of the Woman shall crush his head The vulgar Edition leaving here the Hebrew the Seventy and Saint Hierome himself as appears by his questions upon Genesis translates Ipsa She shall bruise thy head So it stands now in the authentical Scripture of the Church of Rome and herein Sixtus and Clemens are of accord The Divines of Lovaine observe that two Manuscript Copies have Ipse That the Hebrew Chaldee and Greek have it so likewise Why then did not either Sixtus or Clemens or they themselves having Copies for it correct it and make it so in the authentical Text I will tell you by colour of this corruption the Devil envying Christs glory like an obstinate enemy rather yielding himself to any than his true Conqueror hath given this honour to the Virgin Mary To her it is attributed in that work which I think to be the most ungodly and blasphemous that ever saw the Sun The Ladies Psalter wherein that which is spoken of God by the Spirit of God is writhed to her In the 51. Psalm Quid gloriaris in malitia ô maligne Serpens e. Why boastest thou in malice ô thou malignant Serpent and infernal Dragon Submit thy head to the Woman by whose valour thou shalt be drowned in the deep Crush him ô Lady with the foot of thy valour arise and scatter his malice c. And in the 52. speaking to the same Serpent Noli extolli c. Be not lifted up for the fall of the Woman for a Woman shall crush thy head c So that in that Anthem Haec est mulier virtutis quae contrivit caput Serpentis Yea which I write with gief and shame to her doth good Bernard apply it Hom. 2. Super Missus est and which is more strange expounds it not of her bearing our Saviour but Ipsa proculdubio c. She doubtless crushed that poisonfull head which brought to naught all manner of suggestion of that wicked one both of temptation of the flesh and of pride of mind To her doth the learned and devout Chancellor of Paris apply it Has pestes universas dicimus membra Serpentis antiqui cujus caput ipsa virgo contrivit And what marvel in those times when the plain Text of the Scripture ran so in the feminine gender of a woman and few or none had any skill of the Greek or Hebrew Who should that SHEE be but she that is blessed among women Now although that thanks be to God it is known that this is a corrupt place out of the Fountains yea out of the Rivers also the testimonies of the Fathers referring this to Christ as Irenaeus Iustine Cyprian Clemens Alexandrinus Hierome yea Pope Leo himself yet because no error of the Church of Rome may be acknowledged how palpable soever they have cast how to shadow this corruption and set some colour upon it that howsoever this reading cannot be true yet it may be made like to truth Lo in the Interlinear-Bible set forth by the authority of King Philip the father of his Majesty that now Reigns with you the Hebrew Text is reformed according to the Latine IPSA There was some opportunity hereunto by reason that the Letters of the Text without pricks would bear both readings For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hu or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hiu And this self-same word for the Letters the base of reading is so pointed in this Chapter verse 19. and applyed to Eve She is the mother of all living And so elsewhere as Gen. 28.1 and 21. Hereunto perhaps was added that the pricks are a late invention of the Rabbines as many think and no part of the Hebrew Text. And that not only Leo Castro and such as accuse the present Hebrew Copies as faâ—sified but those that defend them also do many of them confess Hereupon it was resolved as it seems to point this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hiu For it was not by mistaking but purposely done Franciscus Lucas in his Annotations upon the place doth assure us and saith it was Guido Fabricius his deed And indeed other things there be in that work which savour not of the learning and integrity of Arias Montanus as for example the Etymologie of Missa from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But as Boldness is not always as provident as Ignorance or Malice is bold these Correctors marked not that the gender of the Verb and the affix of the Noun following are both Masculine So although the Orthographie would be framed to consent yet the Syntax doth crie out against this Sacriledge And yet our Rhemists as I am informed in their lately set-forth Bible with a long note upon this place defend the applying of this Text to the blessed Virgin and the old reading Ipsa What should a man say Necessity makes men desperate and as the Apostle saith Evil men and deceivers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived These be frauds indeed in the strictest sense wilfully corrupting the Texts of good Authors wilfully maintaining them so corrupted not abstaining from the holy Scriptures themselves For as to that other kind depraving the sense retaining the words it were endless to cite examples Bellarmine alone as I believe passeth any two Protestants that ever set pen to paper perhaps all of them put together CHAP. VII Of the Armies of evident Witnesses for the Romanists WHere you add That you found the Catholicks had far greater and better Armies of evident Witnesses than the Protestants it might perhaps seem so to you as your mind was prepared when you had met with such cunning Muster-Masters as the Romanists are Who sometimes bring into the Field to make their number seem more after the old stratagem of War a sort of Pages and Lackies unworthy to hold any rank in the Host of God under the names of the Fathers Sometimes to confirm their part give out a Voice confidently that all the Forces which they see aloof in the Field are on their side whereas when it comes to the Battle they shall find that they will turn their Arms against them Sometimes they change the Quarrel it self in which case how easie is it to bring Armies as you say into the Field to fight against No-body and evident Witnesses to prove that which no Man denies For the purpose that the Bishop of Rome hath had a primacy of Honour and Authority when as the question is about a Monarchy and infallible Judgment an uncontrolable Jurisdiction Herein if you please see how Bellarmine alledges the Fathers Greek and Latine in the 15. and 16. Chapters of his First Book de Summo Pontifice So for proof of the verity of Christs Body and Blood in the Lords Supper he spends a whole Book only in citing the Testimonies of the Fathers To what purpose When the question is not of the truth of the Presence but of the manner whether it be to the Teeth and Belly
His Devotion in his Closet was only known to him who commanded him to pray in secret In his Family he prayed alwayes thrice a day in a set Form though he did not read it This he did in the Morning and before Dinner and after Supper And he never turned over this duty or the short Devotions before and after Meat on his Chaplain but was always his own Chaplain He lookt upon the Obligation of observing the Sabbath as moral and perpetual and considered it as so great an Engine for carrying on the true ends of Religion that as he would never go into the liberties that many practised on that day so he was exemplary in his own exact observation of it Preaching alwayes twice and Catechising once and besides that he used to go over the Sermons again in his Family and sing Psalms and concluded all with Prayer As for his Domestick concerns he married one of the Family of the L' Estranges that had been before married to the Recorder of S. Edmondsbury she proved to be in all respects a very fit Wife for him she was exemplary for her life humble and modest in her Habit and behaviour and was singular in many excellent qualities particularly in a very extraordinary reverence that she payed him She bore him four Children three Sons and a Daughter but one of the Sons and the Daughter dyed young so none survived but William and Ambrose The just reputation his Wife was in for her Piety and Vertue made him choose that for the Text of her Funeral Sermon A good name is better than Oyntment She dyed of a Lethargy three years before the Rebellion broke out and he himself preached her Funeral Sermon with such a mixture both of tenderness and moderation that it touched the whole Congregation so much that there were very few dry Eyes in the Church all the while He did not like the burying in the Church For as he observed there was much both of Superstition and Pride in it so he believed it was a great annoyance to the Living when there was so much of the steam of dead Bodies rising about them he was likewise much offended at the rudeness which the crowding the dead Bodies in a small parcel of Ground occasioned for the Bodies already laid there and not yet quite rotten were often raised and mangled so that he made a Canon in his Synod against burying in Churches and as he often wisht that Burying-Places were removed out of all Towns so he did chuse the most remote and least frequented place of the Church-Yard of Kilmore for his Wife and by his Will he ordered that He should be laid next her with this bare Inscription Depositum Gulielmi quondam Episcopi Kilmorensis Depositum cannot bear an English Translation it signifying somewhat given to another in Trust so he considered his Burial as a trust left in the Earth till the time that it shall be called on to give up its dead The modesty of that Inscription adds to his Merit which those who knew him well believe exceeds even all that this his zealous and worthy Friend does through my hands convey to the World for his memory which will outlive the Marble or the Brass and will make him ever to be reckoned one of the speaking and lasting Glories not only of the Episcopal Order but of the Age in which he lived and of the two Nations England and Ireland between whom he was so equally divided that it is hard to tell which of them has the greatest share in him Nor must his Honour stop here he was a living Apology both for the Reformed Religion and the Christian Doctrine And both he that collected these Memorials of him and he that copies them out and publishes them will think their Labours very happily imployed if the reading them produces any of those good effects that are intended by them As for his two Sons he was satisfied to provide for them in so modest a way as shewed that he neither aspired to high things on their behalf nor did he consider the Revenue of the Church as a property of his own out of which he might raise a great Estate for them He provided his eldest Son with a Benefice of Eighty Pound a Year in which he laboured with that fidelity that became the Son of such a Father and his second Son not being a Man of Letters had a little Estate of 60 l. a year given him by the Bishop which was the only Purchace that I hear he made and I am informed that he gave nothing to his eldest Son but that Benefice which he so well deserved So little advantage did he give to the enemies of the Church either to those of the Church of Rome against the marriage of the Clergy or to the dividers among our selves against the Revenues of the Church The one sort objecting that a married state made the Clergy covetous in order to the raising their Families and the others pretending that the Revenues of the Church being converted by Clergymen into Temporal Estates for their Children it was no Sacriledge to invade that which was generally no less abused by Churchmen than it could be by Laymen since these Revenues are trusted to the Clergy as Depositaries and not given to them as Proprietors May the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls so inspire all that are the Overseers of that Flock which he purchased with his own Blood that in imitation of all those glorious patterns that are in Church-History and of this in the last Age that is inferior to very few that any former Age produced they may watch over the Flock of Christ and so feed and govern them that the Mouths of all Adversaries may be stopt that this Apostolical Order recovering its Primitive spirit and vigour it may be received and obeyed with that same submission and esteem that was payed to it in former times and that all differences about lesser matters being laid down Peace and Truth may again flourish and the true ends of Religion and Church-Government may be advanced and that instead of biting devouring and consuming one another as we do we may all build up one another in our most holy Faith Some Papers related to in the former History Guilielmus Providentiâ Divinâ Kilmorensis Episcopus dilecto in Christo A. B. Fratri Synpresbytero salutem AD Vicariam perpetuam Ecclesiae Parochialis de C. nostrae Kilmorensis Dioecesios jam legitimè vacantem ad nostram collationem pleno jure spectantem praestito per te prius juramento de agnoscenda defendenda Regiae Majestatis suprema potestate in omnibus causis tam Ecclesiasticis quam Civilibus intra ditiones suas deque Anglicano ordine habitu Lingua pro Viribus in dictam Parochiam introducendis juxt a formam Statutorum hujus Regni necnon de perpetua personali Residentia tua in Vicaria praedicta quodque nullum aliud Beneficium Ecclesiasticum una
Church and ancient Councils there is no succession of true Pastors But among Protestants the said due Form and right intention are not observed ergo no succession of true Pastors The said due Form and right intention are not observed among Protestants in France Holland nor Germany where they have no Bishops and where Laymen do intermeddle in the making of their Ministers And for England whereas the Councils require the Ordines minores of Subdeacon and the rest to go before Priesthood your Ministers are made per saltum without ever being Subdeacons And whereas the Councils require three Bishops to assist at the consecration of a Bishop it is certain that at the Nags-Head in Cheapside where consecration of your first Bishops was attempted but not effected whereabout I remember the controversie you had with one there was but one Bishop and I am sure there was such a matter And although I know and have seen the Records themselves that afterward there was a consecration of Dr. Parker at Lambeth and three Bishops named viz. Miles Coverdal of Exceter one Hodgeskin Suffragan of Bedford and another whose name I have forgotten yet it is very doubtful that Coverdal being made Bishop of Exceter in King Edward's time when all Councils and Church-Canons were little observed he was never himself Canonically consecrated and so if he were no Canonical Bishop he could not make another Canonical And the third unnamed as I remember but am not sure was only a Bishop elect and not consecrated and so was not sufficient But hereof I am sure that they did consecrate Parker by vertue of a Breve from the Queen as Head of the Church Who indeed being no true Head and a Woman I cannot see how they could make a true Consecration grounded on her Authority Furthermore making your Ministers you keep not the right intention for neither do the Orderer nor the Ordered give nor receive the Orders as a Sacrament nor with any intention of Sacrificing Also they want the Matter and Form with which according to the Councils and Canons of the Church holy Orders should be given namely for the Matter Priesthood is given by the delivery of the Patena with Bread and of the Chalice with Wine Deaconship by the delivery of the Book of the Gospels and Subdeaconship by the delivery of the Patena alone and of the Chalice empty And in the substantial form of Priesthood you do fail most of all which Form consists in these Words Accipe potestatem offerendi Sacrificium in Ecclesia pro Vivis Mortuis which are neither said nor done by you and therefore well may you be called Ministers as also Laymen are but you are no Priests Wherefore I conclude wanting Subdeaconship wanting undoubted Canonical Bishops wanting right intention wanting Matter and due Form and deriving even that you seem to have from a Woman the Head of your Church therefore you have no true Pastors and consequently no true Church And so to conclude and not to weary my self and you too much being resolved in my understanding by these and many other Arguments That the Church of England was not the true Church but that the Church of Rome was and is the only true Church because it alone is Ancient Catholick and Apostolick having Succession Vnity and Visibility in all Ages and Places yet what Agonies I passed with my Will here I will over-pass Only I cannot pretermit to tell you That at last having also mastered and subdued my will to relent unto my understanding by means of Prayer and by God Almighty's Grace principally I came to break through many tentations and impediments and from a troubled unquiet Heart to a fixed and peaceable tranquillity of Mind for which I do most humbly thank our sweet Lord and Saviour Iesus before whom with all reverence I do avouch and swear unto you as I shall answer it in the dreadful Day of Judgment when all Hearts shall be discovered That I forsook Protestant Religion for very fear of Damnation and became a Catholick with good hope of Salvation and that in this hope I do continue and increase daily And that I would not for all the World become a Protestant again And for this which here I have written unto you in great hast I know there be many Replyes and Rejoynders wherewith I could never be satisfied nor do I desire any further Disputation about them but rather to spend the rest of my life in Devotion yet in part to give you my dear good Friend some account of my sel◠having now so good an occasion and fit a Messenger and by you if you please to render a reason of my Faith to Mr. Hall who in his said printed Epistle in one place desires to know the Motives thereof I have thus plainly made relation of some Points among many Whereunto if Mr. Hall will make any Reply I do desire it may be directly and fully to the Points and in friendly Terms upon which condition I do pardon what is past and of you I know I need not require any such circumstances And so most seriously intreating and praying to our gracious Lord to direct and keep us all and ever in his holy Truth I commend you unto his heavenly Grace and my self unto your friendly love Your very affectionate and true loving Friend James Waddesworth Sevil in Spain April 1. 1615. ✚ To the Worshipful his respected Friend Mr. William Bedell at his House in S. Edmundsbury or at Horinger be there delivered in Suffolk Kind Mr. Bedel MIne old acquaintance and Friend having heard of your health and worldly well-fare by this Bearer Mr. Austen your Neighbour and by him having opportunity to salute you with these few Lines I could not omit though some few years since I wrote you by one who since told me certainly he delivered my Letters and that you promised answer and so you are in my debt which I do not claim nor urge so much as I do that in truth and before our Lord I speak it you do owe me love in all mutual amity for the hearty affectionate love which I have and ever did bear unto you with all sincerity For though I love not your Religion wherein I could never find solid Truth nor firm hope of Salvation as dow I do being a Catholick and our Lord is my Witness who shall be my Judge yet indeed I do love your person and your ingenuous honest good moral condition which ever I observed in you nor do I desire to have altercations with Mr. Ioseph Hall especially if he should proceed as Satyrically as he hath begun with me nor with any other Man and much less would I have any debate with your self whom I do esteem and affect as before I have written nor would I spend the rest of my life which I take to be short for my Lungs are decaying in any Questions but rather in Devotion wherein I do much more desire to be hot and
sith you required a full Answer and the delay it self had need to bring you some interest for the forbearance And because you mention the vehemency of discreet Lawyers although methinks we are rather the Clients themselves that contend since our Faith is our own and our best Freehold let me entreat of you this ingenuity which I protest in the sight of God I bring my self Let us not make head against evident Reason for our own credit or fashion and factions sake as Lawyers sometimes are wont Neither let us think we lose the Victory when Truth overcomes We shall have part of it rather and the better part since errour the common enemy to us both is to us more dangerous For Truth is secure and impregnable we if our Errour be not conquered must remain Servants to corruption It is the first Praise saith S. Augustine to hold the true Opinion the next to forsake the false And surely that is no hard mastery to do when both are set before us if we will not be either retchless or obstinate From both which our Lord of his mercy evermore help us and bring us to his everlasting Kingdom Amen Your very loving Brother W. Bedell Horningshearth Octob. 22. 1620. THE COPIES OF Certain Letters c. Salutem in Christo Iesu. CHAP. I. Of the Preamble The Titles Catholick Papist Traytor Idolater SIR I Do first return you hearty thanks for the truth and constancy of your love and those best effects of it your wishing me as well as to your self and rejoycing in my safe return out of Italy For indeed further I was not though reported to have been both at Constantinople and Ierusalem by reason of the nearness of my name to one Mr. William Bidulph the Minister of our Merchants at Aleppo who visited both those places I thank you also that your ancient love towards me hath to use that Word of the Apostle now flourished again in that after so many Years you have found opportunity to accomplish your promise of writing to me though not as ye undertook of the state of Religion there yet which I confess I no less desired the Motives of the forsaking that you had professed here Whereof since it hath pleased you as ye write now to give me an account and by me to Mr. Dr. Hall with some expectation also as it appears of reply from one of us I will use the liberty which you give me and as directly as I can for the matter and in Christian terms for the manner shew you mine opinion of them wherein I shall endeavour to observe that Precept of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether it be to be interpreted loving sincerely or seeking truth lovingly Neither soothing untruth for the dearness of your person nor breaking charity for diversity of Opinion With this entrance my loving Friend and if you refuse not that old Catholick name my dear Brother I come to your Letter Wherein though I might well let pass that part which concerns your quarrel with Mr. Dr. Hall with aetatem habet yet thus much out of the common presumption of charity which thinks not evil give me leave to say for him I am verily perswaded he never meant to charge you with Apostasie in so horrible a sense as you count viz. A total falling from Christian Religion like that of Julian an obstinate pertinacy in denying the Principles of the Faith necessary to salvation or a renouncing your Baptism The term Apostasie as you know doth not always sound so hainously A Monk forsaking his Order or a Clerk his Habit is in the Decretals stiled an Apostata Granatensis saith not untruly That every deadly sin is a kind of Apostasie The Apostle S. Paul speaking of Antichrists time saith There must come an Apostasie before Christs second coming and how this shall be he shews elsewhere Men shall give heed to spirits of Error and Doctrines of Devils and such as speak falshood in hypocrisie Whereby it seems that Antichrist himself shall not professedly renounce Christ and his Baptism His Kingdom is a mystery of iniquity a revolt therefore not from the outward profession but inward sincerity and power of the Gospel This kind of Apostasie might be that which Mr. Hall was sorry to find in you whom he thought fallen from the Truth though not in the Principles of Christian Doctrine yet in sundry Conclusions which the reformed Churches truly out of them maintain He remembred our common education in the same Colledge our common Oath against Popery our common Calling to the same sacred Function of the Ministery he could not imagine upon what reasons you should reverse these beginnings And certainly how weighty and sufficient soever they be we are not taught by our Catholick Religion to revenge our selves and render reproach for reproach with personal terms much less to debase and avile the excellent Gifts of God as is Poesie the honour of David and Solomon by the Testimony of the Holy Ghost himself These courses are forbidden us when we are railed upon and calumniated how much more when as S. Peter speaks We are beaten for our faults as it falls out in your case if these Motives of yours be weak and insufficient which we shall anon consider You say you are become Catholick Were you not then so before The Creed whereinto you were baptized is it not the Catholick Faith The conclusion certes of Athanasius's Creed which is but a declaration thereof saith Haec est Fides Catholica Or is not he a Catholick that holds the Catholick Faith That which was once answered touching the present Church of England to one in a Stationers Shop in Venice that would needs know what was the difference betwixt us and the Catholicks It was told him none for we accounted our selves good Catholicks When he unwilling to be put off in his answer for lack of due form in his Question pressed to know what was the difference betwixt us and them there He was answered This That we believed the Catholick Faith contained in the Creed but did not believe the Thirteenth Article which the Pope had put to it When he knew not of any such Article the Extravagance of Pope Boniface was brought where he defines it to be altogether of necessity to salvaâ—â—on to every humane creature to be under the Bishop of Rome This thirteenth Article of the thirteenth Apostle good Mr. Waddesworth it seems you have learned and so are become as some now speak and write Catholick Roman That is in true interpretation Vniversal-particular which because they cannot be equalled the one restraining and cutting off from the other take heed that by straitning your Faith to Rome you have not altered it and by becoming Roman left off to be Catholick Thus if you say our Ancestors were all till of late Years Excuse me Sir whether you call our Ancestors the first Christian Inhabitants of this Isle or the ancient Christians of the Primitive Church neither those
fall to challenge not only the infallibility but which were more dangerous the Authority of their Judge If it be thought better to leave scope to Opinions opposition it self profitably serving to the boulting out of the Truth If Unity in all things be as it seems despaired of by this your Gellius himself why are we not content with Vnity in things necessary to Salvation expresly set down in Holy Scripture And anciently thought to suffice reserving Infallibility as an honour proper to God speaking there Why should it not be thought to suffice that every Man having imbraced that necessary Truth which is the Rule of our Faith thereby try the Spirits whether they be of God or no. If he meet with any that hath not that Doctrine receive him not to House nor salute him If consenting to that but otherwise infirm or erring yet charitably bear with him This for every private Man As for the publick order and peace of the Church God hath given Pastors and Teachers that we should not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine and amongst them appointed Bishops to command that Men teach no other or foreign Doctrine which was the end of Timothy his leaving at Ephesus 1 Tim. 1.3 Then the Apostles themselves by their example have commended to the Church the wholesome use of Synods to determine of such controversies as cannot by the former means be composed but still by the Holy Scriptures the Law or Rule as you say well by which all these Iudges must proceed Which if they do not then may they be deceived themselves and deceive others as experience hath shewed yet never be able to extinguish the truth To come to Antiquity There is not any one thing belonging to Christian Religion if we consider well of more importance than how the purity of the whole may be maintained The Ancients that write of the rest of Christian Doctrine is it not a miracle had they known any such infallible Judge in whose Oracle the security of all with the perpetual tranquillity of the Church is contained they should say nothing of him There was never any Age wherein there have not been Heresies and Sects to which of them was it ever objected that they had no infallible Judge How soon would they have sought to amend that defect if it had been a currant Doctrine in those times that the true Church cannot be without such an Officer The Fathers that dealt with them why did they not lay aside all disputing and appeal them only to this Barr Unless perhaps that were the lett which Cardinal Bellarmine tells the Venetians hindred S. Paul from appealing to S. Peter Lest they should have made their Adversaries to laugh at them for their labour Well howsoever the Cardinal hath found out a merry reason for S. Paul's appealing to Caesars Judgment not Peter's lest he should expose himself to the laughter of Pagans what shall we say when the Fathers write professedly to instruct Catholick Men of the forepleadings and advantages to be used against Hereticks even without descending to tryal by Scriptures or of some certain general and ordinary way to discern the Truth of the Catholick Faith from the prophane novelties of Heresies Had they known of this infallible Judge should we not have heard of him in this so proper a place and as it were in a cause belonging to his own Court Nay doth not the writing it self of such Books shew that this matter was wholly unknown to Antiquity For had the Church been in possession of so easie and sure a course to discover and discard heresies they should not have needded to task themselves to find out any other But the truth is infallibility is and ever hath been accounted proper to Christs judgment And as hath been said all necessary Truth to Salvation he hath delivered us in his Word That Word himself tells us shall judge at the last day Yea in all true decisions of Faith that word even now judgeth Christ judgeth the Apostle sits Iudge Christ speaks in the Apostle Thus Antiquity Neither are they moved a whit with that Objection That the Scriptures are often the matter of Controversies For in that case the remedy was easie which S. Augustine shews to have recourse to the plain places and manifest such as should need no interpreter for such there be by which the other may be cleared The same may be said if sometimes it be questioned Which be Scriptures which not I think it was never heard of in the Church that there was an external infallible Judge who could determine that question Arguments may be brought from the consent or dissent with other Scriptures from the attestation of Antiquity and inherent signs of Divine Authority or humane infirmity but if the Auditor or Adversary yield not to these such parts of necessity must needs be laid aside If all Scripture be denied which is as it were exceptio in judicem ante litis contestationem Faith hath no place only reason remains To which I think it will scarce seem reasonable if you should say Though all Men are lyers yet this Iudge is infallible and to him thou oughtest in conscience to obey and yield thy understanding in all his Determinations for he cannot err No not if all Men in the World should say it Unless you first set down there is a God and stablish the authority of the Books of Holy Scripture as his voice and thence shew if you can the warrant of this priviledge Where you affirm The Scriptures to be the Law and the Rule but alone of themselves cannot be Iudges If you mean without being produced applied and heard you say truth Yet Nicodemus spake not amiss when he demanded Doth our Law judge any Man unless it hear him first he meant the same which S. Paul when he said of the High Priest thou sittest to judge me according to the Law and so do we when we say the same Neither do we send you to Angels or God himself immediately but speaking by his Spirit in the Scriptures and as I have right now said alledged and by discourse applyed to the matters in question As for Princes since it pleased you to make an excursion to them if we should make them infallible Judges or give them Authority to decree in Religion as they list as Gardiner did to King Henry the Eight it might well be condemned for monstrous as it was by Calvin As for the purpose Licere Regi interdicere populo usum calicis in Coena Quare Potestas n. summa est penes Regem quoth Gardiner This was to make the King as absolute a Tyrant in the Church as the Pope claimed to be But that Princes which obey the truth have commandment from God to command good things and forbid evil not only in matters pertaining to humane society but also the Religion of God This is no new strange Doctrine but Calvins and
use any more Words Believe then if you please that the Commemoration of Christs Sacrifice in the Lords Supper or the Oblations of the faithful are to be made for all that decease after Baptism in the attempting of whatsoever sin they dye yea suppose in final impenitence of any deadly crime That such as be damned may thereby have their damnation made more tolerable Believe that without any impropriety of Speech the same form of Words may be a thanksgiving for one and an appeasing of Gods wrath for another Believe also if you can beieve what you will that S. Tecla delivered the Soul of Falconilla out of Hell and S. Gregory the Soul of Trajan and that as may seem saying Mass for him sith he was forbidden thenceforth to offer any Host for any wicked Man Believe that Macarius continually praying for the Dead and very desirous to know whether his Prayers did them any good had answer by miracle from the Scull of a dead Man an Idolater that by chance was tumbled in the way O Macarius when thou offerest Prayers for the Dead we feel some ease for the time Believe that on Easter even all the damned Spirits in Hell keep Holy day and are free from their torments S. Augustine such is his modesty will give you leave to believe this as well as Purgatory if you please as he is not unwilling to give as large scope to other Mens Opinions as may be so they reverse not the plain and certain grounds of Holy Scripture In all these you may if you please follow Authors also as S. Damascene Paladius Prudentius Sigebert and others But give the same liberty to others that ye take Compel no Man to follow your Opinion if he had rather follow Danaeus's Reasons For my self I would sooner with S. Augustine himself whose words touching S. Cyprian Danaeus here borrowed confess this to be naevum candidissimi pectoris coopertum ubere Charitatis than be bound to justifie his conceit touching the commemoration of the Dead in the Lords Supper And as he saith of S. Cyprian so would I add Ego hujus libri Authoritate non teneor quia literas Augustini non ut Canonicas habeo sed eas ex Canonicis considero quod in iis divinarum Scripturarum authoritati congruit cum laude ejus accipio quod non congruit cum pace ejus respuo Which Words I do the rather set down that they may be Luthers justification also against F. Parsons who thinks he hath laid sore to his charge when he cites very solemnly his Epistle ad Equitem Germ. Anno Domini 1521. where he saith He was tyed by the authority of no Father though never so holy if he were not approved by the judgment of Holy Scripture Surely this is not to deny and contemn as he calls it or as you to controll the Fathers to account them subject to humane infirmities which themselves acknowledge But the contrary is to boast against the Truth to seek to forejudge it with their mistakings which needs not so much as require their Testimonies I will forbear to multiply words about that whether the testimonies of Antiquity which favour the Protestants be many or few whether they do indeed so or onely seem prima facie whether they be wrested or to the purpose whether all this may not by juster reason be affirmed of the passages cited by the Romanists out of Antiquity setting aside matters of ceremony and government which your self confess by and by may be divers without impeaching unity in Faith and opinions ever to be subjected to the trial of Scriptures by their own free consent and desire Judge by an instance or two that this matter may not be a meer skirmish of generalities Tertullian in his latter times whether as Saint Hierome writes through the envy and reproach of the Roman Clergy or out of the too much admiring chastity and fasting became a Montanist and wrote a Book de Pudicitia blaming the reconciling of Adulterers and Fornicators In the very entrance almost thereof he hath these words Audio etiam edictum esse propositum quidem peremptorium Pontifex scil Maximus Episcopus Episcoporum dicit Ego moechiae fornicationis delicta poenitentia functis dimitto Pamelius in his note upon this place writes thus Bene habet annotatu dignum quod etiam jam in haerest constitutus adversus Ecclesiam scribens Pontificem Romanum Episcopum Episcoporum nuncupet infra Cap. 13. bonum Pastorem benedictum Papam Cap. 21. Apostolicum Thus Pamelius and presently lanches forth into the Priviledges of the See of Rome and brings a number of testimonies for that forgery of Constantines donation The like note he hath in the life of Tertullian where he makes the Pope thus set forth the former Edict to have been Zephyrinus's quem saith he Pontificem Maximum etiam jam haereticus Episcopum Episcoporum appellat Baronius also makes no small account of this place and saith The title of the Pope is here to be noted And indeed prima facie as you say they have reason But he that shall well examine the whole web of Tertullians discourse shall find that he speaks by a most bitter and scornful Ironie as Elias doth of Baal when he saith he is a God The word scilicet might have taught them thus much Yea the title Pontifex Maximus which in those days and almost two ages after was a Pagan term never attributed to a Christian Bishop first laid down by Gratian the Emperour as Baronius also notes in the year of our Lord 383. because it savoured of Heathenish superstition though it had been as a title of Royalty used by the former Christian Emperours till that time This title I say might have made them perceive Tertullians meaning unless the immoderate desire of exalting the Papacy did so blind their eyes that seeing they saw and yet perceived not In the same character though with more mildness and moderation is the same title for the other part of it used by Saint Cyprian in his Vote in the Council of Carthage Neque n. quisquam nostrum se esse Episcopum Episcoporum constituit aut tyrannico terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem Collegas suos adigit Bellarmine saith he speaks here of those Bishops that were in the Council of Carthage and that the Bishop of Rome is not included in that sentence who is indeed Bishop of Bishops What! and doth he tyrannously inforce his Colleagues to obedience also For it is plain that Cyprian joyns these together the one as the presumptuous title the other as the injurious act answering thereto which he calls plain tyranny And as plain it is out of Firmilianus's Epistle which I vouched before that Stephanus Bishop of Rome heard ill for his arrogancy and presuming upon the place of his Bishoprick Peters Chair to sever himself from so many Churches and break the bond of peace now with the Churches of the
East in Asia now of the South in Africk And he was in as ill conceit with Cyprian for his breaking good order and communicating with Basilides and Martialis justly deprived in Spain as Saint Cyprian was with him when he stiled him a false Christ and a false Apostle But that holy Martyr was of a more patient and calm spirit than to be moved with such reproaches nay he took occasion as it should seem thereby to write of patience From this mildness it was that he so closely taxed the presumption of him that made himself Bishop of Bishops and by terror which what it was Firmilianus's Epistle shews threatning Excommunication would compel his Colleagues to his own opinion None of us saith he doth thus As the Apostle we preach not our selves we commend not our selves We are not as many that adulterate the Word of God c. Bellarmine takes the first kindly No marvel saith he for this is the Bishop of Rome's due But they go together he must be content to take both or leave both Such another place there is in Saint Augustine Epist. 86. the words are Petrus etiam inquit Apostolorum Caput coeli janitor Ecclesiae fundamentum Where in the Margent the Divines of Lovaine the overseers of Plantines edition set this note Petrus Ecclesiae fundamentum Why might they not The words ye will say of the Text. But these words of the text be not Saint Augustines whose opinion is well enough known That it is Christ confessed by Peter that is the foundation of the Church but they are the words of an undiscreet railer of the City of Rome against whom Saint Augustine in all that Epistle most vehemently inveighs This arrogant Author endeavours so to defend the Roman custome of fasting on the Saturday as he reproaches all other Churches that used otherwise And that we may see with what Spirit he was led he brings the same text that is brought in Pope Siricius and Innocentius's Epistles against the marriage of Clergy-men Qui in carne sunt Deo placere non possunt and many other Scriptures wrested and far from the purpose at last comes the authority of Peter and his tradition very Pope-like alledged Peter he saith the head of the Apostles porter of heaven and foundation of the Church having overcome Simon the Sorcerer who was a figure of the Devil not to be overcome but by fasting thus taught the Romans whose faith is famous in the whole world I remit you to Saint Augustine's answer to this tradition This I note that where your Censors do rase out of the Margents of former editions such notes as do express the very opinions of the Ancients and in their own words here they can allow and authorize such marginal notes as are directly contrary to their meaning Yea which are earnestly oppugned by them when they seem to make for the authority of the Pope Good sir examine well this dealing and judge if this be not wresting the Fathers and applying them clean from their purpose In fine you found your self you say evidently convinced Perswaded I believe rather than convinced Else if the force and evidence of the Arguments and not the pliableness of your mind were the cause of your yielding methinks they should work like effect in others no less seriously seeking for truth and setting all worldly respects aside earnestly minding their own salvation than your self Which I well know they do not neither those which hitherto have been examined nor those which yet remain to be considered in the rereward CHAP. VIII Of the Invisibility of the Church said to be an evasion of Protestants THE first whereof is the dislike of the Protestants evasion as you call it by the invisibility of their Church Give me leave here to tell you plainly ye seem to me not to understand the Protestants doctrine in this point Else ye would have spared all that The Catholick Church must ever be visible as a City set on a hill otherwise how should she teach her children convert Pagans dispense Sacraments All this is yielded with both hands The Congregations of which the Catholick Church doth consist are visible But the promise made to this Church of victory against the gates of Hell the titles of the house of God the base and pillar of Truth an allusion as I take it to the bases and pillars that held up the veil or curtains in the Tabernacle the body of Christ his Dove his undefiled are not verified of this Church in the whole visible bulk of it but in those that are called according to Gods purpose given to Christ and kept by him to be raised up to life at the last day This doctrine is Saint Augustine's in many places which it would be too tedious to set down at large In his third book De doctrina Christiana among the rules of Tychonius there is one which he corrects a little for the terms De Domini corpore bipartito which he saith ought not to have been called so for in truth that is not the Lords body which shall not be with him for ever but he should have said of the Lords true body and mixt or true and feigned or some such thing Because not only for ever but even now hypocrites are not to be said to be with him though they seem to be in his Church Consider those resemblances taken out of the holy Scripture wherein that godly Father is frequent of chaff and wheat in the Lords floor of good and bad fishes in the net of spots and light in the Moon Of the Church carnal and spiritual of the wicked multitudes of the Church yet not to be accounted in the Church Of the Lilly and the Thorns those that are marked which mourn for the sins of Gods people and the rest which perish which yet bear his Sacraments Consider the last Chapter of the book De Vnitate Ecclesiae and that large Treatise which he hath of that matter Epist. 48. The place is long which deserves to be read for the objection of the Universality of Arianisme like to that of Papisme in these last ages which Saint Augustine answers in the fifth book De Baptismo contra Donatistas cap. 27. That number of the just who are called according to Gods purpose of whom it is said The Lord knoweth who are his is the inclosed garden the sealed fountain the well of living waters the orchard with Apples c. The like he hath l. 5. c. 3. 23. he concludes that because such are built upon the Rock as hear the Word of God and do it and the rest upon the sand now the Church is built upon the Rock all therefore that hear the Word of God and do it not are out of question without the Church In the seventh book cap. 51. Quibus omnibus consideratis Read and mark the whole Chapter Out of these and many more like places which I forbear to mention it appears that albeit