doe rather call for our care and diligence to suppresse them For answer unto this I grant that the prevailing errours of the times are mainly to be opposed yet as our Saviour said in another case this ought to be done and the other not to be left undone Yea Popery is the grand evill that doth infest the Church and by how much it is the more inveterate the more diffused by so much the danger of it is the greater and it requires the more opposition There is also a speciall warning to come out of Babylon Revel 18. 4. and certainly it will availe us little to come out except we also keepe out of it And if we would keep our selves out of Babylon we must keepe the Babylonish Doctrine from finding entertainment with us This will aske no little care no humane policy in the world I think being greater then that which is used either for the supporting of that doctrine where it is or the introducing of it where it is not embraced Shall we thinke that the Romanists are idle in these busy times Though few doe shew themselves as the Marquesse did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with open face yet we may well suspect that many are working so as that by how much they are the lesse conspicuous by so much they are the more dangerous And as David in a certaine case said to the woman of Tekoah Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this So in respect of that heape of heterodox opinions that is among us may it not be said Is not the hand of a Iesuite in all this Diverse Pamphlets in these times have admonished us to beware and among the rest one intituled Mutatus Polemo what ever the Authors designe were doth speake not a little to this purpose Before these trouble some times began some have either expressed as Mr. Archer or intimated as Mr. Mede that in their opinion Popery shall yet againe for a while universally prevaile in those Countries and Nations out of which it hath bin expelled If this be so as for any thing I see I may hope the contrary may it not be feared that as those many Antichrists as they are called 1 Joh. 2. 18. that is those many heretikes that were in the primitive times did make way for the rise of that great Antichrist so these in our times may make way for the restauration of him And whereas we have heard long since of Romes Master-peece I see not how any Romish designe can better deserve this title then so to debase the Ministery and to decry learning as the practice of many is in these times Hoc Ithacus velit hoc magno mercentur Atreidae The Chieftaines of the Church of Rome can desire nothing more then that among their adversaries the Ministery should be cast down and learning overthrown For then why should they doubt but that they may soon reduce all unto them none being now of any competent ability to oppose them It is observed by those that are acquainted with Ecclesiasticall History that when Learning was the lowest then Popery got to be highest as the one decayed so the other was advanced and on the otherside that the restauration of good literature did make way for the Reformation of Religion Surely if Popery overspread againe barbarisme and illiteratenesse is a most likely means to effect it Neither are the Papists I suppose lesse politick and wise in their generation then Julian the Apostate was who could see no fairer way whereby to re establish Gentilisme then by indeavouring to devest Christians of Learning a thing so vile and odious that Ammianus Marcellinus himselfe though a Pagan and a great admirer of Julian was ashamed of it and shewed great dislike of Julian for it calling it a cruell part and a thing to be buried in perpetuall silence But I have held Thee Reader longer then I did intend I will preface no further but praying unto the Lord to preserve his Church from errors without and to purge it from errors within I rest Thy Friend and lover in the truth C C. The CONTENTS of the FIRST PART OF THE REIOYNDER 1 OF the marks of the true Church which they of the Church of Rome assigne as Universality Antiquity Visibility Succession of Pastors unity in Doctrine and the Coversion of Nations Page 107 to 114 2 Of having recourse unto the Scriptures in matters that concern Religion 114 115 116 3 Of relying either on Fathers singly and severally considered or on a generall Councel 116 117 118 119 4 That the Apostles as Pen-men of the Holy Ghost could not erre 120 5 Of the easiness and plainness of the Scriptures 120 121 6 Of the presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 122 to 140 7 Whether the Church hath any infallible rule besides the Scripture for the understanding of Scripture 140 to 147 8 Againe of the Scriptures being easie to be understood 147 148 9 Whether the Church can erre or not 148 to 152 10 Againe of the Visibility of the Church 152 153 11 Of the Universality of the Church 153 to 158 12 Of the unity of the Church in matters of faith 158 159 13 Of Kings and Queens being Heads or Governours and Governesses of the Church within their Dominions 159 160 14 Of the Ministers power to forgive sins 159 as 't is misprinted to 162 15 Of confessing sins to a ghostly Father 162 to 172 16 Of works of Superogation 172 to 176 17 Of Free-will 176 to 195 18 Of the possibility of keeping the Commandements 196 to 201 19 Of Justification by faith alone 201 to 211 20 Of Merits 211 to 216 21 Whether justifying faith may be lost 216 to 221 22 Of Reprobation 221 to 239 23 Of assurance of Salvation 239 to 251 24 Whether every Believer hath a peculiar Angel to be his guardian 251 to 254 25 Of the Angels praying for us and knowing our thoughts 254 255 256 26 Of praying to the Angels 256 to 261 27 Whether the Saints deceased know our affairs here below 261 to 266 28 Of the Saints deceased praying for us 266 to 269 29 Of praying to the Saints deceased 269 to 276 30 Of Confirmation whether it be a Sacrament properly so called 276 to 281 31 Of communicating in one kinde 281 to 287 32 Of the sacrifice of the Masse as they call it or whether Christ be truly and properly offered up and sacrificed in the Eucharist or Lords Supper 287 to 296 33 Whether Orders or rather Ordination be a Sacrament of like nature with Baptisme and the Lord Supper 296 to 301 34 Of Vows of chastity and of the Marriage of Ecclesiastical persons 301 to 318 35 Of Christs descending into Hell 319 to 340 36 Of Purgatory 340 to 355 37 Of extreme Unction 355 to 363 38 Of the saying of Austine Evangelio non crederem nisi me Ecclesiae Authoritas commoveret I should not believe or should not have
John 6. 63. They pervert our Saviours meaning into a contrary sense of their owne imagination viz. the flesh profiteth nothing that is to say Christs body is not in the Sacrament but in the Spirit that quickneth that is to say we must onely believe that Christ dyed for us but not that his body is there as if there were any need of so many inculcations pressures offences mis-believings of and in a thing that were no more but a bare memoriall of a thing being a thing nothing more usuall with the Israelites as the twelve stones which were erected as a sign of the children of Israels passing over Jordan That when your children shall ask their Fathers what is meant thereby then ye shall answer them c. Josh 4. there would not have been so much difficulty in the belief if there had not been more in the mysterie there would not have been so much offence taken at a memorandum nor so much stumbling at a figure The Fathers are of this opinion Saint Ignat. in Ep. ad Smir. Saint Justin Apol 2. ad Antonium Saint Cyprian Ser. 4. de lapsis Saint Ambr. lib. 4. de Sacram. Saint Remigius c. affirme the flesh of Christ to be in the Sacrament and the same flesh which the word of God took in the Virgins wombe Secondly We hold that there is in the Church an infallible rule for understanding of Scripture besides the Scripture it selfe this you deny this we have Scripture for as Rom. 12. 16. we must prophesie according to the rule of faith we are bid to walke according to this rule Gal. 6. 16. we must encrease our faith and preach the Gospel according to this rule 1 Cor. 10. 15. this rule of faith the holy Scriptures call a form of doctrine Romans 6. 17. a thing made ready to our hands 2. Cor. 10. 16. that we may not measure our selves by our selves 2 Cor. 10. 12. the depositions committed to the Churches trust 1 Tim. 6. 20. for avoiding of prophane and vain bablings and oppositions of sciences and by this rule of faith is not meant the holy Scriptures for that cannot do it as the Apostle tells us whilst there are unstable men who wrest this way and that way to their owne destruction but it is the tradition of the Church and her exposition as it is delivered from hand to hand as most plainly appears 2. Tim. 2. 2. viz. The things which thou hast heard of us not received in writing from me or others among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithfull men who shall be able to teach it to others also Of this opinion are the Fathers Saint Irenaeus 4. chap. 45. Tertul de praescr and Vincent lir in suo commentario saith It is very needfull in regard of so many errors proceeding from misinterpretations of Scripture that the line of propheticall and Apostolicall exposition should be directed according to the rule of Ecclesiasticall and Catholike sense and saith Tertullian prae script advers haeres chap. 11. We doe not admit our adversaries to dispute out of Scripture till they can shew who their Ancestors were and from whom they received the Scriptures for the ordinary course of Doctrine requires that the first question should be from whom and by whom and to whom the form of Christian Religion was delivered otherwise prescribing against him as a stranger for otherwise if a heathen should come by the Bible as the Eunuch came by the Prophesie of Esay and have no Philip to interpret it unto him he would find out a Religion rather according to his owne fancy then divine verity In matters of faith Christ bids us to observe and doe whatsoever they bid us who sit in Moses seat Mat. 22. 2. therefore surely there is something more to be observed then onely Scripture will you not as well believe what you hear Christ say as what ye hear his Ministers write you hear Christ when you hear them as well as you read Christ when you read his word He that heareth you heareth me Luke 10. 16. We say the Scriptures are not easie to be understood you say they are we have Scripture for it as is before manifested at large the Fathers say as much Saint Irenaeus lib. 2. chap. 47. Origen contr Cels and Saint Ambr. Epist 44. ad Constant calleth the Scripture a Sea and depth of propheticall riddles and Saint Hier. in praefat comment in Ephes and Saint Aug Epist 119. chap. 21. saith The things of holy Scripture which I know not are more then those that I know and Saint Denis Bishop of Corinth cited by Eusebius lib. 7. hist Eccless 20. saith of the Scriptures that the matter thereof was far more profound then his wit could reach We say that this Church cannot erre you say it can we have Scripture for what we say such Scripture that will tell you that fools cannot erre therein Esaiah 35. 8. such Scripture as will tell you if you neglect to hear it you shall be a heathen and a publican Mat. 18. 17. such Scripture as will tell you that this Church shall be unto Christ a glorious Church a Church that shall be without spot or wrinkle Ephesians 5. 27. such a Church as shall be enlivened for ever with his Spirit Isaiah 59. 21. The Fathers affirm the samme Saint Aug contra Crescon lib. 1. cap. 3. Saint Cypr Epist 55. ad Cornel. num 3. Saint Irenaeus lib. 3. chap. 4. Cum multis aliis We say the Church hath been alwaies visible you deny it we have the Scripture for it Mat. 5. 14 15. The light of the world a City upon a hill cannot be hid 2 Cor. 4. 3. Isaiah 22. The Fathers unanimously affirme the same Origen Hom 30. in Math That the Church is full of light even from the East to the West Saint Chrisost Hom 4. in 6. of Isaiah That it is easier for the Sun to be extinguished then the Church to be darkned Saint Aug tract in Joan calls them blind who doe not see so great a mountain and Saint Cypr de Unitate Ecclesiae We held the perpetuall universality of the Church and that the Church of Rome is such a Church you deny it we have Scripture for it Psal 2. 8. Rom. 1. 8. the Fathers affirm as much Saint Cypr ep 57. writing to Cornelius Pope of Rome saith whilst with you there is one mind and one voice the whole Church is confessed to be the Roman Church Saint Aug de unitate Eccles chap. 4. saith who so communicates not with the whole corps of Christendome certaine it is that they are not in the holy Catholike Church Saint Hier. in Apol. ad Ruffin saith that it is all one to say the Roman faith and the Catholick We hold the unity of the Church to be necessary in all points of faith you deny it the severall articles of your Protestant Churches deny it we have Scripture for it Eph. 4. 5. One Lord one Faith one
make to themselves posies of the weedings of that Garden into which Christ himself came down upon which both the north and south-winds do blow in which is a well of living waters and streams from Lebanon about which is an enclosure of brotherly affection Will you forsake the Rose of Sharon and the Lillie of the Vallies for such a Nose-gay For I shall make it apparent unto your Majesty that the Doctrines which Protestants now hold as in opposition unto us were but so many condemned heresies by the Antient and Orthodoxall Fathers of the Church and never opposed by any of them As for example Protestants hold that the Church may Erre this they had from the Donatists for which they were frequently reproved by St. Augustin Protestants deny unwritten traditions and urge Scripture onely This they had from the Arrians who were condemned for it by St. Epiphanius and S. Augustin both Protestants teach that Priests may Marry this they had from Vigilantius who is condemned for it by St. Hieronimus Protestants deny prayer for the dead this they had from Arrius for which he is condemned by Saint August and Epiphanius both Protestants deny Invocation of Saints this they had from Vigilantius for which he was condemned by Saint Hieron Protestants deny Reverence to Images this they had from Xenias for which he is reproved by Nicephorus Protestants deny the reall Presence this they had from the Carpenaites who were saith Saint Augustin the first Hereticks that denied the reall Presence and that Judas was the first Suborner and Maintainer of this heresie Protestants deny Confession of sins to a Priest so did the Novatian Hereticks and the Montanists for which they are reproved by Saint Ambrose and Saint Hieron Protestants say that they are justified by Faith onely this they had from the pseudo-Apostles for which they are comdemned by St. Augustin Lastly as I have shewed Your Majesty that Your Church as it stands in opposition to ours is but a congeries of so many heresies to which I could easily make an enlargement but that I fear I have been too tedious already So I shall make it appeare that our Church as she stands in opposition unto yours is true and right even your selves being witnesses and you shall find our Doctrine among your owne Doctors First the Greek Church whom you court to your side as indeed they are Protestants according to your vulgar reception being you call all those Protestants who are or were in any Opposition to the Church of Rome though in their Tenents otherwise they never so much doe disagree For the Greek Church with which you so often hit us in the teeth and take to be of your faction she holds Invocation of Saints Adoration of Images Transubstantiation Cōmunion in one kind for the sick and many others Master Parker confesseth that Luther crossed himselfe morning and evening and is never seene to be painted praying but before a Crucifix As touching the Invocation of Saints saith Luther I think with the whole Christian Church and hold that Saints are to be honoured by us and invocated I never denyed Purgatory saith Luther and yet I believe it as I have often written and confessed If it is lawfull saith Luther for the Jews to have the picture of Caesar upon their Coins much more is it lawfull for Christians to have in their Churches Crosses and Images of Mary and lastly he maintained the reall Presence But let us goe a little further and consider what they held whom ye call your Predecessours under whom ye shrowd your Visibility and on whom you look beyond Luther for your Doctrines Patronage viz. First upon the Hussites who brake forth about the year 1400. they held seven Sacraments Transubstantiation the Popes primacy and the Masse as Fox in his acts and monuments acknowledgeth Let us goe further and consider Wickliffe our owne Countrey-man who appeared about the year 1370. he maintained holy water worship of Reliques and Images Intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary the rites and Ceremonies of the Masse all the seven Sacraments Moreover he held Opinions contrary and condemned both by Catholick and Protestants as that if a Bishop or Priest be in any mortal sin his Ordaining Consecrating or Baptizing is of no effect He condemned lawfull Oaths with the Anabaptists Lastly he maintained that any Ecclesiasticall Ministers were not to have any temporall possessions This last Opinion was such savory Doctrine that rather then some of those times would not hearken to that they would listen to all as the greedy appetites to Bishops Lands make some now adayes to hearken unto any thing that Cryers downe of Bishops shall foment To goe further yet to the Waldenses descended from the race of one Waldo a Merchant of Lions who brake out about the year 1220. These men held the reall Presence for which they were reproved by Calvin These men extolled the merit of voluntary poverty they held Transubstantiation and many other opinions which most Protestants no way allow And lastly I shall run your pedegree to the radix and utmost Derivation that the best read Herauld in the Protestant Genealogy can run its linc and that is to the Waldenses and to Berengarius who broacht his heresie in the year 1048. and he held all the points of Doctrine that we held onely he differed from us in the point of Transubstantiation And for this cause they took him into the name and number of Protestants and Reformers notwithstanding he presently afterwards recanted and died a Catholick So it ends where it never had beginning Finally if neither prescription of 1600 years possession and continuance of our Churches Doctrine nor our evidence out of the word of God nor the Fathers witnessings to that evidence nor the Decrees of Councels nor your owne acknowledgments be sufficient to mollifie and turne your royall heart there is no more means left for truth or me but I must leave it to God in whose hand are the hearts of Kings AN ANSWER TO THE Marquesse of WORCESTER His Reply to the KINGS Paper YOur MAJESTY is pleased to wave all the Markes of the true Church and to make recourse unto the Scriptures Ans 1. His MAJESTY did not wave all the Markes of the true Church assigned by the Marquesse but shewed them to be such as may without distinction and further explication belong to a false Church From Ier. 44. 16. His MAJESTY shewed that Antiquity Succession and Universality was alledged in defence of Idolatry That Demetrius Acts 19. alledged Antiquity and Universality for the worship of Diana and that Symmachus alledged Antiquity as a plea for all heathenish Idolatry and Superstition page 47. That Ezechiel bids Be not stiff-necked as your fore-fathers were page Ibid. These words the place being not cited I confesse I cannot
Fathers here alledged by the Marquesse against it Irenaeus whose words the Marquesse produceth not but Bellarmine doth saith onely that of those things which are contained in the Scriptures quaedam some are such that we must commend unto God meaning that we cannot perfectly know them This is nothing repugnant to what we say Nor that which is said by Origen whom the Marquesse onely citeth at large contra Cels but I find both the book and the words in Bellarmine viz. that the Scripture is Multis locis obscura in many places obscure of which what Protestant I marvell doth make any question So when Ambrose Epist 44. calleth the Scripture a Sea and a depth of propheticall Riddles And Hierom Praefat. comment in Ephes saith that he took great pains to understand the Scripture And Austine Epist 119. cap. 21. saith that the things of Holy Scripture which he knew not were more than those he knew And Dionysius B. of Corinth cited by Eusebius Hist l. 7. c. 20 saith that the matter of the Scriptures was farre more profound then his Wit could reach what is all this against Protestants who onely hold that the Scriptures in things that concern Faith and Manners are not so obscure but that they ought to be read or heard by all and that all may profit by the reading or hearing of them And in this sense Bellarmine yeildeth that Chrysostome in diverse places doth affirme the Scriptures to be plain and easie viz. to shake off the lazinesse of many who might if they would read the Scriptures with much benefit And besides we hold that where the Scripture is obscure the interpretation of it is to be fetched from the Scripture it self against which these Fathers say nothing but both diverse of these and also diverse others as hath been shewed doe plainly avouch it The Marquesse proceeds saying We say that this Church cannot Erre you say it can we have Scripture for what we say such Scripture that will tell you that fools cannot erre therein Esay 35. 8. Such Scripture that will tell you If you neglect to hear it you shall be a heathen and a publican Mat. 18. 17. Such Scripture as will tell you that this Church shall be unto Christ a glorious Church that shall be without spot or wrinkle Ephes 5. 27. Such a Church as shall be enlivened for ever with his Spirit Esay 59. 21. The Fathers affirme the same c. Concerning the Churches erring or not erring we must distinguish of the Church and of Errour The Church is either visible which consisteth both of good and bad which therefore is compared to a Net c. Mat. 13. 47. c. or invisible which consisteth onely of the Elect and true Beleevers The Lord knoweth who are his 2 Tim. 2. 19. Men may know who professe themselves to be his but who are indeed only God knoweth All the Elect they are the Church saith Bernard And to the same effect Austine The Church consisteth of those that are good who build upon the Rock not of those that build upon the Sand. As for Errour it is either damnable or not damnable Now it is granted that the invisible Church cannot erre damnably For this is that Church which Christ speaketh of and saith That the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Mat. 16. 18. But for the Church Visible whether our Adversaries mean the Church Virtuall whereby they understand the Pope or the Church Representative that is a Generall Councell we hold that it may Erre and that damnably The Scriptures alledged are not against this assertion That Esai 35. 8. speaks not of the Church but of a Way called there The Way of Holinesse so sure and safe that Wayfaring men though fooles shall not Erre therein That Mat. 18. 17. onely shewes that a member of the Church being justly admonished by the Church ought to submit to the Admonition of it or else is to be accounted as a Publican or Heathen But this is farre from proving the Churches infallibility That Ephes 5. 27. shewes not what the Church is here in this world but what it shall be hereafter in the world to come It is not so to be understood saith Austine as if the Church were now so but that it is prepared that it may be so And accordingly Bede In the Kingdome of Heaven the Church shall be fully and perfectly without spot or wrinkle c. For when as the Apostle did not only say that he might present it to himself a Church not having spot or wrinkle but also added Glorious he sufficiently signified when it shall be without Spot or Wrinkle That Esai 59. 21. sheweth that God will give both his Word and his Spirit for ever unto his Church but it speaks of the invisible Church the Elect and Godly Such as turn from Transgression ver 20. not of any outward visible Church which hath no such priviledge but that it may Erre and so Erre as to cease to be a Church as the example of the Churches of Asia mentioned Revel 2. 3. doth make manifest For the Fathers the first whom the Marquesse citeth is Austine whom as before is shewed holdeth Generall Councells lyable to Errour and such as that the former may be corrected by the latter That therefore which he saith Contra Crescon l. 1. c. 33. so I presume it should be not cap. 3. as it is in the Marquesse his Paper viz. That we hold the truth of the Scriptures when we doe that which hath pleased the whole Church which the authority of the same Scriptures doth commend That I say must be understood so farre forth as the Scriptures doe commend the Church we do well and conformably to the Scriptures in conforming to it But I see not how Austine himself could hold the Church to be so commended in the Scriptures as that we must simply and absolutely doe what the Church pleaseth For then what need of having one Generall Councell to be corrected and amended by another Our Adversaries themselves when they please make no scruple of waving and altering that which was generally held and practiced in the Church I let passe saith Maldonate the opinion of Austine and of Innocentius which about 600. yeares did prevaile in the Church that the Eucharist is necessary even for Infants The thing is now declared by the Church both by the Custome of many Ages and also by the decree of the Councell of Trent that it is not onely not necessary for them but also that it is not meet to be given unto them Cyprian Epist 55. who is the next that the Marquesse citeth speaketh indeed of the Authority of the Church but how so as to censure and excommunicate those that deserve it about that hee writes unto Cornelius Bishop of Rome But this is much short of proving the Church to be infallible and that it cannot erre Cyprian was far from
ascribing so much to the Church when as 't is well known contrary to what the Bishop of Rome and the Church generally did hold he held the re-baptizing of such as had been baptized by Heretikes Though Cyprian in this did erre yet his very erring in this shewes that hee thought the Church the generality of the visible Church not onely subject to error but indeed to have erred The last Father whom the Marquesse here mentioneth for though hee say cum multis aliis yet hee nameth no more is Irenaeus l. 3. c. 4. where he saith It is not meet to seeke the truth among others which it is easie to take of the Church seeing the Apostles did lay in it as in a rich depository all things that concerne truth that every one that will may out of it receive the drinke of life This indeed is gloriously spoken of the Church and not Hyperbolically neither yet doth it not amount to this that the Church cannot erre The holy Scriptures wherein all saving truth is contained are committed to the Church and the Doctine of salvation is ordinarily held forth in and by the Church but hence it doth not follow that the Church that is such as beare sway in it is not subject to error All that Irenaeus saith of the Church is no more if so much as that of the Apostle 1 Tim. 3. 15. that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth which place it may seeme strange that the Marquesse pretermitteth Bellarmine disputing this point brings in those words in the very first place to prove that the Church cannot erre And whereas Calvin answers that the Church is so styled by the Apostle because in it the Scriptures are preserved and preached he replies that thus the Church should rather be compared to a Chest then to a Pillar But this is a frivolous objection for the Church doth not keepe the truth close and secret as a thing is kept in a chest but so as to professe and publish it and therefore is compared to a Pillar to which a thing is fastned and so hangeth that all may see it But that those words of the Apostle do not infer an infallibility of the Church and an exemption from errour is cleare by this that he speakes of a particular visible Church namely the Church of Ephesus now that a particular visible Church may erre our Adversaries will not deny and that very Church of Ephesus there spoken of doth sufficiently demonstrate The Apostle therefore in those words doth rather shew the duty of the Church then the dignity of it rather what it should be then what it alwayes is As when it is said Mal. 2. 7. Labia sacerdotis custodient scientiam The Priests lips shall keep knowledge that is as our translations rightly render it should keepe So the Jesuite Ribera doth expound it shall keepe that is saith he ought to keep The Marquesse here comes againe to the visibility of the Church and some other particulars before handled That the Church is alwayes visible he proves by Mat. 5. 14 15. The light of the World a City upon a Hill cannot be hid But I have shewed before these words Yee are the light of the world to be meant of the Apostles who as their own Iansenius expounds it were a light unto the World by their preaching So also Theophylact They did not enlighten saith hee one Nation but the whole world And the words following A City set upon a Hill cannot be hid he shewes to have been spoken by way of instruction Christ saith hee doth instruct them to be carefull and accurate in the ordering of their life as being to be seene of all As if hee should say Doe not thinke that you shall lie hid in a corner no you shall be conspicuous And therefore see that yee live unblameably that so you may not give offence to others This exposition sutes well with the admonition given vers 16. Let your light so shine forth before men that they seeing your good workes may glorifie your Father which is in Heaven The Marquesse here further addes 2 Cor. 4. 3. Isai 22. I suppose it should be Isai 2. 2. Now the former of these two places is not to the purpose viz. to prove a perpetuall visibility of the Church For how can that be inferred from those words of the Apostle If our Gospell be hid it is hid to them that are lost The Apostle having said vers 2. by manifestation of the truth commending our selves to every mans conscience in the sight of God because as Oecumenius notes it might be objected that the truth was not made manifest unto all for that all did not believe to prevent this Objection the Apostle addes If our Gospell be hid c. As if hee should say It is not our fault as if the Gospell were not plainly enough preached by us but it is their own fault who perish through their owne blindnesse That Isai 2. 2. is more to the purpose though not enough neither It is said that in the last dayes the Mountaine of the Lords House shall be established in the top of the Mountaines and shall be exalted above the Hills and all Nations shall flow unto it The Prophet there sheweth by metaphoricall expressions taken from Mount Sion where the Temple stood that by the preaching of the Gospell the Church should be increased and exalted farre above what it was before This prophesie was fulfilled by the bringing in of the Gentiles but the Prophet doth not say that in the times of the Gospell the Church should alwayes be so conspicuous and visible Neither doe the Fathers here alledged by the Marquesse viz. Origen Chrysostome Austine and Cyprian speake of the perpetuall condition of the Church but onely as it was in their time I have proved before by Scriptures and Fathers and even by the acknowledgement of our Adversaries that the Church is not perpetually visible After the Visibility of the Church the Marquesse speaketh of the Universality of it saying that the universality of the Church is perpetuall and that the Church of Rome is such a Church For proofe hereof hee citeth Psal 2. 8. Rom. 1. 8. Now the former place shewes that Christ should have the heathen for his inheritance and the ends of the Earth for his possession and consequently that the Church should not be confined as it was in the time of the Law to one Country but should be extended farre and wide throughout the World This also hath been fulfilled and yet shall be but hence it doth not follow that the Church is alwayes so universally extended throughout the World but that sometimes errors and heresies doe so prevaile and overspread all that the truth in comparison can finde no roome See before page 2. The other place viz. Rom. 1. 8. testifies indeed that the Church of Rome was a true Church and famous throughout the World but neither doth
woman should be joyned together The Son of God doth draw us back to the first institution c. 3. He is said to teach peremptory resistance against Magistrates and to inable the inferiour Magistrate to alter Religion against the contrary Edicts of the Superiour For the latter part of this charge the Marquesse citeth Concil Theol. which book I finde not as I said amongst Melancthons Works For the former part he citeth Melancthon on Rom. 13. but in that place there is not a syllable that I can see whereby it may appear that Melancthon teacheth any resistance against the Magistrate All that I finde is that he teacheth Magistracie to be of God and answereth the arguments of the Anabaptists against it Here the Marquesse addes So Calvin so Beza so Goodman so Danaeus so Knox c. all hold it lawfull to depose murther or to arraign their Prince c. But where these Authours either all or any of them do hold thus he sheweth not he doth not so much as point at any of their writings where such doctrine may be found I know that some of these Authours here mentioned are charged in this kinde by Romish Writers but withall I know that the charges brought against them are answered See Rivet Jes Vap. cap. 13. § 9. 10 11. Bils of Christ subject Page 509. c. The former of these answers to what is alleadged against Calvin the latter to what is alleadged both against him and against Beza Goodman and Knox. But some of the Authours whom the Marquesse here citeth as being of this opinion concerning Magistrates he was much mistaken in viz. Bancroft who did declare himself so much the other way that he taxed some of these here mentioned by the Marquesse as being not respective enough of the honour due to Magistrates His book I have read though now I have it not nor do I perfectly remember the title of it I think also that there is the like mistake concerning Sutcliffe whom the Marquesse also joyneth with the 1 â—st I thinke that he also was so farre from teaching such doctrine that he did rather taxe those who did but seem to teach it But I am not so well assured of him as of the other After Melancthon the Marquesse speaketh of Andraeas Musculus who he saith was not afraid openly to teach that the Divine nature of Christ died upon the Crosse with his humane nature Wolfangus Musculus is an Author well known but Andraeas Musculus I confesse I have not heard of before so farre am I from being able to say what he holdeth but if he hold as the Marquesse here alleadgeth I shall be as ready to explode and abhor his opinion as any other In the next place the Marquesse speaketh of the divisions of Protestants which I confesse have been and are too great though divers of the Sects which he mentioneth I do not know that ever I read of before But what if Protestants differ among themselves and so must needs some of them be in error Yet may they for all this be in the truth so far forth as they all agree and consequently so far forth as they dissent from the Church of Rome There were many Sects among the Jews as Pharisees Sadduces and Herodians spoken of in Scripture and the Essenes mentioned by Josephus These differing one from another must certainly some of them erre yet as they agreed together in opposing Paganisme they were all right Whilst the Catholicks saith the Marquesse have no jars no differences uncomposed having one common Father one Conductor and Adviser as Sir Edw. Sands confesseth The Authours book which the Marquesse citeth I have but not so distinguished as that which he referreth unto and therefore I cannot finde the words which he alleadgeth But seeing mention is made of this book I think it meet here to insert some things out of it that so the Reader may perceive what manner of unity and agreement it is that is amongst them of the Church of Rome But now saith that worthy Authour to come to the view of their Ecclesiastical government not so much as it is reserred to the conduct of soules though that be the natural and proper end of that regiment but rather as it is addressed to the upholding of the worldly power and glory of their order to the advancing of their part and overthrow of their opposites which I suppose be the points they now chiefly respect I think I may truly say there was never yet State framed by mans wit in this world more powerful and forcible to work those effects never any either more wisely contrived and plotted or more constantly and diligently put in practice and execution insomuch that but for the natural weaknesse and untruth and dishonesty which being rotten at the heart abate the force of whatsoever is founded thereon their outward means were sufficient to subdue a whole world In their art they have certain head-assertions which as indemonstrable principles they urge all to receive and hold As That they are the Church of God within which great facility and without which no possibility of salvation That divine Prerogative gramed to them above all other Societies in the world doth preserve them everlastingly from erring in matter of faith and from falling from God That the Pope Christs deputy hath the keyes of heaven in his custody c. In these 〈◊〉 no doubt or question is tolerable and who so joyn with them in these shall finde great connivence in what other defect or difference soever c. And by this plot they have erected in the world a Monarchy more potent then ever any that hath been before it c. And afterward To what a miserable push saith he have they driven the world either in their pleading against them with such force of evidence or in their learning of them and joyning with them as to stop the month of the one and hang the faith of the other on this 〈◊〉 paradox I and my Church cannot possibly erre and this must you take upon our own words to be true For as for their conjectural evidence out of the Scripture there seems to be as much or more for the King of Spains not erring as there is for the Popes it being said by the wisest that the heart of the King is in the hands of God a divine sentence is in his lips and his mouth shall not transgresse in judgement And a little after Although it were perhaps not untruly said by a great Clerk of their own that the Popes not erring was but an opinion of policy and not of Theologie to give stay to the Laity not stop to the Divines of whom in such infinite controversies and jarrings NB about interpretations of Texts and conclusions of Science wherein many have spent a large part of their lives never any yet went neither at this day doth go to be resolved
afraid he will not give you another day wherein you may so much as trie your fortune Your Majesty had forgot the monies which came unto you from unknown hands and were brought unto you by unknown faces when you promised you would never forsake your unknown friends you have forgotten the miraculous blessings of the Almighty upon those beginnings and how have you discountenanc'd distrusted dis-regarded I and disgraced the Catholiques all along and at last vowed an extirpation of them Doth not your Majesty see clearly how that in the two great Battailes the North and Naseby God shewed signes of his displeasure when in the first your Enemies were even at your mercy confusion fell upon you and you lost the day like a man that should so wound his Enemies that he could scarce stand and afterwards his owne sword should fly out of the hilt and leave the strong and skilfull to the mercy of his falling Enemies and in the second and I feare me the last Battaile that e're you 'le fight whilst your men were crying victory as I hear they had reason so to do your sword broke in the aire which made you a fugitive to your flying Enemies Sir I pray pardon my boldnesse for it is Gods cause that makes me so bold and no inclination of my owne to be so and give me leave to tell you that God is angry with you and will never be pleased untill you have taken new resolutions concerning your Religion which I pray God direct you or else you 'le fall from nought to worse from thence to nothing King My Lord I cannot so much blame as pitty your zeal the soundnesse of Religion is not to be tried by dint of sword nor must we judge of her truthes by the prosperity of events for then of all men Christians would be most miserable we are not to be thought no followers of Christ by observations drawne from what is crosse or otherwise but by taking up our crosse and following Christ Neither do I remember my Lord that I made any such vow before the Battaile of Naseby concerning Catholiques but some satisfaction I did give my Protestant Subjects who on the other side were perswaded that God blest us the worse for having so many Papists in our Army Marq. The difference is not great I pray God forgive you who have most reason to aske it King I think not so my Lord. Marq. Who shall be judge King I pray my Lord let us sit down and let reason take her seat Marq. Reason is no judge King But she may take her place Marq. Not above our Faith King But in our arguments Marq. I beseech your Majesty to give me a reason why you are so much offended with our Church King Truly my Lord I am much offended with your Church if you meane the Church of Rome if it were for no other reason but this for that she hath foisted into her legend so many ridiculous stories as are able to make as much as in them lies Christianitie it selfe a fable whereas if they had not done this wrong unto the tradition of the primitive Church we then had left unto us such rare and unquestionable verities as would have adorned and not dawb'd the Gospel whereas now we know not what is true or false Marq. Sir if it be allowed to question what the Catholick Church holds out for truth because that which they hold forth unto us seemes ridiculous and to picke and chuse verities according to our owne fancie and reject as novelties and forgeries what we please as impossibilites and fabulous the Scriptures themselves may as well suffer by this kind of tolleration for what more ridiculous then the Dialogue betweene Balaam and his Ass or that Sampsons strength should be in his hair or that he should slay a thousand men with the Jaw-bone of an Ass the Disputation betweene Saint Michael and the Devill about the body of Moses Philip's being taken up in the air and found at Azotus with a thousand the like strange and to our apprehension if we looke upon them with carnall eyes vaine and ridiculous but being they are recorded in Scripture which Scripture we hold for truth we admire but never question them so the fault may not be in the tradition of the Church but in the libertie which men assume to themselves to question the tradition And I beseech Your Majestie to consider the streaks that are drawn over the Divine writ as so many delenda's by such bold hands as those the Testaments were not like the two Tables delivered into the hands of any Moses by the immediate hand of God neither by the Ministration of Angels but men inspired with the holy Ghost writ whose writings by the Church were approved to be by inspiration which inspirations were called Scripture which Scriptures most of them as they are now received into our hands were not received into the Canon of the Church all within three hundred years after Christ why may not some bold spirits call all those Scriptures which were afterwards acknowledged to be Scripture and were not before forgeries Nay have not some such as blind as bold done it already Saint Hierom was the first that ever pickt a hole in the Scriptures and cut out so many books out of the word of God with the penknife of Apocrypha Ruffinus challengeth him for so doing and tells him of the gap that he hath opened for wild beasts to enter into this field of the Church and tread downe all ill corne Jerom gives his reasons because they were not found in the Originall Copie as if the same spirit which gave to those whom it did inspire the diversities of tongues should it selfe be tied to one language but withall he acknowledgeth thus much of those books which he had thus markt in the forehead Canonici sunt ad informandos mores sed non ad confirmandam fidem how poor a Distinction this is and how pernitious a president this was I leave it to Your Majestie to judge for after him Luther takes the like boldness and at once takes away the three Gospels of Mark Luke and John Others take away the epistle to the Hebrews others the epistle of Saint Jude others the second and third epistles of Saint Peter others the epistle of Saint James others the whole book of the Revelation Wherefore to permit what the Church proposes to be questionable by particular men is to bring down the Church the Scriptures and the Heavens upon our heads There was a Church before there was a Scripture which Scripture as to us had not beene the Word of God if the Church had not made it so by teaching us to believe it The preaching of the Gospell was before the writing of the Gospell the Divine Truth that dispersed it selfe over the face of the whole earth before it's Divinitie was comprised within the Canon of the Scripture was like that Primaeva Lux which the world received before the
light was gathered into the body of the Sun this body so glorious and comfortable is but the same light which was before we cannot make it another though it be otherwise And therefore though the Church and the Scripture like the light that is concomitant and precedent to the Sun be distinct in tearms yet they are but one and the same no man can see the Sun but by it's own light shut your eyes from this light and you cannot behold the body of the Sun Shut your eyes against one and you are blind in both he never had God to be his Father who had not the Church to be his Mother If you admit Sillogismes à priori you will meet with many paralogismes à posteriori cry downe the Churches Authoritie and pull out the Scriptures efficacie give but the Church the lie now and then and you shall have enough will tell you the Scripture is false here and there they who have set so little by the tradition of the Church have set by halfe the Scriptures and will at last throw all away wherefore in a word as to deny any part of the Scripture were to open a vein so to question any thing which the Church proposes is to teare the seamelesse Coat of Christ and to pierce his body King My Lord I see you are better provided with Arguments then I am with memorie to run through the series of your Discourse satisfie me but in one thing and I shall soone yeild to all that you have said and that is concerning this Catholick Church you talke of I know the creed tells us that we must believe it and Christ tells us that we must hear it but neither tell us that that is the Church of Rome Marq. Gratious Sir the creed tells us that it is the Catholick Church and Saint Paul tells us in his epistle to the Romans that their faith was spread abroad through the whole world King That was the Faith which the Romanes then believed which is nothing to the Roman Faith which is now believed Marq. The Roman Faith then and now are the same King I deny that my Lord. Marq. When did they alter their Faith King That requires a librarie Neither is it requisite that I tell you the time when if the envious man sowes his tares whilst the husband-man was asleep and afterwards he awakes and sees the tares are they not tares because the husband-man knowes not when they were sown Marq. And if it please Your Majestie in a thing that is so apparent your similitude holds good but the differences between us and the Protestants are not so without dispute as that it is yet granted by the major part of Christians that they are errours which we believe contrary to your Tenents and therefore the similitude holds not but I shall humbly intreat Your Majestie to consider the proofs which the learned Cardinal Peroone hath made concerning this particular in his answer to your Royall Father his Apologie to all Christian Princes where he proves how that all the Tenents which are in controversie now between you and us were practised in the Church of Christ within the first three hundred years wherefore I think it would be no injury to reason to require belief that that which hath been so long continued in the Church and so universally received and no time can be set down when those Tenents or Ceremonies did arise must needs be Catholick for time and place and Apostolicall for institution though we have no warrant from the Scriptures to believe them to be such For the Apostle Saint Paul commanded Timothy to keep fast the things which he had delivered unto him as well by word as by writ Wherefore if we will believe no tradition we may come at last to believe no writings King That was your owne fault wherefore I blame your Church for the way to make the Scriptures not believed were to adde unto them new inventions and say they were Scriptures Marq. If the Church of Christ had so mean esteeme then as amongst some she hath now certainly the former books received into her Canon would have been much prejudiced by the admittance of the latter wherefore if the Church be questionable then all is brought in question King My Lord you have not satisfied me where this Church is and as concerning the Cardinals book I have seen it and have read a part of it but doe not remember neither doe I believe that he hath prov'd that which you say Marq. It may be the proofes were in that part of the book which Your Majesty did not read and as for my proving the Roman Church to be this Church by which we should be all guided I thus shall doe my endeavour That Church whose Doctrine is most Catholick and universall must be the Catholick Church but the Roman Church is such Ergo. King My Lord I deny your Minor the Romane Church is not most universall the Grecian Church is far more spreading and if it were not it were no Argument for the Church of the Mahumetanes is larger then both Marq. First This is no Argument either for an English Man or a Protestant but for a Grecian or Mahumetane not for an English Man because he received his Conversion from Rome and therefore he in Reason should not look beyond Rome or the Doctrine that Rome practised then when they converted England nor for a Protestant because he is as far distant from the Grecian Church in matter of opinion as from the Romane and therefore he need not look for that which he hath no desire to find besides the Greek Church hath long agoe submitted to the Church of Rome and there is no reason that others should make Arguments for her who are not of her when she stands in no competition her selfe besides there is not in any place wherever the Greek Church is or hath beene planted where there are not Roman Catholicks but there are diverse Countreys in Christendome where there is not one Professour of the Greek Church neither is there a place in all the Turks Dominions where there are not Romane Catholicks nor in any part of the world where there are not multitudes of Romanes neither is there a Protestant Countrey in Christendome where there are not Romane Catholicks numberlesse but not a Protestant amongst the Natives neither of Spaine or Italy Shew me but one Protestant Countrey in the world who ever deserted the Romane Faith but they did it by Rebellion except England and there the King and the Bishops were the principall reformers I pray God they doe not both suffer for it Shew me but one reformed Church that is of the opinion of another aske an English Protestant where was your Religion before Luther and he will tell you of Hus and Jerom of Prague search for their Tenents and you shall find them as far different from the English Protestant as they are from one another run to the Waldenses for
your Religions antiquity and you shall find as much difference in their Articles and ours as can be between Churches that are most opposite Come home to your owne Countrey and derive your descent from Wickliffe and search for his Tenents in the booke of Martyrs and you shall find them quite contrary to ours neither amongst any of your moderne Protestants shall you find any other agreement but in this one thing that they all protest against the Pope Shew me but any Protestant Countrey in the world where Reformation as you call it ever set her foot where she was not as well attended with sacriledge as usher'd by Rebellion and I shall lay my hand upon my mouth for ever King My Lord my Lord you are gone beyond the scope of your Argument which required you to prove the Romane Church more Catholick then the Greek which you have not done you put me off with my being English and not a Grecian whereas when we speak of the universality of a Church I think that any man who is belonging to the universe is objectum rationis And if that be the manner of your Election then I am sure most voices must carry it for your alleaged submission of the Greek Church unto the Roman I believe it cannot be prov'd but it may be the Patriarch of Constantinople may submit unto the Pope of Rome and yet the Greek Church may not submit unto the Romane Marq. Sir it is no dishonour for the Sun to make its progress from East to West it is still the same Sun and the difference is onely in the shadowes which are made to differ according to the varieties of shapes that the severall substances are of East and West are two divisions but the same day neither can they be said or imagined to be greater or more extending one or other and the one may have the benefit of the Suns light though the other may have its glory and I believe no man of sober judgment can say that any Church in the world is more generally spread over the face of the whole world or that her glory shines in any place more conspicuously then at this day in Rome King My Lord if externall glory be the Sun-shine of the Gospel then the Church is there indeed but if internall sanctity and inward holynesse be the Essences of a Church then we may be as much to seek for such a Church within the Wals of Rome as any where else Marq. Who shall be Judge of that I pray observe the Injustice and Errours that will arise if every man may be admitted to be his owne judge you of the Church of England left your Mother the Church of Rome and Mother to all the Churches round about You forsook her and set up a new Church of your own Independent to her there comes a new generation and doth the like to you and a third generation that is likely to do the like to that and the Church falls and falls untill it falls to all the pieces of Independencie It is a hard case for a part to fall away from the whole and to be their owne judges Why should not Kent fall away from England and be their owne judges as well as England fall away from Christendome and be their own judges why should not a Parish in Kent fall away from the whole County and be their owne judges why should not one Family fall away from the whole Parish and be their owne judges why should not one man fall away in his opinion from that Family and be his owne judge If you grant one you must grant all and I feare me in doing one you have done all So that every man despiseth the Church whilst he is a Church in himselfe rayles against Popery and is the greatest Pope himselfe despiseth the Fathers and will enthrone his own judgment above the wisdome of the ancient refuseth Expositours that he may have his own sence and if he can start up but some new opinions he thinks himselfe as worthy a member of Christianity as if he were an Apostle to some new found land Now Sir though some do take the Church to be the Scriptures yet the Scriptures cannot be the Church because the Scriptures send us to the Church audi Ecclesiam dic Ecclesiae others take the Elect to be the Church yet this cannot be for we know not who are elect and who are not that which must be the Church must be a visible an eminent societie of men to whose Authority in cases of appeale and matter of judgement we are to acquiesce and subscribe And I appeale to Your Royall heart whether there be a Church in the world whom in these respects we ought to reverence and esteeme more then the Church of Rome and that the Church of Rome is externally glorious it doth not follow that therefore she is not internally holy for the Kings daughters clothing was of wrought gold as well as she was all glorious within and though she had never so many Divine graces within her yet she had honourable women without her as her attendants and for the question whether this inward glory is to be so much sought for within the gates of Rome is the question and not yet decided King My Lord I 'le deale as ingenuously with you as I can When the Romane Monarch stretch'd forth his arms from East to West he might make the Bishops of Romes oecumenacy as large as was his Empire and all the Churches in the world were bound to follow her Lawes and decretalls because God hath made such Emperours nursing Fathers of his Church as it was prophesied by the Divine Esay alwayes provided that the child be not pourtractured greater then the Nurse as hath been observed by the pride of your Bishops of Rome but when the severall Kingdoms of Christendome shook off the Romane Yoke I see no reason why the Bishop of Rome should expect obedience from the Clergie of other Countries any more then the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury should expect obedience from the Clergie of other Kingdoms And for your deriving your Authority from Saint Peter I know no reason why we may not as well derive our Authority from Simon Zelotes or Joseph of Arimathea or from Philip of whose planting the Gospell we have as good warrant as you have for Saint Peter his planting the Gospel in Rome But my Lord I must tell you that there are other Objections to be made against your Church which more condemns her if these were answered Marq. May it please Your Majestie to give me leave to speak a word or two to what I have said and then I shall humbly beg Your further Objections As to that of the Christian Kingdomes shaking off the Roman Yoke and falling to pieces which was so prophesied it should yet the Church should not doe so because it is said it shall remaine in unitie and for Your Majesties objection concerning Simon Zelotes Joseph of Arimathea
take away the meanes of reconciliation For I must confesse ingenuously yet under the highest correction that there is not a thing that I ever understood lesse then that assertion of the Scriptures being judge of Controversies though in some sence I must and will acknowledge it but not as it is a book consisting of papers words and letters for as we commonly say in matters of civill differences the Law shall be the judge between us we do not meane that every man shall run unto the Law books or that any Lawyer himselfe shall search his Law-cases and thereupon possesse himselfe of any thing that is in question between him and another without a legall tryall and determination by lawfull Judges constituted to that same purpose In like manner saving knowledge and Divine Truths are the portion that all Gods children lay fast claime unto yet they must not be their own carvers though it is their own meat that is before them whilst they have a mother at the table They must not slight all Orders Constitutions Appeales and Rules of Faith saving knowledge and Divine Truths are not to be wrested from the Scripture by private hands for then the Scripture were of private interpretation which is against the Apostles Rule Neither are those undefiled incorruptible and immaculate inheritances which are reserved for us in heaven to be conveighed unto us by any Privy-seales For there is nothing more absurd to my understanding then to say that the thing contested which is the true meaning of the Scriptures shall be Judge of the Contestation no way inferiour to that absurditie which would follow which would be this if we should leave the deciding of the sence of the words of the Law to the preoccupated understanding of one of the Advocates neither is this all the absurditie that doth arise upon this supposition for if you grant this to one you must grant it to any one and to every one if there were but two how will you reconcile them both If you grant that this judicature must be in many there are many manyes which of the manyes will you have decide but that and you satisfie all For if you make the Scripture the Judge of Controversie you make the reader Judge of the Scripture as a man consists of a soule and body so the Scripture consists of the letter and the sence if I make the dead letter my Judge I am the greatest and simplest idolater in the world it will tell me no more then it told the Indian Emperour Powhaton who asking the Jesuite how he knew all that to be true which he had told him and the Jesuite answering him that Gods word did tell him so The Emperour asked him where it was he shewed him his Bible The Emperour after that he had held it in his hands a pretty while answered It tells me nothing But you will say you can read and so you will find the meaning out of the significant Character and when you have done as you apprehend it so it must be and so the Scripture is nothing else but your meaning wherefore necessitie requires an externall Judge for determination of differences besides the Scriptures And we can have no better recourses to any then to such as the Scripture it selfe calls upon us to heare which is the Church which Church would be found out King Doctor Saint John in his first Epistle tells us that the holy Scripture is that to whose truth the Spirit beareth witnesse And John the Evangelist tells us that the Scripture is that which gives a greater Testimonie of Christ then John the Baptist Saint Luke tells us that if we believe not the Scripture we would not believe though one were risen from the dead and Christ himselfe who raised men from death to life tells us they cannot believe his words if they believe not in Moses writings Saint Peter tells us that the holy Scripture is surer then a voice from heaven Saint Paul tells us that it is lively in operation and whereby the Spirits demonstrates his power and that it is able to make a man wise to salvation able to save our soules and that it is sufficient too to make us believe in Christ to life everlasting John 20. As in every seed there is a Spirit which meeting with earth heat and moisture grows to perfection so the seed of the word wherin Gods holy Spirit being sowen in the heart inlivened by the heart of faith and watered with the teares of repentance soon fructifies without any further Circumstance Doctor It doth so but Your Majestie presupposes all this while husband-men and husbandry barnes and threshing floors winnowing and uniting these several grains into one loafe before it can become childrens bread All that Your Majestie hath said concerning the Scriptures sufficiencie is true provided that those Scriptures be duly handled for as the Law is sufficient to determine right and keep all in peace and quietnesse yet the execution of that sufficiencie cannot he performed without Courts and Judges so when we have granted the Scriptures to be all that the most reverend estimation can attribute unto them yet Religion cannot be exercised nor differences in Religion reconciled without a Judge For as Saint Ierom tells us who was no great friend to Popes or Bishops Si non una exors quaedam imminens detur potestas tot efficerentur in Ecclesia schismata quot Sacerdotes Wherefore I would faine find out that which the Scripture bids me heare Audi Ecclesiam I would faine referre my selfe to that to which the Scripture commands me to appeale and tells me that if I do not I shall be a Heathen and a Publican Dic Ecclesiae which Church Saint Paul in his first Epistle calls the pillar and foundation of Truth of which the Prophet Ezekiel saith I will place my Sanctification in the midst of her for ever and the Prophet Esay that the Lord would never forsake her in whose light the people should walke and Kings in the brightnesse of her Orient Against which our Saviour saith The gates of Hell shall not prevaile with whom our Saviour saith He would be alwayes unto the end of the world And from whom the Spirit of Truth should never depart For although the Psalmist tells us that the word of the Lord is clear inlightning the eyes yet the same Prophet said to God Enlighten mine eyes that I may see the marvels of thy Law And Saint Iohn tells us that the booke of God hath seven Seals and it was not every one that was thought worthy to open it onely the lambe The Disciples had been ignorant if Iesus had not opened the Scriptures unto them The Eunuch could not understand them without an Interpreter and Saint Peter tells us that the Scripture is not of private Interpretation and that in his brother Pauls Epistles there are many things hard to be understood which ignorant and light-headed-men wrest to their owne perdition Wherefore though as
Saint Chrysostom saith Omnia clara sunt plana ex scriptur is divinis quaecunque necessaria sunt manifesta sunt yet no man ever hath yet defined what are necessary and what not What points are fundamentall and what are not fundamentall Necessary to Salvation is one thing and necessary for knowledge as an improvement of our faith is another thing for the first if a man keeps the Commandments and believes all the Articles of the Creed he may be saved though he never read a word of Scripture but much more assuredly if he meditates upon Gods word with the Psalmist day and night But if he meanes to walk by the rule of Gods word and to search the Scriptures he must lay hold upon the meanes that God hath ordained whereby he may attaine unto the true understanding of them for as Saint Paul saith God hath placed in the Church Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors to the end we should be no more little children blown about with every wind of Doctrine therefore it is not for babes in understanding to take upon them to understand those things wherein so great a Prophet as the Prophet David confessed the darknesse of his owne ignorance And though it be true the Scripture is a river through which a lambe may wade and an Elephant may swim yet it is to be supposed and understood that the lambe must wade but onely through where the river is foordable It doth not suppose the river to be all alike in depth for such a river was never heard of but there may be places in the river where the lambe may swim as well as the Elephant otherwise it is impossible that an Elephant should swim in the same depth where a lambe may wade though in the same river he may neither is it the meaning of that place that the child of God may wade through the Scripture without directions help or Judges but that the meannest capacitie qualified with a harmelesse innocence and desirous to wade through that river of living waters to eternall life may find so much of Comfort and heavenly knowledge there easily to be obtained that he may easily wade through to his eternall Salvation and that there are also places in the same river wherein the highest speculations may plunge themselves in the deep mysteries of God Wherefore with pardon crav'd for my presumption in holding Your Majestie in so tedious a discourse as also for my boldnesse in obtruding my opinion which is except as incomparable Hooker in his Ecclesiasticall pollicy hath well observed the Churches Authority be required herein as necessary hereunto we shall be so far from agreeing upon the true meaning of the Scripture that the outward letter sealed with the inward witnesse of the Spirit being all hereticks have quoted Scripture and pretended Spirit will not be a warrant sufficient enough for any private man to judge so much as the Scripture to be Scripture or the Gospell it selfe to be the Gospell of Christ This Church being found out and her Authority allowed of all controversies would be soone decided and although we allow the Scripture to be the lock upon the door which is Christ yet we must allow the Church to be the Key that must open it as Saint Ambrose in his 38. Sermons calls the agreement of the Apostles in the Articles of our beliefe Clavis Scripturae one of whose Articles is I believe the holy Catholick Church As the Lion wants neither strength nor courage nor power nor weapons to seize upon his prey yet he wants a nose to find it out wherefore by naturall instinct he takes to his assistance the little Jack-call a quick sented beast who runs before the Lion and having found out the prey in his language gives the Lion notice of it who soberly untill such time as he fixes his eyes upon the bootie makes his advance but once comming within view of it with a more speed then the swiftest running can make he jumps upon it and seizes it Now to apply this to our purpose Christ crucified is the main substance of the Gospell according to the Apostles saying I desire to know nothing but Iesus and him crucified This crucified Christ is the nourishment of our soules according to our Saviours own words Ubi Cadaver ibi aquilae Thereby drawing his Disciples from the curious speculation of his body glorified to the profitable meditation of his body crucified It is the prey of the Elect the dead Carkasse feedeth the Eagles Christ crucified nourisheth his Saints according to Saint Iohns saying except we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his bloud we have no life in us him we must mastigate and chew by faith traject and convey him into our hearts as nutriment by meditation and digest him by Coalition whereby we grow one with Christ and Christ becomes one with us according to that saying of Tertullian Auditu devorandus est intellectu ruminandus fide digerendus Now for the true understanding of the Scriptures which is no other thing then the finding out of Iesus and him crucified who is the very life of the Scriptures which body of Divinity is nourished with no other food and all its veines fil'd with no other bloud though this heavenly food the Scripture have neither force nor power to seize upon its prey but is endued with a lively spirit able to overcome the greatest ignorance yet there is a quick sented assistant called Ecclesia or Church which is derived from a verbe which signifies to call which must be the Jack-call to which this powerfull seeker after this prey must joyne it selfe or else it will never be able to find it out and when we are called we must go soberly to work untill by this means we have attained unto the true understanding and sight thereof and then let the Lion like the Eagle Maher-shalal hashbaz as the Prophet Esay cap. 8. v. 3. tells us make hast to the prey make speed to the spoile Saint Paul confirmes the use of this Etymologie writing to the Corinthians viz. To the Saints called and the Ephesians cap. 4. he tells us if ye would be in one body and in one spirit and of one mind you must be as you are called in our hope of your vocation and in his Epistle of the Colossians cap. 3. he tells us that if we will have the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts that is it by which we are called in one selfe body where we must allow a constitution or Society of men called to that purpose and whose calling it is to procure unto us this peace and unitie in the Church or we shall never find it Thus when dissention arose between Paul and Barnabas concerning Circumcision their disputations could effect nothing but heat untill the Apostles and Elders met together and determined the matter there must be a society of men that can say Bene visum fuit nobis Spiritui sancto or
any other Church besides the Romane she never had Communion She cannot be that one because she is but one nor Catholick because she agrees not with any nor Apostolick because she hath acknowledged such a fine and recovery that has quite cut off the entaile which would have otherwise descended unto her from the Apostles neither can she be holy because she is none of all the other three Now if these Attributes cannot belong unto the Protestant Religion and do clearly belong unto the Roman then is the Church of Rome the Catholick Church And that it doth I shall prove it by the marks which God Almighty hath given us whereby we should know her And the first is Universality All Nations shall flow unto her Esa 2. 2. And the Psalmist The heathen shall be thine inheritance and the uttermost part of the Earth for thy possession Psal 2. 2. And our Saviour Matth. 20. 14. This Gospell of the Kingdome shall be preached in all the world as a witnesse to all Nations c. Now I confesse that this glory is belonging to all Professors of the Christian Religion yet amongst all those who do professe the name of Christ I believe Your Majestie will consent with me herein that the Romane Church hath this forme of universality not onely above all different and distinct Professors of Religion but also beyond all Religions of the world Turkes or Heathens and that there is no place in the world where there are not Romance Catholicks which is manifestly wanting to all other Religions whatsoever Now I hope Your Majestie cannot say so of any Protestant Religion neither that Your Majestie will call all those who protest against the Church of Rome otherwise then Protestants but not Protestant Catholicks or Catholicks of the Protestant Religion being they are not religated within the same Communion and fellowships for then Religion would consist in protestation rather then unity in Nations falling off from one another rather then all Nations flowing to one another neither is it a Consideration altogether invalid that the Church of Rome hath kept possession of the name all along other reformed Churches leaving her in possession of the name and taking unto themselves new names according to their severall founders except the Church of England who is now her selfe become like a Chapter that is full of nothing else whose founder was such a one whose name it may be they were unwilling to owne For antiquity if we should inquire after the old paths which is the good way and walke therein as the Prophet Jeremiah adviseth us if we should take our Saviours rule Ab initio autem non fuit sic if we should observe his saying how the good seed was first sowed and then the tares If we should consider the pit from whence we were dug and the rock from whence we were hewen we shall find antiquity more applicatory to the Church of Rome then any Protestant Church But you will say your Religion is as ancient as ours having its procedure from Christ and his Apostles so say the Lutheran Protestants with their Doctrine of Consubstantiation and many other sorts of Protestants having other Tenents altogether contrary to what you hold how shall we reconcile you so say all hereticks that ever were how shall we confute them a part to set up themselmes against the whole and by the power of the sword to make themselves Judges in their owne causes is dealing that were it your case I am sure you would think it very hard I wish you may never find it so For Visibility Our Saviour compares his Church to a Citie placed on a hill according unto the Prophet Davids Prophesie a Tabernacle in the Sun It is likewise compared unto a candle in a candle-stick not under a bushell and saith our Saviour If they shall say unto you behold he is in the desart go ye not forth Behold he is in secret places believe it not forewarning us against obscure and invisible Congregations Now I beseech Your Majestie whether should I betake my selfe to a Church that was alwayes visible and gloriously eminent or to a Protestant Church that was never eminent and for the most part invisible shrowding their defection under an Apostolicall Expression of a woman in the Revelation who fled into the wildernesse for a thousand years as if an allegory could wipe out so many clear texts of Scripture as are set down by our Saviour and the Prophets concerning the Churches invisibility And I could not find any Church in the world to whom that Prophesie of Esay might more fitly appertain then to the Church of Rome I have set watch-men upon the walls which shall never hold their peace day nor night which I am sure no Protestant Church can apply to her selfe It is not enough to say I maintaine the same Faith and Religion which the Apostles taught and therefore I am of the true Church ancient and visible enough because as I have said before every heretick will say as much but if you cannot by these marks of the Church set down in Scripture clear your selves to be the true Church you vainly appeale to the Scriptures siding with you in any particular point for what can be more absurd then to appeale from Scripture setting things down clearly unto Scripture setting down things more obscurely There is no particular point of Doctrine in the holy Scripture so manifestly set downe as that concerning the Church and the Markes thereof nothing set down more copious and perspicuous then the visibility perpetuitie and amplitude of the Church So that Saint Augustin did not stick to say that the Scriptures were more clear about the Church then they were about Christ Let him answer for it He said so in his book de unitate Ecclesiae and this he said was the reason because God in his wisdome would have the Church to be described without any ambiguity that all Controversies about the Church may be clearly decided whereby questions about particular Doctrines may find determinations in her judgement and that Visibility might shew the way unto the most rude and ignorant and I know not any Church to whom it may more justly be attributed then to the Church of Rome whose Faith as in the beginning was spread through the whole world so all along and at this day it is generally known among all nations Next to this I prove the Catholick Church to be the Romane because a lawfull succession of Pastors is required in every true Church according to the Prophet Esay his Prophecie concerning her viz. My Spirit which is upon thee and the words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed from henceforth for ever This succession I can find onely in the Church of Rome This succession they onely can prove nons else offering to go about it This succession Saint
Succession In the Cities of Judah and Jerusalem There is Universalitie so Demetrius urged Antiquity and Universality for his godde 〈…〉 viz. That her Temple should not be despised 〈…〉 Magnificence destroyed whom all Asia and the world worshipped So Symachus that wise Senator though a bitter enemie to the Christians Servanda est inquit tot seculis fides sequendi sunt nobis parentes qui feliciter sequuti sunt suos we must defend that Religion which hath worne out so many ages and follow our Fathers steps who have so happily followed theirs So Prudentius would have put back Christianity it selfe viz. Nunc dogma nobis Christianum nascitur post evolutos mille demum Consules Now the Christian Doctrine begins to spring up after the revolution of a thousand Consul-ships But Ezekiel reads us another lecture Ne obdurate cervices vestras ut patres vestri cedite manum Iehovae ingredimini sanctuarium ejus quod sanctificavit in seculum colite Iehovam Deum vestrum Be not stiff-necked as your fore fathers were resist not the mighty God enter into his Sactuary which he hath consecrated for ever and worship ye the Lord your God Radbodus King of Phrygia being about to be baptized asked the Bishop what was become of all his ancestors who were dead without being baptized The Bishop answered that they were all in hell whereupon the King suddenly withdrew himselfe from the font saying Ibi profecto me illis Comitem adjungam Thither will I go unto them no lesse wise are they who had rather erre with fathers and Councels then rectifie their understanding by the word of God and square their faith according to its rules Our Saviour Christ saith we must not so much hearken to what has been said by them of old time Mat. 21. 12. as to that which he shall tell you where Auditis dictum esse antiquis is exploded and Ego dico vobis is come in its place which of them all can attribute that credit to be given unto him as is to be given to Saint Paul Yet he would not have us to be followers of him more then he is a follower of Christ 1 Cor. 11. 1. Wherefore if you cry never so loud Sancta mater Ecclesia sancta mater Ecclesia the holy mother Church holy mother Church as of old they had nothing to say for themselves but Templum Domini Templum Domini the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord we will cry as loud againe with the Prophet Quomodo facta est meretrix Urbs fidelis how is the faith full City become a harlot if you vaunt never so much of your Roman Catholick Church we can tell you out of Saint John that she is become the Synagogue of Sathan neither is it impossible but that the house of prayers may be made a Den of theeves you call us hereticks we answer you with Saint Paul Act. 24. 14. After the way which you call heresie so worship we the God of our fathers believing all things which were written in the Law and the Prophets I will grant you that all those marks which you have set downe are marks of the true Church and I will grant you more that they were belonging to the Church of Rome but then you must grant me thus much that they are as well belonging to any other Chucch who hold and maintaine that Doctrine which the Church of Rome then maintained when she wrought those conversions and not at all to her if she have changed her first love and fallen from her old principles for it will do her no good to keep possession of the keyes when the lock is changed now to try whether she hath done so or no there can be no better way then by searching the Scriptures for though I grant you that the Catholick Church is the White in that Butt of earth at which we all must aime yet the Scripture is the heart centre or peg in the midst of that white that holds it up from whence we must measure especially when we are all in the white We are all of us in gremio Ecclesiae so that controversies cannot be decided by the Catholick Church but by the Scriptures which is the thing by which the nearenesse unto truth must be decided for that which must determine truth must not be fallible but whether you mean the consent of Fathers or the decrees of generall Counsels they both have erred I discover no Fathers nakednesse but deplore their infirmities that we should not trust in armes of flesh Tertullian was a montanist Cyprian a rebaptist Origen an Anthropomorphist Heirom a Monoganist Nazianzen an Angelist Eusebius an Arrian Saint Augustine had written so many errors as occasioned the writing of a whole booke of retractations they have often times contradicted one another and sometimes themselves Now for generall Counsels Did not that Concilium Ariminense conclude for the Arrian heresie Did not that Concilium Ephesinum conclude for the Eutichian heresie Did not that Concilium Carthaginense conclude it not lawfull for Priests to marry Was not Athanasius condemned In concilio Tyrioi Was not Eiconolatria established In concilio Nicaeno secundo What should I say more when the Apostles themselves lesse obnoxious to error either in life or doctrine more to be preferred then any or all the world besides one of them betraies his Saviour another denies him all forsake him They thought Christs Kingdome to have been of this world and a promise onely unto the Jewes and not unto the Gentiles and this after the resurrection They wondered that the holy Ghost should fall upon the Gentiles Saint John twice worshipped the Angel and was rebuked for it Apoc. 22. 8. Saint Paul saw how Peter walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel Gal. 2. 14. Not onely Peter but other of the Apostles were ignorant how the word of God was to be preached unto the Gentiles But who then shall rowl away the stone from the mouth of the monument Who shall expound the Scriptures to us one puls one way and another another by whom shall we be directed Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus You that cry up the Fathers the Fathers so much shall hear how the Fathers doe tell us that the Scriptures are their owne interpreters Irenaeus who was scholler to Policarpus that was schollar to Saint Iohn lib. 3. cap. 12. thus saith Ostentiones quae sunt in Scriptur is non possunt ostendi nisi ex ipsis Scriptur is the evidences which are in Scripture cannot be manifested but out of the same Scripture Clemens Alexandrinus Nos ex ipsis de ipsis Scriptur is perfectè demonstrantes ex fide persuademus demonstrative Strom. li. 7. Out of the Scriptures themselves from the same Scriptures perfectly demonstrating doe we draw demonstrative perswasions from faith Crysost Sacra Scriptura seipsam exponit auditorem errare non sinit Basilius Magnus Quae ambiguè quae obscurè videntur
dici in quibusdam locis sacrae Scripturae ab i is quae in aliis locis aperta perspicua sunt explicantur Hom 13. in Gen. Those things which may seeme to be ambiguous and obscure in certaine places of the holy Scripture must be explicated from those places which else-where are plain and manifest Augustinus Ille qui cor habet quod precisum est iungat Scripturae legat superiora vel inferiora inveniet sensum Let him who hath a precise heart joyne it unto the Scriptures and let him observe what goes before and that which follows after and he shall find out the sense Gregorius saith Ser. 49. De verbis Domini Per Scripturam loquitur Deus omne quod vult voluntas dei sicut in testamento sic in evangelio inquiratur By Scripture God speaks his whole mind and the will of God as in the old Testament so in the new is to be found out Optatus contra Parmenonem lib. 5. Num quis aequior arbiter veritatis divinae quam Deus aut ubi deus manifestius loquitur quam in verbo suo Is there a better judge of the divine verity then God himselfe or where doth God more manifestly declare himselfe then in his owne word What breath shall we believe then but that which is the breath of God the holy Scriptures for it seems all one to Saint Paul to say dicit Scriptura the Scripture saith Rom. 4. 3. and dicit Deus the Lord saith Rom. 9. 17. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin Gal. 3. 22. for that which Rom. 11. 32. he saith God hath concluded all c. how shall we otherwise conclude then but with the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 12. have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given unto us of God They who know not this spirit do deride it but this spirit is hidden Manna Apo. 2. 17. which God giveth them to eat who shall overcome it is the white stone wherein the new name is written which no man knoweth but he that received it Wherefore we see the Scripture is the rule by which all differences may be composed it is the light wherein we must walke the food of our souls an antidote that expels any infection the onely sword that kils the enemy the onely plaster that can cure our wounds and the onely documents that can be given towards the attainment of everlasting salvation The Marquesses reply to the Kings Paper May it please your most excellent Majesty YOur Majestie is pleased to wave all the marks of the true Church and to make recourse unto the Scriptures I humbly take leave to aske your Majesty what heretique that ever was did not doe so How shall the greatest heretique in the world be confuted or censured if any man may be permitted to appeale to Scriptures margind with his own notes senc'd with his owne meaning and enlivened with his owne private spirit to what end were those marks so fully both by the Prophets the Apostles and our Saviour himselfe set downe if we make no use of them To what use are land-marks set up if Marriners will not believe them to be such Yet notwithstanding after that I have said what I have to say in removall of certain obstacles that lie in the way I shall lead your Majesty to my Church through the full body of the Scriptures or not at all and then I shall leave it to your royall heart to judge when you shall see that we have Scripture on our side whether or no the interpretation thereof be likelier to be true that hath been adjudged so by Councels renowned Fathers famous for sanctity and holinesse of life continued for the space of a thousand or twelve hundred years by your owne confession universally acknowledged or that such a one as Luther his word shall be taken either without Scripture or against it with sic volo and sic jubeo a man who confessed himselfe that he received his doctrine from the Devil or such a one as Calvin and their associates notoriously infamous in their lives and conversations plain Rebels to their Moses and Aaron united to the same person should counter ballance all the worthies determinations of Councels and the continued practice which so many ages produced If your Majestie meanes by the Church all the professors of the Gospel all that are Christians are so the true Church then we are so in your owne sense and you in ours then none who believe in the blessed Trinity the Articles of the Creed none who deny the Scriptures to be the word of God let them construe them as they please can be hereticall or of a wrong Religion therefore we must contradistinguish them thus and by the Protestant Church and Religion we must understand those opinions which the Protestants hold contrary to the Church of Rome and by the Romane the opinions which they hold dissenting from the Protestant and then we will see whether we have Scripture for our Religion or not and whether you have Scripture for what you maintaine and whose opinions are most approved of by the Primitive times and Fathers and what ground your late Divines have built their new opinions upon and then I shall give you Majestie an answer to the objection which you make against our Church viz. That she hath forsaken her first love and fallen from the principles which she held when she converted us to Christianity But first to the removall of those rubs in our way and then I shall shew as much reverence to the Scripture as any Protestant in the world and shall endeavour to shew your Majesty that the Scriptures are the Basis or foundation upon which our Church is built Your Majesty was pleased to urge the errors of certaine Fathers to the prejudice of their authority which I conceive would have been so had they been all Montanists Rebaptists all Anthropomorphists and all of them generally guilty of the faults wherewith they were severally charged in the particulars seeing that when we produce a Father we doe not intend to produce a man in whose mouth was never found guile the infallibility being never attributed by us otherwise then unto the Church not unto particular Church-men as Your Majesty hath most excellently observed in the failings of the holy Apostles who erred after they had received the holy Ghost in so ample manner but when they were all gathered together in Councell and could send about their edicts with these capitall letters in the front Visum est spiritui sancto nobis Acts 15. 28. then I hope your Majesty cannot say that it was possible for them to erre So though the Fathers might erre in particulars yet those particular errors would be swallowed up in a generall Councel and be no more considerable in respect of the whole then so many heat-drops of error can stand in competition with a cloud
Baptisme Acts 4. 35. 1 Cor. 1. 10. The Fathers are of that opinion Saint Aug cont ep Par. l. 3. chap. 5. Saint Cyp. lib. de unitate ecclesiae nu 3. Saint Hyl. lib. ad Constantium Augustum We hold that every Minister of the Church especially the supreme Ministers or head thereof should be in a capacity of fungifying his office in preaching the Gospel administring the Sacraments baptizing marrying and not otherwise this we have Scripture for Heb. No man taketh this honour unto himselfe but he that is called of God as Aaron was this you deny and not onely so but you so deny it as that your Church hath maintained and practised it a long time for a woman to be head or supreme moderatrix in the Church when you know that according to the word of God in this respect a woman is not onely forbid to be the head of the man but to have a tongue in her head 1 Tim. 2. 11 12. 1 Cor. 14. 34. yet so hath this been denied by you that many have been hang'd drawn and quartered for not acknowledging it the Fathers are of our opinion herein Saint Damascen ser 1. Theod. hist Eccles lib. 4. chap. 28. Saint Ignat. Epist ad Philodolph Saint Chrysost Hom. 5. de verbis Isaiae We say that Christ gave commission to his Disciples to forgive sins you deny it and say that God only can forgive sins we have Scripture for it John 20. 23. Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted and whosesoever sinnes ye retain they are retained and John 20. 21. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you and how was that viz. with so great power as to forgive sinnes Mat. 9. 3. 8. where note that Saint Matthew doth not set down how that the people glorified God the Father who had given so great power unto God the Son but that he had given so great power unto men loco citato The Fathers are of our opinion S. Aug. tract 49. in Joan. Saint Chrys de Sacerdotio l. 3. Saint Ambros l. 3. de penitentia St. Cyril l. 12. c. 50. saith it is not absurd to say That they should remit sinnes who have in them the Holy Ghost and Saint Basil l. 5. cont Eunom proved the Holy Ghost to be God and so confuted his heresie because the Holy Ghost forgave sinnes by the Apostles and S. Irenaeus l. 5. c. 13. so S. Greg. Hom. 6. Evang. We hold that we ought to confesse our sinnes unto our Ghostly Father this ye deny saying that ye ought not to confesse your sinnes but unto God alone this we prove out of Scripture Mat. 3. 5 6. Then went out Jerusalem and all Judah and were baptized of him in Iordan confessing their sinnes this confession was no generall confession but in particular as appears Acts 19. 18 19. And many that believed came and confessed and shewed their deeds The Fathers affirm the same S. Irenaeus l. 1. c. 9. Tert. lib. de Poenitentia where he reprehendeth some who for humane shamefac'dnesse neglected to goe to confession Saint Ambr. sate to hear confession Amb. ex Paulsino S. Clem. Ep. de fratr Dom. Origen l. 3. Chrys l. 3. de sacerd S. Ambr. orat in muliere peccatrice saith confesse freely to the Priest the hidden sins of thy soul We hold that men may doe works of supererogation this you deny This we prove by Scripture Mat. 19. 12. viz. There be Eunuches which have made themselves Eunuches for the Kingdome of Heaven he that is able to receive it let him receive it This is more then a Commandment as Saint Aug observes upon the place ser lib. de temp for of precepts it is not said keep them who is able but keep them absolutely The Fathers are of this opinion Saint Amb lib. de viduis Orig in c. 15. ad Rom. Euseb 1. demonstrat c. 8. Saint Chry hom 8. de act paenit Saint Greg. nicen 15. Moral c. 5. We say we have free-will you deny it we prove we have out of Scripture viz. 1 Cor. 17. He that standeth stedfast in his heart having no necessity but hath power over his own will and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin doth well Deut. 30. 11. I have have set before you life and death blessing and cursing chuse life that thou and thy seed may live And Christ himself said O Jerusalem Jerusalem how oft would I have gathered thy children together as a Hen gathers her Chickens and ye would not where Christ would and they would not there might have been a willingnesse as well as a willing or else Christ had wept in vain and to think that he did so were to make him an impostor The ancient Fathers are of our opinion Euseb Caesar de praep l. 1. c. 7. Saint Hilde Trin Saint Aug l. 1. ad Simp q. 4. Saint Ambr in Luc c. 12. Saint Chrys hom 19. in Gen Irenaeus l. 4. c. 72. S. Cyril l. 4. in Joan in c. 7. c. We hold it possible to keep the Commandments you say it is impossible we have Scripture for it Luke 1. 6. And they were both righteous before God walking in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord blamelesse and 1 John 5. 3. His Commandments are not grievous The Fathers are for us Orig Hom 9. in Josue Saint Cyril lib. 4. cont Julian Saint Hyl in Psal 118. Saint Hier lib. 3. cont Pelag Saint Basil We say faith cannot justifie without works yee say good works are not absolutely necessary to salvation we have Scripture for what we say 1 Cor. 13. 2. Though I have all faith and have no charity I am nothing and James 2. 24. By works a man is justified and not by faith onely This opinion of yours Saint Aug lib. de fide oper cap. 14. saith was an old heresie in the Apostles time and in the preface of his Comment upon the 32. Psal he calls it the right way to hell and damnation See Orig in 5. to the Rom S. Hillar chap. 7. in Mat S. Amb 4. ad Heb c. We hold good works to be meritorious you deny it we have Scripture for it Mat. 6. 27. He shall reward every man according to his works Mat. 5. 12. Great is your reward in heaven Reward at the end presupposes merit in the worke the distinction of secundum and propter opera is too nice to make such a division in the Church The Fathers were of our opinion S. Amb de Apolog David cap. 6. S. Hier lib. 3. Cont Pelag S. Aug de Spiritu lit cap. ult and divers others We hold that faith once had may be lost if we have not care to preserve it You say it cannot we have Scripture for it viz. Luke 8. 13. They on the rock are they which when they hear receive the word with joy which for a while believe and in time of temptation fall away So 1 Tim. 1. 18 19. Which some having put
acknowledgment The Fathers are on our side Orig. Hom. 2. in Levit. S. Chrys lib. 3. de Sacerd. S. Aug. in speculo Ser. 215. de temp Vener Bed in 6. Marke and S. James and many others Thus most Sacred SIR we have no reason to wave the Scriptures umpirage so that you will hear it speak in the mother language and not produce it as a witnesse on your side when the producers tell us nothing but their owne meaning in a language unknowne to all the former ages and then tell us that she saith so and they will have it so because he that hath a Bible and a sword shall carry away the meaning from him that hath a Bible and ne're a sword nor is it more blasphemy to say that the Scripture is the Churches off spring because it is the word of God then it is for me to say I am the sonne of such a man because God made me instrumentally I am so and so was shee for as saith Saint Aug Evangelio non crederum nisi me Ecclesiae anthoritas commoveret I should not believe the Gospel it selfe unlesse I were moved by the authority of the Church There was a Church before there was a Scripture take which Testament you please We grant you that the Scripture is the Originall of all light yet we see light before we see the Sun and we know there was a light when there was no Sun the one is but the body of the other We grant you the Scriptures to be the Celestiall globe but we must not grant you that every one knows how to use it or that it is necessary or possible they should We grant that the Scripture is a light to our feet and a lanthorne to our paths then you must grant me that it is requisite that we have a guide or else we may lose our way in the light as well as in the darke We grant you that it is the food of our souls yet there must be some body that must divide or break the bread We grant you that it is the onely antidote against the infection of the Devil yet it is not every ones profession to be a compounder of the ingredients We grant your Majesty the Scripture to be the only sword and buckler to defend a Church from her Ghostly enemies yet I hope you will not have the glorious company of the Apostles and the goodly fellow ship of the Prophets to exclude the noble Army of Martyrs and the holy Church which through all the world doth acknowledge Christ wherefore having shewne Your Majestie how much the Scriptures are ours I shall now consider your opinions apart from us and see how they are yours and who sides with You in Your opinion besides Your selves and first I shall crave the boldnesse to begin with the Protestants of the Church of England The Church of England WHose Religion as it is in opposition to ours consists altogether in denying for what she affirms we affirme the same as the Reall presence the infallibility visibility universality and unity of the Church confession and remission of sins free-will and possibility of keeping the Commandments c. All these things you deny and you may as well deny the blessed Trinity for we have no such word in Scripture onely inference then that which ye have already denyed and for which we have plaine Scripture Fathers Councels practise of the Church that which ye hold positive in your Discipline is more erroneous then that which is negative in your Doctrine as your maintaining a woman to be head Supreame or Moderatrix in the Church who by the Apostles rule is not to speak in the Church or that a Lay-man may be so what Scripture or Fathers or custome have ye for this or that a Lay-man as your Lay-Chancellour should excommunicate and deliver up soules to Sathan Whereas matters of so weighty concernment as delivering of mens soules into the Devils hands should not be executed and upon mature deliberation and immergent occasions and not by any but those who have the undoubted Authority lest otherwise you make the Authority it selfe to be doubted of A strange Religion whose Ministers are denyed the power of remitting sins whilst Lay-men are admitted to the power of retaining them and that upon every ordinary occasion as non-payment of fees and the like Whereas such practises as these have rendred the rod of Aaron no more formidable then a reed shaken with the wind so that you have brought it to this that whilst such men as these were permitted to excommunicate for a threepeny matter the people made not a three-peny matter of their Excommunication The Church of Saxony NOw for the Church of Saxony you shall find Luther a man not only obtruding new Doctrine upon his Disciples without Scripture or contrary to Scripture but also Doctrine denying Scripture to be Scripture and vilipending those books of Scripture which were received into the Canon and acknowledged to be the word of God in all ages As The book of Eccles saying That it hath never a perfect sentence in it and that the Author thereof had neither boots nor spurs but rid upon a long stick or begging shooes as he did when he was a Fryar And the book of Job that the argument thereof is a meer fiction invented onely for the setting downe of a true and lively example of patience That it is a false opinion and to be abolished that there are four Gospels and that the Gospel of S. John is only true That the Epistle of S. James is contentious swelling dry strawy and unworthy an Apostolical spirit And that Moses in his writings shewes unpleasant stopped and angry lips in which the word of grace is not but of wrath death and sin He calls him a Goaler Executioner and a cruell Serjeant For his doctrine He holds a threefold Divinity or three kinds as there are three persons whereupon Zwinglius taxes him for maning three Gods or three Natures in the Divinity He himselfe is angry with the word Trinity calling it a humane invention and a thing that soundeth very coldly He justifies the Arrians and saith they did very well in expelling the word Homousion being a word that his soule hated He affirmed that Christ was from all eternity even according to his humane nature taxed for it by Zwing in these words how can Christ then be said to be borne of a woman He affirmes that as Christ dyed with great pain so he seeems to have sustained pains in Hell after death That the divinity of Christ suffered or else he were none of his Christ That if the humane nature should only suffer for him that Christ were but a Saviour of a vile account and had need himselfe of another Saviour Luther held not onely consubstantiation but also saith Hospinian that the body and bloud of Christ both is and may be found according
to the substance not only in the bread and wine of the Eucharist or in the hearts of the faithfull but also in all Creatures in fire water or in the rope and halter wherewith desperate persons hang themselves He averreth that the Ten Commandments belong not unto us for God did not lead us but the Jewes forth of Aegypt That faith except it be without even the least good works doth not justifie and is no faith Whereof you may see him condemned and cited by That we are equall in dignity and honour with Saint Paul Saint Peter or the blessed Virgin Mary or all the Saints That all the holinesse which they have used in fasting and prayer enduring labours chastising their bodies austerity and hardnesse of life may be daily performed by a hog or a dog That in absence of a Priest a woman or a boy or any Christian may absolve That they onely communicate worthily who have confused and erroneous consciences That a Priest especially in the new Testament is not made but borne not consecrated but created That the Sacrament were true though it were administred by the Devil See him baited for it by two of his fellow Protestants That among Christians no man can or ought to be a Magistrate but each one is to other equally subject and that among Christian men none is superiour save one and only Christ That the husband in case the wife refuse his bed may say unto her if thou wilt not another will if the Mistresse will not let the maid come That the Magistrates duty is to put such a wife to death and that if that the Magistrate omit to doe so the husband may imagine that his wife is stolne away by theeves and slaine and consider how to marry another That the adulterer may flie into another Country and if he cannot contain marry againe That Polygamy is no more abrogated then the rest of Moses Law and that it is free as being neither commanded nor forbidden That it is no more in his power to be without a woman then it is in his power to be no man and that it is more necessary then to eat drink purge or blow his nose I will give you the latine of another opinion of his because they are his owne words but not any of my english shall be accessary to the transportation of such a blast into my native language Perinde faciunt qui continenter vivere instituunt acsi qui excrementa vel lotium contra naturae impetum retinere velit Luther saith How can man prepare himselfe to good seeing it is not in his power to make his waies evill for God worketh the wicked work in the wicked But I pray you where have you this or any of all this in Scripture nay what Scripture have you for it that Scripture should be no Scripture as hitherto he hath made a great part of it and Zwingl almost all the rest denying all Pauls Epist to be sacred Zwing tom 2. fol. 10. What Councel what Fathers what primitive or sequent Church Usque ad ever taught or approved such doctrine as this and how are we cryed out upon for errors notwithstanding we have all for our Justification and yet this is the man that boasted that Christ was first published by him and by all of you that he was the first reformer this is he who calls himselfe a more excellent Doctor then all those who are in the papacy This is he who thus brags of himselfe viz. Dr. Martin Luther will have it so a Papist and an Asse are directly the same so is my will such is my command my will is my reason This is he that tells you I will have you to know that I will not hereafter vouchsafe you the honour as that I will suffer either you or the very Angels of heaven to judge of my doctrine c. Nor will I have my doctrine judged by any no not by the Angels themselves for I being certaine thereof will by it be judge both of you and the Angels And lastly this is he that gave the alarme to all Christendome of the errors idolatries superstitions and prophanenesse of the Church of Rome but what Scriptures have you for it that you should not belive the Scriptures what Fathers have you that you should not believe the Church what custome have you that you should not believe the Fathers rather then any private interpretation the promised holy Ghost alwaies ruling in the Church rather then the presumed private Spirit in any particular man The Church of Geneva NOw for the Church of Geneva Calvin comming after him is not contented to stop himselfe at Luthers bounds but he goes further and detracts not onely from the Scripture but from Christ and God himselfe For first He maintaines that three essences doe arise out of the holy Trinity That the Sonne hath his substance distinct from the Father and that he is a distinct God from the Father He teacheth that the Father can neither wholly nor by parts communicate his nature to Christ but must withall be deprived thereof himselfe He denies that the Sonne is begotten of the Fathers substance and essence affirming that he is God of himselfe not God of God He saies that that dream of the absolute power of God which the Schoolmen have brought in is execrable blasphemy He saith that where it is said that the Father is greater then I it hath been restrained to the humane nature of Christ but I doe not doubt to extend it to him as God and man He severeth the person of the Mediator from Christs divine person maintaining with Nestorius two persons in Christ the one humane and the other divine That Christs soule was subject to ignorance and that this was the onely difference betwixt us and him that our infirmities are of necessity and this was voluntary That it is evident that ignorance was common to Christ with the Angels And particulariseth wherein viz. that he knew not the day of Judgement Nor that the Fig-tree was barren which he cursed till he came near it He is not afraid to censure certaine words of Christ to be but a weak confutation of what he sought to refute And saies Christ seems here not to reason solidly He tells us that this similitude of Christ seemes to be harsh and farre fetch'd and a little after the similitude of sitting doth not hang together Where Christ inferred All things therefore whatsoever you will c. Calvin giveth it this glosse It is a superfluous or vaine illation This Metaphor of Christ is somewhat harsh He saith insomuch as Christ should promise from God a reward to fasting it was an improper speech He writeth of a saying of Christ that it seemes to be spoken improperly and absurdly in French
sans raison He saith that Christ refused and denyed as much as lay in him to performe the office of a Mediator That he manifested his owne effeminatenesse by his shunning of death He saith that Theeves and malefactors hasten to death with obstinate resolution despising it with haughty courage others mildly suffer it but what constancy stoutnesse or courage was there in the Son of God who was astonished and in a manner striken dead with fear of death how shamefull a tendernesse was it to be so far tormented with fear of common death as to melt in bloudy sweat and not to be able to be comforted but by the sight of Angels And that the same vehemency took him from the present memory of the heavenly decree so that he forgot at that instant that he was sent hither to be our redeemer This prayer of Christ was not premeditate but the force and extremity of grief wringed from him this hasty speech to which a correction was presently added and a little before he chastiseth and recalleth that vow of his which he had let suddainly slip Thus doe we see Christ to be on all sides so vexed as being over-whelmed with desparation he ceased to call upon God which was as much as to renounce his salvation and this saith he a little before was not fained or as a thing only acted upon a stage That Christ in his soul suffered the terrible torments of a damned and forsaken man In the death of Christ occurs a spectacle full of desperation In this spectacle there was nothing but matter of extreame despair It is no marvell if it be said that Christ went downe into Hell since he suffered that death wherewith God in wrath striketh wicked doers That Christ sitting at the right hand of his Father holds but a second degree with him in honour and rule and is but his Vicar Lastly Calvin holds it to be absurd that Christ should challenge to himselfe the glory of his owne resurrection when the Scripture saith he every where teacheth it to be the work of God the Father That God is the Author of all those things which these Popish Judges would have to happen onely by his idle sufferance Instit lib. cap. 18. Sect. 3. That our sins are not onely by his commission but decree and will 16. Sect. 1 2. lib. 2. cap. 4. Sect. 3 4. Which blasphemy is condemned by his famous brethren Fleming lib. de univers grat p. 109. Osiander Euchir Controvers p. 104. Schaffm de peccat causis p. 155. 27. Sitzlinus disput Theol. de providentia Dei Sect. 141. Insomuch that the Magistrates of Berne made it penall by their Laws for any man to preach or read any of his books or doctrine Vide literas Senat. Bern. ad ministros An. 1555. This man strikes neither at the right hand nor on the left but at the King of Israel himselfe who can thinke this mans mouth any slander or his invections a depravement when he belches forth such blasphemies against the Son of God in whom the fulnesse of the God-head dwelt bodily or who could thinke this man fit to reforme a Church when nothing more required reformation then his owne errours But what Scriptures or Fathers is there for all this The Doctrine of the Zwinglians ZWinglius confesseth himselfe to have been instructed against the Masse by a certaine admonisher which he knew not whether it was black or white The same derided as illusion by the learned Protestants The same as Luther's Devil largely set downe by himselfe He is taxed by Calvin for depraving the Scripture for changing the word est and putting in significat in his Translation of the New Testament He saies that these sayings and the like viz. If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments c. are but superfluous and hyperbolicall He denies that Originall sin can damne us calling it but a disease or contagion He maketh Baptizing of Infants a thing indifferent which may be used or left off That Princes may be deposed by the godly if they be wicked or goe contrary to the rule of Christ He saith that when we commit adultery or murder it is the work of God being the mover the Author or inciter c. God moveth the thiefe to kill c. he is forced to sin c. God hardned Pharaoh not speaking hyperbolically but he truly hardned him though he had resisted For which he is particularly reprehended by the learned Protestant Grawerus But where is there any Scripture or Fathers or Doctors of the Church that ever taught this Doctrine before Melancthons Doctrine FOr Melancthon he taught that there are three Divinities as there are three Persons For which he is reprehended by Stancarus He affirmes polygamy not to be against Jus Divinum and adviseth Hen. 8. unto it He teacheth peremptory resistance against Magistrates He inableth the inferiour Magistrate to alter Religion against the contrary Edicts of the Superiour So Calvin so Beza so Goodman so Danaeus so Knox so Buch so Bancroft so Fenners so Scutcliff so Hottomanus so Ficlerus so Renekerus all hold it lawfull to depose murder or to arraigne their Prince Call in forraigne ayd to assist them Bestow the Crown at their pleasure Destroy them either by peaceable practices or open War Propose rewards to such but where have they Scriptures or Fathers or times that shewed the practise of such doings before these latter times and latter practices The Doctrine of Andreas Musculus AS for Andreas Musculus he was not afraid openly to teach that the Divine Nature of Christ which is God died upon the crosse with his humane Nature Neither did he desist publickly to professe and spread abroad this Doctrine of the death of Christs Divinity And that by the help of Johannes Islebius Thus far It is manifest saith Simlerus forth of the writings of Brentius Myricus and Andreas Musculus that they make nothing of the ascention of Christ but a vanishing or disappearing What is this but making way for Mahomet but what Scriptures or Fathers or times hath he wherein this Doctrine was ever taught before The Divisions of Protestants IF Ye would but consider how the Lutherans are divided into Antinomians Osiandrians Majorists Synergists Stancarians Amsdorfians Flaccians Substantiarians Accidentarians Adjaphorists Musculans of Effingereans Vibiquilists c. So dissenting from and persecuting one another that they will not permit one another to live in the same Town in so much that Oecolampadius reckons up seventy seven changes not onely in their explanations of Scripture but also in certaine imaginary phantsies Or if we should consider the Divisions that are between the old and new Sacramentaries the old called Zwinglians the new Calvinists with us Puritans in France Hugonots in other places Formalists elsewhere Familists somewhere Brownists every where Arminians Seekers
filthily more uncivilly more lewdly and beyond all bounds of Christian modesty then did Luther No marvel that he is so taxed for his obscenity in his Henzius Anglicus against King Hen. the eight for his beastlinesse in his Hans worst against the Jewes for his filthy mentioning of Hogs for his stincking repetition of turds and dunghils in his Schemhamphorise But if you will hear of his Master-piece you mast read the Book which he writ against the Pope where he asks him out of what mouth O Pope dost thou speak is it out of that from whence thy farts doe burst If it come thence keep it to thy selfe if it comes from that wherein thou powrest thy Corisca wine let the Dog fill that with his excrements good Asse doe not kick kick not my little Pope O my dear Asse doe not so fie how this little Pope hath bewrayed himselfe Is this the way to win to his side or to gaine souls to Christ or to reforme Churches or to confute heresies It is observed that Saint Paul in his Epistles repeated the sacred name of Jesus 500 times and it is the observation of the learned Tygurin Divines that so many times Luther hath used the name of Devill in his Bookes and it is no marvaile that they burst out into this admiration How wonderfull is Luther here with his Devils what impure words he useth with how many Devils doth he burst Nor marvail that Zwinglius saith to him we fill not our Books with so many Devils nor doe we bring so many armies of Devils against thee If you can expect to gather figgs from thorns or grapes from thistles then ye may expect words from a sanctified spirit to proceed from such a mouth else not What should I say more Melancthon tells us that Carolostadius was a barbarous fellow without wit without learning without common sense in whom was no signe of the holy Ghost but manifest tokens of impiety Lastly Hutterus Beza's owne fellow Protestant thus saies of him and casts this dirt in his face which is so shamelesse a testimony that you must give me leave to throw a latine vail over it viz. Beza in fine libri de absentia corporis Christi in coena scribit Candidae sive Amascae suae culum imo partem diversam magis adhuc pudendam mundiora esse quam illorum ora qui simpliciter verbis Christi inherentes credant se praesens Christi Corpus in coena sacra ore suo accipere And another Beza by his most filthy manners was a disgrace to honest Discipline who in sacrilegious verse published to the world his detestable loves his unlawfull carnall acts whoredoms and fowl adulteries not content that himselfe onely should like a hog wallow in the durt of wicked lusts but he must also pollute the ears of studious youth with his filth I could inlarge my Paper to a volume of like instances in others but these are the prime reformers of the Protestant Churches and how the people edified under their Doctrine these Narratives from their owne mouths shall tell you When we were seduced by the Pope saith Luther every man did willingly follow good works and now every man neither saith nor knoweth any thing but how to get all to himselfe by exactions pillage theft lying usury Certainly to speak the truth there is many times found Conscionable and plainer dealing amongst most Papists then among many Protestants And if we look narrowly to the ages past we shall find more godlinesse devotion and zeal though blind more love one toward another more fidelity and faithfulnesse every way in them then is now to be found in us If any man be desirous to see a great rabble of knaves of persons turbulent deceitfull Cosoners Usureis let him goe to any City where the Gospel is purely preached and he shall find them there by multitudes For it is more manifest then the day light that there were never among the Ethnicks Turks or infidels more unbridled and unruly persons with whom all virtue and honesty is quite extinct then are amongst the Professonrs of the Gospel The children of them of the reformed Gospel grow every day worse more untractable and dare commit such crimes as men of former times were never subject to If you cast your eyes upon Protestant Doctours you shall find that some of them moved through vaine glory envious zeal and a prejudicate opinion disorder the true Doctrine disperse and earnestly defend the false some of them without cause stir up contentions and with inconsiderate spight defend them many wrest their Doctrines every way of purpose to please their Princes and the people by whose grace and favour they are maintained they overthrow with their wicked life all that they had formerly built with their true doctrine How could the people be better when their Ministers were so bad like lips like lettice I will conclude all with the learned Protestant Zanchius and then you will neither wonder at one or other I have read saith he the Latine copy of the Apology and diligently read it over not without choller when I perceived what manner of writing very many let me not say for the most part but all doe use in the Churches of the reformed Gospel who would seeme notwithstanding to be Pastors Doctors and Pillars of the Church The state of the question that it may not be understood we often of set purpose over-cloud with darknesse things which are manifest we impudently deny things false we without shame avouch things plainly impious we propose as the first principles of faith things orthodoxall we condemne of heresie Scripture at our pleasure we detort to our owne dreams we boast of Fathers when we will follow nothing lesse then their doctrine to deceive to calumniate to raile is familiar with us so as we may defend our cause good or bad by right or by wrong all other things we turne upside down Oh times Oh manners It is no marvel that M. Sutcliff saies that the Protestant writers offered great violence to the Scriptures expounding them contrary both to antient Fathers History and common reason It is no marvel that Cambden tells us that Holland is a fruitfull province of heretiques It is no marvell that Your royall Father tells us that both Hungary and Bohemia abound with infinite varieties of sects It is no marvell that he said he could never see a Bible well translated into English and that the worst of all was the Geneva whereunto were added notes untrue seditious and savouring too much of dangerous and traiterous conceits It is no marvel that He protested before the great God that you should never find among the Highland or Border-theeves greater ingratitude more lies and vile perjuries then with those phanatick spirits It is no marvel that M. Bancroft said that the Puritans of Scotland were published in a Declaration by his Majestie to
Ceremonies and of Apostolicall tradition She held then besides Batisme and the Eucharist Confirmation Marriage Orders and extream Unction for true and proper Sacraments which the Church of Rome now acknowledgeth The Church in the Ceremonies of Baptisme used then oyl salt wax-lights exorcismes the signe of the Cross the word Ephata and other that accompany it none of them without reason and excellent signification The Church held then Baptisme for infants of absolute necessity and for this cause then permitted lay men to baptise in danger of death the Church used then holy water consecrated by certain words and Ceremonies and made use of it both for Baptisme and against inchantments and to make exorcismes and conjurations against evill spirits The Church held then divers degrees in the Ecclesiasticall Regiment to wit Bishops Priests Deacons Subdeacons the Acolite Exorcist Reader and Porter consesecrated and blessed them with divers Forms and Ceremonies And in the Episcopall Order acknowledged divers seats of Jurisdiction of positive right to wit Archbishops Primates Patriarchs and one Supereminent by Divine law which was the Pope without whom nothing could be decided appertaining to the universall Church and the want of whose presence either by himselfe or his Legats or his Confirmation made all Councels pretended to be universall unlawfull In the Church then the service was said throughout the East in Greek and throughout the West as well in Africa as in Europe in Latin although that in none of the provinces except in Italy and the Cities where the Romane Colonies resided the Latine tongue was understood by the common people She observed then the distinction of feasts and ordinary dayes the Distinction of Ecclesiasticall and lay habits the reverence of sacred vessels the custome of shaming and unction for the collation of orders the Ceremony of the Priest washing his hands at the Altar before the consecration of the Mysteries She then pronounced a part of the service at the Altar with a low voice made processions with the reliques of Martyrs kissed them carried them in clothes of silke and vessels of gold took and esteemed the dust from under their reliquaries accompanied the dead to their sepulchres with wax tapers in sign of joy for the certainty of their future resurrection The Church then had the picture of Christ and of his Saints both out of Churches and in them and upon the very Altars not to adore them with God like worship but by them to reverence the Souldiers and Champions of Christ The faithfull then used the sign of the Crosse in all their Conversations painted it on the portal of all the houses of the faithfull gave their blessing to the people with their hand by the signe of the Crosse imployed it to drive away evill spirits proposed in Jerusalem the very Crosse to be adored on good Friday Finally the Church held then that to the Catholick Church onely belongs the keeping of the Apostolicall tradition the Authority of interpretation of Scripture and the decision of Controversies of faith and that out of the succession of her communion of her Doctrine and her ministery there was neither Church nor Salvation Neither will I insist with you onely upon the word then but before and before and before that even to the first age of all will I shew you our doctrine of the reall presence and holy Sacrifice of the Masse Invocation of Saints Veneration of Reliques and Images Confession and Priestly absolution Purgatory and prayer for the dead Traditions c. In the fift Age or hundred of years Saint Augustine was for the reall and corporall presence In the fourth Age Saint Ambrose In the third Age Saint Cyprian In the second Age or hundred of years S. Irenaeus And in the first Age Saint Ignatius Martyr and Disciple of Saint John the Evangelist Concerning the honour and invocation of Saints In the fifth Age we find Saint Augustine praying to the Virgin Mary ond other Saints In the fourth Age we find Greg. Naz. praying to S. Basil the great In the third Age we find S. Origen praying to Father Abraham In the second Age Justin Martyr And in the first age in the Liturgy of S. James the lesse For the use and veneration of holy Reliques and Images and chiefly of the Holy Crosse in the fifth age Saint Augustine In the fourth Age Athanasius In the third Age Origen In the second Age St. Justin Martyr And in the first Age S. Ignatius Concerning Confession and Absolutions In the fifth Age S. August In the fourth Age S. Basil the Great In the third Age S. Cypr. In the second Age Tertull. And in the first Age S. Clement Now concerning Purgatory and Prayer for the dead in the fifth Age S. Augustin In the fourth Age S. Ambrose In the third Age S. Cypr. In the second Age Tertull. And in the first Age S. Clement e. Concerning Traditions in the fifth Age S. Aug. In the fourth Age S. Basil In the third Age S. Epiphanins In the second Age S. Irenaeus And in the first Age S. Dennis Now suppose that all these quotations be right The saving of a soul of your own soul of the soul of a King of the souls of so many Kingdoms and the gaining of that Kingdome for a reward which in comparison of these Earthly ones for which you so often fight so much strive and labour so much for to obtain your tetrarchate would be a gain for you to lose it so that you might but obtain that would be worth the search and when you have found them to be truly cited I dare trust your judgement that it will tell you that we have not changed our Countenance nor fled our Colours nor fallen away nor altered our Religion nor forsaken our first Love nor denyed our Principles nor brought Novelties into the Church but that we doe antiquum obtinere whereby we should be forsaken of you for forsaking our selves but rather that we should win you unto us by being still the same we were when we won you first unto us and were at the beginning And is it for the honour of the English Nation famous for the first Christian King and the first Christian Emperour to forsake her Mother Church so renowned for antiquity and to annex their Religion as a codicell to an appeal of a company of Protesters against a decree at Spira and to forsake so glorious a name as Catholick and to take a name upon them wherein they had neither right nor interest and then to take measure of the Scottish Discipline for the new fashion of their souls and to
find but there are those which are equivalent Ez. 20. 30. Are yee polluted after the manner of your Fathers and commit you whoredome after their abominations So the Prophet Zachary cries Be ye not as your Fathers Zach. 1. 4. The like may be seen in other places His Majesty likewise alledgeth our Saviour telling us that we must not so much hearken to what was said by them of old time as to that which he shall tell us Mat. 5. 21. c. not as it is cited 21. 12. pag. 48. It is strange therefore that the Marquesse should say that all the markes of the true Church were waved by His Majesty As for the markes set down by the Marquesse our learned writers have over and over shewed the insufficiency of them so that there is no need now to say much First for Universality it is certaine that error may spread for a while more universally then truth So did Gentilisme for many ages it overspread in a manner the whole World Onely in Iudah was God known Psal 76. 1. Onely the people of the Iewes had Gods saving truth among them all the World besides did lie in grosse ignorance and damnable error Psal 147. 19 20. Ioh. 4. 22. Rom. 3. 1 2. 1 Thess 4. 5. Eph. 2. 11 12. Acts 14. 16. 17. 30. So for a while Arrianisme did beare all the sway in so much that as Hierome observed The World groaned and wondered to see it selfe become an Arrian So also did Pelagianisme as Bradwardine sometimes Archbishop of Canterbury complained As in times past saith he against one true Prophet there were 850 Prophets of Baal and the like to whom an innumerable company of people did adhere So also now in this cause how many O Lord doe with Pelagius fight for Free will against Thy Free-grace The whole World almost is gone into error after Pelagius And againe The whole World almost goeth after him and favoureth his errors whiles all almost thinke that by the strength of Free-will alone they can eschew evill and doe good The Scripture also hath foretold us that all the World should wonder after the beast Revel 13. 3. And that the whore of Babylon whereby that Rome is meant the Scripture is so cleare that even the Romanists themselves are forced to confesse it should sit upon many waters Revel 17. 1. and that by those waters are meant Peoples and Multitudes and Nations and Tongues v. 15. This note therefore viz. Universality is farre from proving the Church of Rome to be the true Church As for the Scriptures which the Marquesse citeth viz. Esay 2. 2. Psal 2. 8. not as it is mis-printed 2. and Mat. 24. not 20 14. these and the like places only shew that in the time of the Gospell the Church should not as before it was be confined to one Nation but should be extended unto all so that Gentiles as well as Jewes as well one Nation as another should have admittance into it the middle wall of partition being now broken down Ephes 2. 14. So that there is neither Greeke nor Iew circumcision nor uncircumcision Barbarian Scythian bond nor free but Christ is all and in all Col. 3. 11. 2. For Antiquity it is true the Prophet Ieremy bids Aske for the old paths where is the good way and walke therein Ier. 6. 16. And so we grant that primary antiquity is a sure note of truth for error being a deviation and swerving from truth it must needs be that truth is more ancient then error But there is a secondary antiquity which is no argument of truth For there is vetustas erroris as Cyprian observed long agoe an antiquity of error The woman of Samaria could say Our Fathers worshipped in this Mountaine yet our Saviour answered her Yee worship yee know not what Ioh. 4. 20. 22. And Symmachus whom His Majesty cited could bring in heathenish Rome thus pleading antiquity Let me use those ceremonies which mine ancestors have used It 's too late and too great an injury to reforme me now I am old This plea I dare say our adversaries themselves will not allow as used by Symmachus and why then should we allow it as they use it Thirdly for Visibility it is granted that ordinarily the Church is visible i. e. that there is a visible company of such as professe the truth though the places cited by the Marquesse doe not evince so much He saith David compares the Church to a Tabernacle in the Sun He meanes Psal 19. 4. where indeed according to the vulgar Latine translation it is He hath set his Tabernacle in the Sun but Genebrard is forced to expound it by an Hypallage thus He hath set the Sun in his Tabernacle that is in the heavens For as he confesseth the Hebrew runs thus He hath set a Tabernacle for the Sun in them Now what is this to the Visibility of the Church or how doth it concerne the Church at all Neither do I see that as the Marquesse alledgeth our Saviour compares the Church to a candle in a candlestick not under a bushell Mat. 5. 15. But either as Iansenius a Romish Writer doth expound it our Saviour there spake of his Apostles who as a candle in a candlestick were to give light unto the dark world by the preaching of the Gospel Or else in generall he shewed the duty of all viz. That in their places and callings they ought to be a means to in-lighten others especially by their good example This sense is agreeable to that which follows immediately ver 16. Let your light so shine forth before men c. So when our Saviour saith Mat. 24. 26. If they shall say unto you Behold he is in the desert go not forth Behold he is in the secret chambers beleeve it not It is nothing to the Churches visibility but onely he foreshews that many should come in his name pretending themselves to be Christ and forewarnes to beware of them These places alledged by the Marquesse are but little to the purpose though as I said it is granted that ordinarily the Church i. e. the company of such as professe the truth is visible Yet neverthelesse we hold that sometimes through persecution and prevalencie of error the Church may be so obscured as to be scarcely visible Thus it was in Elias his time when he complained unto God saying The children of Israel have forsaken thy Covenant throwne downe thine Altars and slaine thy Prophets with the sword and I even I am left and they seeke my life to take it away 1 King 19. 10. And what great visibility was there of the Church when both Priests and People were conspired together against Christ to put him to death and his Disciples also generally forsook him and fled from him So when the heresie of Arrius overspread all so that such as were orthodox and sound in the faith could scarce appear Hilarius who lived in
those times saith that mountains and woods and lakes and Prisons and deep pits were more safe then Churches and publick places of Gods worship these being all possessed by the Arrians and the true beleeving Christians having onely the other to lurke and lie hid in How visible also was the Church like to be when that should be fulfilled which is written Revel 13. 15 16 17. that as many as would not worship the Beast should be killed And that all both great and small should be forced to receive a marke in their right hand or in their foreheads And that none should buy or sell save he that had the marke or the name of the Beast or the number of his name Bellarmine himselfe saith It is certaine that the persecution by Antichrist shall be most grievous and most notorious so that all publick ceremonies of Religion and Sacrifices shall cease And againe that in the time of Antichrist the publike service of the Church shall cease through the grievousnesse of persecution and that Antichrist shall interdict all divine worship c. 4. For Succession of Pastours which the Marquesse saith is required in a true Church and is onely to be found in the Church of Rome We must distinguish of Succession There is a succession of Persons and a succession of Doctrine the former succession without the latter is to no purpose The Priests that condemned Christ had a personal succession but that was worth nothing they wanting doctrinall succession They did personally succeed those that were before them and they others and so on till they came to Aaron but they could not shew the like succession of their doctrine So neither can they of the Church of Rome shew that they hold the same faith which was delivered by the Apostles and therefore though they can shew that their Popes doe personally succeed one another from the very times of the Apostles it availes nothing Bellarmine though he struggle a little about it yet cannot deny but that a succession of persons is to be found is the Greek Church and therefore grants that it doth not necessarily follow that where such succession is there is also a true Church Yea he saith that all those Patriarchall Churches had for a long time Bishops that were manifest Heretiques and that therefore the succession of ancient Pastours was interrupted What is this else but to confesse that a succession of Pastours without a succession of the true doctrine is no mark of a true Church The ancient Doctors of the Church t is true have sometimes used this argument drawne from succession to convince Heretiques but so as to shew that a succession of doctrine did concur with a succession of persons Yea they plainly shew that it was succession of doctrine which they did stand upon and that without this they made no account of the other We must adhere unto those saith Ireneus who keep the doctrine of the Apostles This succession of doctrine he calls the principall succession So Ambrose They doe not succeed Peter who have not the faith of Peter And Tertullian speaking of Heretiques saith Their doctrine being compared with the Apostles doctrine shewes that it was not received from the Apostles nor from any Apostolicall teachers And speaking of Churches planted since the Apostles times he saith That they agreeing in the same faith are neverthelesse accounted Apostolicall for the consanguinity of doctrine 5. For Unity in doctrine by which the Marquesse proves the Roman Church to be the true Church I answer that Unity without Verity will not prove it and the one is not alwayes necessarily accompanyed with the other The words of the Prophets declare good unto the King with one mouth said the messenger to Micaiah 1 King 22. 13. They were about foure hundred Prophets ver 6. and all of them did agree in one yet they prophecyed falsly for all that there was a lying spirit in the mouth of all those Prophets how unanimous soever they were ver 22. Neither is there such unity in the Church of Rome as is pretended The difference betwixt the Dominicans and the Jesuits about Gods decrees the concurrence of his grace and the determination of mans will this difference I say betwixt them is as great and as important as any I think that is amongst Protestants Neither doth it suffice to say as the Marquesse doth that the Church hath not determined any thing in these points and therefore such difference about them is not against the Churches unity For if the Popes authority be so great and his judgement so infallible as they pretend why hath he not decided the controversie and so put an end to the difference long ere this Besides which the Marquesse took no notice of they of the Romane Church differ much about the very head of it the Pope himselfe For some will have him to be above a generall councell others hold the councell to be above the Pope and this also was the determination both of the councell of Constance and of the councell of Basill Finally I grant that unity in the truth is much to be desired and so much the places cited by the Marquesse doe prove viz. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Eph. 4. 3. Acts 2. 42. Phil. 1. 27. 2. 2. yet we see that the Apostle doth acknowledge the Church of Corinth a true Church notwithstanding the differences and divisions that were in it so that all dis-union of people is not enough to dischurch them Neither if the confessions of the reformed Churches be considered as they ought to be wil the differences that are among them however particular persons be exorbitant be found so many and so great though too many and too great I grant as our adversaries of Rome would make them 6. And lastly for the conversion of Nations which the Marquesse also will have to be a marke of the true Church and thereby prove that the Church of Rome is it and not the Church of Protestants I answer that the Scriptures which hee alledgeth viz. Esay 49. 23. and 60. 16. and Psal 2. 8. doe shew indeed that in the time of the Gospell the Gentiles should be converted and joyned to the Church which the Scripture of the New Testament and experience also shewes to have been accomplished But they doe not shew either that every true Church must necessarily evidence it selfe to be a true Church by working a conversion in infidels or that every Church that doth worke any conversion in that kind must therefore be acknowledged to be a true Church The Scribes and Pharisees did make Proselytes and were very zealous in it yet neverthelesse were guilty of grosse errors which all were to beware of as most pernicious Mat. 23. 15. Besides there is a conversion as from unbeliefe to faith so from misbeliefe to a right and found faith And though Protestants have done little or nothing it may be in the former kinde of
conversion so as to convert meer Infidels yet in the other kinde viz. in converting mis-believers they have done much This the Marquesse pag. 44. is pleased to call perversion rather then conversion but that must be judged by the consideration of the Doctrines held by Protestants As for those conversions wrought in the Indies by the Romanists we may well conceive that it was not so much the word preached by the Jesuits as the sword brandished by the Spaniards that did worke them Franciscus de Victoria a learned Writer among the Papists writing of the Indians saith he did not see that the Christian faith was so propounded and declared to them as that under the guilt of a new sin they were bound to embrace it He heard he sayes of no Miracles and Signes that were wrought nor of very good examples of life that were given but on the contrary of many scandalous acts and many impieties Whereupon he conceiveth that Christian religion was not so conveniently and properly preached to that barbarous people as that they were bound to acquiesce in it though he grants that there were many religious and other Ecclesiasticall men who both by life and example and also by diligent preaching did sufficiently doe their indeavour but that they were hindred by others who minded other matters Thus I have as briefly as I could gone over the markes which the Marquesse assigneth of the true Church and that because he saith that his Majesty did wave them all whereas indeed his Majesty did not wholly wave them though as his occasions would not suffer him to return any answer at all to the Marquesses reply so neither would they it's likely permit him to answer the former Paper so fully as otherwise he would have done Whereas the Marquesse saith that His Majesty is pleased to make recourse unto the Scriptures This is surely the course that all ought to follow that wil discusse matters of Religion they ought to have recourse to the Scriptures by which all such matters are to be tried and determined To the Law and to the testimony saith the Prophet Esay if they speake not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Augustine speaking of the Donatists bade let them shew their Church onely by the Canonicall bookes of the Scriptures professing that he would not have any to beleeve that he was in the true Church because of the commendation that Optatus Ambrose and many others did give of it And againe Let us not heare saith he Thus say I thus sayest thou but let us heare Thus saith the Lord. Let those things be removed out of the way which we alledge one against another otherwise then from the Bookes of Canonicall Scripture I will not have the holy Church demonstrated by humane tokens but by divine Oracles But saith the Marquesse What Heretick that ever was did not do so How shall the greatest Heretick in the World be confuted or censured if any man may be permitted to appeale to Scriptures margin'd with his own notes sens'd with his owne meaning and enlivened with his owne private spirit to what end were those markes so fully both by the Prophets the Apostles and our Saviour himselfe set down if we make no use of them Answ 1. Though Hereticks make recourse unto Scripture it follows not that therefore this is not the course which ought to be followed or that therefore they are Hereticks that doe it The Marquesse himselfe did make recourse unto Scripture in setting down the markes of the true Church and so also doth he in handling sundry points in controversie betwixt Papists and Protestants This course therefore himselfe being Judge is not to be condemned neither certainly is it however Hereticks may abuse it Though Hereticks will alledge Scripture in defence of their Heresics yet are they neverthelesse to be confuted by Scripture The Sadduces thought by Scripture to overthrow the resurrection yet by Scripture did our Saviour convince them Mat. 22. 23. 32. Yea when the Devill himselfe did cite Scripture our Saviour did not therefore dislike it but made use of it for the resisting of Satan and the repelling of his temptation Mat. 4. 6 7. 2. It 's true none may appeal to Scriptures margin'd with their own Notes sens'd with their own meaning and enliven'd with their own private spirit It 's to no purpose to alledge Scripture except that sense in which it is alledged may be made good by Scripture The Jewish Rabbin as Master Selden cites him saith well All interpretation of Scripture which is not grounded upon the Scripture is vaine But what this makes against his Majesties making recourse unto the Scriptures or against any mans taking that course in disputes of this nature I doe not see For that his Majesty did so make recourse unto Scripture the Marquesse doth not say neither ought any man to be charged in this kind except it can be proved that he is indeed guilty 3. It doth not yet appear that the particulars before mentioned viz. Universality Antiquity Visibility Succession of Pastours Unity in Doctrine and Conversion of Nations that these I say were set down either by our Saviour or his Apostles or the Prophets as marks of the True Church at least so as to make any thing for the Marquesses purpose viz. to prove the Church of Rome to be the True Church Your Majesty was pleased to urge the Errours of certain Fathers to the prejudice of their Authority Which I conceive would have been so had they been all Montanists Rebaptists all Anthropomorphists and all of them generally guilty of the faults wherewith they were soverally charged in the particulars seeing that when we produce a Father we doe not intend to produce a man in whose mouth was never found guile the infallibility being never attributed by us otherwise then unto the Church not unto particular Church men As your Majesty hath most excellently observed in the failings of the holy Apostles who erred after they had received the Holy Ghost in so ample manner But when they were all gathered together in Councell and could send about their Edicts with these Capitall Letters in the Front Visum est Sipritui Sancto nobis Act. 15. 28. then I hope your Majesty cannot say that it was possible for them to Erre So though the Fathers might erre in particulars yet those particular Errours would be swallowed up in a Generall Councell c. Here the Marquesse grants that the Fathers singly and severally considered may erre but not if gathered together in a generall Councell But first doth not this invalidate the authority of the Fathers when they are severally cited as they are in this Reply frequently by the Marquesse Indeed here presently after he addes Neither is a particular defection in any man any exception against his testimony except it be in the thing wherein he is deficient But certainly if a man be liable to
sayes a little after But though it had not been one halfe quarter of that time before the Israelites wanted water againe yet that is no argument why the Apostle speaking of the Rock that followed them should not meane a materiall and visible Rock for the materiall and visible Rock that is the water that flowed from it might follow the Israelites though but for while even so long as they encamped in Rephidim neither doth the Apostle say that it followed them either perpetually or for any long time but onely that it followed them But howsoever it be understood that the Rock followed them which I confesse is somewhat obscure how by the Rock there should be meant Christ as the efficient cause giving them water to drinke For to drinke of the Rock is there expressed in the same phrase as to drinke of the Cup 1 Cor. 11. 28. Neither I thinke can one in any congruity be said to drinke of a man that giveth him either water or any thing else to drinke but onely to drinke either of the liquour or metonymically of that wherein the liquour is contained Finally Bellarmine himselfe doth acknowledge that the materiall Rock which afforded the Israelites water to drinke was a figure of Christ and that the water proceeding from that Rock was a figure of Christs Blood onely he denies that so much is meant by the Apostle in those words they dranke of the spirituall Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ But I demand then from what place of Scripture if not from those words of the Apostle can so much bee gathered Iansenius a learned Romanist is more candid and free then Bellarmine for expounding the Parable of the sower he saith that the word is as when it is said The seed is the word of God c. Luke 8. 11. is put for signifieth as also there where it is said And the Rock was Christ And so also say we when 't is said This is my Body the meaning is This doth signifie my Body or This is a Signe a Token a Seal a Pledge of my Body The Lord saith Austine doubted not to say This is my Body when he gave the Signe of his Body And again speaking of those words Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his Bloud ye have no life in you Ioh. 6. 53. he saith That Christ seemeth to command some hainous act or some grosse wickednesse And that therefore it is a figurative speech requiring us to communicate with the Lords sufferings and sweetly and profitably to keep in memory that his flesh was Crucified and wounded for us And yet again He that is at enmity with Christ saith he doth neither eat his Flesh nor drink his Bloud although to the condemnation of his presumption he daily receive the Sacrament of so great a thing as well as others These saying of Austin doe sufficiently shew how he understood those words This is my Body and how far he was from being of the now-Romane Faith concerning the presence of Christ in the Sacrament Indeed these very words This is my Body which our Adversaries pretend to make so much for them are most strong against them and enough to throw down Transubstantiation For Christ saying This is my Body what is meant by the word This They of the Church of Rome cannot agree about it but some say one thing some another only by no means they will have Bread to be meant by it For they very well know that so their Transubstantiation were quite overthrown But look into the Scripture and mind it well and see if any thing else but Bread can be meant by the word This. It 's said Mat. 26. 26. Iesus took Bread and blessed it brake it and gave it to the Disciples and said Take eat This is my Body What is here meant by the word This What is it that Christ calls his Body That which he bade the Disciples take and eate And what was that That which he gave unto them And what was that That which he brake And what was that That which he blessed And what was that That which he took And what was that Bread For so expresly the Evangelist tells us that Iesus took Bread So then it was Bread that Christ took and Bread that he blessed and Bread that he brake and Bread that he gave to the Disciples and Bread that he bade them take and eat and Bread of which he spake saying This is my Body As if he should say This Bread which I have taken and blessed and broken and given unto you to eat even this Bread is my Body Now the word This relating unto Bread the speech must needs be Figurative and cannot be Proper For properly Bread cannot be Christs Body Bread and Christs Body being things of diverse and different natures and so it being impossible that properly one should be the other As when Christ called Herod a Fox and the Pharisees Serpents and Vipers the speeches are not Proper but Figurative so is it when he called Bread his Body it being no more possible that Bread should be the Body of Christ in propriety of speech then that a man should properly be a Fox a Serpent a Viper Besides doth not the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. speaking of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper continually call it Bread even after Consecration Indeed to distinguish it from ordinary and common Bread he calls it This Bread but yet still Bread the same in substance though not the same in use as before And which is worthy to be observed thus the Apostle calls it viz. Bread when he sharply reproves the Corinthians for their unworthy receiving of the Sacrament setting before them the grievousnesse of the sin and the greatnesse of the danger that they did incur by it Now what had been more forcible and effectuall to this end than for the Apostle if he had been of the Romish Faith to have told them that now it was not Bread though it seemed unto them to be so but that the substance of the Bread was gone and instead thereof was come the very substance of Christs Body He saith indeed That whoso eat that Bread and drink the Cup of the Lord unworthily are guilty of the Body and Bloud of the Lord But that is because that Bread and that Cup i. e. the Wine in the Cup are by the Lords own institution Signes and Seales of the Lords Body and Bloud so that the unworthy receiving of them is an indignity done to the things signified by them But to return to the Marquesse he citeth sundry passages in Iohn 6. where our Saviour speakes of eating his flesh and drinking his blood calling himselfe Bread living Bread and affirming that his Flesh is meat indeed and his Blood drinke indeed But all this is farre from proving that reall presence of Christ in the Sacrament which the Marquesse doth contend for For 1.
his book against Berengarius speaks of some Copies of Ambrose his Workes wherein those words were not Ut sint quae erant that is That those things should be which were But no such Copies either Printed or Manuscript it seems did Bellarmine meet with for otherwise I doubt not he would have given us notice of them Again with the same Lanfrancus he answers that those words are thus to be understood that in respect of outward shew the things which were still are but are changed in respect of inward substance But how can a thing be said to be what it was when as there is no substance of the thing remaining but onely a shew and appearance of it In the last place Bellarmine addes of his own that Ambrose meant If Christ could make a thing of nothing why can he not make a thing of something not by annihilating the thing but by changing it into that which is better But if a thing be changed substantially into another thing how doth it remain what it was before But so the things doe that Ambrose speaks of For Bellarmines criticisme is poor in distinguishing betwixt Ut sint id quod erant That they should be that which they were and Ut sint quae erant That the things should be that were as if these words did not import that the same substances still remain as well as the other when Christ turned Water into Wine can we say that his Word was operative and powerfull Ut esset quod erat in aliud mutaretur That that should be which was and that withall it should be changed into another thing I confesse I cannot see how the thing may be said truly and properly to be which was if it be substantially changed into some other thing Ambrose there a little after saith Tu ipse eras sed eras vetus creatura posteaquam consecratus es nova creatura esse coepisti Thou thy self wast but thou wast an old creature after thou art consecrated thou beginnest to be a new creature which cannot be meant of any substantiall change in us Chap. 5. the same Ambrose if it were Ambrose for Bellarmine is not very confident that Ambrose was the Author of those Books De Sacramentis saith indeed That before it is Consecrated it is Bread but when the words of Christ are come it is the Body of Christ But that it is so the Body of Christ as to be no longer Bread he doth not affirme That he was of another mind appears by the words before alledged And so much also may be gathered from that which he saith in this same Chapter viz. He that did eat Manna dyed but whose eateth this Body shall have remission of sins and shall live for ever Which cannot be understood of a Corporall eating of Christs Body but of a Spirituall eating of it Bellarmine cites some other sayings of Ambrose out of another Work of his viz. De iis qui mysteriis initiantur but they prove no more than these already cited neither doth the Marquesse refer us to them Yea in that same work Ambrose doth sufficiently declare himselfe against Transubstantiation For there he saith It is truly the Sacrament of Christs Flesh And after Consecration the Body of Christ is signified And again It is not therefore Corporali food but Spirituall Whence also the Apostle saith of the Type of it that our Fathers did eat Spirituall meat and did drink Spirituall drink 1 Cor. 10. The last Author Remigius is onely cited by the Marquesse at large neither doe I find him cited by Bellarmine at all and therefore untill we have some particular place cited out of him it is in vain to trouble our selves about him besides that his Antiquity is not such as that his Authority should much be stood upon being 890 years after Christ as Bellarmine sheweth in his book of Ecclesiasticall Writers Secondly saith the Marquesse We hold that there is in the Church an infallible Rule for understanding of Scripture besides the Scripture it self This you deny this we have Scripture for as Rom. 12. 6. We must prophecy according to the Rule of Faith We are bid to walke according to this Rule Gal. 6. 16. We must encrease our Faith and preach the Gospell according to this Rule 2 Cor. 10. 15. This rule of Faith the Holy Scriptures call a forme of Doctrine Rom. 6. 17. a thing made ready to our hands 2 Cor. 10. 16. that we may not measure our selves by our selves 2 Cor. 10. 12. the depositions committed to the Churches trust 1 Tim. 6. 20. for avoiding of profane and vaine bablings and oppositions of sciences And by this rule of faith is not meant the Holy Scriptures for that cannot doe it as the Apostle tells us whilst there are unstable men who wrest this way and that way to their own destruction but it is the tradition of the Church as it is delivered from hand to hand as most plainly appears 2 Tim. 2. 2. The things which thou hast heard of us not received in writing from me or others among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithfull men who shall be able to teach it to others also That there is any infallible Rule for understanding of Scripture or any other rule of Faith besides the Scripture we do deny and that by authority of the Scripture it self To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this Word it is because they have no light in them Isai 8. 20. Search the Scriptures for in them yee thinke to have eternall life and they are they that testifie of mee Joh. 5. 39. These were more noble then they of Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readinesse of minde and searched the Scriptures whether those things were so Acts 17. 11. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproofe for correction for instruction in righteousnesse That the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good workes 2 Tim. 3. 16. 17. Neither doe those places alledged by the Marquesse make for the contrary We must prophesie according to the rule of Faith saith the Apostle Rom. 12. 6. as the Marquesse hath it following therein the Rhemists translation as also their comment upon the place But the word in the originall signifies rather proportion then rule And I see not but that by the proportion of saith may be understood the measure of saith which is spoken of vers 3. But be it granted that proportion of faith is as much as rule of faith where doth the Apostle say that this rule of faith is any other then the Scripture it selfe The places before cited shew that we are referred to the Scripture as the rule whereby all doctrines are to be tried but no where doe I finde that wee are referred to any unwritten tradition Sure I am our Adversaries can evince no such thing from
Tertullian and so of Vincentius Tertullians words as he cites them are these wee doe not admit our adversaries to dispute out of Scripture till they can shew who their ancestors were and from whom they received the Scriptures For the ordinary course of Doctrine requires that the first question should be from whom and by whom and to whom the forme of Christian Religion was delivered otherwise prescribing against him as a stranger These words I cannot finde nor any like unto them in the place cited viz. de Praescrip cap. 11. elsewhere indeed in that booke I finde words like unto these though not the same However if wee should be tried by these words I see not how they will conclude against us For though the Heretickes with whom Tertullian had to doe might be convinced otherwise then by Scripture it followes not that therefore this is not the ordinary way whereby to convince Hereticks Thus Christ convinced the Sadduces that denied the Resurrection Mat. 22. 29. c. thus Apollos convinced the Jewes who denied Jesus to be the Christ Acts 18. 28. And thus the Apostles convinced those that urged Circumcision and the observing of the Jewish Law Acts 15. 15. c. And thus both other Fathers and even Tertullian himselfe doth usually dispute against Heretickes and confute them by the Scriptures But saith the Marquesse If a Heathen should come by the Bible as the Eunuch came by the prophecy of Esay and have no Philip to interpret it unto him hee would find out a Religion rather according to his own fancy then Divine verity Be it so yet here is nothing to prove that this Philip that is to interpret the Bible is not to fetch his interpretation from the Bible it selfe but from some unwritten tradition I come to Vincentius Lirinensis whose words produced by the Marquesse run thus It is very needfull in regard of so many errors proceeding from mis-interpretations of Scriptures that the line of propheticall and Apostolicall exposition should be directed according to the rule of the Ecclesiasticall and Catholike sense But I see not that in the opinion of Vincentius the rule of the Ecclesiasticall and Catholike sense is any other then the Scripture He insists much I am sure upon those words of the Apostle If wee or an Angell from heaven preach any other Gospell unto you then that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed Gal. 1. 8. Now as was noted before out of Irenaeus the Gospell which the Apostles preached they delivered unto us in the Scriptures and that is the foundation and pillar of our Faith Indeed all that Vincentius in his Commonitory against Heresies aimes at is this That the Faith once delivered to the Saints as Saint Iude speaks might be preserved To which end he descants well upon those words of the Apostle O Timothy keep that which is committed to thy trust 1 Tim. 6. 20. That which is committed to thee not that which is invented by thee that which thou hast received not that which thou hast devised a matter nōt of wit but of doctrine not of private usurpation but of publick tradition a thing brought unto thee not brought forth by thee in which thou art not to be an author but a keeper not an ordainer but an observer not a leader but a follower That this Depositum or thing committed to Timothy was any unwritten Tradition and not the doctrine of the Gospell contained in the Scripture neither doth Vincentius say neither can it be proved Bellarmine himself is forced to confesse That all things necessary for all are written by the Apostles Yea and that those things which have the testimony of Tradition he means unwritten tradition received in the whole Church are not usually such as concern most obscure questions And how then should such Tradition be the Rule of Faith and of Expounding the Scriptures The Marquesse saith that in matters of Faith Christ bids us to observe and doe whatsoever they bid us who sit in Moses Seat Mat. 23. 2 3. whence he infers Therefore surely there is something more to be observed then onely Scripture Will you not as well believe what you hear Christ say as what you hear his Ministers write You hear Christ when you hear them as well as you read Christ when you read his Word He that heareth you heareth me Luk. 10. 16. Thus the Marquesse but it was from our Saviours meaning that the people should doe simply and absolutely whatsoever the Scribes and Pharisees who sate in Moses Seat should enjoyn Our Saviour meant nothing lesse for expresly he bade beware of the leaven of the Pharisees Mat. 16. 6. that is of the Doctrine of the Pharisees v. 12. Our Saviours meaning therefore was only this that whiles the Scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses Seat did deliver the Law and Doctrine of Moses people should hear and obey though otherwise they were most corrupt both in life Doctrine The Jesuite Maldonate doth thus expound the place as indeed it cannot with any probability be otherwise expounded When Christ saith he bids observe and doe what the Scribes and Pharisees say whiles they sit in Moses seat he speaks not of their Doctrine but of the Doctrine of the Law and of Moses For it is as if he should say All things that the Law and Moses shall say unto you the Scribes and Pharisees rehearsing it observe and do but after their workes doe not It 's true Christ doth tells us that they that hear his Ministers hear him but that is when they speak as his Ministers when they speak his Word not their owne As God said to the Prophet Ezekiel Thou shalt speak my Words unto them Ezek. 2. 7. And to the Prophet Ieremy Speak unto them all that I command thee Ier. 1. 17. And so Christ to his Apostles Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you Mat. 28. 20. So then we hear Christ indeed when we hear his Word spoken by his Ministers as well as we read Christ when we read his Word written in the Scriptures But that which we hear must be tried by that which we read that which is spoken by Ministers by that which is written in the Scriptures as hath been shewed before by Isai 8. 20. Ioh. 5. 39. Act. 17. 11. We say saith the Marquesse the Scriptures are not easie to be understood you say they are we have Scripture for it as is before manifested at large The Fathers say as much c. We doe not say that the Scriptures throughout in every part of them are easie to be understood but that they are so in things necessary unto Salvation This hath been shewed before by the testimony both of the Scripture it self and of Austine as likewise that the places of Scripture objected by the Marquesse doe make nothing against the easinesse of the Scripture either at all or at least in this sense Neither are the
the Apostle there say neither so farre as I see can it in any congruity be said that the Church of Rome either is or was a Church universally spread thorough the World A part and an eminent part of the Church so universall it might be but the whole universall Church it could not be The Apostle there saith no more of the Romanes then he doth of the Thessalonians 1 Thess 1. 8. yet I presume our Adversaries will not therefore admit either the Church of Thessalonica to be universall or ever since the Apostles time to have continued sound and Orthodox And why then will they thinke to inforce so much from the Apostles words for the Church of Rome To these two places of Scripture the Marquesse addeth the testimonies of three Fathers viz. Cyprian Austine and Hierome But for the first of these his words are pitifully mistaken They are these Dum apud vos una animus unae vox est Ecclesia omnis Romana confessa est the Marquesse renders it thus whilst with you there is one minde and one voyce the whole Church is confessed to be the Roman Church whereas any that can understand Latine and wil minde the words may see that they are to be rendred thus whilest with you there is one minde and one voyce the whole Roman Church hath confessed Cyprian here wrote to Cornelius Bishop of Rome who together with others had before heathen persecutors confessed the faith For this Cyprian commends them and saith that they so confessing as they did and all being of one minde and one voyce the whole Roman Church did confesse This makes indeed for the soundnesse of the Roman Church as it was in Cyprians time but for the universality of it as if it were the universall Church or a Church universally diffused it makes nothing For Austines words de unit Eccles cap. 4. Who so doth not communicate with the whole corps of Christendome certaine it is that they are not in the holy Catholick Church I see not what they are to the purpose They cannot be so understood as that all must necessarily communicate with all that are of the corps of Christendome that is that professe themselves Christians For so all should be tied to communion with grosse and notorious Heretikes They must then be understood of communicating with all Christians so farre forth as they are indeed Christians but what is this to prove either the perpetuall universality of the Church or that the Church of Rome is such a Church Austine wrote against the Donatists who confined the Church to Affrike excluding all the World besides from being of the Church This is nothing against us who doe not confine the Church to any place whatsoever The last Father here cited is Hierom who as the Marquesse telleth us saith That it is all one to say the Roman Faith and the Catholike Faith But the Marquesses quotation of the place where this is to be found in Hierome is too laxe viz. in Apol. ad Ruffin it should be adversus Ruffin But there are two Apologies which Hierome wrote against Ruffin and one of them divided into severall Bookes it was meet therefore that the place should have been cited more particularly then it is Yet I think I have met with the place which the Marquesse meaneth which yet doth not speake so much as the Marquesse supposeth Ruffinus translating Origens workes which had many grosse errors in them into Latine to justifie himselfe said the Latine Reader shall finde nothing that differs from our faith Hereupon Hierome asked what faith he meant by our faith whether that faith which did flourish in the Church of Rome or that which was contained in the workes of Origen If saith hee he shall answer The Roman faith then are we Catholickes who have translated nothing of Origens error but if Origens blasphemy be his faith whilest he chargeth me with inconstancy he proves himselfe an Heretick Here indeed Hierome implieth the Roman faith and the Catholick faith to have been then when he wrote one and the same yet not simply but so farre forth as did concerne the errors of Origen But how can any justly hence conclude that in Hieromes Dialect it 's all one to say the Roman faith and the Catholick faith as if in Hieromes opinion the Roman faith and the Catholick faith in all points and at all times must needs be the same That Hierome did not overvalue the Church of Rome is evident For when the custome of that Church was objected against something that hee held hee rejected the authority of it with some disdaine saying If wee seek authority the World is greater then the City And againe what doe you bringing the custome of one City From Universality the Marquesse passeth to Unity saying that the unity of the Church is necessary in all points of faith and proving it first by Scriptures as Ephes 4. 5. Acts 4. 35. and 1 Cor. 1. 10. then by fathers as Austine contra Par. l. 3. c. 5. Cypr. de unit Eccles and Hilar. ad Constant. Now this unity of the Church hath been spoken of before and it hath beene shewed how far it is requisite as also how little cause they of the Church of Rome have either to applaud themselves for it or to upbraide the Reformed Churches for want of it There is one Lord one faith one baptisme faith the Apostle Eph. 4. 5. well suppose they of the Roman-church have one faith yet except they have the one faith this of which the Apostle speaketh what are they the better But indeed neither is their faith so one as they pretend there being many great and weighty points wherein they differ one from another See Gerard loc com de Eccles Sect. 240 c. On the other side as I have said before if the confessions of the reformed churches be look't upon rather then particular mens opinions or perhaps expressions there will no great difference in points of faith be found amongst them Acts 4. 35. here cited by the Marquesse is not to the purpose as not speakking of unity of faith but rather of affection 1 Cor. 1. 10. the Apostle exhorts them to unity and that there might be no divisions among them but because there was not such unity as was meet but there were divisions among them he doth not therefore say that they were no true Church In a word both the Scriptures and the Fathers are for the unity of the Church in points of Faith and so are we that the severall Articles of Protestant Churches deny this Unity the Marquesse affirmeth but doth not prove it We hold faith the Marquesse that every Minister of the Church especially the supreme Minister or Head thereof should be in a capacity of fungifying his Office in Preaching the Gospell Administring the Sacrament Baptizing Marrying and not otherwise This we have Scripture for Heb. No man taketh this honour unto himself but he that is called
of God as Aaron was This you deny and not onely so but you so deny it as that your Church hath maintained and practiced it a long time for a woman to be head or supreme Moderatrix in the Church when you know that according to the Word of God in this respect a woman is not onely forbidden to be the head of the man but to have a tongue in her head 1 Tim. 2. 11. 1 Cor. 14. 34. Yet so hath this been denyed by you that many have beene hang'd drawn and quarter'd for not acknowledging it The Fathers are of our opinion c. All this is but to strike at the Title which hath beene given to our Kings and Queens viz. Supreme Heads or Governours and Governesses of the Church within their Dominions We know our Adversaries have much stomack'd and opposed this Title but we know no just cause that they have had for it We never made Kings or Queens Ministers of the Church so as to dispense the Word and Sacraments only we have attributed unto them this Power to look to and have a care of the Church that the Word be Preached and the Sacraments Administred by fit persons and in a right manner This is no more then belongs unto Kings and Queens as both Scriptures and Fathers doe informe us We see in the Scriptures that the good Kings of Iudah as Asia Iehoshaphat Hezekiah and Iosiah not to speak of David and Solomon who were Prophets as well as Kings and so may be excepted against as extraordinary persons did put forth their power in ordering the Affaires of the Church as well as of the Civill State Asa put down Idolatry and caused the People to enter into Covenant to serve the Lord 2 Chron. 15. Iehoshaphat took away the High Places and the Groves and made the Priests and Levites to goe and teach the People 2 Chron. 17. Hezekiah reformed what had been amisse in matter of Gods Worship caused the Priests and Levites to do their Duty and the Passeover to be solemnly kept 2 Chron. 29. 30 31. So Iosiah also destroyed Idolatry repaired the Temple and kept a most solemne Passeover causing both Priests and People to performe their Duty Austine acknowledgeth this power to belong unto Kings In this saith he Kings as they are commanded of God doe serve God as Kings if in their Kingdome they command good things and forbid evill things not only which belong unto humane Society but also which concerne Divine Religion And the same Father speaking of Christian Princes makes their happiness to lie in this That they make their power serviceable to Gods majesty in enlarging his worship as much as they are able This power also Christian Princes have exercised and have not been taxed for it as Constantine Theodosius c. See Mason de Minist Anglic. lib. 3. cap. 4. The exercising therefore of this power which we ascribe to Kings and Queenes is no taking that Honour to themselves which is spoken of Heb. 5. 4. Neither is it any teaching or speaking in the Church which the Apostle will not allow unto a woman 1 Tim. 2. 11 12. and 1 Cor. 14. 34. Neither is this crosse to what the Fathers whom the Marquesse citeth say which amounts to this that Ministers are to doe those things which belong unto Ministers and that in those things which concern their Ministery all even Kings and Queens are subject unto them All this is nothing against Kings and Queens having a power over Ministers so as to see them perform the Offices which belong unto them And it may seeme strange that the Marquesse should now so lately with so much eagernesse inveigh against that Title and Power given to that Queen of happy memory Q. Elizabeth as most unmeet for her when as Hart a Papist stiffe enough living in the Queens time by his Conference with Doctor Rainolds and Doctor Nowels Book against Dorman was so convinced that he confessed himself satisfied in this point and acknowledged that we ascribe no more unto Princes then Austine doth in the words before cited We say that Christ gave commission to his Disciples to forgive Sinnes you deny it and say that God onely can forgive sins we have Scripture for it Joh. 20. 23. Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained And Joh. 20. 21. As my Father hath sent me even so send I you And how was that viz. with so great power as to forgive sins Mat. 9. 3. 8. where note that S. Matthew doth not set downe how that the people glorified God the Father who had given so great power unto God the Son but that he had given so great power unto men loc cit The Fathers are of this opinion c. It is strange that the Marquesse should say that we deny that Christ gave Commission to his Disciples to forgive Sinnes We confesse that the Scripture is clear for it that he did give them such a Commission onely the question is how the Commission is to be understood and what power it is that the Disciples had and so other Ministers have to forgive Sinnes It 's true we hold that God only can forgive sins and yet withall that men may forgive sins These are not contradictory the one to the other because as all Logitians know except the propositions be understood of one and the same thing in one and the same respect there is no contradiction Now when we say that onely God can forgive sins it is meant in one respect and when we say that men may forgive sinnes it is meant in another respect As the sin is against God so properly and authoritatively God alone can forgive it And this God doth challenge unto himself as his prerogative I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions c. Isai 43. 25. And therefore the Scribes were right in this Who can forgive sins but God onely Mar. 2. 7. They were right in the Doctrine though wrong in the Application their position was good that God only can forgive Sins but their supposition was naught that Christ was but a meer Man and had not power to forgive Sins as he did This saith Hilary troubles the Scribes that a man doth forgive sin for they took Christ for a meer Man It is true none can forgive sinne but God only and therefore he that forgiveth is God because none forgiveth but God The same also is clearly and fully acknowledged by Gregory whom amongst other Fathers the Marquesse alledgeth against us He writing upon the second Penitentiall Psalme that is the 32. Psalme upon those words Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin he saith thus Thou who alone sparest who alone doest forgive sinnes For who can forgive sinnes but God onely And with these agreeth Irenaeus whom also the Marquesse bringeth in as a witnesse on his side He speaking of Christs forgiving of sinnes saith That thereby
of Reprobation as the good merit of Election 2. To that question Is there unrighteousnesse with God he doth not answer that therefore there is not because the whole lumpe is depraved by sinne c. but he answers so as that he refers as well the Reprobation of these as the election of those unto the sole Will of God and so represses the curious inquirer O man who art thou c. 3. That comparison of a Potter of the same lumpe making one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour doth exclude the supposition of a corrupt lumpe For here verily is nothing supposed in the lumpe but that it is indifferent and may be fashioned both the one way and the other Thus this learned Papist goes as farre in the point both of Election and of Reprobation as any Protestant that I know whatsoever Neither would he have us thinke that he goes alone for hee cites many as Lombard Hugo de S. Victore Aquinas Cajetan Lyra Titleman and Pererius as being of the same opinion with him and interpreting the words of the Apostle in the same manner And this I suppose may suffice to vindicate the Doctrine of Protestants even such as goe highest in this point as touching Reprobation Now for the Scriptures objected against us the first viz. Wis 1. 13. is not Canonicall Hierome brandes that booke called the the Wisdome of Solomon as falsly intituled and saith that it is no where to be found among the Hebrewes to whom the Oracles of God were committed Rom. 3. 2. and that the style doth smell of Greeke eloquence and that some ancient writers affirme it to be the worke of Philo a Jew Therefore saith he as the Church doth read indeed the Bookes of Judith Tobie and the Maccabees but doth not receive them amongst the Canonicall Scriptures so also doth it reade these two volumes viz. Ecclesiasticus and the wisdome of Solomon for the edifying of the people but not for the confirming of Ecclesiasticall Doctrines But suppose it were Canonicall the place alledged is answered to our hand by one of the Roman Church viz. Alvarez when it is said God made not death the meaning hee saith is that God doth not primarily of it selfe intend the death of any but in respect of some other great good that is joyned with it And againe that place hee saith is expounded of death in respect of the cause to wit sinne These expositions of the place doe free the Doctrine of Protestants from suffering any prejudice by it were the authority of it greater then indeed it is The next place is that 1 Tim. 2. 4. Who will have all men to be saved c. Austine gives diverse interpretations of those words First thus that the meaning is that God will have all to be saved that are saved and that none but such as hee will save can bee saved Secondly this that by all men are meant men of all sorts how ever distinguished Kings and private persons noble and ignoble c. This hee shewes to be agreeable both to the Context and also to the phrase of Scripture Luke 11. 42. You tithe Mint and Rue and every Herbe i. e. every kinde of Herbe This latter exposition of the Apostles words Alvarez saith is also followed by Fulgentius Beda and Anselme The same Alvarez relates two other interpretations which Austine gives of these words viz. first this God will have all men to be saved that is hee makes men to will or desire that all may be saved as the Spirit is said to make intercession for us Rom. 8. 26. that is makes us to make intercession or supplication c. Estius upon the place doth embrace this Exposition before any other VVho will have all men to be saved that is saith hee He willeth and maketh godly men to desire the salvation of all Though God will not save all but onely the Elect yet he will have all to be saved to wit by us as much as in us lies in that he commands us to seek the salvation of all and this desire and indeavour he workes in us This Exposition wee embrace rather then any of the rest The other Exposition which Alvarez relates is that the Apostle speakes of Gods antecedent will Thus hee saith Austine doth expound it in diverse places and for this Exposition hee also cites Damascene Prosper Theophylaot Oecumenius Aquinas as also Chrysostome and Ambrose and saith that it is common among the Doctors Now in the next Disputation hee tels us that Gods antecedent Will is that which respects the object simply considered and by it selfe and that this will is called antecedent not because it goes before the good or ill use of our will as some thinke but because it goes before that will whereby God respects the object considered with some adjunct which is the consequent and latter consideration of it If saith hee the salvation of the Reprobate be considered simply by it selfe so God doth will it but if it be considered as it hath adjoyned the privation or want of a greater good to wit the universall good of manifesting Gods Iustice in the Reprobate and of causing his Mercy the more to shine forth in the Elect so God doth not will it And in this respect were affirmed that God by a consequent will doth not will that all shall be saved but only such as are predestinate Now take any of all these foure Explications of the Apostles words wherein hee saith that God will have all men to be saved as for my part I like best either the second or the last take any of them I say and the Apostles words are nothing against that which Protestants hold concerning Reprobation As for that of Peter that God is not willing that any should perish 2 Pet. 3. 9. Bellarmine himselfe expounds both it and the former place viz. 1 Tim. 2. 4. of that Will of God which Divines call Gods Antecedent will Now what that Antecedent will of God is we have seene even now out of Alvarez if Bellarmine did understand it otherwise as Alvarez notes that some did hee is confuted by Alvarez in the place above cited Where hee also cites Austine saying Many are not saved not because they will not but because God will not which without all controversie is manifested in young children whence he inferrs that the condition which is included in Gods Antecedent will whereby he will have all men to be saved is not this if they will and if they doe not hinder it And Bellarmine himselfe also though he say It is most true that all are not saved because they will not for if they would God would not be wanting unto them Yet immediately hee addes But none can have a will to be saved except God by preventing and preparing the will make him to will it And why God doth not make all to will this who hath knowne the mind of the Lord
was the custome then to call upon the holy Angels for their patronage But to say as the Marquesse doth that it appears by these words that they used then to call upon the Saints departed is contrary to the tenet of the Romanists who hold that during the time of the old Testament praying unto the deceased Saints was not in use because then the Saints that departed out of this life as they hold did not goe to Heaven nor enjoy happinesse But the truth is those words Iob 5. 1. Call now c. and to which of the Saints wilt thou turne make neither for the invocation of Saints nor of Angels the meaning of Eliphaz being onely to convince Iob that none is punished as he was except he were wicked and therefore he bids him shew any of the Saints if hee could that was so punished as hee was For this was the error of Eliphaz and the other two friends of Iob that they thought Iob could not be a godly man because God did so afflict him Therefore God said his Anger was kindled against them because they had not spoken of him the thing that was right Iob. 42. 7. For the Fathers which are here objected the first viz. Dionys is cited cap. 7 but of what For hee wrote diverse Bookes But his testimony is of little worth it being uncertaine who hee was and when hee lived and this being evident to all that have any the least taste of him that hee was not as is pretended that Dionysius that is mentioned Acts 17. 34. which his fustian and bombast-stile doth sufficiently declare The next is Athanasius but I finde no such peece as Ser. de Annunt either in his workes as they are extant both in Greeke and Latine nor in Bellarmines Index or Catalogue of them which he hath in his Booke of Ecclesiasticall writers If perhaps the Marquesse meant Ser de Sanctissimâ Deiparâ Bellarmine in that same booke censures it as not belonging to Athanasius but to some other long after his time and in some thing as it seemes not very sound Basil I have not to peruse nor Maximus Chrysostome in the place quoted viz. Hom. 66. de Pop. Antioch doth indeed seeme to speake for praying unto Saints to pray for us But wee must remember how hee is reckoned among them who held that the Saints departed are not yet in glory and therefore if the Romanists will have him speake agreably to this position they must not have him for a patron in this cause touching the invocation of Saints And upon the same ground must they also let goe Bernard who is likewise noted for the same opinion though the truth is hee lived in very corrupt times and therefore it is no marvell if hee did draw some dreggs it is indeed a marvell that hee was not more corrupted and infected then he was There remaines onely Hierome who in the end of his Epitaph or Funerall Oration concerning Paula addresseth his speech unto her bidding her farwell and helpe him with her prayers But 1. I have shewed before that Bellarmine doth overthrow the foundation that Hierome buildes upon viz. that the Saints departed are every where and so can heare and understand whatsoever any stand in need of and desire of them which Bellarmine confesseth to be incompetible to any meere creature as indeed it is this being a property that belongs unto God only 2. When the Fathers sometimes speak in that manner to the Saints deceased their speeches proceeded rather from affection then from judgement and are Rhetoricall rather then Theologicall expressions As appeares by that of Gregory Nazianzen who in his first Oration against Iulian speakes thus unto Constantine who was then dead And heare O thou soule of the great Constantine if thou hast any sense or understanding of these things Where the Greeke Scholiast notes that Nazianzen did imitate Isocrates a Heathen Oratour This is spoken saith hee in imitation of Isocrates as if he should say If thou hast any power to heare the things that are here spoken And observe how Nazianzen whom Hierome calleth his Master spake doubtfully making it a question whether the Saints departed doe understand things here upon Earth 3. Austine who lived in the same time with Hierome in his booke of true Religion speaking of the Saints deparred saith plainly They are to be honoured for imitation but not to be worshipped for Religion And in the last booke of that famous worke intituled Of the City of God in the tenth Chapter of it speaking of the Martyrs hee saith that in the celebration of the Eucharist they were mentioned in their place and order viz. to praise God for them and to stir up others to the imitation of them but yet that they were not invocated and that no prayers were put up unto them This may suffice to shew how farre in this point they of the Roman Church are departed both from the Rule of Gods Word and also from the judgement and practice of the ancient Fathers We hold saith the Marquesse Confirmation necessary you not We have Scripture for it Acts 8. 14. Peter and Iohn prayed for them that they might receive the holy Ghost for as yet he was falne upon none of them onely they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Iesus then laid they their hands on them and they received the holy Ghost Where we see the holy Ghost was given in Confirmation which was not given in Baptisme Also Heb. 6. 1. Therefore leaving the principles of the Doctrine of Christ let us goe on unto perfection not laying against the foundation of Repentance from dead workes and of Faith toward God of Baptisme and of laying on of hands The Fathers affirme the same Tertul. de Resur S. Pacian de Bapt. S. Amb. de sacr S. Hierome contra Lucif S Cypr. l. 2. Ep. 1. speaking both of Baptisme and Confirmation saith Then they may be sanctified and be the sons of God if they be borne in both Sacraments Answ Concerning Confirmation the Romanists make it a Sacrament properly so called of the same nature with Baptisme and the Lords Supper The matter of this Sacrament they make to be a certaine Ointment compounded after a speciall manner and consecrated by a Bishop wherewith the person to be confirmed is anointed in the forehead in the forme of a crosse The forme of the Sacrament they make to consist in these words I signe thee with the signe of the Crosse and confirme thee with the Chrisme or ointment of salvation in the Name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost The effect of this Sacrament they say is to confer true sanctifying grace and that more abundantly then Baptisme doth in respect of the strengthening of the soule against the assaults of Satan Now this Confirmation Protestants deny to be a Sacrament as having no institution nor any ground for it in the Scripture The
Body that Christs Body may be understood to be given for the salvation of our body and his Blood for the salvation of our soule which is in the Blood And so also to signifie that Christ tooke both Body and Soule that he might redeeme both And therefore hee saith It is not without good cause that very many good men even of the Catholike profession being conversant in the reading both of Divine and Ecelesiasicall Writers doe most earnestly desire to partake of the Lords cup and by all meanes strive that this saving Sacrament of Christs Blood together with the Sacrament of his Body may againe use to be received according to the ancient custome of the universall Church which was continued for many Ages For the Scriptures which the Marquesse alledgeth the first of them viz. Ioh. 6. 51. doth not concerne the Sacrament which is not treated of in that Chapter as I have noted before and that according to the judgement of Iansenius a Romanist to whom may be added diverse others of the Church of Rome who as Bellarmine confesseth were of that opinion viz. Biel Cusanus Cajetan Tapper and Hesselius And even Bellarmine himselfe and others who hold that the Sacrament is spoken of in Ioh. 6. yet hold it not to be spoken of till after those words which the Marquesse citeth in those words which follow immediately after vers 51. And the bread which I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the World in those words I say and the rest that follow almost to the end of the Chapter they say that our Saviour speakes of the Sacrament but not in any of the former words of the Chapter And if the Sacrament were spoken of in that Chapter those words v. 51. If any man eate of this bread he shall live for ever would not so much evince a sufficiency of communicating in one kinde as the words a little after viz. v. 53. Verely verely I say unto you Except you eate the flesh of the Son of man and drinke his Blood you have no life in you would evince a necessity of communicating in both kindes For if those words be understood of a Sacramentall eating and drinking it cannot be avoided but that by those very words as it is necessary to eate of the bread in the Sacrament so is it to drinke of the cup also For though by the forementioned concomitancy of the blood with the Body they say that when one kinde onely viz. bread is received the Blood of Christ is drunk as well as his Body is eaten yet as Iansenius well observes that outward act of taking the bread in the Sacrament cannot be called drinking It is rightly called eating saith hee because something is taken by way of meate but how is it called drinking when as nothing is received by way of drinke Neither is it certaine that in the other two places viz. Acts 2. 42. and Luke 24. 30. by breaking of bread is meant the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Cajetan expounds the former place of ordinary bread and the other place is expounded by Iansenius after the same manner Neither is it true that Bellarmine saith that Iansenius teacheth that Christ by that example would shew the fruit and benefit of the Sacrament received in one kinde Jansenius doth not speake of receiving the Sacrament in one kinde though I know hee did approve of it but onely saith that by the effect that followed the Lord would commend unto us the vertue of the Sacrament worthily received to wit that thereby our eyes are enlightned to know Iesus And whereas Austine and Theophylact are said to understand that in Luke 24. of the Sacrament Iansenius tells us that so many thinke but that indeed they did rather make mention of the Sacrament because it was not here spoken of in Luke but mystically commended and insinuated by our Saviour But suppose that the Sacrament were spoken of in those places as probably it is in Acts 2. because breaking of Bread is there joyned with Doctrine and Prayer yet there is no sufficient ground for communicating in one kinde For the figure Synecdoche wherby the part is put for the whole is not unusuall in the Scripture Thus Soule which is but a part of man is put for man All the Soules that came with Jacob c. that is all the persons Gen. 46. 26. So likewise flesh being a part of man is used for man I will not feare what flesh can doe unto me Psal 56. 4. that is what man can doe unto me as it is expressed vers 11. So whereas David saith In thy sight shall no man be justified Psal 143. 2. Paul hath it There shall no flesh be iustified in his sight Rom. 3. 20. Thus the whole celebration of the Sacrament may be termed breaking of bread because that is one and that an eminent part of it The Marquesse goes on still concerning the same Sacrament but so as in the Church of Rome it is changed into a Sacrifice We hold saith hee that Christ offered up unto his Father in the Sacrifice of the Masse as an expiation for the sinnes of the people is a true and proper Sacrifice This you deny this we prove by Scripture viz. Mal. 1. 11. From the rising of the Sunne to the going downe of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place Incense shall be offered to my Name and a pure offering This could not be meant of the figurative offerings of the Iewes because it was spoken of the Gentiles neither can it be understood of the reall sacrifice of Christ upon the Crosse because that was done but in one place and at one time and then and there not among the Gentiles neither Which could be no other but the daily sacrifice of the Masse which is and ever was from East to West a pure and daily sacrifice Luke 22. 19. This is my body which is given for you not to you therefore a sacrifice The Fathers are of this opinion Answ That Christ is offered up in the Eucharist a Sacrifice truly and properly so called Protestants have good cause to deny For the Eucharist is a Sacrament to be received by us not a sacrifice to be offered unto God Christ instituting the Sacrament gave it to his Disciples hee did not offer up himselfe as then unto his Father The Scripture tells us that Wee are sanctified through the offering of the Body of Iesus Christ once for all Heb. 10. 10. And immediately after there it followes that whereas the Leviticall Priests did often offer the same sacrifices Christ having offered one Sacrifice for sinnes for ever sate down on the right hand of God And Heb. 9. 25 26 27 28. the Apostle proves that Christ was not to be offered often because his offering was his suffering so that if hee should have been offered often then he should also have suffered
yet by the holy Ghost there is meant such a gift of the holy Ghost as the wicked may receive viz. the gift of Tongues and Prophecy for so immediately it followes and they spake with Tongues and Prophesied 2. Neither doth it appeare that the Apostle 2 Tim. 1. 7. doth explaine what he meant by the gift mentioned vers 6. but having exhorted Timothy to stir up the gift that was in him by laying on of hands hee addes as a motive to inforce the exhortation For God hath not given unto us the spirit of feare but c. As if hee should say All true Christians have received this Spirit of God and more especially all faithfull Ministers therefore stir up the gift that is in thee c. But the end of Ordination is not the justification of the person ordained but the edification of others for whom hee is ordained Hee gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastours and Teachers Why for what end For the perfecting of the Saints for the worke of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ Ephes 4. 11 12. So Durandus an acute and learned Schoolemen saith that the Sacrament of Order is a spirituall medicine yet not for him that is ordained but for the people because by Ordination a man is made a dispenser of the Sacraments c. For the Fathers here objected there is onely one viz. Cyprian that I can punctually answer unto Hee in the place cited hath nothing that I finde about Ordination He speakes indeed there of imposition of hands for the receiving of the holy Ghost but the imposition of hands there spoken of was not by way of Ordination but by way of Confirmation of which I have spoken before For Cyprian there speakes of laying hands upon all that had beene baptized by Heretikes when they did returne to the Church and not of laying hands upon such as did receive Ordination The Marquesse himself in the point of Confirmation alledged Cyprians 71. Epistle and this which he now alledgeth is in respect of the former part of it of the same subject with that and the rest that follow as Pamelius noteth in the Argument of the Epistle The other Fathers are so cited that there is no examining what they say without more labour then the thing is worth or reason doth require Austine is cited in his questions upon Numbers now there are 65 questions upon that book but which of them is meant is not expressed In like manner are Optatus and Tertullian cited without any mention made of the booke wherein Optatus hath any thing to the purpose whereas there are seven Bookes which hee wrote or of the Chapter in which Tertullian de Praescript speaketh about Ordination whereas that Booke of Tertullian hath 53. chapters Neither doth Bellarimne in this controversie about Ordination alledge either Tertullian or Optatus at all nor Cyprian but only in a worke which himselfe confesseth to be none of Cyprians nor yet Austine in that place which the Marquesse citeth But how ever it is granted that the Fathers sometimes call Ordination a Sacrament and so doe Protestants too as hath beene shewed though they deny it to be a Sacrament of the same nature with Baptisme and the Lords Supper and so much as I have shewed Durandus himselfe doth acknowledge making it to be a remedy provided for the spirituall welfare of others and not of him that is ordained To proceede We hold saith the Marquesse that the Priest and other Religious persons who have vowed chastity to God may not marry afterwards You deny first that it is lawfull to make any such vowes and secondly that those who have made any such vows are not bound to keepe them We have Scripture for what we hold Deut. 23. 2. When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God thou shalt not slack to pay it for the Lord thy God will require it of thee So 1 Tim. 5. 11 12. But the younger widdowes refuse for when they have begun to wax wanton against the Lord they will marry having damnation because they have cast off their first Faith What can be meant hereby but the vow of chastity or by their first faith but some promise made to Christ in that behalfe Otherwise Marriage could not be damnable So all the ancient Fathers have expounded it S. Aug. de bono viduit cap. 9. S. Athanas de Virginit S. Epiphan haer 48. S. Hier. contra Iovin l. 1. c. 7. Answ One thing is here omitted by the Marquesse which yet we must observe viz. that they of the Church of Rome hold that Priests and Clergy-men as they are called ought not to Marry and that they restraine them from Marriage causing them to vow against it Some of them hold this to be of divine institution Bellarmine though he likes not that yet makes it to be an Apostolicall decree which indeed amounts to as much Costerus the Jesuite saith It is the most holy custome of the Roman Church agreeable to reason and the Scriptures and received from our ancestors not to admit any to holy Orders but him that is unmarried or that with the consent of his wife hath consecrated his chastity unto God And the same Author affirmes that Although a Priest finne grievously if hee commit Fornication yet much more if hee Marry And therefore hee concludes that Priests are by no meanes to be suffered to Marry Yet they may be suffered to commit fornication for so the Glosse upon Gratians Decrees tells us that it is commonly held that one ought not to be deposed for simple fornication And marke the reason because sath hee very few are found without that fault And so in another place They say that now none is to be deposed for fornication except he continue in it and that because our bodies are now more fraile then they were in times past How well doth this agree with the Scripture which saith that Marriage is honourable in all and the bed undefiled but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge Heb. 13. 4. But saith Bellarmine if Marriage be honorable in all then in those that are neare allied and in those that marry without the consent of their Parents I answer Marriage may be and is honorable in all and yet not all kind of Marriage It is lawfull for any to marry yet not to marry with any they that marry must marry in the Lord. 1 Cor. 7. 39. Bellarmine himselfe approves of Theophylacts Exposition viz. that Marriage is honourable in all that is in all that are lawfully joyned together whosoever they be Now such are all they whom the Scripture doth not exclude as it doth not the Clergy Gratian himselfe confesseth that it is but an Ecclesiasticall Law that forbids Priests to marry and that before this prohibition their Marriage was every where lawfull and so in his time was accounted in the Easterne
that if not through wantonnesse but through weaknesse they were forced to marry the Apostle would have them to doe it rather then to doe worse viz. burne with lust and commit Fornication For whereas the same authour saith It is not better for such as have vowed contineney to marry then to burne this is nothing else but a flat contradicting of the Apostle or at least a contradicting of that Rule We must not distinguish where the Law doth not distinguish And we finde in their own Canons that if Widdows did professe continency yet a snare was not to be cast upon them to wit as the Glosse doth expound it by separating them from their Husbands if they did marry or by forbidding them precisely to marry Another Canon also which they have injoynes no more but this that if such as professe Virginity did afterwards marry they should be ranked amongst those that did marry the second time viz. after the death of the first yoke fellow which marriage the Scripture doth clearly allow Rom. 7. 2 3. and 1 Cor. 7. 39. neither did any Orthodox Writer ever condemne it Their Canon-Law indeed debarres those that are twice married from being Priests grounding upon the Apostle 1 Tim. 3. 2. and Titus 1. 6. which places their owne Cardinall Cajetan doth yet interpret otherwise but yet grant that such doe not sinne They grant also that if any marry after a simple vow of continency the marriage doth stand good and is not to be dissolved For this they have a Canon out of Austine which runs thus Some say that they that marry after a vow are adulterers but I say unto you that they that divide such doe sinne grievously And another out of Theodorus thus If a man having a simple vow of virginity joyne himselfe to a Wife let him not afterwards put her away but let him doe penance three yeares And so Estius confesseth that we never reade in antient writers that if Widdowes who vowed continency did marry their marriage was voide and of none effect For saith hee their vow was not solemne But I have shewed before that the distinction of simple and solemne vow hath no ground in Scripture and that in respect of God a simple vow doth binde as much as a solemne And besides if as they alledge and cite some of the antients also for it one having vowed continency whether solemnely or simply is married unto Christ and therefore may much lesse marry another then one that is allready married to a mortall man then surely the marriage of such should much rather be judged adultery and be dissolved then the marriage of those who marry againe when they are already married Yet Bellarmine goes further and acknowledgeth that many prime Writers of the Church of Rome as Scotus Paludanus and Cajetane and generally as Panormitan doth relate all the Canonists affirme that onely by Ecclesiasticall right marriage made after a solemne vow is of no force And this opinion hee granteth to be probable So then by their own confessions it may appeare that there is no Law of God against it but that such as have vowed continency should marry if they be not able to performe what they have vowed And this may suffice for this point The Marquesse goes on thus We say Christ descended into Hell and delivered thence the soules of the Fathers yee deny it Wee have Scripture for it viz. Ephes 4. 8. When he ascended up on high he led captivity captive c. Descending first into the lower part of the Earth This lower part of the Earth could not be a grave for that was the upper part nor could it have beene the place of the damned for the Devils would have beene brought againe into Heaven More clearly Acts 2. 27. Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption There is Hell for his soule for a time and the grave for his body for a while Plainer yet 1 Pet. 3. 18 19. Being put to death in the flesh but quickned by the spirit by which also hee went and preached unto the spirits in prison This prison cannot be Heaven nor Hell as it is the place of the damned nor the grave as it is the place of rest Therefore it must be as S. Aug. Epist 99. ad Evod. saith some third place which third place the Fathers have called Limbus Patrum Also Zach. 9. 11. As for thee also by the blood of thy Covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water By this pit could not be meant the place of the damned for they have no share in the Covenant neither are they Christs prisoners but the Devils neither could this pit be the grave because Christs grave was a new pit where never any was laid before The Fathers affirm as much S. Hieron in 4. ad Ephes S. Greg. l. 13. Moral c. 20. S. Aug. in Psal 37. 1. Answ That Christ did descend into Hell in that sense as they of the Church of Some doe hold viz. into a Region of Hell called Limbus Patrum to deliver the faithfull thence that lived and died under the old Testament this Protestants deny and they have just cause to deny it For the Scripture doth not shew us any such Hell as this which they speake of much lesse that CHRIST did descend into it 1. The faithfull that were before Christ did enjoy the benefit of him as well as they that are since his comming We believe said Peter that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ wee shall be saved even as they Acts 15. 11. Therefore they were saved by Christ as well as we now are saved by him and consequently the faithfull then through Christ did goe to Heaven as well as now they doe 2. It is said of the faithfull of the old Testament that they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims upon the Earth Heb. 11. 13. and that they did seeke a country v. 14. not an earthly country but a better country that is an Heavenly and that God did prepare for them a City v. 16. 3. Abrahams bosome as the place is called where the soules of the Saints of the old Testament were is so described in the Scripture as that it could be no such place as they call Limbus Patrum For 1. The soule of Lazarus was carried thither by Angels and therefore it should rather be Heaven then Hell 2. It was a place of comfort Luke 16. 25. But Austine could not finde hee saith with all his searching where the Scripture doth make Hell to be any place of comfort and hee thought this a good argument why Abrahams bosome could not be Hell 3. There was a great gulfe fixed betwixt the place where Lazarus was viz. Abrahams bosome and the place where the rich man was in torment Luke 16. 26. And hence also Austine inferreth that Abrahams bosome
greater benefit by him even of deliverance from the captivity of sinne and Satan Estius in his Exposition of the hard places of Scripture treating of this place saith indeed that many understand it of Christs descending into Hell and delivering thence the soules of the just but withall hee tells us that it is diversly expounded and that one Exposition is that Christ by the Merit of his Passion did free all the Elect who were held captive under the power of the Devill And thus hee saith the pit wherein is no water is the captivity of mankinde in which so long as it is held it is empty of the water of Divine Grace Diverse Romanists doe cite Hierome as interpreting this place of the Prophet Zachary of Limbus Patrum and of Christs descending thither But they that peruse Hieromes owne words will finde that hee neither speakes of Christs descending nor of Limbus Patrum and that indeed hee meant onely that which Estius expresseth Hee giveth the sense of the Prophets words thus By the blood of thy passion thou through thy clemency hast delivered those who were held bound in the prison of Hell in which there is no mercy And hee addes a little after that the rich man spoken of Luke 16. was in that pit which was so void of all water of comfort that hee desired Lazarus might but dip the tip of his finger in water to coole his Tongue Here it is evident that Hierome by the pit without water understands the Hell of the damned which is without all comfort though the Marquesse say that place cannot here be meant Now whereas Hierome saith that Christ by his Passion did deliver those that were bound in that prison I suppose hee did not meane that any being once in Hell as that rich man that he mentioneth were afterwards delivered out of it himself seemes to exclude that sence when hee saith that in that prison there is no mercy viz. to be obtained but his meaning was that such as by reason of sinne were in the state of damnation Christ did deliver by his Passion But thus neither this place of Zachary nor any other place of Scripture doth prove a Limbus Patrum or that Christ descended into Hell in that sense as they of the Church of Rome maintaine For the Fathers whom the Marquesse citeth Austine in Psal 37. 1. hath nothing about Limbus Patrum or Christs descending into Hell and I have shewed before that he gathered by the Scripture that Abrahams bosome was no such Limbus as the Romanists imagine yea that hee held the Saints that died before Christs incarnation to have alwayes enjoyed the beatificall presence of Christs Divinity which is point blanke contrary to their opinion Hierome I grant in Ephes 4. 9. seemeth to speake for them where hee saith By the lower parts of the Earth is understood Hell to which our Lord and Saviour descended that he might victoriously carry with him to Heaven the soules of the Saints which were kept there Whereupon also after his Resurrection many bodies of the just were seene in the holy City But Hieromes meaning might be onely this that Christ by the vertue and efficacy of his death did deliver the Soules of all Saints whether before or after his comming from Hell which otherwise by reason of sinne was the place that did belong unto them Thus a little before upon those words when hee ascended up on high hee led captivity captive Hierome doth expresse himselfe saying Wee who now believe in Christ were taken captive by the Devill and were delivered over to his officers Therefore our Lord Iesus Christ came bringing with him the vessels of captivity and preached remission to those that were taken and deliverance to those that were bound and delivered us from the Chaines and Fetters of our enemies And having deliver'd us and by a new captivity brought us out of our old captivity he carried us with him into Heaven Hee cannot here meane that we were actually in Hell and then from thence delivered and carried up with Christ into Heaven But his meaning must needs be this that whereas sinne had brought us under condemnation so that nothing but Hell did remaine for us Christ by his death delivered us and made a way for us into Heaven into which otherwise wee could finde no entrance After the same manner very well may the other words be understood so as to import no such place as they call Limbus Patrum However hee meant yet it appeares sufficiently by the words of Austine before cited that the opinion of Limbus Patrum was not generally received in that time wherein Hierome lived Austine and hee being contemporaries The other Father yet remaining is Gregory but there is no such place as that mentioned viz. li. 13. Mor. ca. 20. for that booke hath onely 17. Chapters in it yet I finde Bellarmine also to cite Gregory after the very same manner yea and to bid us also see Cap. 21. But the words which Bellarmine citeth as out of Cap. 20. are indeed in Cap. 15. viz. Whiles our Master and Redeemer penetrating the cloysters of Hell did bring out from thence the soules of the Elect hee suffers not us to goe thither from whence by descending hee did deliver others These words of Gregory might admit of the same Exposition with those of Hierome before spoken of but that in the next Chapter he is more plaine saying The former Saints could indure adversity but yet they could not be delivered from Hell when they died because hee was not yet come who should descend thither without sinne that hee might deliver those who were held there by reason of sinne But the reason that Gregory here giveth is too weake for though Christ were not then come in the flesh yet his death was as effectuall to those that believed in him then as after his comming as I have proved before Neither is the gound or occasion of these words of Gregory good for hee buildes or comments upon that of Iob 17. 13. If I waite Sheol Hell as Gregory understands it is mine house But I have shewed before that Sheol doth not properly signifie Hell as either wee or our adversaries usually take the word but the Grave or the state of the dead And so the Chaldie Paraphrast there for Sheol hath that which signifieth the house of the Grave This appeares to be the meaning in that place by that which followes immediately after v. 14. I have said to corruption Thou art my Father to the worme thou art my Mother and Sister If our adversaries wil yet stand upon the authority of Gregory I answer that we are not tied to the authority of any in this kinde further then they concur with the Scripture and if we were yet Austines authority were to be preferred as being 200 years more antient then Gregory but of this point enough From Limbus Patrum wee must now passe to Purgatory
and light sinnes as idle talking immoderate laughing c. But they of the Church of Rome doe now hold that mortall sinnes as they call them in respect of the punishment are sometimes remitted not here in this World but in the World to come 4. Gregory in that same place saith that the fire which the Apostle speakes of 1 Cor. 3. 13 15. may be understood of the fire of tribulation which is endured in this life What doe our adversaries now gaine by Gregory Hee takes away one principall place that they build upon for Purgatory he alledgeth many places from which by his own confession so much is evinced as indeed cannot consist with Purgatory hee builds upon a place which both in the judgement of other Fathers professedly commenting upon it and also by diverse reasons appeares to make nothing for Purgatory and concerning that Purgatory which he doth hold he comes short of the opinion of our adversaries all which things considered they can get little by his testimony The next and last Father objected against us is Origen whose testimonie if it were most cleare for a Purgatory after this life yet it were of small force he being censured as I have shewed before by Bellarmine as erroneous in this point holding that there shall be a Purgatory even after the day of judgement Yet Bellarmine also thought good to make use of his testimony viz. this He that is saved is saved by fire that if perhaps he have any lead mixed with him the fire may melt and consume it that so all may be made pure Gold Thus I confesse Origen writes in the place which the Marquesse citeth And so also in the same place hee hath these words which though Bellarmine doth not alledge yet some have thought to make for Purgatory and so they do as much as the other All must come to the fire all must come to the Fornace Where in the margent it is noted by Genebrard I suppose who was the overseer of that Edition that Origen speakes of Purgatory But it may easily appeare to any that looke into Origen that neither in these words nor in the other before cited Purgatory is meant by that fire and fornace whith he speakes of but affliction As the fornace saith hee doth try Gold so doth affliction the righteous And speaking of Peter he saith He was not so great nor such an one as that he had no mixture of lead in him He had some though but a little and therefore the Lord said unto him why didst thou doubt O thou of little faith And then immediately follow the words which Bellarmine alledgeth and the Marquesse I presume aimeth at Therefore he that is saved is saved by fire c. What is this to the Romish Purgatory I am confident they will not say that Peter had neede of this Purgatory yet hee had of that which Origen speakes of and so all whosoever they be it being affliction by which here in this life even the best are tried and also purified And thus much for Purgatory in the last place comes extreme unction Lastly saith the Marquesse We hold extreme Vnction to be a Sacrament you neither hold it to be a Sacrament neither do you practise it as a duty We have Scripture for it Jam. 5. 14. Is any sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him anointing him in the Name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him Neither any nor all the Sacraments were or could be more effectuall to mens good nor more substantiall in matter nor more exquisite in forme nor more punctuall in the designation of its Ministery other Sacraments being bounded within the limits of the soules onely good this extends it selfe to the good both of soule and body He shall recover from his sicknesse and his sinnes shall be forgiven him And yet it is both left out in your practice and acknowledgement The Fathers are on our side Orig. hom 2. in Levit. Chrys l. 3. de Sacerd. Aug. in Speculo Ser. 215. de temp Vener Bed in 6. Mir. S. Iames and many others As for extreme Unction as they call it that is the anointing of the sick with oyl as the manner is in the Church of Rome Protestants do not acknowledge it to be either a Sacrament or a duty because they see no ground in Scripture either for the one or for the other The Scripture indeed in two places viz. that which the Marquesse citeth and Mar. 6. 13. doth speak of anointing the sick with oyle But that anointing was extraordinary peculiar to those times when there was as other extraordinary gifts bestowed upon men so the gift of healing which is mentioned Mat. 10. 1 8. and 1 Cor. 12. 9 30. in which places of Scripture this gift is ranked with casting out devills speaking with strange tongues and working of miracles And so Mark 6. 13. It is said of the Apostles They cast out many devils and anointed with oyle many that were sick and healed them It is plain that this anointing with oyle was of like nature with casting out of devils that is that it was a miraculous cure wrought by the Apostles And that in Saint Iames was of the same kinde with this in Saint Mark as I shall shew anon But now the gift of healing in that manner being ceased we say that the ceremony is to cease also and not to be used The Marquesse insisteth much upon the words of Saint Iames as being very clear and full to prove both that this anointing is a duty and also that it is a Sacrament And so the Romanists must hold because the Councell of Trent hath determined that the holy anointing of the sick was instituted by Christ our Lord as a Sacrament of the new Testament truly and properly so called and that this Sacrament is insinuated in Mark but commended to the faithfull and promulgated by James the Apostle and the Lords brother And who soever shall gain say this the Councell doth pronounce them accursed But there being two places of Scripture which mention this anointing with oyle it may seem strange that the Marquesse should alledge only the one and wholly wave the other wee shall see I hope by and by that this is as much as to quit both places they being both to one and the same purpose The Councell of Trent we see thought good to make use of both yet so as to lay the more weight upon that in Iames saying only that the Sacrament of anointing is insinuated in the other And so Bellarmine doth mainly build upon the words of Iames yet so as that he will have the words of Saint Mark to contain in them a figure and adumbration of this Sacrament which they call extreme Unction Let us
there being 33. Chapters of that Booke which of them is meant wee cannot tell Neither is it much worth the inquiry for Erasmus shewes that Booke to be none of Austines in that the Authour inserts some verses out of Boetius who was long after Austine Besides other reasons which hee giveth yet Bellarmine asserting Austine to be the Authour of the Booke takes no notice of the reasons alledged against it though hee confesse that some doe doubt of it In the other place of Austine which is pointed at I finde indeed that hee doth cite the words of S. Iames but yet so as that our adversaries gaine litle by it For hee referreth those words of anointing with Oile c. unto bodily health and so inveigheth against those that by Charmes and Spels and the like superstitious and ungodly practices bring upon themselves manifold miseries Now bodily health is a thing which the Romanists have no respect unto in their Unction but use it directly for the good of the Soule even as they doe Baptisme and the Lords Supper And this also takes off the testimony of Chrysostome who shewing what benefit people have by Ministers or as hee calles them Priests saith that Parents cannot prevent so much as the bodily destruction of their children nor keepe off a Disease when it seizeth on them but these doe often preserve people alive when they are even ready to die and sometimes mitigate their paine and sometimes keepe them from being ill at all not onely by the helpe of their Doctrine and admonition but also of their prayers And then hee cites that Iam. 5. Is any sick among you Let him send for the Elders c. All this is nothing to the Romish Unction for besides that Chrysostome doth not at all speake of Priests anointing but of their teaching admonishing and praying and in this respect doth bring in the words of S. Iames besides this I say it is directly a corporall benefit which hee insisteth on as freedome from sicknesse mitigation of paine deliverance from Death and therefore that which hee saith makes nothing for extreme Unction which they of the Church of Rome say was instituted of God to this end that wee departing out of this mortall life may have a more ready way to Heaven And therefore they call it the Sacrament of such as goe out of this World What is this Sacrament then concerned in the words of Chrysostome who speakes onely of preserving life and health here in this World In the last place Venerable Bede is alledged But 1. Hee is against them in this as I have shewed before that he makes Marke and Iames to speake both of one and the same thing whereas diverse of them both say and prove that Marke doth not speake of Sacramentall Unction 2. By Elders Bede understandeth Elders in respect of age And hee saith expressely and alledgeth also Pope Innocentius for it that not onely Presbyters but also all Christians may use this Oile and anoint with it when either they or any belonging unto them have neede Which is enough to prove that he doth not make this Unction a Sacrament as they of the Church of Rome doe For saith Bellarmine it is of the essence of the Sacrament of extreme Unction that the Minister of it be a Priest and if a lay man doe anoint any it is of no force Yea the Councell of Trent sayes If any one shall say that not only a Priest is the proper Minister of extreme Vnction let him be anathema What doe they say to Bede then and to Innocentius whom Bede citeth They answer that Innocentius and Bede speak not of him that is to administer the Unction but of him that is to receive it But this is a very violent and forced interpretation and such as Bedes words will not admit For hee having said It is the custome of the Church that they that are weak should be anointed by Presbyters with consecrated Oile and by Prayer accompanying it be made whole immediately after he adds Neither only Presbyters but also as Pope Innocentius writeth all Christians may use this Oile by anointing with it either in their own or in their friends necessity It is manifest that Bede here speaketh of Christians using the Oile not so as to be anointed but so as to anoint with it and that both themselves and others as they saw cause 3. Bede also as appeares by his words even now cited makes this anointing with Oile which he saith the Church did use in his time to have reference to the body and the health of it neither doth he speak any thing of any spirituall effect that it should have upon the soule And thus also it appeares that he doth not speake of the Sacrament of extreme Vnction Cassander also confesseth that in the Church of Rome they have now departed from antiquity 1. In this that in more antient times they did not use as now they do to defer this anointing untill life were even in extreme danger and there was no hope of recovery 2. In this that antiently they used after this anointing if there were danger to receive the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood whereas now they have no such custome Yea the Carechisme of the Councell of Trent saith that before extreme Vnction the Sacrament of Penance and of the Eucharist is to be administred and that this is the perpetuall custome of the Catholike Church which is directly contrary to that which Cassander affirmeth But this I hope may be enough to shew that the Romish Sacrament of extreme Vnction hath no support either from the Scriptures or from the antient Fathers The Marquesse having waded thorough all the forementioned parts of controversie and as he supposeth proved the Scriptures to be on their side now sings as it were an Epinicion or a song of victory saying Thus most sacred Sir we have no reason to wave the Scriptures Umpirage so that you will hear it speak in the Mother language c. But how litle the Scriptures Umpirage doth favour them of the Church of Rome let the Reader judge by what hath been said on both sides the Scripture being understood in that sense which it selfe doth make out and to which also the antient Fathers and Doctors have subscribed which I suppose the Marquesse doth mean by the Scriptures Mother-language As for the Church of Rome it hath long shewed it selfe the Scriptures step-mother keeping it shut up in an unknown tongue or not permitting Christians the liberty to make use of it excepting such as can obtain a speciall dispensation for it yea in many things going directly contrary to the Scripture and even in a manner casting off the authority of it Here presently after the Marquesse brings in the saying of Austine Evangelio non crederem nisi me Ecclesiae authoritas commoveret I should not beleeve the Gospel it selfe unlesse I were moved by the
authority of the Church as if were it not for the authority of the Church the Scripture were of no force neither could deserve any credit So the Romanists do frequently pervert those words of Austine but Austines meaning was only this that the Churches authority by way of introduction was a means to bring him to beleeve the Gospel by propounding and commending the Gospel unto him as a thing to be beleeved whereas otherwise he should not have given heed to it nor taken notice of it not as if he did finally rest in the authority of the Church and resolve his faith into it No for as I have shewed before he would have the Church it selfe sought in the Scripture and proved by it Had not the woman of Samaria told those among whom she lived of Christ they had not come to the knowledge of him much lesse to beleeve in him yet having heard Christ himselfe they did not rest in the testimony of the woman but said unto her Now we beleeve not because of thy saying for we have heard him our selves and know that this is indeed the Christ and the Saviour of the world Joh. 4. 42. So should not the Church hold out unto us the Scriptures we should not know much lesse beleeve them but at length God by his Spirit opening our understandings that we may understand the Scriptures Luke 24. 45. we come to be convinced by the Scriptures themselves that they are the Oracles of God and of divine authority Melchior Canus a learned Writer of the Church of Rome holds that the formall reason of our faith is not the authority of the Church that is that the last resolution of our faith is not into the Churches testimony And he saith that he could not dissemble their errour who hold that our faith is to be reduced thither as to the utmost cause of beleeving For the confuting of this errour he saith belongs that Ioh. 4. Now we beleeve not because of thy saying for we our selves have heard him and know c. The same authour averres that the authority of the Church is not a reason by it selfe moving to beleeve but only a cause or meanes without which we should not beleeve viz. Because as he addes the Church doth propound unto us that the Scripture is the word of God and except the Church did so propound it we should never ordinarily come to beleeve it yet we doe not therefore beleeve the Scripture to be Gods word because the Church doth say it but because God doth reveal it If the Church saith he doth make way for us to know such sacred books we must not therefore rest there but we must goe further and must relye on Gods solid truth And then he brings in that very speech of Austine and shewes what he meant by it Hereby is understood saith he what Austine meant when he said I should not beleeve the Gospell except the authority of the Church did move me And again By the Catholikes I had beleeved the Gospell For Austine had to doe with the Manichees who without dispute would have a certain Gospell of theirs beleeved and so would establish the faith of the Manichees Austine therefore askes them what they would doe if they did light upon a man who did not beleeve so much as the Gospell what kind of perswasion they would use to bring him to their opinion He affirmes that himselfe could not be otherwise brought to embrace the Gospell but that the authority of the Church did overcome him He doth not therefore teach that the faith of the Gospell is grounded upon the Churches authority but only that there is no certain way whereby either infidels or novices in the faith may have entrance to the holy books but one and the same consent of the Catholike Church This he himselfe hath sufficiently explicated in the fourth Chapter of that Epistle and in his book to Honoratus concerning the benefit of beleeving I have thus largely cited the words of this learned Romanist because no Protestant can speak more clearly and more fully to the purpose That which the Marquesse after addeth is nothing against us viz. That there was a Church before there was any Scripture that though the Scripture be a light yet we have need of some to guide us though it be the food of our soules yet there must be some to administer it unto us though it be an antidote against the infection of the devill yet it is not for every one to be a compounder of the ingredients that though it be the onely sword and buckler to defend the Church from her Ghostly enemies yet this doth not exclude the noble army of Martyrs and the holy Church which through all the world doth acknowledg Christ All this I say is nothing at all against us who do so assert the authority of the Scripture as that we doe not evacuate the Churches ministery Timothy must preach but it is the word viz. of God contained in the Scriptures which he must preach 2 Tim. 4. 2. If any man speak for the instructing of others he must speak as the Oracles of God 1 Pet. 4. 11. He must confirm that which he doth speak by the Scriptures And so on the other side they that hear must take heed how and what they hear Luke 8. 18. Mark 4. 24. They must not beleeve every Spirit but must try the Spirits whether they be of God 1 John 4. 1. They must to the Law and to the Testimony for that if any speak not according to this word it is because they have no light in them Isai 8. 20. They must search the Scriptures diligently to see whether the things delivered unto them be so or no. Acts 17. 11. OF THE CHVRCH of ENGLAND THE SECOND PART OF THE Rejoynder to the Marquess of WORCESTER'S Reply MAJESTIE' 's Answer to the said Marquesse's Plea for the ROMISH RELIGION THE Marquesse saith that he will now consider the Opinions of Protestants apart from them of the Church of Rome and begin with the Church of England The Religion of this Church he saith as it is in opposition to theirs consists wholly in denying for that what she affirms they affirm the same as the Real presence the Infallibility Visibility Universality and Unity of the Church Confession and Remission of sinnes Free-will Possibility of keeping the Commandments c. And you may as well saith he deny the blessed Trinity for we have no such word in Scripture only inference as that which you have already denied for which we have plain Scripture c. But 1. it is not altogether so that what the Church of England doth affirm the same they of the Church of Rome do affirm also For the Church of England Art 9. doth affirm alleadging the authority of the Apostle for proof thereof that Concupiscence hath of it self the nature of sinne even in the regenerate which the Romanists deny the Councel of Trent accurseth
humane nature with his Fathers divine essence but rather his present estate with that heavenly glory into which he was by and by to be received Though Calvins exposition here may seem somewhat quaint neither do I see why the received interpretation should not stand viz. that Christ spake of himself as he was man yet however Calvin plainly shews that he was farre from having any compliance with the Arians in denying the equality of the Sonne with the Father 6. Calvin is charged to sever the person of the Mediator from Christs divine person and to maintain with Nestorius two persons in Christ the one humane and the other divine Calvin had nothing to do with the heresie of Nestorius neither do the places alleadged prove him any whit guilty of it He speaks indeed of the person of the Mediator yet doth he not make that a distinct person from Christs divine person I meddle not yet saith he with the person of Mediator And again We do not yet speak of the person of Mediator His meaning plainly is this and no more then this that as yet he spake of Christ only as God and not as Mediator And when he saith that Christ took upon him the person and office of Mediator he seems to take the word person not for that which in Greek is hypostasis a substance subsisting by it self but as the Latines frequently use the word for quality or state Thus he seems to use the word Person in that after it immediately he adds the word office However Calvin doth expressely condemn the heresie of Nestorius and hath a whole Chapter to prove that in Christ two natures make but one Person Calvin therefore here hath hard measure being charged with Nestorianisme when as he not only in plaine tearms doth explode it but also doth bend his whole force against it 7. Calvin is taxed for saying That Christs soule was subject to ignorance and that this was the only difference betwixt us and him that our infirmities are of necessity and his were voluntary It is true Calvin understands that Luke 2. 40. and 52. so as that Christ as man was not perfect in knowledge at first no more then he was in stature And surely this seems to be the plain and simple meaning of the words especially those v. 52. And Jesus increased in wisdome and stature though others expound them that as Christ grew in age so he did shew forth his wisdome more and more But Jansenius confesseth that Ambrose saith that Christ as man did grow in knowledge And that the same exposition also is found under the name of Theophilus another ancient Author He addes indeed that these sayings of the Ancients are well understood by the Schoolmen of Christs wisdome acquired by use and experience when as before from his first conception he had the knowledge of all things infused into him Yet he speaks of this infused knowledge only as a thing which he thought very probable not as a thing which he held most certain And he confesseth that some I presume he means of the Church of Rome for otherwise he would not so much regard what they thought are of opinion that it cannot be proved by Scripture that such wisdome was infused into Christ from his conception whereby as man he should know all things at the very first and therefore they think the words of S. Luke more simply understood thus that Christ in respect of that wisdome which he had as man did truly grow as other men do though in a far greater measure Thus also did Erasmus who was before Calvin understand it not thinking it meet that the opinion of the Schoolmen should sway in this matter 8. Of like nature is that which followeth viz. that Calvin saith It is evident that ignorance was common to Christ with the Angels And that he particularizeth wherein viz. that He knew not the day of judgment nor that the fig-tree was barren till he came near it That Christ as man knew not what kind of tree it was untill he came nigh it Calvin thinks not Improbable yet he grants that Christ might on purpose go unto it though he were not ignorant oft the event Concerning the other place viz. Mar. 13. 32. he is more confident and so well might he be the Text being clear and expresse But of that day and houre knoweth no man no not the Angels which are in heaven neither the Son but the Father Some understand it so that Christ did not know it to make it known But thus neither doth the Father know it for he doth not make it known It is therefore to be understood of Christ in respect of his humane nature And so Cyril understands it as Jansenius confesseth though he himself rather likes the other exposition 9. The Marquesse saith that Calvin is not afraid to censure certain words of Christ to be but a weak confutation of what he sought to refute And that he sayes Christ seems here not to reason solidly This is just as if one should charge their Angelical Doctor Aquinas with saying That there seems to be no God and that God seems to be a body Or rather indeed with saying That there is no God and that God is a body For thus is Calvin dealt with commenting upon that Matth. 12. 25 26. Every Kingdome divided against it self c. If Satan cast out Satan c. by way of objection he saith This confutation may seem not very solid and then immediately he answers the objection Thus also in his Commentary upon that Mat. 9. 5. Whether is easier to say c. Christ saith he doth seem not to reason solidly c. Then presently he addes But the answer is easie c. Of this same nature are the five next following passages wherein Calvin is made to say that which as the manner of Expositors is for the better elucidating of that which they have in hand he only brings in as an objection and presently gives answer to it This is a peece of the strangest dealing that ever I met with I do not finde that the Marquesse had these allegations from any as many of the rest I see he had neither can I think him to have been of such an ignoble disposition as wittingly and wilfully so to pervert a mans words and meaning Therefore I suppose it was his immoderate desire to finde any thing in Calvin that might be liable to exception which made him hastily take hold of that which did occur never considering the true sense and meaning of it But to proceed 10. Calvin saith the Marquesse saith that Christ refused and denied as much as lay in him to perform the office of a Mediator It 's true Calvin hath these words but they also are part of an objection For the very next word is Respondeo I answer So that I might have joyned this with
and fully refuted by Andreas Rivetus in his Jesuita Vapulans where he produceth the very Records of that City where this is said to have been done and sheweth by the inquisition that was there made concerning Calvin it being the place where he was born that nothing is objected against him but only his falling off from the Roman Religion And thus I hope both Calvin and others are sufficiently vindicated and purged from those aspersions that are cast upon them Now if I had a minde to recriminate I might easily to use the Marquesse his words inlarge my Paper to a volume of instances in their Popes Cardinals Monks Friars Priests and Jesuites not to speak of their other sort of people of whose monstrous wickednesse their own Authors have largely testified But I like not Camarinam hanc movere to stir this puddle I le onely cite one Distich of Mantuan who was somewhat before Luther and is commended by Bellarmine as a learned and godly Poet and one that wrote much in commendation of the Saints but see what he writes in commendation of Rome where the Popes Holinesse as they stile him hath his Palace Vivere qui sanctè cupitis discedite Româ Omnia eum liceant non licet esse bonum That is Depart from Rome if holy you would be For there may be all things but Pietie Towards the end of the Reply the Marquesse goes about to prove That the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is the same still that it was at the first But 1. if all the testimonies were truly and pertinently alleadged yet are they not sufficient to evince what he asserteth not so much as one place of Scripture being produced for proof of any of those points on which he insisteth And therefore though those ancient Writers which are cited did indeed speak so much as is pretended yet there being no ground nor warrant for those things from the Scripture we may say in the words of our Saviour From the beginning it was not so 2. Most of the particulars which are mentioned I have spoken to before and have shewed that neither Scripture nor Fathers are on their side but both against them 3. And for some few points not touched before I shall briefly consider and examine what is objected The Marquesse saith That of old the Church did offer prayers for the dead both publike and private to the end to procure for them ease and rest c. Prayer for the dead as they of the Church of Rome do now use it is grounded upon Purgatory It is certain saith Bellarmine that the suffrages of the Church do not profit either the blessed or the damned but only those that are in Purgatory Now concerning Purgatory I have spoken enough before shewing that it hath no foundation in Scripture and also that the ancient Writers do give sufficient testimony against it That prayer for the dead therefore which the ancient Church did use was not such as the Church of Rome now useth It was not to deliver any out of Purgatory-pains which they were supposed to be in but to perfect and consummate their happinesse This may appear by Ambrose his praying for the Emrour Theodosius after he was dead He beleeved him to enjoy perpetuall light and tranquillity and to have obtained the reward of those things which he had done in the body yet he prayed for him but how That God would give him that perfect rest which he hath prepared for his Saints Ambrose also praied for the Emperor Valentinan after his death But did he thinke him to be in Purgatory No such matter He was perswaded that he was removed to a better estate that what he had sown upon earth he did then reap and that he did rest in the tranquillity of the Patriark Jacob. Yet he professeth that he would not cease to pray both for him and for his brother Gratian who was departed out of this life and as Ambrose believed translated into a better before him How doth he then pray for them Only thus That God would vouchsafe to raise them up with a speedy resurrection And thus the Church as it is in some ancient Liturgies used to pray unto God to remember all those that were departed in the hopes of the resurrection of life eternal The Marquesse cites Tertullian and Austine but besides that Tertulliun was faln into the heresie of Montanus when hee wrote that book which is cited as is noted by Pamelius and the book it selfe doth make manifest besides this I say Tertullian speaks of a womans praying for her deceased husband that he might have part in the first resurrection which savours of the opinion of the Chiliasts amongst whom he is reckoned by Hierome in his Catalogue of Ecolesiastical Writers where he speaks of Papias whom he notes as the first founder of that opinion As for Austine I have showed before that he was not resolved concerning Purgatory and therefore neither can any thing be concluded from about praying for the dead in that kind as they of the Roman Church do practise it After prayer for the dead the Marquesse speaks of the fast of Lent which he saith the Church anciently held for a custome not free but necessary and of Apostolical tradition and so to fast all the Fridayes in the year in memory of Christs death except Christmas-day fell on a Friday It is true Hierome as is alleadged speaks of a Fast of forty dayes which they used to observe and that according to the tradition of the Apostles But this tradition was very uncertain it seems and the observation of the Fast very various For Socrates an ancient Ecolesiastical historian records that somewhere they fasted three weeks before Easter somewhere six weeks and that in some places they began their Fast seven weeks before Easter but did fast only fifteen dayes not altogether but now one day now another And yet which he saith he wondred at all did call their Fast Quadragesimam A forty dayes Fast He sayes also moreover that they did not only thus differ in the number of dayes in which they fasted but also in the manner of their fasting For some as he relates did eat both fish and foul Some did abstain from egges and all fruit that is inclosed in a hard shell Some did eat nothing but dry bread Some not so much as that neither Some having fasted until the ninth houre three a clock in the afternoon ' did then use divers kindes of meats And he addes that seeing there is nothing in Scripture commanded concerning this matter it is manifest that the Apostles left it free to every one to do herein as he should think meet And the like also for the different manner of observing the Lent-fast in respect of the time hath Sozomen in his Ecclesiastical history who lived in the same time with the other viz. 440. years after
only in respect of infants The Marquesse it seems considered that there are expresse testimonies of Antiquity for the salvation of some of years that die unbaptized 2. And why is there not the same hope for infants Why must Baptism be more absolutely necessary for them then for others The Romanists themselves distinguish of baptisme and tell us of the baptisme of water of the Spirit and of blood or martyrdome and hold either of the two last to be available unto salvation without the first Is not God able to baptize Infants with his Spirit though they want the baptisme of water And where hath he said that he will not do it It is without doubt saith Bellarmine that true conversion doth supply the want of the baptism of water when any not through contempt but through necessity die without it Now it is without doubt that God can if he please work spiritual regeneration in Infants that are not baptized with water and that if they die without that baptisme it is on their part meerly of necessity and not of contempt And if children dying unbaptized do necessarily perish for want of baptisme then Christian parents must sorrow for the death of such children as they that have no hope whereas the Apostle forbids Christians to sorrow for the dead in that manner 1 Thess 4. 13. Bellarmine also confesseth that divers great eminent writers of the Church of Rome as Cajetan Gabriel and others have thought it not agreeable to the mercy of God that innumerable infants should perish without any fault of theirs meerly for want of that outward baptisme which it was not in their power to have And Cassander testifieth that in his time many very learned men did hold that though children died without baptism yet the desire of the Church and especially of their parents to procure them baptisme if it could have been is accepted of God and available to those children as if they had been baptized 3. The Ancients were as much for the necessity of Infants receiving the Eucharist as for the necessity of their being baptized Austine as Maldonate relates in many places makes the Eucharist so necessary as to deny that Infants can be saved without it For which opinion also the same Jesuite cites Pope Innocentius and saith that for 600. yeares it did prevail in the Church Yet the Romanists have taken leave to depart from the Ancients in this therefore in reason they may give us leave to depart from them in the other except the authority of Scripture can be proved to be against us 4. Concerning the estate of Infants dying unbaptized the Romanists themselves generally recede from the opinion of Austine whom here the Marquesse doth alledge against us For he saith that there is no middle place for Infants but that either they must inherit the kingdome of Heaven or else must endure everlasting fire and this latter he makes to belong unto all that die without baptisme But they of the Church of Rome are of another mind For they make the damned to be in one region of Hell where they are in torment and Infants that die unbaptized in another region of Hell where they suffer no pain but only the losse of Heaven and that happinesse which the Saints enjoy They have no reason therefore to urge us with Austin when as themselves do not accord with him The Church held then saith the Marquesse divers Degrees in the Ecclesiastical regiment to wit Bishops Priests Deacons Sub-deacons the Acolythe Exorcist Reader and Porter Here are eight several sorts of Ecclesiastical officers which are reckoned as so many several orders For so presently after the Marquesse addes And in the Episcopal order acknowledged divers seats of jurisdiction of positive right c. Thus he makes Episcopacie and so the rest each of them a distinct order and that as it seems of divine right But 1. for Episcopacie the School-men hold it to be no distinct order Lombard the Master of them reckons but seven distinct orders to wit all these here mentioned excert Bishops and sayes that anciently Bishops and Presbyters were the same So also Bonaventure whom the Church of Rome hath canonized for a Saint and stiles the Seraphical Doctor he also I say professedly disputing the question whether Episcopacie be an order concludes that it is not but only a dignity and that a Bishop is in that respect of like nature with an Archpresbyter or Dean an Archbishop a Patriarch and a Pope And he cites also Hugo de S. Victore who was somewhat more ancient then Lombard as being of this opinion Cassander saith that the Divines and Canonists do not agree in this whether Episcopacie be to be reckoned amongst orders But all he saith agree in this that in the Apostles time there was no difference betwixt Bishops and Presbyters but that afterward for the keeping of order and the avoiding of Schisme a Bishop was set over the Presbyters and the power of ordaining was reserved unto himonly Hierome is plaine to this purpose to wit that at first Bishops and Presbybyters were the same and he proves it by Phil. 1. 1. Act. 20. 28. Tit. 1. 5 6 7. 2. For the last five orders to wit Subdeacons Acolythe Exorcist Reader and Porter they have no foundation at all in Scripture we finde there no mention of them And Lombard confesseth that the office of Deacons and of Presbyters are by way of excellency called holy orders for that the primitive Church had onely those two and the Apostle gave precept concerning them onely So also Cassander saith it is manifest that Deacons and Presbyters are properly called holy orders for that the primitive Church had those onely And this he saith is testified by Pope Urban and noted by Chrysostome and Ambrose And as for the five lesser and inferior orders he saith that now in the Church of Rome they are altogether confused and almost abolished The Marquesse saith that anciently the Church had one Supereminent by Divine Law which was the Pope without whom nothing could be decided appertaining to the universal Church and the want of whose presence either by himself or his Legats or his confirmation made all Councels pretended to be universal unlawful 1. The name of Pope anciently was common to all Bishops Hierome calls Alipius an African Bishop Pope Alipius So also he stiles Austine in divers Epistles which he wrote unto him 2. That the Bishop of Rome to whom the name of Pope in after times came to be appropriated is Supereminent by divine Law was no part of the Ancients Creed Indeed of old the Bishops of Rome by reason of the wealth and glory of the City did live in a very pompous and stately fashion so as in their feasts to exceed Kings And thereupon there was great striving for the place when Damasas whom the Marquesse here points at as so highly honoured
his word not requiring them and had just cause to do it they being grown into such abuse besides I say the Romanists cannot justly taxe them for it seeing they themselves have abolished some things which formerly were observed in the Church as I have noted before And to those particulars before mentioned let this be added that anciently Vigils were in use both Priests and people used to watch the night before some solemn festival And when Vigilantius spoke against it though not without cause as Polydore Vergil confesseth Hierome inveighed against him for it and scoffingly said that in this he did contrary to his name that he had more mind to sleep then to watch But the abuse of these Vigils was such that as the said Polydore Vergil relateth though the name continued yet the thing it self was abolished and so much also is acknowledged by Bellarmine The Marquesse speaks of the Church antiently makeing Processions with the Reliques of Martyrs kissing them c. Austin in the place which the Marquesse citeth viz. de Civ Dei lib. 22. cap. 8. hath much about Miracles wrought at the monuments of some Martyrs but of honouring or worshipping their Reliques I do not see any thing that he saith Hierome indeed in the place alleadged speaketh of honouring the reliques of Saints and doth contest with Vigilantius about it But whereas Vigilantius did inveigh against the adoring of them and burning Waxe-candles before them at noon-day Hierome calls him a mad-brain asking Who did ever adore Martyrs And saying that they used Wax-lights not as he did slander them in the day-time but only in the night when there was need of them And in his Epistle to Riparius which was written about Vigilantius he saith that they were so far from worshiping the reliques of Martyrs that they did neither worship the sun nor the moon nor Angels or Archangels nor Cherubim nor Seraphim nor any name that is named either in this world or in that to come He taxeth Vigilantius for grudging that any respect was shewed to the reliques of Martyrs and that they were not rather cast to the dunghill If this were his opinion I think few Protestants will plead for him But howsoever Hierome shewes himself far from that which they of the Church of Rome do now maintain and practise How exceeding grosse they are in this kind Erasmus hath lively set forth and that not in his Colloquies which he wrote for delight yet for profit also and as the Poet sayes Ridentem dicereverum quid vetat but in a more serious work viz. his Annotations on the New Testament You may now saith he every where see held out for gain Maries milk which they honour as much almost as Christs consecrated body prodigious Oile so many peeces of the Crosse that if they were all gathered together a great ship would searce carry them Here Francis his Hood set forth to view there the innermost Garment of the Virgin Mary in one place Anna's Comb in another place Joseph's Stocking in another place Thomas of Canterbury his Shoe in another place Christs Foreskin which though it be a thing uncertain they worship more religiously then Christs whole person Neither do they shew these things as things that may be born with and to please the common people but they place almost all religion in them c. From Reliques we passe to Pictures The Church then saith the Marquesse had the picture of Christ and of his Saints both out of Churches and in them not to adore them with god-like worship but by them to reverence the Souldiers and Champions of Christ Were there no other point but only this concerning Pictures and Images it were enough to shew how much the Church of Rome is degenerate Irenaeus taxeth the Carpoeratians who are also called Gnosticks for having Images some painted some carved and for saying That when Christ was upon earth his resemblance was made by Pilate And Tertullian not only shews that Christians did not worship Images but he speaks most contemptibly of them calling them cold Images saying that Kites Mice Spiders do perceive what they are And he observes that even the heathen Romans themselves had no Images in the time of Numa Pompilius though he was the deviser of that superstition which was among them And it is very observable that Plutarch a heathen Writer relates that Numa forbade the Romans to make any Image whereby to represent God and and that for 170. years the Romans had no Images of a religious nature For saith he it is not lawful to represent better things by worse neither is it possible to apprehend God otherwise then by the act of the understanding The Pagan Caecilius upbraided Christians because they had no Images Minutius Felix granted they had none saying What Image shall I devise of God seeing that if you consider well man himself is Gods Image And when the same Pagan objected that Christians talked of a God whom they could neither shew to others nor see themselves Minutius answered That by this they did beleeve that there is a God in that though they could not see him yet they were sensible of him This argues that Christians then had no Images as Pagans had for but by their Images the Pagans themselves could neither shew nor see the gods that they did worship Arnobius also writing against the Gentiles reproves them for their Images saying that they shewed themselves not to beleeve that there were any such gods as they pretended to worship seeing they must have some Images to looke on as if their gods being not seen were not at all And whereas they did alleadge that they did worship their gods by their Images he asks them if except there were such Images their gods could not tell that they did worship them That of Epiphanius is very famous and most remarkable to our purpose which he writes in an Epistle to John Bishop of Jerusalem which Epistle Hierome translated out of Greek into Latine He saith that as he travelled he happened to espy a Vail before a Church door having in it the Image either as it were of Christ or of some other Saint for he could not remember whose Image it was But when he saw such an Image and knew that it was repugnant to the Scriptures he tore it in peeces and counselled the Church-wardens to make a winding-sheet of it to wrap some poor man in when he was dead Marianus Victorius a Romish writer saith It is wonderfull how they that oppose Images do exult from this place of Epiphanius And I say it is wonderfull how they that defend Images are put to their shifts to elude this place of Epiphanius it being so plain and home against them This Author saith that Epiphanius speaks not of the image of Christ nor of any Saint but of some ordinary man Yea he saith if one mark it well he
he was above two hundred years after Minutius and Gregory who was about as much after Paulinus was against the worshipping of any thing made with hands as appears by the words before cited Finally saith the Marquesse the Church then held that to the Catholick Church only belongs the keeping of the Apostolical tradition the authority of interpretation of Scripture and the decision of controversies of faith and that out of the succession of her communion of her doctrine and her ministery there neither was Church nor salvation 1. For Apostolical traditions enough hath been said before 2. And so also of interpretation of Scripture and decision of controversies of faith 3. I understand not what is meant by objecting against us that out of the Catholick Church there is no Church For the Catholick Church being the Church universal and so comprehending all particular Churches as parts and members of it who can doubt that there is no Church out of the Church Catholick But what is this to the Church of Rome which once indeed was a sound part of the Catholick Church but the Catholick Church it never was nor could be except a part could be the whole In that which follows page 101. c. there is nothing but the same matter as before only the form is somewhat altered and therefore there is no need that I should trouble either my self or the Reader any further about it only I shall adde one or two Animadversions 1. Whereas it is objected page 105. c. that Luther after his deserting the communion of the Church of Rome did yet hold some points of Popery and so also Husse and Wickliffe and others that otherwise opposed themselves against the errors and corruptions of that Church I answer That as Rome was not built at once so neither was it demolished at once but by degrees it is no marvel therefore if those worthy men did at least for a while retain some Romish opinions and practices after that in many things they had discovered the truth and stood up in defence of it 2. Whereas it is pretended page 106. that before Berengarius who was above 1000. years after Christ none did oppose that reall presence of Christ in the Sacrament which the Romanists maintain besides that I have sufficiently confuted this before the Marquesse might have seen from Bellarmine himself that there were some who above 200. years before Berengarius did oppose that doctrine which in this particular the Church of Rome now doth hold namely Bertram a Presbyter who was about 800. years after Christ and saith Bellarmine was one of the first that did call in question that doctrine But Bellarmine doth too much mince the matter for Bertram did more then call in question that reall presence of Christ in the Sacrament which the Romanists do hold he did plainly assert that which Protestants maintain viz. that the substance of bread and wine doth still remain after consecration as is to be seen in Hospinians first part of the Sacramentary history and so in others that cite that Author for the book it self I confesse I have not seen that I do remember But that is here worthy to be observed which the Romish censurers of Books say speaking of this book of Bertrams about the Sacrament Although say they we do not much value this book nor should greatly eare if it were no where to be found yet seeing it hath been often printed and read of very many c. and we sufer very many errours in other ancient Catholicks we extenuate them we excuse them and finding out some device we often deny them and fain some good sense of them when they are opposed in disputations or conflicts with the adversaries we see not why Bertram may not deserve the same favour and diligent recognition lest Hereticks prate against us and say that we burn antiquity and prohibit it when it makes for them Some things therefore in Bertrams book they will have to be quite left out and some things to be quite altered as namely for visibly to be read invisibly Such devices have they of the Church of Rome to corrupt ancient Writers when they make against them and then they pretend that all are for them Thus the Marquesse in the conclusion of his Reply page 230. pretends that they have the prescription of 1600. years possession and continuance of their Churches Doctrine and evidence out of the word of God and the Fathers witnessing to that evidence and the decrees of Councels and Protestants own acknowlegdements But what ground there is for this pretence let the Reader judge by comparing and considering what is said on both sides And so I also shall leave the successe of my labour unto God in whose hand are the hearts of all An Addition of some few things omitted in the fore-going REJOINDER THe Marquesse pag. 69. citeth Basil orat in 40 it is misprinted 44 Mart. as affirming that we may pray unto the Saints departed But in that Oration Basil affirms no such thing He shews indeed his approbation of praying not unto the Martyrs but which is quite another thing to God at the monuments of the Martyrs The most learned B. Usher observes That the memory of the Martyrs indeed was from the very beginning had in great reverence and at their Memorials and Martyria that is to say at the places wherein their bodies were laid which were the Churches whereunto the Christians did in those times usually resort prayers were ordinarily offered up unto God for whose cause they laid down their lives But this is no argument that they then prayed to the Martyrs though that errour might take occasion afterwards to creep in by this meanes The Marquesse taxeth Calvin for holding that Christs soule was subject to ignorance To what I have already said in answer to this charge I adde that in this particular Fulgentius was of the same minde with Calvin For confuting those that held Christ to have no humane soul he saith thus If we must believe that the humane nature in Christ wanted a soul what is it that in Christ being an Infant is said not to have known good and evil Then he cites Isa 7. 16. expounding it of Christ and addes Therefore the humane soule which is naturally made capable of reason in Christ being an Infant is said not to have known good and evil which according to the truth of the Gospel in Christ being a child is related to have increased in wisdome c. To that also that hath been said before concerning Calvins death let this be added How far Calvin was from despairing at his death as the Marquesse doth object may appear by what he wrote to his dear friend Farel when he looked for death every moment I hardly breath saith he and expect continually that breath should fail me It is enough that I live and dye to Christ who to those that are his is both
in life and death advantage This as appears by the date of the Epistle Calvin wrote at Geneva the second day of May in the year 1564. and as Bucholcerus in his Chronology notes out of Beza the twenty seventh day of the same moneth he dyed The Marquesse page 99. speaks of Marriage as anciently held by the Church to be a true and proper Sacrament This particular I omitted having spoken of the rest which he there mentioneth to wit Confirmation Orders and Extreme Unction in answer to that which elsewhere he saith of them For Marriage therefore 1. There is nothing in the Scripture to prove it a Sacrament properly so called That of the Apostle so much insisted on This is a great mystery Ephes 5. 32. Their own Cardinal Cajetane upon the place confesseth to make nothing to the purpose 2. That the Fathers call Marriage a Sacrament doth not evince that they thought it to be of the same nature with Baptisme and the Lords Supper For as I have before shewed they often use the word Sacrament largely and apply it to divers things which even in our Adversaries account properly are no Sacraments 3. Durandus an acute and learned School-man who lived about the year 1320. doth hold that though Marriage be a sign of a holy thing to wit the conjunction of Christ and the Church and so in a large sense a Sacrament yet it is no Sacrament strictly and properly so called nor of the same nature with the other Sacraments of the New Testament to wit Baptisme and the Lords Supper and this he confirms by divers arguments I know Bellarmine indeavours to answer Durandus his arguments but his answers are consuted by Amesius and others and therefore I will not stand about them I will only prove from Bellarmine himself that Marriage is properly no Sacrament Every Sacrament properly so called is administred by some other and not by the same party to whom it is administred But Marriage is not administred by some other but by parties themselves that are married whiles they mutually expresse their consent one to the other Therefore Marriage is no Sacrament properly so called Bellarmine doth own both the Proposition and the Assumption and therefore he may not deny the Conclusion This is argumentum ad hominem as they call it of force against Bellarmine I do not see what he could or any holding his principles can answer to it But to make the argument simply and absolutely convincing I will frame it otherwise For indeed the Proposition laid down by Bellarmine is not simply and absolutely true to wit Every Sacrament properly so called is administred by some other and not by the same party to whom it is administred This is not essential to a Sacrament for then the Lords Supper should be no Sacrament to the Minister himselfe but only to those that communicate with him And so if Abraham did circumcise himselfe as is probable he did his Circumcision should have been no Sacrament unto him which is most absurd Thus therefore I frame the argument Every Sacrament of the New Testament is to be administred by such as are peculiarly appointed of God to be Ministers of his holy things But Marriage is not administred by such Therefore it is not a Sacrament of the New Testament In the Proposition I say Every Sacrament of the New Testament because whether it were so in respect of Circumcision the story of Zippordh and some other places of Scripture perhaps may make it questionable But for the Sacraments of the New Testament our Saviour hath ordained those that are Ministers of the word to have the administration of them also Mat. 28. 19 20. And the Apostle bids Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God 1 Cor. 4. 1. The Sacraments therefore being the mysteries of God only the Ministers of Christ are now the stewards and dispencers of them But this is not necessarily requisite in the point of Marriage that a Minister should dispence it Though ordinarily a Minister be imployed in the celebration of Marriage for the instructing and exhorting of the parties married and for praying unto God for his blessing upon them yet this is not by Christs peculiar appointment but only as our Adversaries confesse by the Churches order and therefore not simply necessary Marriage were every way compleat though no Minister were imployed in it though in divers respects that is expedient but howsoever properly the parties themselves that are married are they by whom Marriage is administred whiles they give themselves each to other The End Errata in the First Part. Pag. 114. Properly read piously p. 121. deceived r. deceased p. 122. saw r. slew p. 123. work r. rock p. 124. that r. not p. 136. supposition r. suspition p. 166. Patres lege fratres p. 205. reply r. rely p. 214. thy merit r. my merit ibid. die r. did nomen l. nomine p. 215. discente l. dicente p. 222. So say the Translators c. That hath reference to those words Some may and indeed do say c. ibid. inevitable r. inevitably be being blot out being p. 230. If the Apostle had adde these words considered mankind as corrupt he would not have said p. 231. fastned r. fashioned p. 235. were affirmed r. we affirm p. 252. to r. do p. 262. liking r. living p. 291. Lombard who blot out who Errata in the Second Part. Pag. 26. this same r. the same p. 40. at least r. at furthest p. 45. commending r. contending * It was published Anno 1649. * See the Advertisement to the Reader perfixed to the late Kings workes set forth together in one volume †It is intituled as I remember Herba Parietis or The Wall-flower * Hamon L'Estrange Esquire Arch. of Christs personall raign on Earth Page 50. and 55. Mede on Revel 11. 7. Qui in historiarum Ecclesiasticarum lectione versati sunt Christiani populi ignorantiam Romanae sedis authoritatem simul auctam facilè animadvertere potuerunt Vicissimque ut bonarum literarum instauratione facessere caepit ignorantia ita Pontificis autoritas paulatim im ninui labascere visa est Gentillet Exam. Concil Trident. lib. 1. Sect. 7 8. vide plura Illud autem inclemens obruendum perenni silentio quòd arcebat docere Magistros Rhetoricos Grammaticos ritûs Christiani cultores Am. Marcell de Julia. lib. 22. * Naseby Fight Lincol. min. to K. James pag. 11. 13. Chem. Ex. Contr. Trid. part 1. pag. 55. Also Eucher p. 63. Questionum asceticarum secundum eptt regula trecentissima sexagessima * Saint Aug. so interprets this place upon the 37. Psal also S. Amb. upon 1 Cor. 3. and Ser. 20. in Psal 118. S. Hier. l. 2. cap. 13. ad vers Joan. S. Greg. lib. 4. dialog c. 39. Orig. hom 9. in c. 15. Exod. Ad Argent An. 1525. c Luther anvival tit de