quickelie forsake your popery and ioyne with vs. to follow the interpretation of the ancient Doctours standing to that that euer the Catholicke Church hath taught not to turne at euery blast Vpon this matter one * Lib. con haer Vincentius Lyrinēsis who florished aboue a thousand yeares agone he saith thus If anie mā perchāce demaund saying Since that the rules of the Scripture are certaine b Yea and more then sufficient saieth he Marke he graunts the rules of the scripture to be sufficient how is then that true which your Andradius saieth the greatest part is left to tradition not writen sufficient of thēselues And what neede haue we thē of the authority of the Church He answereth For that saieth he that the secrets misteries of the holy Scriptures are such that euery mā doeth not vnderstand thē interprete thē after one sort but that of one place this mā that mā shal seeme to maintaine their opinions being cleane cōtrary one to another so that looke how many mē so many interpretations For one way it is interpreted by Nestorius another way by Arrius another way by Sabellius so forth according to diuers heresies that haue risen from time to time And therefore it is necessary for the knowledge of the trueth among so many errours to draw the c And for these reasons we allow of Vincentius rule vnderstanding as he doth that by the right line and rule of interpreting is ment that sence which hath the consent of the Prophets Apostles and Catholique Church for no other sence we giue of the Scriptures right line of the Propheticall Apostolical interpretatiō according to the rule true sense of the Catholicke Church This is the learned opinion of this anciēt father Vincētius Lyrinensis The III. Chapter IN the 3 Chapter you say as little to the purpose as in the second For vnderstanding by the Church the true catholique Church indeede and not your late Synagogue of Rome falsely by you so named because neither it nor the faith thereof is vniuersall neither in respect of time nor person whatsoeuer you haue writen therein we confesse to be most true and sure we are it maketh more for vs then for you For we neuer denied the ministry of the true Church to be needefull according to Vincētius rule to finde out the true sence of the scriptures and certaine we are that we are farre better able to iustifie our interpretations thereby then you are yours and he liuing a 1000. years agoe as you write we boldely affirme that you shall neuer bee able to proue that the Catholicke Church and her doctours and pastours before or in his time taught the errours and heresies now taught by yours for the which wee account yours Antichristian And yet as in the former Chapter most beggerly you begged this principle that your doctrine is the ancient Catholicke faith so here in this you begge this also that your Church is the true and vndoubted Catholicke Church But you must vnderstand howsoeuer your owne frendes will giue you at your first asking both these that yet we will graunt you neither of them both And therefore writing as you would seeme purposely against vs you should not thus miserably alwaies haue begged them at our handes but by sound and iust proofe at least haue endeuoured to proue that you had iust right thereunto and then with some more honestie and credit might you haue gone on in this supposall that they are yours This also you must vnderstand that when it is in question which is the trueth of Religion yea euen in the fundamentall points as indeede it is betwixt you and vs it is alwaies also in question which is the Church of Christ For as both parts imagine they haue the trueth so will they perswade themselues that they are the true Church Your frendes also and all others must bee aduertised that it is no newe thing for damnable heretiques to brag much both of the truth of the titles of the Church of the doctours thereof least through too much simplicity they think streight that you haue al these things on your side because you haue them so much and so often in your mouthes For as Cyprian writeth Epist ad Iubaianum de baptizandis haereticis the Nouations after the fashion of apes challenged vnto themselues the name of the Church and all other they called heretiques And we reade that in the time of Arius Macedonius and Donatus these heretiques accounted themselues the onely Christians and that the true Christians indeede were counted by them Homousians Macarians Caesarians and Caecilianists So doeth Tertullian de Prescrip aduersus haereticos testify that the heretiques did in his time So did the Donatists saieth August Contra Epist Parm lib. 2. cap. 1. and Epist 161. and he writeth Cōtra Epist Fundamenti cap. 4. that amongst the Manichees there was great brags of the trueth Bernard also in his 66. sermon vpon the Cāticles speaking against certaine filthy heretiques that condemned mariage and superstitiously absteined from meates yet saieth that they gloried that they alone were the body of Christ bragging also that they were the successours of the Apostles and Apostolicke the Church of Christ And indeede wee finde nothing more vsuall with the ancient hereticks then to boast that they had the Church and Catholique trueth on their sides And very vsuall we finde it also with them to stand much vpon fathers in the defence of themselues and their heresies For it appeareth in the Councell of Calcedon the 1. Action that Eutiches bragged that he had reade Cyprian and Athanasius yea that then and there he confidently saied for his defence that he had so learned of his ancient predecessours and that he had beene baptized in that faith had liued and hoped to die in it And we reade in the 4. Action of the same councell that Carosus an Eutichian heretique saied stoutly I beleeue thus according to the exposition of the 318. fathers and so was I baptised Dioscorus also in the 1. Act of that Councell cried and saied I haue the testimonies of the holy fathers Athanasius Gregorie and Cyrill on my side I go not from them in anie thing I am cast out with the fathers I defend the fathers doctrines I haue their testimonies euen set downe in their bookes for me And as we reade in August contra Cresconium the Donatist 2. booke cap. 23. and in his 4. booke cap. 17. he cited for himselfe Cyprian and it seemeth that Maximinus the heretique against whom August wrote vsed to alleadge for his defence the councell of Ariminum and therefore Augustine saieth vnto him Neither will I obiect the councell of Nice against thee neither oughtest thou to obiect that of Ariminum against me 3. booke 14. chap. What a vaine thing is it these things considered for you and your fellowes then to carie away the simple vnder the bare titles of Catholique trueth Catholique Church
neuer hauing proued either of these nor yet being able to doe it you should cōclude that your prescription against our doctrine which you call newe at your pleasure though indeede it be most ancient witnesse the olde testament and the newe much rather ought to take place then his in his time against heretiques that then taught diuerse basphemous heresies directly against the scriptures You say our Religion hath beene vnknowen this 1500. yeares or at least if any body sought to publish it he was condemned as a false pernitious heretique But you doe but say thus you proue it not nor euer shall For it was both heard and knowen many 100. yeares before yours was hatched and if euery one were so condemned that taught it then was Christ and his Apostles so condemned For vnlesse by scriptures we can proue ours to be the same that theirs was wee aske no fauour at your hands And as long as we can doe so the more we and our predecessours haue beene condemned by you the more we knowe we haue beene blessed of God Now whereas you say in this Chapter further that Irenaeus did withstand heretiques by the traditions of the Apostles adding your glosse that is to say by doctrine not writen but deliuered from hand to hand and so receiued from age to age frō the Apostles to that time therein through the ambiguity of the word Tradition craftsly you seeke to deceiue your simple reader and indeede you giue a glosse that corrupteeh the text For let that place of Irenaeus in his third booke and second Chapter be perused and that also which followeth in the third Chapter of the same booke though either you or the Printer mistaking it send vs to the fifth Chapter where the wordes are not which you cite and most euidently it shall bee proued that though Irenaeus haue there the words by you cited yet by the traditiōs of the Apostles which he speaketh of there he meaneth no doctrine nor points of doctrine as you doe vsually by that word contrary or besides that which was also taught in the word writen For the question was of God the father of our Lord Iesus Christ which Valētinian Marcion denied against whō he there sheweth that he fought first with the scriptures wherewith when they were vrged he saith they are turned streight into an accusation of the scriptures as though they were not right had not authority might diuersly be takē saying further that trueth could not be found of them by those that are ignorant of traditiō For the trueth was not deliuered by them but by liuely voice that therefore Paul saied we speake wisedome amongst them that are perfect not the wisedōe of this world And this wisdome to euery one of them saieth he is that which he himselfe hath deuised Of which heretiques their wordes yours when you are called to the touchstone of the scriptures are so like vndoubtedly you haue learned to plead against the scriptures for your vnwritten traditions Now when thus he had shewed how the heretiques in his time shunned triall by the scriptures and appealed to tradition he goeth on and sheweth that when he was contented to come to the traditiō of the Apostles kept obserued in the church downe from the Apostles to those times by succession of pastours then they resisted tradition also saying that they were wiser then either those pastours or the Apostles themselues and so indeede neither by the scriptures nor yet by making demonstration vnto them that the same doctrine taught in the scripture was also deliuered by liuely voice first by the Apostles and so receiued from age to age and continued in by those pastors of whose successiō he speaketh could stop their mouthes And thus any mā of meane capacity may perceiue that in these places Irenaeus his drift only is to shew the heretiques that the doctrine which he taught concerning God the father of our Lord Iesus Christ first was warranted by the Apostles writings and then also taught by them by liuely voice and so deliuered and continued from hand to hand amongst the faithfull pastours succeeding one another euen vnto that time And that he calleth this the tradition of the Apostles and not as you falsly expound him doctrine vnwriten beside or contrary to that which is writen as the Popish traditions you striue for bee if you had beene disposed you might haue learned in the 1. Chapter of the same booke where he saieth That which first they preached after by the wil of god tradiderunt nobis they deliuered vs in writing to be the foundation and piller of our faith And indeede it is an vsuall thing with the fathers of the primitiue Church often by the tradition of the Apostles to vnderstand the very same doctrine which is conteined in their writings Herein therefore so likewise in all other points in controuersy betwixt vs it is a cōmon tricke with you papists to vrge the fathers wordes quite contrary to their true meaning But because you first and namely bring in Irenaeus for your vnwriten traditions which is the window indeede that you would haue faine left open vnto you for then thereby you hope you may thrust in and vpon the Church what you list and so countenance thereby your Antichristian doctrine when all other shifts faile let vs see whither this cannot yet further be made manifest out of him He as Eusebius reporteth Hist Eccles lib. 4. cap. 14. saied that Polycarpe taught that one and sole trueth which he had learned of the Apostles quae Ecclesia tradit which the Church deliuereth forth Where of necessity by those things which the Church deliuereth by tradition that he there speaketh of you may not vnderstand any other but those which haue warrant from the word writen and in no case those things that are besides that or cōtrary thereunto for then hee would not haue called that which Polycarpe preached the one and sole trueth for questionles those things are true that are conteined in the scriptures And this clearely appeareth if you marke the wordes as they are in Irenaeus himselfe in his 5. booke 20. cap. that Eusebius hath relation vnto which are these Polycarpe did mention or teach those thinges which he had heard of the Apostles that is all things agreeable to the scriptures Againe the same Irenaeus in his 3. booke and 3. cap. which is one of the Chapters by you before alleadged saieth that vnder Clement the Church of Rome wrought to the Corinthians shewing them quam traditionem what tradition of late they had receiued of the Apostles that is to say that God the father almighty and so forth as is expressed in Moyses is the father of our Lord Iesus Christ And that he is so taught to bee of the Churches saieth hee they that will learne may by the Scriptures and so they may vnderstand the Apostolique tradition of the Church Where it is most cleare that he telleth vs himselfe
Catholicâ teneor that is is to bee preferred before all those thinges whereby otherwise I am held in the Catholicke Church The third place likewise which you alleadge here out of Augustine as you haue quoted it serueth onely to bewray either your grosse ignorance or negligence For I finde he wrote 2. bookes against the aduersarie of the lawe and the Prophets but none in all his tomes can I finde fathered vpon him writen as you say against the aduersarie of the olde and new lawe and if you meant the former there being two bookes of that title and euery one consisting of many Chapters why speake you thereof as though he had writen but one and name not the Chapter when you tell vs where to finde the place you shall be more particulerly answered thereunto In the meane time you see in Augustines iudgement in the two other places that the trueth taught in the canonical scriptures is to be preferred before all other motiues to keepe a man in the true Catholique Church contrarie whereunto I am sure hee neither teacheth where you meane nor any where else You should therefore in his opinion farre better bestowe your time then you doe if you would bestow it in prouing by the scriptures that you your Church were stable in this trueth especially seeing trueth it selfe euen here hath enforced you to confesse that that stablenes is atteined vnto by the knowledge and intelligence of the scriptures But you adde that these scriptures theÌ„ must be vnderstoode according to the traditions of the church and the succession of the Apostles and Bishops If by the church you did vnderstande as you should the true and pure church of Christ and by her traditions and Bishops such as were sound that is such as are truely iustifiable by the canonicall scriptures as the ancient fathers Irenaeus Tertullian Augustine with others of those and former times were woont to vnderstaÌ„d them as I haue shewed before when to stop the mouthes of heretiques they did appeale to theÌ„ then wee would most willingly ioyne with you that issue by the scriptures so vnderstoode to trie whether you or we haue attained to the stablenes of trueth But vnderstaÌ„ding therby as you doe your Romish church for these last 500. or 600. yeares her traditions Bishops we say and sure we are we are able to proue it that so far of is it that the scriptures are to be vnderstoode according to theÌ„ that there is no readier way to misunderstand them and to make them to haue a mutable and flexible sence now one way now another then to make them they being so contrary as they be to the ancient sound traditions of Christs church which alwaies were consonant if not the very same to that is taught in the word writen the Bishops you meane being likewise so different from them that were in the primatiue church and ofteÌ„ also so varying amoÌ„gst themselues as they are in the interpreting of them to be the rules of right vnderstanding of theÌ„ Finally if you had any forhead or conscience you would be ashamed so to abuse your poore simple reader as you do in going about to make him beleeue that because Augustine could or did say that the church had continued in it froÌ„ the Apostles times through the succession of Bishops to his that therefore hee saied it had so to ours there being aboue 1000. yeares difference The VII Chapter YOV doe studie as much as you can to reiecte our succession and not without cause a Succession of persons without succession also in trueth neuer was esteemed knowing that this onelie doeth suffice to ouerthrowe all the heresies of those new reformed Gospellers Caluin as the most appareÌ„t doeth seeke to proue that our reason is of no force because that the Greekes haue had euer succession of pastours and yet wee doe not holde them as Catholickes But if the Reader doe well note that that wee haue alreadie saied hee shall finde the answere vnto this obiection I meane because that the Greekes haue not had succession a Holde you to this you may giue ouer your brags of succession for shame and continuance of doctrine called vnitie of faith by the Apostles the which ought euer to bee ioyned to the continuance of the Pastours to shew the true recognisaunce of the Catholicke Religion There is none that doe studie and reade of those matters but that doe knowe the vnconstant faith of the Greekes as touching the proceeding of the holie Ghost the which errour they had abiured at the last councell of Florence and yet notwithstanding they did turne to it againe besides diuerse other light things to speake moderately b You haue as many thinges of importance and more too gainesaiâ—d by your forefathers which are not approued by their ancieâ—t fathers S. Iohn Chrysostome S. Ciril S Basil Athanatius nor yet by our aduersaries at this preseÌ„t time The which errours I haue no neede to set forth in this booke for my intent is but to speake of that that pricks vs at hand because of ill neighbourhood Some doe alleadge vnto vs the c We neuer alleage this alone but together with the false doctrine and vnlawfull vocation of your Bishops and Pastours negligence of our pastours and their ill liues for the which cause they saie that the mentioned succession cannot take place But this argument is of no force For although that the carelesse liues of some Bishops and ecclesiasticall persons haue beene so great so hurtfull vnto the bloud of our sauiour Christ I meane to the soules bought with it yet notwithstanding that d Yet thus for the principall point you are glad to fly from your great prelats to your poore priests the church hath not lost the succession continuance of one doctrine as touching the administration of the sacramentes by those that were deputed by the Bishops e Indeede this kind of diuision is altogether practised in your Romish Church by your Cardinals and great prelats If one should see a Prelate doing nothing and his lieutenant doing all which of those two would you take to bee Bishop they haue both deuided their charges the one receiueth the profit the other taketh all the paine If they be both content what losse do you feele he that hath anie interest let him valewe the damadge And although that the negligence of the Bishop bee not excusable f And yet nothing more coÌ„mon wi h you then wilful continuance yea by your Popes good leaue in this sin before God with the diligence of the deputie nor his conscience cleare yet this ought to suffice that though his faults be through negligence or through euill liuing g True but such doctrine you shal neuer proue yours yet that ought not to perturbe the assurance of our doctrine the which we haue taught vs by the word of God interpreted by the true doctours that haue beene
of his trueth out of his written word to call you from this newe found pretended religion of yours to the ancient and true catholicke faith which we haue learned out of the scriptures and of alsound antiquity you not onely burst out into this vaine and monstrously false brags of the antiquity of yours and nouelty of ours but also knowing in your own consciences that your folly therein wil soone be descried you cal then for miracles to confirme and warrant this our commission by which you would faine proue to be as necessarie for vs in this case as it was for Moses in his time thereby to confirme his Wherunto I say as vpon the like occasion S. Augustine said in his time de ciuitate Dei l. 22. c. 8. Whosoeuer yet seeketh after miracles that so he may beleeue he himselfe is a mōstrous miracle who the world beleeuing yet beleeues not For if our doctrine be the same that the Apostles taught as we are alwaies ready and by GODS grace able to proue it to be by the vndoubted woord of God then their miracles are so many seales of this our doctrine and so it beeing thereby sufficiently confirmed already by miracles needles is it to require any further confirmation thereof now by new miracles againe But you seeme to take it for granted that we stand either very much or altogither vpon the extraordinarines of our vocation and therfore supposing that such a vocation must alwaies be confirmed by miracles you call for them the rather thus earnestly at our hands Concerning which point I haue tolde you already that though in such ruins of the church as you had brought it vnto it bee no strange thing with God to stir vp men extraordinarily to seeke the reformation thereof as he did many of the Prophets yet neither the first ministers which in these later daies he hath vsed to this end amongst vs nor those that he hath vsed since to go on with that which the others began rely onely vpon an extraordinary calling for as I haue shewed both the one and the other haue had outward ordinary calling Besides you must vnderstand that a man may haue an extraordinary calling as had Nahū Abdia diuers other of the prophets who yet you cannot shew euer wrought any miracles to confirme their calling withal And to vse Chrysostomes words which he vsed against such as you in that commentary vpon Matth. Hom. 47. which you father vpon him what miracle wrought Iohn Baptist which instructed so many and great Cities For the Euangelist saieth he wrought none Iohn 10. And yet who therefore may lawfully say that he had no lawfull vocation or good commission Againe you know by that which is writen Deut. 13. 2. Thes 2. and elswhere that false prophets yea Antichrist himselfe may and shal seeke to seduce men and to draw men from God by miracles therefore there God forwarneth his people thereof that if notwithstanding they suffer themselues the rather to be peruerted thereby they may be voide of al excuse Wherefore seeing there haue bene sundry true prophets extraordinarily called that yet haue wrought no miracles and also many false prophets that haue wrought them and may doe agayne to what purpose should you thus call for miracles as though they straight might lawfully be refused that worke them not and they safely alwayes followed that doe them Howsoeuer you seeme to pretend that if we should worke miracles you would beleeue vs yet certayne it is that if we should worke neuer so many you would as little for all that beleeue vs as the blinde and superstitious Iewes beleeued Christ and his Apostles for all the myracles wrought by them but this is onely a shift of yours as long as you may to dazell the eyes of the simple For questionles if myracles would serue the turne beside sundry miracles indeede which the stories doe testifie haue beene wrought by God in the protection and propagation of the religiō which we now professe euē this is a miracle of miracles that Luther lyuing in such a time as he did should doe as he did to so great effect wtout miracle yet in the end maugre al his enemies which were many mighty to die quietly as he did in his bed So that al these things considered it appeareth I hope sufficiētly to the indifferent reader that you haue no such aduantage against vs for miracles and you pretend But because your obiectiō in this behalfe is so egerly prosecuted by you I wil not refuse to follow you frō step to step to yeeld you a more particuler āswer to whatsoeuer you haue sayed in this matter First therefore whereas you would insinuate to your reader that we doe wrong in comparing the misery that the poor people were in vnder your Popes to the misery that the people of Israel were in in Aegipt vnder Pharao their deliuerāce frō the Romish yoke to the deliuerāce of that people frō the bōdage of Aegypt we graūt you we make that comparison sometimes we are sure that therein there is offred no wrong at al vnto you For both in vniuersality continuannce of time and extremity both to soule bodie the slauery vnder your proud antichristian Popes hath exceeded theirs vnder Pharao in Aegypt and consequently the deliuerance of the people from that of yours must needes beeing as it is both more spiritual and general then that of theirs was much exceed that of theirs But that therefore it is as necessary that wee should anew work miracles to confirme our vocation to doe this as it was for Moses to confirme his calling to doe the other thereby therin you are both deceiued seeke also to deceiue others For Moses by God was shewed that he should so confirme his and so are not we that we shal or ought so to confirme ours and his calling thereunto was not onely extraordinary whereas ours in great part at least as I haue shewed hath bene to this ordinary but also the thing it selfe and the means to bring it to passe both in the eies of Pharao al others were strange miraculous wheras in this our case in delyuering mē frō your antichristiā seruitude bringing thē to the liberty freedome purchased for thē by the bloud of Christ by the preaching of the worde of God sincerely ministring his sacraments accordingly both are wōted ordinary For what is more ordinary with God then to bring mē frō error to trueth that by these means in his church The thing that Moses was sent to doe was a new strange thing for a man of his quality wtout force of war weapons to deliuer so great gainful a people out of the hands of such an hard hearted tyrāt it is wōderful therfore it was likewise necessary that the means that he should effect that by especially should be miracles Finally there was no certainer way for Moses hauing to
haÌ„ging in S. Markâ— church at Venice sheweth that Pope AlexaÌ„der the 3. himselfe treading vpon the necke of the Emperour Fridericke the 1. caused thâ—se words of the Psalm Thou shalt walke vpoÌ„ the Adder tread the Cockatrise vnder thy feete which are properly to be vnderstoâ—â— of Christ to be proclaimed as verified of that action of his whereby appeareth that the Pope himselfe hath gone as farre as his flatterers That of Paul by him vnderstood of those that follow the directioÌ„ of the old maÌ„ and are led in their doings by the flesh They that are in the flesh caÌ„not please God Rom. 8. Siricius a Pope also interpreteth of theÌ„ that liue in the estate of mariage A Bishop must be the husbaÌ„d of one wife saieth Paul 1. Tim. 3. that is by their interpretatioÌ„ of one benefice and so his house and children that he must well order and gouerne there also spokeÌ„ of be his parish and parishioners Who so would vouchsafe the reading of your 2. Nicene councell he should there finde store of such interpretatioÌ„s for the maintenaÌ„ce of images so ridiculously alleadged as euer were any And how is it possible that the Church of Rome holding those principles that she doeth but that you must needes be as violent wresters and rackers of the Scriptures as euer were For both Cusan Epist 2.3.7 Hosius de expresso Dei verbo in his triple Dialogue doe teach that the scriptures must alwaies be interpreted according to the practise of the Church so that how oft soeuer that change the sence of the scripture must change also For still the sence thereof must be fitted to the time and in no case it may be thought to retaine a sence contrary to the practise of the Church And now you are fully come to this whatsoeuer at any time you talke either of Scriptures doctours or councels your Pope for the time being hath full power and authority to interprete all as one hauing authoritie so to doe for his owne sence So that in deede and trueth neither Scriptures doctours nor councels how plaine soeuer their wordes bee to contrarie the doings of your Church shall cary awaie any sence to ouerwharte you at all but will they nill they they shal be caused by your Pope to speake on your side And therefore these thinges considered you are the men and not wee that take the precious ornaments from Epiphanius picture of a king that you speake of in your twenty three Chapter and decke the image of a dogge or of a foxe therewith that is according to your owne application which take the wordes of the Scripture and by wresting of them make them serue to countenance your heresies For heresies wee holde none â—â—ither doe wee alleadge the Scriptures but in his true sence 〈◊〉 by these rules before mentioned we are alwaies readie to proue â—nd therefore for all your saying to the contrarie the Scripture as it is alleadged by vs shall proue euen that word of God that shall iudge you and condemne you if you repent not the sence that you force vpon it shall proue but the deuise of man false doctrine yea your whole Religion is but a renuing of olde heresies For with the Ebionits you will not be iustified by faith onely Euseb lib. 3. ca. 24. but also by your owne workes inhereÌ„t righteousnes as the Catharists haue taught you Isidor Etymolog lib. 8. cap. de haeresibus Of the Manichees you haue learned your ministring in one kinde Leo serm 4. de Quadragesimâ Marcus that heretique who by his inuocatioÌ„s made his followers beleeue that in the Eucharist he turned the wine into bloud hath beene your first schoolemaster for your doctrine of traÌ„substantiation Epip haeres 34. And your multitude of images your worshipping of them the Carpocratians haue taught you as to appeares Iren. lib. 1. cap. 23. 24. when you commit these idolatries you haue learned to excuse your selues to torment your selues and to light candels at noone daies of the ancient idolaters LactaÌ„tus lib. 2. cap. 2. lib. 1. cap. 21 6. cap. 2. As the Messalians restrained the force of baptisme to former sinnes witnesse Theodoret diuin decret cap. de baptismo so doe you As Montanus taught of purgatory oblations and praiers for the dead and limbus patrum Tertullian de coronâ militis euen so doe you As the Collyridians sacrificed vnto the Virgin Mary and worshipped her Epiphan haeres 79 so doe you As the Angelists and Caians gaue diuine honour to the Angels Epiphan haeres 38 so doe you As Montanus and the Manichees deuised lawes for superstitious fasting Euseb lib. 5. cap. 16. Aug. de moribus Manicheorum lib. 2. cap. 13 so doe you As the Tatians Encratites and Manichees were iniurious enemies to Matrimony crying out that it was a carnal life therefore forbad it to their elect and to them that would be perfect amongst them August Epist 47 likewise doe you And as the Pelagians denyed that to be sin which ariseth not from reason and wil August contra Iulianum lib. 3. cap. 5 so doe you for the very same reasons deny concupiscence of it selfe without consent thereunto to be sinne as there further it appears they ascribed to the natural powers strenght to doe spirituall things and affirmed that a man is to be saued for and by keeping the law so doe you Of the Valentâ—nians also you learned to haue in such price as you haue the signâ—â—f the Crosse and to abuse places of Scripture for it as God forbiâ— that I should reioice in any thing but in the Crosse of Christ Irenâ—us lib. 1. cap. 1. Epiphan lib. 1. Tom. 2. haeres 31. Of the Heracleoâ—nites you learned your extreame vnction and other ceremonies you vse to the dead Epiphan lib. 1. Tom. 3. haeres 36. Of the Macionites Pepusians Aug ad Quod. cap. 27 you learned to giue women leaue to baptise Epiphan haeres 42. Of the Hemerobaptistes and of the Ossenes you learned your holy water holie salte holie oile and holy bread Epiphan lib. 1 Tom. 1. cap. 17. 19. And of the same Ossenes you haue learned also your superstition about reliques and to pray in an vnknowen tongue as Elcai their great Pope taught them Epiphan haeres 19. Thus if a man in reading Augustine Irenaeus and Ephiphanius and others that haue laboured in confuting the ancient heretiques would diligently marke what heresies and fonde things they held and vsed he should by and by by comparing their doings opinions with yours finde that you haue reuiued very many of their rotten and condemned heresies and that you haue learned most of your Ceremonies of them And yet as though you of all men were freest and furthest from all heresie still you crie out he retiques heretiques But it is but policy that you haue learned of some theeues who the better in an hew cry to escape ride crying out of theeues theeues But for all
not thought that he himselfe not onely might but had erred would he euer haue writeÌ„ as he did a booke of RetractioÌ„s or RecaÌ„tatioÌ„s And indeed in his 2 book 4. Chap. ad BonifaciuÌ„ against that 2. Epist of the PelagiaÌ„s it appeareth that he was of opinioÌ„ that of necessity childreÌ„ were to receiue the CoÌ„munion or els they could not be saued because it is writeÌ„ Ioh. 6. Except yee eat the flesh of the sonne of maÌ„ drinke his bloud yee haue no life in you and Pope Innocent and many of the fathers were of the same opinion then And yet I thinke now your selues holde this to bee an errour aswell as wee And who will read his fourth booke de animâ eius origine ad Vincentium and his prologue to his retractions he should there plainlie finde him confesse that there are manie things in his wordes worthilie to bee founde fault withall which he craueth that his reader would not cleaue vnto in any case but rather pardon and follow him non erraÌ„teÌ„ sed in melius proficientem not erring but better profiting Yea in the later place he saieth that he would not arrogate that perfection to himselfe then being old much lesse when hee was young not to erre And I thinke that you are not ignorant that Irenaeus and Papias were plaine Millenaries and that Cyprian a nuÌ„ber of bishops in his time in Affricke held in councel decreed that rebaptizatioÌ„ of those that had bene baptized by hereticks which both you and we count errors notwithstanding now Why therefore especially when the names and titles of councels or men are vrged to the preiudice of the trueth taught in the scriptures may we not say that which is true that they both might haue erred And thus you haue your answere first generally to your principall scope in these 4. or 5. last Chapters set downe togither because the drift of them was but al one and now also a further answere to the rest of the matters and words therein here and there scattered But yet you haue not quite done with this matter let vs therefore further follow you to see if you haue said any more to the purpose in that which is behinde then in that which we haue heard already The XXVII Chapter I Pray Syrs since you are so absolute answere me to this obiection a A vaine questioÌ„ for whoeuer of vs either saied or wrote so is it good to beleeue almaner of people that doe alleage the Scriptures or not If ye say yea why doe not you beleeue the aboue named Valentinus Apollinaris Hebion Cherintus and Nestorius with diuers others that haue sought to maintaine their errours with the new olde Testament If you saie no but that we ought rather to follow the counsell of S. Iohn in his first Epistle cap. 4. The which is not to beleeue euery spirit but that we ought to proue whether it be of God or no b Our proofe is that our senâ—e wherein we alleage them stands with the rest of the scriptures is according to the analogy of faith and good maners receiued to be the sence of ancient time and from time to time amongst the sound teachers in the Church What proofe wil you shew vs of yours Shewe the priuiledge that you haue by the vvhich God dieth enioine vs to beleeue your Gospel rather the the Gospell of the Pelagians Nouatians Nestorians and other such false Apostles considering that they haue alleaged the Scriptures aswel as you If you saie that they were heretickes abusers of the people and rauishing wolues cloathed in lambes skins and false interpreters of the Scriptures all this is certaine a The more haue they to answere for that report so for they can neuer proue it to be so But vvhat though the like report goeth of you Ye say that ye are sent from Cod to reforme the Church They saie as much b Which of hem I pray you seeing they liued before the B. of Rome beâ—ame Antichrist They preached that the Pope vvas Antichrist c Yea but the Church of Rome then and now are not al one shevving themselues verie eloquent in detracting and rayling against the Catholicke Roman Church you doe the like d You say so but you â—ay more then you can proue At euerie vvord they did alleage the Scriptures in their Sermons to confirme their doctrine as you doe for yours That that they preached was called by them the Gospel the pure vvorde of the Lord these are the verie tearmes that you vse among your holie prophetes they haue beene condemned as heretiques by the generall Councels e Not yet by any lawful and f ee geneâ—al councel was euer our religioÌ„ or any point of it condemned you are so likewise They did appeale vnto the pure vvord of God you doe the like Yet are they proued to be false f This iâ— flat dogs eloquence cogging knaues and so shal you Then seeing there is so great an vniformitie betvveene you vpon vvhat grounde g Vpon this that we are able to iustifie our alleaging of them to to be sound and catholicke which they are not shall vvee confirme that reason that shoulde condemne them as heretiques allow you for Catholicks h This question is rather meete to be proposed to you who haue learned of the Donatists to tye the Church to your popes sleue and to shut it vp within the narrow limits of his dominion S. Augustine in his Epistle 161. did put vnto a Donatist called Honoratus this probleme We desire thee not to thinke it much to answere vs to this what cause doest thou know or what thing hath there beene done that hath made Chirst loose his inheritance spred ouer all the world to coÌ„e to be contained onely in Affricke there onelie to remaine We put the like question to i Though your popish Church hath bene none of his â—nheritaÌ„ce a good while yet he hath had his inheritance alwaies and euer will haue and this we hold and teach and therefore your question is vâ—iâ—e friuolous and flaâ—â—eâ—ous Caluin Beza Viret the rest that it may please theÌ„ to tel vs if that by chauÌ„ce they haue bene aduertised through what occasion our Sauiour Christ hath lost his inheritaunce that is to say the Church spread ouer all the world to remaine now in the later daies with a coÌ„panie of rude Swizers or in two or three corners besides not among the rest for there is a great number of good Catholickes what badge caÌ„ you shew or what signe to make vs know that you are the successours of the Apostles of Christ If that the Scriptures that you alleage ought to be a sufficient proofe we are content to accept it k There as no need that we should doe so because we can proue that we alleadge them soundly they falsely corruptly if you will be content to grant
is manifestly taught in others which is your fashion altogether and we alleadge them truely to confirme onely the trueth and therefore are very well contented that our interpretations should be tried by all soūd and good rules of interpreting Whereas you adde If we say they were heretiques and abused the scriptures c. the like report you say is of vs I say the more is their fault that so report of vs for they can neuer proue it Howbeit to make your report seeme the more probable you cōpare our dealings with theirs which by your saying are very like But the reader must be aduertised that you frame their speeches doings here without booke I meane without warrant of any good authour that reporteth these things of them euen of your owne head that so you may the better make their speeches and ours alike I praie you in what good authour did you euer reade and yet here you confidently aduoutch it that the Palagians Nouatians Nestorians c. who were long dead and buried before your Pope was hatched preached that the Pope was Antichrist It may be true that you write that some of them railed against the Roman Church that then was But alas what is this for your Romish Church now which is no more like that then then an apple is like an oister Indeede this is one of your trickes wherewith you coosen the poore simple people For it is the fashion of you all when you finde in any ancient father anie thing that soundeth to the credit of the Catholique church or to the commendation of the Roman Church in their daies to alleadge it as spoken in the commendation of your Romish church now a 1000. yeares after their death whereas there is more difference betwixt yours and that which they speake of in weighty materiall points of doctrine and discipline then in yeares If your Romish Church now would returne to the state of the ancient church of Rome and grow once like that you and we should soone agree For that is the thing that we will stand vpō with you that it is you in your railing vpon our churches that according to the fashion of these ancient heretiques raile vpon the church of Rome that then was rather then we For our churches are 1000. times more like it indeed thē yours as it is now Nether are you able to produce your authours to proue that these heretiques did at euery word alleadge scripture or appeal onely thereunto For the contrary is euident both in Epiphanius Tertullian Irenaeus August and others that wrote against them For they testifie that many of them shunned the triall of the Scriptures onely and fled euen as you doe to traditions succession of fathers visions other such like motiues as councels fathers antiquity consent c. as I haue shewed cap. 3. as appeareth euidently in diuers of these fathers writings as in Tertul in praescrip contra haeret Epiphanius in many places de haeresibus Chrysost in Math 4. Irenaeus libro 3. cap. 2. August Contra Maxim lib. 1. de Baptismo contra Donatist lib. 3. cap. 2. in Ioan Tract 13. de vnitate Ecclesiae cap. 15. Epist 165. ad Generosum Who but one of your Religion would euer thus grossely abuse his simple poore Reader You yet as a man that had saied all this while nothing but that you might truely say proceede on with your comparison tell vs that they were condēned by generall Councels so are we they were found cogging knaues and so shall we Whereunto I answere that those which you call generall Councels were but late Conuenticles of your owne since the apostasie of your Church from the ancient Roman Church wherein there was indeede no freedome of a lawfull Councell enioyed and therefore whose condemnation we neede care no more for then Christ and his Apostles needed to care for the sentence of condemnation that in their times the high Priestes Scribes and Pharisees gaue of them and their doings in their councels And as for your vnmanerly prophecie we neede not esteeme it For neither is your mouth any slander nor yet doe we take you to be a true Prophet But seeing say you they and you be thus like why should they be condemned for heretiques you absolued receiued I answere the likelihood is denied and the reason I haue giuen you alreadie As for Augustines probleme you talke of it is impertinent and toucheth vs not For we doe not with the Donatists shut vp Christs inheritance within the compasse of any place as they did in Africke neither say we that Christ at any time hath lost his in heritance but we say that Christ hath had alwaies and hath still his Church without restraint of place wheresoeuer it pleaseth him neither doeth it remaine now onely with a fewe rude Switzers and in two or three corners besides as it pleaseth you to speake For it is well seene that diuerse whole kingdomes as England Scotland and Denmarke haue receiued our Religion and that indeede it groweth so mightily in most places that it maketh the stoutest of you greatly feare that ere it be lōg your kingdome of the Pope will be greater in the west Indies then in these parts Hauing done with vrging this probleme which indeede fitteth you Papists better then vs in that you tie Christes inheritance to your Popes girdle you tell your Reader but you meane to proue it at leasure that these heretiques that you haue talked on all this while haue fortified their campe with as manie moe places as wee alleadge and therefore once againe you would haue a reason why that notwithstanding they should bee counted heretiques and not we You make vs answere because they did interpret them contrarie to the Churches doctrine which you suppose is the onely answere we can giue But I haue tolde you that because when there is questiō of truth there is cōmonly also questiō of the church our answere is that their alleadging of them was hereticall ours true and right as may be proued by the scriptures themselues and by the right rules of interpreting of them But be it that we answere as you imagine what haue we lost or you gained thereby This say you that you haue no more right then they to be counted Catholiques because you alleadge them also contrarie to the Churches doctrine Here againe you deceiue both your selfe and your Reader with the ambiguity of the word Church For if wee answere that we reiect their allegations for that they alleadged them contrarie to the Churches doctrine that then was we by the Church vnderstand a sound and sincere church of Christ in possession of sound Religion and not whatsoeuer Synagogue will entitle it selfe with the name of the Church and so vnder the name of the Church warre against the true church In which sence onely your Church against whose doctrine wee alleadge them hath the name of a church And yet you as though it
afterwardes in conclusion finally may so fall awaie that he become the childe of the Deuill and this is the second thing that I though good to admonish you and your reader of For this is also a most dangerous errour shaking al the certaine grouÌ„ds of our faith and therefore to our comforte it is plainely taught vs contrarie to this in the Scripture that the gifts and graces of God whereby are meant the giftes of regeneration are without repentance Rom. 11.29 and therefore whom Christ loueth once as his owne as doubtlesse he doeth all them that are new borne once indeede Iohn tels vs he loues to the ende Iohn 13.1 And Paul vpon this ground that he knew with whom God once went so farre as towardes them to shew his power and mercy in regenerating of them that he would neuer finallie forsake them but perfect in theÌ„ that good worke of his assures the Philippians that he that had begunne that good worke in them would performe it vntill the day of Iesus Christ cap. 1.6 And yet I doe not deny but such maie haue their falles and that in such sort that to their owne sence feeling and in the opinions of others they haue quite fallen from grace and all the good gifts of regeneration but yet if before they were not sacramentally onely but really in trueth new borne and clensed from their sinnes in Christ the spirit and graces of God in them were but in this case as the sunne hid from our eies by thicke cloudes and as fire raked vp in the ashes which God will cause to shine againe and to growe to a fire in them when hee in his good time hath caused the cloudes to vanish and hath remooued the ashes This you can holde to bee true in Peter notwithstanding his fall because Christ praied that his faith should not faile Luk. 22. why should you not then vpon Christes praier made generally for all his elect that his heauenly father would keepe them and that from euill Ioh. 17.15 conceiue the like of all those whoÌ„ God hath once sealed indeede with the peculiar seale of regeneration proper onely to his elect But it seemes you thinke you haue ground enough for this your opinion in that you see many that haue seemed to stand finally to fal and that you finde the promisses run vpon this condition if we perseuere vnto the end whereunto I answere that in the former you may be deceiued two waies either in taking them to haue stood indeede which yet neuer came vnto it or in condeÌ„ning them as finally to haue fallen when as it may be otherwise and as for the second I say that as it is certaine that the promisses runne vpon that condition so the Lord will giue all those grace to performe that conditioÌ„ that be once thus sealed to be his For nothing shal separate theÌ„ from the loue of God in Christ Iesus Rom. 8. such are kept by the power of god through faith vnto saluatioÌ„ 1. Pe. 1.5 You must therefore thirdly be admonished that indeede you doe misunderstaÌ„d Iohn the other testimonies to fortifie Iohns doctrin as daÌ„gerously as euer did IouiniaÌ„ Nouatus or any other if you take them so to be vnderstoode as it seemeth you doe that by these places wee are taught that none in any actuall sinne and hauing a minde to doe euill is in that meane while the childe of God but of the Deuill If this were true doctrine seeing it is writen that no man liueth sinneth not 1. King 8. no man can say his hart is cleane Pro. 20. but euen when we are at the best we must needs confesse that those good things that we would do we do not those euil thiÌ„gs that we would leaue vndone we doe Ro. 7. that if we say we haue no sin we deceiue our selues there is no truth in vs 1. Ioh. 1. therfore it is certaine that ther was neuer child of God yet but ofteÌ„ times he hath had a mind to doe euill and bene sometime in actuall sinne I say these thinges being most true because both Scripture and experience teach them so to be if this doctrine of yours be true also then so often as there is a purpose and performance of any actuall sinne and as long as that is found in man so often and so long he is the childe of the Deuill and not of God If this be thus if you knewe how farre actuall sinne streatcheth and weighed without dissembling how prone the best men are to fall I am fully perswaded there is none of you all that a whole day togither can haue assurance that you are any other but the children of the Deuill For if the Lorde should straitely marke what is done amisse and enter into iudgement with his seruants no man could for one daies space in trueth cleare himselfe of all actuall sinne committed either in word deede or thought by omitting good things commanded or doing ill things forbidden If in stead of saying in the meane while you had only saied therein and in that respect he is not the childe of God your speech might haue beene borne withall For indeed in the new borne though there be a new man yet as long as they liue they shall finde some reliques of the olde man remaâ—ning and so a law in their members rebelling against the law of the spirit Rom. 7. Gal. 5. by meanes wherof it commeth to passe that though sinne raigne not in their mortall bodies and they neuer commit sinne vnto death and transgresse with the whole man as the carnall men doe yet in respect of this old man that is left sinne dwelleth in them as a tyrant and getteth them now and then to doe him some seruice though not with the consent and liking of the new but it striuing against the same as it also euidently appeareth in the two foresaied Chapters Rom. 7. Gal. 5. wherein in which respect they may be saied not to be the children of God but in the meane while in that by the inner man these things that are done through the tyranny of the old man are not consented vnto but misliked striuen against by them therefore with Paul they comfort theÌ„selues say now if I doe that which I wold not it is no more I that do it but the sin that dwelleth in me RoÌ„ 7. with Iohn after that through the beholding of this their infirmity they haue coÌ„fessed that if they should say they had no sin they deceiued theÌ„selues there were no truth in theÌ„ they raise vp theÌ„selues againe saying if we acknowledge our sins he is faithful iust to forgiue vs our sin to clense vs from all vnrighteousnes 1. Ioh. 1. and so remaine still euen whiles they finde these battailes foiles risings againe in themselues the children of God For S. Iohn is not to be vnderstood to deny simply that the new borne sin but to deny that they
defy detest theÌ„ their frantick opinions as much as any and of all men we haue beene the forwardest in writing against them And therefore they doe vs the more wrong when at any time they aggrauate this obiection against vs by charging vs to haue such amongst vs whom thus we shunne and mislike aswell as they Thus much therfore let suffice for answere to this fourth signe and now let vs proceede to the next The next is not to obey but resist the Prelates of the Church which hee would proue so to bee by Pauls saying 2. Tim. 3. like as Iannes and â—ambres resisted Moses so doe these resist the trueth being men of corrupt mindes reprobates in faith of which fault when the learned protestant can proue them guilty and vs cleare he promiseth to recant It seemeth the man in alleadging this text did trust his memory too much for twise he hath writen MaÌ„bres for IaÌ„bres but if that were all his fault here it were a small matter But here againe according to his old woont he must haue it freely giueÌ„ and granted him for he bringeth nothing at all to proue it that their Bishops and Prelates are all such as Moses Paul was that is faithfull in teaching only Gods people the truth For vnles this be yeelded him it neither may be granted him that he rightly applieth his text nor this signe against vs. But he knoweth well enough and so doe all the packe of theÌ„ that we are so far from being so prodigall in our gifts vnto them that we hold their prelates bishops Priests to be very IaÌ„nes Iambres in resisting our Bishops and ministers in teaching the same truth that they haue learned of Moses Paul and that therefore we thinke no better of them then of men of corrupt mindes reprobate in the faith For which cause we are sure we both may and ought to disobey them and resist them as we doe For so we finde that Esay Hieremy Amos Michaiah Christ and his Apostles in their times refused to obey and resisted the false doctrine of the false Prophets and high Priests that theÌ„ were What a vanity is it therefore in this man to trouble his reader with such colde and poore stuffe as this is And truely hee hath no better happe in the last then in any of the former For setting it downe that ficklenesse and slipperinesse of errours and heresies is a signe and sure token to bewray the authors thereof and that the catholique faith or trueth is likewise to be knowen by the constant stability thereof he saieth that which we grant to be very true as willingly as he or any of his side Insomuch that coÌ„monly it is one of the principall reasons that we vse to proue their opinions that we striue against them for to be errours or heresies theÌ„selues for now holding them so obstinatly as they doe heretiques for that we are able to shew how by stealing and soft paces stily they began first to creepe in and so went on froÌ„ worse to worse vntill to vse his owne tearme they came ad prosuÌ„dum maloruÌ„ that is euen to the depth of all euill that they are now growen vnto therein Who so readeth my answere to Albines publishers preface and the 37. Chapter of my answere to Albine himselfe shall finde that in a good sort of their opinions I haue shewed this But to proue this that it is the property of heretiques to be fickle and mouing and so soone to perish passe away he alleadgeth S. Peter saying that lying masters doe bring vpoÌ„ theÌ„selues swift daÌ„nation their destruction sleepeth not which he spake of gods iudgements yâ— vndoubtedly should ouertake such meÌ„ not as he vnderstandeth him to shew that their opinions alwaies should soone passe away and vanish In the former sence it is alwaies fouÌ„d true that S. Peter writeth either here or els where or both but take it in the later sence then Peter shall often be found to haue prophecied of such vntruly For who knoweth not that the grosse errours of Turcism are of very long continuance that the errour of the Aethiopians for circumcision is far more ancients and that yet it continueth And must not of necessity the errours and heresies of Antichrist be of very long continuance seeing Paul as we haue heard confesseth that the mystery of that iniquity beganne to worken in his time aboue 1500. years ago and that it should not quite be abolished before Christs second comming who then should yet by the brightnesse of his comming abolish it 2. Thess 2 The trueth of whose prophecy in that place is the very true ground of the antiquity vniuersality and continuance of the popish and Antichristian Religion So that howsoeuer it hath fallen out in some heresies that they haue in Gods most wise prouidence euen quickely brought themselues to an ende by their ficklenes moouing yet it appeareth in that place the sinne of not beleeuing the trueth so notably taught and confirmed by Christ and his Apostles in the iust iudgement of God by Antichristianity is so seuerely to be punished that therewith euen from the Apostles daies to the ende of the worlde they that commit that sinne shall bee in danger to bee deluded and seduced most dangerously Which I say and sure I am I can proue it hath beene and yet is most notoriously verifyed by popery to the wonderfull hurt and destruction of soules Howbeit this man would faine apply this signe vnto vs for that amongst vs as it pleaseth him to write here in England for the loue we beare to the doctrine of the Zwinglians Oecolampadians and Caluinists the Lutherans haue takeÌ„ their iust ouerthrow and for that now here Precisians and Puritans as he saith through the affection of the common people and so winking at them by some magestrates haue brought the Zwinglians and Caluinists to be ready to yeeld vp the ghost and to tilt vp their heeles But these are but vaine words and proue not his purpose For all these howsoeuer in other matters of lesser moment they too much disagree yet as I haue saied before and as it is notoriously knowen for the principall articles of religion coÌ„cerning faith or maners they are in constant vnity holding the same all of them that they haue learned in these points out of the Canonical scriptures as the harmony of their confessions extant to the world in print make it euident As for the seuerall and priuate opinions of Luther and his too earnest followers which we now mislike we haue likewise alwaies misliked and therefore in that respect they haue no other ouerthrow amongst vs then they alwaies since we first heard of them haue had and howsoeuer in these points we rather prefer Zuinglius and Caluins iudgement then theirs yet certaine it is that we build not our faith of them nor of them or by them delight we to be called we protest and professe our selues
9. p. 322. Auricular confession coÌ„futed at large c 37. p. 322. c B. BAptisme and the ceremonies at large spoken of 308. c. Baptisme that is outward sometimes separate from regeneration 280. c. Baptisme bindeth not alwaies the baptised to be of his religion that baptised him p. 395. 410. Bad alwaies intermingled with good 404. Beza defended against Albines slanders 400 Bondage vnder poperie as great as Israels vnder Pharao 170. c. Bohemians doings coÌ„sidered and defended 291. c. C. CAluins argument against the popish priesthoode that it is not of God vnanswered by Albine p. 5. Ceremonies popish how and when many of them came in and how withstood C. p. 15. 16. Colliers faith what it is 222 Christ will bee a whole and sole Sauiour or else no Sauiour at all 419. Christs Church perpetuall but not alwaies visible in the popish sence 37. c. 122. 413. c. Church why called catholicke and so the popish church is not catholicke p. 360. Contentions and varieties of opinions amongst Christians no news they ought not to preiudice the trueth 68. 69. 250. Contentious popish many and great 70. 71. 97. 252. c. Corpus Christi day when and by whom it came in 161. Caiphas had not the spirit of prophesie as Albine would seem he had 94. 95 Crueltie of papists in seeking to preuaile to stand by force 155. c. 291. c. Cathechising in popery how bad it hath bene 179. c. Councels haue erred and that euen papists confesse 230. c. Communion vnder one kind is but a new deuise 159. Christ was to proue his calling by miracles and yet not we 188. c. 403. D. DEdicating of bookes to great persons hath good and ancient presidents A. p. 11. and 12. Departure from the Roman Church that now is lawfull 149. 394. 417. c. 409. c. E. EDucation bindeth not the party to bee alwaies of their religion that brought him vp 181. to be read but not so as to discourage the simple from the study of them 205. 208 c. Scriptures alleadged in their true sence the ground that protestants staÌ„d vpoÌ„ 205 c. Scriptures though neuer so much abused by heretiques yet by them they must be confuted 226. Scriptures must expound scriptures 47. 210. 224. Scriptures they which alleadge best they are to be followed 245 c. Scriptures must trie who hath the spirit of God 222 c. Scriptures are to bee studied and read of all men 209 c. Scriptures shamefully spoken of by papists the better to shun triall by them 82 c. 212 c. Scriptures fondely allâ—adged and applied by Papists 35 c. 218. Scriptures in some sence may well be vnderstoode according to the tradition of the Church 87. 393. Scriptures whither rightlier alleadged by protestants or papists examined 215. 216. c Scriptures are so alleaged by protestaÌ„ts that they therfore are to be beleeued and neither papist nor heretique 215 c. Scriptures are both iudge and witnes 262. Scriptures are the only souÌ„d touchstoÌ„e both of trueth church al. 33 c. 46 c. 244 406. Scriptures by Papists thought neuer to bee soundly interpreted but according to the present practise of the Roman Church 214. 219. Sinne is more strictely condemned by protestants then by papists 285. 404. SuccessioÌ„ papists haue neither Personall 25 c. SuccessioÌ„ papists haue neither Locall 25 c. SuccessioÌ„ papists haue neither not reall 21 c. 27 Succession Popish we reiect not so much for their bad liues as doctrine 92. 301. Succession neither locall nor personall anie certaine note of trueth 27 c. Succession in the trueth the onely succession indeede to be stood simply vpon 31 c. Supper of the Lord wonderfully peruerted of the Papists 31. 416. Supremacy of the Pope new how by whoÌ„ it came vp and by whom still resisted p. 11. c 161. c. T. Traditions beside the word writen countenanced by abusing of Irenaeus and others p. 1 2. 76 c. Traditions vnwriteÌ„ the ground of popery C. p. 5. p. 82. Traditions beside and contrary to the word writen reiected by the fathers C. 2. p. 46 78. c. 224. c. Traditions spoken for and allowed by the fathers alwaies warranted by the scriptures C. p. 2 3. Traditions vnwriten heretiques commonly flie vnto eueÌ„ as the papists doe p. 5 6 33. Transubstantiation wheÌ„ it came in and how confuted D. 7 8. p. 109. Tree that is good bringeth forth good fruit and in what sence that is to be taken 274 278. c. Trueth is to be preferred before custome all things else C. p. 7. 86. 100. 406. Trueth is not tied to bishops mouthes and chaires 28. 29. 94. 95. 151. c. Trueth is most ancient and that is it that came from the Apostles 102. Turkes and Iewes take occasion the more to be hardened for the popish doctrine of Images and transubstantiation 217. V. VIsible demonstrable succession is neither certaiâ—e note of Church not trueth 28 â—7 c. 51. Vnity and Christian peace may and ought to be kept in the Church though the rites be diuers 312. c. Vnity vnlesse it bee in verity men are not to continue in 417. c. Vnity in euery thing followeth not vpon right praying for the spirit 247. c. Vnity papists haue not though they bragge thereof neuer so much 70. 71. 97. 246. 252. Vnâ—uersalitie indeed the Romish Church hath not 388 c. Vocation ordinary hath not alwaies beene found in them that haue beene meanes of the conuersion of nations that haue profitably preached 30. 123. c. Vocation may be good and lawfull though the called haue faults 131. Vocation of what sort popish prelates haue 14 c. Vowes in popery foolish and superstitious 306. c. W. VVAnts and faultes of the Church to reforme men are not bound onely to vse praier 141. Way that is narrow both for life and religion is to bee preferred before the broad way 395. c. Workes that are good indeed rather founde with protestants theÌ„ with papists 280. c. 286. 404. FINIS Faults escaped in printing through the absence of the authour the hardnes and smalnes of the hand wherein the copy was offered to the presse and the vnacquaintance of the ouerseers with the same A. p. 1 l. 26 â— why for when 4. 16. before for vnto B. 1. 7 the for that l. 33. the for their 15. 16 for second 11. l. 20 when for whom l. 35 for the their C. 1. 12 pruning for prouing 7. 12 them for them l. 25 put in I say next therefore 12. 23 for first sixt 15. 11 put out of desposed the first s D. 2. 9 Paula for pacta and in Armonians e for o and in Moralia is for l. 6. 9. put in next them they doe 7. 1 that for the 9. 34
AN ANSWERE TO MASTER IOHN DE ALBINES NOTABLE DISCOVRSE AGAINST heresies as his frendes call his booke compiled by THOMAS SPARK pastor of Blechley in the County of Buck. And I heard a voice from heauen saying Come out of her my people that yee be not partakers of her sinnes and that yee receaue not of her plagues Revelat. 18. vers 4. Put your selues in aray against Babylon rounde about all yee that bende the bowe shoote at her spare no arrowes for shee hath sinned against the Lord. Ierem. 50. vers 14. ACADEMIA OXONIENSIS SAPIENTIAE ET FELICITATIS Printed at Oxforde by IOSEPH BARNES Printer to the Vniversitie 1591. TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE ARTHVRE LORD GREY OF WILTON Knight of the most honourable order of the Garter his especiall good Lord and Patrone Thomas Sparke Wisheth all good perseuerance in Christian courage and constancy in the profession and furtherance of Gods sincere truth with all other ornaments of true nobility to Gods glorie our comfort and his owne heart good contentation nowe and euer ALthough Right Honourable when I had first perused this treatise of Iohn de Albines I foūd it thorow out a most bitter inuectiue a malitious declamation written onely of purpose to deface disgrace amongst the simple both our religion the ministers professors thereof yet finding withal as I did as anie indifferent man that reads it shal that neither for matter nor manner of writing there is any newe thing of any importance in it which hath not beene before euer this discourse of his sawe the light oftē that far more substantially vrged by some other of that side therefore which hath not also heretofore been as oftē fully effectually answered by some or other of ours I not only iudged this to be the reason when it hauing now been amōgst vs in english these 16. or 17. yeares none hitherto had vouchsafed it any further particular answere but also though vrged as your Honour knoweth to frame vnto it a speciall direct answere I could yet hardly be brought to thinke it necessary so basely I esteemed of it to aford it any other answere then either a fewe marginal notes that whē I first red it I bestowed vpō it or frō point to point as it were in a table to haue shewed the reader where and by whom he might read the same thing long ago often obiected on the one side answered by the other which might haue bene in one sheet of paper very well dispatched Howbeit in the end calling to minde what your Lordship tolde me concerning the opinion that our poore seduced cuntrimen seeme secretly to haue amōgst thēselues of it as you learned by one of their owne speeches had thereof vnto your selfe in acquainting you first with the booke and marking how not onely by publishing it in english but also by entitling it both in the forhead ouer euery leafe a notable discourse against heresies they themselues haue plainely shewed that they haue it in no base account finding it also since to be the iudgement of a certaine learned man of auncient and long experience euen of our owne side now this last yeare published in print that the hauing of this very booke so long in secret amongst them vnanswered hath bene one great cause of the apostasy of so many yong mē as of late yeares in this our cuntry haue reuolted from the truth to popery at the last I resolued with my selfe though I know that whē I had done what I could herein that I should be foūd to haue said litle or nothing not said writtē aswel before by some one or other of our side that yet your Lordships request made vnto me to answere it as fully and directly as I coulde when you first shewed me the booke how you came by it was is such as that both of duty to your selfe particularly for sundry causes to the church of Christ generally for that by this means many may see togither an answere to that which otherwise in great part either they might chance neuer to hit of in any other wryter of ours or else be driuen to search more those further then it was likely they would or could I was bound to satisfy in as good sort as any way conueniently I could Hauing therefore encouradgement by these reasons to take it in hand hauing now by Gods grace finished it in maner as you see I present the same vnto your Honour as an vndoubted token of my dutifull affection towards you beseeching you not onely to take the paynes as your leasure serueth you to peruse it ouer your selfe but also desyring you to bee vnto it such a patrone as that it comming abroade thus by your prouocation it may haue your best protection and countenaunce to passe vp and downe openly and boldly both in the veiw of frendes and foes vnto it There was prefixed before Jhon de Albines book vvhich your honour deliuered me a long preface to the reader made as it should seeme by the publisher thereof in english and there was annexed vnto it in the later ende an offer of a catholicke as hee is there termed to a learned protestant consisting of two and twenty demaunds and six signes of false prophets heretiques and schismatiques the preface I haue aunswered and the answere thereunto I haue placed next vnto my aunswere vnto Albines booke it selfe somewhat also I haue annexed that answere of mine to his booke finished in the latter ende to shewe the vanitie and childishnesse of those things which the author hath vttered in the application of those six signes to vs but to that which hee hath written concerning those two and twenty demaunds I haue said nothing And indeed because otherwise the booke was growen farre greater then I imagined at the first it woulde I haue not at all inserted that offer nor anie part thereof The reason of my not medling at all with those two and twenty demaunds and not troubling this my booke at all with anie part of that offer is that Doctor Fulke long agoe hath aunswered those demaundes and that also nowe of late Master Crowley hath at large aunswered both them and that which is added concerning those signes Doctor Fulkes answere thereunto maie bee had vnder the title of an aunswere of a Christian protestant to the proude Chalenge of a popish Catholicke and it is prefixed commonly before his booke written in confutation of Allens of Purgatorie Indeede concerning the six signes hee saieth nothing not because of any greater matter in them then in the rest but because at the first they were not published with the other The demaunds though hee haue aunswered shortly according to his manner yet so sharpely and effectuallie hee hath doone it that if the Chalenger were a man of his worde hee continued not long after a popish Catholicke Master Crowleys aunswere to the whole offer worde for worde as it was annexed
the bare and running with the hounde getteth a man frendes but he that will laye flattery aside tell the plaine truth shal get nothing but hatred Thus in these daies vice is extolled vertue contemned Ill rule is made â—f and good rule neglected O heart dissembled which vnder coulour to be iust true canst cloke vnto vs hipocrisie for deuotion ambition for gentlenesse couetousnes for â—oÌ„petencie cruelty for zeale bolde babling without learning for eloqueÌ„ce florishing Rhetoricke without fruit or reasoÌ„ folly for grauity wilines without wit and fleshly wanton libertie for liberty of the Gospell This is nothing els but the deuils drifte alway couering his poison vnder some taste of suger Fallit enim vitium specie virtutis vmbra g This inuectiue speech we may iustly vse of you and your side For the summe ende of all their false doctrine is nothing els but malice with murther to the ouerthrowe of Christes Religion and the true ministers thereof This is their sheepes clothing for an vnhappy reformation Nam impia sub dulci melle venena latent Vnder sweete honny is deadly venome hid O blinde ignorance and ignorant blindnes O cruell and damnable mischiefe comming from the bottomeles pit of hel O intollerable furiousnes and heresie more detestable then it mate any longer be suffered The greate dâ—spleasure the extreame vengaunce the cruell plagues of God hange ouer our heades if this horrible heresie be not shortly remoued froÌ„ mens mindes O h These wordes iustly we maie breake out into in respect of the infinite blasphemies and abominations held and maintained by your side in this point good god how long wilt thou suffer this intollerable abhomination It shameth me it abhorreth me to thinke that these shameles beastes are not ashamed to speake of the most blessed Sacramentes of Christes Church who is able to expresse either by tongue or penne their wicked abhomination whye haue we a pleasure to forsake the true vnderstanding of Gods most sacred worde and become followers and bondslaues of the deuils counterfaite and deceitfull expositions carnall reasons set out by his ministers who in Religion are i This obiection of the diuersitie of opinions see answered at large Cap. 4. so deuided that now they dreame one thing and now another this day they like tomorowe they mislike one is against another of them euen in the highest misterie of Christ his Religion And no meruaile for the deuill is their chiefe head whom they serue and he is full of lies variaunce diuision and discorde vnder him their Schoolemasters were Hus Luther Zuinglius Oecolampadius Bucer Melancthon and the Archheretike Caluin k Therein there is no proofe that he helde any one heresy whose heresies are confuted in the Discourse hereafter ensuing l This is vntrue These with the rest of that rable did neuer agree one with another in their doings there is no vnity no certainty at all and therefore such masters such schollers come of them And this diuision this vnconstancie of doctrine was a manifest token that they were not the children of our true mother the Catholike Church nor ministers of Christ but the children of the deuill and ministers of Antichrist yea very Antichrists m Which that you papists be is most certain the contrariâ—ty of your doctrine with the auncient catholic e Church considered which I haue noted cap. 17. 29 of my answer For whosoeuer saieth S. Augustine is gone from the vnitie of the Catholicke Church hee is become an Antichrist These Antichrists haue borne a great stroke now too long time in our Realme of England in whom is no constancy no stedfastnesse of religion and doctrine These are they that haue damnably deceiued you and haue with their damnable preachings intised you from Church to Church from an heauenly Church to a malignant Church from a louing mother n This is false to a flattering harlot from the condition of grace to the state of perdition o These words remaining we iustly say to and of you from truth to falshoode from faithfull beleeuing to carnall reasoning from sauing Christ to deceauing Antichrist But good Reader beware be not deceaued be not ashamed to arise that hast so shamefully fallen be not ashamed to come home to your mother the Church sith shee is not ashamed to receiue you Let not folly lose the thing that grace hath so preciouslie offered and purchased Let not wilfulnesse and blindnesse put out so great light as is now shewed vnto thee but embrace most humblie the doctrine of our mother the catholicke church so shall you sit in the lappe of so tender a mother which will cherish you into life euerlasting Choose the best whiles choise lieth in lot What were you ashamed of your preface that you put not your name to it Indeede it is so fonde and friuolous that you might well enough be ashamed to father it An answere to the preface set before Iohn de Albines booke entituled A notable discourse against heretickes c. BEfore I take in hande to say any thing to Iohn de Albine or his booke I must craue of thee gentle reader whosoeuer thou art these two things that thou wouldest first giue me leaue to answere the long tedious and bragging preface prefixed before his booke by the publisher thereof and that then also thou thy selfe wouldest vouchsafe before thou goest any further either to the considering what Albine hath obiected or I answered to take the paines to reade ouer this my answere to the saide preface And though it seeme vnto thee of an extraordinary length so somewhat discourages thee yet the length of his considered likewise I pray thee beare with me and vouchsafe the reading of it thorow before thou proceedest any further His preface thou seest is long but indeede so vaine and friuolous it is that though it seemeth the authour thereof was some bolde and impudent Iesuite or fugitiue of our owne country yet such care he had of his credit that for feare of losse thereof he hath not thought good to put his name vnto it The vanity and weakenesse thereof may euen sufficiently appeare by those marginall notes that I haue affixed vnto it so that if I troubled thee with no further answere vnto it I hope it neither could nor should much moue thee or any other to thinke any thing the better of their Church and religion then thou didst before yet because neither he nor any of his faction for want of a further particular aunswere vnto it shall take occasion to persuade theÌ„selues or other that there is further weight and matter in it then indeede there is I will vouchsafe some more paines about it First therefore this I would haue thee Christian Reader for the coÌ„mendation of the authors great skill to obserue that almost al of it is spent in prouing those things which are needles because we teach graunt defende theÌ„ to
reason is there to the contrary but that according to the rules of decency the preface and the booke whereunto it is a preface shall be conformable one to the other And yet though this be the very methode and matter good Reader of all this his long tedious preface which I thus brieflie haue laide open before thee the poore silly man the authour thereof seemeth to haue conceiued such a liking of his owne doings therein especially towards the latter ende thereof that gloriously and triumphantly hee breaketh out into wonderful complaints amplifications and exclamations against vs. Alas poore man that hee was thought hee to meete with no reader but that would graunt him all these thinges at the first asking Or thought hee that hee had so cunningly and artificially knit those things together that no man could espy the childish losenes of them From his first generall farre set and yet vnnecessary discourse of the duety of all officers hee so suddenly falleth into the next of the properties of Christes sheepe that it was great maruaile that the man â—ooke no great harme by it But hauing recouered himselfe 〈◊〉 litie speaking belike before his wittes were well come to him â—ee neuer can hit after of any thing to the purpose For not onely all his matter and woordes besides a fewe naked assertions of his of the trueth of certaine points of his religion and falshoode of ours skipping in heere and there â—here is nothing but the circumstances of application altered one of vs might far more aptly and truely haue written against them But as those things sufficiently conuince the man and his preface of grosse folly and vanitie so if we consider but howe he hath wilfully sought to abuse his reader in cyting the ancient father Irenaeus and others to persuade his reader by his authoritie to obey their prelates and traditions we shall as plainely finde in the man palpable impiety For page second he cyteth his fourth booke and forty three chapter to proue vnto vs nowe that wee must obey their Church now speaking vnto vs by their prelates because then Irenaeus tolde the heretiques a thousand and foure hundred yeares agoe and more whom indeede the pastours of the Church that then was continued soundly in the purity of the Apostolique doctrine that they were to obey the pastours of the Church that had succession from the Apostles Which any maÌ„ may see bindeth not nor teacheth vs to do the like to theirs vnlesse they could proue theirs to be such as there Irenaeus speaketh of Likewise whatsoeuer else in this preface of his to like purpose he hath alleadged out of Irenaeus Augustine Chrysostome CypriaÌ„ Hierome or the scriptures theÌ„selues is abused for that which they spake of that pure true Church of Christ and her faithfull ministers that he would drawe his reader to think to be spoken euen of the Church of Rome as it is now and hath beene of late yeares and of her prelates which are in nothing almost like either the Church or ministers that they speake of But this is not all his fault in alleadging this testimonie of Irenaeus thus to confounde the prelates and Church with the true pastours of Christ and his pure Church a thousande fower hundreth yeares agoe whereunto theirs are no more like then darkenesse is to light but that also wilfully the easilier belike to beguyle the simple reader hee concealeth that that immemediatly followeth the former words Which is this Quisâ—câ—â— ostendimus cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secuÌ„dum placitum patris acceperunt that is which as we haue shewed with the succession of their Bishoppricke according to the will and pleasure of God haue receaued the certaine gifte of trueth and so hee hauing skipt ouer those wordes which hee thought as it should seeme in his conscience would and might be denied not to fit their prelats he goeth on with that that followed these wordes saying Reliquos vero qui absistunt à principal successione quocunquè loco colliguntur suspectos habere tanquam haereticos oportet which is in English but the rest which goe from the principall succession in what place soeuer they be gathered together wee ought to suspect as heretiques Wherein euidently it appeareth he left out the former words staÌ„ding in the author in the midst betwixt the former part of the sentence and the latter here alleadged by him to make the reader beleeue that Irenaeus minde was to teach men simply to obey such prelates without exception as haue ordinarie outward and locall succession downe from the Apostles and that that kinde of succession in place and office is the principall succession that he speaketh of which who so hath not ought by and by to bee suspected of heresy But indeede take al his words together and marke them especially those which craftily he had gelded the sentence of in his quoting of them and it is most cleare that Irenaeus here teacheth obedience onely to such Bishops as succeede the Apostles in the certaine gift of trueth that by principall succession he ment nothing else but succession to the Apostles in that gift of trueth and that therefore he would haue vs to suspect all those to be heretiques that lack succession vnto them in that howsoeuer and wheresoeuer they succeede them else Which is the very cause why according to this rule we think no better of their popish bishops priests then we do what successioÌ„ soeuer otherwise they bragge of for that sure we are that long ago they are gone from this principal succession in trueth This he knew euery one would perceiue if he had faithfully cyted Irenaeus wordes as they lye and therefore hee thought best to shew how he could followe the example of that olde fox Sathan who for his purpose in like maÌ„ner mangled the 91. Psalme Math. 4. It seemeth also that these words quocunque loco colliguÌ„tur in what place soeuer they be gathered together though he recite them in latine he would faine haue smothered for traÌ„slating the rest he omits these doubtles because without any exceptioÌ„ yea euen of Rome it selfe thereby Irenaeus would teach that they ought to be suspected to be heretiques that will not obey those pastours that succeed the Apostles in the gift of truth Which indeede the Bishops of Rome hauing had so little care to doe this great while if this rule of Irenaeus may bee followed they cannot possibly escape this suspition The credit therefore of theÌ„ waying more with the writer of this preface then his owne he thought it was better thus to leese his owne by thus shamefully abusing his reader in prouing this testimony after the popish manner then once to hazard the credit of his holy fathers the popes by right faithfull and honest dealing therewith Howbeit this kinde of dealing of his may giue iust occasion to all that are wise euer hereafter to looke better to the fingers of all such fellowes then vpon their bare
they haue deceiued the simple people vvithall vnderstande welbeloued in the Lord vvhosoeuer thou art first for transubstantiation the very archpiller of their Synagoge that if they bee very busie to seeke out who first gaue inkling of such a matter they shall finde indeede the originall thereof not to come from Marke the Euangelist or anie of his fellowshippe but from one Marke a notable Magitian and filthie heretique of the broode of Valentinian that liued as it seemeth by the stories in the raigne of Antoninus Pius about one hundred and fifteene yeares after Christ For Epiphanius in his thirty foure heresie noteth and when hee hath done plentifully confirmeth it out of the first booke of Irenaeus and his ninth chapter against the heresies of ValeÌ„tiniaÌ„ others that this same heretique by his enchaÌ„tmeÌ„t hauiÌ„g first caused a cup of white wine to beare the colour of blood made his followers beleeue that by his inuocation over it it was so traÌ„substantiated into blood that seing that he had giveÌ„ thaÌ„ks ouer it long praied it might be thought of them that gratiaÌ„ quae est super vniuersa sanguinem suum instillâsse in illud poculum that is that grace that is aboue all things had poured his bloud into that cup by which meanes wheÌ„ he had made them in admiration of him desirous to drink thereof he giues it them with great deuotion solemnity of words so wonderfully bewitched many Indeed this fellow may very wel be allowed for the first auÌ„cient fouÌ„der of this point of doctrin for there being not any one point of popery wherein Antichrist hath more manifestly shewed him selfe coÌ„trary to Christ then in this as in truth there is not because for the establishing vse of this he is both spoiled of the true nature of a maÌ„ office of the only sufficieÌ„t priest of the new testament to offer himselfe once for all for the redemption of his church who can be fitter then this auncient enchauÌ„ter Marcus to be the first author and patrone hereof especially seing Irenaeus speaking of him in the eight chapter of the foresaid booke as it should seeme secretly directed by the spirit of prophesy saith thas he was verè praecursor Antichristi that is truely Antichrists fore-runner Yet how notably soeuer this Marcus caused many simple persons in his time to beleeue his transubstaÌ„tiation of wine into the bloud of Grace yet he was so baited detected confounded for his lewd and cosening dealing therein and in other points by Irenaeus Epiphanius and others that howsoeuer in the meane time Antichrist his successour was busie vnder Leo the 9. in a councell at Vercellis and after in the councell of Lateran vnder Nicholas the 2. about the yeare of the lord 1060. in bringing Berengarius to recantatioÌ„ to reuiue againe this doctrine of transubstantiation yet as their own friends confesse namely Tonstall in his booke of the sacrament of Christs body and bloud it could not nor was not decreed for a certaine and vniuersall doctrine before Innocent the thirds time in another councell at Lateran about the yeare of Christ 1215. before which couÌ„cel the Greeke Church had separated themselues from the Latine and therefore it being a point of Doctrine not receaued as Catholike before that diuision neuer since could it be receaued in the Greeke Church for any Catholike truth How can it then haue countenance of all Christian Regions and times Bertram Berengarius the Waldenses in sundry places by writing speaking opposed themselues against it as witnesseth Bertrams book of the sacrameÌ„t the condemnation of Berengarius opinion about it at Vercellis and the articles of the Waldenses Yea a little before and in this Pope Innocents time a certaine people about Iohn de Albines Tolossa called Albigenses and that in great mighty multitudes as the French Cronicles shew denied reall presence of Christ vnder or with the outward elements in this sacrament in somuch as great warres were raised to subdue them But of this matter also I haue spoken so much chapter eleuenth 17. that here I neede thereof say no more Now touching Images or Idols and the worshipping thereof I must needes confesse that for their dealing about them they may very well pretend both antiquity and vniuersality For it appeares in all stories and in the scriptures themselues that that way not onely all other nations but also euen the people of the Iewes themselues haue beene alwaies wonderfully giuen to pollute and defile themselues but withall it appeares that god in his word writteÌ„ against no abhominatioÌ„ hath cried out either more often or more vehemently then against this But amongst Christians the first that we reade of that worshipped the image of Iesus or any other was Marcellina a filthy companion of the phantasticall heretique Carpocrates but both in Epiphanius heresi 27. and in Augustine ad Quod vult deum we finde this both noted condemned amongst other detestable errours of the Carpocratians This Carpocrates liued in the beginning of the empire of Antoninus Pius Anicet then being Bishoppe of Rome about the yeare of the lord 109. And in Origens time who died as Spanhemensis saith in the yeare of Christ 261. hee in his seuenth book to Celsus noteth that then the Christians neither suffered images nor pillers to be worshipped Likewise in Arnobius aduersus gentes who florished about the 300. yeare after Christ it appeares that the geÌ„tils obiected that as a matter of disgrace against the ChristiaÌ„s that they neither had nor worshipped any such But so far of was it that the christiaÌ„s theÌ„ thought it any disgrace vnto theÌ„ that OrigeÌ„ in the place before quoted saith that the Iewes ChristiaÌ„s hearing the law Exo. 20. not only refuse images of god choosing rather to die then to make or worship any such adding this as a reasoÌ„ that god is inuisible without body And likewise Clemens Alexandrinus who florished 100. yeares before Origen in his exhortation to the heathen confesses willingly this their obiection to be true that Christians had no images that might be discerned by sence but onely by vnderstanding because to vse that deceitfull art saieth he was forbid theÌ„ Yea and that Christians and their teÌ„ples might continue still free froÌ„ them in Constantines time in a councel held in Spaine at Eliberis can 36. it was decreed thus It hath pleased vs to determine that no pictures should be suffered in churches least that which is worshipped or adored should be painted in walles Isid tom 1. coÌ„ci And therfore Epiphaniê° 55. yeares after this councell about the yeare of Christ 390. as it appeares in his Epistle to Iohn of IerusaleÌ„ finding in the entrance of the church at Anablatha in that Iohns dioces the image of a maÌ„ pictured on a cloth there haÌ„ging puld it downe tare it asuÌ„der writing to the foresaid Iohn about it though as he confessed it seemed vnto him that it was made for
in b But that place you find not in this booke some other place but at this time we must treat of our vocation to answere him and his complices how and by what vertue we exercise our ministry c This I deny that you come to your calling in this sort for neither is there right succession amongst your Bishops and Pastours nor continuance in that trueth which yet you say only neuer proue We are called to this estate according to the ordinary way that is to say by the right succession of Bishops and Pastours and by the coÌ„tinuance of one Catholique faith deriued froÌ„ the Apostles to our daies without the interruption of it vniuersally d That trueth indeede hath alwaies coÌ„tinued and shall by the meanes of faithfull teachers but neither with you nor by meanes of your teachers is at all proued by there places Math. 5. Ephes 4. for in diuers places of the world it hath beene euer cleare and certaine manifestly shining like the light set on the table to giue light to all those of the house and not vnder the bushell to be shadowed with darkenes Saint Paul e Peruse the place you shal finde that though Paul reckon vp there those ministeries which should fully be sufficieÌ„t for the Church yet he once meÌ„tioneth not your gretest Prelacâ—es Howsoeuer therfore it may be as you hold they be necessary and most necessary for the pompe of your Church that so the better she might answere her patterne Apoc 17. yet thereby we may see Christs Church shall may grow to her perfection yet neuer bee acquaâ—nted with them after that he had recited by order the Ecclesiasticall Hierarchie I meane of the Apostles Prophets and EuaÌ„gelists he doeth declare at the last the cause why they were instituted being for the edification of the mistical body of Christ the which is the Catholique Church vntil saieth he that in the vnity of faith we go to meete him He taketh his similitude of many that come from diuerse waies and meete all in one way f Indeede hee plainely there teacheth thaâ— there shall bee alwaies to that ende teachers in he Church but hee saieth not that they shall so succeede one another either in person or place aâ— you would â—eene thereupon to builde For no such line of continuall locall or personall succession from his time to this day can be produced And thus hee meanes that the spiritual edification of the Church ordeined of Bishops Pastours and Doctours shall endure vntill that the Gospell be preached through all nations By the effect of the which Gospell both French Spanish English Greeke Persian Arabian Latines Barbares with many other nations which were too iediâ—â— to name haue met together hauing of great antiquity all one kinde of Catholicke faith by the Apostles and their successours for euer As the some of God before he suffred did attaine arriue to the perfectioÌ„ of his age euen so his misticall body of the Church shall continue in this world vntill it be perfect in his members and that the number of the chosen be accomplished And euen as a materiall building caÌ„not be perfectly atchieued without g We see and heare of many great goodly buildings in the ende perfited in building whereof there haue beene many and sometimes long intermission continuance of workemen and masons euen so the spirituall building of the Church cannot be atchieued without the succession of Biâ—â—ops and Pastours preaching or causing the word of God to be preached which is the very spiritual building the which hath beene euer common and visible in the Church according to the prophecie of Esay h Sap. â—1 say you wel hit the place is in Esay 62. Sap. 61 â—ho meaning to declare the care that God taketh as touching the preâ—eruation of his Church hee did say as it were representing the state of Hierusalem I haue established and ordeyned i But few such haue beene in your time of succession these many yeares watchmen vpon he walles the which shall neuer holde their peace neither day â—or night These watchmen are those that haue annouÌ„ced to vs our salâ—ation They are the trumpets of Iesus Christ which neuer haue left their â—ounding in the true Church of God from the Apostles time vnto this â—resent day AN ANSWERE TO MASTER IOHN de Albines discourse against heresies called and accounted by his frendes A notable discourse to that purpose made by Thomas Sparke Pastour of Blechley in the countie of Buck. .1591 Chapter first CALVIN we esteeme and account of as of a rare singular minister of Christ his writings as they well deserue wee thinke reuerently of and you haue tried them to be of great force power to shake the very grounds and pillars of your Babilonical building but our Patriarch we neither account nor cal him though you in your third word take it and therefore set it downe for graunted that we doe It seemeth you thinke scorne that hee should charge your Priesthoode not to bee of God and so to cal you to an accouÌ„t of your vocatioÌ„ Indeede I caÌ„not blame you that it grieueth you that that should be called into question seeing it is a thing you haue bragged on so long haue gained by at the hands of the blind ignoraÌ„t both al the credit wealth you haue especially seing also that what words soeuer you vse to countenance the matter yet you shall neuer be able to iustifie it Howbeit as though not onely you were able to answere Caluin to the full in this point but also as though there were either some great impiety or vanity at the least in his words you recite them twise admonishing your Reader that they are his wordes Be it that they be so what haue you saied either to argue the least folly in theÌ„ or to iustifie your vocation in such sort as therein he proueth you must or els it cannot be of God First you woulde proue Caluin in these wordes to offer you wrong in that out of the 5 to the Hebr. he gathereth that vnlesse you can proue God to be the authour of your vocatioÌ„ it cannot be of God because the Ciuill law prescribeth that one should proue his right of possession before he demaunde it and that he should restore the spoile before the suit proceede But who seeth not that that which he alleadgeth out of the 5 to the Hebr. doth more iustifie his demauÌ„de that either you must shew that god is the authour of your Priesthoode or els confesse that you are not called of God then anie thing that you haue noted out of the Ciuil law can proue that he offereth you any wrong in calling for this at your hands Because you are an Archdeacon it should seeme that you would faine that men should thinke to the ende you may be iudged the fitter man to execute your office that you haue some skill in the
is the thing that Caluin telleth you you must shew or els you must confesse your calling is not of God seing it is but to an office of your owne boldnes deuised and taken in hand And yet this being a thing which to iustifie your calling it stood you vpon most in the best maner you could to haue proued yea without the profe wherof all that euer you haue saied or can say of neuer so ordinarie a comming thereunto is merelie vaine friuolous yet you saie you will not meddle with it here at this time but you put it of to another place not once finding time place in this your discourse to speake a word of it againe Wherein at the first entrance in the eies of the wise you haue giuen your Priesthood a greater wound then al that you haue saied concerning the lawfulnes of your vocation thereūto can euer heale vp againe For this thing being the most pertinent material thing that could be your drift and purpose in this discourse considered for you to haue laboured about as about the soule of your cause to giue al the rest life how could you perswade your selfe but that in thus shifting of this though so thrust vpon you by your owne citing of Caluins words but that euerie one would straight iudge that you did it not because you had no will to haue proued it but because you feared that your skil would not serue you substātially to doe it And therefore in pollicy you thought it more wisdōe thus to passe it ouer as though you could saie enough thereof if you list then by entring into it to lay open your weakenes to your frends in so great a matter at your first entrance into your booke Howsoeuer you haue thought it the safest waie in this place to say nothing hereof for sauing your credit to make shew as though you would say enough in some other in the mean time euē here the nature of your popish Priesthood considered I confidentlie aduouch that neither you nor all you togither can euer proue indeede that it is of God For the Scripture teacheth vs that Christ hath an euerlasting Priesthood and that he executed that office here and doth stil there where he is for his Church so perfectlie that he hath this prerogatiue that he needeth no successors to cōtinue his office as the Priests of Aaron had nor anie other either to offer any new or to iterate that sacrifice which he offred himselfe for the saluation of mā he hath offred one so perfect so perfectly once for al He. 7.23.24 10 10. c. which prerogatiues the massing Priesthoode robbeth him of first in that they will bee his successours in the office of Priesthoode and thē in that they take vpō thē to offer him again in sacrifice to his father for the sinnes as they say both of the quick dead most blasphemously make thēselues in their offering him againe to his father mediators betwixt him and his father praying him as it appeareth in there masse-book that he would fauourably looke vpō and receiue those hoasts which they there offer vnto him for the soules of such and such Ex missâ pro defunctis ex secretis Werefore I dare be bolde to say that so far of is it that their Priesthoode is of Gods ordinaunce that most certainly it is of Sathans owne deuising and is most iniurious to the death and passion of Christ and therefore Antichristian Howbeit seeing you haue left Caluins assertion that it is not of God standing without any refutation and so are contented vntil you better aduise your selfe what to say against it to let it stand still in the meane season to render vs account of your cōming vnto it vpon condition that wee will make ready our papers when you haue answered vs to answere you how we come by our Ministery I am content to accept of this your condition and so to heare first what you can say for the iustifying of your vocation and after when and where you cal for it to yeeld you an account of ours But then in the meane time I must put you in minde and pray the gentle reader to marke it that for any thing you haue saied yet Caluins assertion against your office of Priesthoode it selfe that it is not of God standeth in full force You write that you are called to this estate according to the ordinary way that is say you by the right succession of Bishops pastours and by the cōtinuāce of one catholique faith deriued from the Apostles to our daies wtout the interruption of it vniuersally This you say indeede but what haue you either here or els where in this your notable discourse for so either you or your frends cal it brought vs to proue this you cite here Mat. 5. Eph. 4. a place out of Esay with is there Cap. 62.6 though in your booke it be quoted Sap. 61. but neither any of these nor al these togither do proue your saying to be tru For taking the places in your own sēce the things therby proued are only these first that the tru Catholick faith hath alwaies so shined that it hath giuē light at al times in one place or other to thē within the house that is that be wtin the true Catholick Church to such as be neare thereūto and within the sight thereof and that Christ wil haue continually euen vntill his second comming and vntill his Church bee growen to her ful perfection his trueth continued in his Church by faythfull Pastours and Ministers and to this ende serueth also in your opinion your similitude taken from a materiall building which cannot be perfected without continuance of workemen vntill it bee done which yet caryeth with it a dissimilitude euen in the thing wherein you resemble it vnto the Church For we see by daily experience that in material buildings if they be great there are often tymes great and many interruptions and ceasings of the workemen and yet in the ende the building well enough prefected But bee it that these places proue these things and that your vnapt similitude hath no vnfitnes in it what is all this to the purpose doth it hereupon follow that you come to your offices of Priests Bishops as you haue saied Because Christ hath alwaies will to the ende preserue and cōtinue the light of his trueth by the faithful ministery of some in his church which is a thing which we alwaies haue constātly firmely beleeued to be true because he hath had hath and wil euer vnto the ende haue a holy catholicke Church against which the gates of hel neither hath at any time doeth nor euer shall vniuersally preuaile shall it hereupon follow that therefore your Priests Bishops are the mē whom Christ hath alwaies and yet doth vse to this ende or that amongst thē there hath alwaies beene the right succession in one Catholicke faith Their
must needs be good and lawfull and ours the plaine contrarie Howbeit if we examine this point throughly we shall find that they haue as weake helpe hence as from the other or from any thing else For whither they vnderstand by right succession succession without interruption in place person or office seuerally or iointly togither neither can their Bishops and Priests as they are now truelie saie they haue it nor yet if they could they being gone as they be from the soule and life of right Apostolicke succession namely the Catholicke and Apostolicke trueth are they euer the better And of the contrarie though it were neuer so true that we could not deduce vnto our present Bishops and Pastours downe from the Apostles or their times without interruptiō the line of succession in place person and office yet we being able to shew as wee are that we holde one and selfesame doctrine with them that would iustify our Church and ministers sufficientlie notwithstanding the want of the former This is quickly and easily sayed you will saie but these thinges cannot so readily bee proued I graunt to proue them will cost the more paines otherwise the proofe is readie and pregnant enough and that I doubt not but if with any indifferency that which I shall write to that ende bee marked shall ere it bee long appeare I say therefore first that the Roman Bishops and Priestes as they are now and haue beene a long time whatsoeuer they brag no not their verie Popes vnto whose right succession Stapleton and others trust most haue any right succession either to any Apostle or Apostolick man in place person or office For first they can neuer soundly proue the proofes out of the scripture are so strong to the contrary their proofes out of the stories so disagreeing and variable in all circumstances that Peter the Apostle whose successours their Popes claime to be and from whom al other Bishops and Priests amongst them haue their vocations and authority deriued was either euer at Rome or being there that hauing laied aside his Apostleship which was the greater and higher office he sate there as Bishop Secondly vnto this day they cannot agree of the order of succeeding one another betwixt Linus Cletus Clemēt Anaclet Vrspergensis in the life of Claudius hath notably at large set out both the difference of opinions in this matter and also the vncertainty of the trueth Thirdly none of any learning and reading can be so ignorant in the stories of the Bishops of Rome but he knowes that they haue not succeeded one another frō the Apostles to this day wtout interruptiō alwaies neither in place persō nor office For besids that sūdry times many Popes for some short time haue sate from Rome it is notoriously knowen that Clement the 5. about the yeare 1305. translated the Popes see from Rome into France to Auinion where it continued aboue 70. years And as for immediate orderly successiō of persons amongst them how is it possible truely certainly to define set downe that seing that see hath not onely stoode vacant daies weekes monethes and years somtimes 2. sometimes more but also there hath bene at once so often not only 2. but often 3. sometime more euery one striuing with his fauorers to be accoūted to be the right Pope And lastly by that which I haue said before of the nature of their offices of Popes Cardinalles Bishoppes Priestes their practise prouing daily my words therein to be most true how dare any mā that hath any feare of God once say or think that they in their offices haue any affinity with the Apostles or any Apostolicke man Light darknes are not more differing the one from the other then the offices of Apostles Euāgelists Prophets Pastours Doctours in the ancient primitiue Apostolick Church differeth from these offices of theirs Secondly whereas I sayed though yet they could which now you see they cannot truely say that they succeed the Apostles Apostolicke men in place person and office yet they were neuer the nearer my reasons thereof are these First I finde that wicked people wicked Priests in the scriptures often haue had this kinde of succession to pleade for themselues against the true Prophets and against Christ himselfe as you may see Ierem. 7. vers 4. cap. 8. vers 8. Iohn 8. v. 44. Vriah the Priest in King Ahaz time had this successiō frō Aaron and yet he to please that Idolatrous king set vp cōtrary to the commandement of the Lord an altar according to the patterne that the King had sent him of one that hee had seene at Damascus 2. King 16.10.11 The high Priests that withstoode alwaies Christ his doctrine and in the ende crucified him had this kinde of sucession yet none of these or their doings were any thing the more iustifiable for this Againe though Stapleton lib. 13. doctrinalium principiorū cōfesses that the Greekes haue beene scismatiques and heretiques this 500. yeares yet he all the sort of them of any reading know that not they only but also the Patriarches of Antioch and Alexandria and the Bishops of sundry other famous Churches in the world all which likewise they holde bee scismatiques and heretiques can doe make as great shew of this kinde of succession for the countenancing of their ministery and Churches as they themselues for they knowe that the Patriarch of Constantinople doeth deduce his locall and personall succession from Andrew the Apostle that the Patriarch of Antioch now sitting at Damascus doeth likewise his from Peter which he may doe more certainly then the Popes when they sate at Auinion could for it is euident Gal. 2. ver 11. euen by the scripture it selfe that Peter was at Antioch so is it not that he was at Rome In like maner they knowe that the Patriarch of Alexandria now holding his seate at Alcairum deriues his from the Euangelist Saint Marke And ignorant they are not that the Arrians preuailing as they did and in the ende hauing got the most seats of Bishops to be furnished with men of their dānable opinion that they for that time were able to holde this plea aswell as themselues and yet I am sure they will graūt that none of these were therfore or are therfore to be allowed iustified They will say I am sure for so I finde thē plainly to reply in their writings yea euen Iohn de Albine himselfe afterward Cap. 7. that though these all can and doe plead succession in place person and office that yet it cannot iustifie them because not onelie they haue helde some of them detestable heresies but presently also doe still Indeede I must needs confesse that I read that Macedonius Nestorius and Paulus Sergius abrupted the line of right successiō by their heresies at Constantinople that Paulus Samosatenus did the like at Antioch and that Dioscorus and Petrus Moggus did likewise at Alexanderia And
Catholique faith Catholique Bishops succeeding one another When as indeede and trueth it is as impossible for you to proue that you haue any iust right to anie of these as it was for those heretiques But howsoeuer you make some beleeue you haue all these yet I say vnto you with Saint August De vnitate Ecclesiae against the Epistle of Petilian chap. 10. That euen Catholique Bishops are not to bee consented vnto if that anie where they be deceiued in thinking anie thing contrarie to the Canonicall Scriptures And therefore when all commeth to all and when otherwise you haue runne your selues out of breath in conclusion will you will you by these Canonicall Scriptures must it bee determined whither you haue anie right to anie of these or no. For if you appeale from them as indeede you doe to the Church and fathers they will sende you backe againe for the triall whither that which they speake bee true or no onelie to the Scriptures as it maie appeare vnto you not onelie by this one place which I haue cyted out of Augustine alreadie but also by a number such like places both to bee founde in him else where and also in others For you maie reade in the first booke and seuenth Chapter of Theodoret that when Constantine sawe great controuersies in the Church in the Nicene councell and perceaued that euerie seuerall companie bragged of the trueth and so also of the Church and fathers to bee on their side to ende all those controuersies he saied Ex diuinitus inspiratis oraculis quaeramus solutionem eorum quae proponuntur that is out of the oracles that are come by diuine inspiration thereby meaning the Canonicall Scriptures let vs seeke the determination of those thinges that are propounded and so they did And as Constantine the Emperour was of this minde so it appeareth that Athanasius was of the same For to Serap hee saieth Solum exsacris literis condiscas meaning that the holie Ghost is God sufficiunt enim documenta quae in illis reperias Thou maiest learne it onelie out of the holie Scriptures for the documents or lessons which thou maiest finde in them are sufficient And Origen vpon the 16. to the Romanes in his tenth booke agreeing herein with these saieth that onely by the holie Scriptures the difference of trueth from errour in the examination thereof is to bee discerned And yet more plainely the same Origen in his first Homilie vpon Ieremie writeth of necessitie wee must call for the testimonie of the Scriptures for our senses and declarations without them as witnesses haue no credit Well therefore saied Augustine de naturâ gratiâ cap. 61. Onelie to the holy Scriptures doe I owe my consent without refusall And therefore franckely hee telleth Hierome in his nineteenth Epistle that hee had learned to yeelde that honour onely to the Canonicall Scriptures to thinke that the authours thereof therein neuer erred Where he plainly sheweth vs by his example how we should reade his writings or the writings of any other father namely beleeuing that which they wrote no further then we see it by scripture confirmed or by probable argument not dissenting from the trueth And the like he teacheth yet more plainelie in his 111. 112. Epistles to Fortunatus and Paulinus in the proeme of the third booke of the Trinity Wherefore with the same Augustine I confidently say and write whither of Christ or of his Church or of any thing that appertaineth to our faith and life I will not say wee that are not to bee compared with him that saied though wee but as hee addeth though an Angell from Heauen shall preach any thing besides that yee haue receaued marke hee saieth not contrarie but besides in the legall and Euangelicall scriptures let him be accursed in his third booke against Petilian cap. 6. Yea your owne Vincentius in the very place quoted by you denyeth not but taketh it for graunted that the scriptures of themselues alone are sufficient for all things yea and more then sufficient Whereupon it is euident that Vincentius by the rule line and true sence of the Catholique Church that there he speaketh of vnderstandeth onely such a sence or line as agreeth best with the scriptures themselues and the right rules of the interpreting of them wherof more afterwards In the meane time howsoeuer Vincentius his meaning was Augustine an ancienter father more famous somewhat then he speaking of the rule of faith that alwaies in interpreting of the scriptures men must haue an eie vnto and be ruled by saith that it is euen that which is taught in plainer places of the scripture de doctrinâ Christia lib 3. cap. 2. de trini lib. 1. cap. 2. 4. Yea in the same Augustine de doct Christ lib. 2. cap. 6. distrinc 37. c. Relatum we may reade noted out of ClemeÌ„t that the church is not to receaue any fence for the true seÌ„ce of the scriptures which caÌ„not be proued so to be out of the scriptures theÌ„selues And therefore all interpretation of scripture newe or ancient deliuered by the fathers in former time or receiued of their children of this later age must and ought according to this rule and line bee iudged catholique or not The IIII. Chapter Cant. 1. WHose discourse doeth make me remeÌ„ber the complaint that the soule doeth make vnto her Spouse Iesus Christ beeing both represented by Salomon and his legitimate spouse I pray thee saith she O my deare frend tell mee in what place thou doest lie and rest at noâ—â— daies for I would be very glad and desirous to follow the flockes of thy felowes The which is as much to say as if she meant thus I see many shepheardes in these mountaines which haue great abundance of sheepe I see those of the Roman Church I see Donatistes I see Nouatians or to speake of our time I see one flocke follow Luther another follow a The Caluenists Zuinglians and Sacramentaries are commonly amongst you taken for one yet here that the variety of opinions may seeme the greater you reckon them vp as three distinct sorts Zuinglius another follow Caluin another the Anabaptists another the SacrameÌ„taries so forth diuers others of whoÌ„ wheÌ„ I demauÌ„d particulerly Whose is this flocke they do al answer me It is of Christ euery 〈◊〉 saieth this is the catholicke Church euery one doeth say that he is his fellow that is to say as touching the guiding of his flocke Now it is not possible that they doe al teach the trueth considering how they varie among theÌ„selues therefore I doe desire thee to tell me where thou doest rest thy selfe at noone daies That is as much to say teach me which is the true Catholicke Church which doeth celebrate the true misterie of the Crosse which is the place where thou wast nailed at noone daies beeing nailed both handes and feete Heare now the answere of Iesus Christ If thou doest not know the place
will shal bee founde flockes of goates and not of sheepe and foxes and wolues seeking the destruction of the sheepe rather then true sheepeheardes But you would make the Reader beleeue that Salomon in this place by you cyted out of the first of the Canticles doeth teach the true Church safelie alwaies to pitch her tentes and to feede by the visible and apparent succession of pastours which from age to age can leade her without leauing her by the waie euen to Christes time Which you saie yours can doe and ours cannot boldlie aduouching that vnlesse we be not ashamed to lie wee cannot shew where our Church or Religion was an hundreth yeares agoe and that wee cannot denie but Luther began to preach our new Gospell in the yeare 1517. And thus againe partlie by this note of visible succession of pastours and partly by vpbrayding vs with certaine differences of opinions amongst vs about the maner of Christes presence and diuerse and sundrie fantasticall heresies that of late daies haue sprung vp and beene reuiued you labour to iustifie your Synagogue of Rome and to condemne our Church of Christ which thinges you harpe vpon very much and often afterwarde in this your treatise Wherefore to aunswere you to all these thinges here once for all first I tell you you offer violence to Salomons wordes in making them to containe a prophesie of any such perpetuall and visible succession of flockes and pastours in the possession of one trueth as you inferre thereupon and make it the speciall marke and note to discerne Christes true Church from all that falsely bee so called For then it should bee contrarie to that view of the state of Christes true Church which I haue set downe vnto you and prooued by infallible arguments in the first Chapter which may not be seâ—ing the scripture alwaies agreeth with it selfe And yet the Church may haue good vse of Salomons aduise giuen her here in her greatest ruins and interruptions of her ordinarie and visible forme and beautie in looking to the visible flockes and sheepheardes that were before that God so chastised her as in Achaz time in looking to and following those that were in Dauids and Salomons timeâ— in Manasses and Ammons time in looking to and following those in Ezechiaths Iehosaphats times in the time of the captiuity in looking to following those that were in Iosiahs time And yet doe not so take me as though I thought that either Christes true Church or the true sheepheards thereof did at anie time vtterâ—â— cease or faile for I am perswaded they neuer did nor shall But this onelie is the thing that I now say that though this place of the Canticles doeth shewe that in no time there is any true flockâ— of Christ but there hath gone before a flocke and shepheardes which that may safely followe euen to the finding of Christ yet it proueth not that there hath alwaies immediately gone before it from time to time some visible so apparent flockes and shepheards one immediately succeeding another as that the names of the sheepe and shepheardes are alwaies famously knowen and therefore easily to be reckoned vp of euery one which are the thinges which you seeme to inferre hereof and therefore require of vs to bee done or else you would faine make the Reader beleeue that wee neither are the Church haue the trueth nor true right ministers thereof Wherein many waies you offer vs great wrong for after you your selfe distrusting belike that in any seate or line of Bishops without interruption this can be performed speaking of your line of Popes whereof all the sort of you bragge in this case most cap. 8. to vpholde and drawe along your right succession you tell vs flatly you meane not when you speak thereof onely of them but of al Bishops elswhere that they may continue it in the interruptions of that liue somewhere else and yet at our handes you require vnder the penalty aforesaied that we should froÌ„ age to age and from person to person orderly succeeding one another deduce ours For when we say it was continued alwaies by some in some other places when wee can no longer finde it in your Romish see whereinto by little and little you haue craftily â—rept and wherein for many hundred yeares before men of our Church and Religion sate and taught you reiect that our answere as a shift Another wrong that you offer vs herein is this that your Antichristian Synagogue hauing according to the prophesie Reuel 12. persecuted our flocke into the wildernes with the sheepherdes thereof you require that wee should euen in respect of such decaied distressed times of the church giue you as euident demonstration of our flockes and sheepheardes as may bee giuen thereof in the florishing and peaceable state of the same For there is no reason in requiring that in the decaies and ruines of the Church which accompanieth alwaies the Church in her prosperous and standing estate Besides herein you offer vs the greater wrong in that notwithstanding it be graunted of vs that both perpetuall continuance of the Catholique faith and also some kinde of succession therefore of teachers be necessary alwaies for the continuation of the Church yet you cannot but knowe especially seing that prophesie before named that also 2. Thes 2. must bee fulfilled of the church of Christ in respect of some time of her soiourning here on earth that thereupon it followeth not that therefore their succession is visible and demonstrable alwaies in your sence or else wee must yeelde that there were none such For who is so simple but hee is resolued that all men now aliue come by lineall succession from some of Adams children and yet fewe or none can bee found that can rightlie no not the skilfullest harrold of them all deduce their pedagree from thence Must it therefore followe that there hath not alwaies beene for all that a certaine lineall descent if you should thus inferre euery one might laugh at your follie For long processe of time distance of place betwixt some of our progenitours and vs lacke of Cronicles or the neglect of such genealogyes in them alterations of names and countries and diuerse such like things maketh the one not onely hard but for the most part impossible and yet no man doubteth of the certainty of the other Euen so in this our present question most certaine it is there haue alwaies beene both flockes sheepherdes to continue both the trueth Christes church For that wee graunt is necessarie but yet through continuance of time force of your Antichristian persecution distance perhaps of the flockes and sheepeheards in place from vs that God in some ages vnder your tyranny hath vsed to continue his church by and lacke of faithfull and carefull writers to cronicle such matters especially your wouluish and foxy sheepheardes beeing alwaies watchfull and mindefull to their vttermost either to blot out their memories quite in not
suffering their Croniclers to mention them or else in causing them to deface them with strange name and false slaunders maketh it very hard yea if impossible no marueile you hauing the euidences whereby we should doe it for the most part a long time in your owne keeping to vse at your owne pleasure for vs to name from time to time the places and persons that haue alwaies succeeded one another for the continuance of our faith and Church But to returne againe to the consideration of this place of the Canticles further I saie as I saied before that you erre in alleadging this or any other place of the Scripture to proue that the Church of Christ may safely account those flockes in possession of the trueth and therefore to bee followed and those sheepheardes true sheepheardes and therefore meete alwaies to bee consented vnto that lineally downe from Christ can deduce their personall succession For so as I haue shewed in the first Chapter and it is not denyed of your selues sundry heretiques in their times haue done and can doe still If therefore you say you meane still that flocke and those sheepheardes that together with their visible personall succession haue alwaies beene in possession of the true ancient faith I answere first you begge still the thing in question in supposing that to haue beene alwaies ioyned with your flockes and sheepheards which we say and are able to proue they fell from many hundreth yeares ago Secondly I tell you once againe and now this time for all that you shall neuer bee able to proue but that both that personall succession may bee separated from trueth and also trueth from it and that therefore it is neither a certaine meanes to knowe the trueth nor the Church of Christ by Thirdly for your collection out of this place for the iustifying of your Church before ours because as you say from time to time for this thousand and fiue hundreth yeares you can shew the descent and continuance of yours and we cannot of ours for one hundreth yeares no not beyonde the yeare one thousand fiue hundreth and seuenteene we affirme that both in the one and in the other herein you write vntruely For first if your Church as it is now either in respect of the doctrine or gouernement thereof bee compared with the ancient Roman Church in the Apostles times or for many hundreth yeares after there is such diuersitie betwixt the one and the other as that the one beeing founde the chast spouse of Christ the other must needes bee proued to bee the very whoar of Babylon The simplicity of the ministerie that then was is turned amongst you into a pompous Lordly and more then Princely prelacy And then the Church was fedde with the pure worde of God conteyned in the Scriptures and so ledde thereby perfectly to vnderstand the will of God and with you as carefullie as may bee that is kept from her and in steede thereof shee is fedde with the dreames inuentions and traditions of men Then she was taught to account the name of Christ the onelie name whereby commeth saluation Act. 4. and therefore that in him all thinges were prepared Math. 22. and now with you besides him Saintes Angels your owne merites and the merites of others satisfaction in this life by your selues and after by others with a number of baser things must ioyne with him in the office of intercession betwixt vs and God and in the most glorious worke of our saluation as though hee either could not or would not go perfectly through with the worke of our saluation in himselfe and by himselfe but had so begunne it as that the accomplishing and perfecting thereof were left to these vaine and foolish by-meanes Then her faithfull doctours and teachers taught her that Christ in saying Hoc est corpus meum this is my body meant that it was a signe figure of his body as you may reade in Augustine against Adimantus the Maniche cap. 12. and in Tertull. against Marcion cap. 4. and in infinite places elsewhere in the ancient fathers and now contrary to nature yea to the verie nature of a sacrament contrary to the analogie of faith and good manners yours teach that those wordes being vttered by your Priestes thereupon followeth such a transubstantiation of the bread into his bodie that whosoeuer receiueth the outward parte of that sacrament receiueth in by his mouth the naturall bodie of Christ If thus I were disposed to go a long as farre as I might and to leade the reader to a full view of the difference betwixt the Romish Church that nowe is and that which hath beene I should euen therewith make a great booke But further of these differences I haue noted as you may reade Chapter 19. 20. and else where in this booke And Doctor Fulke against Stapletons Fortresse hath noted out of Bede and other authours of good credit 50. differences betwixt the church of the English Saxons in the time of Augustine the monke who was 600. yeares after Christ at the least and the Popish church that now is and infinite be the differences then betwixt the Church before in her puerer times and the Popish Synagogue now And therefore whatsoeuer you bragge neither you nor all your fellowes shall euer be able to proue indeede that your personall succession hath beene ioyned with the continuance of one and selfesame doctrine of Christ vnto these daies And to come to the other point therein I saie you write vntruely also For so far of is it that we graunt Luther to haue beene the first that preached the Gospell that wee now embrace and that wee cannot shewe by whom and where it was preached and receaued before that there is nothing more common with vs in answering this your obiection of newnes then to tell you that so farre of is it that it is newe indeede that it is the very ancient Religion and Gospell taught both in the olde testament and newe and therefore though it grieue you wee tell you that the ancient Patriarches and Prophets Christ and his Apostles taught the verie same and no other and all the ancient doctours and fathers as farre forth as they were able to iustify that which they taught by the Scriptures were sheepheardes of our church and teachers of our Religion Indeede we confesse that as Hilkiah the Priest in Iosiahs time 2. King 22. found the booke of God and was so a meanes to bring those thinges to light that by the wicked proceedings of Manasses Amon and others had for a certaine season lien hid So Luther in these late daies was a singuler instrument of God to reuiue and bring to light diuerse pointes of Christian faith which your Antichristian Synagogue had long laboured to smother and hide from the eies of the Church And yet hereupon it no more followeth that he was the first that preached our Religion then vpon the former it followed that Hilkiah was then first the
Now betwixt Iohn Wicklifes tyme and the florishing of Iohn Hus which was about the yeare 1410 very many both here and elsewhere for following Wicklife were persecuted as namely here in England William Swinderley Walter Brute William Sautry Iohn Badby and William Thorpe whereof diuerse were most cruellie burned Then when Iohn Hus and Hierome of Prage had beene burnt at the councell of Constance for taking the like course in Boemia that Iohn Wicklife his fellowes had done before here in England about the yeare 1417 the religion that we now professe began to gather so great strength in Boemia that the professours therof were able not onely to defend themselues by force of armes from the intended oppressions against them by the Bishop of Rome and his adherentes but also to get many glorious victories against the strongest powers that the pope could raise against them Now from the yeare 1410 when Hus began to florish vnto Luthers tyme 1517 wonderful many both there in Boemia here in Englād and elsewhere continually rose vp and stoode forth euen vnto the death against popery in the profession of our religion Amōgst whō here in England at one tyme in the yeare 1413 there were burned in Saint Giles fielde vnder the name of Lollardes 36. Amōgst whom Sir Roger Acton Knight Master Iohn Browne and Master Iohn Beuerley were put to death After 1415 Richard Claydon and Richard Turning were burnt in Smithfield about this tyme 16. of name were persecuted in Kent and very many in other places of this Land Within a while after in the yeare one thousand foure hundred twenty two William Tailor was burnt here and two yeares after that William White was burne and betwixt that time and the yeare 1430 father Abraham of Colchester Iohn Waddon and Richard Houeden were burnt And about that time Paul Crow a Bohemiā was burnt there Thomas Rhodonensis at Rome And ere Luther beganne to preach against the Pope and his doctrine from the yeare one thousand foure hundred and thirty here suffered for the same religion that we now preach and embrace amongst many others Richard Wich Iohn Goose one Babran one Ierome and others with him Iames Marden William Tilsworth one Father Roberts and Sir Iohn Olde-castle the Lord Cobham Now since Luther I hope you will not deny but the nūber of them that are on our side against you euen in these Westerne parts cary such a visible shew that you cannot but heare and see the multitudes thereof round about you at home and abroad to be such that I dare say your harts begin to feare that if the number increase but a while longer as it hath done of late your Romā prelate is like to turne vp his heeles to leese his glory in these westerne parts aswel as hee hath done long ago in the Easterne cuntries And therefore you cannot but likewise thinke that he doth very wisely prouidently to send before hand as he doth his Ihesuits amōgst the sauage and wilde Indians to prepare him there a new kingdome against he hath lost his old here For not onely vnder your owne noses in Italie and Spaine and elsewhere wheresoeuer your antichristian tyranny causeth your religion to haue outward and publicke allowance to your griefe you see doe what you can our religion findeth still many constant confessours euen vnto death and hath done now these many yeares but also you know that so many kingdomes and cuntries haue giuen yet doe open allowance to ours and defyance to yours as antichristian that by this time you cannot but see your old argument of vniuersality groweth fast to be out of date force with you and beginneth a pace to stand on our side For euē in these Westerne parts our doctrine is embraced and professed and hath beene now a good while with the allowance of publicke authority and yours openly defaced writen and preached against as antichristian in the kingdomes of England Ireland Scotland Denmarke Sweden and France likewise in Bohemia and in Polonia in diuers whole territories Dukedomes in Holand and Zeland and in the Prince of Russia his dominions And besides who knoweth not that in like maner it is now hath beene long in the Dukedome of Saxonie and of Brunswicke in the dominions of the Palsgraue of Rhene the Dukedome of Wittenberg in the territories of the Lantgraue of Hessia and the Marques of Brandeburge besides the great common weals of Heluetia Rhetia Vallis Tellina and the cuntries of diuers other noble men in other places of Germany and elsewhere But they that hereby sufficiently doe not perceiue the folly falshood of your saying that before Luther we can name none to haue beene of this mind I refer them for further confutation of that your shamelesse vntrueth vnto Illiricus Catalogue of the witnesses of the trueth to the Centuries of them of Magdeburge and to master Foxes Actes and monumēts of the Church where they shal finde not onely much of these thinges here briefly touched by me more at large set down but also further proofe out of good authors that this religion which wee nowe professe hath had alwaies since Christ to these dayes in once place or other both embracers and teachers of it And therefore though it hath not alwayes had so visible and glorious a succession of pompous ambitious and proud prelates as yours hath had for these later tymes since Antichrist grew to his pride and height yet it hath neuer beene without flockes and sheepheardes one going before another in the profession of our religion euen vp from our dayes vnto Christ But when for very shame conuicted with the force of the trueth you are driuen to confesse that in some parte it may be true that there were alwaies some that ioyned with vs yet to driue vs from alleadging their names and succession against you you say they yet helde so many different and lewde opinions that we cannot fetch any continuance to our faith or religion from them Whereunto I answer first that we are not to beleeue your reportes of them but their owne Apologies and writings whereby it appeareth that it hath bene alwaies your fashion the more thereby to discredit thē to charge them to holde a number of absurd opinions which they neuer held Besides I say though it may be in some points we and they differ yet as long as we they agree in the foūdation we haue learned to account them our brethren 1. Cor. 3. and so to ioyne with them in that which they hold well And lastly to driue you from this shift we tell you that if you will countenance your religion and Church with none but with those that agree with you fully in all pointes there is neuer an ancient father for 600 yeares no not any writer or pastour in the Church of any good credit for 1000 yeares that you may make any reckoning of that which then wil go very neare you euen
before vs agreeing in vnitie of faith as I haue already said For neither the naughtines of h There is no such there mentioned this is your common hap in your quotations It seemes you would haue said 2. Kings 16. Achas Num. 1. nor of Ioram nor of diuerse other great sinners which are inrolled in the booke of the generation of Iesus Christ were not able to withstand the fulfilling of the promise of God made to Abraham that is to saie that he would be borne of this line Euen so the ill liues and conuersation of diuerse wicked Popes that haue followed after Saint Peter haue neuer beene a This is true and yet you neuer the nearer For though al Papists faile in faith yet his church neuer faileth able to moue Christ to breake his promise that is to saie that the faith of his Church should neuer faile Math. 16. and that the gates of hell that is to saie of infidelity which are the portes of damnation should neuer preuaile against it b I see not how that chapter or any thing therein serueth to this purpose any whit at all Esay 58. Our aduersaries therefore that take such great paines to set forth in golden legends the liues of the wicked Popes that haue beene since Saint Peters time thinking thereby to ouerthrowe the succession of the Catholicke ecclesiasticall faith c Your comparison is odiou◠neither doe wee lay open their wicked liues to that ende you speake of but to shew that your glory is your shame doe no lesse offend God then if they should go about to proue the promise of God made to the Patriarches to bee vaine because of the evill liues of their successours Therefore those that doe reproche vnto vs now that the Popes of our daies are not altogither so holie as S. Peter wee doe confesse it But they cannot deny or they will confesse vnto vs that the aboue named euil Kings Achaz Ioram Manasses Amon Iechonias and others did leade no such holy liues as Abraham Isaac Iacob or Dauid yet notwithstanding those euil Kings haue beene set forth in the generation of our Sauiour as the fathers of the iust Iesus Christ Let them iudge then that haue any witte whether this bee a great folly or no to see how these crafty coggers of the scriptures should make many simple persons refuse to be the Popes spirituall children because they were sinners seeking thereby to ouerthrow all the ancient customes of the Church The VII Chapter WHither onely your succession doeth suffice to ouerthrow all our Religion or any part of it though you here confidently say it is and suppose that to be the cause why we reiect it I refer to the iudgement of the reader by that which hitherto hath beene saied by you and confuted by me concerning the same Whereby also I doubt not but euery indifferent reader may perceiue that we haue and doe still yeelde other causes of our reiection of it and not this at all Whereas you call our Religion here heresie that you haue learned of the corrupt Orator Tertullus Act. 24. But as he tearmeth poore Paul there a captaine of the Sect or heresie of the Nazarites and the high Priest and elders saied it was euen so yet hee was not ashamed of the Gospell of Christ which they so tearmed but stoutly saied before Felix to their faces that according to that way which they counted heresie he worshipped the God of his fathers beleeuing all that was writē in the law the Prophets so though you giue vs neuer so many nicknames and tearme our Religion neuer so oft new and an heresie and haue your high Priest of Rome and your elders to bear you out in so doing we neuer a whit the more mislike of our Religion as long as wee are able in trueth to say with Saint Paul which our consciences witnesse comfortably we may that therein we doe but beleeue that which is taught vs in the canonicall Scriptures Indeede not Caluin only but euery one of vs when we haue to doe with you in this question of your succession we tell you your reason drawen frō your succession is of no force seeing the Greekes whom you account heretiques may vse that argument as well as you But to preuent this our obiection against your argument of succession you say They haue not succession and continuance of doctrine the which ought euer to be ioyned to the continuāce of pastors to shew the true recognisance of the Catholique Religion We are glad to see heare that euidence force of trueth hath wrong frō you this kinde of honest true replie to our obiection yet we thanke you not for it at all For ful gladly if our obiections had not driuen you to it perforce would you haue run on which bare succession of Bishops pastours without any mention of this Well howsoeuer you haue beene drawen to confesse thus much thereupon it doeth most euidently followe that if there be as little continuance lesse too in the Apostolicke faith and doctrine in your succession as there is amongst the Greekes then by your owne confession your succession is as weake a recognisance of the Catholique Religion as theirs And therefore the case thus standing you had neede to haue bestowed lesse paines to proue your personall succession and more to haue proued this succession and continuance of the true Catholicke doctrine for the other wtout this you see is nothing What a preposterous course is this then that you haue takē to take such leasure to bestow pains on that which when you haue gotten is nothing to find no leasure to bestow any paines on this which if you could haue proued your aduersaries would haue stoode with you no longer Enter yet into this controuersie when you will I dare vndertake if you will be tried in this case by the canonicall scriptures which as I haue shewed you must of necessity it shall easily be proued that notwithstanding all you can say against the Greekes your popish Religion consisteth of more heresies and is a greater Apostasie from the ancient Catholique Apostolique faith then theirs The greatest thing you charge thē withall is their denying of the proceeding of the holy ghost from the Father the Sonne which indeede if they denied in that sence that is obiected against them by you doubtles therin they were heretiques But it should seeme that they refuse only that word as not vnderstood of thē added as they say without the consent of the whole church to the creede of feare onely least by admitting the word they should thereby be enforced to cōfesse that he came not of one beginning but of two beginnings in the meane time vsing other words expressing in effect the same thing And if it be thus as in the last session of the Florētine councell it should seeme to be els where thē in that respect their cause is not so ill as
you would make it But be it though you only say both proue neither of theÌ„ against theÌ„ that they held it in the worst sence now stil that also as you say in certaine other smaller things they hold otherwise then was held by Chrysostom Cyrill Basil Athanasius yet I say will staÌ„d vnto it that as daÌ„gerous heresies mo in nuÌ„ber be held of your own coÌ„pany against the truth of Christs person office theÌ„ they hold in all in far more greater points of weight are you gone froÌ„ the ancient fathers that haue beene in the latin church wtin the first 600. yeares theÌ„ they haue done froÌ„ theirs And therefore in the meane time whiles you will ioyne this issue with vs vntil you haue disproued this my assertioÌ„ by the same reason you reiect their succession will we perseuere in reiecting yours Now whereas you secondly imagine that we labour to weakeÌ„ ouerthrow the force of your argument taken from succession by laiâ—ng out the lewde liues negligence in doing of their duties in many of those pastours Bishops of whose succession you boast true it is that prouoked by your too too great brags of your personall succession by your immoderate railing against some of our pastours and ministers whom yet you cannot staine but with false and maliciously deuised tales sometimes some of vs haue beene occasioned to cast your owne dunge into your faces And we being able as wee are euen out of your owne stories so iustly to lay such a number of most notorious thinges to the charge of verie many of your greatest Prelates and the matter being notorious that fewe or none of your Popes and Archprelates euer take it vpon them by preaching to feede Gods people which is the principall duety of a Bishop we thinke still that that which we say and obiect against you in this behalfe may iustly cause you to be ashamed of such fathers so to cease both your bragge of succeeding them your railing against vs. To disproue the force of this our allegation you dispute the matter as though we went about to proue that the succession of trueth hath ceased in the Church because we thus obiect against the persons of many of your predecessours whereas we most constantly holde beleeue that it hath alwaies continued and that though you grow ten times worse then any that hath beene before you it shall stil vnto the worldes ende But withall we tell you it hath beene continued by others and not by those wicked and negligent pastours and predecessours of yours that we speake against For as their liues were deuilish so was their doctrine Antichristian as yours their childrens is Too too foolish therefore is it that you write that wee doe no lesse offende God in laying forth the liues of sundry of your Popes thinking thereby to ouerthrow the succession of the catholique Ecclesiasticall faith then if one should go about to ouerthrow the promise of Christ to the Patriarches because of the bad liues of diuerse of their successours For we holde that the Succession of the Catholique faith hath continued and will to verify that promise of Christ Matthew 16. though neuer so many of your popes go to the deuil Neither did we euer in laying forth their most filthy liues thinke thereby to ouerthrow the Succession of faith for we neuer tooke them to haue any society or coniunction with it since they became such But you still according to your old woont taking it for giuen which shal neuer be offred you that their personall succession and the catholique trueth went alwaies togither which we doe most earnestly deny imagined that wee could not speake against the one but that therein also we sought to ouerthrow the other when as we are perswaded that of al other persons vnder heauen your Popes for this long time haue beene Sathans most forcible meanes to ouerthrow both the Apostolique trueth and Catholique Church Wherefore you see you might wel haue spared your paynes in the greatest part of this Chapter and so let any that hath witte iudge whither it be not great folly for any man to be so simple as to seeke to be the childe of such fathers as neither had honestie nor any soundnesse of religion as many of your Popes for any thing that you haue yet saied to the contrary haue beene whose children yet how bad soeuer you would haue men to be The VIII Chapter VPon Moises Chaire there sitteth sayeth our Sauiour Christ who not the godliest meÌ„ of the world but the Scribes Pharises doe that they saie but not that that they doe But if our new Gospellers had beene in those daies they would haue tolde Christ that his commandement was not to be obserued because the liues of Anna and Caiphas were not correspondent vnto those of Moises Aaron for the first came to the vocation of priesthood being called of God but the last attained to it by the vocation of their a As many of yours doe or by worse means or else your owne frends bely theÌ„ purses and yet notwithstanding rather then our Sauiour would breake this harmonie of the misticall bodie of the Church he was not onely content to permit that Caiphas should execute his office although hee was vnworthy as one that came to it by Simonie but rather he did confirme his pontificat with the gift of the Spirit of Prophesying with the which he was b That is grosse blasphemy as fullie inspired as euer was Dauid Esay or any of the rest and all to teach vs that that I haue alreadie saied I meane that the Ecclesiastical order the administration of the Sacraments doe not consist in the good or euill liues of the pastours but onelie of God and of his word interpreted by them As touching that that appertaineth to our health God hath no regard to the life of the magistrate temporal or ecclesiasticall for he can aswell serue him with an euill person to doe good to the common wealth as of a good as the godlie prophesies of the wicked Balaam doe well witnesse Num. 24. And here is to be noted that when we talke of the succession of Bishops and of the doctrine continuing in the Church we doe not meane onely to talke of the c Indeede you doe wisely to call for helpe of others for otherwise the necke of your successioÌ„ hath often bene shamefully broken Popes but of all the Bishops and other hauing Ecclesiastical charges not onelie at Rome but thorow al other places where the true preaching and right administration of the Sacraments be vsed And therefore you doe pretend in vaine to proue that the aboue mentioned succession hath beene interrupted by the discention of Popes Antipopes and by the Ciuil warres that haue bene at Rome in times past For although that the Sea of Rome was vacant for a time the Chaires of Bishops in France Spaine England and
not be against himselfe Ma. 12. what were they to do els but according to that the God gaue theÌ„ and the places they had in vniuersities in the church to proceede to call the people yet froÌ„ those errors to the truth When fire shal take hold of a city or the enimy scale the wal in the night if the least burgesse shall giue an alaruÌ„ yea if it be but a straÌ„ger the watchmaÌ„ sleeping that should giue warning no maÌ„ would staÌ„d trifling in demanding by what title he did it but streight he will run to the water and to the wals and laie to his hands to preueÌ„t the mischiefe thanke him that gaue the warning And yet wheÌ„ the meÌ„ we speake of giue notice of a greater danger though it be as necessary to listen vnto them to be warned by them as the saluation of mens soules is yet they caÌ„not finde this wisdome and thankfulnes in men It should seeme by your standing thus precisely vpon the necessity of visible succession ordinary impositioÌ„ of haÌ„ds in theÌ„ the god shal send to teach men or els they may not be heard that either you haue not red or els that you greatly disseÌ„ble your knowlege that God hath vsed the ministry of diuers persoÌ„s that haue wanted those to coÌ„uert nations to lay the fouÌ„datioÌ„ of churches to doe very much good For Ruffinus in his Eccl. Hist 1. booke and c. 10. Theodoret in his 1. book c. 23. report that a captiue maiden did first kindle the light of the Gospell amongst the IberiaÌ„s who being the meanes first to coÌ„uert the Queene the Queene coÌ„uerted the King he wtout any orders as you call them taught his people the Christian faith so begaÌ„ the church there It is also writeÌ„ by Ruff. lib. 1â— c. 9. by Theodoret in the 22. c. of his saied booke by Nicep in his 8. book c. 35 that AEdesius and Frumentius brought thither being â—â—yes by Meropius a philosoper and there taken and preserued aliue when he and the rest of his company were slain growing after into good credit and authority there were the first means of the sowing of the seede of the Gospell amongst the Barbarians in the further India to the profession and exercises whereof especially Frumentius and that not onely after that by Athanasius he was ordained there bishop but before euer by any he was ordeined either minister or bishop was a notable effectuall meanes both to excite marchantes that came thither and to drawe the people of that countrey it selfe Moreouer Eusebius in his ecclesiastical history reporteth in his sixte booke and 19. Chapter that Origen taught publikely before he had ordination certaine bishops being present which when Demetrius Alexandrinus obiected as a fault to Alexander bishop of Hierusalem and to Theoclistus bishop of Caesarea they defended themselues by alleadging diuers such famous examples as namely of Euelpis Paulinus and Theodorus which in like sort had preached without the ordinary ordination Yea read Nicephorus 2 booke and 25. Chapter and he will tell you that vnder Constantius Antonie the heremite taught at Alexandria and that vnder Valens at Antioch Aphraatis Flauianus Iulianus being then but monkes who in those dayes were not reckoned amongst Clarkes at all for vnto Gregories time they were not accounted Clarkes did publickely preach and confute heretiques And yet these examples I alleadge not that I would be authour to anie when an ordinarie calling may be had to despise that and to take vpon them that function of the Ministrie without that lawfull ordinary calling for that were to disturbe the peace of the Church and to open a gap to much disorder and inconuenience but to this end to make it appear that the Church of God in former ancient times hath not so precisely and curiously stood vpon these points of visible succession and ordination for the iustifying of ones preaching the Gospel at al times and in all places as you doe For doubtles there haue beene times and yet may be as after that great apostasie spoken of 2. Thes 2. in other great ruines of the Church when it hath and may please the Lord to call men extraordinarily to this worke without either immediate locall or personall succession going before who as long as they preach but the trueth and otherwise the times be so corrupt that of them that haue authority ordinarily to call men to that busines such rather should be shut out generally then let into the ministrie are to be receiued heard and listened vnto as such whom the Lord of his mercy hath extraordinarily called himselfe The XIIII Chapter CAluin doeth alleadge to vs that the Apostles doe saie that no bodie ought to take vpon him the honour of the high priesthoode except he be called to it as Aaron was meaning by that to conclude that of our owne authority we haue vsurped the dignitie of Priesthood a And â—et to no purpose We haue answered him at large of our vocation by the succession of Pastours ioined with the imposition of handes I doe demande of him or of his if they can make any true answere to the like obiection You doe laie to our charge the all liues of our Popes and Bishops and the naughtinesse that you pretend to finde in our Preachers but all those inuectiues serue to no other purpose but to shew how you keepe b Nay you shall haue the bell both for that for prophane iering scoffing a learned schoole of railing the which preheminence we doe yeeld to you without any debate or processe for ye maie attribute that vnto your selues as your owne by right insteede of the imposition of hands which ye want But in one thing to my iudgment you are greatlie ouerseene and that is this c When you obserue this lawe your selues we wil learn of you Why doe ye not fill both sides of your booke in the one you set forth at large without omitting anie point of their ill doings al the naughtie lives of our Pastours and Bishops but the other sides of the leaues are emptie you should haue writen on them the holie liues of your Ministers succeeding one after an other this thousand and fiue hundred yeares When the Popes Bonifacius Gregorius did gouerne ill their Seats at Rome d I haue sufficiently answered this cap. 4. which were the good and holie ministers that did their duetie at Geneua When our Doctours did preach against God in times past in what part or vnder what sign were your Ministers lodged that did then preach the pure word of the Lord e Reasoned like your selues as though the Apostles neuer lawfully hid themselues from the fury of the persecuters if they did hide themselues they did not folow the pure word of the Lord the which you say is necessarie to know the true faithful beleeuers For Christ doeth saie Mat. 10. that hee that shal deny him before men him
gentiles namely to Augustus Cesar which profes though they were granted to be of sufficient force to proue that the gentiles had thereby some knowledge of the cōming maner of cōming office of such a Messias yet they proue not but that it was notwithstāding a thing newe and not vnderstoode to most of thē neither doe they at all proue but that still the doctrine concerning the particuler person of that Messias namely that Iesus the sonne of the virgin Mary whom the Iewes crucified was he no other was a new doctrine both to Iew and gentile and therefore in that respect it was necessary for the Apostles for all these thinges to confirme that by miracle whereas now amongst vs that beare any waie the name of Christians that doctrine is not newe neither anie thing else that wee preach but to those to whom the ancient doctrine taught in the Scriptures is newe and therefore as yet there remaineth cause sufficient why the Apostles should worke miracles and not wee This also I cannot but tell you of that howsoeuer the Sybilles are reported to haue prophecied of Christ your comparison is verie odious when you saie they did it as fully and as plainelie as anie of the Prophets and that you wrong Augustine too too much in making your Reader beleeue that hee either in the place quoted by you or anie where else ioyneth with you in that malaperte comparison But these comparisons of yours argue the profanenesse of the spirite that directeth your pennes The XX. Chapter THVS you see that Iesus Christ was anounced among the Gentiles before the comming of the Apostles who notwithstanding this did not let to set forth the doctrine that they were sent to preach vvith manie notable miracles although they did not teach but that doctrine that was verie ancient And although that their doctrine vvas newe and vnknowen to the Gentiles yet you cannot alleadge that it vvas so a Yes it is evident that the true doctrine both of his person and office was new and strange vnto thē vnto the Iewes for they beeing studied and learned in Moses lawe they hearde nothing of the Apostles but had beene prophecied by the Prophets Doeth not Saint Paul saie at the beginning of his Epistle to the Romanes that hee was seperated to preach the Gospell the which God promised by the holie Scriptures * Act. 3. Saint Peter talking with the Iewes doeth giue them plainelie to vnderstande that his vvas no newe doctrine because that hee did preach Iesus Christ of vvhom Moses had prophecied long before saying thus * b Deut. 16. God shall raise a Prophet among your brethren b Deut. 18. you would saie you shall obey him as you doe me and hee that doeth refuse it shal be put to death Saint Peter saieth afterwarde All the Prophets that haue beene from Samuel vnto this time doe announce vnto you these daies that is to saie the doctrine that wee doe preach That that the Apostles did preach vnto the Iewes that is to wit the remission of their sinnes by the death and passion of Christ it was no newe thing for as * Act. 10. Saint Peter saied vnto Cornelius All the Prophets haue vvitnessed that those that beleeue in him shall obtaine remission of their sinnes for it had beene so prophecied by Esay c 53 you should haue saied cap. 55. vnto the people aboue eight hundreth yeares saying that hee had laied vpon his sonne all our iniquities as it doeth appeare in his booke in the vvhich he doeth shew himselfe more an Euangelist then a Prophet for there hee doeth vvrite the tormentes of our Sauiour euen as if hee had beene present at his passion Dauid likewise doeth talke of the like where hee doeth mention the extreame affliction of our Redeemer and of the Gall and Isope and the Vinager Daniel did not onelie discrie the death of our Sauiour but therewithall the verie time that he should come And to bee briefe all the Prophets haue announced vnto the Iewes that that the Apostles did preach vnto them Now if wee desire to knowe why this olde doctrine preached aswell to the Gentiles as to the Iewes by the Apostles was confirmed vvith manie miracles vvhich they did in the name of God vvho sent them the cause is this the Deuill had so obscured and hidden the trueth ouer all nations that superstitious Idolatrie had taken place in steede of the true seruice of God so that the poore Painims did not put their trust in one God but in a multitude of Gods And in like maner the true Religion giuen by God to the Israelites had beene troubled and almost cleane abolished by the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees in the vvhich they did trust for the iustification and remission of their sinnes d And in your owne consciences you cannot but see we haue iust cause The like doe you report of vs and of your great curtesie yee are contente to match vs vvith the superstitious Iewes and Idolatrous Paynims placing your selues in the degree of the pure Gospellers and the true children of God taking vpon you the succession of the Apostles and calling your congregation the true Catholicke and Apostolical Church This sounds notablie well but seeing that your cause is absolutely to reforme the Church as they did preaching the ancient doctrine of God as they did and dealing with superstitious Idolaters that cleaue more to the traditions of men thē vnto the pure word of God as the Iewes Seing then that our case is reported vnto the similitude of the Iewes and yours to the Apostles and Prophets how comes it to passe that you doe not as they did seeing that you are sent frō one master Why e Because our doctrine being the very same that theirs was their miracles serue sufficiently to confirme it to take away al excuse from them that will not beleeue it to the worldes ende doe ye not make your commission appeare by signes and miracles seeing that God hath euer done the like heretofore when he hath sent the like Commission to yours The XX. Chapter I haue shewed you my reason in the former Chapter why you must stay for all your premises from the conclusion that you beginne withall in this For howsoeuer some few of them thē heard in some sort that such a Messias either should come or was come yet the particuler person who that same was was first preached by the Angel Gabriel secondly by Zacharie and Elizabeth his wyfe Luke 1. before he was borne then by the Angels to the shepheards the day of his birth after by Simeon and Anna Iohn Baptist the Apostles of Christ and the rest as it followeth set downe in the story Luke 2. c. But you say yet further that though their doctrine concerning Iesus Christ the Messias was vnknowen to the Gentiles yet it was not so to the Iewes for the Apostles preached nothing but that which
this as though you meant as honestly as any man could desire in this 33. Cha. of yours you tel vs that you would haue the Scriptures interpreted by him that did indite thē and therfore you alleage that 2. Pet. 1. that no prophecy in the scripture is of any priuate motiō or interpretatiō For the prophecy came not in old time by the wil of mā but holy mē of God spake as they were moued by the holy ghost wherupō you insinuate vnto vs that you would haue thē interpreted by the directiō of the same holy ghost which we are very well contented wtal For indeed that onely interpretation is sound and good that commeth from thence and that is alwaies to be accounted to proceed but from a priuate motion that hath not ground from thence though otherwise neuer so great and publique persons and neuer so manie deuise it receiue it and hold it neuer so long And therefore it is that we tell you that your interpretations though they be countenanced with Popes doctours and councels and what els you will yet are to be reiected as priuate interpretations vnles they be warranted by the testimony and authority of the holy Ghost But thē say you you challēge this holy ghost to lead you to the true sence how shal we beleeue that it dwelleth more in you thē in al the vniuersal church from Christs passiō to this time I answere you that we take no such thing vpō vs. For we say if you vnderstand by the Church you speake of Christs Church which hath frō thēce cōtinued vnto this day it hath neuer bene destitute of the same spirit of God that now leadeth vs into all trueth otherwise if thereby you vnderstād onely your own Synagogue of Rome as the state of it hath beene these later 500. or 600. years at the least we say as it hath forsaken the true Christ and hath set vp another of an office of her owne deuising so hath shee beene destitute of his spirit and hath beene guided but by an humane foolish spirit But then you aske vs where this spirit did rest before we were borne Wherunto you thinke wee can make no other answere but that 〈◊〉 dwelt in the heartes of the faithfull And is not this a good answere What fault can you finde in it Is it not true Doeth not Gods spirit dwell indeede in such yea and in none but such Now whereas you thinke that if you should aske vs againe where were those faithfull ones our answere onelie would bee where the holy Ghost was and that wee could giue you no directer answere and so thereat you take your pleasure saying that that is to plaie handie dandie c though if wee should answere you no otherwise we might doe so with better reason then your Collier in Hosius so much commended by him and some of you else might answere as he did who when he was asked how he did beleeue answered as the Church beleeueth and being demanded how the Church beleeued answered as I beleeue For the Scripture doeth expressely binde vs when wee are called to answere for our faith that wee should yeelde a reason thereof 1. Pet. 3. and so it bindeth vs not to bee alwaies able to make demonstration who bee the faithfull and where they dwell from time to time yet you vnderstand well enough if you were disposed that wee both can and haue giuen you a more particuler answere and that wee haue tolde both the names of the most famous persons and also where they and their followers haue liued and dwelt that beleeued as wee doe and therefore had the holie Ghost as well as wee But to let your gibing go if in earnest you would haue it tried whither in interpreting the Scriptures you or wee haue the holie Ghost and so consequently whither you or wee bee liker these heretiques you speake of in misinterpreting the Scriptures your interpretations and ours must bee examined which will stande best with the rest of the Scriptures wherein we are sure the holie Ghost hath spoken and so they whose interpretations are found best to agree therewith sentence must bee giuen on their side that they haue the holie Ghost and that the other haue it not For Chrysostome writing of the holie Ghost gaue this rule to trie whither Montanus and Manicheus had this spirit or no as they bragged and hereby hee proueth that Christ taught by this spirit because hee confirmed his doctrine out of the Lawe and the Prophets whereas the false teachers could not doe so Christ himselfe also by his owne example hath taught vs when the question is betwixt two about the sence of a sentence of Scripture yea though hee that bringeth the wrong sence be the verie Deuill himselfe that this is the next best and ordinariest waie to stoppe his mouth and to make it appeare that hee hath brought a wrong sence to see whither it will stande with some other plaine place of Scripture or no. For when the Deuill had alleadged the ninetie one Psalme in this sence that the meaning thereof was that though Christ should throwe himselfe downe head-long yet his fathers promise was that hee should take no harme because by this sence sathan would haue perswaded him vpon presumption vpon his fathers protection to haue tempted him Christ proueth that that could not bee the sence of the place because it was writen as it is Deut. 6. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God And with this answere sathan as cunning and malitious as he was gaue ouer to replie any further for the iustifying of his sence Math. 4.7 So also Iohn 5. in that great controuersie touching the person and office of the Messias when as the ground thereof was that his enemies had falsely interpreted the prophesies concerning him yet Christ for the determination thereof and to make it appeare whither they or hee brought the truer interpretation thereof saieth Search the Scriptures And therefore when Paul had preached the Gospell at Berea it is noted to the commendation of certaine men there that they searched the Scriptures daiele whither those things were so by that meanes labouring to satisfie themselues in this great question whither Paul or the Scribes and Pharisees had the spirit of God in interpreting the Scriptures concerning the Messias And this course all the ancient fathers haue followed as appeareth plentifully in their workes in the confuting of those heretiques that you speake of and all other and consequently in determining whither they or themselues had the direction of the holy Ghost in interpreting the Scriptures And therefore they haue giuen vs rules to helpe vs in this case as for example Tertullian against Praxeas hath giuen vs this Fewer places must bee expounded by the more Augustine this The circumstance of the Scripture is woonte to giue light and open the meaning in his booke of Questions quaest 69. Darke places are to be expoūded by more plaine places that is the
answered by texts of scripture these old heresies by you before mētioned For euen therby you maie see that though heretickes neuer so much misaleage scripture that yet the true ministers of the Lord may must alleage them euen to answere to cōfute their heresies by And therfore it stādeth stil firme that if we by alleaging of thē aright cā proue you heretickes your opiniōs which we striue against heresies which no further then we can doe we neuer craue anie credit to be giuē vs whatsoeuer you would seeme to haue saied to beat vs frō alleaging of thē that it appears that therby both we our doings and religion are sufficiētly iustified both before God and mā These misalegers of scripture which in al these Chapters you haue spoken of you saie you will not staie to confute for two causes because they raigne not now and their heresies togither with thē the authours therof are perished because the anciēt doctors haue cōfuted them as you saie but indeed the reason was that you were loth to occupie either your selfe or reader in so profitable a matter It semeth you tooke more delight in shewing how the scripture might be misalleaged to fortifie heresie then how rightlie alleaged to cōfute the same and therfore you could find leasure to stay 4. or 5 Chap. in that but not at al vpon this Besides if it be true that you haue reported if you had wel remēbred your selfe you would not so generally haue saied that they were al perished For read your Chap. ouer again and you shal finde that therin you haue spoken of some that are not so quite dead and perished but that euen in these daies they need to be cōfuted But you say that with you haue here noted either of them or of their heresies and their alleaging of scripture for the sāe you haue done it onely to giue warning to simple people that they should not too rashly giue ear to false pastors which haue nothing in their mouthes but the holy scripture and the pure word of God so couering the cups of their poison with the gold and pretious stones which they haue taken frō the image of the eternal king to paint those subtil foxes that will lead them al to dānatiō If you had indeed done it onely to this end you had not bene to be misliked but in deed and trueth you haue done it to breed in men a carelesnes and negligence in searching the scriptures and a cōtempt of alleaging the same to determine the cōtrouersies betwixt vs and you Otherwise thinke as you speake and we are ready to ioine with you both in this also in that which you adde in wishing the simple and vnlearned in reading the harde places to take heed they fal not into error by taking onelie the letter c. For if great learned men thereby haue bene endangered how much more may such But surely this is rather a caue at meet and needful for you thē for vs if we go no further but to your peeuish taking of the letter of hoc est corpus meū contrary to al sound rules of right interpreting as I haue shewed before Now wheras hereupon you take occasion according to your maner to ieere at our ministry as though in Frāce Englād especially it were generally vnlearned and consisted of the basest and most contemptible of the people you are worthy of smal answere your speech there about is so apparētly false slāderous For God be thāked in both kingdoms you your selues are enforced to feele to your whole kingdoms griefe and deadly wound in the end I doubt not that there are great store of learned ministers and bishops far other maner of men then you haue named And therfore your own conscience could not but tel you vnles it were seared with a hoate iron that they doe in neither kingdōe cōmit the guiding of the sterne wtout cōsideratiō to al kinde of people In both places both their doctrine publicke order of their churches aimeth at a learned godly ministry wherof if in some particulers they faile which in so great a multitude and compasse altogither cannot bee auoided the faulte is to bee laied in the particuler men by whose negligence or corruption it so commeth to passe and not in either of the churches which would gladly that no such fault should at all be committed Howbeit I dare say howsoeuer you ruffle in your tearms of pedlers Coblers Tanners Bankerouts and raunagates and say that such be our interpreters of the scriptures and that we hold euery such one once admitted by a bishop to be a minister to haue the spirit and to be great doctours to whom no place of scripture is too hard because they can rayle of the Pope say al the ancient doctours were men and the generall councels did erre that yet you can neither proue our ministers to be such nor that for these balde reasons wee thinke any so qualified as you write It pleased you but in this to shew your spitefull and malicious spirit but alas who will thinke doe you what you can that you indeed mislike a base and vnlearned ministry who not onely haue held and yet haue as great cause so to doe stil as euer that ignorance is the mother of deuotiō but also vpon that ground haue all your Church seruice in a tongue that the people shall not vnderstand and content your selues for the most part with such priests as can scarsely rightly read the same Truely if there had bene but a crumme of right modesty shamefastnes in you knowing as you doe the notorious basenes grossenes and ignorance of your ordinary masse-priestes you would neuer haue taken this pleasure that it seemeth you did in thus railing on defacing and slandering of ours Indeed by that saying of Christ Matth. 11. by you quoted Ioh. 8. when we see what grace and giftes of knowledge God oftentimes amongst vs bestoweth vpon such in the meane time beholding in what great blindnes and errour a number of great Rabbins and doctours amongst you walke on still we take occasion as Christ hath taught vs to giue thankes to our heauenly father that hath reuealed these thinges vnto babes which yet your great wise men and men of vnderstanding see not But you would not haue vs by this place to defend that such meane men may come to be cunning and skilfull in the Scriptures Your reasons are two for that other heretiques haue so alleadged it and for that this is to be vnderstood of the humble in spirit whereas these men of ours trust to their owne wittes and are puft vp with arrogant ignorance c. You thought good yet neither to tell vs what heretikes when nor where howsoeuer you knowe I trust that men must not shame wel to vse that Scripture that heretiques haue abused Concerning your other reason I graūt you the place is to be vnderstood onely of the humble and meeke in
done so likewise therein your fault is double For first in so saying you tearme the Religion for the which they whom you call Caluinists and Lutherans died false which you shall neuer be able to proue so to be and secondly in so saying you would seeme to make your Reader beleeue that amongst those whom you call Lutherans some haue died euen for the confirmation of their singular opinion wherein they differ from their brethren whom you call Caluinists and that so some haue died for the confirmation of Zuenfeldius vanities which is more also then you can proue I am fully perswaded The XXXIII Chapter SOme of your godly sect to a If you had meant to deale plainely you should haue named the man the place where any of vs do thus childishly reasoÌ„ verifie that the vocation of your ministrie doeth come of God doe set before our eies the holines of those new Christians that is to saie how they neuer sweare but yea for yea and no for no that they doe no wrong to no man that they doe neither robbe nor steale but that they are content with that that God hath sent them that they are very charitable to the poore then seeing that our sauiour doeth saie that one shall know the tree by the fruit b â—ndeede we may truely say howsoeuer some that professe our religion either through the coÌ„mon frailty of man or hypocrisie haue too too little of this fruit growing of theÌ„ that yet if they should follow the rules of our religion they should bear this sweet pleasant fruit abundaÌ„tly we ought to confesse saie they that the tree being good the fruit is good that is to saie their Religion is good seeing that by the grace of God it doeth produce such sweet pleasant fruite I answere you first to this that our sauiour doeth not euer giue generall rules but that that most commonly doeth happen as when he saieth that * Luc 6. of the abundance of the hart the mouth speaketh would you affirme by this that his meaning was vniuersally God forbid that he that is the authour of all trueth should meane so starke a lie Doe you not remember what speech he did vse to the Pharisees wheÌ„ he saied * Mat. 15. this people doe honour me with their mouthes but their hearts are farre from me you see that this sentence is contrary to the other if you doe not vnderstand it as I haue saied that is to saie that manie times a man doeth vtter that that is in his heart as a ruffian takes great pleasure to talke of quarels a proude person to talke of hautie enterprises a couetous man to talke of riches or gaines and so it is of all other sinnes But with all this a man may not affirme truely that hypocrisie doeth neuer raigne in their hearts whose mouthes are full of Gods word * Dan. 19. The Iudges of S. Susan had not they God and his lawes in their mouthes and the Deuill in their hearts * John 18. We haue a lawe saied the Iewes and Pharisees against Christ and according to this lawe giuen vs by Moses he ought to die The zeale of iustice did sound in their mouthes and hatefull enuie did dwell in their heartes And therefore you see manie times that man doeth speake contrarie to that that hee thinketh and euen so it is of the sentence of our Sauiour when he saieth that by the fruite one shall knowe the tree For manie times naturally the fruit is good although the tree be worth nothing c The heatheÌ„ Philosophers liues howsoeuer they caried a shew of the matter of holines they caÌ„not be said to be holy good indeed because their workes were without faith lacked the form of good workes as the famous liues and workes of diuerse heathen Philosophers doe witnesse of whom the holines and scrupulosity of conscience was such that I doe beleeue assuredly that at the daie of iudgement a great number of Christians which leade Painims liues will be confouÌ„ded with the example of those men that knew not God Thus of the first the fruite is good but the trees are worth nothing for their Religion was false Idolatrous applying as S. * Rom. 1. Paul doeth saie the truth of God to vnrighteousnes And as for the second the trees are good being grafted vpoÌ„ the true Catholique Religion but the fruites doe degenerate from the stocke The XXXIII Chapter IN this Chapter you saie that some of vs haue gone about to iustifie that our vocation is of God by the holines of life found amongst vs because Christ hath saied The tree is knowen by his fruit and the good tree bringeth forth good fruite Mat. 7.17 Howsoeuer thus you would perswade your reader that wee are driuen to vse these kinde of arguments taken from the shew of patience in our Martyrs and the goodnes of the liues of the professors of our religion the trueth is though sometime the goodnes of their cause considered we take comfort in their patience and the reformation that our religion hath wrought in many remembred in some sort we reioice therof also yet neuer did we build the credit of our vocation or religion vpon either of these For we know there may be hath bene great shew of patieÌ„ce in such as haue died for heresie and that religion is not to be iudged either by the badnes or shew of goodnes in the liues of them that professe it For both amongst the professours of sound Religion we know there hath alwaies beene are and will be some lewd liuers and also amongst those of a false Religion thorow the force of hypocrisy and superstition there hath beene found and may be still a marueilous great outward shew of holines and piety And therefore doe we alwaies teach our hearers readers to learne to discerne the true Religion from the false by searching the Scriptures and not by viewe of these thinges which therein may deceiue them Wherefore you might very well haue eased both your reader your selfe of all the paines you haue taken about this matter in these foure next Chapters Howbeit seing you could aforde so much needeles paines to disgrace what you could the profession of the trueth I will bee contented to take so much paines as to weigh what you haue saied and giue you such answere as you deserue for the maintenance of the credit thereof In this Chapter first you would proue by conference of this foresaied rule of Christ with this saying Luke 6. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh that it is no more generall theÌ„ that For after out of Math. 15. and other places you haue shewed that notwithstanding that saying of Christ man oftentimes speaketh otherwise then it is in his heart you conclude euen so is it many times naturally the fruite is good when the tree is naught as in the good liues of many heathen
the first doth it follow therefore that your matter is good c No but it followeth that then you may be ashamed to note that as a fault in vs whereof you are first and more guilty I pray doe but consider the verdict that you both giue of your selues of vs. We are according to your sacred gospell Apostolical iudgement no other but poore and simple infidels superstitious Idolaters but coÌ„trariwise you are Apostles Prophets Euangelists the true children of God Seeing then that God hath shewed you so much fauour poured vpon you the bountifull giftes of his grace how haue yee sought so cruellie to d If any of our profession haue doâ—e so we neither commend them nor allow of their maner of dealing you doe of the like in yours reuenge your selues against his expresse commandement Is this the way of reformation to shew your selues as il as we or worse Seeing that the matter falleth out so plainely I pray you be not obstinate giue place vnto the best to reforme the rest for to be worse then you I e Your opinion God be thaÌ„ked is no great preiudice vnto vs. thinke none can be found You my masters that can make such tedious sermons and raile at large against our Popes and Bishops whie doe you passe ouer so lightly the faults of your f We doe not lightly passe oueâ— the faultes of our ministers ministers you set out gloriously the titles of Apostles Prophets Euangelists and extraordinarie messengers of God for your selues as good Godfathers ye now Christen our Popes and Bishops calling them rauening and g In so calling them we caâ—l but a spade a spade a fig a fig. greedie deuouring wolues In this ye do greatly abuse the intellectioÌ„ of the scriptures for if you marke vvell that that our Sauiour doeth saie yee shall finde that yee run farre wide of the text and the similitude of the wolfe doeth full well appertaine vnto your ministrie There he doeth declare the difference that is betwixt the good shepheard and the bad which he doeth call Mercenarium the wolfe * John 10. The good Shepheard is he that doeth hazard venture his life for his flocke the ill Shepheard is he that taketh the milke and the woole froÌ„ the sheepe letteth theÌ„ rome without taking any care to keepe them h And this we finde iâ— hath bene â—f long the very nature and property of yours The wolues seeing theÌ„ rome abroad scattered froÌ„ the flocke doeth deuour all those that are ill kept The good shepheard is our Sauiour Christ and his Apostles and all the good Bishops that did florish in olde time and all the holy Confessours and martyrs that haue liued in the golden age when the bloud of our Sauiour Christ was yet hot boyling in their harts The ill shepheards haue followed after which haue not cared for their sheepe The wolues which are the heretiques seeing this haue scattered the sheepe out of the fold of Christ which is the catholike Church where they had beene borne spiritually that is to say regenerated with the grace of the holy ghost the Sacrament of baptisme to follow the sects of perditioÌ„ If al our shepheards had bene as careful to keepe their flockes as they ought to haue beene your Congregation had neuer beene so strongly builded as it is at this day in France And therefore you offer your Church if it may be so called great wrong when you speake against the abuses of ours i Indeed because your Religion the principal pillers thereof are plants hâ—t the heauenly father planted neuer therefore you are and shall be rooted vp by the rootes for our sinnes haue beene and are the principall foundations of your building And euen as the worme is nourished in the Aposteme with the ill humors euen so you feede of our faultes are nourished with our sinnes your fire burnes with our wood k You must ameÌ„d both your liues and religion or else it will be wide with you I can tell you and if we woulde amend our liues I know how soone your religion would l The gates of hel shal neuer preuaile against ours decay And therfore our Pastours are not wolues but they haue permitted the wolues to deuour their sheepe and so they shall answere for them before the throne of the eternall Iudge m Your sheepherds then by your owne confessioÌ„ haue bene lewde idle and negligent shepeherdes who doeth aduertise them by the Prophet Ezechiel that they shal answere for all the mischiefes that happen vnto their sheepe manie of the vvhich are scabbed and full of diseases and therefore I would haue you to cause some body to choose among yours and ours those that are best to the ende that through this diuision and your aide wee may take the rest I thinke that if any thing condemne vs it wil bee this cause forasmuch as we haue continued in that doctrine which was preached vnto vs at the first as you your selues n Yes that we can and say most truely too cannot denie if you will confesse the trueth The XXXVI Chapter YOu would haue your reader beleeue that we haue no further answere to your former obiection but your example and therefore in this chapter you bring vs in answering onely for our defence that you were the first and that we learned so to doe of you whereunto first you answere that you know who should saie the trueth if you should say the contrary and then supposing that our answere were true you tel vs that our answere will not serue because we should not haue learned so cruelly to reuenge our selues against Gods expresse commandement of you whom we count poore simple infidels and superstitious idolaters But I trust the indifferent reader may see by that which I haue writen that this is not our only answere and that we answering thus if you should say the contrary he now knoweth that it is you and no other that therein should speake contrary to the trueth Indeed we coÌ„fesse that we should not learne of you nor of any other cruelly to seeke to reuenge our selues for the Lord hath forbid vs to reuenge our selues for vengeance is his and he wil doe vengeance Rom. 12.19 And if any of our side haue transgressed this rule we coÌ„mend it not in them neither do we incourage other to follow any such exaÌ„ple but yet withal we tel you and you know it to be most true that such may be the oppression of Gods seruants and the tiranny of their enemies towards them that he may as he hath done extraordinarily stir vp some amongst them to reuenge their quarrels and to deliuer them out of their enemies hands though such extraordinary examples are not to bee drawen into ordinary imitation And though there bee no reason why wee should learne to doe ill of you of whom we account so euill yet there is reason why you
true word of god since the Apostles time there hath bene h I would meÌ„ would could read theÌ„ as you wish for theÌ„ I am sure they shuld find theÌ„ to be far more with vs theÌ„ with you neuer a Christian doctour in the Church for they haue all taught the contrary to your forged gospell as euery man may see that will take the paine but to looke in their workes or to read those places that are quoted by me and diuers others that haue confuted your heresies many a hundred years agone by their authorities Let them then that haue any eies beholde the hazard that yee runne into and so many others throughout the world which followe your opinion i EueÌ„ thus do you with vs If one should come to accuse an other of falsehoode and that before hee bee assured of this matter wherewith hee did seeke to atteinte the defendaunt would not one thinke his matter verie great or his knowledge verie small to run headlong into the danger of that crime which if he could not proue he should be condemned for himselfe What then shall become of you O most simple sheepe which seeke with fained arguments to condemne not one or two k These are but words feare theÌ„ not but seeing the man had nothing else he thought good belike to haue enough of them and those swelling enough but all the Christians and Catholiques that haue beene in this world since the passion of Christ the which haue refused and reproued your doctrine as hereticall haue taught vs this that we hold at this day But now to answere vnto that that was mentioned a little before that which a nuÌ„ber of your flocke haue told me when I haue conferred with theÌ„ which is that l We doe not hold that ignoraâ—ce wil excuse any that dye out of the true faith of Christ and therefore it is likely you tell but a tale the errour of our predecessours was not imputed vnto theÌ„ forasmuch as these good simple people went to worke after the grossest sort thinking to doe well and that as then they did not vnderstand well the trueth which is now brought to light through your gospell I say that in this yee are deceaued more then halfe the valewe of your Religion m You would seeme then belike that your simâ—le and ignoraÌ„t papistâ— haue all beene great and profound claâ— kes for before some of them died they had forgotten more theÌ„ euer you haue learned for all that that you knowe you haue learned it of their bookes or stollen it to saie the trueth interpreting both their workes the scriptures contrary to the trueth of their meaning And although it were so that they had al erred your coloured excuse of simplicity could auaile them nothing for the word of God would accuse them If n I am glad to heare you cite this testimony to pâ—oue that ignorance of the gospell shall not excuse any but why plead you then sometime that ignorance is the mother of deuotion the Gospel saith * 2. Corinth 4. S. Paul had bene hidden it hath beene hiddeÌ„ to those that haue perished the spirits of the which the God of this world hath blinded theÌ„ if that those vnto whom the trueth hath beene hidden haue perished wherefore doeth your excuse serue theÌ„ This being true as it is most like I meane that they haue not erred nor that you onely shal be saued they all condemned To my iudgement our auncestours with al their simplicitie did neuer erre so much as your disciples doe to follow such masters o This brag hath beene vsed so often without proofe that now it is stole and lothsome as condemne that faith that the Catholique church hath taught mainteined these 1500. yeares to mainteine those heresies that haue bene buried in hell many an hundred year agone now are called vp againe by Martin Luther Caluin his fellowes The XXXVIII Chapter THe vanity of the brag wherwith you begin againe this Chapter by that which I haue saied in answering of the former hath appeared I hope sufficieÌ„tly already but whensoeuer it shall please you or any for you to thinke that it will not bee tedious for the Reader to bring vs forth this number of Doctours confessours martyrs that you here boast of and to make it appeare indeede by their owne words or other good euidence that they were liuing dying so on your side as you here pretend I doubt not but one of vs or other will easily make it euident vnto the world that you are far greater in words and shew then you are in deedes and trueth You would haue your reader beleeue that onely to auoide tediousnes to him you haue forborne by their testimonies liuing and dying here to confirme all the rest of your doctrine and all that you doe vse at this day but alas your owne conscience telleth you that indeed not onely the tediousnes of it to your selfe but the impossibility of it altogither drew you to be glad to vse this prety shift piece of cuÌ„ning to salue your credit your causes with him CoÌ„sidering therfore what already hath beene answered to the fathers quoted by you in the former Chapter in whose euidence for those matters belike you durst be boldest what otherwise vpon sundry other occasions in answering of your booke I haue set downe out of theÌ„ directly to proue the contrary to this that you say you could proue out of theÌ„ your question with vpon the supposall of your brag here to be but a trueth you haue inferred put forth whither these doctours confessours martyrs that you talke of be in heauen or hel is childish friuolous needles For you know well enough that there is neuer a doctour confessour or Martyr of any credit and worthie so to be accounted for the Catholique Religion they taught and dyed in but though in some of them we doe not deny there might be found some inclinations towards some things now held by you that yet we holde that forasmuch as not onely they held with vs the foundation and other principall points of Christian Religion wherein you are contrary both vnto them vs but that also the Lord in his mercy towards them kept theÌ„ in the rest froÌ„ the grossenes impiety that you are therein fallen into since that they were and are ours and not yours And therefore we comfortably assure our selues that they holding the foundation and other principall points as they did though they as men builded thereupon some wood hay stubble yet the Lord souÌ„d the meanes by the fire of his spirit and affliction so to descrie the same vnto them to coÌ„sume al that vnsutable building in them ere they went hence that we neede not thorow any such scrupulositie of conscience as you imagine feare to giue our iudgement or opinion of them For wee feare not their being in hell for
being on your side but in that they were of ours as they were and as I haue saied wee christianly perswade our selues that their soules are in heauen And you fearing belike for all your cauilling that touching these ancient doctours confessours and martyrs that this would be our answere because you knew it might iustly be so you were content quickely to giue ouer the pursuit of this question and to aske vs this what wee thinke in our conscience of those that maintained cōfessed your faith Religion whither they be condemned or no And to feare vs from saying they be vpon the necke of this you aske vs if it were so why then was the bloud of Christ shed affirming confidently that if this were so that then it had beene better that Christ had neuer suffered This indeede I doe know to be one of your common bugges whereby you seeke to make the simple affraide either to forsake you or to ioyne with vs saying when you see men about thus to doe what will you condemne all your forefathers And to this end with manie words you āplifie the goodnes of the forefathers what an vnchristian cruelty it is to cōdemne all our ancient forefathers Before I come to the answering of which obiection I cannot but tell you that in setting downe so bluntly boldly as you haue that if they that confessed and maintained your Religion be condemned that then it had beene better that Christ neuer had died you haue vttered grosse intollerable blasphemy For though none such should be saued by the death of Christ thousand thousands both haue bene and shal be saued therby better it were that al such as you meane should for euer be condemned then that this speech of yours had any trueth in it But to answer this your obiection taken frō the dangerousnes of condēning forefathers because by the nāe of thē you keep men as you doe in your Romish and Babilonical captiuity first the reader is to vnderstand that an argument takē frō forefathers simply without distinction but as you doe this of yours in matters of Religion is not good For Ez. 20. we read that the Lord saied thus vnto his people walke not in the preceps of your fathers neither obserue their maners nor defile your selues with their idols And Dauid saieth Ps 78. Let thē not be as their forefathers were a disobediēt rebellious generatiō c. And the like warning the people had Psal 95. Zach. 1. Ier. 11. Whereupō Peter telleth the Christians to whom he wrote that by the bloud of Christ they were redeemed frō the vaine cōuersation of their fathers 1. Pet. 1. If this argument had beene good when Christ came sent his Apostles abroad to preach the gospell to al natiōs our forefathers in all natiōs then did ill in receiuing the doctrine of the gospell For their forefathers for some 1000. yeares before had held professed mainteined heathenish paganisme And it seemeth that many of the heathē then vsed this very argument of yours to keepe men in paganisme still For such an obiectiō I read both made by thē answered by Peter as it is writē Clemētis lib. 5. recognitionū by Ignatius ad Philadelphēses by Augustin in quaest veteris noui testamēti quaest 114. By this reason saied Peter as Clemēt reports it If a mans father be a thiefe or a bawde the child must be no other To such as saied they would beleeue no other gospell thē they foūd their forefathers had Ignatius answereth my antiquity is Iesus Christ whō not to obey is manifest damnation That which was before saieth Augustine the Paganes say cānot be bad To whom he answereth saying as though antiquity may preiudice trueth For thus might murderers wantons adulterers other lewd liuers defend their wickednesses because they are old haue beene frō the beginning saieth he So that both scripture reasō the ancient fathers themselues teach vs that it is not alwaies safe to cōtinue in the Religion wherein our forefathers liued died and so easily we may perceiue that this your argument how cōmon soeuer it be with you is of no force For it hath beene the old argument of Pagans doubtles is at this day the chiefe argument that keepeth Turks Jewes from yeelding to the Gospell least then they should condemne all their forefathers But as your argument is naught so your antecedent is false also For albeit that our Religion differ from yours as it doeth yet farre is it from vs that therefore we condemne all our forefathers For first we know that frō Christ wel near 1000. yeares they thē that professed Christ for the most part liued died holding the foūdatiō many other principall points of religiō with vs therfore of their saluatiō we doubt not Secondly euer since howsoeuer a nūmber fell away frō the trueth seemed wholy to be yours yet we are perswaded we know it to be true especially since Petrus Vald his time who was 400. yeares ago there haue beene great knowen multitudes openly ioyning with vs in the chiefest points of our religion dissenting frō you as I haue shewed before And when there seemed to be fewest yet we beleeue that that God that could did preserue vnto himself in the litle kingdom of Israel in such a miserable time asking Ahabs time was 7000. that there had not bowed their knees to Baal that the God I say euē whē popery seemed to haue preuailed most according to the comfortable visions that Iohn had to that end Apoc. 7. 14 yet had preserued vnto him in al the kingdomes and prouinces of the world infinite numbers that yet neither in forehead nor hand would beare the marke of the beast of all these we hope well also Thirdly euen concerning such of our forefathers as seemed to the world to be of your religiō we thinke a number also are saued For euen amongst them there are .3 sortes to be cōsidered The first sort are they that liued and died in all your grosse and erronious opiniōs The second are they that though a long time they seemed to liue in them yet ere they died God caused to see the vanity thereof at least cōcerning your doctrine of iustificatiō so through the sight of their sins in his mercy he brought them to die protesting that they trusted not to be saued in part nor in whole by their owne works or by any other meanes but onely by his free mercy through Iesus Christ alone The third sort is of them which though they were yours for some outward ceremonies that they were contented to vse with you in that they held some other fond opinions with you yet neuer ioined with you indeed in seeking for saluation little or much by any thing that you taught them to put their trust in that way but only looked for beleeued to attaine vnto it for that which Christ
of such vayne wordes as these aboue twenty times I am sure without any proofe at al therein repeated Indeed if in al your life you could proue but halfe so much as confidently here you set downe then you were a notable fellow indeede and then truely we would striue no longer with you But in the meane time seeing we know your speeches are such as you can neuer proue and that we are able against you both to proue the falshoode of yours and the trueth of our owne blame vs not if wee esteeme not your words Yet lest you should saie that these likewise are but words in vs as the former haue beene in you though I see no reason to the contrary but that our words containing a iust and true denial of yours were sufficient confutation thereof I say and will proue it that you shew your selfe a man past al shame in writing here as you doe that all the ancient Catholicke Church which hath continued visible since the comming of Christ vnto this day al the doctours of all the vniuersities all the Empires kingdomes priuate states throughout al the world are against vs for they haue al receiued honoured that doctrine that we count papisticall For first such is the newnes thereof as I haue plentifully shewed in diuers places already of this booke that none of all these for sundry 100. yeares were once euer acquainted therwith yea that diuers of your assertions which are the very principallest of your opinions as namely your dotcrine of Transubstantiation of your Popes being in authority aboue generall Councels and of denying the cuppe to the lay people are not yet of 400. yeares age and continuance And it is notoriously knowen that in the daies of Gregory the 9 about the yeare of Christ 1230 by occasion of iniury and oppression offered by the Pope to that Church that the Greeke Easterne Churches departed quite from the Church of Rome and neuer since though it hath beene oft attempted could be brought to hold communion therewith againe insomuch that in your conuenticle at Trent you haue condemned them for schismatical and heretical Churches And these Churches as it is noted in an ancient record in the Church of Herford differ from yours at the least in 29 articles And they holde yours excommunicate and an Apostata Church vnto this day And vnlesse your reading be very small you cannot be ignorant that Math Paris writeth that the Patriarch of Constantinople at the Councell of Lyons shortly after this breach shewed that of 30. bishoprickes in Greece the Pope had not three that then held communion with him and that all Antioch and the Empire of Romania to the gates of Constantinople was gone quite from him There is also extant in print in ancient record an Epistle writen about seuen yeares after this breach began in the yeare 1237 by one Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople vnto the Pope wherein not only he laboureth to make him see that the occasion therof was that he tooke more vpon him ouer those Churches then he should but amongst other argumēts to persuade him to see his folly he sheweth him that not onely the Greeke Churches themselues but that al so the Aethiopians Syrians Hiberians Alani Gothi Charari with innumerable people of Russia and the mighty kingdome of the Vulgarians held communion with his Church of Constantinople and so by occasion of this schisme had forsakē felowship with the Roman Church And the Cosmographers write that the iurisdiction of the Patriarch of Canstantinople reacheth so farre that all Greece Misia Belgaria Thrasia Walachia Moldauia Russia Muscouia the iles of the Aegaean sea and Asia the lesse bee vnder the same It is also reported by authours of good credit that at this day vnder the other Patriarchs of Antioch Alexandria Hierusalem and vnder the other in the dominions of Presbyter Iohn in Africa there be infinit numbers of Churches and Christians differing from yours and ioining with ours in manie thinges So that Churches also both in the East North and South and that of very great amplitude within the time that you speake of haue professed Christ and yet haue neuer beene acquainted with most or many at the least of the pointes for the which your religion is counted of vs Papisticall in all which there haue beene some doctours vniuersities Empires Princes and priuate men no doubt since Christ before you wrote that neither honoured nor receiued your papistical religiō Yea but that merueilously you ouershot your selfe you might haue remembred that within the time limited by you in these Westerne partes there haue beene euen vnder your Popes nose and in his greatest ruffe many doctours vniuersities and some Emperours kings and priuate estates that haue neither receiued nor so honoured your religiō which we cal papistical as here you would beare your reader in hand For euen in these parts and within the compasse of these times haue bene you know Wickliffe Hus and Luther vniuersities kingdomes good store haue had both your religion Church in defiance long before you wrote He that readeth but the stories of Philip Lodovicke the last French kings of Henry the 4 5. of the 2. Fredericks the 1 2 Emperours and the Cronicles of king Iohn here in England and of 2 or 3 of his successours he shal easily perceiue that much within the compasse of time that you speake of both Empires and Kingdomes with their Emperours and Kings haue beene far from making that reckoning of your popish Church and religion that you here bragge of or else doubtlesse you must needs confesse that your Popes haue beene vnreasonable creatures that haue so cursed and banned these men as they haue and which besides haue caused such infinite Christian bloud to be by warre shed to hamper them These things considered euen children may see not onely the vanity but grosse falshood of these your wordes For howsoeuer either here or else where in this your booke you would cause your reader to beleeue that your Romish Church is the catholicke Church of Christ euery one indeed may see that in trueth it is but a particuler and a petty Diocesse in comparison of the catholicke Church of Christ For the reader must vnderstand that the Church of Christ is called catholicke first because the religion that shee imbraceth is that which hath beene at al times will be to the end the true religiō of God secondly because the same Church in respect of the mēbers therof especially since the calling of the Gentiles is not to be limited or shut vp within the compasse of any particuler countries but may vniuersally be dispersed amongst all nations and in al countreyes where it pleaseth the Lord. In neither of which sences can the Romish Church be truly accounted catholick For neither is her doctrine that which the true Church of Christ embraced was in possessiō of for 4000 years more neither are the
that which he should this marke is euident vpon them and not vpon vs. But if by the common knowen catholicke church of Christ that hee talketh of here and alwaies else he vnderstand as it is apparent that hee doeth their Roman church that now is most beggerly still hee beggeth that almes that neuer an honest and wise man in the world would giue him For in all these points here named by him that Synagogue a long time hath taught and doeth still so contrary to the true and chast spouse of Christ that though nether seditiously nor contentiously yet vehemently and earnestly it is the part of all skilfull painfull and faithfull ministers of the Lord to cry out against her and her so doing And thus onely haue we and doe we labour to manifest vnto the world their corruptiō in doctrine in these points least thereby to their perdition they should be seduced by them Otherwise whatsoeuer he saieth neither he nor all his faction shall euer he able to proue against vs that we either deny any thing or hold otherwise of any point here reckoned vp by him then we haue most sound and good warrant for both out of the scriptures and out of the ancientest and soundest monuments of antiquity But where as he saith that we flatly deny that Christ hath here vpon earth any spouse or visible church to bee heard speake perceaued or seene hee shamefully and vntruely reporteth y◠of vs. Onely cōcerning the visibility or not visibility of Christs church this wee holde and teach that who be the right members thereof whereof properly she doeth consist it is not discerneable by humane sence but knowen onely vnto God and vnto those to whom God giueth spirituall sences to discerne it withall but if otherwise by the church of Christ here vpon earth be vnderstoode generally all those that by outwarde profession seeme vnto men to be thereof then we hold and confesse that Christ hath alwaies had here vpō earth since the beginning and wil haue to the ende a visible spouse and church to be both heard speake perceiued seene though not alwaies alike nor of al sorts kinde of men as I haue shewed at large in the first and fourth chapters of my answere to Albine The onely thing that we deny is that it alwaies hath beene and euer must be so visible and apparent both for multitude and gouernment that euery one should be able therby not only to discerne it but frō time to time downe frō Christ to the ende of the world to name the principall persons by whose orderly succession one to another wtout interruption it hath bene cōtinued in one place or other Now hereupon to infer that wee simply deny it to be heard seene or perceiued argueth that they that doe so are growen so grosse that they can neither heare see nor perceiue that there is any difference betwixt the maner of being of a thing the simple being therof Iohn that neuer taught that the Church of Christ here vpō earth should neither be heard seen or perceiued yet teacheth Re. 12. that she would be driuē by persecution of the dragō into the wildernes where for a time in cōparison that she was before she should be hiddē Christ that hath taught vs that hel gates shal neuer preuaile against his church Mat. 16. yet foresheweth that towards his secōd cōming true faith should hardly be found vpō earth Luke 18. And doe we not read 2 Thessalonians 2. and 1. Timothy 4. to that end that before that day there shall be a great departing from the faith which by that which we read Reuelations 17 and 18. we may vnderstand shal be so great and so farre preuaile that the whore of Babylon there figuring vnto vs Antichrist and his kingdome shall haue vniuersality and all outward pompe that may be so on her side that shee shall make kings and people yea all nations drunke with the wine of her fornications During the fulfilling of which prophesies if it bee hard for some either to heare or see the Church or to vnderstand where shee is so that they cannot name the persons successiuely that she consisteth of no maruell For distance of time and place and ignorance or vnfaithfulnesse in Croniclers ioyned with a speciall care that Antichrist would alwaies by all likelyhoode haue to keepe from men all meanes to make thē to haue knowledge of these things least therby in the end he should fall into his cōsumption in respect of sundry former times and vs that liue now might make this impossible And yet he that should say so doeth not simply say as he here chargeth vs. But Gods name be blessed for it the Church yet was neuer so driuen into the wildernesse by the dragon or oppressed by Antichrist but as I haue shewed in my fourth Chapter of my foresaied answere to Albine some haue so heard seene and perceiued where she was and who were her true mēbers at al times that there was neuer time or state of the Church so bad but that we are able to nāe some of her frēds and where they liued or died in the profession of her trueth against antichristian abhominations As for the other points here reckoned vp by him gētle reader though he would make thee beleeue that they are such as in euery point as they teach thē now haue alwaies before beene taught of the true Catholicke church of Christ it is nothing so as in great part I haue shewed in answering of Albine as others thorowly vniuersally haue shewed of them all in seueral bookes writen against them for their Antichristiā doctrine therein Howbeit least by his words in the meane time whiles thou gettest leasure to peruse what we haue writen cōcerning these points thou shouldest cōceiue worse of our doctrine thē in any shew we deserue vnderstand that we preach against none of Christs sacraments neither doe we deny any sacrament of his in that sence to be a sacrament that he appointed it neither doe we deny Christs reall true most certain presence in the eucharist to the soule of the right receiuer onely a grosse presence of his body to the mouth of euery receauer fancied by thē cōtrary both to scripture the nature of a sacramēt of Christ himselfe is the presence that there we deny Indeed we as zealously as we can preach against their masse denying it to be any propitiatory sacrifice either for quicke or dead much lesse for both because we haue learned out of the epistle to the Hebrewes that only Christ is cōsecrate of his father as the fit Priest of the new testament in his owne person once for all to offer propitiatory sacrifice for the redemption of mankind that we learne by the words of the institution of this sacrament that it was neuer instituted to repeate that but with faith and thankesgiuing to make a commemoration thereof and rather to offer and deliuer Christ to vs thē
to be christians and of him onely and of his vndoubted spirit speaking vnto vs in the canonicall scriptures haue we learned our religion with which as far as we finde any man to agree we reuerence him as it becommeth vs in the Lord further we take not our selues bound to follow any man whatsoeuer he be That Puritans and Precisians haue brought the ancient Protestants of this land of all sortes to any such point by any such meanes as he speaketh of he speaketh both vntruely and slanderously For such as for their preposterous zeale and factious turbulent spirits amongst vs deserue so to be called and accounted neither are for number so many nor for credit so affected of the common people nor wincked at of the magestrats as he pretendeth But if ther were as many fond sectaries that haue arisen vp amongst vs these late yeares as this man and other of his fellowes sometime would haue men to beleeue as long yet as we for all that continue constant not onely in the very same religion that we were of when we first broke of from them but also in that which hath plentifull and most playne warrant both from the canonicall scriptures and al sound antiquity as we haue a thousand times shewed and yet still are willing and ready alwaies to doe why should they thus odiously be obiected against vs to disgrace either vs or our religion especially seeing wee are sory for it and shew our mislike thereof as wee doe May any man iustly disgrace the Apostles and the Apostolique churches for that euen in their times there arose so many sectaries and heretiques amongst the Churches planted by them as both by their owne writings and other Ecclesiasticall histories it is notoriously knowen there did Hath not Christ euen of purpose to preuent all offence taking hereat compared his kingdome Matth. 13. to a field wherein the good seeds-man hauing sowen good wheat the enuious man so soweth his tares that they come vp togither with the wheat and so will doe vnto the haruest To let vaine words and brags go let thē proue but once any of them or all of them togither either that their religion is the plaine way of saluation beaten by our forefathers for these 1500. yeares past or that ours is not that very trueth that Christ and his Apostles taught as a perpetual trueth for the true church constantly to hold to the worlds end and we will striue with them no lōger But as this is a matter too hard heauy for them so they are content to let it alone and with fallacies vaine words to trie if they can beguile the simple people and bring them to a misliking of that which to mislike indeede they are not able to giue them one sound reason And therefore to conclude that both beginning ending and alwaies this mā may be like himselfe he taketh it for graunted that their religion is the sound catholique faith that the martyr Sebastian meant by his loafe which broken and broken againe after it was once well made and baked by sectaries heretiques as he told Genserichus the tyrant would neuer become better and that ours is but a breaking of it to make it better againe which will neuer be Whereas we constantly hold affirme that we may iustly say to all papists euen as Sebastian saied to that tyrant For the loafe that we feed on and would haue all others to feed on with vs we are able to proue is that the graine whereof Christ himselfe by his faithfull seruants hath sowen in the sound field of the canonical scriptures which he himselfe hath ground kneaden baked for vs and for all his children And likewise we are able to proue that this fine white loafe of the Lords own preparing alwaies lying ready in the storehouse of his writen word the Romish church hath a long time doth stil as much loath as euer the children of Israel did Manna And therefore as they preferred in their conceits garlicke leekes onions the flesh-pots of Egypt before that heauēly food so hath she and doeth she a massiue loafe the corne whereof must not come onely out of the foresaied field of the Lord for then it would haue no fauour with them but in great part out of the rotten field of mens traditions inuentions before the pure white loafe of the lords own making Wherefore to conclude all his speech or exhortation groūded vpon this story out of Victor de persecutione Vandalorum any man may see we might farre more iustly vse against thēselues of the Romish Church to persuade them as they regard their owne saluation c. to content themselues with vs with this Sebastians loafe of the first and best making I haue thus thou seest good reader but briefly past ouer these things and the rather I haue so done first because I found no matter in them but grounded vpon shameles begging of that which is most in question and secondly because in my answere to Albine I had vpon occasion giuen me by him already answered al or most of his assumptions against vs in the applying of these signes vnto vs. But lastly by view of an answere made at large by master Crowley both to the 22. demaunds and these six signes also that came to my hands since my finishing of this answere of mine I see if it had beene vndone I might well haue spared al my labour herein If therefore thou desirest any further answer concerning any of these I refer thee to him And thus I take my leaue of thee beseeching the Lord now and euer to blesse both thee and me and heartily praying thee to remember me alwaies in thy godly prayers to God to whom be all glory praise and dominion now and euer Thine in the Lord Thomas Sparke A Table whereby readily to finde out the principal matters contained in the former answere to Albine or any of his fauourers wherein because vntill thou commest to the answere to Albine himselfe the pages are not figured in the top as in the rest for any thing before handled the page of the letter in the bottome of those leaues whereof there are 16 for euery letter is noted for thy direction A. Abbeyes why and how suppressed pa. 287. Albine conuicted of blasphemy p. 95. 96. 186. 375. 378. Albine sheweth himselfe to haue beene of a profane spirit 269. Albines publishers methode in his epistle to the reader discouered b. p. 11. 12. 13. Albines owne methode and the folly thereof laied open E. 4 5. 6 Albines cunning in running from the question 6 7 9. 10. 11. c. Albine notorious in abusing scriptures 2. 3. 36. 37. Albine worthy to be famous for abusing of fathers 47. 51. 85. 86. 119. c. 126. c. 131 134 156. ca p. 37. through out Antiquity protestants rather haue then papists and true antiquity protestants stand vnto 102. 158. c. Auricular confession dangerous E. p.
your doctrine herein then he doth And you know that he lyued 400. yeares after Christ and more In lyke sort your doctrine of iustyficatiō in part by mans owne merits and satisfactions howsoeuer of ancient tyme the scribes and pharises troubled the Apostolicke Churches with the lyke doctrine yet was it a doctrine abhorred of the Church of Christ as blasphemous against the omnisufficient merits satisfaction of Christ Iesus our Lord sauiour ours of iustification freely and fully soly and wholy by fayth onely in Christ allowed and receiued as sound trueth and doctrine in that poynt not onely in the Apostles tymes as it appears Ro. 3. Gal. 2. 5. but also for many 100. years after euen vnto very late dayes For proofe wherof let any man read Origē vpon the 3. 6. of the Romās Ambrose vpon the 3 of the Romās also Hierom in his booke against the Pelagiās vpon the 4 to the Romās vpon the first and 2. to the Gala. Aug. de fide operibus ca. 22. vpon the 88 Psa and in his 22 Chap. of his Manuell and Hilary in his 8 Canon vpon Mathew See also Basils 51. hom de humilitate Paulinus 58. Epistle to Saint August amongst Augustines Epistles Chrysostome vpon the third to the Romans Theodoret vpon the same Chapter Gregory Nazianzens twenty two oration and Ruffinus his exposition of the Creed you shal not onely finde al these fathers in al these places as flatly to teach free ful iustificatiō saluatiō to cōe by faith in Christ alone wtout our works at al cōcurring as any helping cause therunto as any of vs now doe but also further I can doe assure you that who so wil vouchsafe to take the paines to read Bernards 23 61 and 62 Sermons of the Canticles his Sermon the 15 of the Psalme Qui habitat and his seuenty seuen Epistle he shal finde that he though he were aboue 1100 years after Christ was of the same minde For in these places he plainly confesses that he for his saluation rested onely vpon the merits of Christ and not vpon his owne at all counting mans merite to bee nothing else but to trust onely in Christ and in Gods mercy withall plainly testifiyng that he hoped to haue his solâ fide by faith onely in Christ Iesus Yea your owne Thomas Aquine confessed with vs that we are iustified by fayth instrumentally and that no vertue inherent in vs can be of the forme or essence of our iustificatiō Rom. 4 Ephesians 2 and in sundry other places of his commentaries vpon Pauls Epistles And Sadolet vpon the Epistle to the Romans acknowledged doubtles forced therunto by the power of this trueth that Abraham attulit tantùm fidem non sua opera that Abraham brought onely faith not his owne works againe he saieth quātum quisque affert de suâ iustitiâ tantum detrahit de diuinâ beneficentiâ that is how much in this respect a man bringeth of his owne righteousnesse so much he pulleth from Gods bountifulnesse How far likewise the strength of this trueth conquered your great Champion Piggius with griefe Ruard Tapper and others of your side haue noted writē against him for it For in the controuersie of iustificatiō fol. 61. he in playn tearms with vs cōfesses si formaliter propriè loquamur nec fide nec charitate nostrâ iustificamur'sed vnâ Dei in Christo iustitiâ vnâ Christi nobis cōmunicatâ iustitia that is if we speak formally properly we are iustified neither by faith nor by our charity but by the only righteousnes of God in Christ by the onely righteousnes of Christ cōmunicated vnto vs. And hauing with vs before in the controuersie proued confessed fol. 46. y al men euen the most righteous if they should be iudged of God or esteemed according to their own righteousnes by merit and desert they were to be accursed and condemned not onely for the imperfection of our best righteousnes but also for playne vnrighteousnes to be foūd in the best he proceeds concluds fol. 47. that our righteousnes hope of saluatiō with God cōsisteth in the free forgiuenes of our sins in Christ in that the perfect righteousnes of Christ is imputed vnto vs hauing cōmuniō with him And to make his meaning more plain that he meaneth not by the righteousnes of God or Christ any inherēt righteousnes of ours wrought in vs that beleeue by the spirit of Christ as our late Iesuites doe but the righteousnes that was is inherent in Christ he saieth that the righteousnes of Christ wherof he would be vnderstood in this case to speak is his obediēce whereby he fulfilled his fathers wil in al things and he expounds or declares the nature of the faith wherof the Apostle speaketh Rom. 3. saying We are iustified freely by his grace by the redemptiō that is in Christ Iesus whō he hath appointed to be our attonement maker by his bloud to bee fiduciā cōfidentiā in sanguine eius fol. 48. to be a trust and confidence in his bloud thereby alone to be saued so stil aduouching fol. 49. his onely righteousnes imputed vnto vs to be the whereby we shal stand be accoūted righteous before God and him therefore to be vnicū solidū the alone soūd foūdatiō of our saluation To conclude therefore this poynt I say with Iunilius Aphricanus who liued Anno. 440. lib. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 si quis in Christū crediderit remissis peccatis potest per solam fidem seruari that is if any beleeue in Christ his sinnes being forgiuen him he may by fayth alone be saued and with Augustine vpon the 31. Psalm si vis esse alienus a gratia iacta merita tua if thou wilt be voide of grace thē boast of thy merits Your doctrine of auricular confessiō of praying to Saints for the dead I haue at large in my answere to your thirty seuen Chapter shewed to be but new doctrines and of far later stampe then you pretend and in like maner elsewhere I haue shewed diuers other points of your religion to be in this aunswere of mine And I thinke you are not ignoraunt that that worthy bishop bishop Iewel here in England bishop of Salisbury hath most cōfidently protested that for 600. years after Christ you haue no sound groūd for 25. articles whereof the most of them are about your masse whereof you glory most which protestation or chalenge of his he hath hitherto defended sufficiently against all your obiections to the contrary And therefore whatsoeuer you bragge to the contrary so much of your religion as we count it popish for is and will proue when you haue done what you can but as the tares Math. 13 that were by Sathan subtly and secretly sowen in the Lords field long after the good seed was sowen And yet we labouring onely according to our callinges and that knowledge that God hath giuen vs
surest way of declaring the scriptures to expoūd one scripture by another in his 3. booke of Christian doctrine cap. 26. and in those bookes writen of Christian doctrine many moe very profitable Which way Chrys thought so sure a way that he saieth flatly The holy scriptures expound thēselues and suffer not the Reader to erre in his 12. Homil vpon Gen And yet for all this to this triall will not you of the Church of Rome be brought neither for the triall of your interpretations nor yet for determining of this question whither you haue the spirit of trueth or no. Christ and his Apostles were contented to put themselues for triall of their doings to this but your Popes thinke scorne to looke so lowe yea rather they will haue all questions wherein they are principall parties themselues tryed by themselues and you and they crie out that this is not the readiest way to ende such questions But who is so madde as to thinke that you can finde out a better way then Christ and his Apostles vsed You will send vs say some of you for the triall of these matters vnto the doctours and councels and yet when it commeth to the point vnles they and their sayings please you yee reiect them also And you cannot denie but that oftentimes also it is farre more disputable and doubtfull what was their meaning then what is the meaning of the Scripture and you know also that it is an vsuall thing with them to sende vs backe againe to the Scriptures for triall of their writings as it appeareth in Augustines 19. Epist to Hirom and in his 111. Epist to Fortunatian And therefore indeede say you what you will this is the safest surest and readiest way of triall of this and all other matters in question betwixt vs to bring all to the touchstone of the scriptures I would to God therfore that once you would giue ouer al other bie and indirect trials and come onely to this for then it would quickely appeare euen to the simple whither you or wee were rather to be followed For all this we ioyne with you in the later ende of your twenty three Chapter in warning men to take heede that they doe not rashly beleeue follow euery one that will pretend that they haue the scriptures on their side But whereas you write that the heresies which you will after speake of that were condēned by the Catholique church were as well more largely confirmed by scriptures thē we can thereby confirme our Religiō therein first you most vntruely report that of vs as we doubt not but to make it euident vnto the world if you would once come to any indifferent trial with vs secondly I must admonish the reader that these ancient heresies indeed were condemned by the Catholique Church but that that catholique Church was not yours nor as yours now is For the differences be infinite betwixt yours the Church thē by reason whereof there is as great difference betwixt the Church then and yours now in effect as there is betwixt ours now and yours In your recitall of the heretiques abusing the scriptures diuers things slipt from you also worthy the noting namely these that you could not content your selfe with shewing vs how they did abuse the Scriptures in wrong alleaging them but that as though your fingers itched to shew that you had as good skill therein as they you still intermingle with theirs your owne cunning in shewing how other places might be abused in like maner neither confuting in the ende their collections nor your owne how dangerous soeuer Another tricke you haue in noting the trueths impugned by them and the maner how they went to worke though neuer so vntruly yet cōfidently to set downe that the things which we impugne in you were holden by the Church in equall degree of trueth and reuerence with them that they set themselues then against and that they cried out against traditions of men and cried onely for the writen word as we doe wheras in trueth few or none of the things we condemne in you were hatched then and the contrary before hath appeared out of Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. that it was their fashion to flie from the Scriptures and to accuse them as you doe and to vrge traditions that they also vsed to vrge other such like grounds for their heresies as you doe as I haue shewed cap. 3. The last is that for the most part you charge them with what you list not shewing vs where you read or finde ground for these things wherewith you charge them belike least in turning to the places examining you proofes we should to your discredit haue occasion thereby to discry in you either some malice errour ignorance or some negligence at the least For example how proue you that which you write cap. 22. that the Arrians alleadged as many or more places then the Catholicks Or that the same Church that condemned the Adamits hath condemned vs Hus and his schollers condemning them But to passe on from these things to your conclusion vpon these premisses and to that which you infer thereupon in your 26 Chapter I graunt you by that which you haue writen in the former chapters it may be seene that one ill disposed maie soone alleage scripture in a corrupt sence but what is this to proue that which you vndertooke cap. 22. that is that the holie scriptures which we alleage do not iustifie our doings If you would haue proued this indeed you should haue proued that we alleage the scriptures in a wrong sence as these did that you haue talkt on but that was to heauie a peece of worke for you therfore you thought good not once to meddle with it But yet as though either you had proued it or else that it could not but wtout proofe be graūted you you boldly affirme as these hereticks that you haue talkt of haue perished their heresies so shall we our followers if we repent not Wherunto I answere first that so repentance maie be takē that it is most true that not onely we our followers but you yours also al men else must repent or else we al you and al other shal perish but taking it as you doe for repēting of our religiō of alleaging of the scriptures which we doe for the maintenāce of it against you you haue saied nothing at al as yet to make vs once to thinke that we haue any need at al so or therof to repēt Secōdly I saie that in thus saying you haue shewed your malice boldnes more then any thing else for you haue therin vttered nothing but a blind prophets dreāe and fansie which no man of any wisedome or discretion wil make any reckoning of It is wel yet that the euidēce of the trueth hath enforced you here to confesse that it maie be seene in al the ancient ecclesiastical writers that the doctours fully