were true as they are wholly the contrary they can make it appear That the Bishop of Rome was the Successor of S. Peter and not the Bishop of Antioch and whether ever he was at Rome or no 5. Whether they can make it appear That our Blessed Saviour when on Earth exercised such a temporal Monarchy as the Pope now challengeth Confessions of the Popish Doctors in this Case To the first and second Queries it is Confessed by Cardinal Cusanus That S. Peter received no more Authority and then he could not exercise any Authority over his Fellows than the rest of the Apostles To the third and fourth Queries it is Confessed by Aeneas Sylvius afterwards Pope by then ame of Pius II. That the Pope's Succession is not revealed in Scripture and then it cannot be proved jure divino positivo And by Bellarmin That neither Scripture nor Tradition habet allows then farewell Papal Supremacy That the Apostoliok Seat or Chair was so fixed at Rome which I really believe as well as he that it could not be taken from thence And then why might it not be at Antioch or Jerusalom as well as Rome Confessed by him further That as long as the Emperors were Heathen the Pope was subject to them in all civil Causes And That for above One thousand years his Judgment was not esteemed Infallible nor his Authority above that of a General Council Where was then the exercise or acknowledgment of this Supremacy and Infallibility of the Popes Was all the World a-sleep or ignorant so long of this Power which they now challenge to themselves Jure Divino No but the Pope I warrant you had not yet the opportunity to usurp and challenge it as he hath done since To four of these you see they have plainly yielded and the last they can never make good either from Scripture or Ecclesiastical History Add to these the Confession of that Learned Papist Father Barns That allowing the Bishop of Rome to have Supremacy elsewhere yet the Pope hath no Supremacy in Britain Insula autem Britanniae gavisa est olim privilegio Cyprio ut nullius Patriarchae Legibus subderetur And afterwards Videtur pacis ergô retineri debere sine dispendio Catholicismi absque Schismatis ullius notâ What can the Papists say to this so plain an acknowledgment But not designing to treat at large upon the Pope's Supremacy I have not as in the following subjects produced the Testimonies of Fathers and Councils against this Doctrine of Rome but shall advise the Reader to consult herein Bishop Jewel against Harding Article 4. Archbishop Bramhall's Schism Guarded against Will. Serjeant Dr. Barrow of the Pope's Supremacy and the Bishop of Lincoln's Brutum Fulmen who will give him full satisfaction in that point THE CONTENTS Of the following TREATISE SECT I. OF the Scriptures Sufficiency Page 1. SECT II. Of the Scripture-Canon 5. SECT III. Of Invocation of Saints and of the Blessed Virgin 7 Of Image Worship 10. Of Adoration of the Host. 11. SECT IV. Of the Three Creeds and how the Pope imposes new Articles of Faith upon his followers 13. SECT V. Of the number of Sacraments and of Communion in one kind Page 15 SECT VI. Of Transubstantiation 19 SECT VII Of Purgatory 23 Of Indulgences 25 Of the Sacrifice of the Mass. 26 Of Justification by Faith 27 Of Merits Ibid. SECT VIII Of Prayers in an unknown Tongue 30 SECT IX Of the Marriage of Priests 33 Of Auricular Confession 39 SECT X. Of Obedience to Governors 4◠THE Protestant's Companion SECTION I. THE Protestant Church of England our Holy Mother admits of no other Rule for Faith and practice than the Holy Scriptures which according to the Apostles are able to make us wise unto Salvation The Church of Rome doth equal unwritten Traditions with the Holy Scriptures whom some of that Church do call a nose of Wax Another and that no less Man than a Cardinal affirms That the Scripture is no more to be believed in saying that it comes from God than Mahomet's Alcoran because that saith so too Another Cardinal saith That the Scriptures have no authority but for the Decree of the Church they mean the Roman Church by whom it ought to be regulated and not the Church be regulated by it and the reason is because as it is confess'd that the people would easily be drawn away from observing the Church's i. e. Romish Institutions when they should perceive That they are not contained in the Law of Christ and that their i. e. Popish Doctrines are not only different from but repugnant to the Holy Scriptures Hence doth the Church of Rome under severe penalties forbid the Laity the perusal of them and thereby involves every Lay-man in the guilt of being a Traditor which in the first Ages of Christianity was a crime next door to Apostasie Which act doth not only imply That the Popish Church refuseth to be try'd by the Test of God's Word but is diametrically opposite to the practice of the Primitive Christians as appears in the following Quotations The Romish Tenet of slighting the Scriptures is contrary to the Word of God Ioh. 5. 39. 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. Contrary to the Fathers Clemens Romanus Epist. ad Corinth p. 58 61 68. Irenaeus l. 2. c. 47. Idem l. 3. c. 1. c. 2. Tertullian adv Hermogen c. 23. Clemens Alexandrinus Stromat l. 7. Origen in Esai Hom. 2. Idem in Comment in Iosh. p. 27. Id. Homil. in Leviticum 9. Comment in Matthaeum p. 220. Cyprian Epist. 74. Eusebius adv Sabellium l. 2. Constantinus Magnus apud Theodoret. Histor. lib. 1. c. 7. Athanasius in Orat. adv Gentes de Incarn Christi Hilarius ad Constant Optatus l. 5. de Schis Donat. Basil. de Sp. Sancto c. 7. Id. de verà side ac pià fide Tom. 2. Op. Graec. Lat. p. 386. Id. in Ethicis Reg. 16. Tom. 2. Id. Hom. 29. de Trinit Tom. 1. Gregor Nyss. in Dial. de animâ ac Resurrect Hieronymus in Comment in Esa. cap. 19. Id. in Epist. ad Laetam Id. adv Helvid Id. Praefat. Comment in Epist. ad Ephes. Chrysostom 13. Hom. in Gen. Id. Hom. 52. in Ioh. Id. Homil. 4. in Lazar. Id. Hom. 34. in Act. 15. Id. Praefat. in Epist. ad Rom. Id. Hom. 13. in 2 Cor. 7. Id. Hom. 9. in Coloss. 3. Id. Hom. 3. in 1 Thessal Id. Hom. 3. in 2 Thessal 2. Id. Hom. 8. in Epist. ad Hebr. c. 5. Augustin Epist. 3. Id. de Doctrinâ Christi l. 2. c. 6. 9. Id. de Unitat. Eccles. c. 3 4 5 12. Id. Epist. 157. Id. de Bapt. c. Donat. lib. 1. c. 6. l. 2. c. 3. 14. That passage in S. Augustin Ego Evangelio non crederem c. contr Ep. fundam c. 5. is interpreted by these Learned Papists following To be meant of the Primitive Church and those Men
THE Protestant's Companion OR AN IMPARTIAL SURVEY AND COMPARISON OF THE Protestant Religion As by LAW Established With the main Doctrines of Popery Wherein is shewn That Popery is contrary to Scripture Primitive Fathers and Councils and that proved from Holy Writ the Writings of the Ancient Fathers for several Hundred Years and the Confession of the most Learned Papists themselves Whereby the Papists vain pretence to Antiquity and their reproaching the Protestant Doctrines with Novelty is wholly overthrown By a True Son of the Protestant Church of England as established by Law LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Paul's Church-Yard M DC LXXXV ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness 2 Tim. 3. 16. In vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men Matth. 15. 9. But from the beginning it was not so Matth. 19. 8. Non audiatur haec dico haec dicis sed haec dicit dominus Augustin de unit Eccles. contr Petil. c. 3. Id verius quod prius id prius quod ab initio ab initio quod ab Apostolis Tertullian advers Marcion l. 4. c. 5. Id esse verum quodcunque primum id esse adulterinum quodcunque posterius Idem advers Praxeam c. 2. THE PREFACE TO THE Protestant Reader AS we have immortal Souls of infinite more value than all transient glories and sublunary advantages so ought we both in obedience to the tender and compassionate advice of our blessed Redeemer who purchased them with his own dear Blood and out of a true concern for our Eternal Welfare to live such lives here as we may be happy hereafter Pursuant to this excellent design We ought carefully attend to that Holy Religion we have so long professed which teaches no Doctrines that are not agreeable to the Holy Scriptures and to the practice of the best and purest Ages of Christianity A Religion which neither robs God of his Honour nor the King of his due a Religion whose venerable Rites keep a just medium betwixt vain Popish Pomp and Fanatical Indecency a Religion that not only teaches us how to be good but obliges us so to be that is a Religion truly Christian and a Copy of that perfect Original which our Lord and Saviour hath left us for our direction And therefore as nothing ought to be dearer to us so we cannot be sufficiently thankful to his Sacred Majesty whom God preserve for the Gracious assurance he has given that he will support it and defend us in the profession of it A King whose Royal Progenitors of Immortal Memory for above 100 years have not only been the Ornaments but the Supports too of the Protestant Religion His fam'd Grandfather King Iames Learnedly defending it by his Pen and thereby justly meriting the glorious Title of its Defender His Excellent Father dying a Glorious Martyr and his late dearly beloved Brother being a long time Exile for our Reformed Religion Let us then strive to shew that we are not unworthy of so Illustrious and Valiant a Protector by our Loyalty to him not unworthy of such a Religion by our conformity to its Principles in Holiness Sobriety and Charity and a stedfast adherence to it in opposition to any other that will destroy that which our Church hath built upon so sure a Foundation And that we may rightly understand what this Religion is and the difference betwixt that which is established in our Church and what is owned in the Church of Rome I have made the following Collection wherein is demonstrated how contrary the Popish Religion is to our Church and how inconsistent with Scripture the practice of the Primitive and best Ages of Christianity and that prov'd not only from the Writings of the Apostles and choice Records of Antiquity but even granted to be so by the most learned and no less impartial Papists themselves which as it is the testimony of one Friend against another is lookt upon as an undenyable Evidence Before I conclude I must admonish the Reader that I have not rendered the Authors at large but so quoted them that the Learned may examine them nor have I drawn Arguments as usually from them because that would have made this Book design'd for a Pocket-companion to have swell'd into a great Volume yet to make requital for that just omission I have at the conclusion of each Section directed the Reader to other Writers of our Religion which treat of that particular Controversie at large May then the All-wise God by whose Divine permission thus much hath been perform'd so bless this poor labour of his unworthy Servant that it may be instrumental to the good of his Church and the confirming of all our weak Brethren in our most Holy Faith which was the principal design of its publication THE INTRODUCTION THE Church of Rome though she talk aloud of the Antiquity of and an universal consent in her Doctrines is so far from either That therein she will be tied to no Rule nor observe any Law as if she would verifie that Remarque of Crantzius upon her in another Case Nunc ad se omnium Ecclesiarum jura traxit Romana Ecclesia That she hath engrossed to her self all the priviledges or rights of other Churches Her greatest defendants reject the Scripture though given forth by Divine Inspiration and do say it is no more to be believed in saying it is from God than Mahomet's Alcoran c. And good reason why because her Doctrines are repugnant to the Holy Scriptures What then will she trust to Tradition that she equals with the Scriptures themselves And yet her great Annalist Cardinal Baronius who was once as it were a living Library while he kept the Vatican confesseth That he despaired to find out the truth even in those matters which true Writers have recorded because there was nothing which remained sincere and incorrupted This blow given by so skilful an Artist dashes all the Characters wherein the defence of Oral Tradition should be legible And if Tradition in true Writers be so difficult to preserve how can it be expected to be safe from spurious ones or without any Writers at all However though the Papists do not grant that this ruins their Tradition I am sure it cuts off that definition of it by Cardinal Bellarmin who affirms that to be a true Tradition which all former Doctors mind that or then will the Fathers come in for a share have successively in their Ages acknowledged to come from the Apostles and by their Doctrine or Practices have approved and which the Universal Church owns as such Moreover Bellarmin's Definition of Tradition gives us this encouragement and liberty to try Antiquity by Fathers Councils and Papal Decrees For the Fathers I hope the Romanists who boast so much of their being on their party will not refuse
to be try'd by them when Coster and others make such a fine flourish in their pretensions to Antiquity No the Fathers shall not be Iudges of the Papists the Romanists will not be controlled by the Fathers For Cardinal Baronius saith The Catholick Church and this they would have you to believe is their own Church but against all Reason and Sense doth not in all things follow the interpretation of the Fathers This is a fair but modest Confession But Cardinal Bellarmin goes further The Writings of the Fathers saith he are not rules to us nor have the Authority to bind us This is an home thrust and yet Salmeron is more incivil with those Ancient Doctors when he saith That the latter Doctors are sharper-sighted than they and therefore pronounces of many of them at once That we must not follow a multitude to deviate from the Truth I am afraid he gave his own Church a rude blow there for we may turn that Argument of his against the Church of Rome which ever and anon is pleading her great number of Professors To which let us add what another Romanist saith in this point And he tells you That he believes the Pope in matters of Faith before a thousand Augustines Jeroms or Gregories This indeed is plain dealing and no mincing of the matter But then again it is wholly opposite to their vain Pleas for Antiquity and wholly different from the modest procedure of S. Jerome who thinks it great rashness and irreverence presently to charge the Antients with heresie for a few obnoxious terms since when they erred they erred perhaps with a simple and honest mind or wrote things in another sense than they were afterwards taken But if this be all the esteem the Papists have for the Ancient Doctors then adieu to the Authority of the Fathers in the Church of Rome Moreover even the Councils fare no better in the Papists hands For it is usual in their Editions of the Councils to have some printed with this Title Reprobatum or disallowed others Ex parte Approbatum accordingly as they agree or disagree with their Opinions and Interest at Rome Which verifies that smart censure of Ludovicus Vives That those are accounted Decrees and Councils which make for their purpose and all others are no more valued by them than the meetings of some tatling Women in a Weaving Shop or at the Baths But although they reject both Fathers and Councils when they are pressed by the Protestants with their Authorities yet to take away all testimonies of the Fathers from us the politick Council of Trent set up their Indices Expurgatorii which they referred to Pope Pius IV. whose Bull for that end bore date March 24. 1564. And in these Tables they set down what Books were by them forbidden and in which to be purged and what places ought to be left out Thus design'd they that both Fathers and Councils should lisp their Language But though it be contrary to that Rule by which Christ himself was willing to be tried If I bear witness of my self my witnes is not true and contrary to all equity and the old Laws viz. That they which are brought out of our own House ought not to be witnesses for us yet since they have disowned when pressed with strength of Reason and oppressed with Truth the Scriptures the Fathers and Councils We will pursue them to their last fort to wit to the Decrees of their Popes which they so much adore If they gain-say these then Conclamatum est their Case is desperate Well then it must be so for they have rejected the Traditions of old Popes for those of new ones One would have thought that old Friends and old Divines had been the surest and soundest but it is not so at Rome For they have slighted and contradicted that Decree of Anacletus That all who are present at Mass shall communicate That of Pope Gelasius of not taking the Bread alone which honest-man he called Sacrilege and That of Alexander 11. of celebrating but one Mass in one day Which abominable practice of the Roman Church make good that saying of their own Pope Gelasius Quaero ab his judicium quod praetendunt ubinam possint agitari an apud ipsos ut iidem sint inimici testes Judices Which signifies in short that they would be both Enemies Witnesses and Iudges in their own Cause as being Conscious to themselves of such Errors as will not bear the test nor can be defended without such foul play Who then can safely trust the conduct of his Salvation to that Church of Rome which refuseth to be tried by the Word of God by the Ancient Fathers by General Councils and even by the Decrees of her pretended Spiritual Heads But because in the following Book I have produced the Testimonies of the Fathers voting against Popish Doctrines it will not I judge be unnecessary to subjoyn That although we highly esteem and respect the Fathers and especially those of the first Three hundred years after Christ and make use of their Writings as explaining the sense of the Scriptures and handing to us the Opinions of the Ages they liv'd in yet we never receive any of them with the same respect and esteem that we do the Word of God And that with good reason For though they were learned and pious men yet they were but men and consequently were lyable to error as well as other men And herein the Advite of S. Austin is to be followed to wit to follow him and such as himself no further than they follow Truth and Holy Scripture which ought still to be preferred before them And yet S. Augustin was neither the worst nor the meanest of those Christian Hero's Thus do we reverence but do not idolize them and only prefer the Scriptures before them whereas the Papists value their late Papal Decrees before the Primitive Doctors These things being premised I shall renew that five-fold Challenge about the Popes Supremacy formerly propounded by a Reverend and Learned Bishop of our Church which the Papists ought first to answer before they can justly obtain what they in vain pretend to as Consequences of that Supremacy For they failing to prove this which I think they will never be able to do their Attempts in the points depending thereon must needs be fruitless and ineffectual The Challenge is this 1. Whether our Saviour before his Ascension did constitute S. Peter his Vicar and gave him a monarchical Supremacy over the Apostles and the whole Church 2. Whether the Papists can prove that S. Peter while he lived exercised such Power and Supreme Iurisdiction even over the Apostles In such Cases as these Idem est non esse non apparere 3. Whether if S. Peter exercised any such Authority it was not temporary and ceased with his Person as the Apostleship did 4. Whether if all these
Reason and Argument than these Papists have done Truth will Conquer The Romish Church likewise obliges all those in its Communion to Worship Images the Idolatrous practice of the Heathen World and that with the same worship which is given to him whose Image it is and that I think is far enough so that the Worship may be terminated in the Image If this be not Idolatry I know not what can be such And yet that nothing might be wanting in their Worship to make up the measure of iniquity They deny That God alone is to be worshipped I suppose they mean he must have sharers with him in that Honour for otherwise it cannot be sence I am sure however it is Blasphemy Image Worship is Contrary to Scripture Exod 20. 4 5. Hence do the Papists often leave the Second Commandment out of their Catechisms as in Vaux's Catechism Ledesma's Catechism Officium B. Mariae Pii 5. Pont. jussu editum Antwerp A. D. 1590. That the Second Commandment was meant of and desigued against Images and Idols the following Fathers and Doctors do attest Iustin Martyr Dial. cum Tryph. p. 321. Tertullian de Idol c. 3 4. Id. c. Marcion l. 2. c. 22. despect c. 23. Clemens Alexand. stro l. 3. p. 441. Origen c. Celsum l. 4. p. 182. l. 7. p. 375. Id. in Exod. Hom. 8. Athanasius in Synops. Nazianzen in vers de decal Ambrose Ierome in Ephes. c. 6. Augustin Ep. 119. c. 11. Procopius Rupertus in Exod. c. 20. Contrary to Scripture Lev. 26. 1. Deut. 4. 15 16. 5. 7 8 9. Isa. 40. 18 19 20. Micah 5. 13. Matt. 4. 10. Ioh. 5. 21. Rev. 19. 10. Contrary to the Fathers Iustin Martyr Apol. 2. p. 65 66. Theophilus Antiochenus ad Autolycum l. 1. p. 77 110. Clemens Alexandrinus strom l. 6. in paraenetico Tertullian adv Hermogen init Minutius Felix p. 33. who saith Cruces nec colimus nec optamus Origen c. Celsum l. 7 8. The Council of Eliberis in Spain at An. D. 310. Can. 36. Lactantius lib. 2. cap. de Orig error dubium non est c. Optatus l. 3. Epiphanius Epist. ad Ioh. Hieros Augustin de morib Ecclesiae Cath. l. 1. c. 34. de side symbolo c. 7. Id. contr Adimant c. 13. Id. Tom. 3. de consens Evangel l. 1. c. 10. Id. de civit Dei l. 9. c. 15. Fulgentius ad Donatum Gregorius Mag. l. 9. Epist. 9. Imagines adorare omnibus modis devita Moreover the Church of Rome would oblige us to adore the Consecrated Host or Bread in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and with the same Worship which is due to the true God Which by the Confession of some of their Learned Men is an Idolatry if Transubstantiation cannot be made out which if it can we ought no more to believe our own Eyes more stupid than the sottish Heathens were guilty of Though this practice is so far from being Ancient That elevation of the Host accompanied with the ringing of a Bell at the consecration thereof that all who heard it might kneel and joyn their hands in adoring the Host was instituted but about An. Dom. 1240. The Fathers were so far from worshipping the Host that some of them are sharp in reproving those who reserved the Reliques of it as appears by Clement's Epistle to S. Iames Origen in Levit. Hom. 5. and by the 11th Council at Toledo c. 14. And in Ierusalem they us'd to burn the remainders thereof Hesychius in Levit. l. 2. c. 8. Concerning Invocation of Saints Angels c. see Archbishop Laud's excellent Book against Jesuit Fisher so much commended by King Charles I. Dr. Stillingfleet's Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion c. Part 3. Ch. 3. Dr. Stillingfl Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Ch. of Rome c. 2. Bishop Taylor 's Disswasive from Popery Part. 1. Ch. 2. Sect. 9. F. White against Jesuit Fisher pag. 289. Dr. Brevent's Saul and Samuel at Endor Bishop of Lincoln's Letter to Mr. Evelyn Concerning Image-worship and the Adoration of the Host see Bishop Iewel 's Article 14 against Harding Archbishop Laud against Jesuit Fisher. Dr. Stillingfleet's Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and his Defence of it His Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion Part. 3. Chap. 3. Bishop Taylor 's Disswasive from Popery Ed. 3. C. 1. Sect. 8 9. Ch. 2. Sect. 12. Rodon's Funeral of the Mass c. 5. Confessed By these Learned Popish Doctors hereafter mentioned That the making of Images was prohibited in the old Law and not to be found in Scripture Aquinas 3. Sent. Dist. 9. Q. 2. ad 1. Prohibitum est Alexander Hales p. 3. Q. 30. m. 3. ar 3. Albertus 3. d. 9. ar 4. Bonaventure 3. d. 9. Marsilius 3. q. 8. ar 2. Rich. media villa 3. d. 9. Q. 2. Gerson compend tr 2. d. 10. Praecept Abulensis Exod. 20. Q. 39. Et Dominic Bannes in 2a 2ae Qu. 1. art 10. That the Fathers condemn'd Image-worship is Confess'd by Polydore Virgil de Invent. l. 6. c. 13. where he saith Sed teste Hieronymo omnes ferè veteres sancti Patres speaking of Images damnabant ob metum Idololatriae For fear of Idolatry And by Cassander Consult d. Imag. Quantum veteris initio Ecclesiae ab omni imaginum adoratione abhorruêrunt declarat unus Origenes And That for the first four Ages after Christ there was little or no use of Images in the Temples or Oratories of the Christians is Confess'd By Petavius Dogmat. Theol. To. 5. l. 15. c. 13. S. 3. c. 14. S. 8. SECT IV. OUR Church contends for and embraces that faith which was once delivered to the Saints and admits and professes that same which all true Christians have made the badge of their Holy Profession which is briefly comprehended in the Apostles Creed and explain'd in those others call'd the Nicene and Athanasian which may be prov'd by the Scriptures and have been approved by the Universal Church by the Decrees of the first General Councils and Writings of the Fathers The Popish Church especially that part of it which is called the Court of Rome obtrudes and imposes new Articles of Faith making the Bishop of Rome the Infallible Judge and Arbitrator of all Doctrines enjoyning an implicit faith and blind obedience to his Dictates wherein we must renounce our very Reason so that if he call that white which we see to be black we are to say so since he hath as they say the power of making new Creeds Contrary to Scripture Gal. 1. 8 9. Contrary to S. Augustin de Unit. Eccles. contr Epist. Petil. c. 3. and all the Fathers who shew an esteem for the Scripture Confess'd By Cardinal Bellarmine That till above a thousand years after Christ the Popes Judgment was not esteemed Infallible nor his Authority above that of a
Succession to the Apostles of our Saviour as fully as any other Church at this day can do so do we leave all Ecclesiasticks whether Bishops Priests or Deacons to Marry at their own discretion as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness since Marriage is honourable in all and not forbid but permited and in Cases so requiring enjoyned by God's Law and practised as well as taught by persons of the same function i. e. Priests in the best and purest Ages of the Church as may be seen in the following Quotations The Church of Rome denies Marriage to the Clergy but permits I suppose by way of requital to them Concubines For so doth Cardinal Campegius observe and Pighius teach which doth not only give great cause of scandal to Iews and Infidels but in the Holy Apostles judgment is the Doctrine of Devils And the Reason of Concubinage may be easily inferr'd when some of their most Learned Men will scarce allow Fornication to be a Sin however preferring it in Ecclesiasticks before lawful Wedlock The forbidding of Marriage is Contrary to Scripture Levit. 21. 13. 1 Tim. 3 2. 12. Hebr. 13. 4. 1 Cor. 7. 2 9. That the Apostles were Married except S. Iohn is Confessed by these Fathers Ignatius ad Philadelph Clemens Stromat lib. 7. Euseb. Histor. Eccles. lib. 3. c. 30. who report that S. Paul was Married and S. Ambrose in 2 Cor. c. 11. who acknowledges that all the Apostles except S. Iohn were Married Fathers that were Married themselves and yet were either Bishops or Priests c. Tertullian as appears by his Two Books to his Wife and yet he was a Priest as appears from S. Ierome do Eccles. Script Gregory Nazianzen was the Son of a Bishop see Greg. Nazianz. in carmine de vitâ suâ Elias Cretensis in Orat. Greg. Nazianz. S. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers was Married as is evident from his Epistle written to his Daughter Abrae c. Fathers Voting for or acknowledging Matrimony in the Clergy Salvian de providentiâ l. 5. Ambrose Offic. l. 1. c. ult Chrysostome in Epist. ad Tit. Homil. 2. Id. in Epist. ad Hebraeos Homil. 7. Epiphanius contra Origenian Theodoret. in 1 Tim. 4. Isidore Reg. de vitâ Cleric dist 23. c. His igitur Theophylact in 1 Tim. 13. Bernard in Cant. Serm. 66. Aeneas Sylvius Epistol 308. and he lived Anno Dom. 1458. Marriage of the Clergy was not absolutely forbidden by the Greeks in the last Age as appears by the Patriarch Hieremias's Letter to the Tubing Divines dated May 15. 1576. Primum Patriar Resp. apud Chytrae de statu Eccles Orient p. 149. This Heretical Doctrine of forced Celibate in Ecclesiasticks was first established at Rome by Pope Gregory the 7th aliàs Hildebrand termed Antichrist by Ancient Historians about A. D. 1074. and was first put in practice to purpose by Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury here in England about A. D. 1105. though some will have his Predecessor Lanfranc to have imposed it upon the Prebendaries and Clergy that lived in Towns but not without great reluctancy For what complaints what Tragedies what lascivious pranks this Devillish Doctrine occasioned the Historians declare at large particularly that Comical Story of the Italian Cardinal Iohn de Crema Recorded by Ancient Popish Historians who after he had entertained the English Clergy with a fine Discourse against Marriage was the same night caught in Bed with a Harlot in London as if he would only commend Virginity to others and practise the contrary himself That the Reader may know what an Age this was wherein the Celibate of the Clergy was established let him hear Cardinal Bellarmin describing and characterizing it in his Chronology In these times saith he wherein the Roman Bishops did degenerate from the Piety of the Ancients mark that the secular Princes flourished in Holiness You therefore see that Priests Marriage was forbidden by impious Popes And about the beginning of this contention viz. about An. Dom. 860. the Pope got a round check from Udalricus or Ulric a Bishop of that time who told him That in the judgment of all wise Men it was to be accounted violence when any Man against Evangelical Institution mind that and the charge of the Holy Ghost is constrained to the execution of private Decrees The Lord in the old Law appointed Marriage to his Priest which he is never read afterwards to have forbidden But not to insist upon this clear testimony for the Doctrine and Practice of our Church nor to mention the many other ill consequences of a Celibate in the Clergy which occasion in other Countries where Popish Religion is publickly professed that Satyrical Proverb to be Fils de Prestre by some of the most eminent Men in the Roman Church and those too of a late date It is Confessed That Priesthood doth not dissolve Marriage so Cardinal Cajetan Tom. 1. Tract 27. Nor That it is of the essence or being of a Priest to keep single so Dominicus Soto l. 7. de Iure Qu. 4. Moreover that upstart practice in the Roman Church of Auricular Confession wherein every Christian is bound under pain of Damnation to confess to a Priest all his mortal Sins which after a diligent examination he can possibly remember yea even his most secret sins his very thoughts yea and all the circumstances of them which are of any moment is a slavery as great as groundless Then not to mention its ill aspect upon Government as being made an engine of State and a Picklock of the Cabinets of Princes sealing up all things from the notice of the Magistrate but in requital of that making a liberal discovery of what is against him to others A pregnant instance of which horrid consequence was that damnable Treason designed by Gunpowder against the Person of King Iames the First of blessed Memory and the two Houses of Parliament to which the Pope himself as we are credibly informed was not only privy but its director too Pursuant thereof that Pope Clement VIII a little before that time gave order that no Priest should discover any thing that came to his Knowledge in Confession to the benefit of the Secular Government I think there needs no better evidence of the Pope's good intentions towards the Secular Government nor what ill effects the practice of this sort of Confession can and may produce than this And that it still may be used as an Instrument in procuring the ruine of Princes and subversion of Kingdoms Let us hear their i. e. the Popish Doctors opinion of its virtue and use One of them then tell us That the Seal of Auricular Confession which they hold to be of Divine institution is so Sacred that it may not be broken open to save the Lives of Princes or of the whole Commonwealth Another goes further and saith That the Seal of Confession is not to be broken