in the Old Testament was and is fulfilled in the New Testament But the New Testament hath not so much as one syllable of your sacrifice of the Mass therefore it could not be prefigured in the Old Testament For if it were prefigured by the sacrifices of the Old Testament it behoved either to be one with the spiritual sacrifice of all Christians or else one with the bloody sacrifice of Christ upon the cross for only these two sorts of sacrifices are prefigured in the Old Testament recorded to be fulfilled in the New Testament but your sacrifice of the Mass is one with neither of them for it is not one with the first sort for they are spiritual you will have it external neither is it one with the other of Christs sacrifice upon the cross for there he died there he shed his blood and there he suffered the torments of Gods wrath and indignation for our sins and there he satisfied the justice of God and merited an everlasting redemption to us But in your sacrifice of the Mass your selves grants that neither is he crucified nor is his blood shed nor suffers he the wrath of God for our sins nor satisfies properly the justice of God for the same nor properly merits remission of our sins in the Mass Bellarm. lib. 2. de missa cap. 4. therefore it is not one with that sacrifice of Christ upon the cross For two several actions which have two different forms and are done in divers times and places for divers ends cannot be one only and the self same sacrifice for it is the form that gives a thing to be and distinguishes it from all other things But Christ his offering up of himself upon the cross and your sacrifice of the Mass have different forms are done in divers places and times and for diverse ends therefore they cannot be both one Further if they were both one then it should follow that as the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross is of an infinit valor so the sacrifice of the Mass should be of the same valor But Bellarmin saith lib. 2. de missa cap. 4 fol. 740. That the sacrifice of the Mass is but of a finit valor and the sacrifice of the cross of an infinit valor Therefore they cannot be both one and the self same sacrifice Therefore this sacrifice of your Mass seeing it is not one with neither of these two sorts of sacrifices is not prefigured in the Old Testament As for the second that it was fore-told by the Prophets It is as true as the former for all the sacrifices which were fore-told by the Prophets in the Old Testament are fulfilled in the New Testament But the New Testament as hath been said makes only mention of these two sorts of sacrifices Christs on the cross and our spiritual sacrifices and not a syllable or the sacrifice of the Mass Therefore it is not fore-told by the Prophets in the Old Testament As for these Scriptures which ye quote Malac. 1.10.11.12 Isai 19.19.21 and 56.7 they speak of the spiritual worship of God and of the spiritual sacrifices which the Gentils being called should offer up unto God under the Gospel whereof mention is made in these places Heb. 13.15.16 1. Pet. 2.5 Rom. 12.1 and 15.16 For either they speak properly and literally or else figuratively But if you say they speak properly of external sacrifices then they speak here of that legal and ceremonial worship of the Jewes and so these places doth not appertain to the New Testament Or if you will say they speak figuratively then I say they make nothing for your external sacrifice in the Mass which you will have to be a sacrifice not figuratively but properly So howsoever ye expone them they can no wayes make for your external sacrifice in the Mass Either therefore must ye prove this sacrifice of your Mass in the New Testament first which ye will never be able to do or else the figures and prophesies in the Old Testament will never prove it seeing there is nothing either prefigured or fore-told in the Old Testament but that which in the New Testament is fulfilled Let us see therefore what you can alledge for this your sacrifice in the New Testament You say that Christ the chief Priest according to the order of Melchisedeck in this action and according to the order of Aaron upon the cross instituted it Matth. 26.26 Luke 22.19 Mark 14 22. and commanded to be observed to the end of the world Before I come to the institution there are two things to be examined which you have written here The first that you say that Christ according to the order of Aaron did offer up himself upon the cross Unto the which I answer first that you gain-say here two great Papists Alanus and Bellarmin whereof the one saith that Christ never sacrificed Aaronicè that is according to the order of Aaron Alanus de Eucharist lib 2. cap. 9. The other saith that Christ his sacrifice upon the cross was neither according to the order of Melchisedeck nor yet according to the order of Aaron Bellarm. de Missa lib. 1. cap. 6 fol. 626. And not only he affirmes it that it is not according to the order of Aaron but also he affirmes that this should be certain to all the faithful So if you be of the faithful and his doctrine be true which the Pope your head hath priviledged to be printed this should also have been certain to you and so you should not have gain-said it You had need to beware of this M. Gilbert to contradict so openly the learned Fathers and Maisters of your Catholick faith for by this doing ye will both bewray your selves that you have no unity and concord one with another and also ye will bring your self in suspicion with your head that ye are not a defender of the Catholick faith seeing you so openly contradict the maisters and defenders thereof Mark this Reader what concord these men have among themselves some saying one thing some another Next I say if you refer this also to his person that as this action was according to Aaron so himself was a Priest according to his order in his sacrifice Then I say you both gain-say the plain Scriptures of God Heb. 5.6.10 and 7.11 and also the learnedst of your Church Bellar. lib. 1. de missa cap. 6. For suppose it be true that this sacrifice of his upon the cross did accomplish all the sacrifices of Aaron and put an end unto them according as he said It is finished Yet he offered up this sacrifice not as he was a Priest according to Aaron for he was not a Priest according to his order at all but as he was a Priest according to the order of Melchisedeck and therefore the Scripture joyns both together Heb. 5.6.7.10 to assure us that he offered up himself upon the cross as he was Priest not according to Aaron but according to Melchisedeck
The second thing is that you say Christ according to the order of Melchisedeck in this action which you mean the Mass did offer up his body and blood under the formes of bread and wine It is true indeed that Christ according to the order of Melchisedeck is an high-Priest and not according to the order of Aaron but yet neither is it certain out of the Scripture that Melchisedeck did offer up bread and wine in an external sacrifice For the Scripture saith only he brought it forth For this is the proper signification of the Hebrew word Hotzsi as in sundry places of Scripture Ezech. 22. Psal 135. Exod. 8. Num. 30. and so the Chaldaick Paraphrast Amena which is to bring forth and the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so Cyprian Epist ad Caecil Chrysost hom 35. in cap. 14. Genes Joseph lib. 1. cap. 19. Ambros upon the 7. cap. Epist ad Heb. he brought forth for to refresh Abraham c. And Cardinal Cajetan saith the same upon the 14 of Gen. There is nothing written there of a sacrifice or oblation but a bringing forth of bread and wine to refresh the victors saith he which is not to sacrifice And it is certain that he gave it to Abraham and his company to refresh them with after the slaughter of these Kings And the Apostle Heb 7 whereas he sets down these things wherein Melchisedeck was a type of Christ he doth not so much as give any inkling of this For there he compares Melchisedeck with Christ First that as Melchisedeck was both King and Priest so was Christ Next as Melchisedeck was without father and mother beginning and ending the Scripture not mentioning of it so was Christ Thirdly as Melchisedeck was greater then Aaron and had a more excellent Priesthood then the Levitical Priesthood so was Christs But never a word here of a sacrifice of bread and wine wherein Melchisedeck should have resembled the sacrifice of your Mass as ye suppose So you find out here that which the Spirit of God found not out and so ye make your self wiser then the holy Ghost in his Epistle But we will learn not to be wise above that which is written and to search no further then the Spirit of God hath found out already And suppose it were granted to you which ye are never able to prove that Melchisedeck did offer up bread and wine yet what to do hath this with your devilish abomination of your Mass wherein ye say the substance of bread and wine is gone away only the formes remaining For if your sacrifice in the Mass be like the sacrifice of Melchisedeck then the substance of bread and wine should remain as it did in the sacrifice of Melchisedeck and the bread and wine should be offered up and not Christs body and blood as bread and wine only were offered up in Melchisedeck his sacrifice So then either Melchisedeck his sacrifice is not a type of your sacrifice in the Mass or else true bread and wine remains in the Sacrament and not Christ his body and blood which is offered up Choose you then whither you will deny your sacrifice to be according to the order of Melchisedeck or else will you let go your real presence your transubstantiation and your personal offering up of Christ Jesus in your abominable Mass for one you must do Thirdly if Christ offered up such a sacrifice at his Supper as was prefigured by Melchisedeck which you affirm here then must it follow that Christ fulfilled that figure perfectly and so the same sacrifice needs no more to be offered up again and so here will follow the desolation of your Mass-Priests whose work is chiefly in repeating of this sacrifice again Fourthly I would ask you whither is this sacrifice which ye say he offered up according to the order of Melchisedeck in his last Supper one with that sacrifice which he offered up upon the cross or not If it be one then I say as he died and shed his blood on the cross and purchased an everlasting redemption by the same so this sacrifice of your Mass must be joyned with his death and shedding of his blood and must have the like vertue and effect to redeem us and so two absurdities will follow The one that Christ not only should twise have died once in the Supper and afterward upon the cross but also dies and is crucified continually in your Mass and yet the Scripture saith he died but once The other that that sacrifice of his upon the cross is superfluous for what needed him to die again to redeem mankind since the first offering of himself in the Supper was a sufficient redemption For if his sacrifice upon the cross was a sufficient redemption which you cannot deny and if the sacrifice of him in the Supper be one with that of necessity it must follow that as his sacrifice upon the cross was a sufficient redemption even so his sacrifice in the Supper must be a sufficient redemption for mankind And therefore Alanus a great defender of your Catholick faith saith according to the judgement of the Council of Trent That the new Covenant is founded on the blood of Christ offered up in the Supper before he was crucified and that Christ was truly our passover the day before he suffered and he saith This is the foundation of all Christian doctrine according to the judgement of the Council Alanus de Euchar. lib. 2 cap. 28. Now if this be true that he was our Passover before he died and the covenant was founded in his blood which he offered up in the Supper then certainly Christ died in vain which is more then blasphemous and so blasphemous must that doctrine of your Mass be which carries with it such a blasphemie And if you will say it is not the same with that sacrifice upon the cross then I say First you are contrary to your own Church in this who saith it is one with that sacrifice of the cross Next Christ his body and blood is not offered then in the Supper for his body and blood was offered up upon the cross and so your Mass is gone or else make two Christs one in the Supper under the forms of bread and wine which the Disciples saw not and another who was offered up upon the cross which was seen of all So whither will ye go and unto what side will ye turn you M. Gilbert for the uphold of your Mass For there are rocks and sand-beds on every side So neither did Christ offer up himself in a sacrifice at all in his last Supper neither did he it according to the order of Melchisedeck But now let us see how ye prove this sacrifice out of the institution And seeing this point of doctrine is such a weighty point as whereupon the salvation and damnation of souls doth hing therefore I pray thee Christian Reader deceive not thine own soul to thy everlasting perdition but take
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
I delivered it to his Majesty but he was in a passion and it seems it hath fallen by for I have not gotten an answer Nay my Lord said M. Welsch you should not lie to God and to me I know you delivered it not I am sory My Lord for your lot I warned you not to be false to God and now I tell you God shal take your estat and honors in Scotland and shal give them to your neighbor and this in your own time This troubled the Lord Ochiltrie and came truly to pass for he being the eldest son of the good Lord Ochiltrie a Reformer was forced in his own time to quite all and give both estat and honors to James the son of Captain James the second brother who was the last of that house VI. While he was Minister at Air the plague was sore in the Countrey but no infection was in the Town but it came to pass that two men coming with packs of cloth to the Town from a neighboring place where there was yet no suspicion thereof The sentry on the Bridge held them out notwithstanding they had a pass while the Magistrat came who though he could not disprove their pass yet would not permit them to enter the Town till he sent for M. Welsch So the Bailly bids them disburden their beasts till he considered what was to be done A little after M. Welsch coming the Bailly saith to him Sir here are men come from such a place we have heard of no plague there besides they have a pass from known men What shal we do M. Welsch made no answer but uncovering his head stood in the midst of the company that followed him and having his eyes directed to heaven yet speaking nothing near half a quarter of an hour at last said Bailly cause these men put on their packs again and be gone for if GOD be in heaven the plague of GOD is in these packs These men returned and opened their packs at Cumnock and it was observed that such contagion was therein that all the people of that Village died there was not a man left to bury the dead VII While he was in prison John Stewart an eminent Christian wo lived at Air being come to visit him found him in a more then ordinary way troubled and sad and upon his enquiry thereanent he saith John ye should not be here go home to Air for the plague of GOD is broken up in that place and cause Hew Kennedy Provest of that Town who was also a very singular Christian convean the people to the streets and pray together and the Lord shal hear Hew Kennedy and remove the stroke This at first did something astonish the said John and put him to question its truth having so lately come out of that place but at his return found it so and accordingly in every thing it fell out as the man of GOD had shewed These instances are recorded in the fulfilling of the Scriptures to which I add one no less true then the rest it is this VIII While M. VVelsch was Minister at Air there was much profanation of the LORDS Day committed by reason of great confluence of people at a Gentle-mans house about eight miles distance from Air to the foot-ball and other games and pastimes whereupon M. VVelsch did several times write to the Gentle-man desiring him to suppress the profanation of the LORDS Day at his house but he not loving to be called a Puritan slighted it wherefore M. VVelsch came on a day to his gate and called for the Gentle-man who coming to him he told him that he had a message from GOD to him to show him that because he slighted the advise given him from the LORD and would not restrain the profanation of the LORDS Day committed in his bounds therefore the LORD would cast him out of his house and estat and none of his posterity should ever enjoy it Which came to pass for although the Gentle-man was in a very good external condition at that time yet from that day forward all things crossed him while at length he was necessitat to sell his estat and while he was giving the buyer possession thereof he told before his wife and children with tears that he had found M. VVelsch a true Prophet This was related by the Gentle-mans own son a godly and reverent Minister who was present when his father told it with tears He longed much to be in heaven and to be rid of a body of death as witnesseth among others these expressions in that fore-cited letter My desire to remain here is not great knowing that so long as I am in this house of clay I am absent from the LORD and if it were dissolved I look for a building not made with hands eternal in the heavens In this I groan desiring to be clothed upon with my house which is in heaven If so be that being clothed I shal not be found naked For I that am within this tabernacle do oft times groan and sigh within my self being oft times burdened not that I would be unclothed but clothed upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life I long to eat the fruit of that tree which is planted in the midst of the Paradise of GOD and to drink of the pure river clear as crystal that runs through the streets of that new Jerusalem I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shal stand at the last day on the earth and that after my skin worms destroy my body yet in my flesh shal I see GOD whom I shal see for my self and not another for me And mine eyes shal behold him though my reins be consumed within me I long to be refreshed with the souls of them that are under the altar who were slain for the Word of GOD and the testimony they held And to have these long white robes given me that I may walk in white with these glorious Saints who have washed their garments and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Why should I think it a strange thing to be removed from this place to that wherein is my hope my joy my crown my eldest brother my Head my Father my Comforter and all the glorified Saints and where the song of Moses and the Lamb is sung joyfully Where we shal not be compelled to sit by the rivers of Babylon nor to hing up our harps on willow trees but shal take them and sing the new Halelujah Blessing honor glory and power to him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for ever What is under this old vault of the heavens and in this old worn earth which is under the bondage of corruption groaning and travelling in pain and as it were still shooting out the head looking waiting and longing for the redemption of the sons of GOD VVhat is there I say that should make me remain here I expect that new heaven and that new earth where righteousness
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
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
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
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
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
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
the necessitie of satisfaction the numbering over the sins to the Priest Canisius a great Papist in his Catechism cap. 5. de praeceptis Ecclesiae saith That the worshipping of images the set fastes and the forty dayes of Lent and all that are done in the sacrifice of the Mass prayers and oblations for the dead alia and others he saith all these are traditions because they are such that they cannot be defended by the Scripture And Lindanus another great defender of your Romish faith and Religion he reckons out for Traditions lib 4. Panopliae cap. 100. in fine illius libri tab 6. that there are seven Sacraments the consecration of the water and oyl in Baptism the real presence of Christs flesh and blood in the Sacrament Communion under one kind that the Lords Supper is a sacrifice that it should be kept and adored privat Masses Confession of sins to the Priests satisfactions pardons Purgatorie and that Peter was in Rome Martinus Peresius another Papist numbers the single life of Priests among the unwritten traditions The truth is strong that hath so far glanced in the consciences of some of you and hath opened your mouthes to confess and to set it down in writ to the world that the principal heads of your Religion yea the very foundation and ground of it as the supremacie of your Popes and the sacrifice of your Mass and the rest are unwritten traditions which have not the beginning nor original nor authoritie in the Lords written Word and which cannot be defended by the same as some of your selves have confessed So it is no wonder suppose ye refuse to have the controversies of Religion decided by the same Let the Reader now judge what he may think of your Religion that hath not God in his Scripture in the principal and main foundations thereof as some of your selves have confessed to be the author and beginner thereof So what needs any further proof against their Religion Out of their own mouthes the falshood of their Religion is convicted This therefore was the true cause wherefore ye refused to have the coÌ„troversies of Religion decided by the Scripture And for this cause also hath your Church heaped up so many false calumnies accusations and blasphemies against the same calling it obscure a Hosius lib. 3. de authorit contra script Andradius lib. 2. orthod explic Lindanus in Panoplia sua lib. 3. cap. 6. darksome doubtsome b Bellarm. de verbo Dei lib. 4. cap. 4. not necessary but only profitable imperfect c Juel pag. 521. defens Apolog. Lodovicus a canon a dead ink a dumb and dead thing d Pigius controv 3. de Ecclesia dumb Judges e Eckius a black Gospel an inky Divinity f Pigius hierarch lib. 3. cap. 3. a nose of wax that may be drawn every way g Fox pag. 804. containing in them diverse erroneous and damnable opinions h Hermannus a Papist which wâ—re of no greater authority then the fables of Asop without the approbation of the Church and by the i Pope Leo the 10. ex Juel defen Apolog. pag. 273. Pope himself a fable of Christ And for this cause also did they hide it up in an unknown language forbidding the translating of it in the vulgar language and the reading of it by the people in their mother tongue lest they should have perceived the falshood of their Religion and so it should have lost the credit at their hands So ye have been wise in your generation Sed veritas tandem vincet but the truth shal overcome at the last You grant it to be a witness but yet you deal subtilly while as ye put in an exception if it be not corrupted For if you be of that mind with your Church and especially with Canus lib. 3. cap. 13. de locis Theologicis Lindanus lib. 1. cap. 11. de Optimo Genere interpret and the Colledge of Rhemes you think the Hebrew and Greek fountains of the Scripture to be corrupted And therefore it is decreed in the Council of Trent the old Latin vulgar translation to be authentick which notwithstanding by the confession of some Papists as Andradius Pagnin and Arias Montanus it hath missed the sense and meaning of the holy Ghost sometimes So you not only put the Lord in his Scripture out of the bench that he should not judge and give out the sentence of doom against your doctrine but by this exception also ye remove him from the bar that his testimony in the Hebrew and Greek fountains against you should have no credit Let all men judge now what prejudice ye give against your own Religion when as ye will not admit the Lord in his Word in the Hebrew and Greek fountains neither Judge nor witness But you say I have no Scripture for me that the Scripture ought to be Judge What will ye say then to Jesus Christ in John 12.48 speaking to such as ye are He that refuseth me and receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him the word that I have spoken it shal judge him in the last day Unless now ye be a man of perdition ye must confess that the Word of Jesus Christ whereof so much is written as may make a man believe and by believing to get eternal life is Judge and judgeth presently and shal judge also in the latter day Therefore the Apostle saith That God shal judge the secrets of mens hearts by Jesus Christ according to his Gospel So the Gospel shal be the rule of that great judgement in that great day and so is it the rule of his worship while we are in the way to that judgement Suppose you now decline the judicatorie of the same here because in your conscience ye know and your own mouthes have confessed it that ye are not able to justifie your Religion thereby yet nill ye will ye ye shal be judged by the same Word in the last day But whom will ye have to be your Judge Ye say the holy Ghost Bellarmin saith that we and your Church agrees in that that the holy Ghost should be supream Judge of all controversies lib. 3. de verbi interpret cap. 3. But is not the Scripture the holy Ghosts own infallible voice and breath So then when the Scripture is Judge the holy Ghost is Judge because the Scripture is the immediat voice of the holy Ghost and the holy Ghost hath given out and gives out his judgement in all controversies of Religion in and by the Scripture and the holy Ghost illuminats the eyes of those that are fore-ordained to life to see the truth in the Scripture 2. Tim. 3.16 Rom. 10.17 and works in their heart faith to apprehend it and believe it and formes a spiritual judgement in their hearts to try and judge for the spiritual man judgeth all things 1. Cor. 2.15 And all this he works by the means of the Scripture for it is the
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
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
it is not of that which he speaks here Secondly he speaks of that eating and drinking of his flesh and blood which whosoever so doth hath eternal life to themselves so our Savior Christ promises in the 54. verse But your own doctrine is that the reprobat eats and drinks Christs body and blood in the Sacrament and yet have no life in them therefore he speaks not here of that sacramental eating Thirdly if he speak here of the sacramental eating as you say then your Church not only hath erred foully but also hath been and is the cause of the condemnation of your people these many years because you give them not his blood to drink And our Savior saith not only Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man but also except ye drink his blood ye have no life in you And this reason was so effectual that it hath moved sundry of your own Doctors as Jansenius and Tapperus with sundry others to expone this place not of the sacramental eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ but of the spiritual eating and drinking of him by faith For they did see that it behoved them either to forsake this place as not making for them and grant that it speaks not of the Sacrament or else to confess that their Church hath erred and through this error hath been the cause of the damnation of many in ministring the Sacrament but under one kind And because you say if our expositions vere removed from the Scripture they would ferve for you whom therefore will you credit in exponing of this place If our Savior hear then how he expon s this eating and drinking of his flesh and blood in the 35. verse I am the bread of life he that cometh unto me shal not hunger and he that believes in me shal never thirst So when we believe in Christ we eat him and when we come unto him which is only by faith we drink him So Augustine also expones this place Tractat. 25. in Johan cap 6. Tract 26 de doct Christ lib. 3 cap. 16. Believe saith he and thou hast eaten Clement Alexandrinus lib. 1. Padago cap. 6. and Hieronymus in Psal 147. and Bernard supra Psal 90 vers 3 all expones the flesh and blood of Christ figuratively And if ye will credit none of these then I hope ye will not discredit your own chief Doctors who affirms That this place is not meant of the Sacrament but of the spiritual eating and drinking of Christ by faith As Biel Cusanus Caiâ—tanus Hesselius and Jansâ—nius cited by Bellarm lib 1 de Eucharist cap. 5. And if ye will reply that many others of the Fathers have exponed this place of the Sacrament then Janfenius and Tapperus two Papists will answer you That they did it only by way of application unto the readers and hearers to stir them up to the often receiving of the Sacrament So this place can serve nothing for your Transubstantiation for it speaks not of the Sacrament but of his suffering upon the Cross for the away taking of our sins and the purchasing to us of eternal life The next place ye quote is the words of the institution as Matthew Mark Luke and the Apostles rehearses them Your argument is this Christ calls the bread his flesh and so Paul and the wine his blood therefore the bread is changed in his body and the wine in his blood the outward formes of bread and wine only remaining This is the chief and principal ground of your real presence and Transubstantiation Whereunto I answer First there is not a syllable here that tells us that the substance of the bread and wine is transchanged in the body and blood of Christ unless ye will expone this word is my body for it is changed in my body which is a monstrous exposition for both it is contrary to the native signification of the word est Est Fieri sunt contraria that signifies to be alreadie for to be already and to be in a change are contrary as also it hath not the like form of speach in the whole Scripture to warrant it from the first of Genesis to the last of the Revelation Bring one instance if ye can And Augustin saith in Genes quaest 117. in Psal 105. supr Num. quaest 95. The solution of a question should be warranted by some example of the like speach in the Scripture the which you are not able to do Therefore your exposition is without warrant Next I say by what Art of reasoning can you gather this doctrine out of these places of Scripture Christ saith of the bread This is my body and of the wine This is my blood Therefore the outward formes of the bread and wine only remains but the substance of them is gone Never such an inkling in all these texts of this doctrine of yours Thirdly this interpretation and doctrine which results upon it is false and that for these reasons First because it is plainly gain-said by the Scripture Secondly because it destroys sundry articles of our Faith and many blasphemous absurdities doth follow upon it Thirdly it destroys the nature of the Sacrament And last of all is utterly repugnant to the words of the institution My argument then is this That interpretation and doctrine which is gain-said by the plain testimony of the Scripture which destroyes the articles of our faith and the fundamental points of our salvation which hath many absurdities following upon it which overthrowes the nature of the Sacrament and last of all which is contrary to the whole institution must be false blasphemous and erroneous This cannot be denyed but your interpretation of these words This is my body c. and your transubstantiation which ye gather upon it is such Therefore it must be erroneous c. My assumption I prove thus First your interpretation is gain-said by the plain testimony of the Scripture Your interpretation is that there remains no true bread nor wine in the Sacrament but the substance of it is changed But Matthew Mark Luke and the Apostles all four testifies That Christ took bread brake it and gave it to his disciples And lest ye should say that it was true bread and wine before the consecration but not after the Scripture saith plainly 1. Cor. 10.16 that it is bread which we break and bread which is eaten and the fruit of the vine which is drunken in the Sacrament The Apostle saith The bread which we break c. And as oft as ye eat this bread c. Whosoever shal eat this bread c. And let a man examine himself and so let him eat of this bread c. And our Savior saith that after he had given the cup and they had drunken of it From henceforth shal I not drink of the fruit of the vine with you c. Therefore true bread and wine remains in the Sacrament contrary expresly to your interpretation Secondly That your
nothing Thirdly then this should not be called Transubstantiation or changing of one substance into another but an annihilation of one substance that is a turning of it to nothing and a bringing in of another substance in the room of it And fourthly Thomas of Aquin your great defender of this doctrine is against this lib. 4 dist 8. But if you say they are turned in Christs body which the word Transubstantiation imports then I say as oft as the Sacrament hath been ministrated as oft hath there been some quantitie of substance added to his body and it shal still grow in greatness and quantitie as long as it shal be ministred but this is monstrous to think And to end this if you say there is no substance of bread and wine left in the Sacrament then let me ask you whose are the whiteness and redness and roundness that we see What means this taste in our mouthes of bread and wine if there be no substance of them there May we not say to you as Christ said to Thomas who doubted of his resurrection Put thy finger here behold my hands put thy hand in my side and be not incredulous but believe So may not we say to you who doubteth whither the substance of bread and wine be here remaining yet touch them taste them look on them and feel them and be not incredulous but believe For behold there would not be such a color such a taste and smel and there were not substance of bread and wine here And I pray you tell me what is this that rots then and growes in worms in the bread and souers in the wine if they be long kept If their substance remaineth not will you say Christs flesh and blood rots and consumes and souers What is this but to make him mortal yea to crucifie him again And if you will not say that then either must you confess that their substance remaines and is not changed or else Christs flesh and blood is transubstantiated in these substances which rots and souers or else that the accidents is changed again in their substances and so ye shal not have one but mo changes in your Sacrament Yea if their substance be gone and nothing but their accidents remaining then how could Pope Victor the 3. and the Emperor Henry the 7. have been poisoned with them as Fasciculus temp Platina Blond testifieth accidents and Christs body could neither poison them nor be capable of poison therefore they felt by experience that there was no Transubstantiation in the Sacrament So we see the texts ye brought with you is against you as the sword that Goliah brought to slay David cutted off his own head But yet you will say If the bread be not his body why then did he call it his body this is the chief thing you have for your doctrine answer this and the plea is won Unto this then I answer that in that same sense he said This is my body In the which he said afterward which is broken for you 1. Cor. 11.24 Luke 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is given in the present time But there can be no sense of these words but this the bread was broken and signified that his body should be broken with the sorrows of death for his body was not broken before he suffered and the Apostle saith it is bread which is broken so then as the breaking of the bread signified the breaking of his body so the bread signified his body and as his body was not broken indeed when the bread was broken so the bread could not be his body in very deed when he so called it For the resemblance and likeness thereof between the bread and his body the bread it is called his body c. and this phrase is very frequent in the Scripture to give the name of the things signified to the sign as shal be seen afterward M. Gilbert Brown Now let the Ministers come in here with their natural reasons against the omnipotencie of Christ that he cannot be in two places at once and with their figurs signs similituds symbols and spiritual eating of a natural body with many the like which are the inventions of their own brains not contained in the written Word And who can say but that our doctrine in this is the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and not theirs M. John Welsch his Reply Ye prevent our answers here and first ye bid us hold away our natural reasons against the omnipotency of Christ that he cannot be in two places at once Whereunto I answer that we shal bring no reason neither natural nor supernatural against the omnipotency of Christ for we acknowledge it and adores it But we say to you pretend not his omnipotency for your monstrous imaginations which have no warrant of his will in his Scripture For first we say this argument of yours will not follow Christ is able to make his body to be in two places both at once in heaven and in the Sacrament therefore he makes it to be so For you must first prove he will do so for your self M. Gilbert can do many things which you do not because you will not so from can to will it follows not And if you say that Christ hath willed so because he said This is my body I have answered to it before refute you it and all your Roman Clergy if you can For you might as well say Christ willed the cup wherein the wine was to be changed in his blood and New Testament and himself to be changed in a vine-tree and a door and a rock to be changed in him because so hath he and his Apostles spoken John 10. and 13. 1. Cor. 10 and 11. and these speaches are as true as that and yet there is no change here Next I say your own School-men and great defenders of Transubstantiation Thomas of Aquin and others say lib. 1 cap. 84. lib. 2. cap. 25. contra Gent. That it is against the omnipotency of God to affirm that he may do any thing which implyes a contradiction in its self for that is rather to be called a weakness then a power And the Scripture affirms that God cannot lie nor deny himself nor be tempted and that yea and nay it not in Christ Heb. 6. 2 Tim. 2. James 1.2 Cor. 1. but to Christs body both to be a true body like to us in all things to wit essential except sin as the Scripture saith and to be in mo places at once which makes him to have not a true body like ours For Augustin saith ad Dardanum speaking of Christs glorified body If it be a true body it is then in a certain place and take away from bodies their quantities they are no more true bodies implyes a contradiction and is yea and nay in him and Christs body both to be visible and invisible at one time to be in a certain place in heaven with his own length and
And what is the cause that ye cannot understand the doctrine of your own Church which acknowledges a spiritual eating of Christ by faith both by the Word and by the Sacrament also de consecr dist 2. cap. Ut quid I had never have thought that ye had been so far blinded of the Lord. But I leave you to the Lord. Let the Christian Reader now judge whether our doctrine or yours be the invention of mans brain and which of them have their warrant out of the written Word of God M. Gilbert Brown And further I say of these words This is my body which shal be delivered for you 1. Cor. 11.24 which is a true proposition and therefore this must follow But there was no body delivered for us but the natural body of Christ therefore it was his natural body that he gave to his Disciples to be eaten Then if it were his natural body it was not natural bread As Saint Ambrose expounds the same Let us prove saith he this not to be that that nature formed but that thing which the blessing hath consecrate and greater strength to be in blessing then in nature for nature it self is changed by blessing He hath the same more amplie in the fourth book in the 4 chap. de Sacramentis Maister John Welsch his Reply First I answer the words of the Apostle is not as ye cite them here which shal be delivered but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is broken and in the present time and so in Luke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is given so you are not faithful in translating this place of Scripture both contrary to the Greek and Syriak copies Upon the which I reason thus this proposition is true This is my body which is broken for you so the Apostle saith but Christs body was not broken then really for not a bone of him was broken at all as the Scripture testifies Exod 12. and the Scripture saith John 19. and all men confesses that he suffered but once so only his sufferings are signified then by the breaking of the bread in the Sacrament here so as Christs body was not broken then really that is suffered but his suffering only signified by the breaking of the bread so his body was not given really and corporally to be eaten but only signified Secondly I say it is true that Christs natural body was delivered to the death for us but yet it will not follow upon this that it was his natural body which he gave to them to be eaten corporally for his natural body was really delivered to death for us and it was but given to them spiritually to be eaten You must coyn a new Logick M. Gilbert ere you can make these two stick together and the one necessarilie to follow upon the other For by that same reason you may as well conclud that Christ gave his natural body to be eaten corporally in the word for he gives himself to be eaten in his word as well as in his Sacrament 2. John 6.35 Bellarmin grants this also lib. 1. de Eucharist cap. 7. and also he gives that same body to them in the word which was delivered to death for the self same Christ is offered and received as well in the word as in the Sacrament So from his bodilie death to a corporal eating of him it will not follow And further by that same reason you may as well say that the Fathers before Christ under the Law did eat Christs body corporally for they ate that same spiritual food and drank that same spiritual drink in their Sacraments which we do now in ours So the Apostle testifies even that self same Christ his body and blood which was delivered to the death and yet it will not follow that they did eat his natural body c. As for Ambrose it is true he so speaks but he expones himself in that same chapter while as he saith Before the blessing another form or thing is named but after the consecration the body of Christ is signified If the bread then signifie the body of Christ it is not changed in his body And because of this holy use to signifie the body of Christ Ambrose saith That the nature is changed by blessing and that this is his meaning his words following will declare it where he saith Shal not the words of Christ be of force to change the form of the elements In that same sense Ambrose saith the nature of the elements is changed in the which he saith the form of them is changed for he affirmeth both there But ye will not say I suppose unless you will overthrow your transubstantiation that Ambrose means that the form of the elements is changed in substance but only in use and signification for you say the forms remains therefore you must also grant that Ambrose means not by the change of nature the change of the substance of them but only the change in the use of them from a common use to a holy use And because it may be you will delay to subscribe to the truth of our doctrine until you hear the sentence and judgement of the Fathers Therefore I will set them down here Tertullian saith contra Marc. lib. 4. This is my body that is a figure of my body Chrysostome saith in 1. Cor. cap. 10. What is that which the bread signifies the body of Christ Theodoret saith dialog 1. and 2. The bread and wine is signs and figures of the body and blood of Christ And he saith Our Savior in the institution of the Sacrament enterchanged the names and gave to the sign or symbol the name of his body and these mystical signs of these holy things whereof are the signs Unto the which he answers Are they not signs of the body and blood of Christ Hieronymus saith in Mat. 2.6 That Christ by taking of the bread which comforts the heart of man representeth the truth of his bodie Cyrillus saith ad Euop Matth. 11. Bas Liturgia Nazian in orat 2. de Pas funere Gorg. Our Sacrament avoweth not the eating of a man Basilius and Nazianzen calls the bread and wine in the Supper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 figurs or signs of the body of Christ Cyprian saith lib. 1. ep 6. ejus contra Adima cap. 12. Psal 3. The Lord called bread made of many grains his body and wine made of many grapes his blood Augustin saith Our Lord doubted not to say This is my body while as he gave but the sign of his body And he calls it the figure of his body and blood And their Canon Law saith de conseer dist 2. cap. Hoc est The heavenly bread which is the flesh of Christ is called after a manner the body of Christ while as it is but the Sacrament of his body And the Gloss there saith The heavenly bread that is the heavenly Sacrament which represents truly the flesh of Christ is called the body of Christ but improperly I omit
own heads as may be seen in our Psalm books Whereunto I answer If ye respect the matter contained in our thanksgiving it hath the warrant of the Scripture and so in that respect it is not our own invention If ye respect the authority we are taught and commanded by our Savior both by his example for he gave thanks and also by his commandment Do this to do the same And so in that respect it is not our own invention If you respect the end it is Gods glory which is the proper end of all thanksgiving If ye will respect the form of this thanksgiving to wit the words and order wherein it is conceived I say it is left indifferent to the Church of God to form their prayers and thanksgiving so being the matter end and authority of the using of them publickly have their warrant out of the Word of God So seeing the authority to give thanks and the matter also of our thanksgiving and end thereof is set down in the Word and seeing the Lord hath left it free to the Church of God concerning the outward form of the same the Scriptures not determining it which your self I hope will not deny For your Canon hath many forms of prayers and thanksgiving in your Mass which after that form and order is not set down in the Word of God Therefore you injury the Lords Spirit and his Church who calls our thanksgiving our own invention As to the third concerning blessing which you distinguish from thanksgiving and saith we have blotted it out of our Scots Bibles and put thanksgiving in the room thereof and so you say we want that part First then I will ask you Did not Luke and the Apostle Paul set down the whole form and the chief points of the institution of that Sacrament I suppose you will not deny it for it were too plain an impiety for you to say that either Luke the sworn pen-man of Gods Spirit or Paul who said I have received of the Lord that which also I have delivered unto you 1. Cor. 11.23 that either of these had omitted the history of the institution of this Sacrament a principal point thereof but either this blessing is one with thanksgiving or else they have omitted a principal point thereof for neither of them makes mention in these places of blessing but only of thanksgiving therefore it is one with thanksgiving Secondly I say either the whole three Evangelists and the Apostle Paul in setting down the institution of the Sacrament of the Supper omits a chief thing to wit the blessing of the cup which I suppose ye will not say or else the blessing of the cup is one with thanksgiving for the Apostles Paul Luke makes no mention at all of blessing but only of thanksgiving and the two Evangelists Matthew and Mark makes no mention of the blessing of the cup but saith that after or also he took the cup and when he had given thanks c. therefore they are one Thirdly if ye will credit one Evangelist exponing another whereas Matthew and Mark have this word and he blessed Luke and Paul have these words And he gave thanks And whereas Matthew and Mark have this word blessing after he took the bread they use the word thanksgiving after he took the cup to signifie that they are both one And therefore if ye will believe Scripture exponing Scripture they are both one Yea what will you say to Bellarmin who saith lib. 1. de sacram Euchar. cap. 10 That some Catholicks contends that both the words to bless and to give thanks in the Scripture signifies one thing and therefore they interpret thanksgiving blessing So if you will credit your own Catholicks they are both one here And whereas you say that both in the Greek and Latin they signifie diverse things I answer Indeed it is true that sometimes they signifie diverse actions as blessing Numb 6. for the petition of a blessing But yet sometimes also blessing is taken in the Scripture for thanksgiving as both I have proved in these places as also if ye will deny there is many places in the Scripture for the contrary as Luke 1.65 Eph. 1.3 1. Pet. 1.3 And whereas you say that in Mark they signifie two distinct actions I have proved before they are both one And last of all I say if by blessing you mean the words of the consecration this is my body which is broken for you c. as Bellarmin affirms lib. 4. de sacram Euch. cap. 13 that the Roman catechist so expones it and the Theologues commonly teaches the same then I say we want not that chief point for we rehearse the words of the institution So howsoever the word blessing be taken either for thanksgiving or for the sanctification of these elements to an holy use by prayer which is comprehended in the thanksgiving or for the words as ye call them of the consecration we have always this blessing in our cōmunion And as for your hovering and blowing of the words of Christ over the bread and calice with your crossing and charming them after the manner of Sorcerers with a set number and order of words and signs your hiding it your rubbing of your fingers for fear of crums your first thortering and then lifting up of your arms your joining and disjoyning of thumb and fore-finger and sundry other vain and superfluous ceremonies and curiosities which you use in blessing of the elements they have neither command nor example of Christs institution and action and the Apostles doctrine and doing in the Scriptures of God Now as to the fourth giving or offering up of the body and blood of Christ to his Father by the faithful We confess a giving to his Disciples which you call afterward a communicating But for another giving that is as you expone it an offering up of his body and blood to his Father we utterly deny it as a thing not so much as once mentioned in the whole institution but contrary to the same and Antichristian and therefore we utterly abhor it and detest it as an invention of your own as Antichristian as idolatry as abomination as that which derogates from that blessed only one sacrifice whereby he offered up himself once upon the cross never to be offered up again as the Scripture testifies Heb. 25. And Bellarmin saith plainly lib. 1. de missa cap. 12. 24. That this offering up is not expresly set down in the words of the institution and that it cannot be easily discerned And as for the fifth a communicating we have it and that not only of the bread and wine as ye here imagine but of Jesus Christ God and Man his very flesh and blood and all his blessings by faith spiritually seeing therefore we have all these points which are requisit in the institution a lawful Minister thanksgiving blessing giving and communicating therefore we have the true institution of Christ in the
upon the cross Fourthly I will ask you to what purpose serves the personal sacrifice of Christ in your Mass It must be for one of two to wit either to satisfie for our sins and therefore ye call it a propiciatory sacrifice or else to apply that satisfaction once made by his death upon the cross unto us the which ye affirm also of it But for neither of these is Jesus Christ to be offered up again therefore for no cause is he to be sacrificed in your Mass Not for the first to satisfie for our sins because the Scripture saith plainly that he hath satisfied for our sins by his once oblation upon the cross never to die again and therefore our Savior saith upon the cross It is finished And our redemption and satisfaction is ascribed only to his death once made and his blood once shed Heb. 1. 6. 10. John 19 28. And your selves will not deny this but the death of Christ is a sufficient ransom and satisfaction for all the sins of the world and therefore Bellarmine lib. 1. de Missa cap. 25. grants this That the vertue of his once offering up upon the cross is infinit and everlasting to sanctifie us so that there needs not another sacrifice of the cross or the repetition of the same And the truth of this is manifest for if Christ must be offered up in the Mass to satisfie for our sins he must die again and suffer again For what is it to satisfie God but to pay to God that which we ow And what ow we unto him for our sins but death for death is the stipend of sin So that to satisfie God for our sins is to die for our sins therefore we say Christ hath once satisfied for our sins because he hath once payed our debt which is death that is he hath once died for our sins So then either Christ hath not fully satisfied for our sins by his once death upon the cross which is impiety to think or else the Lord craves a debt already payed over again which is blasphemy or else Christ needs not to be offered up in your Mass to satisfie for our sins And so your sacrifice of the Mass avails not for to satisfie for our sins Let us come to the next If ye will say He is offered up in the Mass for to apply the vertue of the death of Christ unto us which your Church also sayes First I say Christ is applyed to us when he is offered not to God in a sacrifice but to us in the Word and Sacraments therefore he should not be offered up to God in a sacrifice but offered to us in his Word and Sacraments that he may be applied to us for it is the Word and Sacraments which outwardly applyes Christ and his death to us and not a sacrifice for in a sacrifice the thing which is sacrificed is offered to God and not applyed to us Next I say if your sacrifice serves but to apply the vertue of Christ his satisfaction unto us then it is manifest the satisfaction is already made For first the salve must be made before it can be applyed So your Church here errs which saith Your sacrifice of the Mass is propiciatory to appease the wrath of God and also applicatory to apply the same to us I say thirdly if Christ should be sacrificed again that the vertue of his death may be made effectual in us then also should he be conceived again in the womb of the Virgin born again die again and rise again that the vertue of his incarnation birth death and resurrection should be applyed unto us for will you sayâ— That he must be sacrificed again to apply the vertue of his sacrifice upon the cross unto us and what reason then can ye pretend for you wherefore he should not be incarnat again die again and rise again that the vertue of these may be applyed to us Do you think this absurd What is the cause then that ye will not blush at the other Fourthly I say if your sacrifice of the Mass be an application of Christ his sacrifice then it is not the sacrifice it self for the applying of the salve is not the salve itself and therefore since you say that it is the applying of Christ his sacrifice wherefore should ye say that Christ is sacrificed in it for these two cannot stand together Fifthly in Baptism the sacrifice of Christ and the vertue of his death is truly applyed unto us and yet ye will confess that Christ is not sacrificed in Baptism Wherefore then may not the vertue of his death and sacrifice be applyed to us in the Sacrament of the Supper and yet he not sacrificed again in it And last of all neither you neither any creature should appoint or make mo means of the applying of Christ and his death to us then is set down in his Word But his Word only sets down the inward operation of Gods Spirit applying it to us and faith upon our part apprehending it and the Word the Sacraments and Discipline proponing and confirming the same unto us But never a syllable in the whole Scripture that the Lord hath appointed your sacrifice of the Mass to apply the death of Christ unto us Seeing therefore your sacrifice of the Mass neither satisfies for our sins for Christ by his death hath done that sufficiently nor yet applyes the satisfaction once made by the death of Christ unto us for that is done by the Spirit and faith inwardly and by the Word Sacraments and discipline outwardly and that sufficiently Therefore your sacrifice of the Mass is needless and serves to no use in the earth Fifthly the Scripture ever conjoins With the sacrifice of Christ his death so that he cannot be sacrificed but by dying as the Scripture plainly testifies Heb. 9.25.26 Not that he should offer up himself often for then must he have often suffered from the foundation of the world The same may be seen also in sundry other places whereof I have quoted a few Heb. 7.27 and 9.14 So the Scripture saith if he must be often offered up he must often suffer And Bellarmin lib. 1. de missa fol. 725. saith That if there he not a true and a real slaughter of Christ in the Mass then the Mass is not a true and real sacrifice But the Scripture saith plainly that he hath but once died and I suppose you will not say that he is to die again Therefore seeing he cannot die again he cannot be offered up again For the Scripture acknowledgeth no sacrifice of Christ but that which is joined with his death Sixthly Bellarmin grants that in all external sacrifices the sacrifice must be changed lib. 1. de missa cap. 2. fol. 693. 604. It is also required saith he in a true sacrifice that that which is to be sacrificed be utterly destroyed And in another place cap. 27. lib. de Missa fol. 726. cap. 2. fol. 604.
That which is offered is ordained to a true real and voluntar destruction But Christ now being glorified cannot be changed and utterly destroyed therefore he cannot be sacrificed if your selves speak true or else as oft as he is sacrificed in your Mass he is utterly destroyed which is blasphemy Seventhly the Scripture saith Where there is remission of sins there is no more offering Heb. 10.18 That is all external propiciatory sacrifice ceases but remission of sins is already obtained by the death of Christ as the Scripture testifieth Heb. 1.3 and your selves will not deny Therefore there needs no more oblation of Christ in your Mass for the same Eightly the Scripture saith That without shedding of blood there is no remission Heb. 9 22 But in your sacrifice of the Mass there is no shedding of blood as your selves grants For ye call it an unbloody sacrifice therefore by your sacrifice of the Mass there is no remission of sin Further the Scripture acknowledges no other Priest of the New Testament but Christ only These Priests saith the Apostle to the Hebrews 5. and 7. speaking of the Priests of the Old Testament were many because death hindered them to indure but he speaking of Christ because he abides for ever hath an everlasting Priesthood which cannot pass from one to another So Christ is the only Priest of the New Testament Now if it be true which you say that Christ is offered up in your Mass and that by your Mass-Priests then are there mo Priests of the New Testament then Christ which is plain against the Scriptures What will you say to this That Christ is the principal Priest of the New Testament and yours are secondary Priests and under him by whose ministery he offereth up himself to God But first was not the Priests of the Old Testameâ—t only secondary Priests This you will not deny seeing their sacrifices were figurs of his and their Priesthood figurs of his Priesthood But the Apostle oppones the Priesthood of Christ not to another principal Priesthood but to the Priesthood of men which was but secondary and saith it cannot stand with that secondary Priesthood in the Old Testament therefore it cannot stand with your Priesthood of the New Testament And the reason which the Apostle alledges will not only serve to exclud the Priests of the Old Testament that was but secundary Priests also but also all other sacrificing Priests whatsoever of the propiciatory sacrifice of the New Testament For the reason is because he bides for ever and hath a Priesthood which cannot pass from one to another which will serve as well against your Mass-Priests as against them For they are mortal as the Priests of the Old Testament were and his Priesthood cannot pass from one to another as it might have done among the Priests of the Old Testament and also doth among your Priests For to what purpose should your Priesthood and sacrifice serve seeing Christ his sacrifice hath fulfilled all the types of all the sacrifices of the Old Testament If you say to signifie Christ his sacrifice to come as theirs did then that is false for he is sacrificed already But if you say to signifie and represent his sacrifice already done then I say what needs him to be sacrificed again for that purpose For the Word and Sacraments doth represent him sufficiently and so your Mass needs not to represent his sacrifice And if you say it represents his sacrifice then I say it is not one with that sacrifice of his upon the cross which you will be loath to grant For your Church saith that it is one with that in substance And I say further if your will say with Bellarmin lib. 1. de Missa cap. 25. That this place of the Apostle only excluds absolutly the multiplication of Priests in the same dignity and power with Christ that then they exclud yours also For if you offer up the same sacrifice which he offered up then you have the same power and dignity which he had But this you say you do For it is no matter of the difference of the manner since the sacrifice is one Seeing therefore Christ God and Man which ye say ye offer up in your Mass is of that same dignity which he was of when he was offered up upon the cross and seeing the equal dignity of the sacrifice makes the equal dignity of the Priest that offers it up therefore sacrilegious are your Mass-Priests and excluded here by the Apostle And thirdly I say this is a vain distinction of yours of principal and chief Priest and secondary Priests For this is the nature of this sacrifice of Christ that it cannot be offered up by none but by himself And fourthly if your Mass-Priests be but Ministers in this sacrifice and Christ the principal as you say who offers up himself by you then I say as ye offer up Christ as instruments for your sins and the sins of the people it should follow that Christ offers up himself in your Mass by you for his own sins and the sins of the people But this is blasphemy and expresly gain-said by the Scripture Heb. 7.27 And last of all I say seeing as your Church saith Christ his sacrifice in the Mass is one with that sacrifice upon the cross therefore as Christ offered himself upon the cross without the ministery of secondary Priests so should he be offered up in your Mass without the ministery of the same or else it is not one with that So your Mass-Priests are no wayes to be called secondary Priests to Christ except in that respect that Judas with the band of men of war and hie-Priests were the instruments and ministers of Christ his taking death and crucifying even so you are the instruments and ministers of the crucifying of Christ dayly in your Mass so far as in you lyes and in this respect keep ye your style of Mass-Priests And because they have a common distinction in their mouthes of a bloody and an unbloody sacrifice For they affirm that sacrifice of Christ upon the cross to be bloody and that sacrifice of him in the Mass to be unbloody Therefore I will take away this refuge and vain starting-hole from them And first I say this distinction of theirs of a bloody and unbloody sacrifice of the self same thing that is sacrificed wants all warrant in the Word of God For there is not so much in the whole New Testament as a syllable that tells us that there is a proper sacrifice of Christ which is unbloody and you are never able to bring one instance to the contrary Secondly I say it is repugnant to the Scripture Heb. 10.10 11.12.14 for the Scripture only acknowledges such a sacrifice of Christ as is joined with his death as hath been proved before See Heb. 9.24.25 Not that he should offer himself often for then should he have suffered often since the beginning of the world Now if the Apostle his argument be true
that Christ cannot be offered up often because then he must die often then this doctrine of yours is against the Scripture that saith Christ may be offered up often and yet not die often But if you will say this is spoken of that bloody sacrifice I grant that and I say the Apostle knew not nor never spake of another sacrifice and therefore your doctrine is vain that would have another sacrifice then ever the Apostles in the whole Scripture have made mention of And I say thirdly this distinction of yours cannot stand with your own doctrine for if there be a true sacrifice of Christ properly in your Mass as ye say then his blood must be truly shed and he must truly die for this is the nature of all such sacrifices for sin as Bellarmin grants it lib. 1. de missa fol. 725 saying If there be not a true and real slaughter of Christ in the Mass then is not the Mass a true and real sacrifice And also In all true real external sacrifices the sacrifice must be a thing sensible and must be made holy of a prophane thing as Bellarmin confesses and these conditions he requires in the definition of the same but this I hope ye will not say of Christ for he is holy always and is insensible in your sacrifice and cannot be slain again therefore properly there can be no true sacrifice of Christ in your Mass by your own doctrine To conclud this then For these causes we reject this abomination of your Mass First because Christ cannot be offered up in a sacrifice but he must die also as hath been proved and the Scripture testifies that he hath once died and all Christians confesses it Secondly because the death of Christ is a sufficient satisfaction for our sins and so we need not that he should be offered up again to satisfie for the same Thirdly because the Spirit of Christ and faith by the outward means of the Word and Sacraments and censures is a sufficient mean to apply him to us and so we need not the sacrifice of the Mass for that end Fourthly because Christ only is the Priest of the New Testament who hath no successors and whose Priesthood cannot pass from one to another because he lives for evermore and he only can be sacrificed by himself and therefore he only can offer up himself which he hath once done upon the cross Fifthly because the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross is perfect and the vertue of it indures for ever and it cannot nor should not be reiterat Sixthly because the Scripture propones Christ now sitting in glory at the right hand of his Majesty and not under the forms of bread and wine in your sacrifice And seventhly because it is but the devise of man wanting God to bear witness to it in the Scripture repugnant to that only one sacrifice of his upon the cross abolishing the fruits of his death and passion turning the Sacrament of the Supper in abominable idolatry causing men to worship a bit of bread as the Son of God And last because it spoils men of the fruit of the Sacrament Therefore in all these respects it is abominable to be detested and in no sort to be communicated with Unto this I will adjoin some testimonies of some of the ancient Fathers whereby it is manifest what their doctrine and judgement was concerning this point Clemens Alexandrinus lib. 1. Paedagog cap. 2. in strom who was near the Apostles days saith We sacrifice not at all unto God meaning with a real and external sacrifice but we glorifie him who was sacrificed for us And then he subjoins what kind of sacrifices they offered up to God to wit a sacrifice spiritual of themselves of prayer and of righteousness And upon what altar to wit upon the altar of our souls with the parfume of their prayers Justinus Martyr saith in Tryphon in expos fidei I dare saith he affirm that there is no other sacrifice perfect and acceptable to God but supplications and thanksgiving And he saith That Christians have learned to offer up these sacrifices only Tertullian saith advers Judaeos That it behoves us to sacrifice unto God not earthly but spiritual things so we read as it is written A contrit heart is a sacrifice to God Origen saith in Epist. ad Rom. in homil 2. in Cant. lib. 8. contra Celsum The blood of Christ is only sufficient for the redemption of all men what need then hath the Church of any other propiciatory sacrifice And as for the sacrifice of Christians he saith They are their prayers and supplications It was a common reproach wherewith the Christians were charged by the Pagans three hundred years after Christ that they had no altars unto the which their common answer was That their altars were a holy soul not corruptible altars but immortal altars If then the Christians had no material altars the first three hundred years after Christ as Clemens Alexandrius lib. 7. Strom. Origen ibid. contra Celsum Minutius Foelix lib. 2. 4. and Arnobius do testifie therefore it must follow they had no external sacrifices nor Masses all that time so there was no Masses the first three hundred years after Christ seeing there was no altars Epiphanius saith contra Marc. haeres 42. 55. That God by the coming of Christ hath taken away all the use of sacrifice by that one sacrifice of Christ Athanasius saith in orat 3. contra Arrianumâ— That the sacrifice of Christ once offered up hath accomplished all things and remains for ever and that he is a Priest without succession The same saith Basile in Isaiae cap. 1. And he saith further There is no more question of a continual sacrifice for there is but one sacrifice which is Christ and the mortification of his Saints Because it were over longsome to set down the sentences of the rest therefore I will only quote them Irenaeus lib. 4. cap 34. Cyprianus de baptismo Christi Athenag in Apolog. pro Christianis Lactant. lib. 6. cap. 26. Euseb de demonst lib. 1. cap. 6. lib. 3. cap. 4. Greg. Nazianz. in Pasch orat 2. Euseb Nissen de coena Domini Chrysost advers Judaeos orat 4. in Joh. homil 17. ad Heb. homil 13. homil de cruce spirit 3. in Matth. hom 83. ad Heb. hom 26 hom 17 hom 7. Cyrillus lib. 1. contra Julianum ad Hebraeos homil 11. Ambrosius ad Hebâ— cap. 10. ad Theod. Epist 28. in Epist ad Rom. cap. 12. Hieronymus in Isaiam cap. 1. in Psal 26 49 50. Augustinus de fide ad Petrum Diacon cap. 2. de Trinitate lib. 4 cap. 1. 14. in Psal 49. de civitate Dei lib. 10. cap. 4. 6 Idem de tempore I would desire M. Gilbert to read the same And if he will believe them I am sure he will leave off to be a
oblation after the consecration I leave the rest of their contradictions so that seeing they have no concord among themselves neither in the matter nor in the form nor in the effect nor in the substance nor in the circumstances of their pretended sacrifice but that the Lord as is said in Hosea hath divided their hearts therefore their Mass must perish And seeing the Lord hath sent such a confusion among them that they understand not the language one of another some saying one thing some another therefore it is Babel the tower of confusion which they are building and not the house of the Lord. To conclud this they will have their sacrifice not a creature but a Creator of all creatures and therefore they worship it with the worship of latria which by their own doctrine is only proper to God Turrian 1. tract cap. 17. Antonius de Padua ex Bellarm. de Euchar. lib. 3. cap. 8. Therefore they sing after the consecration It is not bread but God and man my Savior And yet they say That this Creator both begins to be where he was not before after the consecration and ceases to be where he was before and that he is not every where as God is Scarga art 5. fol. 335. Turrian tract 1. cap. 21. And they say That the Priest makes Christ his body of the bread in the Sacrament and Christ the King is made of bread Bellar. lib. 3. de Euch. fol. 399. Pope John 22. lib. orat inscrip Antidotarius animae in Breviario missalibus Qui creavit me sine me creatur mediante me he that created me without me that is the Priest is created by my moyen that is he makes that God that made him Now how can he be the true God and a true Creator which hath a beginning and ceases to be which is not every where as God is which is made of bread and wine by a Mass-Priest and that by their own doctrine How therefore shal their Church be cleared from abominable idolatrie that worships that which they call God Creator and Savior and yet such a God as by their own doctrine hath a beginning and ending and is not every where and is made of bread and wine by dust and ashes O! wo be to their souls that worship God which made not heaven and earth and causeth others to do the same And how shal their Mass-Priests be cleared from sacrilegious blasphemy which vaunts that in their Mass they dayly creat their Creator and that of bread and wine and so makes themselves Gods and more then Gods For God created but creatures but they as they suppone creat the Creator And as they worship a false Creator in their Mass so do they worship a false Christ and Savior in the same For the Scripture saith That the true Christ is made of the seed of David of the seed of the woman Rom. 1.3 Gal. 4.4 and not of any other substance But the Christ which they offer up in their Mass by their own doctrine is made of bread and wine and that by the Priest So Bellarmin confesseth ibidem and Pope John 22. ibidem For the one saith That it is no absurd thing to the Priest to make Christ his body of bread And the other saith That Christ the King is made of bread Therefore they worship not JESUS the son of Mary who was made of the woman and of the seed of David but a false Jesus made of bread and baken in the oven and formed by the Priest Therefore of all Idolaters they must be the most blasphemous and abominable And thus much for the Mass SECTION XIII Concerning Confession and Absolution by the Priest Master Gilbert Brown FIfthly our doctrine is that the lawful Ministers and Priests of the Church of Christ have power given them by Christ to forgive and to retain sins because Christ saith to his Apostles Receive ye the holy Ghost whose sins ye shal forgive they are forgiven them and whose sins ye shal retain they are retained John 20.23 And in another place That ye may know saith Christ that the Son of man hath power in earth to forgive sins c. Matth. 6.9 and 16.19 and 18.18 with sundry other places conform to the same And this is denyed by the Protestants Master John Welsch his Reply As for the fifth point of your doctrine that the lawful Ministers of Christ have power given them by Christ to forgive sins and to retain them If you mean that they have this power as Gods Witnesses Ministers and Embassadors yea and Judges too For the Apostle saith We judge them that are within to testifie and to declare to judge and give out judgement according to Gods Word not only by the preaching of the Gospel and administration of the Sacraments joyned therewith but also by the censures and discipline in excommunicating the obstinat impenitent and absolving the penitent If I say your doctrine be this then you injury us in saying we deny it and you needed not to have quoted these places to confirm the thing which we both teach and also practise But what is the cause ye would not quote the place where we deny this doctrine But if you mean that the lawful Ministers of Christ have an absolut power and full authority not as Ministers and Witnesses only but as Judges and Lords over our Faith to forgive or retain by their own authority and that the very pronouncing of the words of absolution is the cause of remission of sins and that it so scattereth the sins and makes them to evanish as the blast of wind extinguishes the fire and scatters the cloud as Bellarmin saith Controv. Tom. 2. If you mean so this we utterly deny un-you and all men because it is only proper unto God The which the Jews suppose they were blinded did acknowledge and so not so blind as ye are For it is only God that forgives in Jesus Christ Matth 9. It is only his death that hath merited it and only faith that apprehends it and only his Spirit that seals it up and the Word and Ministery that declares testifies and confirms it For the Apostle saith He hath committed to us the word and ministery of reconciliation and we are in his stead to beseech men to be reconciled to God 2. Cor. 5.18.19.20 So we are but Ministers of this Augustin is plain in this Homil. 23. It is the Spirit saith he that forgives and not you meaning of the Ministers and the Spirit is God it is God therefore who forgives and not we There is one argument God only forgives sins therefore not man And again What is man but a sick man to be healed himself Wouldst thou be a Physician to me with me seek the Physician thy self Here another argument He cannot be a Physician to others who needs a Physician himself Further he saith He that can forgive by man can also forgive without man for he may as well forgive by
The persons to whom the work is done must be obliged and bound by right to render and recompense the worker for the worthiness of the work so that he is not just if he do it not And last of all the work must be our own and not anothers and the power our own whereby it is done and not anothers ere we can be said properly to merit by the same But all these conditions will fail in our works therefore they cannot be meritorious of eternal life For as to the first the Prophet saith That all our righteousness is as a menstrous cloth And James saith We all offend in many things and none there is that have contained in doing all things written in the Law in that perfection which it craves of us as hath been proved before therefore our works cannot be meritorious of eternal life And as to the second all that we can do or is able to do we are bound to do it already by the vertue of our creation and redemption and his other blessings already bestowed yea they oblige us to more then we are ever able to pay according to that saying of our Savior Luke 17.10 Even so ye when ye have done all that is commanded you say We are unprofitable servants because we have done that which was our duty to do Since therefore it is duty it cannot be meritorious of eternal life And as to the third there is no proportion between eternal life and our works the reward by infinit degrees surpassing the work and therefore the Apostle saith The afflictions of this life are not worthy of the glory which shal be revealed Rom. 8 18. Everlasting life being only the just reward of the sufferings of the Son of God Bernard saith What are all our merits to so great a glory serm 1. de annum And Athanasius saith in vita Antonij Not suppose we would renounce the whole world yet are we not able to do any thing worthy of these heavenly habitations As to the fourth the Lord is debtor to no creature For as the Apostle saith Who hath given him first and he shal be recompensed Rom. 11.35 The Lord is all-sufficient in himself and so needs none of your labors and so our works cannot oblige him And therefore Augustin saith serm 16. de verbis Apostoli God is made a debter unto us not by receiving any thing from our hands but because it pleased him to promise And to the last the Apostle saith What hast thou that thou didst not receive now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it 1. Cor. 4.7 Seeing therefore all our works are imperfect and seeing we are not able to fulfill the Law and seeing all that we can do is but our duty and there is no proportion betwixt eternal life and our works and that the Lord is debtor to no man and all our ability of doing is from the Lord only therefore our works cannot be meritorious of eternal life Hear further what the Fathers say in this point Augustin saith in manuali c. 22. All my hope is in the death of my Lord his death is my merit my refuge salvation life and resurrection my merit is the compassion of the Lord I shal not be void of a merit so long as the Lord of mercies shal not want Origen who lived two hundred years before him saith in Epist ad Rom. cap. 4. lib. 4. I scarcely believe that there can be any work which may of due demand the reward of God forsomuch as even the same that we can do think or speak we do it by his gift or bounty Then how can he ow us any thing whose grace did preveen us And he saith afterward That the Apostle assigns eternal life to grace only Ambrose saith de bono mor. cap. 1. Everlasting life is forgiveness of sins so then it is not merit Jerome saith adversus Pelag. That before God no man is just therefore no man can merit And again he saith The only perfection of man is if they know themselves to be imperfect and our justice consisteth not of our own merit but of Gods mercy I omit the rest for â—â—ortness Now to your testimonies and reason to prove your merit of works which you shamefuly abuse bringing forth Scripture to cloke your damnable doctrine unto the which I answer shortly That there is a reward laid up with God for the works of every one be they good be they evil and according to their works shal they be tryed and every man shal be judged and recompensed accordingly as the Scripture plainly testifieth But that this reward of eternal life promised is of debt and not of grace and that our works are the meritorious cause of the same that the Scripture never affirms For the Lord freely and of his meer grace crowneth his own works in us and that not for the excellency of the work it self but of mercy freely for his Christs sake as both I have proved and the Fathers have testified So these Scriptures serve you to no purpose For the controversie betwixt us is not whither there is a reward promised and whither it shal be rendred accordingly to the same for that we grant but whither this reward is of merit or of grace The Apostle saith plainly in the 6 of the Romans The wages of sin is death but everlasting life is the free gift of God And in the 8 of the Romans it is called an inheritance Now if it be heritage to them that are in Christ and they heirs of it through him then it is not their merit As for the 16. of Ecclesiasticus it is Apocrypha and the text hath not that word merit as the old Interpreter whom ye follow translates it but according to his work As for the 118. Psalm and the 16 of Matthew ye are over seen in the quoting of them for they have no such thing As for your reason that a reward hath ever a relation to a merit that is false For the Apostle in the 4. of the Romans speaks of a reward that is imputed freely not to him who worketh but to him that believeth in him who justifieth the ungodly vers 5. And in this sense the reward of eternal life promised and fulfilled in his Saints is taken in the Scriptures And whereas you say that there is no reward promised but to doing and working that is false also for there is a reward of eternal life promised to the believer vers 5. And as for the promises of reward made to good works it is true it is made to them but not as though our works were meritorious causes of that reward but only that they are effects to testifie of our faith in the merit of Jesus Christ in whom only the promises are made to us and our works and for whose sake only they are fulfilled in his Saints For these causes therefore is the promise of reward made unto works first
proved before therefore there is no works of supererogation Thirdly what an absurd and blasphemous thing is this to say that God hath no commanded to us the works of greatest perfection for M. Gilbert calls these works of greater perfection and so such works wherein he is most glorified but hath left them in our own choise to do or not to do as though the Lord had not commanded us to glorifie him in the greatest perfection nor yet we were bound to do the same Fourthly if there be any such works of supererogation which are of greater perfection then the Law commands then it should follow that the vow of continency wilful poverty and monastical obedience to their superiors should be works of greater perfection and so please God more then the love of God with all the heart with all the soul with all the strength with all the mind with all the thought Matth. 2.2.37 Mark 12.29.30 For the former are your works of supererogation and the last is commanded in the Law but this is absurd therefore there is no such works Fifthly this was only proper to the Son of God to fulfil the Law of God perfectly and to do more then the Law required to wit to die for us who were his enemies this doctrine therefore of yours spoils him of this his glory Last of all if none can merit eternal life through their works at all then none can augment their glorie and reward in heaven by their works of supererogation But the first I have proved before therefore the other must follow And mark this Reader how far God hath blinded their minds for they deride and they mock at that imputation of the righteousness and merits of Christ and they pronounce them accursed that so think but yet they teach that the works of supererogation which men do may be communicat to others Beâ—larm lib. 2. de justific cap. 2. Consil Trid. can 10. Bellarm. lib. 2. pag. 129. As for the first place which ye quote Matth. 19. If thou wilt be perfect c. I answered to it before in my answer to the second point of your doctrine to the which I refer the Reader And so your wilful poverty hath no ground here For if this man did not perfectly fulfill the Law then was he not able to do more then the Law required of him But the first is true as I proved before in the second point of your doctrine and as the circumstances of the text testifies it for he went away sad and he put his trust in his riches and so it was not only difficile but impossible for him to enter in the Kingdom of God as our Savior saith which had not been true of him if he had fulfilled the Law And this was a special command to this man to discover his hypocrisie And all Christians are bound also out of the love of their heart to Christ to be content to forsake all that they have before we renounce him or his Word when he so requireth of us And if wilful poverty be such a work of perfection as ye think wherefore then would the Prophet have prayed Prov 30.8 Give me neither poverty nor riches but feed me with food convenient And if this be the work of greatest perfection what is the cause that your Abbots Popes Bishops and Cardinals For who should be perfect if not these will not sell all their revenues which they have wherein they surmount the Princes of the world and so augment their glory in heaven and be perfect But shal others believe and obey this doctrine of yours when the greatest Patrons of it believes and obeys it not O hypocrits who will believe you As for the next work of supererogation Virginity It is true that the virgin and unmarried who hath the gift of continency thinks upon the things that appertains to God And it is true that if any have the gift of continency it is better to be unmarried then to marry especially in the times of persecution But yet it follows not that it is a work of supererogation For to them who have the gift it is a commandment For he that hath the gift is commanded to use it and in losing it he sins And every man is bound to glorifie God to the uttermost of his power and God is most glorified by the single life of these especially in the time of peâ—â—ecution who have the gift And so it is not a counsel simply but also a command but to them only who have the gift and that so long only as they have the gift And the Apostle saith in that same place which ye quote here that he thinks he hath the Spirit of GOD also and so this judgement of his was the judgement of the Spirit of GOD which binds and obliges all them who have the gift But unto these who have not the gift the Scripture hath a plain command 1. Cor. 7.3.9 For the avoyding of fornication let every man have his own wife c. And if they cannot abstain let them marry c. And whereas ye say that Virginity is better then Matrimony that is not true simply but only to them who have the gift And since you say it is better wherefore make ye Matrimony a Sacrament to give remission of sins For shal not a Sacrament which gives remission of sins be better then an indifferent action which men may do or leave undone such as ye say Virginity is As for the Apostles example 1 Cor. 9. in preaching the Gospel freely without wages to them I answer Suppose it was lawful to him and all the Ministers of the Gospel to have taken wages as himself testifies and proves in that same chapter from the 4. verse to the 15. yet it was not expedient to him for the course of the Gospel among them And men are not only commanded to abstain from that which is unlawful but also from the things which are lawful if they be not expedient and so he did no more here then he should have done And therefore he saith It were better for me to die then that any should take my glory from me 1. Cor. 9.15 which cannot be said of these works which we are not bound to do And he saith vers 8. That I abuse not my authority in the Gospel but this would have been an abuse of his liberty with his people therefore he was bound to do it And yet we read that he spoiled other Churches as he saith himself and took wages from them And also the Church of Philippi did communicat unto him twise 2. Cor. 11.8 Phil. 4. As for the 10. of Luke it appears ye are scarce of proofs in quoting this place for your works of supererogation For will you say that the Samaritan was not bound by Gods law to ware more upon his neighbor in his extremity then two penny worth Hath not the Law said Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self And are we not
not himself of his own righteousness but knows himself to be misterful of true righteousness sola autem fide in Christum justificatum and to be justified only by faith in Christ Ambrose in cap. 3. ad Rom. cap. 4. 9. saith They are justified by faith only through the gift of God And in the 4. chapter he hath thrise by faith only sola fides And in the 9. chapter also Sola fides posita est ad salutem that is only faith is appointed for salvation Chrysostome in homil de fide lege naturae saith The thief believed only and was justified And in homil 3. ad Tit. If thou gives credit to thy faith wherefore brings thou in other things as though faith only were not sufficient to justifie Augustin it is a known saying of his lib. 1. contra duas Epistolas Pelag. cap. 21. Works go not before justification but follow him who is already justified And in another place How vertuous soever ye report the ancient righteous to have been yet their vertue saved them not but the faith of the Mediator August de fide operib cap. 14. Cyrillus Alexandrinus lib. 10. in Joan. cap. 18. saith Man by faith only sticks in Christ inhaeret Christo Theophylactus in comment ad Galat. cap. 3. saith Only faith hath in it's self the vertue of justifying Bernard serm 22. in Cantic in the 1200. age saith Man being justified by faith only shal have peace towards thee What more plain now could the Fathers speak of Justification by faith only which you will not deny The Reader may learn how much credit is to be given to you who so boldly affirmed that neither Scriptures nor Fathers said with us against you I hope they will try you before they trust you in time to come For dare you say M. Gilbert that I have fained here ought of these Fathers and have not brought in their own words speaking Deny it if ye dare Be not so impudent and shameless M. Gilbert in your untruths and lies again for by this ye will both discredit your self and your Religion As for the 2. of James which ye quote here that by works a man is justified and not by faith only I answer This word to be justified is taken in the Scripture two manner of ways First to be accounted righteous before the tribunal of God and in this sense only a lively faith apprehending the death and righteousness of Christ justifies us and of this is the controversie Next it is taken for a declaration of ones righteousness as in the 3. of the Romans vers 4. That thou may he justified in thy words that is declared to be just when thou judges And in this sense it is taken in this place So that this is the meaning of it Ye see then by works man is justified that is declared by his works to be just and not by faith only that is by the profession of his faith in Christ So then James speaks not of our Justification before God which is by faith only but of the declaration of our righteousness before men which he calls Justification and that for these reasons 1. Otherwise James should be contrary to Paul who saith That a man is justified by faith without works which is blasphemous to think therefore James speaks of our Justification before men whereby our Justification before God is declared and made manifest 2. The scope of the whole chapter and whole Epistle testifies the same For his purpose is to cast down the arrogancy and presumption of such who bragged of their Faith as though the bare profession that they believed in Christ were sufficient to save them suppose they did not bring forth the fruits thereof Therefore the Apostle takes this in hand to prove that they are not justified by a dead faith but only by that faith which brings forth the effects thereof And therefore he saith in the 14. verse What availeth it my brethren when a man saith he hath faith when he hath no works can that faith save him And in the 18. verse Show me thy faith out of thy works and I will show thee my faith by my works And because it may be ye say this is my commentary therefore hear how one of your own great and chief pillers Thomas of Aquin in Jacob. 2. expones the same from whose judgement I hope ye will not appeal Here he speaks saith he of works that follows faith not according to that sense wherein Justification is said to be the infusion of righteousness but according to that sense that Justification is called exercitatio justitiae the practise or declaration and confirmation of righteousness So if ye will believe him Justification here is taken not for our justification before God but for the declaration of our righteousness And so the ordinary Gloss in Jacob. 2. exponing that place writes Abraham was justified without works by faith only but nevertheless the offering up of his son was a testification of his faith and righteousness What can be more clearly spoken by any Would you have more then this So then this place of James speaks not of our Justification before God and therefore serves not to prove this your doctrine As to the 2 of the Romans v. 13. It is true it is not the hearers of the Law but the doers of it which are justified if rhere were any who had fulfilled it But the Apostle concluds in the 3. chapter all under sin both Jew and Gentil and therefore gathers that by the works of the Law no flesh is justified And so we will leave this to you to do that also in the 19. of Matthew spoken to the young man Do the commands c. And as for the rest of the testimonies I wonder to what purpose ye have quoted them except for to make a show of Scripture and testimonies For they speak only of the necessity of good works which as they cannot be separat from true faith so no man can attain to salvation without them because where ever Christ dwels by true Faith not only he justifies them but also sanctifies them and makes them fruitful in good works The which we grant and therefore do urge the same continually knowing for a truth that without holiness no man shal see God Heb. 12.14 and that the ax is laid to the root of the tree and that every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shal be hewen down and cast in an unquencheable fire Matth. 3.10 They speak not therefore of the efficient or formal or instrumental cause of our Justification but of our sanctification with the fruits thereof and therefore serves not to prove the controversie that is in hand As for Augustin his testimony as you corrupt the Scriptures so do ye his testimony also for this was the opinion which was risen up in the Apostles days as he testifies there for these are his words That some thought that faith only was
let us read why do we strive Ireneus saith lib. 4. contra haeres cap. 63. That the lawful exposition of the Scripture which hath no peril with it is according to the Scripture themselves What can be more plain M. Gilbert And I ask you further Would you have vs to ascribe more to the interpretation of the Fathers then the learned of your Church do As Cajetan a Cardinal in Praefat. in Comment in lib. Mosis and Doctor Andradius the first saith That God hath not tyed the exposition of the Scripture unto the exposition or sense of the Fathers If God hath not bound it as he saith why then should we bind it Wherefore there he desires the Reader Not to mislike it if sometimes in the expounding of them he fall into a sense agreeable to the text though it go against the stream of the Fathers If he speak truth then that sense that is agreeable to the text suppose it be against the stream of their expositions is to be received and preferred before them And Andradius that learned man saith That the Fathers spake not Oracles when they exponed the Scriptures but might therein be deceived Defens fid Trident lib. 2. And he saith more That the oversights of the translation which they followed must needs cause them sometimes to miss the meaning of the holy Ghost And yet you would have the sense of the Scriptures to be decided by them who sometimes have missed the meaning of the holy Ghost And he concluds in the end That the holy Ghost is the only and faithful interpreter of the Scriptures Thus the fairest flowers of your garden and chiefest pillers of your Faith have written So that if they speak true whom I know not if ye will presume to contradict the exposition of the Scripture is not tyed unto the exposition of the Fathers and it is lawful to go with the text against the stream of their expositions And whereas you say if I will be as good as my word the matter will soon be ended I am glad of it if you think as you speak My word was M. Gilbert as your self hath written it that there be very few points of controversie between us wherein I will not get some testimonies of sundry Fathers of the first six hundred years proving with us against them meaning your Church And I desired any man to set me down any weighty point of controversie one or mo and he should have the proof of it These were my words Now ye say if I will be as good as my word the matter will soon be ended Whither I have been as good as my word in this or not let the Reader judge And I appeal your conscience M. Gilbert before the Lord in the great day whither it be true or not For not only in that example of Justification which ye cast in but almost in all the heads which are debated among us I have brought in sundry testimonies of sundry Fathers with us against you Yea I have been better then my word in that For I have brought in testimonies of sundry that lived after the six hundred years and not of these only but also testimonies of sundry of your own Doctors Jesuits Cardinals Bishops Canons Councils and Popes proving with us in some points against your selves I look therefore M. Gilbert that ye shal be as good as your word and that the matter shal end here between you and me For both you have said that the matter would soon end if I were as good as my word and also ye have promised and subscribed with your hand to reform your Religion in all things wherein it is not conform to their testimonies The which if you do then must you renounce the supremacy of your Pope the sacrifice of your Mass your Transubstantiation your Justification by works your Merits of works your perfect fulfilling of the Law of God your erroneous opinions that the Church cannot err that the Scripture should not be Judge with sundry others For in all these I have brought the testimonies of sundry Fathers and in some of them the testimonies of your own Doctors Councils Canons and Popes with us against you Either therefore take shame and falshood for ever more upon you or else keep your word and your writ which ye have subscribed here and reform these points of your Religion As for that calumny wherewith ye charge us to have taken away a great part from the Scripture I know you mean the Apocrypha which bears not the mark and stamp of Gods Spirit as being neither written by Prophets nor yet the most part of them in the prophetical language the Hebrew tongue wherein all the Old Testament was written except some things of Daniel and Ezra which were written in the Chaldaick language which was known then to the Jews nor yet received as Canonical by the Church of the Jews which your (a) Bellar. lib. 1. cap. 10. Church will not deny Nor yet acknowledged Canonical by the testimonies of sundry (b) Melito lib. 4. cap. 26. Euseb Origen lib. 6. cap. 25. Euseb Athan. in synop Hilar. in prolog explan Psalm Cyrill in 4. catechis Ruffinus in expos symboli Hieron in prologo galeato Fathers (c) Synod Laodicen Canon 59. confirmed by the Council Trullan Councils and of your (d) Greg. Mag. in comment in Jobum lib. 19. cap. 16. Hugo Cardinalis in prolog Josuae Cajetan Cardinal in fine comment Hester Arias Montanus who was present at the Council of Trent in aeditione quadam Hebraicorum Bibliorum interlinearium interpretationum selves also Papists of great name some rejecting all some more some fewer containing also many things repugnant to the truth of God set down in the Canonical Scripture Last of all wanting that majesty of Gods Spirit which so evidently shines in the Canonical Scripture And therefore most justly say we that ye underly the curse of God pronounced in his Scripture Rev. 22.18 for the adding unto the holy truth of God And look to it M. Gilbert what you will say to your Cardinal Cajetan who hath denyed sundry Books and parts of the Canonical Scripture in the New Testament Master John Welsch Now if the first thing I offer me to prove be sound of verity that is that our Religion is that self-same and no other then that that Jesus Christ preached and his Apostles and theirs is not so but devised by the man of sin and that Antichrist that whore of Babylon then the plea is won But if I prove the second also then I hope they will never open their mouth to speak evil of the truth of God as though it were but a new Religion M. Gilbert Brown When M. John proves the thing that he is not able to prove we shal do the thing that we are not able to perform but it is a wonder of him to put in so many ifs and doth nothing to the matter For it is a true
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
but our Ministers have prophesied these 38. years if preaching be prophesying And these two shal be clad in sackcloth but our Ministers chiefly of Borrowstowns is clad in fine black cloth or silk And so forth of many more differences as is contained in the 11. chapter of the Revelation Master John Welsch his Reply It appears to you that I have found some new Revelation other then that of S. John So did it appear to the Jews that the Apostle Paul taught all men every where against the Law of Moses Acts 21.28 and yet it was the truth as he himself testifies he spake nothing beside that which Moses and the Prophets fore-told was to come Acts 26.22 So every appearance is not truth It is but the scales that are upon your eyes that makes this so to appear to you For the Scripture of God and this Revelation of S. John is sufficient to us to make it manifest that your head is the Antichrist and your doctrine is that Apostasie that was prophesied to come so that we need no new revelations as ye do For because the revelations already made by God to his Church and written in his holy Scripture doth not warrant your abominable and false doctrine and your Popes supremacy which is the foundation of all therefore you and your Church flies to unwritten traditions and fained revelations to prove the same As for example because your Church hath not so much as a syllable in the whole Book of God to prove that Peters seat was translated from Antiochia to Rome which is the whole foundation of all Popery Therefore your Pope Marcellinus in his Canon Law causa 24. quaest 1. cap. Rogamus grounds the certainty of this upon a fained revelation that Peter by the commandment of God did translate it But to leave you with your new revelations what have ye for you for this your appearance You say first because I note no place and next because these words of mine are no wayes in S. John therefore ye conclud it to be an invention of my own As to the first Is this a good reason I note not the place therefore I have found out some new revelation You must be sent to the Logick schools again to learn the right manner of reasoning I noted no place Ergo I could not that will not follow As to the second my words are no wayes found in S. John Ergo I have found a new revelation But what if the sense be found What if the self-same doctrine be found in S. John suppose not in the same words Then it will not follow that I have found out a new revelation or that this is the invention of my own brain This place which ye quote here Rev. 11.3 sufficiently confirms all that I said For your self will not deny and Bellarmin lib. 3. cap. 6 the Rhemists annot in Apoc. cap. 11. and Sanderus in his Demonstrations grant that these two Witnesses are they who shal preach in the time of the Antichrist suppose they expound them of Elias and Enoch and that they shal be persecuted and put to death by him What a blindness is this M. Gilbert that hath overfyled your eyes that for the writing of that same doctrine which the Scripture warrants your Divines grant and your self will not deny you have said that it appeared to you that I have found out some new revelation But judge thou Christian Reader what thou may presume upon M. Gilberts appearances But you say this agrees not with my purpose and that because of the differences between these two Witnesses and the Ministers of Scotland First I do not mean by these two Witnesses the Ministers of Scotland only but the Ministers of all the Reformed Churches in Europe who have departed out of your Babel and have shaken off the yoke of the tyrannous bondage of your Head the Man of sin and not only these who now live but these also who now rest from their labors and sleep in the Lord of whom a great many were persecuted and put to death by your tyranny for speaking against your abominations Now as to these differences which ye mark the fountain from the which this springs is your mistaking of the prophesies of God and exponing them literally which according to the use of prophesies and especially these which are set down in this Revelation and all the circumstances of this text ought to be exponed figuratively These same two Witnesses are called two Olives two Candlesticks and it is said of them that fire comes out of their mouthes and destroys their enemies Rev. 11.4.5.6 c. If you will not be so absurd and ridiculous as to expone these things literally but figuratively otherwise ye will make them monsters trees and candlesticks why then do ye expone this place concerning their number work time apparel c. literally and not figuratively as the rest of their works and properties must be exponed the which if you had done then would you have seen no difference between the Ministers of the Gospel that resisted your Pope and these two Witnesses here but the one to be the prophesie of the other and the other to be the accomplishing of the prophesie As for their number then they are said to be but two that is few and yet such a sufficient number as may prove and qualifie any thing by the Law For by the Law Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses shal every word be established So the Ministers of the Gospel in the time of your Antichrist and darkness was but few at the beginning and yet so many as served for to establish the truth of God by their testimony in the consciences of so many whom God had appointed to save As for their work of prophesying the Scripture calls preaching prophesying 1. Cor. 12. and 13. and 14. And the Rhemists annot in 11. Rev. grant that these Witnesses shal preach against the Antichrist And whereas you say that we fore-tell oft-times things that is not true this is your calumnie and lie M. Gilbert and so ought to have no credit And the prophesies of the Ministers of this land against your Antichristian Kingdom ye have found by experience that they have been too true And their prophesies are truer then the prophesies of one of your Popes Hildebrand who openly in the pulpit on the second holy day in Easter week in the presence of diverse Bishops and Cardinals and of the people and Senat of Rome prophesied That the King whose name was Henry should die before the feast of Peter next ensuing or at the least that he should be so dejected from his Kingdom that he should not be able any more to gather above the number of six Knights And this he preached with this confirmation Never accept me for Pope any more if this prophesie be not fulfilled but pluck me from the altar But he was a false Prophet in the same for neither was fulfilled And whereas
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
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
it no heresie to fast on the Lords day more then other dayes both to stir up our repentance and to make us more meet to holy and spiritual exercises because it is not contrary to the Word of God As for Leo his Epistle it is wrong quoted for it should be Epist 91. and their fasting on the Lords day is not like ours for they fasted on the Lords day because they believed not that Christ was a true man as Leo in that same place testifies which you will not say your self that we do for we acknowledge him to be a true man As for the 13. heresie of the Pepusians and Collyridians their doctrine was that women might be Bishops and Elders and might use these publick functions as these places which ye have quoted testifie which is not our doctrine but rather yours who permit women to baptize in case of necessity That they denyed Orders to be a Sacrament there is no such thing to be found in these places which ye quote here As for the 14. heresie of the Pelagians if they denyed that these who were accused of any scandalous offence and guilty thereof should make their confession of it to God his Ministers and the Congregation for to take away the offence of it then they erred and our doctrine and practise condemn this but if they denyed the absolut necessity of your auricular confession then is it no error because there is no such thing commanded in the whole Scriptures of God Now as for the testimony of Boëtius I have not seen it As for their second heresie concerning Baptism they taught as Augustin reports in that place That Baptism was not needful to children because they were born without original sin as they taught which is an heresie indeed but this is a calumny to ascribe it to us for we teach that children are born in original sin and so should be baptized And surely this heresie rather agrees to you who teach that Mary was not born in original sin and therefore she needed not to be baptized As for the last of the Donatists denying the order of Monks I answer First your Papistical and idolatrous Monks are far different from these which Augustin and Chrysostome defended and these of the primitive Church Bellarmin lib. 1. cap. 2. de indulgentijs For first they were bound to no prescript form of dyet apparel or any thing else by solemn vowes of wilful poverty and perpetual continency as yours are Next the former Monks remained in the order of privat men and laicks and had nothing to do with Ecclesiastical charges which was afterward broken by Pope Boniface the fourth anno 606. But yours are not so they have Ecclesiastical charges and are more then privat men And last of all suppose their kind of life was mixed with some superstition for the envious man soon sowed the popple among the good seed and the mystery of iniquity began soon to work yet their Religion was not defiled with Idolatry worshipping of Images prayers to Saints opinion of merit the sacrifice of the Mass and other abominations wherewith your Papistical Monks are defiled Next I say these Monks and religious Orders of yours have not their foundation within the four corners of the Scripture of God Master Gilbert Brown These and many the like new renewed heresies by the Ministers was old condemned heresies in the primitive Church of the former hereticks as testifie the ancient Fathers and therefore this is a true argument What ever was heresie in old times is heresie yet and the defenders thereof hereticks as they were of old But these former heads that I have set down with many the like was heresies in old times and the defenders thereof hereticks as testifie the ancient Fathers Therefore they are heresies yet and the defenders thereof hereticks Master John Welsch his Reply Now here was all the cause Christian Reader that made M. Gilbert so oft to cry out of us that we renewed old condemned heresies whereof some are such as we our selves condemn and some are such which do better agree unto themselves then unto us And some heresies he forceth upon us which we never taught nor maintained and some are such which are not heresies indeed but agreeable to the Scriptures of God So that if we err in these suffer us to err with Jesus Christ and his Apostles Now to answer to your argument which ye bring What ever was heresie in old times is heresie yet and the defenders thereof hereticks I answer If ye define heresie to be an error obstinatly maintained against the Scriptures of God I grant your proposition But if ye define heresies in general to be whatsoever any one Father or Doctor or some more have rebuked as an heresie then I deny it for sundrie of the Fathers have maintained errors themselves against the Scripture and have accused some doctrine to be heresies which have been agreeable to the truth of God which you will not deny I hope For if you would I could prove it both of the Fathers Councils and your own Popes Now to your assumption But these former heads say ye which ye have set down with many the like was heresies in old times and the defenders thereof hereticks as testifie the ancient Fathers I answer That some of these are heresies indeed and we abhor and condemn them more then ye and some of these as falsly laid to our charge and some of these are not heresies indeed but agreeable to the Scripture And therefore your conclusion falls not upon us who have renewed no old condemned heresies and therefore is not hereticks And where you say many other like I answer It is true they are like for they are both calumnies and horrible untruths and lies as these have been whereof one day ye shal make answer to the great God that judgeth the quick and the dead But the pit which you digged for others you have fallen in it your self For certainly in this you do as thieves do who the better to eschew the crime of theft which is justly laid to their charge and that they may the more easily escape in a fray do cry out and shout out upon others Common thieves common thieves Even so do you for these crimes whereof ye are guilty your selves you falsly charge us with SECTION XXVI That the Church of Rome hath renewed and maintaineth old condemned Heresies THat all men may see that not we but the Church of Rome hath renewed and doth maintain old condemned Heresies I shal not do as you have done to us that is either to lay to your charge such heresies as ye maintain not or such things to be heresies which are not heresies indeed which ye did to us But in this I will deal sincerely with you faining nothing neither of them nor of you 1. Simoniani worshipped the Image of Simon and Selene whose heresie they followed Ederus in Baby pag. 5. so do your religious Orders worship the
upon this rock But your Popes of Rome are not one singular person but many Therefore your Popes of Rome are not this rock upon the which Christ promised to build his Church What difference is there between your argument for the Pope and this argument against the Pope seeing both are grounded upon the like phrase Choose you then M. Gilbert whether will you have the Antichrist not to be one singular person but a succession of many Or will you have the Popes not to be the rock whereupon the Church is built For the one ye must Thirdly I say the Apostle Paul saith speaking of the Antichrist That the mystery of iniquity is begun even now to work 2. Thess 2.7 And John saith This is the spirit of that Antichrist which ye heard was to come and is even now present in the world 1. John 4.3 And the Apostle saith The Lord shal destroy him with his presence 2. Thess 2.8 And your doctrine is that he shal not come while the end of the world Now what a monstrous man will you make him whose spirit was in the dayes of the Apostles and who must continue till the end of the world if the Scripture be true a man of fifteen hundred years of age already Is this credible Or are you able to perswade men that have but the least drop of reason left in them and believe the Scripture that the Antichrist should be but one singular man since the Scripture saith that his spirit was present in the world and his iniquity even then began to work in the Apostles dayes that is ◠1500. years since and he shal continue to the end of the world Fourthly is it possible that one singular person can perform all these things which either the Scripture or your own doctrine tell he shal do For the Scripture saith He shal resemble the Lamb with horns He shal speak like the Dragon He shal do all the power of the former Beast He shal make all men to worship the beasts image He shal make all both rich and smal c. to receive his mark c. so that no man shal buy or sell but he that hath his mark c. so that all Nations shal be drunken with the wine of her fornication Rev. 13 and 14. and 17. and 18. And your doctrine is that he shal build the Temple of Jerusalem which the Turks have now in possession that he shal destroy Rome that he shal abolish all Religion and all the outward ceremonies thereof that he shal conquer and overcome the strongest Empires in the earth and be Monarch of the whole world Bellarm. lib. 3. de Rom. Pont. and Rhemists annot upon 2. Thess 2. and Sanderus in his demonstrations Now is it likely or can it be that any one mortal man is able to perform so great and so wonderful things Was there ever yet any King Emperor or any other creature under heaven that ever performed so great and wonderful things and specially in so short a time as ye assign to your imaginary Antichrist as of three years and an half That one city of Troy kept all the Grecians for the space of ten years almost besieging it before they could overcome it The Temple of Jerusalem was seven years in building by Solomon who had riches and wealth above all the Kings in the earth who had an hundred fifty three thousand and six hundred workmen for the same 2. Chron. 2. That great Conqueror Alexander with whom no Monarch is comparable neither in power nor happy success was not able to conquer all Asia the space of ten years which was the fourth part of the world And shal we think that a miserable Jew by the help of their scattered people being an enemy to God and all good men shal be able to overcome that great Monarchy of the Turks against whom all the power of Christendom hath not prevailed not only to overcome them but also to overcome all the Empires and Kingdoms in the earth and to restore the city of Jerusalem and build the Temple again from the foundation and abolish all Religion both true and false except his own For this is the doctrine of your Church concerning the Antichrist and that in so short a time as three years and an half as you ascribe unto him Who will believe you M. Gilbert Will any Turk Christian or Jew himself believe that any one man suppose his age were never so long and his person never so strong can be able to accomplish and perform so many and so wonderful things as your own doctrine affirms shal be done by the Antichrist So this doctrine of yours that the Antichrist shal be but one singular person can neither stand with the Scripture nor yet with your own doctrine concerning the Antichrist Fifthly as partly hath been proved this is the common phrase of the Scripture in the person of one to understand a multitude And therefore Daniel in the describing of the Monarchies he compares them to sundry beasts in the singular number to a Lyon a Bear a Leopard c. and yet by them was not signified one certain person but a succession of Kings in the self-same Kingdom and therefore the Antichrist is likened to a beast to signifie a Kingdom and succession of persons in that Kingdom Rev. 13. Tertullian calls the Antichrist A City which prostituts its self to fornication to wit spiritual de resurrectione carnis Ambrose in Apoc. 17 calls the woman clad with purple who is Antichrist the city of the Devil Augustin calls that beast which is the Antichrist the ungodly and body of the wicked who fights against the Lamb a people contrary the people of God which joyntly with their head is called the Antichrist an heretical Church which is called Babylon Nonnulli non ipsum Principem sed universum quodammodo corpus ejus id est ad eum pertinentem hominùm multitudinem simul cum suo Principe hoc loco Antichristum intelligi volunt Homil. 10. in Apoc. homil 13. de civitate Dei lib. 18. cap. 2. lib. 20. cap. 19. Gregory a Pope saith in moralibus lib. 33. cap. 26 The beast is a multitude of them who preach the Antichrist And Thomas a Papist saith The beast which is the Antichrist is a body and so not a singular person And the ordinar Gloss saith The head and the body together make the Antichrist And Hugo a Cardinal calls him an university or commonality So not only the Scripture and reason but also the testimonies of these Fathers and some of your selves concurr all in this that the Antichrist is not a singular person but a body an estat a succession So I hope the Reader hath seen nothing either by Scripture or by reason alledged by M. Gilbert wherefore the Pope may not be the Antichrist Master Gilbert Brown Thirdly S. Paul saith He shal be an adversary and is extolled above all that is called God or that
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
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
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