Catholick Doctrine is inconsistant with the Sovereignty and safety of Kings and with civil Society between Catholicks and Protestants Pag. 443 Bishop Mortons Falsifications about the Lawfulness of killing a Tyrant Pag. 444 Bishop Mortons Falsification of Catholicks against the Sovereignty of Princes and how he excuses himself by saying he received it from the Archbishop of Canterbury Pag. 445 Mortons Answer in which see an Imposture continu'd against Catholicks by the whole Convocation of the Protestant Clergy in their Synod held Anno 1603. Pag. 546 The Protestant Falsification to perswade that the Canon-Law doth warrant deposition of Kings by the Pope Pag. 447 A Protestant Falsification to perswade that Catholicks may cheat any Excommunicated Persons of their Lawful Debts Pag. 449 Bishop Mortons Falsification to perswade that Catholicks hold it Lawful to Murther and Massacre Protestants Pag. 451 Bishop Morton's Falsification to Assert the Kings Supremacy Pag. 453 Ten Falsifications set down together by Bishop Morton to prove that we hold that Popes cannot be deposed nor be Hereticks Pag. 457 Primate Bramhalls Falsification to prove that Popes may and have Decreed Heretical Doctrines Pag. 458 It is prov'd by Reasons and Examples that no Religion is so little dangerous to the Sovereignty and safety of Kings or so Advantagious to the Peace and Prosperity of Subjects as the Roman Catholicks notwithstanding the Doctrin of the Pope's Supremacy Pag. 459 Protestants cannot clear their Religion from their Doctrin and danger of Deposing Sovereigns and Disposing of their Kingdoms Pag. 470 That Protestants could never prove any of the wilful falsifications wherewith they charge Roman Catholick Writers but themselves are convicted of that Crime wheresoever they Attempted to make good their charge against us Pag. 473 Bellarmin accused by Sutcliff of Falsifying the General Council of Chalcedon in favour of the Popes Supremacy Pag. 474 How Protestants are Convicted by Bellarmin of holding twenty ancient condemned Heresies and how Sutcliff and Bishop Morton to clear them of six only fourteen seems they confess do falsifie the Fathers and Catholick Authors about worshipping of Images Pag. 476 Two Pelagian Heresies imputed to Protestants and how they falsify to clear themselves of the One and say nothing of the other Pag. 477 Two Novatian Heresies Imputed to Protestants the one answered with Silence the other with Falsifying Pag. 478. The Manichean Heresie against Freewill Imputed to Protestants and how pittifully Answered by Bishop Morton Pag. 479. How Bishop Morton Answers to Bellarmin's Imputation of Arianisme unto Protestants Pag. 479. How Morton Falsifies and Abuses Bellarmine who Imputes the denyal of Christs Real Presence in the Sacrament to Protestants Pag. 480. Falsifications Objected against Cardinal Baronius by Mr. Sutcliff Pag. 483. Calumnies and Falsifications of Luther Calvin Archbishop Laud and Primate Usher to Discredit Catholick Religion against their own Knowledge and Conscience Pag. 487. Of Calvins Calumnies against Catholicks and their Doctrine Pag. 488 Frauds Falsifications and Calumnies of Primate Usher against the Real Presence and Transubstantiation Pag. 491. Usher's Falsifications against Confession Pag. 492. His Falsifications against Absolution of Sins Pag. 493. Against Purgatory Pag. 494 Against Worshiping Saints and their Reliques Pag. 496 Against Prayer to Saints Pag. 499 Of Archbishop Laud's Frauds and Falsifications HOw unsincerely Bishop Laud would fain Excuse the Modern Greek Heresie concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost Pag. 502 How Bishop Laud Abuses St. Augustine to make Protestants believe that General Councils may Err against Scripture and evident Reason Pag. 504 Vicentius Lirinensis abus'd by Laud to prove the Fallibility of the Church c. Pag. 507 How Bishop Laud falsifies Occham to infringe St. Augustin's Authority concerning the Infallibility of the Church in succeeding Ages as well as in that of the Apostles And is forc'd by his Error to resolve the Prelatick Faith into the Light of Scripture and the private Spirit of Phanaticks which he Paliats under the Name of Grace and thereby Warrants all Rebellions against Church and State Pag. 509 Divers Frauds and Falsifications of Bishop Laud to defend that Protestants are not Schismaticks Pag. 512 Whether it be Piety or Policy to permit the Protestant Clergy of these three Kingdoms to enjoy the Church Revenues for maintaining by such Frauds and Falsifications as hitherto have been alledged the Doctrine of the Church of England which also they acknowledge to be fallible and by consequence for all they know false And hâ—re the said Revenues may be Conscientiously apply'd to the Vse and Ease of the People without any danger of Sacriledge or any Disturbance to the Government if a publick Tryal of both Clergies Sincâ—rity be allowed and Liberty of Conscience granted Pag. 521 The same further demonstrated and how by Liberty of Conscience or by Tolerating the Roman Catholick Religion by Act of Parliament the British Monarchy will become the most considerable of all Christendom Peaceable at Home and recover its Right Abroad How evidently it is the mutual Interest of Spain and England to be in a perpetual League against France and how Advantageous it is for Spain to put Flanders into English Hands Pag. 534 The King 's Right to France Pag. 544 My Lord of Clarendin's Policy Censur'd by all Wise Men. Pag. 548. Part 4. The Roman Catholick Religion in every particular wherein it differs from the Protestant confirmed by undenyable Miracles THat such Miracles as are approved by the Roman Catholick Church in the Canonization of Saints are true Miracles and the Doctrine which they Confirm cannot be rejected without denying or doubting of Gods Veracity and how every Protestant doth see true Miracles though he does not reflect upon them in Confirmation of the Roman Catholick Faith Pag. 553 The Miracle of St. Januarius of Naples Pag. 555 The Famous and undenyable Miracle of St. Francis Xaverius wrought on the Person of Marcello Mastrillo Pag. 556 Antichrist's Miracles are not Credible if compar'd with Ours Pag. 561 Of Visible Miracles seen though not observ'd by every Protestant in Confirmation of the Roman Catholick Faith The difference between true and false Miracles Pag. 562 Of True Miracles related in the Ecclesiastical History by men of greatest Authority in every Age to confirm the particular Mysteries of our Catholick Faith and that sense of Scripture wherein Roman Catholicks differ from Protestants Pag. 566 Of Miracles related by St. Chrysostom St. Gregory Nazianzen c. in Confirmation of Transubstantiation Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament the Sacrifice of the Mass Communion under one Kind and Purgatory Pag. 567 Primate Usher's Falsification to discredit two Miracles Pag. 569 How Protestants falsify and corrupt the very Statutes and Law-Books Pag. 572 Miracles for the Mass. Pag. 573. Miracles for Purgatory Pag. 573 Miracles to Confirm the Worship and Virtue of the Sign of the Cross. Pag. 576 Miracles in confirmation of the Catholick Worship of Images Pag. 581 The Protestant Distinction of Civil and Religious Worship misapply'd by Ministers to delude
and reformations They began in Luthers owne days and still continue to increase and multiply having no rule of faith but an obscure text of Scripture nor no Church or Court of judging the controversies therof with an obligation to submit there-unto but every ons privat opinion which must needs breed diuision add confusion And so it happened in the very beginning to Luther For his Disciples observing that every one of them-selves might pretend to be sent by God by an extraordinary vocation as well as Luthers seing he proved not his Mission by Miracles or by any supernatural sign to reforme the Church divers of them separated from him and set up for them-selves as Zuinglius who invented the Sacramentarian Religion against Christs real presence in the Sacrament and Bernard Rotman Father of Anabaptists c. It were tedious to relate all their divisions and almost impossible We will only assure the Reader that in the space of 30. years after Luther began his Reformation it was divided and subdivided in Germany alone into 130. Sects For first his Disciples divided them-selves into four principal Reformations of plain Lutherans halfe Lutherans Antilutherans or Sacramentarians and Anabaptists These plain Lutherans into eleuen Sects and these againe into soft rigid and extravagant Lutherans the semilutherans or half Lutherans also into eleven Sects The Sacramentarians or Antilutherans into 56. and one of these into 9. The Anabaptists into 13. Sebastianus Traneus a Protestant numbreth 70. How all these have bin subdivided since we may guess at by the variety we see in England of Protestant Religions not with standing the severity of the Laws in favor of the Prelatik Not one of these Sects have subordination to another and agree only in some generall Notions of Christianity and in impugning the Roman Catholick Religion one of the marks wherby the Holy Fathers discerned Heresies Each of them pretend to be a true Church and condemn the rest as Schismatical and Heretical Congregations perpetualy quoting Scripture one against the other but understood according to every on s conveniency fancying or feigning that the Spirit of God inspires him to reform not only the Roman Doctrin but the Protestant reformations But when we call to them for their comission which must be signed by Miracles and desire to know by what authority they presume to take vpon them so high an employment they tell vs that Miracles are ceased in the Church and all ours either counterfeit or Diabolicall wrought by the Devill to confirm us in the Idolatry of the Mass Invocation of Saints c. But because our Miracles exceed the Devills power and can be wrought only by God rather then Protestants will embrace the truth by Miracles testified they teach a blasphemy saying that God doth give power of working true Miracles unto false teachers not to confirm their false and Popish opinions but to tempt those the Indians Iaponeses and Chineses unto whom they be sent By which Paradox they call in question Christianity it self for why might not God tempt the Iews and primitive Christians by Christs Miracles as well as the Indians and Iaponians by others of the same nature and as prodigious If the Indians be not bound to belieue the doctrin preach't to them though confirmed by our true miracles why should the Jews or any others be obliged in conscience to belieue Christ For if God may work true Miracles to make a falshood so plausibly credible as to oblige prudent men to belieue it no prudent man is bound to belieue the truth when it is euidently confirmed with true Miracles and by consequence none was or is bound to belieue in Christ which doctrin is impious and contrary to our Sauiours own words Ioan. 5.36 and against 2. Cor. 12. Hebr. 2.4 and Marc. 16.20 and Joan 15.24 Where our Sauiour declares that the reason why the incredulous Jews did sin in not believing his Diuinity was because he confirmed his doctrin with Miracles Jf I had not don among them the works which no other man did they had not sinned As for their authority of reforming the Roman Catholick faith they answered that they needed no other warrant but Scripture which did cleerly condemn the Popish Tenets Being desired to shew what parts or words of Scripture were Contrary to the Popish Tenets for that after comparing all places and Texts very godly and learned men could find no such opposition between Gods word and the Roman doctrin they replied that the reason why the Popish Diuins and Prelats did not see their own errors afterall their search and study was because they had not the spirit of God which had reuealed to Protestants the true meaning of holy writ though they could not deny but that their own interpretation was new and contrary to that which the visible Church of the 15. â—n age had receiued from the 14 th and the 14 th from the 13 th and so forth Therfore they all conspired in maintaining that the visible Church had erred in doctrin and that the mystery of iniquity began euen with the Apostles or immediatly after But because some parts of Scripture are so cleere against their new doctrin that they could not be wrested against the Roman Catholicks nor reach the Protestant thy framed a new Canon of Scripture and excluded as Apocryphall many Books and Chapters which spook cleerly against them and in their translations of the ould and new Testament into vulgar languages they added to and substracted from Gods word what they thought fit to make the illiterat people belieue that their new inuentions were agreable to Scripture and that Popery was quite contrary to the same And because none of the first Reformers was a Bishop and they knew Bishops only could consecrat other Bishops and Priests and that no Congregation could be esteemed a Church with out that caracter and calling according to the receiued maxim of S. Hieron Ecclesia non est quae non habet Sacerdotem Luther And the rest who pretended a Reformation judged it necessary to alter this doctrin and declare that all Christians both men and women are Priests by baptism yet that only such as are chosen by the Congregation or Magistrat ought to exercise the function for the auoyding of confusion Luther endeauors to proue it at large thus The first office of a Priest is to preach the word c. But this is common to all next is to baptyze and this also may do euen women c. The third is to consecrat bread and wyn but this also is common to all no less then Priests and this I avouch by the authority of Christ him-self saying Do this in remembrance of me this Christ spook to all there present and to come afterwards whosoever should eat of that bread and drink of that wine c. This also is wittnessed by S. Paul who 1. Cor. 11. repeating this applyeth it to all the Corinthians making them all as
were censured in these four first Councels with the Protestant exceptions and objections against the Councel of Trent especily if they wil pervse but the very first leaves of Cardinal Palavicino his confutation of Fr. Paulo Suarez or Servita his history wherin they wil find above tree hundred lyes and calumnies of that Apostata Friar in matter of fact so notorious and vndeniable that our English Prelatick Clergy wil or ought to be ashamed of the Preface they have set before it and of abusing King Iames and his Subjects with such impostures by their extolling so improbable and infamous a Libel Seing therfore the supposed change and fall from primitive Protestancy to popery hath bin from presumption and pride of a privat and censorious judgment against the publick testimony and sense of the visible Church to submission and humility of an obsequious and prudent belief from notorious rebellion against spiritual and temporal superiours to religious and dutifull obedience from gluttony to abstinence from incontinency to chastity from sincerity to flattery from Cloysters and austerity to Sacrilege and liberty from a pretence of faith alone to the Christianity of faith and good works c. It must be concluded that either Protestancy was not the pure and primitive Religion or if it was that the change therof into popery hath bin for the better and by consequence that the first Papist introduced into the world a more sacred and sincere profession then had bin taught by Christ and his Apostles But this being impious and as impossible as it is that men abandoned by God should exceed God's servants in piety or that they should establish and practice more Godly principles and more zealously promote virtue when they fel from God and the way of salvation then when they were in the same it must be granted that Popery is the pure and primitive Religion taught by Christ and his Apostles and that only weak brains or such tender plants as in their infancy received strong impressions of the possibility and existence of an invisible Christian Church vpon earth can fancy an insensible change of it's doctrin profession and ceremonies into so remarkable and different a worship of God as Popery is compared with Protestancy Congregations of Protestants living in the same Provinces Citties and Parishes with Papists and dissenting from them in the outward and oral profession of faith if they did not profess protestancy which they suppose was Christ's faith with the mouth they were dissemblers and could be no part of the true Church in the Canon and sense of Scripture in the administration and number of Sacraments in Rites and Ceremonies in the substance and language of the Liturgy in adoring the B. Sacrament in worshiping of Images in receiving of the Communion c. such Protestant Congregations I say to be invisible and never heard of in 1500. or 1000. years nor observed nor persecuted by the prevailing Papists among whom they lived is not a thing possible or intelligible much less prudently credible We see by experience in these Kingdoms how impossible it is for a Recusant not to be discerned and discovered Papists are known though not convicted Many of them through the mildn'ss and prudence of the government escape the penalties and rigour of the Law but none the observation of their neighbours and very few the menaces of both ecclesiastical and civil Courts The invisibility therfor of the Protestant Church and the insensibility of it's change to Popery is a fitter subject to ground ther-vpon a ridiculous Romance then a religious reformation Perhaps it wil be sayd that Protestants were vntil the last age among the ten tribes as the Jews of whose appearance ther hath bin of late so much talk but we heare not of Protestants among them neither did Luther Zuinglius Cranmer or Calvin pretend that they came from those Israelits or from Terra australis incognita they were born and bred neerer and they brag'd that them-selves were the first Reformers Now to their Scripture SECT III. Protestants mistaken in the Canon of Scripture maintained by the Church of England and by Doctor Cousins Bishop of Duresme OUr second Argument against the probability or possibility of Protestancy being the word or work of God is taken from the Protestants mistake of Scripture and their altering of the Canon And wheras our learned Adversaries do agree with vs in saying that neither the Scripture it-self nor the privat spirit can determin which parts of Scripture are Canonical or holy but confess that this controversy must be decided by the Testimony and authority of the Church and that above 300. years after the Apostles some of their writings were not held by all orthodox Catholicks to be Canonical which now are comprehended in the Canon and admitted as the word of God by many Protestants it foloweth 1. That the Canon of Scripture was not so sufficiently proposed to the whole Church for the three first ages as to make the denial or doubt therof Heresy 2. That the 6. Article of the Prelatick-Religion of England which admitted only such books of Scripture for Canonical of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church is false and the ground therof fallible For as all men vers'd in the Ecclesiastical History wel know and learned Bilson the Protestant Bishop of Winchester doth acknowledg in his survey of Christ's sufferings c. printed 1604. pag. 664. The Scripturs were not fully received in all places no not in Eusebius his time which was above 300. years after the Apostles he saith the Epistles of Iames Iude the second of Peter the second and third of John are contradicted as not written by the Apostles the Epistle to the Hebrews was for a while contradicted c. The Churches of Siria did not receive the second Epistle of Peter nor the second and third of Iohn nor the Epistle of Iude nor the Apocalips c. The like might be sayd for the Churches of Arabia Wil you hence inferr that these parts of Scripture were not Apostolick or that we need not receive them now because they were formerly doubted of This Argument of Bishop Bilson we apply to the Machabees and to the other books declared by the Church of England to be Apocryphal Doctor Cousins writ a book caled a Scholastical History of the Canon of Scripture for which him-self and his friends think he wel deserved the Bishoprick of Duresme that he now enjoys in defence of the Prelatick Protestant Canon and of the 6. article of the Church of England And because he tels us in his Preface that men of knowledg pressed him to publish it as a piece that would give more ample satisfaction and cleere the passages in antiquity from the objections that some late Authors in the Roman side bring against Protestants then those other writings of home or foreign Divines have don that are extant in this kind I thought fit to give Protestants a proof of the soundness of
holy Doctor and then approv'd of by all the world and ever since accepted and applauded in God's Church be defective or deceitfull then a translation made since the pretended Reformaâ—ion by men not only engaged in that new doctrin but maintain'd therby and so addicted to the pleasures and profits of this world as the first Reformers and their Successours the Protestant Clergy are known to be not only in England but in all other parts of Christendom Let them be pleased also to consider whether the judgment of the Roman Catholick Clergy in these Kingdoms who in being of that judgment can have no motive but conscience as is manifest by the incapacities and penalties lay'd vpon them for not conforming to Protestancy be not a more impartial and less to be suspected rule for any prudent person to follow then the judgment of the Protestant Clergy rewarded and promoted to the greatest employments both in Church and state for being of that opinion they profess and who would forfeit all their being if they declared them-selves contrary to Protestancy This being as maturely and impartially considered as the importance of the matter doth require non will believe that the vulgar Translations made by Protestants is holy Scripture they being so contrary to our vulgata in latin translated out of the true Greeck and Hebrew copies writen first by a holy Martyr and after revewed by a St. whose sincerity and learning were sufficient to canonize his Translation had it not bin the word of God and most holy of it self and so declared by the testimony and approbation of the Church for the space of 1200. years before the Councel of Trent In vain therfore do Protestant Writers tell us that theiâ— Translations are taken immediatly from the fountains of the Greek and Hebrew so is our vulgata only with this difference that ours was taken from the fountains when they were cleere and by holy and learned men that knew which were the crystal waters and true copies but theirs is taken from fountains of trouble'd waters by lewd and vicious persons and after that the Arians and other Hereticks had poyson'd and corrupted them with their false and filthy doctrin Thus much against the Protestant letter of Scripture now to their sense of Scripture SECT V. The Protestant interpretation is not the true sense of Scripture THE principal part and as it were the soule of Scripture is the sence which was delivered to the Church togeather with the letter For as St. Hierom in ep ad Galat. sayth the Ghospel is not in the word but in the sence not in the bark but in the sapp not in the leaves of the words but in the root of the meaning So that though we should grant the Protestant Translations to be true yet if we prove their interpretation false we demonstrat they have no Scripture nor the least pretext or colour for their Reformations And first that the Church received togeather with the letter the true sense of Scripture is as evident as it is that God would not speak words without sense or leave the interpretation of them to men whose capacities reach not the mysteries of Religion contained in the words Therfore our learned Adversaries are obliged to confess that no man doubteth but that the primitive Church received from the Apostles and Apostolical men not only the text of Scripture but also the right and native sense therof The dispute therfore between Catholicks and Protestants is not whether the Church ever received the true sense of Scriptures but whether that sense continued as well as the letter in the Church and whether the interpretations of Luther Calvin Cranmer Hamond c. or of the Prelaticks of England ought to be preferr'd before that of the Roman Catholick Church because the true sense of Scripture is supposed by all Protestants to have bin lost for many ages and that the whole visible Church of God was either so careless as to forget the ancient sense or so wicked as to forge a new sense of Scripture And first it seems against reason to believe that any Christian Congregation could be less carefull of the sense of Scripture then of the letter because the sense is that which importeth most for preservation of the faith Therfore if the Prelats and Pastors of the Church have bin so watchfull and diligent in all ages as to find out and correct all heretical corruptions of the letter of Scripture how is it possible they would neglect the same industry for preservation of the sense which is the principal part of God's word And if Protestants think the letter was safe in the custody of the Roman Chatholick Church from which they received it how can they suspect the purity of that sense which was kept and delivered to them by the same Church and authority And if God's providence as they confess was engaged in keeping the leaves and letter of Scripture from corruption surely it could not be so vnconcern'd for the integrity of the sence and substance as to permit it to perish Besides it is much easier to keep the sense of Scripture incorrupt and pure then the letter The letter was writ only in paper or parchment the sense in the heads and hearts of the Bishops Doctors and People of the Church a dash of a pen may alter the letter but cannot have access to the sence which lodgeth in the hearts and heads of the faithfull The precept of receiving the sense of Scripture from the Church is not only agreable to reason but prescrib'd in Scripture as the only way of saluation Go not from the doctrin of the elders for they have learned it from their Fathers and of them thou shalt learn vnderstanding and to answer in the time of need Eccles. 8.8 The first Protestant Reformers observed not this they went to no precedent Church nor Fathers for their interpretation of Scripture and therfore the words of Ieremy 18.15 may be literally applyed to them They have stumbled from the ancient ways to walk in ways not troden The Protestant Clergy ought to say and confess ingeniously that of holy Iob 8.8 Jnquire therfore I pray thee of the ancient generation and prepare thy self to search of their Fathers for we are but yesterday and ought not intrude their own Imaginations as the true explanation of God's word They do not imitat St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil who as Eusebius relates Hist. l. 11. cap. 9. did seek the vnderstanding of the Scriptures not from their own presumption but from the writings and authority of their Ancestors They do not follow the rule of Origen saying tract in Math. 29. That in our vnderstanding of the Scripture we must not dâ—part from the first Ecclesiasticall tradition nor believe other-wise but as the Church of God hath by succession delivered to us Nor that of Tertulian l. 1. de prescrip c. 6. What the Apostles preach'd what Christ reveal'd to them ought not be otherwise proved
diximus tali lege vt quae hic damus anno aetatis nostrae quadragesimo secundo propendeant eis quae quadragesimo dederamus quando ut diximus tempori potius scripsimus quam rei sic jubente Domino vt tali ratione aedificemus ne inter initia Canes Porci nos rumpant He had no great opinion of the Apostles writings as is proved by his altering the very Text of Scripture contrary to all copies both Greek and Latin and by his saying that S. Paul did not attribut so much to his own Epistles as to think that all therin contained was sacred for that were to impute immoderat arrogancy to the Apostle tom 2. Elench contra Catabaptistas fol. 10. And because the other Cantons of the Suitzers would not accept of this Reformation he sticking to the principles therof endeavored by force of arms to bring them vnder subjection and to his own Ghospel and in this attempt Zuinglius was killed sealing with his bloud what he had writ tom 1. in explanat art 42. fol. 84. that Kings and Magistrats may be deposed when they resist the Ghospel that is any privat Protestant interpretation of Scripture As for the Reformers of the Protestant Church of England they were King Henry 8. Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury Peter Martyr Hooper Rogers Ridley Bucer Okin The Revivers were Jewel Parker Horn c. of whose lives and conversations we have sayd somthing and enough to prove they were not fit men to reform christian Religion their doctrin they borrowed from Luther and Zwinglius the supremacy only excepted which King Henry 8. invented and therfore Bishop Iewel the chief maintainer both of the Protestant doctrin and Prelatick caracter of the Church of England in his defence of the Apology edit 1571. pag. 426. as also in the Apology part 4. c. 4. thought it necessary for the credit of the 39. Articles of the English Religion which had bin compiled out of Luther and Zwinglius writings to commend those two Pillars of Protestancy as most excellent men even sent by God to give light to the whole world in the midst of darkness when the truth was vnknown and vnheard of As for B. p Iewel him-self we remit the reader to Doctor Hardings Confutation of the Apology wherin he may cleerly discern the false lustre of this counterfeit Jewel and the value which men ought to set vpon this pretious stone layd for a foundation of the Prelatick Church and vpon the rotten stuff which he and his Successours have sould for Divine truth to English Protestants ever since he vndertook to maintaine their cause for as Doctor Heylin ingeniously acknowledgeth in his Ecclesia restaurata all the learned English Protestant Writers have borrowed from B. p Jewel what they have sayd in defense of the Protestant Religion and that is one reason why their works are so full of manifest vntruths and them-selves so frequently convicted of gross mistakes they rely too much vpon this reviver of their faith or at least would make the world believe that he may be relyed vpon in matters of faith But because Doctor Heylin makes it his busines to persuade the world that Ievel then did make good the caracter and ordinary vocation of the Church of England against Harding and that Doctor Bramhall late Protestant Primat of Ireland triumph'd over the supposed Jesuits who renewed Harding's quarrel I judged it necessary to cleer both these mistaks in few words As for Bishop Iewel we have sayd in the 1. part sect 7. of this Treatise how easily he might have stop't Harding's mouth by only naming the Bishop who consecrated Parker and his Camerades for Harding vsed no other Argument against the nullity of the English Protestant Clergy but this A Bishop must be ordained by an other Bishop but Parker and his Camerades were not ordained Bishops by any other Bishop Ergo. His proof that they were not ordain'd by any Bishop was this name the Bishop that ordained them name the place where they were consecrated This was a demand soon satisfied if ever Parker or his fellows had bin ordained Bishops especially with so much ceremony and solemnity as the new records of Lambeth report that matter Yet Jewel could never name Parker's and the first Protestant Bishops Consecrators he named indeed Parker for his own Consecrator but being press'd by Harding to name Parkers insteed of answering Harding's question whervpon depended the whole controversy the credit of his Clergy and the satisfaction of the Reader he maks an impertinent digression and long discours of the obligation which some pretended to have bin in ancient times of consulting the Bishop of Rome before they proceeded to the election and consecration of Bishops but never returned to the point of naming the first Protestant Bishop's Consecrator whom he would have named to Harding if ever they had bin consecrated And this is one part of the great victory which Doctor Heylin so much brags of The other part concerns Bramhall and the supposed Iesuits The true relation wherof is as followeth After that his Majesty and the Royal Family had bin driven out of England and France by the late vsurped powers and all Christian Princes thought it their conveniency to court the Rebells and not entertain in their Dominions the Person of our King much less embrace his quarrell it happen'd on day at Bruges that Doctor Crouder Chaplain to his Royal Highness the Duke of York in his Master's Chamber and presence without any provocation or occasion given by any of the Roman profession vtter'd very intemperat words against Doctor Goff Almoner to the Queen Mother for having taken orders in the Church of Rome after that he had received them in the Church of England To which a Catholick Gentleman answered he had don no more then what all other Protestant Ministers who became Roman Priests had continually practised and as he believed vpon good grounds Whervpon the Doctor notwithstanding the King was come to his Brother's chamber reassum'd his Argument and continued to dispute with such vehemency that being caled to read morning prayers he mistook the time of the day and in the morning read evening prayers to the congregation The cause of his mistake being known and many believing that his excess of choler argu'd a weakness in his cause Doctor Bramhall late Primat of Ireland Writ a Treatise in vindication of the English Clergys caracter which is the book so much applauded by the Prelaticks and by Doctor Heylin as vnanswerable wheras it was sudainly and so substantially answered that Primat Bramhall never durst reply notwithstanding the general concern of his Clergy and his own particular engagement and the Church of England perceiving the evidence of our arguments against the validity of their forms of ordination thought their best answer was to confess the force of our reasons and correct the errors of their Bishops by changing the forms they had composed of Priesthood and Episcopacy
Catholicks were but few and in the later days they will not be many in respect of Heretiks but still it was and will be the Catholick Church Therfore it can not be an argument that a Church in not Catholick or Universal because ther ar more Pagans and Professors of Heresies then of the true Religion Their being more hereticks in number is consistent with the being of many faithfull houlding the Apostolick faith and no more is requisit for a Catholick or Universal Church But sure Protestants forget the invisibility of their own when they except against the Universality of ours If theirs was Catholick or Universal when they were so few that for the space at least of 1000. years not one Protestant could be found in the whole world they have no reason to deny the denomination of Catholick to the Roman which always hath bin so conspicuous and numerous If they will proceed coherently and say that for those 1000. years before Luther ther was no Catholick Church then they must not only reform but alter and cut short the Apostles Creed and blot out at least for those 1000. years that article J believe in the Catholick Church And as Protestants have no reason to believe that the vniversality or Catholicism of the Church consists not so much in the number of persons as in the antiquity and identity of faith of the Professors with that of the Apostles so have they not any reason to object partiality and illegality against the testimony and judicature of the Roman Church and Councells when they censure Protestant opinions Not partiality because when a Iudg or wittness giveth sentence or evidence against his own natural inclination and interest there can be no suspition of partiality nor lawfull exception against his sentence or testimony as too much favoring himself or his relations And truly if Roman Catholicks did judge of controversies of faith according to their own natural inclination and interest and had not in their definitions and testimonies a greater regard to conscience then conveniency they would never witness or define that Priests ought not to marry or that Kings and Bishops ought to be subject to the Pope in spirituall affaires or that men ought to abstain from flesh so many days in the week or that ther is no bread or wine in the Sacrament notwithstanding the appearance of both neither would they part with their lands and mony vpon the score of Purgatory or maintain that privat men or Churches must not take the liberty to themselves of deciding controversies of Religion but on the contrary beleeve that generall Councells are infallible even when they define matters contrary to our sense and inclinations Roman Catholicks are made of flesh and bloud they are naturally as averse from these thoughts and submissions and find as great difficulty in conforming their judgments and testimonies thervnto as Protestants Therfore they cannot be partial in condemning Protestants for not believing these things vnless they be also partial against themselves and nothing but the evidence of their own obligation â—o believe these things strengthned by the grace of God could prevaile with so many learned and sober men as have bin and are known to be among Roman Catholicks to be partial against themselves or to judg and wittness contrary to their own natural inclinations and temporal interest for Popery against Protestancy SVBSECT II. Of the Iustice and legality of our Roman Censures against Protestancy NOw as to the legality of the proceedings and censures of the Roman Catholick Church against Protestancy it is as manifest as lawfull witnesses and cleer evidences can make any judgment either in law or equity In all controversieâ— both of law and Religion the Courts and Church must ground their sentences vpon matter of fact All disputes of faith must be reduced vnto and decided by this matter of fact Whether Christ our Saviour and his Apostles taught such doctrin Whether he revealed the reformed not the Roman sense of Scripture This being a thing don 1600. years since neither party can produce new eyes or eare witnesses pretending to an immediat knowledg of what then Christ and his Apostles preach't That immediat evidence ended with the begining of the second age and we must begin our proof with this last and proceed to examin our witnesses by a retrogradation from this present age to the first because the only proof of things which are beyond the reach of our knowledg and memory is the Tradition and testimonies of others vpon which we must rely or resolve not to believe any thing even of our-selves as our names families Countries or of this world and much less of the next Let us begin therfore with the Reformed Protestant Churches and ask them what witnesses have they in this 16. Century to prove that Christ and his Apostles were Protestants or taught their reformed sense of Scripture They will answer they have as many witnesses as ther are Protestants We demand their cause of knowledge such of them as in matters of Religion make any use of reason will not pretend that they know it by privat revelation or by their own proper interpretation of God's Law those are neither Court nor Church evidences but will answer that their Parents and Pastors tould them Christ and his Apostles were Protestants and these were tould so by others their Parents and Pastors vntill passing some few descents they come to Luther or Calvin or Cranmer c. There they must stop for Luther Calvin and Cranmer did not pretend that their Parents or Pastors testifyed to them that Protestancy was the true Religion them-selves having bin the first Inventors or Revivers therof after that it had bin by their own confessions at least 1000. years buried and their Church had bin invisible or enchanted Jt is a remarkable thing that never any ancient Heretick or modern Reformer of the Catholick doctrin could name an inmmediaâ— Preâ—â—cessor much less any Church from which he received his Religion and reformed interpretation of Scripture Optiâ—â—s that ancient Father â— 2. contra â—armeâ— says That Donatus was a son without a Father a Successor without a Predecessor filius sine Patre sequens sine Antecedenâ—e the same we may say of Luther Calvin Cranmer c. And seing ther must be a Succession of faith as well as of meâ— and that as one who can not prove his Father or family to be noble by the testimonies and tradition of others can not pretend to nobility of descent or to right of inheritance so can not Luther Calvin or Cranmer and their followers pretend to antiquity of faith or to be of the Catholick family of Christ without a legal testimony and tradition of their spiritual descent which tradition or testimony they confess to be wanting Mr. Napper in his Treatise vpon the Revelations pag. 43. The Pop's Kingdome hath had power over all Christians from the time of Pope Silvester and the Emperour Constantine for these
Bishops Bible This Bible thus caled as also of the large Volume was printed first at Paris Fox relates the story That some heresies having bin discovered therin Coverdale was sent for who did oversee the printing of his own and Tyndal's work but having some warning of what would follow saith Fox he with other English posted away from Paris as fast as they could to save them-selves leaving behind them all their Bibles of the great Volume c. but after they had recovered some of the same Bibles which the Lieutenant Criminal of Paris had not burnt with the rest moved therunto by covetousness they reprinted the same Bible in London but yet not without great loss and trouble for the hatred of the Bishops namely Stephen Gardiner and his fellows who mightily did stomack and malign the printing therof This is Fox his own story of the English Translation of Scripture which Protestants hold to be the true word of God though it was burnt as fals and heretical in France and condemned as such by act of Parliament in England and two Thousand falsifications discovered in the new Testament 〈◊〉 by learned 〈◊〉 Bishop of Dâ—resme Sanders â—â—counts how Miles Coverdale hearing that the University of Oxford was much bent against 〈◊〉 reformation in Edward 6. 〈◊〉 and that 〈…〉 â—aught at Coverdale for keeping 〈…〉 have bin his wife he came to confute and to convâ—â—◠〈◊〉 famous University and there in the pulpit told his audience he would 〈◊〉 of the Controversie of the Real presence having therfore first vehemently inveighed against such as murmured at his keeping a woman which he termed va◠〈◊〉 he added that he ought to be credited in the dispute of the Eucharist for that having inquired into the diversity of opinions and examined the Catholicks Transubstantiation the Lutherans Impaâ—ation the Zuingliâ—ns â—â—re figurative presence the Calvinists addition to 〈…〉 certain efficacy and energy of grace he could deliâ—er 〈◊〉 them what he had found out at last after 14 years stud◠〈…〉 matter having spoken thus in very good earnest most then thought he was distracted for non in his 〈◊〉 could seriously endeavor to persuade Christians to build their 〈◊〉 vpon a fâ—llows fancy 〈◊〉 confessed him-self knew not what to believe for the space of 14 years vntill that present wherin at length he professed to take a new way of his own different from all others that vntill then had bin professed either by Roman Catholiks or others But if Protestants take his fals Translation for 〈◊〉 word of God with 〈◊〉 doubt they will not scruple to take his fantastical opinion for the sense of Scripture and rely â—pon his fond Interpretation of these words This is my body These were the prime Apostles and first Founders of the Protestant Church of England this the Scripture which they delivered to the people for God's word These the men whose sincerity the English Clergy doth now defend imitat and rely â—pon men who to enjoy Benefices and women persuaded silly soules to become the Devill 's Martyrs in Q. Maries dayes making them believe that Tindal and Coverdales falâ— Translations were the very word of God and every on 's privat Interpretation the right sense of the holy Ghost This the poore people erroneously and obstinatly maintained after that such of these their Masters as could escape fled begond the seas and left their Proselits in the lurch when them-selves could not any longer enjoy Bishopricks and wenches here in England Ambition and sensuality led them into novelties which most of them-selves knew to be heresies though once ingaged therin according to the custom of hereticks many refused to recant and would needs cast them-selves into the fire to dye forsooth with their honour which they vainly imagined lay at the stake and could not be preserved if them-selves were not tyed to a stake Fox tells us how Laurence Sanders a Priest was so fond of his wench and child that seing his litle son rejoyced more to have such a boy then if 2000. pounds were given him c. saying what man fearing God would not lose his life present rather then by prolonging it here he should adjudge this boy to be a bastard his wife a whore and him-self a whore-monger yea saith he if there were no other cause for which a man of my estate should lose his life yet who would not give it to avouch this Child to be legitimat and his mothers marriage to be lawfull and holy vpon such motives was the obstinacy of this Clergy grounded in dying How litle the poore Tinkers Tanners Coblers Spinsers and simple women could say for the errors in maintenance wherof they would needs dye you may guess by their incontinent Priests and their Patriarch and Apostle Cranmer's answers for his new saith which I will copy out of Fox himself who excuseth the weakness and absurdity therof by saying pag. 2053. that he believes the Notary who was Bishop Ievell chosen by Cranmer him-self did conceale the Arch-bishop's answers to favour the sea of Rome But then Fox ought to have supplied Ievellâ— ' defect and have shewed how Cranmer might and probably did answer the popish arguments and not conâ—â—â—t him-self with telling us that the reporter leaveth the 〈◊〉 raw and weak on Doctor Cranmer's side Thus then saith Fox SVBSECT IV. Talke between Doctor Martyn and the Arch-Bishop related by Fox DOctor Martin You have told here a long glorious tale c. you say you have once sworn to K. Henry 8. against the Pope's Iurisdiction and therâ—â—â—e you may never forsweare the same c. Here Mr. Cranmer I will ask you a question or two what if you made aâ— Oath to a Harlot to live with her in continual adultery ought you to keep it Cranmer I think no. Doctor Martyn Herod did swear what soever his harâ—â—â— asked of him he would give her and he gave her Iohn Baptist's head c. Then Mr. Cranmer you can no less confess but that you ought not to have conscience of every oath but if it be just lawfull and advisedly taken Cranmer So was my oath Martyn That is not so for first it was vnjust for it tended to the taking away of an other man's right It was not lawfull for the lawâ— of God and the Church were against it Besides it was not voluntary for every man and woman were compell'd to take it Cranmer It pleaseth you to say so Martyn Let all the world be Judge But Sir you that pretend to have such a conscience to break an Oath I pray you did you never swear and break the same Cranmer I remember not Martyn J will help your memory did you never swear obedience to the Sea of Rome Cranmer In deed I did once swear vnto the same Martyn Yea that you did twice as appeareth by records and writings here ready to be shewed Cranmer But I remember J saved all by a Protestation that I made by the Councell of the
all Papists in these words what shall J say here O ye principall posts of Religion and ye Arch-Governors of Christ's Church Is this your reverence which you giue to God's word to bid them avant away c. no mervaile if these men dispise us and all our doings which set so litle by God him-self and his infallible saying Thus they write and inveigh against Hosius and all the Roman Church even after they knew and had bin twice admonished that the whole ground was fals and forged by them-selves Hosius his own words are there is sprung vp a certain new kind of Prophets who have not bin afraid by the authority of Scripture to take away all authority from the Scripture Behould whither Satan at length hath brought this matter c. And after Nihil Scripturâ sanctius c. Nothing is more holy then Scripture nothing more noble or excellent there is nothing next to God himself more worthy of all veneration and reverence but what thing can there be so holy which the enemy of man-kind may not abuse to man's destruction c. Thus Hosius how hardly his words could be wrested or mistaken by Iewel and his Confederats all the world may see and ought to detest a Reformation that can not be otherwise maintain'd then by such palpable impostuâ—es SVBSECT IV. Falsificatïons and Frauds against the Bishop of Rome his supremacy JEwel and his Associats cyting a Constitution of the Emperour Iustinian against the Pope's supremacy say The Emperours words stand thus Sancimus c. Senioris Romae Papam primum esse omnium Sacerdotum Beatissimum autem Archi-Episcopum Constantinopolios novae Romae secundum habere locum which words Mr. Iewel Englisheth thus We ordain that the Pope of the elder Rome shall be the first of all Priests and that the most holy Arch-bishop of Constantinople which is named new Rome have the second place Of which Mr. Iewell and the English Church inferr that the Pope's Authority and preeminency in those days consisted only in sitting in the first place and that this dignity also was given him by the secular power of the Emperour First Iewell and his Camerades by â—n c. did hope to make the Emperour spiritual head of the Church and by consequence derive the same prerogative to all secular Princes in their own Dominions for they fraudulently omitted the words wherby the whole matter is cleered the words as they stand in the Constitution of Iustinian are these Sancimus secundum Canonum definitiones sanctissimum senioris Romae Papam primum esse omnium Sacerdotum c. we do ordain according to the determination of the Canons c. But had they not concealed these words they had discovered the weackness of their doctrin of the Queen's supremacy because those few words according to the definition of the Canons import that this ordination or declaration of the Emperour was grounded vpon the authority of the Canons of the Church which he did but confirm and command the execution of the Decrees and Declarations of Councells by his Imperial power The second fraud is that they translate primum esse omnium Sacerdotum thus that he shall be the first of all Priests wheras the Emperour vseth the present tense declaring that the Pope is the Chief of all Priests not shall be By Iewel 's falls Translation they intended to impose vpon such as vnderstand not Latin or at least are so careless as not to compare this Text with the English that Popes had not bin the first or chief of all Priests before that Decree of Iustinian and that spirituall supremacy came to them by vertue therof Not content with this fraud they add an other in the very next words of this Constitution which are these We ordain also that the most Holy Arch-Bishop of Justiniana the first which is our Country shall have for ever vnder his Iurisdiction the Bishops of the Provinces of Dacia Dania Dardania Mysia and Panonia and that they shall be invested by him and he only by his own Councell and that he in the Provinces subject vnto him shal have the place of the Apostolick sea of Rome c. Out of which words Mr. Iewel and his English Prelatick Clergy inferr thus Heere we see the Bishop of Iustiniana set in as high authority and power with in his own Iurisdiction as the Bishop of Rome with in his But had they bin as honest as the Protestant Layty take them to be all the world might have seen the Roman truth and their falshood for they deceitfully cut of the ensuing words that expound and declare the whole matter the words cut of are secundum ea quae sanctus Papa Vigilius constituit we ordain that these things shall be don and observed according to that which the Holy Pope Vigilius had constituted so that as in the former decree the Emperour professeth him-self to have ordained according to the definitions of the Canons so here in particular he professeth to have confirmed the Constitutions of the holy Pope Vigilius who had made the Arch-Bishop of Iustiniana to be his legat and to hould the place of the Apostolicâ— Sea of Rome in those Provinces not vnlike to that of St. Gregory who according to venerable Bede in his history gave the like Authority to St. Augustin our first Arch-Bishop of Canterbury by which Concession they have always bin called Legati nati sedis Apostolicae Not content to conceale the words and the truth of Imperial Decrees and Ecclesiastical Histories Iewel and the English Clergy were neither ashamed nor afraid to corrupt Scripture to the same purpose against the Pope's supremacy For pretending that the words of Christ to St. Peter Thou art a Rock and upon this Rock will I build my Church and again feed my Lambs feed my sheep were spoken as well to all the Apostles as to St. Peter in the Apology of the Church of England is quoted for profe hereof an other saying of our Saviour Quod vni dico omnibus dico that which I say to one I say to all which sentence is not found in Scripture but an otherlike it though to an other purpose to wit about the watchfulness which our Saviour would have all men vse for the day of Iudgment Quod vobis dico omnibus dico vigilate That which I say to you here present I speak to all both absent and to come be watchfull of this day wherof Mr. Iewel and his Collegues could not be ignorant and yet thus he insulted Mr. Harding affirmeth That to the rest of the Apostles it was not sayd at all feed ye c. to Peter and to non els was it sayd feed my Lambs feed my sheep yet Christ him-self saith quod vni dico omnibus dico that y say to one I say to all And quoted for it Marck the 13. SVBSECT V. Frauds and fond devices of the protestant Clergy of England to deny and discredit the Sacrifice of the Mass.
of their Religion which was to recurr to the letter of Scripture conâ—â—â—ning the true sense therof delivered by 〈…〉 and practise of the Catholick Church doctrin 〈…〉 primiâ—â—ve Fathers and General Coâ—â—cells but these vpstarts knowing their new fancies 〈…〉 agreable therunto Insteed of the ancient faith of Christendom they resolved to maiâ—â—ain 〈◊〉 condemned heresies following in this manner of proceeding their first Apostles Luther Calvin c. who would admit of nothing but the 〈◊〉 of Scripture interpreted by themselves after an 〈…〉 manner We will instance 〈◊〉 three Doctor Wiâ—aker Arch-bishop VVhitgift and Doctor Fulk omitting many others Doctor VVhitaker in his answer to Doctor Sanders demonstrations pag. 21. saith we repose no such confidence in the Fathers writings that we take any certain proof of Religion from them because we place all our faith and Religion not in human but in divine authority if therfore you bring vs what some Father hath taught or what the Fathers vniversaly all together have delivered the same except it be approved by Testimony of Scriptures it availeth nothing it convinceth nothing For the Fathers are such witnesses as they have also need of the Scriptures to be their witnesses if deceived by error c. And Yet this same Whitaker vndertook to maintain Bishop Jewell's Challenge by Fathers and Councells Archbishop Whitgift was no less but rather more injurious for in his defence of the Prelatick Church against the Puritan Cartwright pag. 402. 473. he is not ashamed to say that all the learned Bishops and learned writers of the Greek and latin Church for the most part where spotted with the doctrin of free will Invocation of Saints c. And thence inferrs that in no age since the Apostles time any company of Bishops held so perfect and sound doctrin in all points as himself and his fellow Bishops of England To what impiety and impudency are men driven by defending heretical novelties Doctor Bristow alleadgeth the Testimonies of S. Epiphanius S. Hierom and S. Austin condemning the heresies of Aerius Iovinian and Vigilantius against fasting days commanded by the Church prayer for the dead prayer to Saints against the honoring of their Reliques against preferring Virginity before Matrimony c. Doctor Fulk answereth that Epiphanius and Augustin were deceived in recording those for Heresies which are not and that Hierom rather raild then reasoned and that Vigilantius was a good man and his opinions sound 〈◊〉 Chrysostom is alledged for the Mass saying the Apostles â—â—creed that in the Sacrifice of the Altar there should be made prayers for the departed Fulk answereth where he saith it was decreed by the Apostles he must pardon us for crediting him because he cannot shew it us out of the Acts and writings of the Apostles And divers other Fathers being quoted to confirm St. Chrysoâ—â—â—m's testimony Fulk says who is witness that this is the Tradition of the Apostles you will say Tertullian Cyprian Austin Hierom and a great many more But I would learn why the Lord would not have this set forth by Mathew Mark Luke or Paul why they were not chosen scribes hereof rather then Tertullian Cyprian Hierom Austin and others such as you name This desperat shift of slighting the ancient Fathers Testimony was the ordinary way of answering Catholick Books for many years but some of the Protestant Writers observing how the wise and well meaning persons of their own Religion were not satisfied therewith and that there could no reason be given why any Christian should rather believe a Luther Zuinglius Calvin Beza Peter Martyr Thomas Cranmer Chark Fulk Whitaker or VVhitgift then a Cyprian a Tertullian Basil Hierom Chrysostom an Ambrose or an Austin especially in a matter of fact such as our controversies are to wit whether the Apostles and the true Church taught this or that sense of Scripture and doctrin seeing these holy and leaâ—â—ed Fathers lived in the primitive times and more then 12. or 13. hundred years neerer to the Apostles then the aforesayd Protestant Doctors and by consequence might be more easily and exactly informed Some of the Protestant Writers I say observing how much their cause was prejudiced by this conteâ—â—â—â— of antiquity and Fathers resolved 〈◊〉 more to try Iewell 's Method and see whether their impudency in falsifying might have better success then his either for want of courage and means in Catholicks to manifest their corruptions or for the hopes they had to discredit our Testimony and suppress such 〈◊〉 as we should venture to print and publish against themselves and the states Religion which they maintained But no sooner came any Protestant Book to sight but by God's assistance it was answered with all possible speed and it's falsifications discovered and some of our Catholick writers made it their business to manifest the frauds and four beries of Protestant Controversorâ— one of ours say's To declare that this spirit of fals dealing ioyned with necessity and misery of their bad cause is common not only vnto him Morton but vnto many of his brethren and must needs be vnto all them whensoever they take pen in hand to defend the same for that one ly cannot be defended without an other therfore I do produce ten several witnesses two of them called Bishops M. r Iewell and M. r Horn five inferior Ministers M. r Iohn Fox M. r Calfeild M. r Hanmer M. r Chark and M. r Perkins and might have named five times more three lay men also and Knights that have written against us Sir Francis Hastings S. r Philip Mornay and S. r Edward Cook alledging not one but sundry examples out of each of their works and might inlarge myself to a volume in that argument if I would say what I have found in their and their Brethrens works in this kind c. Any man who desires to be rightly informed in this important matter of the Protestant Clergys true or fals dealing in religion may peruse and conferr the Books on both sides I will not detain my Reader longer with Q. Elizabeths Writers being to treat of the same again when we answer the like objections of Protestants against Catholick Writers yet J can not omit to let him see in one person the hypocrisy of many in one I say that professeth as commonly they all do so much sincerity in treating of Controversies as might seem to excuse the necessity of any further inquiry if his fourberies had not bin manifested to the world not only by his accusers but by his own answers so weake and impertinent they are that they conclude nothing but his obstinacy in â—â—thering to his former errors though he be evidently convicted of being an Impostor The writer I speak of is VVillet who as you have seen heretofore makes this protestation I take God to witness before whom I must render account c. that the same faith and religion which I defend is taught in the more substantial points by those Histories
these are his words and concealed by the Bishop who also striks out of Vincentius Lirin other words wherby it did appear what a kind of keeper the Church is of the truths deposited with her and how litle danger there is of corrupting the old or admitting of new doctrin The Bishop pag. 38. sets down the sentence thus Ecclesia depositorum apud se dogmatum Custos c. Denique quid vnquam Conciliorum Decretis enisa est nisi vt quod antea simpliciter credebatur hoc idem postea diligentius crederetur c. But in Vincentius Lirinensis It is thus Christi vero Eoclesia sedula cauta depositorum apud se dogmatum Custos here first he skips over these two words sedula cauta diligent and wary because they spoiled his plot of persuading us that the Church might by negligence of its Pastors be insensibly changed and corrupted To the same intent he conceales with an c. the rest that followes which would have cleered all and left no room for the Bishops fraud for Vincentius Lirin his words are But the Church of Christ is a diligent Depositary or Keeper of the truths committed to her never changes any thing at all in them lessens nothing adds nothing nether cuts away things necessary nor adjoyns things superfluous neither looseth what is hers nor vsurpes what belongs to others Let any Christian or honest Pagan Iudge whether these words be not Diametrically contrary to what the Bishop pretends vnto in this passage viz. suspition and possibility of the Churches adding novitia veteribus novelties to the old doctrin of making a change of that faith she first received from Christ and his Apostles and of becoming Lupanar errorum which this good man and holy Martyr sayes he is loath to english and yet leaves out cuts and corrupts the Latin text of set purpose to fix vpon Christs Espouse the greatest infamy How Bp. Laud falsifies Occham to infringe St. Austins authority concerning the infallibility of the Church in succeeding ages as well as in that of the Apostles and is forced by his error to resolve his prelatick faith into the light of Scripture and the privat Spirit of Fanaticks which he palliates vnder the name of grace and therby warrants all rebellions against Church and state AN act of divine faith must be prudent that is men are not bound to believe any article therof v. g. that Scripture is the word of God vnless there evidently appear prudent and sufficient motives to exclude all moral possibility that any but God is the Author of the doctrin proposed to be believed These motives of credibility we call the signs of the Church and are the miracles of Christ and his Disciples sanctity and succession of his doctrin and Doctors Conversion of Kings and nations to christianity c. These signs or motives of credibility though they do not evidence demonstratively that our faith is true or that the Church or Congregation of men wherin they be found is the Catholick yet they demonstrat an obligation in us of believing it as we have proved elsewhere in so much that if no such signs or motives of credibility had bin none would be bound to believe any point of Christian Religion with certainty of faith and therfore St. Austin sayd he would not believe the Scripture had he not bin moved therunto by the authority of the Church because Scripture of it self hath no sufficient arguments and signs to ground a prudent and undoubted belief of its being the word of God but the signs and motives of credibility invest the Church with sufficient authority to declare both that and all other mysteries of faith and to make our Ecclesiastical Ministery and Mission more authentikly divin then any Regal Commissions or human Badges can set forth the truth and dignity of Ministers of state and officers of war Therfore as not to believe or to contemn men so qualified when they command in the Kings name is by the light of reason and consent of all nations judged obstinacy and rebellion not to be excused by pretending ignorance or want of greater evidence then those vsual signs of their employments afford so must it be obstinat heresy not to believe that what is proposed by the Church qualified with the aforesaid signs is revealed by God This supposed the main Controversy between Protestants and Catholicks is about the resolution of Christian faith for though both parties pretend that they believe because God revealed to the Prophets and Apostles the Mysteries of faith yet we say that Protestants can not shew how it may be prudently believed that Christ preached or revealed any such doctrin as is pretended vnless it be acknowledged that the Church of every succeeding age was and this present is as truly and realy though perhaps not so highly quoad modum infallible in delivering the Apostles doctrin as the Apostles were in delivering that of Christ. We do not say that Tradition or the Testimony of the Church confirmed by the foresaid signs is the prime motive and last resolution of faith but that the Tradition and Testimony of the present Church is infallible to the end it may infallibly apply the prime motive which is Gods veracity to vs and we prudently assent thervnto But the Bishop denying this is driven with Presbyterians and Fanaticks to an inbredâ—light of Scripture and to the privat Fanatick spirit with this only difference that where they say they are infallibly resolved that Scripture is the word of God by the Testimony of the Spirit within them his Lordship pag. 83.84 averrs he hath the same assurance by grace And because we object and admire that no Catholick could ever perceive this inward and inbred light of Scripture wherby all Protestants pretend they are assured it is the word of God he concurrs pag. 86 with Fanatitks in telling vs that blind eyes can not and pervers eyes will not see it It s strange his Lordship did not foresee the sad effects which this Protestant principle and presumption wrought against himself and his Prelatick Church within a very short time after he writ this doctrin and applyed the same against the Roman Catholicks He might be sure it would be retorted against the Church of England for why may not every Protestant Sectary pretend that the Prelatick Church of England is as blind and pervers in not seing the light of Scripture as Luther and Laud pretend the Roman Catholick is It is but every particular mans fancy and word no other proof is required by Protestants nor indeed can any better be produced to make good that so many honest and learned searchers of Scripture as have bin and are in the Roman Catholick Church can not or will not see the pretended light of Scripture so largely diffused among Protestants and distributed to every Fanatick Presbyterian and Prelatick whose faith can not be maintained without this rash judgment and most dangerous
and other Prelatick Writers began to maintain the Protestancy of the Church of England And how they were blam'd for appealing to Antiquity by some of their own Brethren Pag. 293. A Strange Expression of Mr. Hooker in favour of Bishop Jewel Pag. 294. The Centurists and other Learned Protestants Confess that the Councils and Fathers Defended Worship of Images Transubstantion Purgatory c. Pag. 295. How particularly the Protestant Clergy is Charg'd with Frauds and Falsifications in maintaining their Religion Pag. 298. There can be no Reason to suspect the sincerity of the Roman Catholick Clergy in Matters of Religion And that Protestancy cannot be maintain'd otherwise then by Impostures Whereof there are such Evidences that to give the Protestant Clergy any Credit in matters of Religion is a sufficient Cause of Damnation Pag. 300. Of Edward VI's Protestant and Prelatick Clergys Frauds Falsifications and Forms of Ordination their Hypocrisy Incontinency Atheism c. And whether it be fit to term them and others like them Cheats when they are Convicted of wilful false dealing in matters of Religion Pag. 303. Of Thomas Cranmer his Birth Marriages Treasons Cheats Heresies c. And of Latimer and Ridley Pag. 304. Of Hooper's Rogers Poynet Bale and Coverdale's Hypocrisy and Impiety Pag. 312. A Prophesy of Rogers's Pag. 314. John Bale's account of his Education and how he scarp'd out the Cursed Character of the Horrible Beast by Marrying a Nun c. Pag. 315. Of Coverdale and his Bible Pag. 317. A Discourse between Dr Martin and the Arch-bishop Cranmer related by Fox Pag. 320 Of the Protestant Clergy in Q. Mary's Reign the same that afterwards founded Q. Elizabeths Church Their Frauds Factions Cheats and Changes of the English Protestant Religion during their Exile in Germany Pag. 326 Abominable frauds amd wilful falsifications of the Protestant Clergy in Q. Elizabeths Reign to maintain their Doctrine set forth under the name of an Apology and Defence of the Church of England Pag. 332 The Protestant Clergy Convicted of falshood in their Apology concerning Communion under one kind Pag. 334 How Jewel and the Church of England make the very same Holy Fathers they appeal'd to in other matters wicked Hereticks because they condemn'd Priests Marriage Pag. 337 Bishop Jewel and his Associates wickedness in charging Cardinal Hosins and all Catholicks with a contempt of Holy Scripture against their own knowledge after they had been admonished of the Imposture Pag. 338 Falsifications and Frauds against the Bishop of Rom's Supremacy Pag. 341 Frauds and fond Devises of the Protestant Clergy of England to deny and discredit the Sacrifice of the Mass. Pag. 343 Prelatick Falsifications and Corruptions of Scripture to make the Pope Antichrist And Succession of Bishops a Mark of the Beast Pag. 346 Prelatick Falsifications to prove that Popes may and have Decreed Heresy Pag. 348 Prelatick Falsifications to prove that Popes have insulted over Kings Pag. 350 Prelatick Falsifications to prove that St. Augustin the Apostle of our English Saxons was an Hypocrite and no Saint as also to dicredit Catholick Writers Pag. 351 Of the Protestant Clergy's Frauds and Falsifications of Scriptures and alterations of their XXXIX Articles of Religion to make the People believe that they have true Priests and Bishops in the Church of England Pag. 352 An Advertisement to the Reader concerning Bishop Jewel Pag. 357 Examples of Learned Protestants converted to the Roman Catholick Religion by observing the Frauds and Falshoods of the Apology of Jewel and of the Protestant Clergy for the Prelatick Church of England Pag. 359 Frauds Follies and Falsifications of John Fox his Acts and Monuments and of his Magdeburian Masters in their Centuries the little Sincerity of the English Church and Clergy in countenancing such false Dealing Pag. 362 John Fox his Revelation Pag. 368 The Foxian Kalender Pag. 371 Wilful Falsifications committed by John Fox in his Acts and Monuments Pag. 374 Dr. Chark's Falsification of St. Augustin and how he excuses Luther's Doctrine of the Lawfulness of Adultery and Incest Pag. 379 Falsifications of Cranmer and Peter Martyr against Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass. Pag. 381 How some Protestant Writers in Q. Elizabeths time seeing their Fellows were prov'd Falsifiers waved the Testimonies of the Antient Fathers and yet the other continu'd their former course of falsifying both Fathers and Councils Pag. 384 Falsifications and Frauds of the Prelatick English Clergy to maintain Protestancy since the beginning of King James's Reign THeir Corruptions of Scripture for maintaining their Character continued in the Bible tho' commanded by King James it should be reviewed and corrected Pag. 391 Dr. Abbot and Dr. Smith Bishops of Canterbury and Glocester corrupted the Translation of Scripture which had been sincerely perform'd by Sir Henry Savill Pag. 397 Of Dean Walsingham's Search into Matters of Religion before his Change to the Catholick How he repair'd to King James as to the Head of the Church for a Resolution of his Doubts who remitted him to the Lord of Canterbury and he to other Men and how after finding no Satisfaction he betook himself to the Reading of Catholick and Protestant Authors for discerning on what side was the true and false Dealing Pag. 403 Dean Walsingham's Doubts and Difficulties in Reading the Catholick Book Pag. 406 The Substance of Dean Walsingham's Memorial to the K. Pag. 409 Dean Walsingham's Appearance before the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury at the Councel-Table Pag. 410 His Appearance before him at Lambeth Pag. 414. His third and fourth Appearance before him Pag. 416 How loath the Protestant Clergy is that the King or Great Persons should examin their Doctrine or way of defending it Pag. 417 What Cheating and Unconscionable ways were taken to frighten Dean Walsingham from examining of the Truth Pag. 417 What pretty Books the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury commended to Dean Walsingham to inform him of the Truth They prov'd after Examination Rediculous Libels Pag. 420 Dean Walsingham's Address Mr. Rolfe Commissary of St. Albans and of his Conference with Dr. Downham c. Pag. 421 What foolish Answers the most Learned Protestants are forc'd to give to Catholick Arguments Pag. 422 Mr. Walsingham found no satisfaction in the Answer to the Defence of the Sensure Pag. 425 Mr. Walsingham's last Appearance before my Lord of Canterbury and his Doctors Pag. 427 How the Arch-Bishop and his Assembly of Divines refus'd to confer Dean Walsingham's Notes of Mr. Bell's Corruptions with the Fathers Quoted notwithstanding the Books were in their presence Pag. 428 Reflections upon Mr. Walsingham's Relation Pag. 431 A brief Relation of a Tryal held in France about Religion whereof the Lord Chancellor of France was Moderator Pag. 437 A Copy of a Letter Written by a Person of Quality about this Conference Pag. 441 K. Hen. IV's Letter to the Duke of Espernon upon the same Subject Pag. 441 The Authors falcify'd and therefore the Sentence given against Plesses Pag. 442 Protestant Falsifications to persuade that the Roman
thou lyest in thy throat foolish and sacrilegious King And other so immodestly base expressions against his Majesty and all other Papists that we ar ashamed to English them By Luthers Language and way of defending his Protestant doctrin we might guess at his Master though him self had not told us his name was Sathan SUBSECT I. How weakly Protestants excuse Luthers Conference with the Devill and the embracing of Sathans doctrin THERE is not any one thing troubleth so much the learned Protestants as their Apostle Luthers acknowledged instruction in Protestancy received from the Devill and therfore some of them endeavor to maintain that this Disputation was only a spirituall fight in mind and no bodily conference but with the same probability of truth they may affirm that all other real apparitions and the effects therof were only spirituall conflicts Luther tells so many corporeal circumstances that it could not be a meere spiritual fight first he says that the Devill spoke to him voce forti gravi in a strong and grave voice 2. That then he learnt how men were found dead in their beds in the morning True it is that these words and circumstances are fraudulently omitted by the Divines of Wittenberg in their later editions of Luthers works and perhaps Mr. Chark and Mr. Fulk did never peruse the more ancient and sincere edition tom 6. Germ. Ien. fol. 28. where all these things are set down Yet grant this were no bodily conference and but only a spiritual conflict what matters it whether Luther was instructed and persuaded this or that way by sensible conference or inward suggestion into Protestancy if therin the Devill was his Master Other learned Protestants excuse Luthers conference saying it was only a dream to mistake which for a reality he was subject as being a German Monk giuing to understand that good drinck doth frequently turn German dreams into reall persuasions But vnless they prove that Luther was in a dream or in drink when he writ this conference they wil never persuade any man that reads it that this Disputation was not real Him self says he was awake tells the tyme of the night that it happened describs the Devills voice his owne feare learnt how people were slain by the Devill in their beds these reflections and impressions are far from dreams especialy when the party delivers them as real truths many years after and maks them the ground of his chang in so important a matter as Religion But suppose German Monks were as much given to drink and after drink as apt to mistake their dreams for real truths as Mr. Sutcliff insinuats and to maintain even when they are sober that their dreams ar not dreams as Luther doth his Conference of what credit can such an evasion or excuse be to Protestants for what difference is ther between a dreaming drunken and Diabolical Religion These answers not being any way probable other learned Protestants grant the Devill did realy conferr with Luther so Hospinian B. p Morton Joannes Regius Baldwin c. This last in a Book of this subject printed at Jsleb 1605. pag. 76.75.83 saith let none wonder that I confess the disputation to be real and not written in iest or hyperbolicaly but seriously and historicaly for Luther writ that history so consideratly and prolixly that I still acknowledg be writ it seriously and according to the truth of the histor But then he adds that Luther had bin a protestant before that Conference and that the Deuills drift was to make Luther despair for hauing said Mass prayed to saints c. But this is impertinent and fals impertinent because our dispute is not of the Deuills intention but of his instruction and whether Luther did well in embracing either before or after his revolt from vs the Devills doctrin fals because vntil that Disputation Luther sayd Mass almost every day as sathan objects to him speaking somtyms in the present and was then no protestant for the only point wherin he differed then from Catholiks was about Indulgences and euen that he maintained more out of a pick and pride then Judgment as appears by what hath bin sayd in the beginning of this section Wherfore Joannes Regius in his Apology against Belarmin saith that the Devills instruction is no argument to confute Luthers doctrin because though it was the Devill that instructed him he instructed him according to the word of God and the Devills speak truth somtyms especialy when they speak that which the Scripture witnesseth This in my opinion is the worst of all other evasions 1. Because the Devill seldom or never applies the words of Scripture to the right sence when he tempted our Savior though he quoted Scripture yet he was no true Interpreter therof Now what ground Protestants can have to believe that the Devill hath altered his ould custom or why they should prefer the Devills Scriptural interpretation before that of the visible Church Councells and Fathers is not intelligible 2. It is not credible that if all the visible Church of Christians did err in professing Popery and committed Idolatry by hearing Mass and adoring the Sacrament that the Devills would dissuade them from that Idolatrous Religion his design and desire is to seduce men not to reduce them to the way of saluation 3. It is not likely that God would compel the Devill to be chief instrument of reforming the Catholik Religion and Church in the ould law he never committed so great a charg unto him he employd holy men and Prophets to convert the Iews and Pagans 't is strang that in the law of grace the Devil should become an Apostle When Dives who was but the Devills Camerade desired leave to come into the world and preach to his Brethren God did not judg him a fit Messenger or Missioner it was answered that his brethren ought to believe Moyses and the Prophets that is the Church and the Ministers therof And though this be a parable it contains real doctrin wherby we are instructed that Gods Church would never be so low brought as to stand in need of Preachers from Hell Seing therfore we have so many reasons to conclude that God would not make the Devill an Apostle or a Reviver and Reformer of the Ghospell Protestants can have none to believe that the doctrin and Reformation which Luther received from him is true or agreable to Scripture Doctor Morton late Bishop of Duresme to proue ad hominem against us that the Deuill doth persuade men somtyms to piety and by consequence that Luthers reformation might be pious though the Deuill instructed him therin objected Delrius a Iesuit affirming that the Deuill appeared to an Abbot in the forme of an Angel and persuaded him to say Mass. Therfore if the Mass be good as Catholiks say the Deuill may and doth exhort men to vertuous actions To this I answer 1. That our question is not whether the Deuill may somtyms persuade men to
do things of themselues good we know he may but when he doth it is always with an euill design and to the end good things may not be well don but that the manner of doing them may vitiat their goodness This Delrius in the place cited by M. r Morton says and proues by many exemples wherof the Mass is one But M. r Morton wilfully conceals and mistakes the truth of the story for Simon the Monk whom the Deuill endeavored to persuade to say Mass was neither Abbot nor Priest but only Diacon as Delrius sheweth and therfore he answered the Deuill that none ought to say Mass without the order of Priesthood and by his aduice to the contrary he was discouered to bee the Deuill though he appeared like an Angell Without doubt this was a Lutheran Deuill and perhaps the same that dissuaded Luther from the Mass because Luther learnd of him amongst other points of the reformation that lay men and euen women are Priests and may consecrat the Sacrament preach and absolue from sins Hauing sincerely related this matter of fact in Luthers own words and not concealed any thing that any of the most learned Protestants could say to interpret or excuse the same and nothing appearing wherby his instruction in protestancy by the Deuill may be denyed or justifyed I leaue it to the consideration of all wise and Religious persons whether it be policy or piety to promote a Religion whose confessed Author or Apostle is Sathan So long as the generality of a people can be made belieue that Luther did seriously and of set purpose belye himself and discredit his own reformation or that the Deuill is a sincere Interpreter of Scripture and Scripture interpreted by him is the word of God so long I say as these Nations can be made belieue so impossible things without doubt both the protestant Church and state may thriue by protestancy but how long so unlikly a persuasion will continue amongst inquisitiue though ignorant people is vncertain as also the greatness grounded thervpon It hath gained more ground in England then could be expected considering the ingenuity of the Natiues but Q. Elizabeths interest went a great way in the begining of her Reign euery Courtier and countrey gentleman expected by giuing his vote in Parliament for reuiuing the Protestant Religion wherby alone she could pretend to be legitimat her fauor and rewards out of the Church liuings and in her long continued gouernment their Children were made belieue that her Reformation was not the work of Cecil but of Christ And euer since their posterity haue bin confirmed in that opinion by false Translations of Scripture and falsifications of Councells and Fathers as shall herafter appeare It s strang so improbable a persuasion can beare such sway and beat down the Catholick truth But as the Deuill insisted most vpon discrediting the Diuine Sacrifice of the Mass in his Disputation with Luther so the Protestant Clergy striue to make that holy Mystery to be lookt vpon by their flock as a blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit We hope notwithstanding that the English Laiety will reflect upon the occasion of their mistake and consider whether it be not a grieuous sin and great folly to preferr Q. Elizabeths temporal interests which now is turned into dust before that of their souls and Whether any thing can be so vnreasonable as to giue more credit to the Deuill and to Martin Luther and his followers debauch't and dissolute Friars and Priests then to the holy Doctors and Martyrs of Christs Church euer since the Apostles in their acknowledgd writings and in general Councels who call the Mass the visible Sacrifice the true Sacrifice the dayly Sacrifice the Sacrifice according to the Order of Melchisedech the Sacrifice of the Body and Bloud of Christ the Sacrifice of the Altar the Sacrifice of the Church and the Sacrifice of the new Testament which succeded all the Sacrifices of the old Testament and that it was offered for the health of the Emperor for the sick upon the Sea and the fruits of the earth for the purging of houses infected with wicked Spirits for the sins of the liuing and dead And this is so undeniable that our learned aduersary Crastoius in his book of the Mass against Belarmin pag. 167. reprehended Origen S. Athanasius S. Ambrose S. Chrysostom S. Augustin S. Gregory the great and venerable Bede for maintaining the Mass to be a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the liuing and of the dead And if there can be no policy of state as things now stand in the English Monarchy to make Q. Elizabeths legitimacy and supremacy a matter or ground of Faith I am sure it cannot be Christian piety to press and preferr the reformation which she and her faction introduced for that reason of state against the Stewards before the Religion of all the ancient and learned Fathers of the Catholick Church though we had no other exception against it but that all the wit and learning of Protestants cannot make it probable in any degree that the Deuill is not the Author of Protestancy SECT III. Of the principles and propagation of Protestancy LVther after his Conference with the Deuill hauing resolued upon that Foundation of his Reformation which hee had learnt from so godly a Master endeauored to gaine as many Poets Players Painters and Printers as he could to discredit with Scoffing Ballads Pamphlets Poems and Pictures the Roman Religion which untill then had bin caled and esteemed the only Catholick and Apostolick and to divulge his nâ—w Doctrin amongst ignorant and vicious People For encouragement of the dissolute Clergy to ioyn with him he taught against the doctrin and practise of the whole Church euer since the Apostles as shall be demonstrated that Priests and professed Nuns might mary and to giue them good example he took a professed Nun for his owne wife And prevailed with this doctrin more then Iouinian the heretik For this liberty together with his principle of justification by only faith drew from sundry parts of Europe incontinent Clergymen wherof the chief were Caroâ—stadius Archdeacon of Wittemberg Iustus Ionas head of a College of Canon Regulars Oecolampadius a Monk of S. Brigits Order Zuinglius a parish Priest Martin Bucer a Dominican friar Peter Martyr a Canon Regular Bernardin Ochinus a Capuchin and some Augustin Friars of Luthers own Order Each of these hauing taken a wench were engaged in Luthers quarrel against the whole Church But their course of life and the nouelty of their doctrin being dislik't by all men that were not Libertins and not countenanced as yet by any Princes or Prelates it was thought necessary for their own preseruation and propagation of their Ghospell to make it plausible to the giddy multititude whose ignorance they knew to be as capable of incredible impressions as their nature is impatient of
Altar elder for Priest To discredit the worship and honour of Saints they corrupt the words of the Psalm 138. Thy friends O God are become exceeding honorable their Princedom is exceedingly strengthned thus How deere are thy Councells or thoughts to me o God How great is the su'me of them To condemn vows of Chastity as impossible to be performed they translate Matthew 19. v. 11. All men do not receive this saying thus All men cannot receive this saying To assert the Supremacy in King Henry 8. and Edward 6. days they translated thus submitt your-selves c. vnto the King as chief head 1. Peter 2. But in Queen Elizabeths reign because she did not think the title of head of the Church so proper for one of her sex they altered their Scripture and translated To the King as having preheminency or as superiour But when King James obtained the Crown and seemed to affect much the supremacy then Scripture spoke according to his humour to the King as supreme To excuse many of their corruptions and falls Translations Doctor Whitaker writ a book wherin he endeavored to shew that some Greek and Hebrew words might be taken in that sense which the English Translators gave them but he never could prove that the profane and Poetical signification wherunto the Translators and he had applyed them could make sense in holy scripture nor be accommodated to ecclesiastical disciplin and Divine doctrin And therfore Doctor Reynolds in his reprehensions of Whitaker's works proves the absurdity of his defence and of the English Translations by this example Suppose saith he that a yong spruce Minister should step into the pulpit and exhort his Parish to prepare them-selves for the holy Communion and the Anabaptists for baptism according to the stile and phrase of the English Protestant scripture wherin Priest is caled elder Church Synagogue holy ghost holy wind Lord Baal Master raine Baptism washing soule carcas Because they had rather bury Christ's soul with his body or deny that he had a soule then confess it went to Limbus Patrum and therfore they also translate Hell grave Sacrament secret Beelzebub lord of afly Angells Messengers The Minister therfore who according to the proper and ecclesiasticall sense of these words might have spoken sense thus I that am your Priest placed in this Church by the holy Ghost for the feeding of your soules do denounce vnto you in the name of Christ our lord and Master that vnless your soules be regenerated by Baptism and prepared for the Sacrament of the Altar you shall be condemned body and soule into hell and your portion shall be with the Devills I say with Beelzebub and his Angels the yong Minister I say in steed of this godly exhortation which might move the Audience to devotion must in his own scriptural language move the parish to laughter thus I that am your elder placed in this synagogue by the holy wind to the feeding of your Carcasses do pronounce vnto you in the name of the anointed our Baal and raine that vnless your Carcasses be regenerated by washing and prepared for the secret of the Table you shall be condemned body and carcass to the grave and your portion shall be with the slanderers I say with the lord of a fly and his Messengers Let none therfore admire if Doctor Gregory Martin so celebrated for his knowledg in the Hebrew and Greek tongues which he taught in Oxford should conclude his Treatie of the English corruptions of scripture with this zealous reprehention of the Protestant Clergy of his Nation Are not your scholars think you much bound vnto you for giving them in steed of God's blessed word and holy scripture such translations Heretical Judaical profane false negligent fantastical new naughty monstrous God open their eyes to see and mollify your hearts to repent of all your falshood and treachery both that which is manifestly convinced against you and can not be denyed as also that which may by some shew of answer be shifted of in the sight of the ignorant but in your consciences is as manifest as the other For my part J will not say much to the Protestant Clergy with any great hopes of their conversion there must by more of Divine inspiration then of human persuasion in bringing men to acknowledg corruptions so abominable in themselves so advantagious to the Contrivers Continuers an Connivers and so much applauded by the poore souls that are seduced My rhetorick is not sufficient to persuade bloud and flesh to recounce the Peerage and profit of their Bishopricks and Benefices and reduce them-selves their wives and Children to their former despicable condition and then either to beg their bread or rely for a lively-hood vpon the charity of those whom they had deceived by their doctrine or disobliged by their censures To attempt so difficult an enterprise would argue as much vanity in me as it doth folly in lay Protestants that thinck them-selves safe in conscience and sufficiently informed of the way of saluation by asking a Protestant Bishop or Minister whether he be a Cheat or which is the same thing whether the doctrine wherby alone he can live and hope to thrive in this world be not sufficient to save the soule Few men will confess their guilt or pronounce an infamous sentence against them-selves though they be guilty neither will it be a tollerable excuse in the day of Judgment for any discreet Protestant to say that he made Judges of his Religion no indifferent but indigent persons that have no other interest credit or lively-hood but to preach and maintain Protestancy whether it be sufficient or not sufficient for saluation the Bishop or Minister lives by saying it is sufficient and the true Religion I can not deny but that some Protestant Bishops and Ministers have recanted and repented their errors but few before they were summon'd out of this world by approaching death or before they had lost their interest and hopes by the violence of warr and the vicissitude of times Wherfore seing the Protestant layty hath so much reason to doubt either of the sincerity oâ— sufficiency of their Clergy in matters of a Religion without which their Ministers can not subsist few of them having either patrimony or a trade let them be pleased at present only to consider whether it be more credible that St. Hierom the greatest Doctor of God's Church and the most skilfull in the three languages wherin Scripture was writen who lived in the primitive times whem perhaps some of the original writings of the Apostles were extant or at least the true and authentick copies in Hebrew and Greeck better known then now they are a man that renouncd ' the pleasures and profits of this world retiring him-self to deserts where he employ'd days and nights in his devotions and study of the Scriptures let them be pleased I say to consider whether it be more credible that a Translation made or received by this most
then by the Churches which they planted Protestants contemn all these rules and because there was never any Church in the world which professed the same faith that any of their Reformers preach't or them-selves now profess they are necessitated to except against all Testimonies of ancient Fathers and Councels and against the continual and common consent of all Christian Churches concerning the proper sense of Scripture delivered to the primitive Christians and will be judg'd therin by none but by them-selves and by their own fancy of Scripture They all follow this rule of Luther the first Reformer which he layd as the foundation of all Protestant Reformations The Governours of Churches and Pastors of Christ's sheep have indeed power to teach but the sheep must judg whether they propose the voice of Christ or of strangers c. Whefore let Popes Bishops Councels c. decree order enact what they please we shall not hinder but we who are Christ's sheep and heare his voice will judg whether they propose things true and agreable to the voice of our Pastor and they must yeeld to us and subscribe and obey to our sentence and censure Luther tom 2. Wittemb cap. de Sacra Script fol. 375. And because B. p Jewel in his challenge thinking that none durst answer or accept it appeal'd to the holy Fathers of the first ages and was thervpon immediatly convicted of hypocrisy and impostures he was grievously reprehended by his own Prelatick brethren as injurious to him-self and as one who had given the Papists too large a scope and after a manner spoyl'd him-self and the Church see Doctor Humfrey in Iewel 's life edit Londin pag. 212. and the same also in Fulk's retentive against Bristow pag. 55. Ever since that foile the Prelatiks have bin more wary and one of their greatest Champions Bilson Bishop of Winchester in his true difference between Christian subjection c. part 2. pag. 353. saith in plain termes The people must be discerners and Judges of that which is taught How contrary to Luther's Reformation was the doctrin of the primitive Church and Fathers we may judg by these words of Gregory Nazianzen in the oration wherin he excuseth him-self for having bin long absent from his flock and not exercised his function Vos Oves nolite pascere Pastores neque super terminos eorum elevamini satis enim est vobis si recte pascimini nolite judicare iudices nec legem feratis legis-latoribus c. Now let any man who hath common sense be Judg whether it be in the least degree probable that not only the illiterat Protestants but even their greatest Doctors and their first Apostles Luther Calvin Cranmer c. should know better the true sense of Scripture that was delivered to the first age then they to whom those of that age told what they were taught by Christ and his Apostles or then the second which told the third what they were taught by the first and so from generation vntill Luther and Calvins tyme. That every age gave this favorable testimony to the subsequent of the sense of Scripture which it delivered can not be denyed otherwise none would have received their sense of Scripture or their doctrin as Divine whether they were sincere in delivering their testimony is the question And because none questions it but Luther Calvin c. and their followers vntill we see be ter evidence and a more cleere cause of their reformed principle and knowledg of the visible Churches apostasy then their privat spirit or Luther and Calvins new and extravagant interpretations of Scripture we dare not condemn the whole ancient visible and Catholick Church nor concurr with it's declared enemies in so rash a judgment as to affirm that the Church betrayed it's trust and posterity which rash judgment is the ground of the Protestant Reformations S. Athanasius in lib. de Decretis Nicen. Synod contra Euseb. Ecce nos quidem ex Patribus ad Patres per manus traditam fuisse hanc sententiam demonstravimus vos autem O novi Judaei Caiphae filii quos tandem nominum vestrorum potestis ostendere progenitores S. Gregor Nazian ep 2. ab Chelid Absconditam post Christum sapientiam nobis annunciant rem lacrymis dignam si enim triginta his annis fides originem habuit cum quadringenti now 1600. fere anni ab eo tempore fluxerint quo Christus palam conspectus est inane tanto tempore fuit Evangelium inanis etiam fides nostra Martyres quidem frustra martyrium subierunt frustra etiam tales tantique Antistites populo praefuerunt St. August de vtilit credendi cap. 14. saith to the Manichees what we may to the Protestant Reformers Vos autem tam pauci estis tam turbulenti tam novi nemini dubium est quoniam nihil dignum autoritate proferetis Seing therfore the Roman Catholick sense of Scripture hath for the space of 1600. years bin delivered by the visible Christian Church from age to age as the true meaning of God's word and that the Protestant sense of Scripture was never accepted of by any but condemned Hereticks and even in this last age was delivered but by a few turbulent and disagreeing persons and obnoxious â—o many exceptions much diminishing the credibility of their testimony it is at least 16. to one not only in the number but also in the quality of the witnesses that the Roman Catholick sense of Scripture is true and the Protestant false and by consequence the Protestants have no Scripture to maintain the doctrin wherin they differ from Roman Catholicks SECT VI. Protestants mistaken in the Ministery and Mission of their Clergy in the Miracles of their Church in the holiness and honesty of their Reformers ALbeit God was able to call justify and confirm the elect without any mediat means yet as Protestants confess he was pleased not to accomplish the same otherwise then in and by the ministery of his Church Therfore S. Paul tells vs Ephes. 4.11.12.13 that Christ hath placed in his Church Pastors and Doctors to continue to the consummation of Saints till we all meet in the vnity of faith The chief of these Pastors and Doctors are the Bishops vnto whom as the same Apostle testifieth it belongeth to govern God's Church Act. c. 2â— These Bishops must succeed not only in Doctrin but in caracter to the Apostles which caracter is the ordinary ministery or vocation discern'd and received by imposition of Episcopal hands 1. Tim. 4. But because Luther was only a single Priest and Calvin as most say not so much as a Priest and that both despaired of Episcopal and Priestly succession they resolv'd to remedy that want by saying that the caracter of Priests and Bishops was not distinct from that of Baptism and wheras Luther's ordination or ordinary vocation in the Roman Catholick Church was to preach the doctrin which he had receiv'd from that Church and not his new
by faith in Christ not by good works which they in no wise did affect We Catholicks do not pretend to have no evill-livers in our Church but this we may say with truth and I hope without offence that the difference between Protestant and Catholick â—â—â—ll-livers is that when Protestants sin they do nothing but what they are encouraged vnto by their justifying faith and the other principles of their Religion but when Catholicks sin they go against the known Tenets of their faith and profession Even our Pardons and Jndulgences how-ever so plenary are so far from encouraging vs to a continuance or relapse of sinning that they involue as a precedent and necessary condition a serious and sincere repentance of our former offences and afirm purpose and resolution of never returning to the like crimes and after all is don we pretend to no such vndoubted certainty of being pardon'd either by confession or Indulgences because we are not certain whether we do al as we ought as Protestants presume to have of their justification and saluation by only faith The nature of this justifying faith and of other Protestant principles considered We Catholicks have reason to thanck God that the prudence â—f the Prince and moderation of his Ministers is so extraordinary that it keeps the indiscreed zeal of a multitude so strangly principl'd if not as much with in the limits of Christianity and civility towards their fellow subjects as were to be wished yet so that the execution of the sanguinary and penal statuts is not altogeather so distructive as the Presbiterians and others endeavor Untill the generality of these Nations reflect vpon the impiety of the first Reformers and vpon their own mistakes in preferring the mad fancies of a few dissolute Friars concerning the nature of Christian faith before the constant Testimony and doctrin of the whole visible Church we cannot expect that they who govern so mistaken a multitude can make justice the rule of the publick Decrees which depend of the concurrence and acceptance of men whose greatest care is to promote Protestancy and persecute Popery SECT IX Protestants mistaken in the consistency of Christian faith humility Charity peace either in Church or state with their making Scripture as interpreted by privat persons or fallible Synods or fancied general Councells composed of all discenting Christian Churches the rule of faith and Iudg of Controversies in Religion How every Protestant is a Pope and how much also they are overseen in making the 39. Articles or the oath of Supremacy a distinctive sign of Loyalty to our Protestant Kings LVther Zuinglius Calvin Cranmer and all others that pretended to reform the doctrin of the Church of Rome seing they could not prove their new Religions or Reformations by testimonies from antiquity or by probability of Reason were inforc't to imitat the example of all Heretiks who as S. Austin says l. 1. de Trin. c. 3. endeavour to defend their falls and deceitfull opinions out of the Scriptures If on shall ask any Heretick saith that ancient Father Vincentius lyr l. 1. cons. Haer. c. 35. from whence do you prove from whence do you teach that I ought to forsake the vniuersal and ancient faith of the Catholik Church Presently he answereth scriptum est It is written and forthwith he prepareth a thousand testimonies a thousand examples a thousand authorities from the law from the Apostles from the Prophets This shift is so ordinary and notorious that Luther him-self postill Wittemberg in 2. con 8. Dom. post Trin. fol. 118. Dom. post Trin. fol. 118. affirmeth the sacred Scripture is the book of Heretiks because Heretiks are accustomed to appeale to that book neither did there arise at any time any heresy so pestiferous and so foolish which did not endeavor to hide it self under the vaile of Scripture And yet Luther Calvin Cranmer c. finding nothing to say for them-selves either in History or Fathers and seing Tradition so cleerly bent against them that they could not name as much as on Parish or person which ever professed their protestant doctrines they appeal'd from the word of God proposed by the visible and Catholick Church and Counâ—â—ls to their own Canon and Translations of Scripture and from that sense of Scripture which the Church and Councells had follow'd for 1500. years to that which their own privat spirit temporal interest or fallacious reason diâ—â—â—ted to them-selves and so did others that followed their examples making every privat Protestant or at least every reforâ—â—d Congregation Judg of Scripture Church Councells and Fathers In so much that Luther tom 2. Wittemberg cap. de Sacram. fol. 375. setteth down this rule for all Protestants to be directed 〈◊〉 The Governors of Churches and Pastors of Christ's sheep 〈◊〉 indeed power to teach but the sheep must judge whâ—â—â—er they propose the voice of Christ 〈◊〉 of strangers c. Wherfore let Popes Bishops Councells c. decree order enact what they please we shal not hinder but we who are Christ's sheep and heare his voice will judge whether they propose things true and agreable to the voice of our Pastor and they must yeeld to us and subscribe and obey our sentence and censure Calvin though contrary to Luthâ—â— in many other things yet in this doth agree as being the ground wherupon all protestant Reformations must rely in his lib. 4. Institut cap. 9. § 8. he says The definitions of Councels must be examined by Scripture and Scripture interpreted by his rules and Spirit The same is maintained by the Church of England as appears in the defence of the 39. Articles printed by authority 1633. wherin it is sayd pag. 103. Authority is given to the Church and to every member of sound judgment in the same to judg controversies of faith c. And this is not the privat opinion of our Church but also the judgment of our godly brethren in foreign Nations And by Mr. Bilson Bishop of Winchester in his true difference c. part 2. pag. 353. The people must be Discerners and Judges of that which is taught How inconsistent this doctrin is with Christian faith is evident by the pretended fallibility and fall of the visible Church which all Protestants do suppose and must maintain to make good the necessity and lawfullness of their own interpretations and Reformations For if the Roman Catholik and ever Visible Church may and from time to time hath erred as the Church of England declares in the 39. Articles no reformed Congregations whether Lutheran Presbiterian or Prelatick can have infallible certainty but that them-selves have fallen into as great errors as those which they have pretended to reform in the Roman Church And if they have not infallible certainty of the truth of their reformed doctrin they can not pretend to Christianity of faith that involves an assurance of truth which assurance is impossible if that the Church can be mistaken in it's proposall So that Christianity of faith including
to vote in Parliament or trusted with any employment in the state who professeth not the prelatick Protestant Religion and swears not the Supremacy and Alleigance And yet we see how litle this Religion and oaths wrought vpon the generality of these Kingdoms or availed the late King None that vnderstands the genius of the English Nation will believe that by nature they are so base and treacherous as of late the world hath observed Therfore what they have don amiss so contrary to the generosity and honesty of their dispositions and to the rules of Christianity must be attributed to their Religion Wherfore it must be concluded that any outward sign though it be but a red scarf or garniture of ribands of the King's colours doth engage and confirm more the subjects and souldiers in their duty and loyalty then the 39. Prelatick Articles and the oath of supremacy A Rebell or Roundhead may t' is true weare the King's colours but not with so great danger to his Majesty or dommage to the publick as when he professeth the King's Religion Very few Englishmen will fly from the King's colours they once weare and profess to esteem but many that profess the 39. Articles will fight against the Prelatick interpretation therof for their own privat sense and against that of the King and Church of England So applicable are the 39. Articles to all dissenting Reformations and so pliable to every Rebellion that is grounded vpon any pretence of Scripture SECT X. How the fundamental principles of the Protestant Reformations maturely examined and strictly followed have led the most learned Protestants of the world to Iudaisme Atheisme Arianisme Mahometanisme c. and their best modern wits and writers to admit of no other Rule of Religion but Natural Reason and the Protestants Churches of Poland Hungary and Transilvania to deny the Mystery of the Trinity SEbastian Castalio termed by Osiander in epitom pag. 753. Vir apprimè doctus linguarum peritissimus Ranked by Doctor Humfrey In vita Ivelli pag. 265. with Luther and Zuinglius and placed by Pantaleon in Chronographia pag. 123. amongst the Fathers and lights of the Church this great and learned Protestant having considered the Prophecies mentioned in Scripture of the conversion of Kings and Nations by the Christian Church and of it's happy state splendor and continuance and compared all with the very foundation and first principle of protestancy to wit with the protestant supposition of a generall apostacy and fall of the visible Church from the true faith and their remaining in superstition and idolatry for so many centuries of years together with the invisibility of the Protestant Church vntill Luther and by consequence it 's not converting any visible Kings or nations from Paganisme to Christianity having I say maturely considered these things was so perplex'd and doubtfull in point of God's providence and veracity that he came at length to believe nothing as may be seen in his Preface of the great latin Bible dedicated to K. Edward 6. where he saith verily we must confess eyther that these things shall be performed herafter or have bin already or that God is to be accused of lying If any may answer that they have bin performed I will demand of him when If he sayd in the Apostles time I will demand how it chanceth that neither then the knowledg of God was altogether perfect and after in so short space vanished away which was promised to be eternall and more abundant then the flouds of the sea And concludeth the more I peruse the Scriptures the less do I find the same performed howsoever you vnderstand the same prophecies Martin Bucer one of the primitive and prime Protestants And an Apostle of the English reformation of whom Sir Iohn Cheek K. Edward 6. Master says the world scarce had his fellow and whom Arch-bishop Whitgift in his defence c. pag. 522. termeth a Reverend learned painfull sound Father c. this great Bucer after his first Apostasy from his Dominican order and Catholik Religion became a Lutheran afterwards a Zvinglian as appaereth in his epistle 〈◊〉 Norimb ad Essâ—ingenses Then he returned again to be a Lutheran as may be seen in the Acts of the Synod holden at Luther's house in Wittemberg an 1539. and in Bucer's own Comentaries vpon the 6. John and 26. Mathew where he asketh pardon of God and the Church for that he deceived so many with the error of Zuinglius and the Sacramentarians And notwithstanding this open repentance he returned again to the same Zuinglianism in England and therfore is reprehended by Schlusselburg in Theol. Calv. lib. 2. fol. 70. At length seeing the incertainty of Christianity wherunto by protestancy he had driven him-self and others that stuck to it's principles at the houre of his death he embraced Judaisme as they who were present therat testify saith Prateolus pag. 107. He declared long before to Dudley Earle of Warwick that he doubted whether all was true that the Evangelists relate of Christ. wherof see hertofore part 1. David George who for many years had bin a pious and publik Professor of Protestancy at Basil and called a man of God for his notorious charity to the poore and sick considering and comparing the aforesaid doctrin of protestancy with the prophecies of Scripture concerning the visible Church became a blasphemous Apostata and affirming our Saviour to have bin a seducer drew many Protestants to his opinion convincing them by their own principles and this argument Jf the doctrin of Christ and his Apostles had bin true and perfect the Church which they planted should have continued c. But now it is manifest that Antichrist hath subverted the doctrin of the Apostles and the Church by them begun as is evident in the Papacy therfore the doctrin of the Apostles was falls and imperfect Bernardin Ochin one of them whose opinions were Oracles to the Composers of the 39. Articles of Religion and the liturgy of the Church of England so much celebrated for his learning and piety that the Protector Seamor and Arch-bishop Cranmer called him out of Germany to help them in their Protestant reformation termed by Bishop Bale a light of the Church and England happy whilst it had him miserable when it lost him highly commended for learning and virtue by Simlerus and Sleydan l. 9. fol. 297. and by Calvin l. de scandalis c. This Ochin whom as Calvin writ all Italy could not match this light whose presence made England happy and whose absence made it miserable this very Ochin considering well the principles of protestancy became a Jew concluding that Christ never had a Church vpon earth When I did saith he in praefat Dialogorum consider how Christ by his power wisdom and goodness had founded and established his Church washed it with his bloud and enriched it with his spirit and again discerned how the same was funditus eversa vtterly over thrown I could not but wonder
1260. years And pag. â—4â— From the time of Constantine vntill these our days even 1260. years the Pope and his Clergy hath possessed the outward visible Church of Christians And their chief Doctors ingeniously acknowledg that their Churches were either so obscure or so opprest that notwithstanding their own serious examinatiâ—â— and diligent search into all histories both sacred and profane they can not find in the space of at least 1300. years as much as a record or Tradition of any on person to beare witness that their faith sense of Scripture or Reformation was preach't by Christ and his Apostles Sebastianus Francus in ep de Abrog Statutis ecclesiast saith Statim post Apostolos c. Presently after the Apostles times all things were turneâ— vpside down c. And that for certain through the work of Anti-christ the externall Church togeather with the faith and the Sacraments vanished away presently after the Apostles departure and that for these 1400. years the Church hath bin no wher externall and visible Peter Martyr so much commended by Calvin and sent for by Cranmer to help to frame the Religion of the Church of England pag. 462. of his work de caelibatu votis saith as for the judgment of the Fathers because our Adversaires the Papists both in this and other controversies are accustomed to appeale to them J do not think it the part of a Christian to appeale from the Scriptures of God to the judgments of men And pag. 476. So long as we go no further then the Councells and Fathers we shall always remain in the same errors This Sophister would faine make Protestants believe that the question is whether the Fathers sense of Scriptures ought to be preferred before the sense of the Protestants them-selves confess that both Councells and Fathers are contrary to their interpretation Whitaker on of the learned'st Protestants that ever writ answering Duraeus and acknowledging the truth of the assertion coms off with this poore evasion l. 7. pag. 478. Jt is sufficient for us to know by conferring the Popish doctrin with Scripture that they do not agree let Histories say what they list So litle do the Ecclesiastical Annals favour Protestancy that never any point therof is mentioned without mentioning also how it began and was comdemned as heresy Now let Protestants examin our Roman Catholick witnesses we do not stop as they must at the last age 1500. we produce in every Century of years the most eminent persons for Sanctity and learning that then lived who not only professed our faith living but also dying as by the Traditions of all Christendom their own writings and the confession of our Adversaries is manifest wherof the Divines of Magdeburg hertofore quoted writ copiously in their Centuries These Fathers and Doctors of the Church in each respective Century delivered the Roman Catholick faith to the next succeeding not as a privat opinion of their own but as the publick pure primitive Apostolick saith which they had received as such from the precedent age confirmed by the vnanimous testimony of their known Catholick immediat Predecessours What exceptions or objections can Protestants pretend against the holy and learned Fathers so impartial Iudges and witnesses They could not be ignorant of what was the publick and vniversal faith or Church in their times and they were men of so great integrity that they would not for any temporal interest conceale the truth in a matter wherof depended eternity They were not angry saith S. Augustin disputing against the Pelagians advers Julian l. 2. prope finem lib. 3. c. 17. lib. 4. c. 12. neither at you or vs what they have found in the Church that they have holden they have taught what they have learn't what they have received from their fore-fathers they have delivered to posterity The most learned Protestants decline the Fathers judgment and testimony for no other reason but because they find them to be Roman Catholicks in their writings so that the question is not whether they by for vs but whether their testimony for vs averring that the Roman Catholick sense of Scripture is the same which Christ and his Apostles deliuered ought to be preferred before the contrary testimony of Luther Calvin Cranmer or of the other Convocations and Parliaments of England of Edward 6. and Queen Elizabeth who prove not their reformed sense of Scripture by ancient tradition but by a new arbitrary interpretation of Scripture And in what Court of Judicature would such an vncertain guess pass for a legal proof Wheras tradition is the only evidence wherby the greatest civil controversies even of regal successions and titles are decided in the Protestants Courts Therfore it ought not to be excluded as superfluous or superstitious from the Church SVBSET III. AS to their exception that the Roman Catholick Church is but a part and ought not to be judge of all other Christians we answer that not by all Christians but by on part were all controversies in the Church decided since the Apostles times and the other part which did not submitt to the judgment of that one in matters of faith and disciplin were censured hereticks That the Judgment and censures in all ages were issued but by on part and this the Roman Catholick party that lived in communion with the Bishop of Rome and the Councells that acknowledged his jurisdiction we prove by the confessed examples of every Century In the first the controversy of the legal ceremonies was determined by S. Peter and the Apostles in a Councell wherin S. Peter presided Act. 15. In the second Century the Christians were divided about celebrating E'aster the controversy was decided by S. Victor Bishop of Rome as S. Peter's successor and because the Churches of Asia would not conform themselves to his sentence he excommunicated them Euseb. l. 5. hist. c. 23. 24. And though S. Irenaeus approved not of S. Victor's severity yet he never questioned his jurisdiction or supremacy or the legality of his censures And because some Christians persisted obstinatly in not conforming to the Pop's Decree of celebrating Easter they were for that obstinacy declared hereticks and as such numbred in Catalogues by S. Epiphanius haeres 50. S. Augustin haeres 26. and by Tertullian de praescript in fine and called Quarto-decimans In the third Century by the Pope Cornelius and his Roman Councell the Novatian heresy was condemned Euseb. ex versione Rufini lib. 6. histor cap. 33. and though there were not as many Bishops in that Roman Councell as at Trent yet the whole Church thought the authority sufficient and legal to declare the Novatians hereticks The same Pope and Stephen his Successour condemned such Christians as thought and taught that they who had bin baptised by hereticks ought to be rebaptised In the forth Century the Arian heresy was condemned by the Councell of Nice wherin were but 318. Bishops whose testimony was thought sufficient and legal against a far greater
in a protestant Commonweale or Kingdom wherby the very foundation and birth-right of Protestancy is made penal and the most Religious observers of the protestant rule of faith are rendred incapable of all employments both in Church and state And that all this violence is practised to support a Creed the 39. articles of a doubtful sense and a Clergy of a doubtful caracter even according to their own prelatick principles and according to the primitive principles of protestancy and to vphould a Church that professeth it's own fall and fallibility and therfore for all it self knows is no true Church but may be mistaken in it's doctrin and lead all that rely vpon it's ministery and instruction into eternal damnation and can give no satisfaction or security to such as are of their communion nor produce any thing for justifying the severity of these proceedings but a Parliaments Act of vniformity and other temporal statuts To which every Presbiterian and fanatick doth answer that lawes enacted in favor of Religion do suppose not make the Religion reasonable for though reason be the ground of all human lawes yet no human lawes can be the ground of Religion When all this is maturely considered it will doubtless appeare to be a sad case that a poore man who desires to be saved and informed of the true Church and of Christ's doctrin and conform himself therunto shall be compell'd by forfeitures imprisonment and banishment c. to the prelatick doâ—trin and Church of England and shall have no other reason 〈◊〉 redress given him for this violence and punishments but that he doth not conform to the Religion established by the lawes of the Land So much was alleadged for the Idolls and Religion of the Pagan Emperous and vpon the same ground of law did they persecute the primitive Christians Doubtless all Quakers Presbiterians and non Conformists think themseves as glorious sufferers as the holy primitive Martyrs and Confessors which persuasion in so great and zealous a multitude can not be voyd of daunger and ought to be remedyed more by reason then rigor for though from Roman Catholicks whose principles are peaceable and incline them to suffer persecution with patience no great prejudice may be feared if they will be directed by their profession yet experience hath taught that all Protestant sectaries have inherited from their first Patriarchs Luther Calvin Crammer c. the spirit of sedition and rebellion which is involved in the very foundation of protestancy Luther openly declared so much at the Diet of Worms in presence of the Emperour Charles 5. Who had objected against him tumults and disorders as vndeniable effects of his doctrin misapplying the words of our saviour Non veni pacem mittere sed gladium as if dissention and rebellion had bin a mark of the true Ghospel On the other side the Presbiterians do imitate the bloudy proceedings and principles of their 〈◊〉 Fathers Zuinglius and Calvin in deposing of Kings and Magistrats and make good the saying of Zuinglius Evangelium vult sanguinem the Reformation must be maintained by bloud So that the sanguinary statuts in favor of prelatick protestancy and the bloudy principles of Presbitery in in pursuance of their seditious spirit clashing togeather will make fine work among Christians and the prelatick Clergy which ought by their admonitions and censures to compose these disorders and be Authors of peace are despised as no Clergy and their caracter is made the subject of discord and dispute And the Protestant Bishops which ought to exercise the authority whervnto they pretend retire and recurr to the 〈◊〉 Courts for the spirituality as well as for the legality of their jurisdiction and function and confess in plain termes their Churches frailty and fallibility in doctrin and leave the state to shift for it self deprived of thâ—â—â— helps which Catholick Princes receive from the Roman Church and Clergys censures wherwith rebellious subjects are terrified and 〈◊〉 or return to their duty SVBSECT I. NEither is the daunger of disturbing the tranquillity of the state for supporting the Prelatick doctrin and caracter by temporal lawes confin'd only to Presbiterians and Fanatiks the Prelatiks them-selves if interest prevaile not more with them then conscience and coherency can not but change their Religion into a contrary persuasion when they observe that the mean between Popery and Presbytery wherin they place Prelatick protestancy and the truth of christianity hath no solid foundation or colour of reason For what can be more absurd then to pretend that as moral virtue is a mean or mixture of two extremes so the truth of Christian Religion is a mean between two contrary opinions or a mixture of Popery and Presbitery which are two extremes involving contradictory Tenets Morality I confess is a mediocrity and a kind of Mixture For liberality for example doth seeme to participat some thing of covetousness and some thing of prodigality which are extreme different but Christianity being truth and Divine truth is no mean between the two but one of the two extremes it is no mixture because truth admits no mixture of falshood nor division it can be but on one side Therfore when a Presbiterian or Fanatick saith that Scripture is the only rule of faith and Judge of Controversies the Catholick sayes it is not not both but one of them speaks truth Yet the Prelatick would fâ—ain stand like a Christian moderator or neuter between both parties and reconcile their Contradictions by reducing them to a third doctrin or to a mean between truth and falshood and the mean is to grant both the contradictory propositions and collogue with both sides And indeed that is the mean wherin Prelatick Protestancy doth consist when their writers defend it against Presbiterians they grant the doctrin of Papists when they answer and 〈◊〉 against Papists they maintain the doctrin of Presbiterians for there is no other mean to reconcile or be reconciled to contradictions but to maintain both And this was the custom of Luther Calvin Cranmer c. and is the ordinary practise of the ablest Prelaticks in their books of Controversy I remit you to one of their greatest Champions my Lord Bishop of Down in his Dissuasive from Popery you need not run through the whole book read but his first Section and you will heare him say first that Scripture alone is the foundation or rule of faith and after that it is not Then again that it is nothing els but Scripture together with the Creeds and the foure first Councells It is as impossible therfore that a 〈◊〉 man should be in his judgment a Prelatick Protestant as it is he should believe that God revealed contradictions Wherfore if interest and conveniency hath not a greater 〈◊〉 vpon his profession of faith then conscience or coherency even to the principles of the Reformation he will not continue a prelatick nor make temporal statuts his rule of faith but will either according to the prudent
his soule how that being a zealous Protestant and very familiar to the Earle of Leicester in the beginning of this Queenes dayes when M. r Iewell 's Book was newly come forth and being also learned himself in the latin tongue took paines to examin several leaves therof and finding many falshoods therin which were inexcusable as they seemed to him he conferred the same with the Earle who willed him that the next time M. r Iewell dined at his table he should take occasion after dinner to propose the same which he did soon after and receiving certain trifling answers from M. r Iewell he waxed more hot and urged the matter more earnestly which Iewell perceiving told him in effect that Papists were Papists and so they were to be dealt with all and other answer he could not get which thing made the good Gentleman make a new resolution with himself and to take that happy course which he did to leave his Countrey and many great Commodities which he enioyed therin to enjoy the liberty of conscience for salvation of his soule The second example which I remember of my own knowledge is M. r Doctor Stevens a learned man yet alive who being Secretary or Chaplyn to M. r Iewell for I remember not well whether and a forward man in Protestant Religion at that tyme espied certain false allegations in his Master's Book whilst it was yet vnder the print in London wherof advertising him by letters for that he supposed it might be by oversight the other commanded notwithstanding the print to go forward and passed it over as it was which this man seeing that had a conscience and sought the truth indeed resolved to take another way of finding it out and having found it in the Catholick Church where only it is to be found he resolved also to follow it and so he did and went voluntarily into banishment for the same where yet he liveth vnto this day in Finance with good reputation both of learning and godliness The third example that I call to mind is the worthy man before named M. r William Reynolds who being first an earnest Professor and Preacher of Protestant Religion in England he fell in the end to read over M. r Iewell 's book and did translate some part therof into latin but before he had passed half over he found such stuff as made him greatly mislike of the whole Religion and so he leaving his hopes and commodities in England went over the sea into these parts and the last yeare of Iubily to wit 1575. he came to Rome and brought that book with him and presented both himself and it to the Tribunal of Inquisition of his own free motion and accord c. And himself after absolution received from his former errors which he with great humility and zeale required and myself also at that time did speak with him in that place he returned into France and Flanders and there lived many years with singular edification for his rare virtue and learning and how heartily indeed he was converted may well appeare by his zealous writings both in Latin and English in defence of Catholick Religion Thus much the Author of the three Conversions I am credibly informed by a person then present that Primat Bramhall and some of his Majesties Chaplains who now are Bishops persuaded or endeavored to persuade our most gratious Soveraign Charles 2. who was then at Bruges that this Doctor Reynolds was made a Papist by disputing with an other Doctor Reynolds whom he intended to make a Protestant And that the Roman Catholick Doctor Reynolds at the same time turned Protestant Some think this story was feigned to make the King believe that there is as much to say for the Protestant religion as for the Catholick And to the end his Majesty might not reflect vpon the falshood of a Religion forsaken out of meere conscience by it's greatest Doctors when they were most applauded and when they had reason to expect the richest Benefites and greatest honours From the Apology of the Church of England we will pass to John Fox his Acts and Monuments a Book no less commended by the Protestant Clergy then the former because by frauds and lyes it serves their turn to foole the well meaning Layty who take it to be a true Ecclesiasticall History of the persecuted Church of Christ. SECT V. Frauds follies and falsifications of Iohn Fox his Acts and Monuments and of his Magdeburgian Masters in their Centuries the litle sincerity of the English Church and Clergy in countenancing such falls dealing AFter that Luther and Calvin's desperat shift of the invisibility of Christ's Church for more then a thousand years before their pretended reformations had bin evidently confuted as not only impossible but as repugnant also to Scripture which compares the Church to a Citty placed vpon a mountain and a shining Sun c. Their schollers vndertook to shew a succession of the Protestant Church and to that purpose some drunken Germans as any sober man must judge them to have bin by their writings whose names were Flaccus Illyricus Joannes Vigandus Matheus Judex and Basilius Faber met togeather in some warme stoue of Magdeburg and there tipling took vpon them to Iudge of the writings doctrin and miracles of all the ancient Fathers from the first Century to the last Of the very next Century to the Apostles these merry Companions were pleased to give this Censure in the very title of the Chapter Inclinatio Doctrinae complectens peculiares incommodas opiniones stipulas errores Doctorum quae palam quidem hoc est scriptis tradita sunt The declining of Christ and his Apostles doctrin conteining the peculiar and incommodious opinions of Doctors their errors straw and stubble which were left publickly by them that is to say in their writings And thus they Censure St. Iraeneus Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Methodius c. saying they abuse and wrest the Scriptures intolerably and grossly to favor popish opinions These foure merry saxons reprehend Ignatius St. Iohn's scholler for vsing the phrase offerre sacrificium imâ—olare St. Cyprian for saying sacerdotem vice Christi fungi Deo patri sacrificium offerre St. Martial scholler of the Apostles saying sacrificium Deo Creatori offertur in Ara. Martial in Ep. ad Burdegal and so all other points wherin Protestants and Catholicks do disagree calling the antient Fathers stubble Doctors the same they say of St. Basil Lactantius Gregory Nissen Hilary Nazianzen Ambrose Ephrem and Hierom c. and pretend their doctrin to be against Scripture and the Miracles they relate to be either forged or Diabolicall or at least wrought by God to punish the credulity of Christians But the errors of ancient condemned Hereticks to be the true and sincere primitive faith and produce no other proof for this their drunken foolery but their own presumption and privat interpretation of Scripture Wherfore Valentia a learned Jesuit
the King as chief head in Q. Elizabeth who affected not the title of head of the Church as having preemiâ—â—â—â— because King Iames insisted much vpon a spiritual supremacy they translated to the King as supreme To maintain this error that Priests may have wives they translate 1. Cor. 9. v. 5. for woman wife as if St. Paul had bin married wheras it is evident in the 7. chapter of this same Epistle v. 8. that he was not married I say therfore to the vnmarried and widdows it is good for them if they abide even as I. And the same word which here they translate wife in cap. 7. v. 1. they translate woman because St. Paul saith there it is good for a man not to touch a woman but here to translate wife was not for their purpose In the same Epistle cap. 11. v. 2. contrary to both Greek and Latin they translate for Keep the Traditions as I have delivered them to you Keep ordinances c. 1. Cor. 15. v. 10. they add to this text I have laboured more abundantly then all they yet not I but the grace of God with me they add I say the grace of God which is with me 〈◊〉 that where the Apostle rather sayd the grace of God laborred whiâ—h him and consequently he with the grace of God which proveth 〈…〉 they by adding which is to the Text 〈◊〉 have it seeme that the Apostle did nothing at all but was moved like a thing without liâ—e or will and thus they prove by Scripture the Protestant errors Ephesians 1. v. 6. For he hath gratified vs 〈◊〉 â—â—lde vs gratious or conduct us with graâ—e they translate 〈◊〉 hath made vs accepted in the beloved against inherent grace in favour of the Protestant error of imputative justice Epist. Philip. cap. 4. v. 3. For sincere Companion help those women c. They translate true yoke-fellow help those woman tâ— make men believe that St. Paul had recommended those persons to his wife who indeed had none 1. Cor. 7. v. 8. Nothwithstanding the discipline of the Church of England is contrary to that of the Calvinists because reason oâ— state and the constitution of Parliaments requireth Bishops yet the doctrin therof is Zuinglian and Calvinian in most points and Doctor Abbots Archbishop of Canterbury who had the greatest hand in correcting the Bible by King Iames his order was Calvin's great admirer as may be seen in his books One of Calvin's blasphemies against Christ is that he feared and suffered the paines of hell nay and despaired vpon the Cross and in that sense doth explain his descent into hell admitting of no other That this blasphemy might be authorised by Scripture Cranmer and the whole Clergy and Church of England after him in their edition of Tyndal and Coverdales Bible an 1562. in the epistle to the Hebrews chap. 5. vers 7. corrupt St. Paul's words speaking of Christ praying vpon the cross He was heard for his reverence thus he was heard in that he feared to maintain their blasphemous paradox that our Saviour should have feared and felt the paines of hell vpon the Cross. To confirm also this wicked doctrin and confute Lynâ—◠〈◊〉 jâ—â—trum and Purgatory Dr. Abbots Archbishop of Cant. and the other Translators of the Bible corrupt 1. Pet. 3. v. 〈…〉 for wheras the words of Scripture are quickened or alive 〈…〉 or soule in the which spirit comming he preached 〈…〉 also that were in prison They translate quickned by the spirit by which also he went and preached vnto the spirits 〈…〉 This Translation was so gross that Doctor Montaguâ— â—ishop of Chichester and Noâ—wich reprehended for it Sir Henâ—â— will to whose care the translating of St. Peter's epistle committed but Sir Henry Savill told him plainly that Doctor Abbots and Dr. Smith Bishop of Glocester corrupted and altered the Translation of this place which himself had sincerly performed In pursuance of this their Calvinian heâ—â—sy and corruption they pervert the Text of Gen. 37. v. 35. translating graue for hell Protestants denying more places for soules after this life then heaven for the just and hell for the wicked and being ashamed to say that the holy Patriarch 〈◊〉 was damned or that he despared of his saluation when he sayd I will go down to my son into hell mourning Gen. 37. 〈◊〉 35. They translate I will go down into the grave vnto my 〈◊〉 mourning and rather then confess a third place and by consequence Purgatory after this life they father non-sence vpon Iacob and the Holy Ghost as though Iacob thought that his son Iosâ—ph had bin buried in a grave whereas Iacob thâ—ught and sayd immediatly before vers 33. an evill beast hath devoured him And therfore he must necessarily have meâ—â—â— that he would dye and go where he thought the soule of his son Joseph to be which was neither in heaven for then he would rather have ascended thither Ioyfull then descended to any place mourning neither did he mean the hell of the damned for that had bin desperation but to a low place where the lust soules then remained which was called Lyâ—nâ—â—â— Patrum or Abraham's Bosom the way of the holies as Saint Paul speaketh being not yet made open because our Saviour Christ was to dedicat and begin the entrance in his own person and by his passion to open heaven Tertullian lib. â—â— advers Marcâ—â—â— saith I know the bosom of Abraham was 〈◊〉 heavenly place but only the higher Hell or the higher part of hell from which speech of the Fâ—ther◠〈…〉 afterward that other â—ame Lymbas Patrâ—â—â— that is the very 〈◊〉 or vppermost and outmost part of hell where the Fathers of the Old Testament rested The words of St. Peter 2. 〈◊〉 1. v. â—5 And I will do my diligeâ—â—â—â— to have you often after my decease also that you may keep a memory of these things seemed to Protestants so plain in favour of his praying for the Christians after his decease that King Iames his Translators change them into these Moreover I will endeavor that you may be able after my decease to have these things alwayes to remembrance We ask Protestants why do they wrest this place of the Psalme and corrupt Scripture against the honour which ought to be given to Saints Psalme 138. Thy friends O God are bâ—â—ome exceeding honorable their prinâ—edoâ— is exceedingly strengthned which is Saint Hierom's translation from the Hebrew confirmed by the great Rabbin R. Salomon and the Greek Textâ— and never excepted against by any learned Father of the Church vntill the Protestant Translators were pleased to alter it thus How pretious are thy thoughts 〈◊〉 O God how great is the summe of them as if multiplicity of thoughts were an admirable excellency in God wheras his 〈◊〉 admitâ—s not many but rather one comprehensive knowledge without composition and therfore the Holy Ghost would not have sayd of them in the next verse that they are more in number then the Sands which expression may
conclude what censure themselves deserve for being obstinat against our doctrin and for running with the appearance of sense against the express words of Scripture confirmed by so supernatural and visible a miracle as our not condescending or assenting to that evidence which we as men are naturaly inclined to follow It is an vndoubted Maxim wherin both Catholicks and protestants agree that God only can work vpon the soul while it is in the body immediatly without the help of our senses or without making impressions vpon the Organs therof The Devil can not suggest or convey hereticall opinions into our minds otherwise then by so tempering the objects and tampering with our senses that the soul doth willfully though vnwarily embrace deceitful appearances for real truths His whole power and art consists in humoring the soul in its mistake of these sensual appearances and allurements making them to seem vnquestionable evidences for it would quite destroy his drift and spoil his market if the soul did suspect a fallacy or at least reflect vpon the vanity of sensual objects and appearances Wherfore he always inculcats that the best rule in matters of faith is not to contradict or contemn vpon any score whatsoever the experiments and appearances of sense Even in Paradise before mans soul was wounded and weakned he attemped and compassed the fall of our first Parents by a fallacy grounded vpon the evidence or appearance of their senses against Gods word and warning God told them they should dye if they did eat of the forbidden fruit but by the sight and tast of the forbidden fruit the Devil wrought so vpon their souls that they believed him and their senses and preferred that fallacious evidence before Gods express word And if Sathan prevailed with them in the state of innocency to judge of divin revelations rather by their own senses then by the literal sense of Gods word how vnlikely is it that after such success he will tempt their posterity in a contrary manner or that he will suggest to men that they ought not to believe their eyes and senses in the Controversy of Transubstantiation but rather rely vpon the litteral sense of Christs words This is my Body Seing therfore it is a strange and singular miracle that so many pious and learned men of different tempers interests times and Nations after so frequent and serious debates in a matter wherupon depends their eternal happiness should without any present or prudent advantage or allurement resolve to contradict their own senses and curb their nature and inclinations of judging according to their sight tast c. and that this great miracle can not be attributed to the Devil whose suggestions and impressions reach not the soul vnless they be conveyed through our senses and our selves consent to the sensual solicitations and appearances wherwith Sathan doth assault and allure us it followeth that our Roman Catholick resistance and resolution of not condescending to those solicitations and of not crediting such appearances must be a miracle of God and the effect of his supernatural grace not of the Devil or of any natural power of our own So that our adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and our belief of Transubstantiation which are the things Protestants most except against in the Catholick Religion if they reflect vpon them will be found to be supernatural miracles and convincing motives for their Conversion to our Roman Catholick Faith Let Protestants number also the particular doctrins wherin they differ from Roman Catholicks and observe how our belief and practise in such particulars go against sensual appearances and pervers inclinations and they will find we have as many visible miracles as there are doctrinal and practical differences in our Church from Protestancy To these may be added the general signs or marks of the Church as our vnity in faith the continuance and vniversality of our doctrin our Apostolical succession our conversion of Nations to Christianity c. No Protestant can rationaly deny that every one of these is a visible and supernatural miracle which can be as litle attributed to human industry as to chance or fate For if they might how comes it to pass that not one of these signs can or could ever be found in any other Congregation of Christians but ours This much I thought fit to say not to satisfy the curiosity but the conscience of them who desire to see any one vndeniable miracle that favors Popery And albeit any one true miracle doth confirm the whole doctrin of our Roman Church yet J will set down more then one for confirmation of most particulars wherin we differ from Protestants and begin with what we have in hand concerning Transubstantiation and the adoration of Christ in the Sacrament which our Adversaries pretend to be a kind of Idolatry for that our selves confess the Species or accidents of bread and wine do remain and they are creatures by us adored together with Christ. Our common and constant answer wherunto no reply can be given is that we adore the Species no more when we adore Christ in the Sacrament then the Apostles and others who conversed with him vpon earth adored his cloak or cloaths when they adored himself SECT II. Of true miracles related in the Ecclesiastical Histories by men of greatest authority in every age to confirm the particular mysteries of our Catholick faith and that sense of Scripture wherin Roman Catholicks differ from Protestants THere is not any thing so evident which is not questioned by obstinate and interested persons The Protestant layty in regard of their education are fixt in the maintenance of Protestancy the clergy are interested because it is their livelyhood Let Catholick miracles be never so visible or credibly reported Protestants look vpon them as mistakes and that can be for no other reason but becaus themselves are setled in a prejudice against the doctrin of the Church of Rome The Authors that relate Popish miracles are credited in all other matters and esteemed â—udicious persons but when they come to that point they must needs loos their witts or be judged Jmpostors To avoyd this Cavil or confute the Calumny J have fixed vpon Authors whose wisedom and integrity hath never hitherto bin called in question even in points of doctrin and the sole denial of whose Testimony is held to be a sufficient evidence of heresy or foolery in the person that contradicts it and of weaknes in the cause that can not be maintained without so vnreasonable a contradiction And seing they are credited in matters of faith J hope they deserve credit in matters of fact Of miracles related by St. Chrysostom St. Gregory Nazianzen St. Austin St Nylus St. Cyprian the Martyr St. Gregory the great St. Optatus and others in confirmation of Transubstantiation Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament the Sacrifice of the Mass Communion vnder one Kind Prayer for the Dead and Purgatory A Certain venerable old man saith St. Chrysostom to
can divert the Layty from entertaining any thoughts of curiosity or scruples of conscience in order to the examination of this matter of so great importance and can make them believe that K. Henry 8. passion to Ann Bullen was a just cause to introduce the Reformation and to assume the Supremacy or that the Earle of Hartfords ambition of being absolutly Protector of England quite contrary to K. Henry 8. Testament and to his own Oath of not assuming any power above his Collegues and Tutors of K. Edward 6. was a divin inspiration to bring in Zuinglius his Sacramentarian Religion into the Realm or that the Duke of Northumberlands poysoning the yong King and excluding the next and lawfull heirs from the Crown to conferr it vpon his own own son and the Lady Iane Grey pretending therby to promote his new Zuinglian Ghospell was the work of the holy Ghost Or that Q. Elizabeths murther of the Q. of Scots and her Parliaments Decrees and endeavors to preferr any natural issue of her body to this Empire before the legitimat and immediat Heirs the Stevards and therby to continue her prelatick Protestancy were things lawfull according to the principles of Christianity and Catholick faith If the Protestant Clergy I say can persuade the layty that all this was lawfull and agreable to the doctrin which Christ and his Apostles did preach either they have an abundance of wit or they that believe them very litle judgment A great wit maintained that they may as well make Mahomets Alcoran a plausible Religion in England and gain therby as great revenues as they do by their Reformation and Protestant Scripture wherof neither the Canon letter or sense is that which God delivered to his Church as heretofore hath bin proved I do not speak in rallery sayd the gentlemen but seriously when I say that men who believe the Protestant Religion to be true may be induced by the same persons and the like reasons to believe that Mahometisme is the true Religion This hath also bin solidly proved by Doctor Reynolds in his Calvino-Turcismus and by others also when they demonstrat that Calvinism and Turcism agree in the principall points and every one knows that the doctrin of the 39. articles of the Church of England is the quintessence of Calvins doctrin and was by him applauded though he said that as to Point of disciplin there were many tolerable fooleries in in that Church and Lyturgy But let us pursue the Gentlemans parallel of Mahomet and his doctrin with our English Reformers and their doctrin and we shall plainly see that there is as much reason to believe Mahometism as prelatick Protestancy and that both these Religious were planted and propagated by the same means nay that it is more to be admired how our Countreymen became Protestants then the Arabians or Armenians became Turcks When Mahomet began to preach his doctrin in the East Christianity there was so discredited by being divided into sects and into so many heresies of Arians Manichees Nestorians c. that men were disposed by that diversity of opinions to follow any new Religion especialy that of Mahomet becaus he borrowed something from every Sect and as the 39. Articles of the Church of England agree in some fundamental points with Catholicks and also with hereticks so Mahomet agreeth in the worship of one God with Iews and Chriâ—tians and in the doctrin and worship of Christ he comes at â—eer to Christianity as most Arians and Nestorians or the Antitrinitarian Protestants of Hungary Poland c. nay as Bp. Morton and some other Prelaticks But when Luther in Germany and Cranmer in England began Protestancy all the west and Latin Church agreed in the Roman Catholick faith no other Religion was regarded and the â—emnants of Wickleff and Hus were hissed out of the world at least were nothing so considerable any where as the above mentioned heresies had bin in the East when Mahomet began there to preach his Alcoran So that if heresy or apostacy can have any excuse Mahometism in its begining was more excusable then Protestancy by reason of the more considerable divisions that then were among Christians in matters of doctrin then when Luther began his Reformation Now let us come to particular reflexions vpon both Mahomet retained some parts of Scripture as well as Protestants and had as good grounds to reject what he did not fancy of the letter and sense therof as Protestants have to be choosers of their own Canon and interpretation Mahomet gives as many rules of Morality as Protestants and though he allows of many wives Protestants do the same with this only difference that Mahomet says t is lawfull to keep many at once Protestants say you must keep but one at a time and that you cannot have the variety of wives men so much desire without the formality of a divorce how litle is requisit for the validity and legality of Protestant divorces we have proved heretofore by the authority and principles of the first Reformers and the dayly practises of their Successors In all other things Mahomets sect is more austere in fasting praying abstaining from wine c. then Protestancy And becaus both agree in the incoherency and absurdity of their principles both also agree in planting propagating and defending their doctrin not by miracles or rational arguments but by force and sanguinary statuts And this is the reason why Catholicks are as litle permitted to dispute or reason for the Roman Religion in these Kingdoms as Christians in Turky and Priests are as much perseeuted for writing books of Controversies as Printers and Stationers and severely punished Thus much as to the paralell of both doctrins But If we compare their persons or vertues we shall find that Mahomet was an honester man and deserved more credit then Luther Calvin Cranmer or any of the first Protestant Reformers He never was baptized at least never professed any Religion vntill he composed his own with the help of an Arian Monk but all the first Reformers had first professed the Catholick faith which afterwards they renounced pretending that God had forsaken his Church for many ages and presumed to say that he had authorised and inspired them to reform without shewing any warrant that doctrin vnto which their betters in learning vertue and judgment actualy submitted as vnto the true Catholick and themselves also had embraced as such vntill their pride and lust prevailed against their conscience Mahomet married a Widdow and had made no vows not to marry the first Reformers married Nuns and themselves also were votaries Calvin only excepted but his incontinency was no less scandalous and notorious then theirs having lived in adultery with a Gentlewoman of Mongis that left her husband at Lansanâ—â— to enjoy Calvins Company at Geneva who attempted also to commit the like sin with the Lady â—ollande of Bredrode wise to a sickly Nobleman called Iames Borgongue Lord of
Protestants None could ever prove there was one true miracle wrought to confirm the Protestants doctrin or their pretended authority for reforming the Tenets of the Roman Catholick Church Protestants are forced to say that miracles are ceased and that ours are Diabolical or counterfeit Because no true Bishops were Protestants and by consequence they could have no Priests ordained and so their Priesthood must have perished after the death of the first Apostatas Luther and others the Protestant reformers and Churches taught that all Christians are Priests both men and women and this doctrin is supposed to be true by the Church of England in their 39. articles and in the Act of Parliament 8. Eliz. 1. SECT IV. OF the Protestant Prelatick Church of England The occasion of K. Henry the 8. divorce from Q. Catharin and of his revolt from the Church of Rome was his passion to An Bullen the words of S. Iohn Baptist to Herod concerning his brothers wife absurdly applyed to K. Henrys marriage with his Brothers widdow How zealously he had formerly maintained the Popes supremacy how cruelly he afterwards persecuted the professors therof and how impiously he judged S. Thomas of Canterbury robbed his shrine and burnt his Reliques The Catholick Princes rejected his embasies and solicitations for imitating his example in assuming the supremacy And how much the protestant Princes were troubled and ashamed that he made his lust the motive of his reformation How incredible a thing is the English supremacy K. Henry 8. at length resolved to renounce it and returne to the duty of a Christian King but stood upon such termes and differrd it so long that he died in Schism excommunicated and despairing of Gods mercy His last will and testament was broken before his body was buried The Erle of Hartford made himself Protector and brought into England the Sacramenrian or the Zuinglian heresy against K. Henrys last will and the lawes of the land then in force without a Parliament and contrary to the votes of the Erles of Arundell and Southampton and others of the 16. Trustees named Governors by K. HeÌ„ry 8. during the minority of Edw. 6. SVBSECT I. HOw Seamor was directed and destroyed by Dudley Duke of Northumberland The sayd Dudley notwithstanding he was a Catholick in his judgment as himself confessed at his death concurred to establish protestancy in England designing therby to vnsettle the state and make way for excluding the right heirs of the Crown and crown his own family which he effected by excluding Q. Mary for being a Catholick and by marrying his Son to the Lady Jane Grey who had no other right to the Kingdom but what her Zeal to the Protestant Religion and Clergy gave her What wicked men and great cheats were Cranmer and his Camerades that composed the 39. articles of the Protestant Religion of the Church of England and the common prayer book that of Sacraments Rites and Ceremonies and how the common people were made believe the change was not of Religion but of language SECT V. OF the 39. Articles of the Church of England they contain only some general notions of Christianity and are applicable to all dissenting Sects of Protestancy as Presbytery Zuinglianism c. The design of the composers having bin rather to give men a liberty of not believing the particulars of Christian Religion then of tying them to any certain points therof or to any faith therfore they declare that the visible Church is fallible and determin no certain canonical Scripture of the new Testament They make the doctrin that Luther learnt of the Devil against the Mass Tradition and praying to Saincts c. part of their Creed as also the Tenet against spiritual Caracters of Episcopacy and Priesthood art 25. rejecting imposition of hands as not instituted by Christ. In the 2. last Articles they endeavour in vain to suppress the errors of Anabaptists especialy that of appropriating to themselves other mens goods in vain I say because in their former articles they declare its lawful for Protestants to dispossess the Roman Catholick Clergy of their goods and dignitys by vertue of a privat interpretation of Scripture and the Anabaptists pretend no more but that its lawfull for themselves to deal after the same manner with Prelaticks and t is certain there can be no disparity given So that the two last articles of the 39. as also that of the authority of the Protestant Clergy are against an evident parity of reason in their own Protestant Principles SECT VI. A Particular account of the revolutions which these 39. articles caused in England and how they may work always the same effects if there be such politick and popular heads amongst us as Dudley Crumwell and many of the last long Parliament Q. Maries Reign how much endangered by Protestant designs and rebellions Duke Dudleys speech at his death The Roman Catholick Religion restored by Act of Parliament and the Protestant decreed to be Heresy and Schism as also the force and frauds of K. Henry 8. divorce discovered and his marriage with Q. Catharin of Spain declared valid The Roman Clergys resignation of the Church revenues to the Crown and present possessors Q. Elizabeths intrusion against the right of the Steward 's effected by the zeal of the Protestant faction for suppressing of Popery SECT VII NOtwithstanding that Q. Elizabeth was declared illegitimat by 3. Acts of several Parliaments never yet repealed she possessed herself of the Croun and excluded the Queen of Scots the lawfull and immediat heir to Q. Mary lately deceased By the advice of Cecil and others she revived Protestancy and the Supremacy therby to excuse her illegitimacy She instituted a new Kind of Clergy the Prelatick Protestant Bishops neither had nor have any other caracter of Episcopacy but what the great seal and her temporal laws give them Any Lay person may consecrat a Bishop of the Church of England if he hath the Kings commission to do it all other things being superfluous according to the Act. 8. Eliz. 1. and 25. article of the 39. How the Oath of supremacy divided Protestants and made the Catholicks more constant The simplicity of some Protestant writers pretending that the Pope offered to confirm the English liturgy if Q. Elizabeth would acknowledge his jurisdiction SECT VIII REasons why Q. Elizabeth in her long raign could not settle her Protestant Religion nor gain credit for the Prelatick Clergy Neither is it possible for her Successors to make the generality of her subjects to have any esteem for either SECT IX HOw injurious and prejudicial the Protestant Religion hath been to the Royal family of the Stevards and how zealous they have bin and still are in promoting the same It preferred not only Q. Elizabeth but also any natural child of hers before the line of the Stewards Wherof see the 8. sect â—in How dexterously K. James played his game and how they who murthered his mother were forced to invite him to the Crown
of England Of his design to reform the principles and liberty of Protestancy intending therby to render it less dangerous to lawfull Soveraigns and Monarchy How K. Charles 1. pursued his Fathers design but his sufferings and death demonstrat the impossibility of confining the Protestant liberty within the rules of Government or reason By the fundamental principles of Protestancy every particular person is a Supreme Iudge in spiritual affairs and may more easely apply and abuse that prerogative to the prejudice of his Soveraign then the Pope can his papal Supremacy Therfore it s a great providence of God when any Protestant King of England escapes to be judged and deposed by his Subjects THE SECOND PART OF the vnreasonableness of Protestancy and of the inconsistency of the principles of Protestancy with Christian piety and peaceable government SECT I. THe vnreasonableness and inconsistency of Protestancy with Christian piety or policy proved by the very fundamental principle of all Protestant reformations which principle is a supposition of the fallibility and fall of the visible Catholick Church from the pure and primitive doctrin of Christ to damnable errors and notorious superstition Such a change is demonstrated both incredible and impossible SECT II. THe Protestants proof of such a change is their pretended cleerness of Scripture It is demonstrated that their Sense of Scripture is not clear in any texts controverted between Catholicks and Protestants That the principles of Protestancy incline to vice the Catholick principles to vertue proved in many particulars The invisibility of the Church a ridiculous comment SECT III. THe Protestant letter and Sense of Scripture is not the word of God Doctor Cossins his Scholastical History of the English Canon of Scripture confuted as also his exceptions against the authority of the Roman Catholick Canon The Lutheran Churches of Germany agree not with the English Canon of Scripture SVBSECT I. DOctor Cossins now Bp. of Duresme his exceptions against the Councel of Trent answered The legality of a Councel as well as of a Parliament may stand with the absence of many members if they were summoned and expected The absurdity of Protestant writers excepting against the want of Bishops in the Councel of Trent wheras themselves made new Religions and reformations by a Single voice of Luther Zuinglius Calvin c. and in England by the vote of the major part of twelve persons named by the Parliament to determin matters of faith and Sacraments seaven men were thought sufficient to do the work and cast the Roman Catholick Religion Protestant Bishops can no more pretend to sit and define in a general Councel then proclaimed rebells can pretend to vote in a lawful Parliament It s as reasonable the Bishop and Church of Rome should condemn hereticks and judge all controversies of faith as it is that a King and Parliament condemn rebells and judge suites in law A new definition of Pope or Councel is no new article of faith it is only a declaration of our obligation to believe that which formerly had bin revealed but not sufficiently proposed Doctor Cossins his egregious falsification of Belarmin his wresting words of St. Austin and St. Hierom. SECT IV. THe Protestant translations of Scripture are fraudulent and fals no certainty of Christian faith can be built vpon them Protestants admit no Coppy or translation to be authentick to the end they may be at liberty to reject what they do not fancy of the letter of Scripture as well as of the sense The vulgar Latin is authentick Scripture How corrupt are all English Bibles How in K. Edward 6. his reign Cranmer and the first Apostles of English Protestancy changed the very text of Christs words This is my body three several times Protestants make the Apostles fallible in doctrin even after receiving the holy Ghost and by consequence must hold their writings or Scripture to be fallible SVBSECT I. MAny particular instances of Protestant corruptions in the English Bibles to asert the Protestant and prelatick doctrin of the Church of England Against images Against Ordination by imposition of hands Against the single life of Priests Against the Sacrifice of Masse Against vowes of chastity To favor the Kings Supremacy How fondly these corruptions are excused by Whitaker and how absurdly Scripture is made speak according to the Protestant translations What small hopes there are that a Clergie which corrupts Scripture or continueth and countenanceth corruptions of Scripture will repent or recant their errors and how little reason the Protestant layty hath to rely vpon their Clergys sincerity or vpon their English Scripture SECT V. THe Protestant interpretation is not the true Sense of Scripture The principal part of Gods word is the sense he delivered to the Church together with the letter It s against reason to believe that the Church would be more carefull of preserving the letter then of preserving the sense of Scripture and therfore Protestants are vnexcusable for taking the letter from the Roman Church and rejecting the sense The holy Fathers bid us receive the Sense of Scripture as well as the letter from the Church An infallible mark of heresy to do the contrary It is at least 16. to one that the Roman Catholick Sense of Scripture is true and the Protestant fals SECT VI. NO Protestant Church hath a true Ministery Miracles Succession of doctrin or Sanctity of life Their extraordinary vocation is ridiculous and incredible it being impossible that God should send Ministers to contradict doctrin confirmed with so many signs of his own authority and approbation as the Roman Catholick is God never sent such vitious men as the Protestant reformers were to reform his Church either in the old or new Testament If the Protestant doctrin had bin true God would have wrought miracles to confirm it for the conversion of the seduced Papists as Protestants confess he doth for the conversion of the Jndians Iaponians and China What wicked men were Luther Zuinglius Calvin Beza Cranmer and the rest of his Camerades that framed the Religion and Liturgy of the Church of England and how little credit in matters of faith deserves the Parliament that confirmed the same Calvins miracle at Geneva foretold by Tertullian SECT VII THe conversion of pagan Kings and Kingdoms to Christianity foretold in Scripture is a more cleer sign of the true Church then any other miracles and not to be found in any other Church but in the Roman Catholick acknowledged by learned protestants Of Barlows three-score invisible Queens converted by protestants No greater an absurdity then their invisible Church The vain endeavors of Calvin and other protestants to convert Heathen nations Bezas despair of Success in that Ministery and his advice to protestants to leave that labor to the Jesuits and rather busy themselves at home Tertullians saying that its a sign of hereticks to pervert Christians not convert pagans may be properly applyed to Protestants Their success in propagating their new Ghospel no
6. reign What a wicked man Arch. Cranmer was of Peter Martyr Echinus Bucer Latimer and Ridleys impieties SVBSECT III. OF Hooper Rogers Poynet Bale and Coverdale Hooper and Rogers combined against Crāmer and Ridley How Latimer joyned with them Their Project of Puritanism How Hooper inveighed against plurality of benefices when he had none and enjoyed two Bishopricks when his faction prevailed and left his friend Rogers in the lurch How Rogers and Coverdale conspired with Tyndall to falsify Scripture Bishop Poynets contest and Suit in law with a Butcher about the Butchers wife notwithstanding that Poynet had one of his own But Sentence was given for the Butcher against Poynet contrary to the Principles and liberty of Protestancy and to what the protestant Church had resolved before in the like case between Sir Ralph Sadler and one Barrow whose wife was decreed to be married to Sir Ralph during Barrows life Bishop Bales conversion to protestancy related by himself and attributed to his beloved Dol. What an impostor he was Bish Coverdales drunkenes and corruptions of Scripture How corrupt and vngodly a Scripture is the English translation of the Bible It was condemned by act of Parliament as fraudulent ād fals Notwithstanding which censure it was and is imposed vpon the Nation as the word of God sometimes it was called Mathews Bible othertimes the Bishops Bible or the Bible of the large volume with litle or no alteration Coverdales vanity in attempting to convert to protestancy the Vniversity of Oxford Laurence Sanders a Protestant Martyr and Priest his resolution to dy for legitimating his little bastard SVBSECT IV. ARch Cranmers conference with Doctor Martyn and other Catholicks How weakly he defended the Protestant cause How vainly Protestants pretend Scripture for their doctrin as all heretiks do How Cranmer was proved to be an heretick by the definition of Origen Tertullian c. SECT III. OF the Protestant Clergy in Q. Maries reign the same that afterwards founded Q. Elizabeths Church Their frauds factions cheats and changes of the English Protestant religion during their exile in Germany Related by Dr. Heylin How the German Protestants called the English Protestants the devils Martyrs and would not entertain their banished Clergy and Confessors How therupon the English clergy changed and accommodated their Religion to that of the places wherin they lived and printed books at Frankford and Geneva containing contrary doctrines for humoring dissenting churches How often they changed their Liturgy at Frankford Of Grindall Horn Sandys Chambers Pakhurst Whithead Whittingham Williams Goodman Wood Sutton Fox their frauds factions divisions and books against Q. Mary c. How vnfit men to be Bishops and to found a Church and yet they were the chief pillars and Prelats of Q. Elizabeths reformation SECT IV. ABominable frauds and wilfull falcifications of the protestant Clergy in Q. Elizabeths reign to maintain their doctrin set forth vnder the name of an Apology and defence of the Church of England How Q. Elizabeth gained the Nobility and House of Commons to vote in Parliament for reviving Protestancy Of Bish. Iewells ridiculous challenge at Pauls Cross. How all the Protestant Clergy conspired with him in his impostures How they were confuted by Doctor Harding Stapleton and other Catholicks All the Protestant writers borrow from Jewells impostures their arguments and authoritys against the Roman Catholick Religion Acknowledged by Dr. Heylin in his history of the Church of England SVBSECT I. THe Protestant Clergys fraud and falshood against Communion vnder one kind It was a thing indifferent in the ancient Church Proved by several instances Jewells ridiculous evasions SVBSECT II. JEwell and the Protestant Clergy censure as hereticks the same ancient Fathers they appeal vnto in other controversies for condemning the mariage of Priests They corrupt the Ecclesiastical history for the same reason and bring an example of an imaginary Bishop to confirm their corruption and pretend that S. Gregory Nazianzen says that a Bishop may minister the better in the Church for having a wife in his house and that his own Father was instructed in Ecclesiastical functions by his wife SVBSECT III. IEwell and his Prelaticks charge Cardinal Hosius and all Catholicks with contemning the holy Scriptures contrary to his own knowledge and even after he had bin admonished of the imposture SUBSECT IV. FAlsifications and frauds against the Bishop of Rome his Supremacy scripture falsified to impugne the same SVBSECT V. PRotestants frauds and falsifications to deny and discredit the Sacrifice of Mass. Their pretence that the ancient Mass was the same thing with the English communion or Liturgy Iewells impudency SUBSECT VI. PRotestant falsifications and corruptions of Scripture to make the Pope Antichrist and the succession of Bishops a mark of the beast Q. Elizabeths first Bishops were violently bent against Episcopal Succession because it was notorious that themselves wanted such a succession Want of Succession a mark of hereticks Proved by Fathers SVBSECT VII PRotestant falsifications to prove that Popes may and have decreed heresys SVBSECT VIII ITem to prove that Popes have insulted over Kings SVBSECT IX ITem to prove that S. Austin the Apostle of England was no Saint but an hypocrit as also to discredit Catholick Writers SVBSECT X. PRotestants frauds and falsifications of Scripture as likewise their altering of the 39. articles of Religion to make the laity believe that there are true Bishops and Priests in the Church of England Jtem their forgery of records The Evasions of Primat Bramhal and others concerning their Episcopal succession confuted SVBSECT XI XII AN advertisment to the Reader concerning Bishop Iewell of some learned Protestants converted to the Roman Catholick Faith by discovering the falsifications and frauds of his books Mr. Hookers sincerity questioned for his immoderat praises of so great and notorious an impostor in his Eccles. Polit. A feigned Protestant story of the two Doctors Reynolds How Iewell excused his falsifications in presence of the Erle of Leicester by saying that Papists must be dealt with as Papists SECT V. FRauds follies and falsifications of Iohn Fox his Acts of monuments and of his Magdeburgian Masters in their Centuries The litle sincerity of the English Church and Clergy in countenancing such fals dealing All sober men that read the works of the Magdeburgian Centurists must conclude they composed them rather in drinking stoves then in retired studies so rash and foolish are their censures of the greatest Doctors and Saints of Gods Church Valētia the Iesuit aptly compared these centurists to malefactors that confess all the knowing and honest men of the country or citty witness that they are theeves and hereticks c. And then these malefactors refute all this by only saying that the sayd knowing and honest men so highly esteemed by all the world for their knowledge and integrity spoke incommodiously and ignorantly when they accused the theeves Iohn Fox his absurdity in making the true Church visible to Protestants and invisible to Catholicks What