hath given to Peter the power to make sin to be no sin and that which is no sin to be sin Bellarm. contra Barclay cap. 31. We can dissent from the most eminent in our Church when they hold any thing contrary to the Word of God but so cannot Papists do with the Pope whom they acknowledge to be infallible 2. But let us hear what H. T. saith further We saith he abominat and detest that doctrine to wit that if the Pope excommunicat an heretical Prince it is lawful for his own subjects to kill him For it is defined by the Council of Constance and therefore of faith with us that it is heretical to affirm it lawâ—ul for a subject to kill his Prince upon any pretence whatsoever Sess 15. Ans O matchless audacity For doth not the Bulls and Dâ—cretals of your Popes the Writings and Disputations of your Doctors and your actings and practises prove you a liar Yea if there were no more then the Acts of the Parliament of Paris who condemned the Books of Bellarmin Suarez Mariana Santarella c. to the fire and banished the Jesuits the Kingdom it were sufficient to convince you of falshood 2. Whereas ye say that the Council of Constance hath declared the doctrine of King-killing heretical it is a mere forgery For your great Doctor Suarez who did write fifteen Volumes of Divinity saith to King James of famous memory that the Council of Constance forbiddeth not the killing of a King excommunicated by the Pope His words are Ubi legit Rex in Concilio Constantiensi particulam illam Principis per Papam excommunicati vel deprivati aut illam per suos subditos aut alios quoscunque The truth is the case propounded to the Council by Gerson was not about the murdering of Soveraign Princes but about the killing of a great Officer of the Crown who ruleth tyrannically and exalts himself above his King For John Duke of Burgundy who had killed Lewis Duke of Orleans pretended him to have been a Tyrant of that kind So then Tyrants are declared inviolable
as we said before and the Kingdom interdicted but also King James was by a Bull sent unto England a little before Queen Elizabeths death excluded from the Crown and all that were not Roman Catholicks were declared incapable of and excluded from the succession whereof his Majesty complaineth in his Apologie For Bâ—llarmin tells King James Tort pag. 19 That the Pope claims a dâ—uble right to England one by reason oâ— his Apostolick power which he extends over all men according to that Charter Psal 44. Thou shalt establish them Princes over all the earth The other proper by a right of Dominion for saith he England and Ireland are the Churches Dominions the Pope is direct Lord and the King his vassal XXI Neither were they less active in stirring up wars and combustions in other Kingdoms for a Priest of their own named John Brown aged seventy two in his voluntary confession to a Committee of Parliament set down by M. Prin in his introductioÌ„ to Canterburies doom p 202. saith That the Jesuits who are the Popes agents were the only cause of the troubles which fell out in Muscovia when under pretence to reduce the Latin Church and plant themselves and destroy the Greek Church the poor King Demetrius and his Queen and these that followed him from Polonia were all in one night murdered by the usurper of the Crown and the true progeny rooted out That they were the only cause that moved the Sweds to take arms against their lawful King Sigismund and chased him to Poland and neither he nor his successors were ever able to take possession of Sweden for the Jâ—suits intention was to bring in the Romish Religion and root out the Protestants They were the only cause that moved the Polonians to take arms against the said Sigismund because they had perswaded him to marry two sisters c. They were the sole cause of the war in Germany and Bohemia which began anno 1619. which caused the death of many thousands They have been the cause of the civil wars in France moving the King to take arms against his own subjects the Protestants where innumerable people have lost their lives for the Jesuits intentions were to set their Society in all Cities and Towns conquered by the King and quite to abolish the Protestants They were the cause of the murder of the last King of France They were the only projectors of the Gun-powder treason and their penitents the actors thereâ—f XXII M. Baxter in his key for Catholicks chap. 45. 46 47 48 49 proveth at large by good evidence that the Jesuits had a special hand in the late Civil War that burnt in the bowels of these three Nations till it had near consumed them Whose evidence I intreat that the Reader would read and seriously ponder From all which I hope it is evident enough that the Pope and Church of Rome have been the continual Authors and instigators to wars and combustions in Christian Churches and Kingdoms SECTION IV. That the continual practise of Papists ever since the Reformation hath been to plot and practise bloody and treasonable Conspiracies Assassinations and Murders both of Princes and People who profess the Reformed Religion IN the former Section we have proven that the Pope and Synagogue of Rome have been the grand Authors of warrs confusions and combustions in Christian Churches and Kingdoms In this Section we are to prove that not only have they been the Authors and instigators to bloody wars and confusions in Christian Churches and Kingdoms but that in all Protestant or Reformed Churches Kingdoms or States they have been secretly and under-hand always plotting and practising bloody and treasonable conspiracies assassinations and murders both of Princes and people who profess the Reformed Religion It would be too tedious to declare at large what plots and conspiracies the Pope and his dependers and vassals have had in all the Reformed Churches ever since Luthers Reformation we only shal instance some few not our near hand in France Ireland and in Britain I. I told in the former Section how the Pope and his sworn vassals were the Authors of the massacre of Paris anno 1572. which was surely hatched in hell and carried on with all the subtilty of that old Serpent for when the Pope and Court of Rome and Queen Catharin de Medicis and Charles the 9. her son saw that fire and fagot and force of war could not undo the Protestants they said come and let us deal subtily with them and ensnare them by pretences of friendship and flatteries therefore they not only concluded a peace with them but gave the sister of the King of France to the King of Navarre in marriage that so they might massacre the Protestants at the marriage and they suspecting no treachery came to the City of Paris where the Queen of Navarre was poysoned by a pair of perfumed gloves and the Admiral and the greatest part of the Protestant Nobility were all massacred in a morning the massacre was so cruel that it made the river run with blood and there were thirty thousand Protestants killed in one moneths time of which more afterward II. We also hinted before how King Henry the 3. of France although he lived and died a Papist and while he was Duke of Anjou had foughten several battels against the Protestants and was one of the plotters in the massacre of Paris yet because he did not joyn with the holy League and obey the Popes will in all things the Pope excommunicated him and stirred up James Clement a Jacobin Monk to commit that horrible parricide upon his Royal person III. We did also a little touch how his successor King Henry the 4. was opposed and molested by the Pope and the holy League his sworn servants and excommunicat and the Spaniards brought in the Kingdom to joyn with the holy League to his ruine But God so blessed his enterprises that he foyled them often but he being weary of war and consulting with flesh and blood for peace and ease to himself and quyet to his Kingdom turned Papist and sought absolution from the Pope and at length obtained it But because they thought him not a heart Papist and cordial for them in all things they plot his death by secret assassination and after several attempts one whereof wounded him in the mouth Râ—villac stroke him through the very heart although to please the Pope he caused recall the Jesuits which for their bloody principles and practises were banished the Kingdom So this is the Pope and his Jesuits method when they cannot overcome any Prince that they think no cordial favorer of theirs by open hostility they excite and stimulat some scholer or other of theirs secretly to assassinat him For John Chastel a scholer of the Jesuits who stroke King Henry the fourth of France in the mouth and broke out one of his teeth intending to have cut his throat when he was examined confessed that he being guilty of
some of them might come out Oppede made them to be beaten back to the fire with picks and halberts some of them that came forth he slew with his own hands ripping open their bellies so that their children came forth whom he trod with his feet It is too tedious to tell the hellish and unparalleled cruelties that he used upon that people See Sleydans Commentaries and M. Clerks Martyrology pag. 133. Another instance of their inhumane cruelty was in Italy anno 1560. in Calabria where 88. Protestants being shut up in a prison the executioner cometh in taketh out one and blind-foldeth him and so leads him forth to a large place adjoyning where commanding him to kneel down he cuts his throat and leaving him half dead he takes his butchers knife all bloody and goeth back to the rest so leading one after another he dispatched them all This was such a sad spectacle that he that writes of it could not repeat it without tears See Clerks Matyr pag. 238. The next instance of their inhumane and bloody câ—uelty shal be the Massacre of Paris anno 1572. where when the Papists could not get the Protestants subdued by warr they conclud a peace And for security of it the King gives his own sister to the King of Navarre and all the Protestants are invited to the marriage But in the mean time the Queen of Navarre is poysoned and dies and upon Bartholomews day anno 1672. the gates were shut under pretence of searching for one that shot the Admiral but really to keep all the Protestants within the Citie and they came in first and killed the Admiral and threw his dead body into the streets and sent his head as a present to the Pope And then to work they went and slew that night and the two dayes following to the number of ten thousand in Paris In this massacre their cruelty was so great that they spared not young children in the cradle nor infants in their mothers wombs so that the streets were covered with mangled bodies gates and doors filled with blood shoutings and howlings of the murderers mixed with the cryes and groans of the dying the breaking open of doors and windows with the noise of guns and pistols all which made an hellish noise multitudes of dead bodies were thrown into the river which was dyed red with their blood presently after the King sending letters to Meaux Troys Orleans Angiers Roan Tholouse Bourdeaux and other places where they murdered all the Protestants most barbarously and inhumanely and cast out their dead bodies naked without the honor of burial or threw them in the water so that the rivers were dyed with their blood The number that were massacred in France in a few weeks amounted to thirty thousand and above Whosoever desires to hear a more full Relation of the mischievous and horrid cruelty used in this Massacre let them read Fox his Acts and Monuments Vol. III. and Clerks Martyrology p. 310. c. The next instance I shal give shal be of their persecution in the Valtoline anno 1620. where setting upon the people as they were at Sermon not dreading any such thing they murdered them all not regarding sex nor age After which they marched to Sanders where the Papists in that place hearing of their coming went to the Justice protesting that they should guard him from danger and that they would not permit such villanies to be committed among them then did they arm themselves under pretence of defending and securing the Protestants who trusting to their promises mixed themselves among them to stand to their own defence But they treacherously betrayed them and joyned with the other Papists in murdering them all whereever they met with them Their cruelty was monstrous for they put a gag in the mouth of some and then filled their mouth with powder and put fire to it which tore their head miserably Some had their mouthes slit up to their ears others had the flesh cut from their faces others were slashed in other parts of their body till they died and others were often put to the strapado and then hewen in pieces The next instance is more recent and fresh in memory in the late warrs in Germany since anno 1630. where the Sweds possessed of a town called Pasewalk the Imperialists took it by storm beat killed and drave out the Sweds and not content therewith they fell to torturing of the Towns men ravishing women and girles in the open streets and Church-yard yea women in child bed where they killed the men fired their houses and burnt many in them Thurst straw into cellars where children were hidden and so burnt and smothered them Then they burnt the Churches and massacred the Ministers and at last burnt down the whole Town The like cruelty was used against the city of Magdeburg famous for Religion which being taken by Tilly anno 1631. was in twelve hours space wholly turned into ashes except 139 houses No mercy was shown to any age sex or condition about twenty thousand persons were slain burnt and smothered to death six thousand were drowned in the river Ladies and Gentle-women like beasts were yoked together and led about the Countrey and driven into woods to be ravished and such as resisted were stript stark naked whipt had their ears cropt and so were turned off The Popish army having taken the town of Hoxter anno 1634. they spared neither man woman nor child most inhumanely butchering and hewing in pieces all without respect of age sex or condition and what the sword could not spoil they caused the fire to consume and the dead corps they cast into the river Weser Their rage was so great against the professors of the Gospel that neither Turks nor Heathens did ever exceed them In Saxony Tillies souldiers tortured the Protestants by half strangling them and pressing their thumbs with wheels In Pomeran they forced the people to eat their own excrements and if they refused they thrust them down their throat whereby some of them were choked They tyed about the heads of some strong matches or cords and with short truncheons twisted them while blood came out of their eyes ears and noses yea sometimes till their eyes started out of their heads to others they tyed burning matches between their fingers yea to their eyes ears noses tongues cheeks breasts leggs and secret parts yea such parts as nature hideth they either stuffed with gun-powder or hung bags of powder to them and so giving fire to it in an horrible manner they burst their bellies and killed them with bodkins they made holes or with knives they cut the skin and flesh of many They drew strings and cords through the fleshie parts of some and through the muscles of their thighs leggs arms c. or through their noses ears lips c. Some they hung up in the smoke drying them with smal fires and sometimes refreshing them with smal drink or water taking care lest in their torments
some of you have reckoned in the number of the Canonical Scripture Gratianus dist 19. Alphonsus de genero in thesauro Christ Relig. cap. 3. num 5. And also you have corrupted the Scriptures of God by your corrupt translation especially that of the Colledge of Rhemes The which to be true if time would serve I might soon be able to prove which hath been sufficiently proved by that learned and worthy man of God Doctor Fulk unto the which you nor all your Clergy have not answered as yet for ought I know nor never is able to do And as for the last point wherein ye say that the text is otherways then I set down let the Christian Reader judge whether my words be one in substance with this text or not For suppose this be set down in the preterit-time and I spake it in the future time yet it is a prophesie of a thing to come and your Church grants it is not fulfilled yet therefore they are both one in substance And as for your exposition where you expone this of the punishment of the people that have obeyed her and not of their sin in communicating with her Idolatry that is manifestly against the text For this is set down here as the cause of her punishment which is pronounced before in these words Babylon is fallen c. Now the reason because all Nations have drunken of the wine of the wrath of her fornication whereby in the Scripture is signified Idolatry and it is called the wine of the wrath c. because her fornication provoked God to wrath And Aretas exponeth this fornication a defection from every good And in the 18. chapter it is more evident where after the denunciation of her fall this reason is subjoyned Because all Nations have drunken of the wine of the wrath c. and the Kings of the earth have committed fornication with her and the marchands of the earth are waxed rich through the aboundance of her pleasures The which as they cannot be understood of the punishment but of the defection so this drinking cannot be understood of their punishment but of their communication with her Idolatrie And yet however it be this proves that universal defection of the which I spake Master John Welsch And the Church of God shal be latent and flee to the wilderness and there lurk and be fed of God all that time secretly Master Gilbert Brown It is a wonder to hear the Word of God abused not only with false expositions repugnant to the words self but also alledging the word falsly For the text of S. John hath but this for he notes no place because he knowes it may not abide a tryal And the woman fled unto the wilderness where she had a place prepared of God that there they might feed her a thousand two hundred and threescore dayes Here there is no word that she shal be latent nor lurk nor be secret And if M John will mean that the fleeing to the wilderness is nothing but to be invisible and to ly secret then it must follow that the whore of Babylons self must be invisible and secret For the same S John saith And the Angel took me away in spirit into the desert and I saw a woman sitting upon a skarlet colored beast full of names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns This word desert signifies more properly to be secret or invisible then the word wilderness It is true appearantly that if this woman signifie the Church of Christ that in the time of the Antichrist she shal be redacted to a smal number as it were in a wilderness and shal not possess every Nation as she had wont to do but that she may be made invisible and not to be seen there is no true Catholick that expones it so And such like this time shal be but short that is for 1260. dayes as the text saith which is but three years and an half And if M. Johns Church had been but so long invisible we should have dispensed with the same But it hath been invisible these thousand years as it is now professed in Scotland and much more as young Merchiston hath in his book upon the Revelation chap. 12. vers 14. M. John Welsch his Reply All that you can find fault with here is this that I said the Church in the time of the Antichrist should be latent and lurk and be fed secretly the which hath stirred you up in such a choler that you have cryed out with admiration that I have abused the Scripture c. Now tell me M. Gilbert whither is it because these same words are not found in the Scripture or because the doctrine it self cannot be warranted by the same If the former then I say you are but a quarreller about words And all the doctrine which ye have set down in this your answer is not set down in so many termes in the Scripture and yet ye will have it to be the doctrine of Gods Spirit suppose it be not so So it sufficeth that this which I said be warranted by the Scripture suppose the same termes be not found If the other then I say beside other places of Scripture this same place which ye quote here confirmes the same For know ye not that the wilderness is a place of refuge and secrecie from the tyranny of their pursuers And they that flie to the same they flie to lurk there and to be kept close and secret from the rage of their persecuters for the safety of their lives So while it is prophesied That this woman whereby is signified the Church which suppose ye conditionally expone so yet Sanderus 40. demonstrat one of your own number expones it to be the Church without all doubt shal flie in the wilderness from the face of the dragon and that for her safety and there be fed c. Is it not then manifest that she shal be secret and lurk then and not be so open and visible as she was before And if this be an abuse of the Scripture then not only your self hath abused it but also sundry of your own Church as the Rhemists Bellarmin and Sanderus For your self saith That in the time of the Antichrist she shal be redacted in a smal number as it were in a wilderness and shal not possess every Nation as she had wont to do For what is this else but to lurk and be latent and to be fed secretly in comparison of that estat wherein she was before And therefore the only thing that I inferred on this in the end was that no man should think that the Church of God was ever open and visible in such a flowrishing estat as it is now And the Rhemists annot in 2. Thess say That in the time of the Antichrist this great defection or revolt shal be of Kingdoms People and Provinces from the open external obedience and communion with the Church of Rome So
that their communion with her shal be in heart and the practise thereof in secret and he shal abolish the publick exercise of all Religions true or false save that which is done to himself So that the Mass they say shal be had but in secret then And Bellarmin lib. 3. de Rom. Pont. cap. 17. 18. and Sanderus demonst 35. 37. is of the same mind That his cruel persecution shal stay all publick exercise of Religion and he shal make open warfare with the whole Church and shal endeavor to destroy the universal estat of the whole Christian Commonwealth and shal shut up the door of Sacraments and shal suffer no man any more to enter in the Church of Christ and shal be Monarch of the whole world Now if this be true whether shal the Church of Christ by your own doctrine be fed secretly or not be latent and lurk in the time of the Antichrist let all men judge But what a contradictorious spirit is this of yours who to gain-say the thing that I writ cares not to involve your self in a contradiction not only to the truth but also to your own Catholicks Either therefore wonder at your own Catholicks who have spoken as much and more in this point then I did and at your self also who grants as much in substance as I meant that ye and they have abused the Scripture or else leave off to wonder at me and wonder at the vail which is hung over your own eyes which hinders you not only to understand the truth but also to understand what your self and your own brethren teach Now as for your reason it is not said that Babylon was in the desert but that John was taken in the spirit that is ravished in the spirit as in the 1. and 4. chapter into the desert that is into a solitar and heavenly contemplation of that vision which was afterward shown him For as this carrying of him in the sprit signifies his spiritual ravishing so this desert signifies the solitariness of his contemplation And as that lifting up of Ezekiel by the locks of the hair of his head between the heaven and the earth and that carying of him to the door of the innermost port towards the North to see the abominations of Jerusalem was only in vision and not bodily So I take this carrying of John in spirit to the wilderness to see the whore of Babylon to have been in vision only and not bodily And whereas ye say that this word desert signifies more properlie to be hid and invisible then the word wilderness I pray you tell me M. Gilbert what is between desert and wilderness save that the first is driven from the Latin and the second is English Must you be set to the Grammar-school again What fancie is this wherewith ye are possessed that you put a difference between wilderness and desert Is there any difference if you understood the Greek language between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is between desert and desert wilderness and wilderness And if ye have ever read the New Testament in Greek there is but the self-same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in both these places which signifieth desert or wilderness But where have you been when ye did imagine this difference Appearantly ye have been dreaming in some wilderness or else wandring in the wilderness of your own blind imaginations As for the exposition of your true Catholicks we count not much of them Always these whom ye call your true Catholicks Bellarmin the Rhemists and Sanderus have been plain in this matter and have spoken more in this point then we do And as for the time of this her secrecie and lurking 1260 days which you expound literally to be but three years and an half I answer This exposition of yours is against first the custom of prophesies which are expounded figuratively and not literally as these 70. weeks in Daniel concerning Christ where there a day is put for a year Next it is against the whole circumstances of the text For will you expound this woman figuratively for the Church as Sanderus doth and the wilderness unto the which she fled figuratively for the smal number whereunto she shal be redacted as you do and the sun wherewith she was clad and the moon which was under her feet and the twelve stars that was upon her head and the red Dragon which pursued her with ten heads c. all figuratively and yet will ye expound the time of her being in the wilderness literally What violence is this which ye will offer unto the holy truth of God to expound all the rest figuratively and only the time literally So then a day here is set for a year as also it is taken in the same sense in the 2. chapter of the Reveâ—ation in the Epistle to Smyrna where it is said They shal have tribulation for the space of ten dayes that is for the space of ten years As for the invisibility of our Church because that question comes afterward therefore I omit it now Only this as your Hierarchie and abomination of your Church grew so did the purity of the doctrine of Jesus Christ in his Church decay And as your Popes came not to their hight at an instant and brought not in their abominations at an instant but piece and piece and by long process of time So the purity of the truth of God decayed not at an instant but piece and piece and by a long process of time For the degrees of your exalting was the degrees of the depressing of the truth of God in his Church As for our dispensation suppose your Church useth not to give them without money laid down yet we will neither buy them nor have them for nought So keep your dispensations at home M. Gilbert while we send for them M. John Welsch And the Ministers thereof shal preach in sackcloth that is under persecution all that time and at the last they shal be put to death for the testimonie of Jesus and for speaking against their false Worship and Religion Master Gilbert Brown It appears to me that M. John hath found some new Revelation other then that of S. John for he notes no place to us and these words of his are no way in S. John and therefore as an invention of his own head we will reject the same Indeed we have in S. John That God shal give to us two witnesses and they shal prophesie 1260. dayes clad with sackcloth Rev. 11.3 But this can no wayes agree with this purpose of his For why there shal be but two of these and there is more then two hundred Ministers in Scotland And these two shal prophesie but our Ministers are no Prophets albeit they foretell things oftentimes that is not true all the prophesies if they prophesie at any time is of evil and not of good These two shal prophesie but three years and an half
it and the infants and Adam would have died suppose they had not sinned 36. Also they affirmed that after the fall there was left in man a freedom to will good and so doth the Papists suppose they differ in this that the Papists joyn grace to be a preveener and worker with free-will 37. The Pelagians affirmed that the Gentils might by Philosophie have known God and been saved So Andradius a Papist lib. 3. orthod explic So Catharinus a Papist who was present at the Council of Trent affirms in his Commentary upon 1. Tim. 4. That some unfaithful men may be saved Which is as much to say as some may be saved who know not God nor Christ Which is horrible and more then Pelagian 38. Also they affirmed that a man may fulfil the Law and be perfectly righteous So do all the Papists 39. They affirm that infants want original sin So doth Pighius a Papist in his Book of Controversies in the controversie of original sin That in them that are baptized original sin is taken away And he writes also That Mary was born without original sin And Thomas of Aquin writes That Mary had the fulness of all grace In 3. parte summae quaest 27. art 7. Which is to equal her with God For only in him the fulness of all dwelleth And many other heresies of the Pelagians have the Papists renewed 40. A kind of hereticks called Anomi taught that the obedience to the Law was not needful So do the Papists First in affirming That concupiscence without consent is not sin and is not forbidden in the Law Secondly some of them say as Sylvester Prierias It is honesty saith he but not of necessity that God should be loved above all things And so Molanus another Papist affirmeth de theolog pract tract 3. cap. 16. concl 1. num 11. The same Molanus also saith That it is not commanded of God that we should pray for our enemies in special cap. 8. concl 3. num 19. And yet the Scripture saith most plainly Pray for them which persecute you And in another place he affirms That it is not commanded that we should salute our enemies with a friendly and loving heart cap. 16. concl 3. And also he saith That he who doth not tell to him who is ignorant his manifest defect is not unrighteous Tract 2. cap. 20. conclus 2. And again he saith He who gives counsel to do a less evil to eschew a greater sins not Cap. 23. conclus 5. Such like contrare the second Command they universally teach That the worship of Images is no break of it And they call the Cross Their only hope What horrible blasphemie is this And Torrensis a Papist objected to Catharinus another Papist in his book de residentia cont Cathar That he denyed the Law of Moses to be Gods Law and the precepts of Paul to be Christs precepts Mo also I might bring but these will suffice Now of these things I may most justly conclud That your Religion hath renewed many of the old condemned heresies And as you made one argument so I will make another What ever was heresie in old times is heresie yet and the defenders thereof hereticks this you cannot deny because it is your own proposition but these former heads which I have set down wherein I have used no calumnie as ye have done was heresies in old times and the defenders thereof hereticks as witness the ancient Fathers therefore they are heresies yet and the defenders thereof hereticks And so by your own argument many points of your Religion are old condemned heresies and your selves hereticks who do defend them SECTION XXVII Concerning Antichrist Master Johns Conclusion ONe thing which I hope will cut off all controversie I offer to prove the Pope to be the Antichrist And if this be true then all men that profess him secretly or openly as it is said in the Rev. 14.10 shal drink of the wine of the wrath of God Master John Welsch Preacher of Christs Gospel at Kirkubright Master Gilbert Brown If this controversie of ours shal not be cut away while M. John prove the Pope to be the Antichrist certainly it will indure ten hundred thousand years after the Laird of Merchistons doomsday Then it must follow seeing that is a thing impossible to be done that all these that will not openly and privatly obey the Pope and reverence him as the Vicare of Christ because he is chosen by God to rule his Church here on earth that they must drink of the wine of the wrath of God Our merciful Lord illuminat M. John with his holy Spirit and grace that he may understand the truth and receive the same and so become a member of his true Church whereby he may be partaker of the merits of Christ that his soul may be safe Amen Master Gilbert Brown Priest and defender of the Catholick Faith Master John Welsch his Reply It is not impossible to prove your Popes to be the Antichrist It hath been proved already by the learned on our side to the which you and all your Clergy of Rome is not able to answer It hath been taught and sealed with the blood of infinit number of Christians And I have not taken so long a term as you have set down here and yet I hope I have proved it sufficiently Put all your might to disprove it if you can And as to that threatning of yours M. Gilbert wherein ye say that all those who will not openly and privatly obey the Pope c. must drink of the wine of the wrath of God If it may be believed then how doth this stand first with your Popes pardons whereby he gives men pardon or licence to profess subscribe and swear to our Religion as it is reported that some of your own Religion have confessed it Next how stands it with the dissimulation of your Jesuites and seminary Priests when they come to any place where our Religion is openly professed Thirdly what comfort is this which ye have pronounced to your own poor Countreymen who do not openly avow Papistrie but have subscribed and communicat with us Is this an open profession or not And if it be not if ye be a true Prophet then must they drink of the wine of the wrath of God then must they be condemned in Hell by your judgement because they profess him not openly And last of all if this threatning of yours be true then beside the many infinit thousands who profess him to be the Antichrist you condemn to Hell all the Greek and Eastern Churches who in number far exceed them who obey you and all the Churches that have been six hundred years and more after Christ For they obeyed not the Pope openly nor privatly as Christs Vicare over them as I have proved before And also you condemn a number of your Anti-Popes to Hell with their Cardinals Bishops and Churches who followed them For they gave out themselves to be Popes and