water your crosses your reliques your puppets and such like trash being forged dreamed according to your good intentions And what is that to make a den of theeues of that which ought to be addicted vnto the true seruice of the Eternall So like as when robberies surprised the place of prayer vnder the Synagogue Christ Iesus thought it no scorne to returne into the wildernes and enter into priuate houses so likewise are we pleased to serue God in caues and Church-yards as the primitiue Christians did rather then to pollute our selues by frequēting those places so much prophaned CHAP. XI Of Reliques THe Pharisies garnished the sepulchers of the Prophets so doe you in decking the shrines and tombes of the Apostles of Martyrs and other Saints And when your Popes builded the Sancta sanctorum at Rome in the Church of Lateran did they not restore againe the holy place which God in old times had ordained in his Temple of Ierusalem called in the Hebrew language Kodech Kadaschim Truth it is that the God of hosts the Holy of Holy did there shew forth his Maiestie to the intent that he might instruct his people in the knowledge of his will and did appoint the propitiatorie to be kept therein which was a type of Christ and the tables of the Law which the Lord commanded Moses to close therein together with the rod of Moses and a glasse full of the Manna of the Desert in token of the fauour which he had shewen vnto them for Christ Iesus his sake who is the true propitiatorie In stead of all these you haue locked within your Sancta sanctorum of Rome a place whereinto women are not admitted the fore-skinne of our Sauiour with his slippers and his nauell Aarons rod a glasse of Manna with another arke of the couenant CHAP. XII Of holy Water LEt vs come to your holy water Is it not grounded vpon the imitation of that holy water which God ordained by Moses namely to iudge of the guiltinesse or innocencie of the woman that was accused of adultery But let vs hearken vnto that which your Durandus sayth This lustrall water according vnto the testimonie of Pope Cyprian hath power to sanctifie according to that which is written by the Prophet Then will I powre cleane water vpon you and you shall be cleane yea from all your filthinesse and from all your idoles will I cleanse you A new heart will I giue you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your bodie and I will giue you an heart of flesh And I will put my spirit within you And a little after the water of aspersion cleanseth And from thence he concludeth it appeareth therefore that the aspersion of this water is a washing vnto saluation and is fit to wipe away the ordinarie sinnes of men euen as the ashes of the Cow were in the old Testament Is not this well concluded And from whence should Pope Alexander the first of that name haue learned this whom they make the author of the consecration of this water but from that which was practised in old times by Gods commaundement among the people of Israel He had read that Moses had taken away the bitternesse of the waters of Mara and had made them sweete by causing wood to be throwne therein That God healed the Leprosie of Naaman the Syrian by the waters of Iordan at the prayer of Eliseus the Prophet That he had giuen to the poole of the sheepe at Ierusalem the propertie to make him recouer of any diseases whatsoeuer that first stepped thereinto after the Angel had troubled the water This sillie man thought that his enchanted water should haue the like force And although the lustrall water wherewith the Leuites were purified was a type of Christ Iesus his bloud yet notwithstanding as if this bloud were not sufficient for the purging of the faithfull he hath ordained this water with the application of the same vertue witnesse this ryme Aqua benedicta sit nobis salus vita And let vs see how this iollie Pope doth frame his argument if the ashes of the dead Cow sayth he being sprinkled among the people did sanctifie and cleanse them how much more the coniured water being mingled with salt and hallowed by godly prayers ought to haue this power to purge and sanctifie the people So in stead of the bloud of Christ Iesus they offer coniured water vnto the Church The Iesuite Richeome sayth that you haue the custome of holy water from the Apostolicke institution yet doth not cite any one place of Scripture His fellow Bellarmine is against him in that for he saith Nil deesse ad aquam benedictam nisi diuinam institutionem quominus sit sacramentum And in the table of the same Booke at the letter A. Aqua benedicta sayth he non a Deo instituta est sed ab Ecclesia ideo non est Sacramentum Seeing therefore that he doth freely acknowledge that this water hath not beene instituted by God it remaineth to goe and search out the first authors the rather seeing that the true Church of God hath kept her selfe well from authorising so great a blasphemie Now they are made manifest vnto vs by Epiphanius Bishop of Salamis to wit either the Samaritanes among whom the vse of lustrall water was verie frequent or the Hemerobaptists whom he rancketh in the fourth sect of the Iewes so termed because they washed themselues euery day with hallowed water wherewith notwithstanding you are content to sprinkle your selues onely abusing immediately thereafter the verse of the good penitentiall Psalme which Dauid made in detestation of his adulterie Purge me with hysope and I shal be cleane wash me and I shall be whiter then snow Wherein he meaneth of the ceremonies of the Law And what likenesse hath that with your aspersions CHAP. XIII Of the Creame and anointing MOreouer you teach all with one accord that the glorie and luster of your Chrismes and annointings wherwith the whole Hierarchie of your Priests is greased proceedeth from no other origine but from the shaddows and figures of the Iewish Law notwithstanding that Christ Iesus had alreadie abolished them through his comming I suspect you will alledge Denys called Areopagite who will haue the composition of the Chrisme to be peculiar vnto Bishops onely but we say that it was not many ages after which long after it was brought in was common to all Priests The vse of this Chrisme is frequent in your greatest mysteries and chiefly in the benediction of your Agnus Deis as this braue poesie testifieth Balsamus cera munda cum Chrismatis vnda Conficiunt agnum quod munus do tibi magnum Fronte velut natum per mystica sanctificatum Fulgura desursum depellit omne malignum Peccatum frangit vt Christi sanguis
our God And therein Peacocke-like doth iett But in De Croys Conformities You may his errours plainely see Where all his foule deformities To life discou'red fully bee Obiection vnto the former SONNET VVHat the Church of Christ may it be sedus't And can it erre and can't so foully faile When Christ himselfe hath said Deuill nor hell Should haue no powr'e the faith though small t'assaile Answere Know that the church two waies may be cōceiu'd The one aptly to speake doth comprehend None but Gods children such as he elects And seales and gratiously will defend The other doth containe both good and bad Is that you see here in the world belowe Which erres so oft as Sathan it doth heare And by an euill life the same doth showe The first doth neuer erre for shee attends The sweete voice of her spouse to vnderstand The last may euer erre and be deceiu'd For in foule blacke blindnesse she loues to stand To those of the Romish CHVRCH YOu Romane Catholicks who sees this work I' st possible that it you can behould And cannot marke that horrible inchaunt Wherein bewitching Sathan doth you hould If the Apostles those most holy men Should now into the world againe returne Would neuer thinke that Christians you were Because al means might teach you truth you shun I speake and pronounce this not bitterly I speake it with a godly louing zeale Your pietie of which you make such bragges No warrant hath your grieuous sinnes to heale For you in humane merits firme your trust And that 's your anchors-hould and not in him Who sets you free from the eternall death And is the onely ransome for your sinne Antichrist by little and little and by craft And subtill shifts into the Church is slid And in Gods holy Temple now at last He sits in pompe trusting there still to byd It was often foretold that he should come And for our sinnes this reuolt was suffr'ed And that there must of meere necessitie Great and most blind errours be permitted Yea so ordain'd by our most puissant God That his most sacred Church should be opprest For a time in the bonds of Papacie For so long time as he would thinke it best But from these crooked and peruersed wayes Full of dreadfull and most deadly darknesse God hath bin pleased through his great bountie Vs for to draw and eke with peace to blisse Euen so Christ our Lord and Ionas were The figures of Gods Church in these last dayes For one was dead the other prisoner Christ in tombe Ionas in the fish he prayes Lift vp your eyes with speed behould this light Which shines in you and Iesus Christ imbrace By liuely faith cast off those euill Sp'rits Which makes you scorne Gods word to your disgrace Christ is the truth the way and onely life The Churches most deare spouse run then amaine And by a constant faith liue chast to him His company brings comfort that 's your gaine THE PREFACE To those of the Romish CHVRCH MY Masters who would discerne true coyne from that which is adulterated will not content himselfe with looking on the superscription the stamp colour roundnesse thereof but going on a little farther will come to the triall of the substance of the mettall will take the touchstone and draw thereon to examine the goodnesse or insufficiencie thereof Euen so to discerne true Religion from false and to know the Church of Iesus Christ in this confusion of so many that are like thereunto we must not be contented with the iudgement of the Church which you call representatiue but we ought to goe straight on to the onely Scriptures which are the foundation and pillers of the true cause in matters that concerne Religion And if we had stayed there we should not see at this day such horrible confusions in Christendome neither yet this mixture of cockle with good corne and there would remaine nothing but pure wheat in the garnar and store-house of the Church And would to God that some of the auncient Bishops could haue contented themselues with the marches established by the holy Ghost the greatest part of the world should not now be wandering in the auncient pathes and footsteps of Gentilisme against which the Apostles and many other infinite numbers of the most excellent and worthie men haue foughten and obtained the victorie through shedding of their bloud Should not this exquisite ballance square and canon of the Scripture this rule of right and veritie haue beene sufficient to teach vs whatsoeuer belongeth to the whole perfection of our beleefe We ought not to haue beene ignorant of these beautifull markes of antiquitie That there is no other proofe of Christian Religion but by the Scriptures if any controuersie arise where to find the bodie that is to say the Church that it ought not to be sought amongst our words but amongst his words who is the truth and knoweth his bodie to wit Iesus Christ. It was thither that the Bishops should haue led the Gentils to teach them to worship one onely God to make them turne from their old superstitions and idolatrous customes by the violence whereof they haue beene forced to worship their false Gods and creatures and should not haue giuen way to so many things which are so farre from hauing any warrant in the holy Scriptures that they are meerly contradictory thereunto It is after this manner that it hath seemed good vnto the wisedome of man to iest and play with the high and holy mysteries of true Religion It is after this manner that thinking onely to winke at things and that through tolerating of the lesser euill to eschew greater inconuenience this holy spring of Christian pietie hath beene infected by the filthie mud of Paganisme from whence those deludges haue proceeded which haue ouerwhelmed some fundamentall points of our saluation And would to God that those zealous ones without knowledge had taught their Neophytes to thinke it abhomination to suffer themselues to be led away by degrees vnto such things as at first seemed pleasant we should not see at this day such pestilent doctrine neither yet those superstitions and ridiculous ceremonies which haue caused as well in times past as in these dayes so many troubles in Christendome But this is their reward who haue chosen to preferre the Church to the Scripture and man to God as if it were more expedient to find out the head by the proofe and testimony of the members then the members by the testimonie of the head I am exceeding sorie to consider that when the time of appearing before the tribunall seate of God shall come the damned Gentiles shall know their markes and liueries on you and that in great aboundance as this present table of your conformities vnto their fashions and customes shall clearely and faithfully beare record But let vs examine how this filthinesse hath corrupted that beautie that was among you Those poore Gentils liuing vnder the Empire of Constantine the
great when the Church of Christ was taking a little breath and did enioy some peace and rest after so many persecutions and martyrdomes of her children beganne to enter therein in great throng and by multitudes But how hauing lately renounced the polluted slauerie of their Gods of Gentilisme of worshipping of images and their feete being as yet foule with the dirt of their Idolatries And that which helped very much to aduance those old ragges was because they began to professe Christian Religion being well ripe in yeares and full of gray haires which was the cause why they could not so suddainely shake off such customes as they had sucked with their mothers milke But behold here the very finall accomplishment of euill fortune to wit the conniuence of the greater part of the Bishops at such errors who not hauing discouered a farre off such daungers as might ensue and follow vpon this lenitie and licence graunted by them some more some lesse according to their humors hauing tolerated these abuses Paganisme tooke its owne place and Gentilisme passed farre aboue that measure which was prescribed by the Oracles of God They thought with themselues that they had laboured much for the aduancement of Christian Religion if at the first they could but onely diuert them from worshipping of their Gods thereafter to send them vnto such Christian Saints as were deceased but this was nothing else but a changing of the name and not of the thing it selfe They ought in the space of so many ages to haue found out some remedie for this disease but in stead of abolishing and reforming of these abuses we see the same daily confirmed yea moreouer a farre greater encrease of this dirt and dregs of the Heathen in lieu of the pure drop of true pietie and Christian simplicitie Euen so farre are we from any hope to see the same reformed sith the lesuits haue vndertaken at a set price to defend those errors and haue published in their writs that Christian religigion may lawfully make vse of the ceremonies of the Gentils which is as much as if one would say that God maketh vse of the Deuils lawes for the weale of his people And thus it is that the Romish Church established by vnreasonable reasons aduanceth in such manner euen vnto this day yea and commaundeth and authoriseth euill customes in place of good lawes and the reliques of Gentilisme in great plentie in stead of the puritie of the Gospell Your opinion was that the spirituall kingdome of Iesus Christ should haue beene gouerned like the Monarchies of this world whose rulers beare with many of their subiects faults to the end that they may haue peace with strangers but it is not so for as touching so farre as directly concerneth the true knowledge of God and of the puritie of his seruice of the estate of the conscience of the nature of Ecclesiasticall gouernment we ought to haue recourse vnto the Canonicall bookes and not vnto popular abuses they are the precepts of faith that ought to be layd open vnto the people and not those preiudicate opinions coloured with deuotion against which the holy Fathers haue foughten so couragiously In the end this little Treatise will declare vnto you how that your religion is borded with those totters and rags of Gentilisme God graunt you the grace to acknowledge the difformitie thereof that you may depart from thence and enter in league with her which is most beautifull to wit the Church wherein we liue which is well pleased with such ornaments as her spouse Christ Iesus our Sauiour hath giuen her to whom be glory and honour for euer Amen THE FIRST CONFORMITIE CHAP. I. Of God YOu cannot denie my Masters that the Pope of Rome is named God The glosse of the Canon law vseth these expresse termes Papa Dominus Deus noster which in truth is a title of blasphemie grounded neuerthelesse vpon antiquity whereof you make so great shew and which you haue placed and ranked among the essentiall markes of your Church It is ancient I confesse sith that more then a thousand and fiue hundred yeares are expired since it was attributed to one of the Popes predecessors euen as being soueraigne Bishop to wit vnto Domitian Emperour of Rome And if that Poet Martiall hath been iustly taxed by one of your Bishops for flaterie and lyes for that hee calleth by the name of God that Tyrant and horrible monster in nature in these words Edictum Domini Deique nostri by what meanes can you free your selues from the like or rather a more rigorous censure sith that he was onely a Gentile and you cloathe your selues with the name of the true Church Those Decrees Decretals Sixties Clementines Extrauagants with other such like your Euangiles should haue beene purged and made cleane both in their Texts and Glosses by those Cardinals to whom this goodly charge was committed by one of your Popes We are still in hope that one day that shal be abolished which many of your selues cannot reade without horrour Your flatterers keepe their course and striue apace among themselues who shall yeeld greatest honour and worship vnto this Popish diuinitie These verses beare witnesse Oraclo vocis mundi moderaris habenas Et meritò in terris diceris esse Deus Stapleton nameth him Supremum planè supremum numen in terris Your Decrees make Constantine the great call him God Steuchus giueth the reason hereof if any reason can be found in so vnreasonable a matter Blondus will haue all Princes to bow downe their knees and worship this Bishop vnto whom also are applyed certaine passages of Scripture which cannot bee spoken of any other then of Christ Iesus How long will it be ere you leaue off your blasphemies The poore Gentiles acknowledged one God and did attribute the chiefe and soueragine gouernement to one onely This was the principall foundation of their olde Religion in so much as concerned the more learned sort among them You in like manner leaue the supreame gouernment of the Empire to the great true God euen as by right it belongeth vnto him But like as the idolatrous Gentiles made seuerall distributions of charges and offices amongst a multitude of fellow-Gods Tutelare Gods and Saints whom they called Diuos So also you haue erected Temples Altars burning of Incense worship bowing of the knees and all other manner of seruice vnto the Virgin Marie vnto the Saints both male and female whom in like manner you call Diuos among whom you distribute the offices of preseruing and helping men in their aduersities What a harmonie I beseech you Those had their greater and meaner Gods assigning to each of them his owne charge his Trade his weapons his daies iourney Varro in his time maketh mention of thirty thousand or thereby And verily you haue gathered together a heape farre greater then that of the ancient
offence that can be committed you thinke that life euerlasting is lost Truely the righteousnesse of the faithfull we answere doth not decay for euery transgression Wee confesse indeed that all sinnes are deadly euen the smallest which the Pelagians would not acknowledge We will not therefore place all manner of sinnes in one degree we are not Stoickes some are more hainous then others And that inequalitie set downe by Christ Iesus in the paines of the reprobate doth it not proceede of the inequalitie of the offences You thinke it strange that we call all sinnes saue that against the holy Ghost veniall that is to say pardonable Betake your selues therefore to the mercy of God who desireth not the death of a sinner What farther A certaine great person and a seruant of God in our age and one whom God endueth daily with more and more graces thought once that there had beene two hypostaticall or personall vnions in Christ the one of the soule with the bodie the other of the diuinitie with the humanitie Shall it not be lawfull for vs to recant and cancell that which through mistaking we haue thought and written amisse as S. Austin did very commendably He yeelded to the admonitions that were giuen him and declared his meaning in his learned treatise of the hypostaticall Vnion of the two natures in Christ Iesus Shall he therefore be accounted a Nestorian that established two persons in Christ And we shall be farre lesse of the Eutichian sect which admitted but one nature as well as one onely person in Christ although Swenckfeldius Smidelinus and others haue written so which we disaduouch We should neuer haue done and this Preface would exceede its bounds if it behoued vs by little and little to follow the footsteps of Alphonsus a Castro of one Prateolus of Bellarmine and others of that kind which haue filled vp therwith huge and great paltrie volumes and set vp trophees of their accusations on this subiect That which we haue sayd shall serue for a proofe that it may be knowne to the posteritie that with the like facilitie we are able to refute the other heresies which we haue not set downe here to the end that we might eschew prolixitie and whereof you accuse vs wherwith we haue refuted the former And this little discourse shall declare how vaine your proiects are by seeking to make vs worthie to be detested among men and that our innocencie shall be a decree of condemnation against you in so farre as you haue shewed your selues false accusers and rebels vnto the truth Those great vants of your huge and large Temples doe nothing but make an Eccho of this word heretickes your cheekes are altogether swelled therewith You can say no worse taking it in that sense wherein it is commonly spoken It seemes that the Eccho of those vast dennes of your Temples taketh pleasure to double and repeate seuen times ouer these iniurious words that they may the better be distilled into the braines of your flockes And who would not easily obtaine the victorie when the enemie doth not appeare Would God that we had libertie to answere you by and by in the same pulpits from which you threaten vs so much I beleeue that within a short time you would become Curats without Parishioners For we should haue iust cause to prescribe against you because of your reuolting for that you are blind leaders for that you agree not with the holy words of Christ Iesus yea and because you are heretickes You will iudge here that I am inciuill and iniurious yet can I not terme a house otherwise then a house and euery thing by the owne name I loue your persons I hate your heresies and errours and it is against them and not against you that I prepare this combate for the safetie both of you and of that poore people whom you haue bewitched This little table shall represent not in small for it were impossible but in great the harmonie and agreement which is betweene your Poperie and old heresies And it were as much as to enter into an Ocean if we would make a Register of the great heapes of your errours sith that the decree of the blessed Trinity being excepted there is nothing sound throughout the whole bodie of the Romish Religion Many with good successe haue laboured to discouer them though to your great griefe and haue manifested that which you would had beene hid for euer in the thickest of Cimmerian darkenesse I beare you no malice God is my witnesse my onely intent is that it may be knowne euidently to which of vs two this loathsome epithet hereticke belongeth Two things do support each other in errour the presuming of the truth before it be knowne and the defending of the presumed falshood after that the truth hath bin manifested vnto vs. We haue accused you yea and haue vanquished both of the one and the other of presumption and obstinacie Heresie proceedeth not from the Scripture but from that it is not rightly vnderstoode it is a crime not of the words but of the sense You erre in both twaine and although it be against your owne consciences yet so it is that you chuse rather to be damned then vanquished by the truth God of his infinite mercy open your eyes and make you see the beames of his graces in his Church where being gathered with vs we may worship together that Pastor and soueraigne Bishop of our soules our Lord Iesus Christ who in the vnitie of the Father and of the holy Ghost liueth and reighneth God eternally So be it THE THIRD CONFORMITIE CHAP. I. Of God YOu are not ignorant Sirs that there is but one maker of all creator of all Moyses speaking vnto the Israelites exhorteth them to giue eare vnto him and saith that the Lord their God is the onely God The principalitie of man hath a certaine analogie and correspondence with the diuine power All things are delighted in this vnitie and in truth S. Hierome bringeth forth some notable examples Yet notwithstanding the Manicheans haue made two infinite beginnings although it be impossible that any other infinite thing can bee together with God in Thought Will Might Goodnesse and Essence If there were two beginnings the one might destroy that which the other had wrought both twaine should possesse each other and by possessing should also borrow one from the other as being imperfect If there be two which of the two hath made this World Who hath gouerned it If the one ruleth what doth the other If the one hath made this world and the other ruleth it how hath this ruler entered into the house which is none of his Wee will conclude therefore that there is but one God but one beginning onely And although the heresie that maintaineth the contrarie is not embraced generally of you all yet Austin Steuchus famous among your Doctors hath written that the Empyreall heauen is
market and vpon all the wine that is in the celler immediately thereafter all the bread and wine is changed into the naturall body and blood of Christ Iesus I know none of the Hereticks that beleeued this transubstantiation of the bread touching the wine the Marcites as Epiphanius reporteth did assure themselues that the grace of God powred the blood of Christ into their cup and Marcus their schoole-master made them beleeue that hee changed the wine of the Eucharist into blood You would make the whole world beleeue that there is a transubstantiation of wine into blood made in the Chalice and that you may the more easily deceiue men and blinde the eyes of the simpler sort you bring with you sometimes certaine false miracles and illusions And from these goodlie traditions some wretched creatures haue taken occasion to inuent this mingling of blood that is drawne from young children that they may burne the same with the bread of the Lords holy Supper as the Cataphrygians who as wee reade in S. Austin did inuent a manner of transubstantiation of wine into blood realy corporaly It cannot be vnknowne to you that the decree of transubstantiation was established by two Councels holden at Rome the one vnder Nicolas the second against Berengarius and the other vnder Gregorie the seuenth being both prouinciall and not generall The most ancient of them being a thousand yeeres after the Apostles You would couer the newnesse of this doctrine with antiquity which neuerthelesse can bee but imaginary Wee yeelde to you antiquitie but such a one as is taken from the Marcites and Cataphrygians The vse of leauened or vnleauened bread in the Sacrament was holden a great while to bee indifferent in the Church Wherefore then hath Alexander the first of this name restored the Iewish ceremonie concerning vnleauened bread as if the Sacrament were to bee celebrated after the manner of the Iewes Is not this to follow the doctrine of the Ebionians who taught that the ceremoniall Law of Moyses was necessary vnto saluation Is not this I say to imitate the same that one Symmachus an Hereticke of Palestina had taught before The glosse of the decretall of Honorius the third vpon the word fermentato saith that it is not lawfull to vse leauened bread because it is written Not with old leauen but with the vnleauened bread of sincerity and truth And in your gloses which you haue approued and authorised after the rules whereof the Romish Church liueth and beleeueth we finde that pepper being added to the Sacrament marreth not the transubstantiation of the wheate but contrariwise that leauen marreth the same And in this how differ you from the Hereticke Sabacius who vsed vnleauened bread onely and no other Nicephorus speaking of the Heresies of the Armenians that were followers of the Theopaschites saith thus The same in the Eucharist vse vnleauened bread and not that which is leauened And in the chapter following The auncient Law giuers saith he doe wrongfully boast themselues that the famous Gregorie Bishop of Armenia did leaue vnto them those ceremonies by tradition chiefly the oblation of vnleauened bread and the cup without water because that in like manner in that mysticall supper of our Lords the sacrifice was without leauen and the wine pure which things notwithstanding the Catholick Church doth not alow in any waies Concerning vs we doe not impugne the mixtion of the Chalice but onely the condemning of such as doe not mingle it For we haue alwaies acknowledged that the most auncient Fathers vsed wine mingled with water in the Sacrament and we reade not that the Churches of Armenia were euer excommunicated for that to wit for vsing of pure wine Behold what he hath said here Furthermore like as the Messalians dipped the bread in the wine so also in the breaking of your Eucharist which is done after that the Agnus Dei is sung you mingle the third part thereof with the supposed blood of your Chalice The councell of Constance hath taken away the cup from the communion which you terme Laicall The Manicheans also vsed but one sort in the celebration of their Eucharist as Leo and Gelasius Bishops of Rome do witnesse and of this last Gratian maketh mention in his rapsodies The same Manicheans maintained that all things which appeared outwardly in Christ were but meere accidents May it not be that you haue learned from those that the forme figure colour and waight of the bread remaine still in the Sacrament without their owne substance There remaineth nothing fit to finish your picture but to mingle cheese with bread as the Artotirites did CHAP. XIV Of Purgatorie PVrgatorie springeth from the heresie of the Catharians against whom Epiphanius hath learnedly written And although Purgatorie be the chiefe patrimony of the Romish Clergie and the onely foundation of Masses yet it is vnknowne to the Church that was vnder the Law to the Church that is vnder Grace being without all warrant without any likely-hood how little so euer it be CHAP. XV. Of Miracles THe Donatists would haue proued their errors by Miracles which appeareth in Saint Austins writes Iustin Martyr and Athenagoras say that those be Hereticks that worke Miracles in their Churches and that to doe Miracles is no signe and demonstration of Gods true seruice S. Chrysostome saith There can be no other proofe of Christianity then the holy Scriptures the signes are now abolished and will rather bee found among false Christians CHAP. XVI Of Praying to Saints VVe doe honour and worship the Saints but it is in imitation This is S. Austins maxime honor andi sunt propter imitationem Wee doe not call vpon them nor pray to them that they may become intercessors and aduocates for vs at Gods hands we retaine and follow onely their good life and doctrine by holding and reputing them blessed in heauen We know that worship belongeth to God onely all manner of creatures being excluded We will not produce your arguments here neyther yet our defences wee should neuer haue done I will aske you this onely how can you with an vpright conscience deny the harmony that you haue with the Melchisedechians and Sethians who worshipped the Saints as you doe And where can you shew that this inuocation hath beene taught in the Primitiue Church or yet many ages after Verily in the Primitiue Church all gifts were thought to proceed from Iesus Christ alone no mention was made eyther of Saints or Angels contrariwise it was the doctrine of Hereticks of the Basilidians and of the Ophites who called on the Angels in their operations as if the earth had beene deuided among them and assigned vnto them certaine names and sought to appaise them by certaine composed formes namely this as Ireneus writeth O tu Angele ab a te or opere