ad Philadelph In your Edition printed at Colein you have quite altered the sense by a corrupt Translation saying One Cup is distributed for all and in the Margent Unus Calix qui pro omninibus nobis distributus est Bibl. Pp. Tom. 1. Colon Agripp An. 1618. p. 85. Bell. de Euch. l. 4. c. 26. Una Eucharistia utendum And that your corruption may not want an Advocate your Cardinall Bellarmine tells us There is not much credit to be given to the Greek Copies for the Latine reades it otherwise by which reason a man may appeale from the Originall to a Translation which is a thing unheard of Again whereas he saith in the same Epistle Ignat. ibid. ut suprà Oh yee Virgins in your prayers set Christ onely before your eyes and his Father being enlightened by his spirit hereby teaching that we ought to directour prayers to the Trinity only and not to Saints Angels your men in their late Edition printed at Lyons by their corrupt translation have left out the word Precibus Ignat. Lugdun impres An. 1572. and thrustin Animabus soules for prayers by which change of words the sense meaning of the Father is cleane perverted It followeth further in the same Page in speaking of Peter and Paul and other Apostles who betooke themselves to a married life Severinus Binius in his Annotations upon this place tells us that those words viz. Peter and Paul and other Apostles betook themselves to a married life ought to be razed out The third age An. 200. to 300. because saith he it is probable the Grecians in honour of Marriage corrupted the Text A faire warning for us to take notice that in after Editions that passage may also be cleane left out In the third Age Tertullian paraphrasing upon the words of Christ a Caro nihil prodest ad vivificandum scilicet Tert. de Resurrect carnis c. 37. Caro nihil prodest sed ad vivificandum Tertul. Parisiis apud Michaelem Julianum An. 1580. p. Mihi 47. The flesh profiteth nothing saith It is the Spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing namely to quicken your Tertullian printed at Paris hath quite perverted the meaning of the Father and causeth him to speake flat contrary both to himselfe and to the sense of Christ in these words The flesh profueth nothing but to quicken St. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage is falsified and corrupted for the circumgestation of your Sacrament and the Popes Supremacie In his Tract of patience he tells us b Nec post gustatam Eucharistiam manus gladio cruore maculentur Sic Cypr. Parisiis apud PetruÌ„ Drovart in vico Jacobaeo An. 1541. fol. 89. Nec post gestatam Eucharistiam c. Cypr. de bono Patientiae Impress Partsiis apud Claudium Chapelet Via Jacobaet An. 1616. p. Mihi 316 Post gustatam Eucharistiam c. After the eating of the Eucharist the hands are not or ought not to be defiled with bloud In your Cyprian printed at Paris and Colein your men have wittingly altered the words saying Post gestatam Eucha ristiam and so by transmutation of one letter doe cite this place for the circumgestation of the Sacrament whereas the Ceremonie of carrying about the Eucharist was not knowne in many hundred yeares after Cyprians time But Pamelius a Canon of the Church of Bruges and Licentiate in Divinity returnes this answer in defence of it Cum manu non gustetur Eucharistia sed olim gestari consueta sit prorsus illud ex Cambrensi Codice substituendum duxi pro eo quod erat gustatam Annot. in lib. de bono Patient pag. Mihi 321 Forasmuch as the Eucharist cannot be tasted with the hand but was wont anciently to be carried with the hand I thought it best to change the word Tasting into Carrying which I borrowed from an ancient Copie in Cambron Abbey The word then we see was changed by his owne Confession and the Cambron Copie is brought for the defence of this forgerie which differing from all other Copies may be justly suspected For his reason that we taste not with our hand it is frivolous For St. Cyprian saith not gustatam manu but simply gustatam which taste yet was not without taking the Sacrament into the hand You have heard Pamelius confession Now let us heare what Manutius hath done in publishing of St. Cyprian for Pamelius tells us that St. Cyprian printed at Rome by Paulus Manutius Indiculus Codicum in Cypriano in the yeare 1563. is a much more bettered and corrected Edition than any other and accordingly your learned Priest Mr. Hart assures us that Pope Pius the 4th Hart Raynolds c. 5. Divis 2. p. 167. being desirous that the Fathers should be set forth and corrected perfectly sent to Venice for Manutius a famous Printer that he should come to Rome to doe it and to furnish them the better with all things necessary he put foure Cardinals wise and vertuous in trust with the worke and for the correcting of Cyprian especially above the rest singular care was taken by Cardinal Baromaeus a Copie was gotten of great antiquity from Verona and the exquisite diligence of learned men was used in it These Testimonies make a faire shew of sincere and plaine dealing and no doubt if there were not double diligence used by them the Roman Cyprian doth exceed all the rest and is freest from corruption That the truth thereof may appeare let us looke into St. Cyprian in his booke touching the Unity of the Church De Veritate Ecclesiae Whereas the ancient and true Cyprian sayth The rest of the Apostles were equall unto Peter both in honour and power the Roman Cyprian printed by Manutius and your late Paris Cyprian Cypr. Parisiis apud Claudium Chapelet An. 1616. hath added these words The Primacie is given to Peter And whereas the ancient Cyprian saith Christ did dispose the Originall of unitie beginning from one the Roman and Paris have added Unam CathedraÌ„ constituit p. 254 He appointed one Chayre And whereas the ancient Cyprian sayth The Church of Christ may be shewed to be one the Roman and Paris have added Cathedra una constituitur ib. and the Chayre to bee one And because the Chayre may bee as well applyed to the Bishop of Carthage Cathedram Petri Ibid. as to the Bishop of Rome the Paris Cyprian hath added Peters chayre And whereas it was in Cyprian even in the Roman print too Hee who withstandeth and resisteth the Church doth he trust himselfe to be in the Church the Paris Cyprian addeth Qui Câ—thedram Petri supra quam fundata est Ecclesia deserit in Ecclesia se esse confidit ibid. He who forsaketh Peters chayre in which the Church was founded doth he trust himselfe to bee in the Church Now as you have heard that Manutius hath added and forged much in his Roman Edition for the Popes Supremacie so
hands who doe not onely raze and falsifie Evidences touching the greatest mysteries of Salvation who I say not onely doe the same but have pleasure in them that doe them Thus much touching the razing and corrupting of the Fathers for the first 800. yeares Now I proceed to your Index Expurgatorius your purging and blotting out the moderne Authours for the last 800. yeares Forasmuch say you as concerneth the late Catholike Authors of this last age for this our Index of which is al the difficultie beginneth but from the yeere 1515. whatsoever needeth correction is to bee amended or blotted out yet for others going before that time it is expresly said that nothing may be changed unlesse some manifest errors through the fraud of Heretikes or carelesnesse of the Printer bee crept in Thus you From your corrupting the ancient Councels and Fathers which I have showne wee are at last come to the correcting of moderne Authors and as I have led you through an Hospitall of maimed Souldiers so now I will send you to the house of correction where I will leave you without Baile or Maine-prize till you have cleared your selfe and your associates for wounding and cutting out the tongues of your owne Authors in speaking truth against the corruptions of the Church But your correcting Index say you began but from the yeare 1515. P. 24. 144. and nothing is changed of Catholike Authors before that time I assure you I have not heard as yet one sentence nay scarce one word of truth fall from your pen wherein you dissent from us and this your assertion will prove as true as the rest Yea but fay you it is expresly declared by the Church that nothing may be changed and if this be true as true it is indeed the lesse credit is to be given you or your Church-men who make decrees and breake them at their pleasure for it shall appeare that your Index doth extend it selfe to the time of the Apostles and howsoever you pretend to purge the Fathers onely in the Index and Table of their Bookes yet I say some you have purged in the Text it selfe others you have corrected in the Index in the expresse words delivered in the bodie of those Bookes And as touching your Assertion that you purge the latter writers onely from the yeare 1515. and not beyond that time this is most false and you had said more truly if you had confessed that for 1515. yeares together your Church spared no Authours ancient or moderne if they speake not Placentia agreeable to your Popes faith and doctrine For the better manifestation of this truth looke first upon your Correctorium for so Lucas Brugensis termes it your worke of correction upon the Bible and tell me if you have not altered by your Popes command above three thousand severall places in the Scripture even in your vulgar Translation which you call St. Hieromes and although you dare not lay a Deleatur upon the sacred word of God yet upon the Commandements upon the Lords Prayer upon severall places of Scripture as I have shewed there is a Deletur a leaving out and a detracting from it Looke upon your Index Expurgatorius printed at Madrid by Cardinall Quiroga and tell me if you have not purged certain places in the Index of the Bible which are ipsissima verba the very words to a letter in the Textit selfe as for instance a Justificamur fide in Christum Galat. 2.16 We are justified by faith in Christ b Justitia nostra Christus 1. Cor. 1.30 Christ is our Righteousnesse c Fide purificantur corda Act. 15.9 By faith our hearts are purified d Justus coram Deo nemo Psal 143.2 No man is righteous before God e Uxorē habeat unusquisque 1 Cor. 7.2 Let every man have his wife c. All these passages I say are the very word of God in the Body of the Scriptures and yet they are commanded f Ind. Hisp Madr. f. mihi 15. B. tanquā propositiones suspectae for so are the words of your Index as if they were things questionable to bee blotted out Againe when your glosses or marginall notes agree not to your doctrine you cause your Index Expurgatorius to lay hold on them as for instance in the 26. of Leviticus we reade in your owne Translation You shall not make to your selves an Idoll or thing graven Deleatur illud Sculptilia prohibet fieri Idem fol. 7. when the glosse in the Margent saith God forbiddeth graven Images Let that passage say you be strucken out And whereas Samuel saith Prepare your hearts unto the Lord and serve him onely Ibid. fol. 8. b. the glosse upon the Text which is the same in substance viz. wee must serve God onely you command to be blotted out These and the like places relating to the Scriptures being contrary to your Trent doctrine you have excluded from your late printed Bibles in the places aforesaid as being too obvious to the eye of every Reader Ind. Hisp Madrid p. 6. 7. f. 138. Mihi 62. Crakenthorp adv Spal p. 66. Bell. de verbo Dei l. 4. c. 11. c. Ind. Madrid fol. 62. a. Deleantur ex Textu illa verba Sed ubi non habuerit Dei timorem in seipsis nec Jesum per fidem incolam c. Ibid. Eam verò solūmodò naturam quae increata est colere venerari didicimus Ant. Meliss serm 1. Bell. descript Eccl. p. mihi 184. Looke upon the Fathers and tell mee if your Index Expurgatorius doth not correct both St. Chrysostome and Austin and Hilarie and Hierome in their Index touching the prime points of controversie betwixt us Nay more St. Austin saith Vives is purged ten or twelve lines in the body of his workes St. Chrysostome in his 49. Homily is purged 70. lines by Bellarmines confession other places are razed out of him and other Fathers as I have shewed before Looke upon St. Cyrill Bishop of Alexandria who was living above 1200. yeares agoe and tell me if your Inquisitors have not commanded a Deleatur upon his words in the very Text it selfe Looke before his time upon Gregory Nyssen and tell me if through the sides of Antonius Abbas who was living by Bellarmines accompt neare 900. yeares agoe you doe not wound that ancient Father in the body of his workes in commanding this golden sentence to bee blotted out Ind. Belg. p. 270. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nissen in Orat. 4. Tom. 2. Edit Graeco-lat p. 146. We have learned to worship and adore that nature onely which is uncreated * Parsōs warn-word to Sir Fran. Hastings wast-word Enc. 2. c. 9 p. 69. your F. Parsons takes great paines to little purpose to excuse it one while he tells us that the sentence is not to bee found in Gregory Nissen which is most false another while he confesseth that they cannot stand to give a particular reason
to shew the visibilitie of the Church by persons in all ages Then you demand of me where the Church was which S. Paul called the house of God and pillar of truth and thus you prescribe mee my weapons and teach mee how to fight Touching the visibilitie of the Church it is not to be confined within the narrow compasse of an Epistle and therefore I will answer you and your Jesuites challenge at large in place convenient and as touching your demand where the Church was which is called the pillar of truth I answer in briefe not in Rome but in Ephesus for otherwise it might seeme incongruous that the Apostle should exhort Timothy to walke circumspectly in the Church of God because the Church of Rome was the pillar and firmament of truth And therefore the Turke may better alledge this place to prove Mah mets religion being now subject to his power than you to justifie the Romish religion because Ephesus was the pillar of truth You proceed and by way of prevention you tell me the controversie is not so much of the doctrine as of the persons and then you conclude simply in the very same page The question is not of the doctrine but of the persons Oportet esse memorem I will but let you see your contradiction I quarrell it not onely I pray you tell mee in the words of sobernesse and truth did ever any wise man except your selfe undertake to prove the true Church by the visibilitie of the persons May not Jewes and Heretiques by the same reason claime a true Church because they had visible persons in all ages But say you this hath beene the way which the holy Fathers have taken either in proving the Catholique faith or disproving of heresies and for your Assertion you cite Tertullian Irenaeus Cyprian Optatus and Augustine give me leave to examine your Authors for as yet you have produced but one ancient Father and him you have falsified in the Frontispice of your booke Touching your first Author Tertull. prescript c. 32. lib. 3. Car. advers Marcion Tertullian in the first place cited by you hee demonstrates two wayes how to discerne the Church first by shewing some Apostle or Apostolicall person to have founded it next by the conformity of the doctrine to the Apostles and in his third book against Marcion which is your second citation hee hath nothing at all for your purpose Touching your second Author Iren. l. 3. c. 1 2 3. l. 4. c. 43 45 46. Irenaeus hee is expressely against you for in the first chapter and third booke cited by you he saith By the will of God they have delivered the Gospel to bee the pillar and foundation of truth In the second hee saith that when Heretiques are convinced by the Scriptures they fall to accuse them as if they were not right or of authoritie and that they are ambiguous and doubtfull In the third hee proveth the truth of the Church by the conformitie of doctrine to the Apostles not by the visibilitie as you pretend In his fourth booke cited by you he shewes that bare succession is no note of the Church and in his 45. chapter which you quote there is nothing that maketh for your question And lastly in the 46. chapter he proveth that the New Testament is as severe against fornication as the Old or rather more and this may touch the free-hold of that Church which dispenseth with Stewes but of the point in question he speakes nothing at all Touching your third Author S. Cyprian Cypr. Ep. 52. 76. in the 52. Epistle cited by you he perswades Antonianus rather to adhere to Cornelius than Novatianus and in his 76. Epistle alledged by you hee shewes that Novatianus succeeding none in that See was ordained by himselfe and therefore could bee no true Bishop but as touching the controversie in question Ne gry quidem Touching your fourth Author Optatus Optat. advers Parmen lib. 2. he handleth not the question neither maketh any thing at all for you Lastly August Psal 2. part Don. Ep. 165. de Utilit credendi c. 7. touching S. Austin you cite the second Psalme and there is nothing handled of the question you cite likewise his 165. Epistle wherein hee declares a succession of Bishops from the Apostles time to Anastasius Si ordo Episcoporum succedentium considerandus est Ep. 165. p. 751. Preculdubio ab Ecclesiâ Catholicâ sumendum exordium De Utilit credendi c. 7. Idem contr Cresc l. 1. c. 33. If saith he an orderly succession of Bishops is to be considered Yea but S. Austin say you particularly proves the question where he tels his friend Honoratus he must begin his enquirie from the Catholique Church Hee that told the Manichees wee must take our Exordium from the Church told the Donatists likewise wee must resort to that Church for the resolution of our faith which the sacred Scriptures undoubtedly demonstrate to be the true Church for in them saith he we have knowne Christ Idem Ep. 166. in them wee have knowne the Church If you can derive your succession in person and doctrine from Christ and his Apostles we will answer you as sometimes S. Austin answered Petilian the Donatist Idem contr l. Petil. l. 2. c. 85. Whether of us be Schismatiques we or you aske you not mee I will not aske you let Christ bee asked that hee may shew us his owne Church After these severall passages you returne againe to your first Author Tertullian Tertull. prescript c. 19. and with him you conclude where it shall appeare that there is the truth of Christian discipline and faith there shall bee the truth of Scriptures and Expositions And from hence you inferre that we are first to seeke the persons that professe the faith that is the Church Whereas in truth his testimony doth rather prove the persons by the doctrine than the doctrine by the persons and this is most agreeable to his owne Assertion in the third chapter Idem c. 3. Ex personis probamus fidem an ex fide personas As if hee should say wee plainly prove the persons by the doctrine not the doctrine by the persons Now put on your Spectacles and take a review of your Authors The first maketh nothing for you the second is expressely against you the third speakes not to the point in question the fourth and fifth handle the question but not at all to your advantage or our prejudice and thus you have produced foureteene severall places out of the ancient Fathers in one page and all either impertinently or falsly or directly against your selfe by which the Reader may conjecture what is like to bee the issue of your whole worke who have so grossely falsified so many authorities in your Epistle and before the entrance into the body of your booke From your lame proofes of the Churches authoritie you proceed to the justification of your maimed commandements
there be in mee I say not any talent but onely a mite of a talent my prayer unto God is ever was it may be bestowed wholly to the honour of his truth and the benefit of his Church And whereas you charge mee with obstinacie and malice which say you is the true cause of all my errours let mee tell you if I were in an errour you have not the patience to shew it me but by bitternesse and railing Your learning haply may worke miracles in the eares of the unlearned that cannot judge but it cannot turne darknesse into light nor errour into truth And although your bitternesse might justly occasion that malice of which you accuse me yet it is so farre from my thoughts that I pitie you and in requitall of your paines I pray for you and that which S. Paul said of the Israelites Rom. 10.1 I wish to the Romanists and members of your Church Brethren my hearts desire and prayer to God is that they may be saved But say you these were not your first fruits for you translated and published Bertram an obscure Author with a preface of your owne and thereby gave sufficient triall of your ignorance and corruption whereof you were convinced by O.E. but never cleered your selfe of so foule a taxe It is true that some ten yeeres since I caused Bertram to be reprinted and published with a preface before it and it is as true that hee being a Romish Priest taught our doctrine of the Eucharist above eight hundred yeeres since and therefore by way of prevention you terme him an obscure Author though he were famous in his time As touching the foule taxe of ignorance and corruption in false translating it wherewith you charge mee you are much mistaken for I never translated it but onely reprinted the old translation this both hee and you might have seene in the Frontispice of the booke in these words Translated and imprinted in the English tongue Anno Dom. 1549. and now the third time published so that the Translation into English was made before I was borne Againe in the end of my preface you shall finde these words Pittie it were but this lamp should receive a new light by reprinting him which the iniquitie of the time had almost extinquished Now I pray Sir what cause was there of any answer to your namelesse Author or rather what cause was there of his and your bitternesse in charging mee with false translating with ignorance and corruption I professe I am not ignorant that your men are guiltie of many such false accusations ad faciendum populum to make your Proselytes beleeve that all our bookes are full of lyes of whom I may truly say as S. Austin sometimes spake of the Donatists When they cannot by slie and wily cosenage creep like Aspes with open professed violence they rage like Lions Lastly you say that an Answer to my booke hath hitherto beene deferred because no man of learning would thinke it worth his paines to make any Let mee tell you I have received three printed answers to Via tuta besides two written copies from namelesse Authors the first was from a Merchant and that is called Via verè tuta the second from a Priest and that is called A paire of Spectacles to see the way the third is from a Clerk and that is termed A Whetstone of Reproofe The first printed Author is termed Mr. John Heigham whose Treatise savours too much of blasphemie and ribaldrie the second is Mr. John Floyd whose worke is full of bitternesse and subtiltie the third is Tom Tell troth for so he termes himselfe whose pamphlet is fraught with all childishnesse and impertinencie Now if none of these were men of learning as you confesse because no learned man would take the paines to answer it what may I thinke of your wisdome which hath returned an answer full of railing accusations such as the Angell of God would not have brought against the Devill himselfe I say in regard your bitter lines are rather a libell without a name than a Christian and moderate confutation I might well have declined a replication to it and have told you with S. Jerome Your bitternesse deserves rather an answer with scorn Magis indignationem scribentis quam studium Hieron advers Vigil than a refutation in earnest But when I considered it was the fruit of your religion and common practice of your Church that for want of matter you commonly fall upon the person I resolved with my selfe to call you to a sober reckoning that the truth of God might appeare and that by your owne bitternesse you might better discerne the character of a bad cause and an evill spirit For a conclusion take but a short view of your bitter reproaches you term me a blind Guide a Ministeriall Knight you say my booke is a Labyrinth of errours you crie out my sirname hath the two first letters of a lye you say the title of Sir will be left for me you condemne me of execrable perjurie you affirme I am a framer of lyes and abound in all kind of falshood you tell me I scarce understand Latine and it is conceived a Minister made my booke you charge me with obstinacie with malice with corruption with ignorance with false translating you proclaime the fearefull judgements of God upon me for perverting soules and as if I were past all grace you say I am not capable of any good advice yet at last as if you would make mee some amends for all your accusation you conclude I forbeare to say any more resting howsoever your well-wishing friend Surely you have said enough and you doe well to forbeare to say more for I thinke the words of your Epistle are so sufficiently dipt in lye and gall that they will serve for your whole worke but I pardon you and shall returne you no other answer than the Arch-Angell gave to Satan Jude vers 9. The Lord rebuke you onely let me tell you I cannot thinke you a well-wishing friend whose heart and tongue is full of cursing and bitternesse for I may truly say of you as Cato sometimes said of Lentulus Dicam falli eos qui negant os habere Seneca They are much deceived that deny you to have a mouth and a foule one too In the meane time you must remember that for your idle and vaine words you must give accompt to God and for your fifteene severall falsifications you must give an accompt to your Reader And thus by way of Traverse and deniall to all other things impertinently alledged I answer No to your railing I answer nothing AN ANSWER TO HIS PREFACE to the Reader Good Christian Reader FIrst thou shalt observe that the author of the Spectacles chiefe aime is either by shifts and cavils to outface the truth or by Sophistrie and bitter words to darken it one while hee cries downe my booke and slights it in such a scornefull manner as if
to be grandement suspicious of new coynage and if for no other cause yet for this alone they give a just occasion and jealousie when such poore shifts and evasions are devised by your Pope and his adherent to make them good for it is a true saying of a renowned Bishop and it is the faith of all reformed Catholiques B. Morton Grand Impost cap. 2. sect 2. He can onely make an article of faith who can create a soule and after make a Gospel to save that soule and then give unto that soule the gift of faith to beleeve that Gospel I proceed to your doctrine That is onely to bee called a new faith say you which is cleane of another kind that is differing or disagreeing from that was taught before Thus you I will not take advantage of your first Assertion that your faith is grounded upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles which you can never prove but wil joyne issue with you upon your last Assumpsit That is only to be called a new faith which is cleane of another kind and is different disagreeing from what was taught before but such are many of the Articles of Pope Pius the fourth extracted from the Councell of Trent as shall appeare by proofes at large in their proper places In the meane time let me tell you your Church teacheth not onely Novê but Nova not onely Praeter but Contra even besides and contrarie to that which she first received from the ancient Church so that howsoever you seeke to darken truth by faire and specious pretences yet in truth your Trent Additions are forraine to the faith as neither principles nor conclusions of it And that you may know and acknowledge with us that your Trent faith is differing and disagreeing from what was taught before I pray call to mind your owne confessions touching these particular Articles of your Roman Church Your doctrine touching Lay-peoples communicating under one kind namely in bread onely is an Article of the Roman faith and now generally taught and practised in the Roman Church but this practice by your owne confession is different and disagreeing from what was taught before for you say pag. 253. touching the Authors which you bring for proofe That it was the common practice of the Church for the Laytie to communicate in both kinds I allow of their authoritie Your Prayer and Service in an unknown tongue as it is now used in the Roman Church by your owne confession is different and disagreeing from what was taught before for say you pag. 270. It is true that Prayer and Service in the vulgar tongue was used in the first and best ages according to the precept of the Apostles and practice of the Fathers In the beginning it was so Your doctrine of Transubstantiation which at this day is generally received de substantia fidei for an Article of Faith yet by your owne confession is different and disagreeing from what was taught before for say you pag. 167. Transubstantiation might well be said not to have beene de substantia fidei in the Primitive Church as Yribarne speaketh because it had not beene so plainly delivered nor determined in any Councell till Gregorie the seventh his time and this was above a thousand yeares after Christ Your private or solitarie Masse wherein the Priests doe daily communicate without the people is by your own confession different and disagreeing from what was taught before and practised for say you pag. 191. They say speaking of divers Authors it was the practice of the Primitive Church to communicate everie day with the Priest I grant it These points of controversie which are so eagerly pursued by your men against the members of our Church the strength and force of truth hath extorted from you and therefore I may truly conclude Exore tuo from your owne confession that your Trent faith is new because it is different and disagreeing from what was taught before You that have taken an oath to maintaine the Papacie and are so ready to teach others you I say have either violated your oath or at leastwise have forgot your old lesson Oportet esse memorem c. for verily it behoves him that speakes lyes and contradictions to have a good memorie But it seemes you did conceive the Reader might easily passe by many such contradictions being in severall passages and farre distant pages For otherwise it would seeme strange that you which so bitterly inveigh against our reformed religion should confesse the antiquitie of our Articles and the noveltie of your owne with flat contradictions to your owne Assertions I will say to you therefore as sometimes St. Hierome spake in his Epistle to Pamachius and Oceanus Hieronym ad Pamach Oceanum Tom. 2. Thou who art a maintainer of new doctrine whatsoever thou he I pray thee spare the Romane eares spare the faith that is commanded by the Apostles mouth why goest thou about now after foure hundred yeares I may say foureteen hundred yeares to teach us that faith which we before never knew why bringest thou forth that thing that Peter and Paul never uttered Evermore untill this day the Christiam world hath beene without this doctrine To pursue the rest of your Allegations The Church of England say you admitteth of divers Books of the New Testament for Canonicall whereof there was doubt of three or foure hundred yeares to gether in the Church of God as the Epistle to the Hebrewes the second Epistle of St. Peter the Epistle of St. Jude the Apocalyps of St. John and some others which were after admitted for Canonicall 〈◊〉 I would know of him whether upon the admittance of them there were any change of faith in the Church or whether ever those books have received any change in themselves Thus you It seemes you begin to feare that your Trent faith would be discovered to be different and disagreeing from what was taught before and thereupon you would seemingly illustrate the antiquitie of your new Articles by the authoritie of the ancient Books of Canonicall Scripture But I pray where doe you find that the Books of the New Testament as namely the Epistle to the Hebrewes the Epistle of St. Peter and St. Jude and the Apocalyps were not received for three or foure hundred yeares for Canonicall It is true there was some doubt who were the right Authors of those Books but their divine authoritie was ever generally approved by all Christian Churches and allowed for Canonicall The Epistle to the Hebrewes was therefore doubted of by some because the difference diversity of the stile made them think it not to be St. Pauls and by others because the Author of it seemed to them to favour the error of the Novatian heretikes in denying the reconciliation of such as fall after Baptisme The second Epistle of St. Peter which you speake of some doubted of because of the diversitie of the style The Epistle of St. Jude was doubted
without intermission 3. That Protestants have no shaddow of succession in person or doctrine 4. That Papists have a most cleare personall succession being able to shew 200. and odde Popes succeeding the other in place and office 5. That personall succession is a firme argument of succession in faith IT is my promise in my seventh Section to shew a descent of both Religions as namely that the Romish faith was derived from antient Haeretiks and the Protestant faith was drawne downe from Christ and his Apostles But say you It is one thing to prove a thing to have beene anciently taught another to have beene successively taught It is true Antiquity and Succession differ neither did I undertake to prove that those Haeretikes or your Church had a perpetuall succession in person and doctrine but for the truths sake I have acknowledged the antiquity of your Trent faith although descended from ancient Haeretikes and I made the first instance in Latin Service and prayer in a strange tongue brought in by Pope Vitolian as is witnessed by Wolphius but you cry out It is a most strange absurdity to averre fuch a knowne falsehood upon no other authority pag. 87. then a professed Haeretike And is he an Haeretike that speaketh the truth of your Religion What say you to your prime Champion Mr. Harding He saith expresly About nine hundred yeares past it is certaine the people in some Countries had their service in an unknowne tongue Iuel in his 3. Article Divis 1. as it shall be proved of our owne Country of England Now observe the difference Wolphius said the Latin Service came in after Christ about the yeare 666. Mr. Harding who wrote these 67. yeares since as appeares by Bishop Iuels Epistle tells us it came in 900. yeares past compute Wolphius 666. with Mr. Hardings time of 967. and you shall finde that they agree about one and the same time and therefore it was neither absurd nor false which Wolphius uttered Neither doe you disprove the reason of Wolphius but you make a quâ—ere upon his assertion During his 600. and odd yeares what other Lyturgies were there in the Latin Church but Latin And I may aswell say what were there in the Greeke Church but Greeke But this demand maketh against your Service in an unknowne tongue not against Wolphius who affirmeth not that the Latin Service was not in the Latin Church before the yeare 666. but that the Pope obtruded it upon all Churches even there where the Latin was not understood as in England saith Mr. Harding and elsewhere For Origen tells us before that time Orig contrd Celsum lib. 8. the Greekes call upon God in the Greeke tongue and the Latins in the Latin tongue and all severall Nations pray unto God and praise him in their owne natur all and mother tongues for he that is the Lord of all tongues heareth men praying in all tongues none otherwise then if it were one voice pronounced by divers tongues for God that ruleth the whole world is not as some one man that hath gotten the Greeke or Latin and knoweth none-other The ancient Primitive Churches therefore taught the Doctrine in a knowne tongue agreeable to the profession at this day But the truth is A. 30.666 A. 1.666 T. 300.666 E. 5.666 I. 10.666 N. 50.666 O. 70.666 M. 200.666 Sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nomen sexcentinum sexagiata sex numeruÌ„ habens valde verisimile est quonlam verissimum nomen hobet vocabulum Latini enim sunt qui nunc regnaÌ„t sed non in hoc nos gloriabimur Irenae l 5. cap 25. p mihi 355. the Latin Service and the name of the Latin Church is one of the most essentiall markes of the Roman Hierarchie And I know not whether it were by conjecture or by inspiration that Irenaeus above foureteene hundred yeares agoe in the word Lateinos found out the name of Antichrist and the number of 666. The name Lateinos saith he conteining the number of six hundred sixty six is very likely because the truest kingdome hath that name for they are the Latines that now raigne but saith he we will not glory in this You proceede to the Haeretikes Ossem and you say first I am notably mistaken in placing them towards the Apostles time and withall you have read the Chapter there twice over and the second time more attentively then the first and yet you find not any such word so cited by mee First Trajan Anno 100. Bel. de script Eccles pag. mihi this Sect continued till Trajans time not an hundred yeares after the Apostles and therefore it was no errour in me to place them towards the Apostles time and if you please to peruse the place a third time with your Spectacles you shall find these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiph heres 19 Nemo quaerat interpretationem sed solum in oratione haec dicat and there hee repeats a Prayer which if you peruse the Greeke text is more expresse Let no man inquire after the meaning only in his Prayer Let him say such words viz. such Hebrew words which Epiphanius there setteth downe Are not these Heretikes thinke you neere kinne to them who say Heare Latine Masse and say after the Priest it mattereth not whether you understand what hee saith or not From Epiphanius you flie to Saint Ambrose and there you make a great complaint that I put in words of my owne in the same Character with Saint Ambrose which are none of his as namely There were certaine Iewes amongst the Graecians Ambr. in 1 Cor. 14. as namely the Corinthians who did celebrate the Divine Service and Sacraments which the common people understood not I confesse ingenuously it is an errour in the print and I shall willingly alter the letter but not the words at the next impression But I confidently professe it is agreeable to the true sense and meaning of the Author and the strength of the argument is not in the words but in the sense and therfore I may truly answer you with S. Austine What folly is it to contend about words Aug. Ep. 174. when there is the certainty of the thing it selfe It cannot be denied that Ambrose taxeth the Hebrewes who amongst the Corinthians in Tractatibus oblationibus used sometimes the Syriack and sometimes the Hebrew tongue which without doubt the Greeks understood not And therefore in his Commentarie on this place hee gives the Hebrew to understand If you meet together to edifie the Church Ambr. in 1 Cor. 14. those things must be delivered which the hearers understand for to what purpose or profit is it that any one speake a tongue which hee himselfe onely understands and whereof hee that heareth can reape no fruit And a little after The Apostle saith I had rather speake five words in the Church according to the Law that I may edifie others than any long and large discourse in obscuritie Againe by
viz. in leaving out the second and altering the fourth in your Breviaries and Psalters You say you print them in your Bibles and therefore they are not absolutely left out as long as they are elsewhere Mute quod scimus It is true the words are contained in your Bibles But Dic quod rogamus why doe you not publish Gods commandements as hee wrote them Admit that in your Catechismes you should set downe this forme of Baptisme I baptize thee in the name of the Father and leave out the Sonne and the Holy Ghost would it be sufficient to say it is not absolutely left out because it is contained in the Bible Shew mee the man amongst your Papalins that dare alter a Kings command or a Popes Breve and will your Church attempt more against the Precepts of God than against a Popes Bull or a Kings Proclamation But the truth is and you know it too well if the second precept were expressely set downe in your Psalters the common people would be too busie in expostulating the cause why Image-worship should be commanded by the Church and yet condemned by Gods word Yea but it is part of the first commandement say you or otherwise it is ceremoniall Let it bee one or other since God thought it needfull to be added how dare you leave it out Deut. 4.2 It was the voice of God himselfe You shall not adde unto the word which I command neither shall you diminish ought from it that you may keepe the commandement of the Lord your God Againe how is it a part of the first if it be ceremoniall when the first is agreed on all hands to be naturall morall The truth is it is not ceremoniall but morall and plainly distinct from the former for the first forbids the true worship of any false god the second forbids any false worship of the true God and howsoever Peresius and Catharinus and you for company would have gladly the Law against Images to be positive and ceremoniall and so to cease at the comming of Christ yet your owne Bellarmine disavowes it with a Non probatur Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. c. 7. This opinion is not allowed of us both for the reasons made against the Jewes and for that Irenaeus Tertullian S. Cyprian and S. Austin doe all teach that the commandements excepting the Sabbath are a Law wholly naturall and morall After your Apologie for your maimed commandements you grow so virulent as if the poyson of Aspes were under your lips you crie out I notoriously falsifie some Authors and impertinently alledge others you charge me with execrable perjurie you say I am a framer of lies and I offend in all kinde of falshood and lastly you conclude the booke to bee none of mine but some Ministers because you heare it from some that I scarce skill of ordinarie Latine I professe for my learning I cannot boast of it I doe willingly assume that saying of Origen Gratias ago Deo quod ignorantiam meam non ignoro Orig. 1 Cor. 1.27 Psal 82. I am not ignorant of my ignorance but let me tell you as in Gods cause I seeke no praise so I feare no reproach for God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise nay more out of the mouth of babes sucklings he hath ordained strength to still the enemie and the avenger And howsoever seemingly you condemne mee for ignorance yet I am verily perswaded that if I were more ignorant than you make mee you would love me the more for your Church commends Ignorance for the mother of Devotion and the rather because your owne Clemangis tels us Nich. Clemang c. 6. before the dayes of reformation Many Priests who had cure of soules were sent to their flocks not from their studies or from the schoole but from the plough and they understood as much Latine as Arabick nay they could not read and that which was shamefull they could not distinguish an Alpha from a Beta Neither can it be denied that many Popes have dispensed with ignorant men who per saltum without any learning have leaped into a Bishopricke Pope Paul the third created Robertus Venantius Arch-Bishop of Armach for two speciall qualities Tum quod Missam bellè canere tum quia cursu Veredario in equo vehi peritè diceretur Gentil Exam. Concil Trid. l. 2. sess 1. p. 33. the one because hee could sing Masse sweetly the other because he could ride a Post horse skilfully And in the latter ages it was so usuall to admit any Ignoramus's into a Bishoprick that when our King Edward the third sollicited Pope Clement the sixth to create Thomas Hartfield Bishop of Durham notwithstanding the Cardinals cried out he was a Lay-man and an Ideot the Pope replyed If the King of England had entreated for his Asse Si Rex Angliae pro asino suo supplicâsset votum suum hac vice obtinuisset Walsing citat apud Antig. Brit. in vita foh Uffordi And Godwin in his Catal. of Bishops p. 526. Eras Encom Mor. Heb. 7.3 he should have obtained it at that time To come neerer to the times Julius the third made the keeper of his monkey a Masse-priest and I presume he had small store of Latine The Friar who would prove from the words of Christ An non decem facti sunt mundi that God made ten worlds had scrace skill of ordinarie Latine And lastly hee was Sr. John Lack-Latine who would prove that Melchisedeck offered salt with bread and wine because he read in the text Rex Salem which is the King of peace I speake not this by way of recrimination but to let you know how well you and your fellowes are read in the two titles of the Law De maledicis De Clerico promoto per saltum Take therefore from me what learning you will distraine it and impound it at your pleasure I will never trouble you with Replevin onely I say with S. Austin Seeke others of more learning but beware of them that presume of learning And whereas you conceive a Minister made my booke and I beare the name onely for to countenance the worke If I had received help from some in this kinde you need not blame me for it for it is ordinarie with your men to have whole Colledges joyne their helping hand in defence of your cause But in answer to your supposall and to vindicate our Ministers from those great aspersions of ignorance of corruption of obstinacie of perjurie laid unto their charge as Authors of the worke I witnesse a true confession before God who knowes I lye not a Minister was so farre from making my booke Via Tuta Via Devia that I neither had help from Clergy-man nor Lay-man for composing or making either of my bookes Let it suffice for me to have said the truth which although it appeare never so simple yet it is able to remove a mountaine of learning if
1100 de Gratiano Aiph advers haereses l. 1. c. 2. in fine Ad transmarina qui putaverint appellandum a nullo infra Africam in Communione suscipiatur Bin. in Concil Milevit Cā 22 Codex Can. Eccl. Afric Can. 28. v. Nisi forte ad Apostolican sedem appellaverint Grat. causa 2. quest 6. Placuit fol. Mibi 153. Haec exceptio non videtur quadrare Bell. de Pont. l. 2. c. 24. notwithstanding hee professeth the worke was purged and restored to his integrity by most learned men by the command of Gregory the 13. in the yeare 1580. Your Alphonsus à Castro tells us that this shamefull errour ought to be made knowne to all men lest others by this abuse take occasion to erre in like manner as namely Johannes de Turrecremata and Cardinall Cajetan who both cited this place out of Gratian for the Romish faith and the Popes Supremacie and yet no such thing is to be found in St. Austin The Councel of Milevis alias the African Councell is falsified by Gratian for the Popes Supremacie The words of the Councell are these Those that offer to appeale beyond the Seas let none within Africa receive them to Communion Gratian observing that this was a strong evidence and barre to the Popes Supremacie according to his custome hath thrust in these words into the Canon Except it bee to the Apostolike See of Rome Now what saith Bellarmine to this falsification He confesseth that some say This exception doth not seem to square with the Councell I know not how the squares goe with your men at Rome but I finde that amongst your partie there is no rule without an exception especially if it make against your doctrine St. Cyrill Bishop of Alexandria is purged in the Text it selfe and is forged by Aquinas for two principal points of faith viz. Transubstantiation and the Popes Supremacie Touching the first he saith That we might not feele horrour Aquin. in Catena in illud Luc. 22 Accepto pane c. seeing flesh and bloud on the sacred Altar the Sonne of God condescending to our infirmities doth penetrate with the power of life into the things offered to wit Bread and Wine converting them into the verity of his owneflesh that the body of life as it were a quickening seed might be found in us Here is a faire Evidence or rather a foule falsification for your carnall presence But what saith your owne Vasques the Jesuit Citatur Cyrillus Alex. in Epistola ad Casyrium quae inter ejus opera non habetur illius tamen testimonium citat S. Thomas in Catena Cyrils testimony is eyted by Thomas but there is no such Tract to be found in all his workes Againe touching the Popes Supremacie hee brings in St. Cyrill saying As Christ received power of his Father over every power a power most full and ample that all things should bowe to him so hee did commit it most fully and amply Aquinas in opusculo contra errores Graecorum ad Urbanum quartum Pontificem maximum both to Peter and his Successors and Christ gave his owne to none else save to Peter fully but to him be gave it And the Apostles in the Gospels and Epistles have affirmed in every doctrine Peter and his Church to bee instead of God And to him even to Peter all doe bowe their head by the law of God and the Princes of the world are obedient to him even as to the Lord Jesus And we as being members must cleave unto our head the Pope and the Apostolike See That it is our duty to seeke and enquire what is to be beleeved what to bee thought what to be held because it is the right of the Pope alone to reprove to correct to rebuke to confirme to dispose to loose and binde Here is a large and ample testimony cited in the name of an ancient Father for the honour and power of the universall Bishop This passage is alledged out of Cyrils worke intituled The Treasurie against Heretiques Thesaurus adversus haeticos Tom. 2. p. 1. but whereas there are 14. Bookes written by him of that Title there are no such words to be found in the whole Tract But observe the proceedings of your good Saint hee conceived the authoritie of one Father though rightly cited was not a sufficient proofe for an Article of faith and thereupon to make good his former Assertion hee summons 630. Bishops who saith hee with one voice and consent made this generall acclamation in the Councell of Chalcedon Aquinas in opusculo ut supra God grant long life to Leo the most holy Apostolike and universall Patriarch of the whole World He tels us further it was decreed by the same Councell If any Bishop be accused let him appeale to the Pope of Rome because we have Peter for a rocke of refuge and he alone hath right with freedome of power in stead of God to judge and try the cause of a Bishop accused according to the keyes which the Lord did give him Without doubt this decree was a good inducement for the Church of England to subscribe to the Popes Supremacie if you could make good this proofe out of the Councell of Chalcedon for it is one of the first foure generall Councels which we subscribe unto by our Acts of Parliament An. 1. Elizab. But where are those words to bee found in that Councell Your Pope Zozimus falsified a Canon in the first Councell of Nice as I have shewed and your Popes Champion St. Thomas hath falsified another and both for the universality of the Pope by which you may easily discerne that you wanted antiquity to prove your faith when your men are driven to forge and faine a consent of many hundred Bishops in an ancient and generall Councell See Concil Chalced. Can. 28. Act. 15. for the supporting of your Lord Paramount when as in truth it decreed the flat contrary doctrine Gelasius Bishop of Rome is corrupted Grat. de Consecr dist 2. c. Comperimus Gelasius Pap◠Majorico Johanni Episcopis Ibid. where hee condemneth halfe Communion as sacrilegious his words are these We finde that some receiving a portion of Christs holy Body abstaine from the Cup of his sacred Bloud which because they doe out of I know not what superstition we command therefore that either they receive the entire Sacraments or that they be entirely with-held from them because the division of one and the selfe-same Mystery cannot be without grand Sacriledge Gratian the compiler of the Popes Decrees borrowed his chapter out of that Epistle of Gelasius saith Bellarmine withall prefixed this Title before it Bell. de sacr Euch. l. 4. c. 26. The Priest ought not to receive the Body of Christ without the Bloud Ea Epistola Gelasii quae modò fortasse non extat Ibid. that is to say without the consecrated Cup and yet by Bellarmines confession That Epistle peradventure is not now extant and
Religion This you confesse is true in your Councell but to these you answer nothing Concil Trid. Sess 22. Can. 9. You might have added to these abuses both Superstition and Idolatry in the Masse for your Councell confesseth them both and I thinke it toucheth your errors in Doctrine But have you reformed all or any of these things Is your superstitious number of Masses and lights in the Church abated Are your lascivious and wanton songs set to the Organs and mingled with other Church musicke redressed Is your covetousnesse in Priests with their Superstition and Idolatry in the Masse abolished Mirae mirae entis Res. Juvenal These corruptions are things and things as you call them and such as I wonder your Councell was not ashamed to confesse much more to tolerate or rather to practice in the daily sacrifice of your Masse I hasten to the Reformation in doctrine but you tell me it is a Lye the Councell never intended it I instance in private Masse Latin Service c. You answer it is most false for the doctrine is the same still and ever was I perceive your passion makes you much forget your selfe for your doctrine I confesse which is commonly received is the same now that was decreed in the Councell of Trent but that it was ever the same as now it is all the Colledge of Cardinals and Jesuits cannot prove Looke upon your owne confession in those two particular instances Your private Masse where the Priest communicates alone is not the same now as it was heretofore For say you it was the practise of the Primitive Church for the people to communicate every day with the Priest Spectacl pag. 191. Your Prayer in an unknowne tongue is not the same now as it was heretofore for say you Prayer and Service in the vulgar Tongue was used in the first and best Ages Pag. 271. and now the vulgar is become the Latin unknown tongue Take heed therefore of these confessions for by such palpable contradictions you may lose your Proselytes and bring the Lye upon your selfe Againe you confesse that the Councell wisheth that the standers by did communicate not onely spiritually Pag. 53. but also sacramentally and doth not your Church in this wish a reformation in doctrine Doth it not in this preferre the practice of the reformed Churches before their owne and in a manner confesse an error in the allowed practice of the Roman Church Your Councell commands Pastors that have care of soules to expound that to the people which is delivered in the Masse in an unknowne tongue and doe not those that require the Priests to expound it to the people shew likewise that without such exposition the people are little better for the Masse and that the Church intended the people should understand it What is this else but to joyne hands with the Protestants and to acknowledge a reformation needfull in your Church for requiring Service to bee celebrated in a knowne tongue that the people may understand it But that I may make good my assertion and that the Reader may know I have said nothing but the truth in affirming the Councell of Trent did make decrees for Reformation for doctrine as well as manners looke upon the second Session and tell me if they did not professe a reall intention in both Concil Trid. Sess 2. the words of the Session are these Whereas it is the speciall care and intention of the Councell that the darkenesle of Heresie being expelled which so many yeares hath covered the earth the light and parity of the Catholicke truth may shine through the helpe of Christ which is the true light and that those things which need reformation may be reformed the Synod exhorteth all Catholikes assembled or to be assembled and especially those who are skilful in the sacred Scriptures that with continuall meditation they may diligently consider with themselves how these things may bee effected that they may condemne those things which are to be condemned and approve those things which are to be approved that the whole world with one mouth and confession of one and the same faith may glorifie God the Faiher and our Lord Jesus Christ Take a review of the words of your Councell First Praecipua cura intentio ut propulsatis errorum tenebris quae per tot annos operiarunt terram the chiefe care to dispell the darkenesse of errour which covered the earth which words cannot be meant of the Protestant doctrine For our light is pretended by you to be lately come in and but in a part or corner of the world Secondly peritiam habeant sacrarum literarum ut sedulâ meditatione secum ipsi cogitent c. ut probare probanda damnare damnanda queant There needed not this diligence and skill in Scriptures for Luthers Religion for they were condemned before by the Pope Thirdly Nullus debeat c. obstinatis disceptationibus contendere which should not be about Lutheran points but about doctrines of their owne Fourthly in the third Section de extirpandis haeresibus c. which say they is adversus spirituales nequitias in caelestibus which heavenly places are meant by their owne Church not by Luthers as is most evident For they would never acknowledge our Churches heavenly places Now I pray what thinke you of your Councels Decrees Will not they extend to a Reformation in doctrine or will you say that Heresies in manners crept into the Church and the most learned in the Scriptures were chiefly to be imployed for reforming them that thereby there might be one Faith of Papists and Protestants through the Christian world De extirpandis haeresibus moribus reformandis quorum causa praecipue est congregata Sess 3. Looke upon the third Session and there likewise you shall finde a Decree for rooting out of Heresies in doctrine aswell as rectifying of manners and the discipline of the Church and for both those causes saith your Decree the Councell was principally called It is a most evident truth then howsoever you redouble the lie upon me that the Councell did intend a Reformation in doctrine for otherwise to what end should the Pope summon all Christian Bishops out of all Nations even at that time when the Protestants were in number infinite and had discovered and proclaimed the errors of the Roman Church Besides to what purpose were those disputes and oppositions in the Councell against particular points of Doctrine if they had not beene adjudged erroneous and needed a reformation But herein the Reader shall easily discerne the policie of your Church At the first calling of the Councell when these first Sessions were made the number of Bishops were but few about 40. but after the faction of the Popes creatures in multitude prevailed all hope of reformation was abandoned And thereupon the Bishops of Apulia publikely declared that the Trent Fathers were nothing else but the Popes creatures and his bondslaves See
advers Valent. c. 3. and in thrusting himselfe into dark and blinde holes Such is the nature of false teachers they seeke nothing more saith the same Author than to hide that which they preach Idem c. 1. if yet they may be said to preach that they hide But good Physicians say you use to enquire of the causes effects and circumstances Pag. 73. for upon these circumstances dependeth the knowledge whether it be a disease or no. It is most true that Physicians will enquire of the causes of the disease but will they deny the Patient to be sicke or refuse to minister Physicke to him unlesse he tell them precisely how or when he first tooke his disease or infection For this is our case and the point in question touching a reformation Neither doth the knowledge of the disease of the body depend upon the circumstances of time place and person I thinke you never read such Aphorismes either in Gallen or Hyppocrates neither doth your knowledge of errors and heresie in your Church depend on the circumstances of time place and persons For some Authors at the same time and in the same place might have broached truth when another set his heresie abroach as namely Saint Austin precisely in the time and place delivered the Orthodox Doctrine of grace when and where Pelagius spread his heresie From your Rules of Physicke you returne to the Rules of Divinity and tell us from Saint Austin that * Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi authoritate Apostolicâ traditū rectissimè creditur De Baptis contr Donat. l. 5. c 24. in initio Tom. 7. p. mihi 433. whatsoever the Catholike Church doth generally beleeve or practise so as there can be no time assigned when it began it is to be taken for an Apostolicall tradition This place of Austin you neither quoted in your Answer neither have you recited his words faithfully for hee speakes not of assigning the time when the Doctrine begins but whatsoever the universall Church doth hold not being ordained by Councels but hath beene ever held that is most rightly beleeved for an Apostolicall tradition This is his Tenet and this is ours but you have put in the word Catholike in your sense for universall you have added generall beleefe and practise you have thrust in these words so as no time can be assigned when it began and you have omitted the principall verb that hath been ever held which makes me suspect you omitted the citing of this place lest your fraud should be descried But I pardon you let us heare the rest P. 73. But such say you are all those things which you are pleased to call errors If this were as easily proved as spoken you should not neede to put us to the search of times and Authors for the first Founder of your Faith For if your Popish Doctrines were alwayes held by the universall Church and not ordained by Councels we should not need to looke into your Councell of Lateran for your Doctrine of Transubstantiation nor into your Councell of Constance for Communion in both kindes nor into your Councell of Florence for your seven Sacraments nor into your second Councell of Nice for your worship of Images for these and many such traditions were first ordained by Councels and were not the generall beliefe and practice of the Church Againe if the universall Church had alwayes held your Doctrines from the Apostles times why doe you your selfe confesse that your prayer in an unknowne tongue Pag. praecedenti your private Masse your halfe Communion were taught otherwise in the primitive Churches Nay if they be Apostolicall how comes it that they are flat contrary to the Doctrine of the Apostles And thus much of your two rules of Physicke and Divinity let us he are the rest of your authorities Tertullian say you hath this Rule for discerning heresie from truth Tertul. praescrip 31. p. mihi 78. That which goeth before is truth and that which commeth after is errour This Rule is most true but these words you cite by the halves for hee saith expresly Id autem extraneum falsum quod sit posterius immissum Id Dominicum verum quod sit prius traditum That was first delivered which was true and came from the God of truth and this was the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles for that which commeth after saith he is sarre different where hee shewes likewise in these words following that after Christs time and in the dayes of the Apostles there might be heresies Ut aliquem ex Apostolicis viris qui tamen cum illis persever averint habent authorem Ibid. for the mystery of iniquitie began then to worke and therefore hee will not have it enough to derive a Doctrine from a man which lived with the Apostles unlesse it can be proved that he continued with them and the reason as I conceive was given by Nicephorus After the sacred company of the Apostles was come to an end Niceph. l. 3. c. 16. and that their generation was wholly spent which had heard with their eares the heavenly wisdome of the Sonne of God then that conspiracie of detestable errour through the deceipt of such as delivered strange Doctrine tooke rooting and because that none of the Apostles survived they published boldly with all might possible the doctrine of falshood and impugned the manifest and knowne truth But wee plead say you prescription from the beginning It is not sufficient to plead it you must prove it The Mahometists at this day assume the name of Saracens as your men doe the name of Catholikes as if they came from Sara the free woman Abrahams true and lawfull wife when in truth they tooke their first beginning from Agar the bond-woman neither can there be any prescription against the ancient Records and Evidences of the Word written by Christ and his Apostles Indeed you have found a right and easie way to claime a prescription from the time of the Apostles for you have razed many prime Evidences of the Fathers for the first 800. yeeres which make for our Doctrine and you have proscribed many learned Authors and their Records as I have shewed before for the last 800. yeeres which testified against your errors And now I come to your Churches apostacie or falling from the truth which occasioned these errors Apostacie say you is a defection or forsaking of the Name of Christ and profession of Christianity as all men understand it I shewed in this Section that in the primitive Church when any heresie did arise that indangered the foundation such as was the heresie of the Arrians of the Pelagians and the like the Authors were observed the times were knowne the place was pointed at and forthwith letters of Premonition were sent to all the sound members of the Catholike Church by which publike advertisement the steale-truth
before he was yet borne dreamed that shee was delivered of a whelpe with a firebrand in his mouth with which he set the whole world on fire and your learned Doctors have interpreted this dreame that Dominick should be that dogge that should vomit out the fire which should consume the Haeretikes your infallible Pope likewise tells us that he saw in his sleepe the Church of St. John Lateran to totter and ready to fall Ibid. p. 562. and that St. Dominick supported it and held it up with his shoulders signifying thereby that he and those of his order should doe great good to the Catholike faith And howsoever these reports may passe for dreames yet this dog behaved himselfe so worthily in the persecution of those Christians that from that time forward the Monkes of his Order have bin alwayes imployed in the Inquisition Histor Wald. c. 2. But herein we may admire the great mercy and goodnesse of God unto this separate Church that notwithstanding this grievous persecution it was recorded by George Morell at that time a Pastor amongst the Waldenses that there were then remaining according to common report above eight hundred thousand persons that made profession of the same faith And thus breefely I have given you one company of men in former times distinct from yours If we looke beyond those times the Greeke Church was likewise separate from yours above eight hundred yeares agoe and differed in the points of Transubstantiation of Purgatory of private Masse of Prayer in an unknowne tongue of Marriage of Priests of the Communion in both kindes and the Popes Supremacy I say in all these they separated from your Church and this Church if you require Antiquity is before Rome in time if Vniversality she hath larger bounds and multitudes of people most of the Patriarchs seven universall Councels the Greeke tongue wherein the New Testament was written inso much as your Bishop of Bitonto was not ashamed publikely to professe It is our Mother Graecia Concil Trid. Episc Bitont unto whom the Latin Church is beholding for all that ever she hath And as touching the procession of the Holy Ghost which your men say they deny and therefore charge their Church with a knowne haeresie it may seeme rather that this is an aspersion laid upon them then any just exception Concil Florent Sess 35. For at the Councell of Florence about 200. yeares sithence your Pope Eugenius answered the Graeoians that he was well satisfied by them touching the procession of the Holy Ghost and that you may know they agreed with us in the principall points of our doctrine the Greeke Patriarch congratulates with the reformed Churches in this manner We give thanks to God the Author of all grace Patr. resp 2. in init resp 1. pag 148. and we rejoyce with many others but especially in this that in many things your doctrine is agreeable to our Church For a conclusion the Muscovites Armenians Aegyptians Aethiopians and divers other countries and Nations all members of the Greeke Church taught our doctrine from the Apostles time to ours This is so true an evidence in our behalfe that Bellarmine Bellarm. de ver Dei l. 2.6 ult in fine as it were in disdain of the Churches makes this answer We are no more moved with the examples of Muscovites Armenians Egyptians and Aethiopians then with the examples of Lutherans or Anabaptists and Calvinists for they are either Haeretikes or Schismatikes So that all Churches be they never so Catholike and Ancient if they subscribe not to the now Roman faith are either Schismaticall or Haereticall Thus I have briefely shewed you two sorts of Christians who were distinct from you and yet lived in the Communion of the Catholike Church I shewed you others also which lived and died in the bosome of the Roman Church but as farre different in opinion from your now professed Faith as those that went out from you The first sort separated themselves from your Church and Doctrine the latter continued in communion with you but separated themselves from the errors of prevayling faction in your Church the one sort you persecuted unto death for the other you cut out their tongues for speaking truth But you are not of it say you since the time you have begun to be against it And this you would inferre from Tertullian That us out of the mild fat and profitable Olive Tertull. de praescrip c. 36. the sower bastard Olive groweth so have errors fructified out of the true Church but became wild by untruth and lying degenerating from the graine of truth and so not yours and this doth fully answer the matter say you Surely if you compare the true and fruitfull Olive to your selves and us unto the bastard and wild Olive the matter as you say will be easily answered but this is to beg the point in question neither indeede can it be granted to you without a sinne against the Holy Ghost For the Spirit of God hath spoken it in particular to the Roman Church that Thou wert cut out of the Olive tree which is wild by nature Rom. 11.24 and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good Olive tree Now if the haeresies and errors which are compared to the wild Olive have sprung out of that good Olive tree into which you were first grafted or if the wild Olive is now returned to its owne nature I will say to you as sometimes Diogenes said to the Philosopher A me incipias erit verus sillogismus let the wild Olive be applied to your Church as it ought to be and the comparison will redound upon your selves and returne into your owne bosome From the Communion with your Church you question the Antiquity and Vniversality of those points wherein you differ from us and you would have me shew the deniall of them to have beene antiently and universally taught Pag. 121. Your demand to the first is unreasonable For it is sufficient for us that we professe that Faith which was once given to the Saints besides those new Articles which you thrust upon the Church are wholly yours and the proofe lies on your part to make good as being properly your owne on the other side to shew the deniall of them to have bin anciently taught is unsensible for the explicite deniall of them could not be taught till such Articles were offered and obtruded to us but the implicite deniall we prove by the positive doctrines of the Ancient Fathers which is incompatible with your new additions and corruptions From the Doctrine in generall you descend into the particulars and you say one of our Sacraments is an empty piece of Bread and a sup of wine Pag. 123. Hannibal of Carthage Cicero de Oratore lib. 2. when he heard Phormio the Orator talke pleasantly a long while together being afterwards demanded what he thought of his Eloquence made answer in this homely sort Multos se vidisse
Iesuit who holdeth both may by his beliefe merit their holy sacrament of Penance for egregiously abusing Hugo de Sancto Victore and S. Ierome and his reader by making a Sacrament of a metaphor and out of them arguing thus wooddenly against the Knight Hugo hath a particular chapter wherein hee calleth Penance as wee doe with S. Ierome the second boord after shipwracke Ergo Penance is a Sacrament of the new Law doth he not deserve for concluding so absurdly to have the character of his owne sacrament indelebly imprinted upon his flesh To the thirteenth The Knight alledgeth not Bellarmine nor Hugo nor Peter Lombard nor Bonaventure nor Hallensis nor Altisiodorensis nor Suarez himselfe as if they expresly and in direct tearmes denied Extreame Unction to bee a sacrament this they doe not neither as things stood with some of them might doe safely the Roman Church having defined the contrarie Yet so great is the force of truth that what in words they affirme they consequently deny and thus much Suarez ingenuously confesseth some Suar. tom disp 39 sect 2. nonnulli negârunt hoci sacramentum fuisse à Christo institutum ex quo planè sequebatur non esse verum sacramentum saith hee have denied that this Sacrament was instituted by Christ whence it followeth by plaine consequence that it is no true Sacrament Yea but saith Flood if those Schoole-men had lived in this age they would have said that Christ did institute it Whereunto I answer that all Iudgements proceed ex allegatis probatis not allegandis probandis upon things alledged and proved not upon things to be alledged and proved in future times neither is it likely that they would have altered their opinion upon notice of the Trent decision for if the Church of France and divers other Romish Catholiques as they tearme them submit not at this day to all the Decrees of that Councell much lesse may it bee thought that those ancient and acute schoole Divines who bare the greatest sway in their times would have suffered themselves to baffled by the pretence of a pettie Councell charging her canons with nothing but paper-shot every Sacrament of the New Testament is supported with two pillars institution by Christ and a promise of justifying grace annexed to the due receivers thereof set downe in Scripture the former pillar the ancient Schoolemen take from Extreame Unction the later Bellarmine and Cajetan how then can it stand The Iesuit answereth upon a third pillar unwritten tradition But this I have proved before to be a weak and rotten one and to speake the truth it serveth Papists as pons Asinorum did the ancient Logicians to which they fly for shelter when all other helpe faileth them Albeit they bragge much of Scripture yet upon examination of particulars it will appeare that their new Trent Creed consisting of twelve supernumerarie Articles hath no foundation at all in Scripture and therefore they are forced for their support to fly to verbum Dei non scriptum an unwritten word of God which I would faine know of them how they prove to be Gods word Whether by Scripture or by unwritten tradition by Scripture they cannot say for it implies a flat contradiction that verbum non scriptum should be scriptum that unwritten traditions should be found in or founded on Scripture if they say they prove it to bee Gods word by tradition then they prove idem per idem the same thing by it selfe and build their faith upon a sillie sophisme called petitio prÃncipij the begging the maine point in question To the fourteenth In the allegation of Cardinal Bessario the Iesuit chargeth the Knight with ambiguous translation P. 225. and so placing the words that they may have a double sence the one to deceive the simple and the other to excuse himselfe against the objections of the learned and for this he pronounceth a woe against him vae peccatori terraâ— ingredienti duabus vijs Woe to the sinner going on the earth two wayes But the truth is as Pentheus after he was distracted imagined duplices se ostendere Phoebos Oresles apud Euripidem Electram sororem appellat Furiam quòd eam ne fureret in lectlo constringeret that hee saw two Sunnes when yet there was but one in the skie so the Iesuit in a fit of frantick malice imagined the Knight to goe two wayes whereas hee goeth but one and that a faire and streight way for he setteth the Latine words of the Cardinall without any adition or detraction in the margent haec duo sola sacramenta in Evangelijs manifestè tradita legimus and hee translateth them faithfully wee reade that these two Sacraments only were delivered us plainly in Scriptures hee rendereth not the words we reade plainly in Scriptures that there were two only Sacraments delivered unto us which had beene a misplacing of Bessarions words and mis-interpretation of his meaning bu wee reade that these two only were plainly delivered in the Gospell there is no more ambiguitie in the translation then in the originall which though it denieth not that other Sacraments may bee delivered in the Gospell yet it affirmeth that these two only are plainly delivered there and consequently that these two only are de fide matter of faith and upon paine of damnation to be beleeved for as I proved before out of S. Austine and S. Chrysostome all things that concerne faith and manners and are necessarie to salvation are plainly delivered in holy Scriptures To the fifteenth Some Papistsas Flood confesseth denie the foure inferiour Orders to be Sacraments P. 234. and Soto denieth the superiour what a confusion is here in your sacrament of order If the ordination of Bishops be not truly and properly a Sacrament as Dominicus Soto acknowledgeth neither is the ordination of Priests a Sacrament for what can be alledged more for the one then the other and if the ordination of Priests be no sacrament much lesse Deacons or subdeacons or Acolytes or Exorcists Whether there be the same character imprinted in the ordination of Bishops and Priests it is not materiall to our present question for if it be the same then it followeth according to the doctrine of the Schooles that they are one and the selfe-same Sacrament if a diverse character bee imptinted by the one and by the other then are they two distinct Sacraments If they are the same Sacraments then Soto denying the one consequently denieth the other to bee a Sacrament if they are distinct Sacraments then there are eight Sacraments Yea but saith the Iesuit Whither there bee a new character in a Bishop or the same extended is no matter of faith and therefore wee are not to dispute with you of it but keepe you off at the staffes end or rather out of doores when you are once admitted into the Catholique Church wee may admit you to speake of a Schoole-point or else not Wee know well that yee are loath that
image-worship which is so directly and expresly forbidden by God in the law That the Iewes are thus scandalized at the idolatrous practice of the Roman Church the Knight proveth by an eye-witnesse Sir Edwine Sands who in his description of the religion in the West parts observeth that the worship of images as it is at this day practised by the Roman Church is such a stumbling block to the Iewes and hinderance to their conversion that when they come to Christian Sermons as in Rome they are enjoyned at least once a yeare so long as they see the Preacher direct his speech to a little woodden crucifix that standeth on the Pulpit by him to call it his Lord and Saviour kneele to it embrace it and kisse it to weepe upon it as it is their fashion in Italie it is preaching sufficient for them and perswadeth them more with the very sight of it to hate Christian religion then any reason the world can alledge to love it To the seventh The argument drawne from the Cherubins is refelled professedly by Tertullian De idol c. 5. Apostolus affirmat omnia tunc figuratè populo accidisse addit benè quòd idem Deus quilege vetuit similitudinem fimilitudinem fieri extraordinario praecepto serpent is similitudinem fieri mandavit si eundem Deum observas habes logem ejus nefeceris similitudinem si praeceptum factae posteà similitudinis respicis tu imit are Mosen ne facias adversus legem simulacrum aliquod nisi tibi Deus jusserit the Apostle saith he affirmeth that all things happened to the Iewes in figures and hee addeth well the same God who in his generall law forbad any similitude to be made by an extraordinary precept commanded some similitude to bee made if thou dost serve the same God thou hast his law Make to thy selfe no graven image or similitude if thou regardest the Precept of making a similitude as of the Cherubins or brazen serpent e. imitate thou Moses make thou no image against the law unlesse God command thee by a Precept Whereunto wee may farther adde that the Cherubins were not made publikely to bee seene and gazed upon by the people but were kept in the holy place whither the Priests only resorted neither were they worshipped by the Priests as Lyra cited by the Iesuit who was himselfe a Iew at the first and well knew their practice professeth the Iewes saith he worshipped not the Arke nor the Cherubins nor the mercy seate but the true God which promised to helpe them neither were they set up in the Temple for adoration but for ornament L. 9. c. 6. q. 7. non ut adorarentur sed ob ornatum pulchritudinem Tabernaculi vel Templi ad majestatem Dei plenius ostendendam Lorin in Act Apost c. 17. de Cherubinis jussu Dei factis de alijs imaginibus â— Solomone dicendum fuisse duntaxat ut appendices additamenta ornatus alterius rei non verò per se propositas modo accommodato ad adorationem quam conslat quoque ab Haebreis ipsis non fuisse exhibitam quod utrumque docet Tertullianus eritque id magis verum si verumâ—est Cherubin ore manibus cruribus erectione corporis bumanam jubis à pectore cervice pendentibus Leoninam alis aquilinam ungulis pedum vitulinam figuram retulisse Vasq I de adorat 2. disp 4. c. 6. nunquam cherubinis honor aut adoratio adhibita fuit aut osculo aut genuflexione aut oblatione â—huris aut alio signo peculiari ad ipsos directo nec quisquam nisi ex suo cerebro absque ullo fundamento contrarium poterit affirmare as Azorius convinced by evidence of truth acknowledgeth saying the Cherubins were not painted or engraven on the Arke to the end they might bee adored but only to adorne and beautifie the Tabernacle and more fully to expresse the majestie of God with whom Lorinus and Vasquez accord concerning the Cherubins made by the command of God and other images in Solomons Temple wee must say that they were there as appendices and additions for the adorning of something else not set forth by themselves in a manner fit for adoration which it is manifest that the Iewes never exhibited to them both which Tertullian teacheth Vasquez commeth not behind Lorinus teaching a contrarie lesson to Flood here his words are That the Cherubins were never adored nor worshipped neither by kissing them nor with bowing of the knee or by offering Frankinsence or by any other meanes neither can any man affirm the contrarie except it be out of his owne braine without any foundation or ground at all To the eighth In this allegation the Iesuit sheweth from whence he and his fellowes are descended L. 3. cont haeres c. 2. cum ex scripturis arguuntur in accusationem convertuntur ipsarum scripturarum quasi non rectè haheant neque sint ex auiboritate quia variè sint dictae juia non possit ex his inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciunt traditionem non enim perliter as traditam illam sed pervivam vocem Aug. in 10. tract 49. Sanctus Evangelifia testatur multa Dominum Christum dixisse fecisse quae scripta non sunt electa sunt autem quae scriberentur quae saluti credentium sufficere videbantur Cyr. in 10.12 c. 68. non omnia quae Dominus fecit conscripta sunt sed quae scribentes sufficere put ârunt tam admores quà m ad dogmata ut rect â fide operibus virtute rutilantes ad regnum caelorum perveniamus viz. from the ancient Gnosticks and Valentinians who as Irenaeus testifieth against them When they are convinced of their heresies out of Scripture they fall on accusing the Scriptures themselves impeaching their authoritie and charging them with ambiguity and saying that the truth cannot be found out of them by those who know not tradition for that it was not delivered by letters but by word of mouth But because I have beate the Iesuit heretofore out of this dodge and have proved abundantly the sufficiencie and perfection of Scriptures I will spare farther labour herein and only shew how shamefully he depraveth one text to the derogation of the whole Scripture S. Iohn in the place alledged by him speaketh not of points of faith or manners precepts or examples for our imitation but of miracles 10.20 30. Many things truly did Iesus in the presence of his Disciples which are not written in this booke Upon which words S. Austine and S. Cyrill thus glosse full in the Protestant language the holy Evangelist testifieth that Christ did and said many things that are not written but those things were chosen to bee written which seemed sufficient for the salvation of them that beleeve and S. Cyrill all things which Christ did are not written but what the writers thought to bee sufficient as well for our conversation as doctrine
the walls of the Church because they thought not the walls a place convenient lest the plaister breaking off in some places they might become deformed and so contemptible Where unto I rejoyne first that if the Councell did this out of honour to images Canus loc theol non modò imprudenter sed impiè decretum why doth their learned Bishop Canus so severely tax this Decree tearming it not only a foolish but an impious Canon Secondly if the Councell made this Deeree out of honour to images Why doe not all Papists who stand so much for the honour and worship of images obey this Decree and deface all images that are painted on Church-walls Thirdly if it bee an honour to images to be removed out of all Churches according to the purport of this Decree in the Iesuits understanding then the reformed Churches may justly be thought to have shewed the most respect and done the greatest honour to images of all other by casheering them out of their Churches prae amore excluserunt foras no doubt out of love they shut them out of doores Fourthly this reason taken from plaister breaking needeth a plaister to make it whole for if for this reason images may not bee painted on walls for feare of being defaced by weather or the plaister breaking by the like reason they should not bee painted in cloth or upon board because they are in like manner subject there to be soyled razed stolne away or many other wayes to be injured To the thirteenth The Iesuit sueth a Duplex querela against the Knight concerning Valence the Emperour first because hee stileth him a good Emperour next because hee ranketh him with Theodosius as Copartner with him in the Empire whereas Valence was killed twentie three yeares before Theodosius was borne Against his first quarrell I need plead nothing because Valence is not so styled by the Knight in the last corrected edition of Via tuta If the Knight had so styled him in any former edition Bapt. in Chrō he might have vouched a good authour for it namely Baptista Egnatius who speaking of Valence and his brother Valentinian saith Digni imperia fratres inter bonos referendi they were worthy the Empire and to bee ranked among good Princes saving that Valence was somewhat blemished by being seduced in judgement by the Arrians Invect in Iulian as also was Constantius the Emperour and yet Gregorie Nazianzen commendeth him for a religious Prince that much promoted the affaires of the Christians against the heathen and for the blotte of errour in his judgement hee layes the blame of it upon the subtile wits of the Arrian heretiques who put tricks upon that other-wayes good Emperour For the second quarrell hee pickes it is not worth a straw For though Valence and Theodosius lived not together yet they might both enact the same law Valence might first make it and after Theodosius confirme and revive it as King Iames hath revived many lawes made by Queene Elizabeth and other her predecessours though they never reigned together in this Kingdome howsoever if there were any error in relating this law out of the Coad as the Iesuit pretendeth Zanch in praec 2. Sed Petrus Crinitus scribit apertè se vidisse legem ipsam in antiquissimis codicib qaae simpliciter habebat ne pingeretur nulla mentione soli out marmorum humi positorum facta 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he ought to plucke Petrus Crinitus by the beard for it for the Knight quoteth not the Coad or Digests for this law but Petrus Crinitus De honestâ disciplinâ l. 9. c. 9. where hee may find the precise words alledged by the Knight unlesse peradventure his Petrus Crinitus hath felt the razor of the Popish Inquisition and if so let him looke to more ancient editions of Crinitus quoted by the Authour of the English Homilies and Zanchius in his Comment upon the second Commandement where this golden locke of Petrus Crinitus is not cut off For what Timon spake concerning the Editions of Homer may bee said of Crinitus and other Romish Authours the most correct copyes are those that were never corrected To the foureteenth The Iesuit should have said a Paulian heretique for Clemanges and Wickliffe professe with Paul Acts 24.14 That after the way which they the Papists call heresie they so worship the God of their fathers in spirit and truth that they beleeve all things written in the Law and the Prophets and nothing as necessarie to salvation which is not written in them It is true Wickliffe was condemned for an heretique but it was many yeares after his death when hee could not plead for himselfe and the Councell which condemned him was a perjured and a condemned Councell not only in the judgements of Protestants but also ingenuous Papists for in that Councell three Popes were deposed and a fourth chosen Martin the fift Huz and Ierome of Prage contrary to the safe conduct sent them under the Seale of the Emperour Sigismund were burnt to death and their ashes throwne in the River Now as it is an honour laudari à laudato to bee commended by men that themselves deserve commendation so it is no disgrace or disparagement at all damnari à damnato to bee condemned by a Councell which is condemned and reproved it selfe even by the Roman Church at least in the first Sessions of it Bellar. de Concil c. 7. Concilium Constantiense quantum ad primas Sessiones ubi definit concilium esse supra Papam reprobatum est in concilio Florentino Laterananensi ultimo And such as are the first fruits such is the whole lumpe To the fifteenth All the Iesuits Geese are Swannes Multa Dircoeum levat aura Cygnum c. but our Dircaean Swannes with him are no better then geese antiquum obtinet this was just the fashion of the ancient hereretiques the Gnosticks and the Donatists if any came over to their side hee was presently cryed up for a man of singular parts and vertues but if hee returned to the bosome of the Church hee was cryed downe for a Weather-cocke or a tressis agaso It was well saith Saint Austine for Maximianus and Primianus that they fell to the Donatists sect whereby presently they gained the reputation of great Clarkes and prime men wher as other wayes if they had kept their old station Maximianus would have beene held Minimianus and Primianus Postremianus but let me tell the Iesuit that how much soever he sleighteth Cassander Erasmus and Wicelius that the worst of them in the time when he lived was of better account then I. R. or Leomelius or Daniel a Iesu As for gravitie and wisedome hee commeth farre short of Cassander for zeale and integritie of Wicelius so if wee speake of all kind of learning hee is not worthy to carry Erasmus bookes after him Dispeream si tu matulam praebere Mamurrae dignus es But I spare him in this kind because
Vicar using humane diligence and proceeding prudently in a matter of that moment Ep. 68. vivebant ut latrones honoraebantur ut martyres to erre and whereas St. Austine saith that many were tormented with the Devill in Hell who were worshipped by men on earth it may be well understood of the Martyrs of the Donatists who were Canonized by those Haeretikes to be Martyrs whose soules were tormented in Hell and whereas Sulpitius and Cassander speake of wicked Robbers and damned persons honoured by the name of Holy Martyrs it followeth not that because some people in St. Martins time did erre in worshiping a dead theefe for a Saint without any approbation of the Church ergo Catholikes may erre in worshiping of Saints Canonized and Authorized by the Church Though Gregorie and other Catholike Divines differ about the place manner punishment and durance of Purgatorie yet none rejecteth the beliefe of Purgatorie it selfe And as for Saint Austine alleaged by the Knight to the contrary his words are to be meant of the finall and eternall place of soules For otherwise Saint Austine is so expresse for Purgatory in the very booke and place quoted by the Knight to wit in his Enchiridian ad Laurentium that Mr. Antonie Alcock a zealous Disciple of Luther as it seemeth translating it into English is faine to write certaine annimadversions upon this Chapter wherein hee confesseth C. 110. Neque negandum est defunctorum animus c. Saint Austines opinion is here for Purgatorie The Saints owne words are Neither is it to be denied that the soules of the dead are relieved by the pietie of their friends living when the sacrifice of our Mediatour is offred for them or almes given in the Church The same Father elswhere saith The whole time betweene the death of a man and the generall resurrection containeth the soules in hidden receptacles as each is worthy either of ease or paine The Doctrine of Catholikes concerning worshipping of Images is not uncertaine it being this onely that Images are to be worshipped but not as Gods For the second Councell of Nice it requireth not onely kissing of Images and a civill kind of imbracing but a prostration on the ground and praying on the knees before them Gregorie de Valentia taketh the word Simulacrum in a good sense and concludeth out of Saint Peter that some Image-worship is lan full not any Idoll worship as the Knight imposeth on him The Hammer IN this Chapter the Iesuit in the fourth fift sixt seventh twelfth fifteene and sixteene Paragraphs doth nothing but seeth againe his old Coleworts which were tasted before and after cast into the dunghill From whence I purpose not to gather them againe or set them before the Reader lest his stomacke should rise at them but I addresse my selfe to examine onely such Sophismes Cavils and Evasions whereby hee indeavoureth to elude or retort the Knights arguments brought against him in this Section in order as I have set them downe To the first The consequence of the Iesuit drawne from the Knights supposed failing in his proofes failes many wayes as may be proved by manifold instances For albeit many later Mathematitians faile in refuting Copernicus his giddy opinion of the earths circular motion and the heavens standing still yet this their failing is no sufficient proofe of Copernicus his new fancie neither will it follow that the religion of Pagans Infidels hath sufficient ground because Lactantius failes in his proofes of Christianitie in Saint Ieromes judgement and Cyprian also in the judgement of Lactantius The defects of the Patron or Advocate ought not to be imputed to the cause It is a weake and silly Religion whose whole strength consisteth in the weakenesse of some of the opposers of it The truth is the Knight hath not failed in his proofes of the noveltie of the Trent Creed as the judicious Reader will find yet if there were any defect in them it may be abundantly supplied out of Iuels challenge at Saint Pauls-Crosse Abbots answer to Bishop intituled The true ancient Roman Catholike and Doctor Faner in his Booke of Antiquitie triumphing over noveltie and divers others To the second That the salvation of all soules dependeth upon the Popes supremacie which the Iesuits are bound by a fourth and supernumerary vow to defend is a bold and blasphemous assertion derogatorie to Christ himselfe who is the Saviour of his body Ephes 5.23 1 Cor. 3.11 and only foundation which beareth up the waight and frame of the whole Catholike Church When Christ said to Peter Thou art Peter and upon this Rocke will I build my Church hee meant not as Saint Austine rightly observeth To build himselfe upon Peter but Peter and the whole Church upon himselfe non super te edificabome sed super me edificabo te The Church was founded and established before there was any Pope or Bishop at Rome and shall so continue when Rome shall perchance be burnt with fire Tract de auferibilit Papae and the Papacie which now tottereth shall be utterly destroyed Doth not their owne Gerson teach that the Pope may be quite removed and yet the Catholike Church still remaine how then can the Jesuit say that the waight and frame of the whole Catholike Church dependeth upon the authoritie of the Pope To the third The Knight used a dilemma or two-forked Argument Either the Popes sworn-Servants and our sworne enemies whose depositions before wee heard against divers articles of the Trent Faith concurred with other Papists in judgement or not if they concurred then by the joynt confession of all for those points at least they are destitute of universality which yet they make a prime note of their Church if others concurred not with them in judgement then their Doctors are divided amongst themselves and consequently they want another speciall marke of their Church which they make unitie in point of Faith To avoid the push of this Ramme the Iesuit starts * Quintil. Institut orat lib. 6. Diverticula et anfractus suffugia sunt infirmitatis ut qui cursu parum valent flexu eludunt aside into a Scholasticall speculation whether any thing is to be held for an article of Faith before it be defined and resolveth the matter thus When a a thing is once defined to wit by the Church then it becomes a matter of Faith Hee should rather determine because this or that is a matter of Faith therefore the Church defineth it to be so and not because the Church defineth it to be so therefore it is a matter of Faith For Faith if it be divine is founded upon Gods Word not the Churches definition if nothing be matter of Faith before it be defined by your Church then Transubstantiation was no article of Faith before the Councell of Laterane and Innocentius the third his dayes nor the Doctrine of Concommitancie and lawfull communicating in one kind before the Councell of Constance under Martin the fift nor the
contradict Romish doctrines not out of disobedience to man but out of obedience to him who commandeth us to contend for the true faith and to reprove and convince all gainesayers What Papists intentions are we take not upon us to judge their doctrines we put to the test of Gods word and finde them false and adulterine and all be it some points of their beliefe considered in themselves might seeme indifferent yet as they hold them they are not because they are not of faith Rom. 14.23 and what soever is not of faith is sinne Now no point of the Romish Creed as they hold it is of that faith the Apostle speaketh of that is divine faith because they ground and finally resolve all their articles not upon Gods word but upon the authority of the Pope Resp ad Archiepis Spalaten c. 47. Firmitas fundamenti â—â— firma licet implicita in aureo hoc fundamento veritatis adhaesio valebit ut in Cypriano sic in nobis ad salutem faenum stipula imbecilitas caries in tecto contignatione explicitae erroris opinio non valebit nec in Cypriano nec in nobis ad perâ—â—tiem or Church of Rome which is but the authority of man whereas on the contrary as Doctor Crakent horpe demonstrateth If any Protestant build hay or stubble upon the true foundation he may he saved because be holdeth the true foundation which is that every doctrine of faith ought to be built upon Scripture If the Iesuit wonder at this conclusion let him weigh the Authors reasons and he will be forced to confesse that the errors if there be any in Protestants in regard they sticke close to the true foundation and implicitly deny them cannot in them be damnable whereas the very true doctrines of faith in Papists because they hold them upon a wrong ground and foundation very much derogatory to God and his truth are not so safe To the third With what face can the Iesuit avow this considering that Prieras before alleaged and other writers approved by the Church of Rome mainetaine this blasphemous assertion that the authority of the Church is greater then the anthority of Scripture and all Papists of note at this day hold that the Scripture is but an imperfect and partiall rule of faith all Protestants on the contrary teach that it is an entire and perfect rule of faith Papists believe the Scripture for the Churches sake Protestants the Church for the Scripture sake Papists resolve all points of faith generally into the Popes infalibility or Churches authority Protestants into the written word of God which as Bellarmine himselfe confesseth De verbo Dei non script l. 4. c. 11. containeth all things necessary for all men to beleeve and is a most certaine and safe rule of beleeveing Yea but saith the Iesuit out of Vincentius Lerinensis De verbo Dei l. 1. c. 2. he that will avoid the deceits and snares of Haeretikes and remaine soundin the faith must strengthen his faith two wayes to wit by the authority of the divine law and the tradition of the Catholike Church This advise of Vincentius is sound and good if it be rightly understood and not in the Iesuits sense Vincentius there by tradition of the Catholike Church understandeth not unwritten verities but the Catholike expositions of holy Scriptures extant in the writings of the Doctors of the Church in all ages and we grant that this Catholike exposition of the Doctors where it can be had is of great force to confirme faith and confound Heretikes Vt Scripturae ecclesiastice intelligentiae jungatur authoritas For the stopping of whose mouth that Father saith and we deny it not that there is great neede to add to the Scripture the Churches sense or interpretation albeit as he there addeth which cutteth the throat of the Iesuits cause The Canon of Scripture is perfect and sufficient of it selfe for all things nay rather as hee correcteth himselfe Over and above sufficient cum sit perfectus scripturae canon sibique adomnia satis superque sufficiat To the fourth Here the Iesuit would make his Reader study a little and his Adversarie to muse Vero nihil verius certo nihil certius but it is indeed whether hee be in his right wits or no. For first as Seneca well resolveth one thing cannot be said truer than another one truth in Divinitie may be more evident to us than another but in it selfe it cannot be truer or surer Secondly admitting there could be degrees of certainty at least quoad nos there can be yet no comparison in regard of such certaintie betweene an Article of the Creed assented unto by all Christians and a controverted conclusion maintained onely by a late faction in the Westerne Church But the sitting of Christ at the right hand of his Father is an Article of the Creed set downe in expresse words in holy Scripture Mark 16.19 Luke 24. consented unto by all Christians in the world whereas the carnall presence of Christ in the Sacrament by Tranfubstantiation is no Article extant in any Creed save onely that of Pope Pius his coyning in the yeare of our Lord 1564. It is neither in words set downe in Scripture as the other Articles are neither can it be necssarily inforced or deduced by consequence as foure great Cardinals of the Roman Church confesse Cameracensis Cajetan Roffensis and Bellarmine Neither was this Doctrine of the Romane Church ever assented unto by the Greeke Church nor by the Latine anciently or generally as I shewed before Thirdly the Iesuit contradicteth himselfe within eight lines for having said in the eighteenth line Pag. 384. that Christ his corporall presence in the Sacrament was more sure than his presence in heaven at the right hand of his Father about seven lines after forgetting himselfe hee saith that Wee shall find as much to doe marke as much not more in expounding that Article of the Creed as they doe in expounding the words This is my Body Wherein it is well hee confesseth that Papists make much to doe in expounding the words This is my Body which is most true for by the demonstrative Hoc they understand they know not what Neither this Body nor this Bread but an Individum vagum something contained under the accidents of Bread which when the Priests saith Hoc it is Bread but when hee hath muttered out an Vm it is Christs Body Likewise by the Copula est is they understand they know not what either shall be as soone as the words are spoken or is converted unto or is by Transubstantiation Lastly by Body they understand such a body as indeed is no body without the extension of place without distinction of Organs without facultie of sense or motion and will hee make this figment so incredible so impossible as sure nay more sure than the Article of Christs ascension into heaven and his sitting at the right hand of his
us of supernaturall truth but Scripture as is abundantly proved by Saint Austine If any thing be confirmed by perspicuous authority of Canonicall Scriptures we must without any doubt or haesitation beleeve it but to other witnesses or testimonies we may give credit as we see cause and in his 97. Epistle to St. Ierome I have learned to yeeld that honour and reverence onely to the Canonicall Scriptures that I most firmely beleeve that no Author of them could erre in any thing he wrot and in his booke de natura gratia I professe my selfe free in all such writings of men because I owe absolute consent without any demurre or staggering onely to the Canonicall bookes of Scripture To the same purpose he writeth against Faustus the Manichee l. 11. c. 5. and ep 48. But what neede I presse St. Austine when the evident letter of Scripture is for this truth Titus 1.2 Rom. 3.4 God cannot lie and let God be true and every man a lier that is subject to error and falsehood Againe the Scriptures are sufficient to instruct us in all points necessary to salvation therefore every article of divine faith is evidently grounded upon Scripture The Antecedent I thus prove 2 Tim. 3.15.16 whatsoever is profitable for doctrine for reproofe for correction for instruction in righteousnesse in such sort that it is able to make a man wise unto salvation and perfect to every good worke is sufficient to instruct in all points of salvation but the Scripture is so profitable that it is able to make wise unto salvation and perfect to every good worke Ergo It is sufficient to instruct in all points necessary to salvation The major is evident ex terminis the minor is the letter of the text and that the adversary may not except that this is my collection onely L. 3. Advers haer c. 1. Non per alios dispo sitionem salutis nostrae cognovimus quam per cos per quos evangelium ad nos pervenit quod quidem tunc preconiaverunt postea per Dei volun tatem nobis in Scripturis tradiderunt fundamentum columnam fidei nostrae futuram Aug. l. 3. cont Lit. Petil. c. 6. Sive de Chrlsto sive de ejus ecclesia sive de quacunque re quae pertinet ad fidem vitamque nostram non dicom si nos nequaquam comparandi ei quid dixit si nos sed omnino quod seturus adjecit si Angelus de Coelo vobis annunciaverit praeterquam quod in Scripturis Legalibus Evangelicis accepistis anathema sit I will produce to him impregnable testimonies of the ancient Fathers Irenaeus We have not knowne by others the meanes which God hath appointed for our salvation then by those by whom the Gospell came unto us which at the first the Apostles preached by word of mouth but afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to be the foundation and pillar of our faith The second is Saint Austine Whether concerning Christ or concerning his Church or concerning any thing that pertaineth to our faith and life I will not say if we but even as he going forward addeth if an Angell from Heaven shall preach unto you any thing but what you have received in the Scriptures of the law and the Gospell accursed be hee Yea but the Iesuit objecteth against us and these Holy Fathers that by the Scriptures we cannot prove which bookes of Scripture are Canonicall and which are not I answere first our question here is not of the principles of Divinity but of Theologicall conclusions Now that Scripture is the word of God and that these bookes are Canonicall Scriptures are principles in Divinity and therefore not to be proved according to the rule of the great Philosopher in the same science It is sufficient to make good our Tenet that the Canonicall Scriptures being presupposed as principles every conclusion de fide may be deduced out of them Secondly that such bookes of Holy Scriptures are Canonicall and the rest which are knowne by the name of Apochrypha are not Canonicall is proved by arguments and testimonies drawne out of Scripture it selfe by Whitaker Disputatione de sacrâ Scripturâ controversiâ primâ by Reynolds most copiously in his Censura librorum Apochryphorum Thirdly I retorte the Iesuits argument against himselfe when they teach tradition is part of Gods word how prove they it to be so by Scripture or Tradition by Scripture they cannot prove that unwritten traditions are Gods word if they prove it by Tradition then they begge the point in question and prove idem per idem To the second The Romanists ground some doctrines of their faith upon the letter of Scripture but it is that letter which killeth as for example they ground their carnall presence of Christ in the Sacrament upon those words in the sixt of St. Iohn unlesse yee eate the flesh of the Sonne of God and drinke his blood you have no life in you which words if you take according to the letter this letter killeth saith Origen but it is the spirit saith our Saviour that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words which I speake unto you they are spirit and they are life Iohn 6.63 He that pierceth the barke and commeth to the sap runneth not from the tree of life but rather runneth to it so doe we when we leave the barke of the letter upon necessary occasions and pierce into the heart and draw out the sap of the spirituall meaning To presse the letter of Scripture against the spirituall meaning and analogie of faith is not onely Iewish but Haereticall For example The Anthropomorphites ground their haeresie upon plaine and expresse words of Scripture from which to use the Iesuits owne words All Orthodox Divines are faine to flie to figurative and tropicall interpretations To the third First Saint Peter saith not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in which Epistles of St. Paul but in which points and heads of doctrine many things are hard to be understood Secondly though some points be hard to be understood in themselves or are obscurely set downe in Scripture it followeth not from thence that all things necessary to salvation are not plainely delivered therein For as before I proved out of Saint Austine and Saint Chrysostome Among thuse things which are plainly delivered in Scriptures all such points are found as containe faith and manners all things that are necessarie are manifest Thirdly those things which are obscurely set downe in Saint Pauls Epistles may be and are elsewhere in holy Scriptures more perspicuously delivered Lastly Saint Peter saith not that those things are hard to be understood simply and to all men but to the ignorant and unstable who wrest all Scripture to their owne destruction Among which number the Iesuit must reckon himselfe and his associates before they can fit this text to their purpose To the fourth First this passage out of Saint Iohn hath beene discussed
are very idle and all his instances in Turkes Iewes and Haeretikes nothing to the purpose for the unbeleeving Iewes and Turkes never were nor yet are members of the Catholike Christian Church the Arians Nestorians Eutychians and Marcionites have beene long agoe excluded out of the true Church of Christ and their Haeresies are by name condemned in ancient generall Councells approved by the whole Christian world These therefore come not within the verge of the Knights proposition which is restrained to Christian Churches and such whose Tenets have not in particular as yet beene cryed downe and censured as erroneous in any oecumenicall Councell among such doubtlesse those are in the safer way who hold nothing for an Article of faith necessary to salvation which is not clearely deduced out of Holy Scripture and assented unto even by the opposite part whose testimony saith the Iesuit Page 498. must needs proceede from evidence of truth To the second The Iesuit hath received answer already to the former of these demands where I shewed by twenty instances that we stand not single as they doe by affirming what they deny and denying what they affirme for the most if not all the affirmative Articles of our Creed are firmed and subscribed by Papists themselves whereas their additionalls to them are firmed by none but themselves and therefore herein our cause hath a great advantage on theirs For if their beliefe be true our beliefe in all the affirmative Articles thereof must needs be so but not on the contrary because they have many affirmative Articles which we give no credit unto To his second demand I answer that though a multitude of Professors is no perpetuall and infallible marke of the true Church Luke 12.32 Matth. 7.13 Apoc. 13.17 Apoc. 20.2 Apoc 1◠4 The woman arrayed in purple and scarlet called The Whore of Babylon had a cup of gold in her hand c. Apoc. 13.3 All the world wondered and followed the Beast ver 8. All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the Booke of Life for Christs flocke is but a little flocke in comparison and broade is the way that leadeth to death and destruction and though it is true that in the latter and worser ages of the Church especially after the yeare 666. which is the number of the name of the Beast and much more after the thousandth yeare wherein Satan was let loose the Romish Church was much more visible to the eye of the world then the Protestant as it is prophecied in the Apocalypse the 16. 6. that the false and malignant Church should be farre more glorious and pompous then the true Spouse of Christ yet in the first and best ages of the Church our adversaries have not so much as one single witnesse who can be proved to have given testimony to their Trent faith and since the happy reformation began by Martin Luther in King Henry the eights dayes the better part of Europe is fallen from the Pope adde we to them all those who in Asia and Africa professe the Christian faith and yet acknowledge not the Pope nor subscribe to the Trent faith and it will appeare we have neere a thousand for one in the Catholike visible Church scattered far and wide over the face of the earth as may be seene in the Mapps set forth in a booke printed the last yeare and intituled Christianographie or the Description of the multitude and sundry sorts of Christians in the World not subject to the Pope with their unity and how they agree with the Protestants in the principall points of difference betweene them and the Church of Rome To the third If the argument bee so weake let the Iesuit remember that it is his owne and that he confesseth as much in the first words of this Chapter which are these The substance of this Section is contained in the title and it is nothing but to turne the Catholike argument mentioned in the former Section the other way for the Protestant side The argument then is a Catholike argument of their owne and if it make for Haeretikes Iewes and Turkes as he saith it doth the blame and shame thereof must light upon the Iesuits that first framed it and not upon the Knight who retorteth it onely upon them for thus it mooveth upon their Axletree that wherein Professors of different religions both agree is safer to beleeve then that wherein they stand single but Iewes and Christians agree in the beliefe of the old Testament Christians and Turkes agree in the truth of Christs humane nature in other points the Christians are single therfore the beliefe of a Iew or a Turke is safer then the beliefe of a Christian The conclusion is here false and blasphemous the minor or assumption is evidently true and confessed on all sides the fault therfore must needs be in the major or ground of this argument but the major or ground is your owne as will appeare by reducing the Iesuits Argument propounded in the former Section into forme That Church wherein parties of a different Religion as Papists and Protestants agree is a safer way than that wherein one party stand single But Papists and Protestants both agree that salvation may be had in the Romish Church but the Protestants stand single in that they say salvation may be had in the Protestant Church therefore it is safer living and dying in the Papists Church than in the Protetestant In this Syllogisme the Knight and all Protestants though they answer to the Assumption by distinguishing as is expressed in the former chapter yet they simply absolutely deny the Major which is not universally true nor at all necessarie Secondly Dato non concesso that the Major is true the Knight nimbly turnes the mouth of the Papists owne Canon to batter their owne walls thus That position say you in which both Papists and Protestants agree is safer than that wherein one partie standeth single but in the eleven Points mentioned by the Knight Papists and Protestants agree in the twelve Articles coyned by Pope Pius the fourth the Papists stand single therefore the Protestant Faith is the safer To the fourth A strange Argument for the Iesuit to conclude other mens sight from his owne blindnesse because hee seeth not how the Knight can avoid the instances in Jewes Heretikes and Turkes whereby hee goeth about to disable the Knight his retorted Argument therfore will hee inferre that any man may see that the Knight is no good guide For pitty let some fit the Iesuit with a paire of Spectacles that he may better see the Knight his way and his own wandrings * How far the Romish Religiō is distant from Heresie Iudaisme and Turcisme or rather trencheth upon all three See P Croy his booke of Conformities and Sutcliffe his Turco papismus Iews and Turks are out of the Christian Church hold not all Positive Articles necessary to salvation and therefore they come not in the Knights way at all nor hath hee to doe with them in this Argument which proceedeth from professed Christians and not open enemies to the Faith For the Knight from his heart detesteth all pathes leading to any of those dangerous precipices and chaulketh to all men Viam vere tutam certam rectam regiam a faire and Safe Way and the very Kings High-way to his Pallace wherein wee have Christ and his Apostles for our Leaders the holy Spirit for our Guide the blessed Angels for our Convoy the ancient Fathers and Doctors of the Church for our fellow Travellers through the whole and the best learned of the Romane Popes Cardinals Bishops and Schoolemen to beare us companie the greater part of our way Wherefore I doubt not but that the indifferent peruser of the Knights Book and the Iesuits Answer and my Reply unto it will breake out into the Apostles exclamation and say to this Romish Sorcerer Acts 3.13 or rather if hee will so false Spectacle-maker Flood O full of all subtiltie and mischiefe thou child of the devill wilt thou not cease to pervert the right way of the LORD FINIS Laus DEO sine fine