by the wicked were by the wisedome of our gratious God escaped and the wicked were snared in the worke of their owne hands A deliuery deseruing eternall Trophies of Triumphs to glorifie God with our prayers and praises with our lips and liues and neuer follow them of whom the Apostle who glorified not God neyther were they thankefull but may continually call vp our hearts to this duty and cry with the Psalmist Come and hearken all yee that feare God and I will tell you what hee hath done to my soule for he hath deliuered our soules from death and our feet from falling that we should walke before God in the land of the liuing Therefore praise our God yee people and make the voice of his praise bee heard and say with the children of Reuben Gad and Manasses God forbid that we should rebel against the Lord and turne this day away from the Lord c. And as the children of Israel after their returne from the captiuity in Babilon and hearing Ezra reade the Law the ioy of their soules Ezra praised the Lord the great God and all the people answered Amen Amen lifting vp their hands and bowing themselues worshipping the Lord with their faces towards the ground and Nehemiah with Ezra and the Leuites tels the people This day is holy vnto the Lord your God so let our English Israel deliuered from the intended bondage of Babilon hearken to their Ezraes in the Pulpit made for the preaching of Gods Law wherof they should haue beene depriued and with their Priests praise the Lord our great and good God answering Amen Amen bowing themselues in all humility at the footestoole of Gods Maiesty annually celebrating the fift day of Nouember with praises of thankesgiuing and saying This day is holy vnto the Lord our God This day shall be vnto vs a remembrance and wee will keep it an holy feast vnto the Lord throughout our generations we will keep it holy by an ordinance for euer to remember this maruellous worke of Englands deliuerance from the plotted powder-destruction to praise Gods holy name and glory in his praise singing and saying cheerefully with our tongues and deuoutly with our hearts Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for euer audeuer and let all the people say Amen Amen To the ternall and eternall glorious Godhead Father Sonne and holy Ghost one and the same God in nature and number indiuisible inuisible inuincible our sole and soueraigne protector and preseruer God ouer all blessed for euer be all praise power faith feare glory and maiesty yeelded by vs by ours and by all his redeemed for all his mercies in generall and for this speciall deliuerance in particular humbly heartily holily for euer and euer Amen Glory be to God in the high Heauens and peace on earth Luke 2. 14. FINIS A SHORT DISSVVASIVE FROM POPERY To all Lay-Papists who desire to be true seruants to their Sauiour or good Subiects to their Soueraigne 1. Kings 18. 21. How long halt yee betweene two opinions If the Lord be God follow him but if Baal be he then goe after him Tert. de resurr carn Aufer haereticis quae cum Ethnieis sapiunt vt de Scripturis solis quaestiones suas sistant stare non poterunt Hugo de Claustro anim lib. 1. Superstitio dicitur verae religioni superaddita falsa religioÌ„ Melancthon Ex malo dogmate malis moribus dignoscuntur lupi By SAMVEL GAREY a Preacher of Gods Word and a perpetuall petitioner to God for your happy conuersion to Gods holy Truth LONDON Printed by Iohn Beale for Henry Fether stone and Iohn Parker 1618. To the Right VVorshipfull Sir Philip Kniâ—et Baronet and his worthy Lady The Spirit of Grace Truth and Wisedome be multiplied Right VVorshipfull I Am bold vpon experienced acquaintance with your generous qualities and gentle fauours towards me to send this vnworthy Treatise to your worthy viewe I know whose iudgement it must passe yet am fearelesse not in a grosse stupidity of mine owne weakenesse but in an hopefull presumption of your vsuall Gentlenesse a disposition euen naturalized in your courteous breasts whereof I acknowledge with gratefulnesse the acceptable fruites of your long and large loue towards me and for which I euer rest your thankefull friend and ingaged debtor in part of requitall whereof I haue presumed to offer to you this Handfull of my duty and hearty loue towards you and vnder your worthy name to send it to the world that they who are bettered by it may thanke you for it A short Disswasiue from Popery necessary for these Times wherein you may behold in part some points of the corrupt Doctrine of the Romish Church which is the common Mother of corruption superstition For that Church must needes be a Chappell of errors which enlarge the sacred Canon with Apochryphalls diminish the authority of the Scripture with Traditions ouerthrow the Originall with Translations peruert the Text with Glosses as the Romish Church doth Yea to maintaine her errors she conceales the light of Truth the Scripture from Lay people vnder the curtaine of the Latin language and euen in the Schooles among the learned she is put to poore shifts often forced to conclude arguments out of meere Allegories lame Similitudes fained miracles naked names of Fathers hired Testimonies of Schoolemen and other deboshed vassailes and proctors of the Romane Court who with all artificiall pollicy labour to adorne the Romane Harlot with painted trimmings whereby the vnwary young age of many more credulous then iudicious is deceiued and deluded The whole subiect of our former worke well perused and indifferently weighed doth giue good light looking vpon her corrupt precepts and cursed practises to discouer that smooky Kingdome of Antichrist but perchance you may say to me with Seneca Quidme torques lacer as in quaestâ—…bus Subtilius est contempsisse quam 〈◊〉 Why doe you trouble me with such questions it is more subtilty to contemne them then to confute them Worthy Sir it shall not be I hope labour lost if to your priuate contemplations you shall adioyne these short and sacred speculations specially penned for your seruice and published for the beâ—…e of all who are willing to open their eyes to walke in Truth I giue all but a small kind of taste in these points of Popish fragments if any mans appetite long for it I dare promise him heereafter more full dishes The Lord giue vnto you a Christian care in the profession of the Truth which with a sincere heart I haue preached vnto you and perfit your first Progresse in the grace of God to the holy Sanctification and happy Saluation of your bodies and soules for euer For which mercy and grace to be bestowed on you I shall euer vnfainedly pray to God and rest Your Worshipes poore Orator in Christ Samuel Garey A SHORT DISSVVAsiue to all Lay-papists who desire
held Deum ex humanis membris consistere God did consist of humane members then how abominable is it to worship God vnder the shape of an Image and ascribe the same honor to the Image as they doe to the samplar God as they say by it representedâ— So that to such God will say as the Prophet speakes Confounded be all they that serue grauen images or that glory in Idolles and as Esay I am the Lord this is my name and my glory will I not giue to an other neither my praise to grauen Images And I wonder that any should be so bewitched as to delight in Images historicall vsel deny not but all spirituall vse is fornication and abomination but more to creepe and croutch to them the visible obiects of dust or dirt to bowe to the stocke of a Tree as the Prophet speakes this is the basest thing that almost the Sunne euer sawe vnworthy of man whose knee should bow to his Maker and not to the stocke that he hath made himselfe how odious is the seruice and sacrifice of such creeping and croutching Idoll-suppliants in the Lords sight he will cast the dung vpon their owne faces euen the dung of their solemne feasts such fordide seruice such prophane and heathenish sacrifice which stinckes in his nostrills and say I neuer required this woodden worship at your hands I neuer commanded you to buy these Bookes which you say shall put you in remembrance of me but you that cannot remember me without the sight of an Image on earth I will forget you and shall neuer haue a sight of my Image in heauen Thus hauing spoken a little yet enough to satisfie a temperate and ingenuous Reader to behold the corruptions of Popery in the forepassed points I will come to our next promised part Popes pardons wherein I wil be more briefe because they are called by them Bullae Bulls or Indulgences rather bubbles something in appearance empty in the substance of proofe or profit Fourthly Popes pardons Their Cardinall Allen in his defence of Popes pardons saith that to impugne the power of pardons is to ouerthrow the greatest matters which life and Faith doe stand vpon and saith that Luther except one Witclife condemned in the Councell of Constance was the first that contradicted them from which point did begin the toyle and tragedy of these times wherein the Cardinall speakes not 〈◊〉 Cathedra for the Waldenses long before Witclife and Bohemians before Luther did contemne and condemne this vsurped power of popish pardons wherein the pith of popery is inclosed Indeede when it pleased the Lord to open Luthers eyes to see the truth he began first to finde fault with the base inundation of picke-purse pardons though as hee saith then he did but fight in the darke for when Pope Leo the tenth had sent abroad his pardons which were preached by Terelius a Dominicke Frier ' Luther admonished the people of the abuses and deceits of the pardons and pardoners which long before his time had beene reproued in the Councels of Lateran and Vienna and complained to the Archbishop of Mentz to the Bishop of Brandenburg to the Prouinciall of the Augustine Friers and to the Pope himselfe and Surius the Papist confesses that he did iustly complaine and afterward compelled by intollerable iniuries and neglect of manifest truth and reformation cast off the seruile yoake and vassalage of Antichristian captiuity These Pardons haue no ground in holy Scripture or Primitiue Church or Fathers of the Church for a thousand yeares after Christ but are indeede the impostures of this last age delusions of Sathan and the temptations to Epicurisme and all vice when as such pardons for all kinde of sinnes are proffered and prostrated to all such as can prouide money for them For the Court of Rome hath an order containing the price to be paid for all kinde of sins as murther incest parricide sodomy sacriledge c. and they that would see the particular summes of money for all kinde of sinnes and offences and what their pardon will cost in the Court of Rome for all capitall and horrible faults let them read Musculus common places in the title of the Ministers of the worde of God towards the end Some of their writers confesse De Indulgentijs nihil habemus nec in Scripturis nec ex dictis antiquarum doctorum we haue nothing of pardons neyther in the Scriptures nor in the ancient Doctors their Gregory of Valence saith that Gratian Lombard who liued not aboue 400. yeares agoe Nihil de indulgentis â—…nisse haue recorded nothing of Indulgences And the same Iesuite saith Erant Catholici quidam ante Lutherum quorum opinionem Thomas refent qui indulgentias pias fraudes esse duxerunt There were certaine Catholickes before Luther whose opinion Thomas recites who accounted these indulgences holy fraud rather lenocinia diaboli the enticing impiety of the Deuil and the whore to be so indulgent to their sons as rather to cocker then correct them for their sinnes So Pope Boniface the 8 the first inuenter of Iubily pardons grants Non solumplenam largiorem immo plenissimam omniâ—m suorum veniam peccatorum Not onely a full and large pardon but a most full pardon of all their sinnes and to giue pardon for many hundred yeares to come and that for doing a very small seruice as Pope Gregory who made a prayer about the length of a Creede which whosoeuer shall say deuoutly shall receiue fiue hundred yeares of pardon quicke worke yet prouided that at the end of euery verse he say a Pater noster and an Aue. Sometimes pardons for dayes as Pope Innocent the sixt to them who say a short prayer about the scantling of an Aue hee shall obtaine pardon for twenty thousand daies Pope Iohn the two and twentieth giues to them who say a short prayer three thousand daies of pardon of mortall sinnes and twenty thousand daies of venials and if that prayer too long or pardon too short let him say fiue Pater nosters before the Vernacle and hee shall haue ten thousand daies pardon by that Pope Gregorie the third giues a pardon to them that shall say a prayer as long as three Aues and kneele before a Crucifice for sixe thousand sixe hundred threescore and sixe daies iust so many daies as Christ had wounds on his body as some say saue that our Lord appeared to S. Briget at Rome and told her that his wounds were but fiue thousand foure hundred and fourescore or as others tell it fiue thousand foure hundred fourescore and ten excepting the prickes of his crowne which were threescore and twelue But some other Popes haue beene more liberall in the grant of these pardons Pope Sixtus the fourth graunted to them who say a prayer of his making which hath not aboue fiue and forty words forty thousand yeares of pardon Read a Bull of
Inquisition Nay Bellarmine doth confesse that the Papists would not suffer any among them Qui ostendunt vllo signo etiam externo se fauere Lutheranis Who doe declare by any signe externall that they fauour the Lutherans but they doe mittere illos mature in locum suum send such quickly to their last home Read but Lencaeus the Louayne professor in his booke Devnica religione or Pamelius in his book De diuersis religionibus non admittendis Who both with might and maine dispute against Tollerations It was a great commendation in the Emperour Constantino who would not suffer Idolatry in any part of his Dominions as Eusebius writes of him And it was commendable in Amphilochius a Bishop who reproued Theodosius the Emperor that he so long winked at Arrius and suffered him to spread his pestilent heresie ouer the body of the Church and it was commended in the Emperor who was not angry with the words of iust reproofe but forthwith banished Arrius gaue him some part of his iust deserts But heerein we neede not seeke out forraine histories wee haue examples at home who neuer would yeeld to tollerate corrupt religion Edward the sixth a Prince most famous and vertuous was sollicited by Carolus the Emperour and his owne Counsellors to permit the Lady Mary to haue Masse in her owne house his resolution negatiue saying he would spend his life and all that he had rather then to agree and grant to that hee knew certainely to be against the truth The late Queene Elizabeth of blessed memory could neuer be perswaded to tollerate Popish Religion who after innumerable dangers and manifold persecutions with vnspeakeable courage notwithstanding many difficulties at home of Princes abroad and of the Diuell euerwhere professed to maintaine the truth of the Gospell and to deface Idolatry and superstition which with singular constancy shee continued all the dayes of her life And now this our great gracious Soueraigne followes the steps of those religious Princes not all the World can change his constant resolution in Christian Religion his eares and hearts abhorre their charmes who are Petitioners in this kind for the granting of such a request might much disquiet the Christian Church State and Gospell God euer keepe and blesse the King in this his holy and spirituall perseuerance in the truth of the Gospell make his heart like Mount Sion neuer to be remoued A King so constant in profession of the Gospell and so learned and profound in all spirituall knowledge that he is able to confute and conuince with sound arguments the enemies of the Gospell and thereupon it was as I take it that Suarez the Iesuit said That Learning did disparage the royall dignity because the Champions of Rome see that they are not able to incounter with his Highnes matchlesse knowledge And surely if learning grace any man it must be more gracious in a Monarch a Man of Men. What made Salomon so famous and so renowned but specially his wisdome and knowledge Iulius Caesar Constantine and Charles the Great Iustinian Leo Palaeologus Cantacuzaenus the Alphonsi and many more Sigismund the Emperor commended for playing the Deacon at the Councell of Constance Henry the eight writing for the seauen Sacraments whose Booke subscribed with his owne hands the Popish Priests glory to haue it in their Vatican The Cardinall of Millan thinkes it the highest commendation he could giue the late King of Spaine In eius regia dignitate vt verbo complectar sacerdotalem animum licet aspicere In his regall dignity to comprize all in a word wee may see his sacerdotall heart Iuuenal Haec opera atque hae sunt generosi Principis artes And in the sacred studies of diuine Learning our dread Soueraigne may carry the Palme and weare the royall Crowne who hath deliuered to the World better Principles of Theologicall knowledge out of his Chaire of State then the Mitered Pope did euer é Cathedra for a King to descend to the Preacher is a worke of piety as Salomon did I the Preacher haue beene King in Ierusalem but for the Priest to climbe into the Kings throne is to play the Popes part the part of Antichrist Our royall Soueraigne hath made it his last delight to delight in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth hee meditate day and night In which spiritual labour hee hath so profited himselfe and others that hee hath taken Princely paines to publish the truth of Christ and to proclaime to the Potentates of the world the errors of Antichrist So that all people haue cause to pray God saue the King spiritually That a diuine sentence may be in the lips of the King and his mouth shall not transgresse in iudgement who like the good Emperour Constantine labours to decide matters of Religion by the true rule of Gods word for so Constantine commanded the Bishops to order all points by the Booke of God which Booke he placed for the same purpose in the middest of them And euen so speaks our dread Soueraign whatsoeuer I find agree with the Scriptures I will gladly imbrace what is otherwise I wil with their reuerēce reiect godly golden words The Lord euermore blesse his body and soule spiritually and enlarge the great Talent of his Princely wisdome giuing him as great a measure of knowledge as was giuen to Salomon yea such riches treasures and honours as none had before him or after him and as his Maiesty hath taken manifold paines to reduce the Popish Sectaries out of their spirituall blindnesse that they who will not bee wakened out of their slumbers of ignorance by the voice of so royall and religious a sheapheard may be compelled by the Sword of Magistracy to depart out of Babylon or out of his Dominion But herein it becomes not me to giue counsell rather fall to prayer that the Lord whose cause it is would take the cause into his owne hand and stirre vp the hearts and hands of all Christian Kings to compell all people who will not be moued by the word of Gods Ministery to come out of Babylon might be forced by the sword of Magistracy to depart from her least they receiue of her plagues Qui phreneticum ligat lethargicum excitat ambobus molestus ambos amat saith Austen He that bindeth a franticke man and awakes him that hath the lethargy loueth both though he be greeuous to both And as the same Father in another place Quod autem vobis videtur inuitos ad veritatem non esse cogendos c. Whereas you thinke that men are not to bee compelled to the truth against their wils ye erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the Power of God which maketh those willing though they be compelled against their wils Goe into the high wayes and compell them to come in saith our Sauiour Christ whereupon Saint Austen saith Qui compellitur quô
to be true seruants to their Sauiour or good subiects to their Souereigne I Hauing finished yet in great weakenesse our former worke wherein I doe humbly craue of all sorts a friendly and fauourable construction and acceptation and there still remaining a few pages vnwritten I thought it not labout lost if I did annexe some common yet courteous direction to the Lay-papists of the land to disswade them from the corrupt Doctrine of the Church of Rome vnto the which they are induced by the inchaunting allurements of Popish Priests men whose learning and wits are tempting baites yea bawdes Thamar-like prostitute themselues so that they may haue children they will deceiue their owne father Iudah as also by the ignorance of these Lay-disciples whose right eyes of knowledge they thrust out as Nahash the Ammonite would haue done to the men of Iabesh Gilead depriuing them of the word of knowledge the Scripture and saying It was the Deuills inuention to permit the people to reade the Bible as one of their fide writes and therfore the Church of Rome forbiddeth the reading of it among the people By which meanes oh wofull meanes and to cry with their owne Doctor to their Cleargy for it woe to our Parish Priests woe to our Bishops woe to our Prelates they haue brought in such a floud of prodigious ignorance as that many of them are as ignorant as that Knight was of whom Claudius Espâ—ncaem tells of who being demanded his beliefe touching the holy Ghost answered he knew not whether there was an holy Ghost or no. So that their followers being so blind not able to iudge of colours wanting the word of Truth the Scripture in the tongue they vnderstand which is the lapis Lydius the touchstone to try the truth from error diuina statera as Augustin calles it the diuine ballance to weigh truth from falsehood it is easie to winde such into selfe-losing labyrinthes and to driue them with their painted clothes like woodcockes into their nets and to goe with them with Domitius Chalderinus yet hee learned who when he should goe to the Masse accustomed to say Eamus ad communem errorem Let vs goe to the common error So these are content to goe to Masse the common or Catholicke mother of all Bastard errors The attractiue motiues which draw many to fancy and follow the religion of the Church of Rome may be reduced to three Heads 1. The Antiquitie 2. The Vniuersality 3. The Vnity of that Church which three if they could be found there were of powerfull consequence to mooue reuerence but neither of these can be found there for the moderne Romane Church which coines so often new Creedes and Articles of faith and is reuolted from herselfe in substance of doctrine is no more like herselfe in her primitiue State then Lais the Curtizan is an honest woman I could demonstrate this I say without controulement if I were purposed to write a common-place-booke of Controuersies in this point but it hath beene handled so largely and learnedly by other Diuines of our Church that I may at this time forbeare any long discourse I will but touch it and instance this I write how the moderne Church of Rome is swarued from herselfe not onely from the Truth which primitiue Rome embraced but also varied from herselfe declining into heresie innouating those Articles and dogmaticall points of faith as they count them which in the processe of her fall she professed it might be specified in most of the points of Doctrine she maintaines at this present time but I will rest with these few for I write but an Epitome 1 Example shall be in the Sacrament At the first the people receiued the cup as well as the bread for the space of a thousand yeeres yea afterward the Romance Church commanded the wine to be consecrated that the lay-people might fully communicate saith Micrologus most and the best Papists liked this well that the people should communicate in both kinds but afterward the Councell of Constance forbad it and after that the Councell of Basil released the decree of Constance to some and after that the Councell of Trent the mint of errors confirmed it againe and depriued the Laity of the Cup Sect. 21. c. 2. So that this point of Doctrine now maintained in the Church of Rome can pleade no antiquity being now so oft renewed put vp and put downe and their most ancient Liturgies shew how the people receiued the wine as well as the bread and this custome saith Caietan endured long in the Church and as one of their Church say It were better if this custome were renewed againe 2 Example in Transubstantiation Transubstantiation lately brought into the Church and made a matter of faith by a silly Pope Innocent the third in the Lateran Councell within these 400 yeeres and the Papists themselues say this opinion is very new and lately brought into the Church and beleeued onely vpon the authority of the Lateran Councell and speake so vncertainely and inconstantly in this point and doe so stagger enterfere in their opinion herein confessing that there is no Scripture to conuince it vnlesse ye bring the Church of Romes exposition so that hitherto we can see no great antiquity nor good vniuersality in their doctrine 3 Example in Popes supremacy The Councell of Constance and Basil decreed That a generall Councell was of greater authority then the Pope but long after that the Councels of Lateran and Trent decreed contrary The Councels of Chalcedon and Constantinople make the Bishop of Constantinople equall with the Bishop of Rome yet now he arrogates a supremacy aboue Bishops aboue Councels aboue Kings aboue all his title no lesse then vniuersall Bishop yet Gregory who was Pope of Rome saith I hat he dare confidently say He is the forerunner of Antichrist in his pride whosoeuer he be that calleth himselfe vniuersall Bishop but this smoaky pompe of pride the Pope now likes well enough and makes it an Article of Faith to sweaâ—e obedience to his primacy and he that denies this denies Fidem Catholicam The Catholicke Faith faith Bellarmine I might here produce other examples of Popish Doctrine crept in by degrees as their abhominable Image-worship brought in by the second Councell of Nice the first restraint of Priests marriage by Pope Siritius the doctrine of the merit of workes lately by the Schoolemen as Waldensis writes Their prayers to the dead Popes pardons Purgatory a Platonicall or poeticall fiction Auricular confession with other like triuiall trash which if they haue any colour of antiquity yet they haue no colour of verity And what is antiquity without verity Saint Cyprian tels vs Consuetudo sine veritate est vestustas erroris Continuance without truth is the antiquity of error And againe Non hom ines consuei â—dinem
sequi â—porter sed Dei veritatem Wee may not follow the custome of men but the truth of God for as Tertullian Quodcunque contra veritatem sapit hoc erit haeresit etiam consuetudo Whatsoeuer is contrary to truth is heresie euen custome and antiquity Ignatius writes that he heard some say Nisi Euangelium in â—nt quis inuenero non credam Vnlesse I find the Gospel among the Ancients I will not beleeue it Pâ—gani saith Austen Antiquitatis causa se verum tenere contendunt The Pagans for the cause of antiquity contend they hold the truth If antiquity might carry it the Iewes might carry it from the Christians The Church of Antioch from the Church of Rome for so saith Bellarmine Petrus Antiochiae Cathedram suam aliquandiu tenebat priusquam ad Romam eam transtulisset Peter did set his Chaire at Antioch before he translated it to Rome Indeed the woman of Samaria pleades antiquity to Christ our Fathers worshipped in this mountaine and ye say that in Ierusalem is the place where men ought to worship so say our Lay-Papists Our Fathers worshipped God with Images with the Masse c. But Christ will say to them as to that woman ye worship that which ye know not Away with your wicked and wil-worship I will be worshipped according to my word The great hinderance saith the Iesuite Acosta to the plantation of the Roman Faith among the Indians Ex inueterata consuetudine proficiscitur proceeds from their ancient custome wherein before they were inured and from it hardly reclaimed and as the Iesuite Xauerius saith Indi ne Christiani fierent hanc causam afferebant so à maioribus suis semper cultores extitisse c. The Indians that they should not be made Christians alleadged this cause that they had alwayes beene worshippers according to their Forefathers The same is the answere of many Papists We serue God as our Fathers did and yet the Lord saith to all walke not in the ordinances of your Forefathers neither obserue their manners nor defile your selues with their Idols I am the Lord your God walke in my Statutes c. Men should not doe as the most doe but as they must doe God doth not say walke as others doe but Haec est via ambulate in ea This is the way walke ye in it Truth is not to be tried by antiquity or vniuersality but by the Scripture Nabuchadnezars idolatry graced with vniuersality onely three doe gainesay it In a word with Cyprian Multitude errantium non parit errori patrocinium An erring multitude doth not patronize error It hath beene a long time the calumny and reproaches of Popish Priests men who haue an infirmity to void excrements at their mouth to defame our Church with an vpstart nouelty where was your Church before Martin Luthers time We doe not fetch our Religion from Martin Luther a worthy man but from the Scripture from Christ and his Apostles we want no antiquity hauing the Scripture your Iesuite will tell you so much Sanctarum Scropturarum summa est antiquitas c. The Holy Scripture is of the greatest antiquity and that Church whose doctrine agrees with it is most ancient Yet Martin Luther is more ancient then your Tridentine Fathers and brood of Iesuites the Atlasses to support your falling Church But many hundred yeeres before Luthers dayes there wanted not famous and zealous men who resisted the corrupt doctrine of the Church of Rome the persons and the points the time when in all Ages are compendiously recited by a iudicious and very learned Diuine of our Church to whose Booke for breuity sake I referre my Reader The nakednesse of the Roman Diana was discouered long agoe for which dscouery many good men haue beene Acteon-like hunted by bloody hounds to death Corruptions spread by degrees Et tanquam cancer serpit as Espencaeus creepes stealing like a Canker infects one part then another Such hath beene the malady of the Church of Rome their creeping corruptions canker-like first one part then another point that it is hard to set downe the precise time when these corruptions ingendered The Greekes debated long on this probleme The ship Argos wherin Iason sayled for the golden Flecce after the voyage ended was laied vp in the roade for a Monument where decaying by degrees it was repaired by peeces anew in the end the whole substance of the vessell extinct and nothing left but onely the reparations successiuely made Now the question was whether-this ship suppose it Peters were the same that he sayled in when he liued or an other renewed and whether can any man tell when such a peece was added such a part supplied And if this cannot be so precisely shewed doth it follow infallibly that it was the very Argosie wherein Iason sayled So in this case their ship their Church so often peeced so many new points added euery Pope almost changing his Predecessors decrees abrogating this point and augmenting it with another that it is indeed a new ship and can iustly pleade no great antiquity And for vniuersality and vnity in Doctrine no Church so much diuided VVe doe reade how Popes vsually haue condemned that which other Popes haue confirmed Councels contradicted that which others haue concluded Their outcries in Schooles Pulpets Consistories one against another makes their diuision and difcord audible That we may say of them which Lucian of the old Phlosophers With the noise of their disputations they haue so filled the eares of Iupiter and made him deafe that he cannot heare their prayers How irreconciliable are the iars and contentions of Scotus Aquinas Egidius Romanus and others that they imitate the wranglings of the old Academicks Stoicks and Peripatetickes Haue they not Families of the Schoolemen wherein euery one professeth his particular Sect-Master Thomas Scotus Occham Durandus both Masters and Scholers haue spent their lines and liues in opposition The Dominican and Franciscan Friers many ages quarrelling about the conception of the Virgin Mary Their writers sharping their pens one against another Armachanus against the Friers the Iesuites and secular Priests one against another Catharinus against Caietan Catharinus and Soto one against another Pighius Gropper Bâ—rus Peresius Cassander Hosius Almayne c great pillars of Popery some fourescore yeeres agoe are now by late Iesuites contemned and confuted who knoweth not saith Bellarmine that Pighius in many points was miserably seduced by reading Caluins Bookes and of Gropper and other Diuines of Collen he saith Their Bookes haue need of the Churches censure Yea are not the writers of the last stampe euen Bellarmine Gregory of Valence Stapleton Suarez Vasquez Molina Baronius c vp to the eares in contention and faction among themselues Bellarmine confuted by Barâ—layus Suarez Carerius Marsilius yea Bellarmine hath often confuted himselfe by contradictions Suarez confuted by Vasques Baronius by