fruits i.e. their doctrines ye shall know the persons whether they be true or false prophets or teachers or by their doctrines ye shall know whether they teach false doctrines for so still I have no direction lest me whereby to know their doctrines to be false yet for which their false doctrines â—am warned chiefly to be aware of these false teachers But the meaning thereof in reason must be that by their fruits of an holy or bad life by the fruits of the Spirit or of the flesh which they bear which fruits the sheep do see and can judge of when they cannot so well of the doctrines by these both the good or bad Spirit of the Doctor and the truth or falsity of his doctrines may be known § 58 First the Teachers Spirit whether it be of God or of the flesh and the Devil may be discerned by these fruits For if this Spirit be of God the Apostle hath told us Gal. 5.22 that the fruits thereof are love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness continency or temperance if of the flesh and Satan the works or fruits are fornication uncleanness lasciviousness drunkenness revellings hatred variance emulation wrath strife sedition envyings c. Now Christians having once discerned thus by these fruits the Spirit of the Teachers where they have ground of presumption that it is a bad one have all reason to suspect his doctrine and his reasons and arguments and his expositions of God's word in confirmation thereof to be so too To be so too I say where ever the Church doth not authorize and secure such doctrine to them for the Scriptures are of no private interpretation i. e. not of every private man's interpretation out of his own brain because they are dictated by the Holy Ghost and by the Holy Ghost the meaning of the Holy Ghost in them can only be expounded By the Holy Ghost I say either in the private Expositor or the Church in which the Spirit of God for ever resides and guides it into all truth from which Church he must learn such Exposition or with which Church he will concur in it if he learn it from God's Spirit But this man's new Doctrine entered into the world neither with Miracles nor if we consider all said with the signs of a good Spirit nor yet owned or defended nay also rejected and condemned by the Church § 59 Where 1. That truth and holiness error and vice have a necessary cenrexâ—â—n 2ly By their fruits of a strict and holy or of a corrupt and dissolute life are the truth and falsity also of Doctrines discovered For first as truth and goodness so error and vice have a most intimate and natural connexion so that I may say if there be any doctrine that really and naturally tendeth to produce in us more sanctity and purity of life than the contrary that most certainly is truth and the contrary error and therefore is an orthodox faith so much laboured for because it is the foundation of a good life and therefore Satan becomes the Father of all evil in us because he is first the Father of lyes to us Tho then it be not here denied but that a teacher of something that is false may bring forth the fruits of a good life and contrary the teacher of truth the fruits of a bad yet 1. here the fruit of good life can never proceed from the false doctrine taught by the one nor the fruit of a bad life from the truth that is taught by the other But the teacher of truth brings forth bad fruit from his lusts carrying him against the truth known by him and again the teacher of some errors brings forth good fruit from the truth which he possesseth mingled indeed with error but yet predominative thereof But if he be such a Teacher of errors as that the truths he holds as none err in every thing are in the operation which they might have upon his manners mastered and seduced by them here his life also must needs be corrupt whether he be supposed to practise according to his errors as if he indulged some forbidden lusts because conceived lawful or whether he practise contrary to them for so he doth what is right indeed but against his conscience all acting against which tho when it errs becomes evil Again if he be a teacher of such errors as are expresly condemned by the Church or at Jeast as he knows to be so whatever truths he may hold or some kind of virtues practise according to those truths yet his life in general can never be stiled holy or himself good because he wants the two fundamental and cardinal virtues of Obedience and Humility Lastly neither can a good man teaching some errors be so good as if rectified in these he might have bin but that he must also be so far faulty and defective in his manners as his false opinion any way tendeth to the depraving and leavening thereof This of the natural connexion of error and vice as of truth and goodness § 60 〈◊〉 That where more corrupt doctrines â—re believed and taught there for the general are â—ound more dissolute 〈◊〉 2ly Hence it will follow That tho as hath bin said it may not be affirmed that where ever a dissolute and bad life is seen in a teacher or others there it ariseth from their false opinions or doctrines because many times our life is evil where our tenents are generally orthodox and true Catholicks are sometimes bad men from our lusts warring and carrying us headlong against our knowledge and our faith yet in any Sect wherein more erroneous and corrupt doctrines are believed and maintained especially such as give more manifest liberty to the flesh there for the general must needs be more carnal corrupt and dissolute lives seeing that there are here both the same lusts warring against the Soul which are also tempting the Catholick and Orthodox to an evil life and moreover many gross mis-perswasions and pernicious doctrines siding with and countenancing such lusts or at least not curbing them For if our lusts even against knowledge are so powerful over us how swiftly will they move us when our errors go along with them and blow these Sails This I say for the general For as to particulars I do not deny but that the life of some persons labouring under many erroneous principles yet may be very regular both by reason of other truths believed which tho this not observed by them do contradict the other false ones and may suspend the bad influences of them upon their practice as also by reason of an extraordinary good inclination of their nature and helps also of God's restraining grace for even amongst the Heathen-errors have bin some persons of an external virtuous and unreproachable conversation and therefore much more may they be so amongst any Sect of Christians who cannot but have many Catholick truths mingled with their errors and yet much more
Disputation was not made known by him to the world till ten or eleven years after it happened when he had some experience of many being swayed by them viz. in his book de Missa privata Sacerdotum unctione ' Of private Mass and Priests unction writ in 1533 yet the Reasonings of this evil Fiend were urged by him against the Church as Truth both before and after his Colloquy through his whole ensuing life the strength of these arguments with him overpoising the mendacity of the Author And therefore this disputation of the Devils against the Mass and former religion hath had with many a contrary effect to what it had with Luther either causing them to return to the Church as amongst others it had once such an operation upon Mr. Chillingworth one of the motives of his reconcilement to the Roman Catholick Religion being set down by him thus in his Preface sin Because saith he Luther to preach against the Mass which contains the most material points now in controversy was perswaded by reasons suggested to him by the Devil himself disputing with him as himself professeth in his book de Miss privat that all men saith he might take heed of following him who professeth himself to follow the Devil or causing them more firmly to persevere therein Tho Luther whether out of vain-glory to shew his more intimate acquaintance and negotiation with the inhabitants of the incorporeal world and his defeat of their designs or out of a conceit that by the unanswerableness of the arguments tho taken from a prohibited Author he should promote his cause or rather out of the merciful providence of God to shew to all the world by Luther's own Confession the Original Founder and Abetter of the Reformation the more to deter all from believing such a lie was forced to the great regret of many of his followers for the scandal given thereby to publish to the world this his Confession as he calls it of the things that secretly passed between him and the wicked Fiend 2ly For the disputation it self the Devil's arguments are vain and of no weight to perswade what he pretends and Luther's weakness very great in yeilding to them and in afterwards using them especially known to come from the Father of lies which to clear to you I will give you the story with some animadversions upon it § 40. n. 1. Luther's own relation of it after his telling us how vigorously and convincingly and in short periods the Devil disputes is this Quondam intempesta nocte e somno evigilavi mox Satan hujusmodi disputationem in animo meo quemadmodum scilicet multas noctes mihi satis amarulentas acerbas reddere ille novit mecum instituit Audisne dixit Excellentissime Doctor Num ignoras te quoque per annos quindecim privatas Missas quotidie fere celebrasse Quid vero si Missis hujusmodi meram Idololatriam exercuisses non Christi corpus sanguinem sed nudum panem vinum illic tu adoravisses aliis quoque exhibuisses adorandum Respondebam sic Atque Sacerdos sum ad istud muneris consecratus qui Christma Consecractionem ab Episcopo olim habui praeterea omne hoc ex meorum Superiorum jussu obedientiae debito per me factum est Cur ergo non Consecravissem sum verba ipsa diligenti studio pronunciaverim summa qua potui devotione in Missis celebrandis usus sim Vere equidem hoc dicis Respondit Satan sed Turcae Ethnici omnes quaecunque in templis suis agunt exjussa studiosa devotione facere solent Sacerdotes Jeroboam faciebant etiam omnia certo zelo studio contra veros sacerdotes in Jerusalem Quid si tua Ordinatio Consecratio falsa esset sicut Turcarum Samaritanorum falsi Sacerdotes falsus impius cultus est Some time since about midnight I chanc'd to awake out of sleep and behold the Devil as he had known well enough how to occasion me many troublesome and restless nights began a disputation with me in my interior soul Dost thou hear said he most Excellent Doctor Can you be ignorant that you also for fifteen years together have almost daily celebrated Private Masses what if in those Masses you have practised down-right Idolatry in adoring there and exhibiting to others to be ador'd not the body and blood of Christ but the naked bread and wine I made answer after this manner I am certainly a Priest consecrated to that holy function of offering the body of Christ having long ago received both Chrism and Consecration from a true Bishop Besides all this I did by the command of my Superiors in due obedience to them Why might not I therefore in celebrating those Masses be said truly to consecrate when with all possible care I pronounced the very words of Consecration in the greatest devotion I was able You say very true answered the Devil but even Turks and all Heathens perform what they do in their Temples as by command and with a sedulous devotion So Jeroboam's Priests acted all things with a constant zeal and fervour tho contrary to the true Priests at Jerusalem What if your Ordination and Consecration also should be false as amongst the Turks and Samaritans false Priests false and impious worship As yet Luther 's Ordination is questioned by Satan as false but not proved Satan then proceeds to give these Reasons thereof § 40. n. 2. 1. Primum nosti inquit nullam tunc habuisti cognitionem Christi nec veram fidem First you know said he you had then no knowledg of Christ nor true faith Nosti This Colloquy then was after Luther's reforming the former Doctrine concerning Faith and his holding it the sole Instrument or Condition of our Justification which Truth Satan contrary to his custom surely confirms to Luther Should he not rather have bin jealous here of this his new Doctrine concerning true Faith from Satan's recommending it And might he not here have replyed That doubtless when a Roman-Catholick he had veram cognitionem Christi veram fidem ' true knowledge of Christ and true faith or else God's Church then had none and then how could any salvation be had in it or how have not the Gates of Hell prevailed against it Lastly Satan's and Luther's vera fides the Solifidian doctrine is now exploded by the better-understanding Protestants Satan discovered a lier in it and his Disciple Luther deceived Et quod ad fidem attinet nihilo melior fuisti quovis Turca Nam Turca adeoque omnes diaboli etiam credunt historiam de Christo ipsum esse natum crucifixum mortuum c. Sed Turca nos Spiritus rejecti non fidimus illius misericordiae neque habemus eum pro Mediatore aut Salvatore sed exhorrescimus ut saevum Judicem And as to matters of Faith you are no better than a Turk For the Turks and so the Devils themselves also believe
the Church and Fathers without more proof Mean-while we see from what Author zealous forsooth of the right understanding of Christ's Institution and of God's Truth and vindicating it from former errors the Reformed have learn'd their Opposition to the Evangelical Sacrifice of the Altar Sic enim verba ungentis suffraganei clare sonant Cum enim juxta traditam ceremoniam Calicem in manus dat jam uncto Accipe inquit potestatem consecrandi sacrificandi pro vivis mortuis Quae malum haec est prorsus sinistra perversa unctio ordinatio quod Christus instituit adedendum bibendum pro tot a Ecclesia porrigendum a Saderdote una communicantibus c. ex hoc tu facias Sacrificium propitiatorium coram Deo So indeed the words of the Suffragan Bishop ordaining plainly signify For when according to the traditional ceremony he delivers the Chalice into the hands of the then Ordained he saith Take thou power of Consecrating and Sacrificing for the living and the dead What a mischief sinister and perverse Unction and Ordination is this what Christ hath instituted and ordained to be eaten and drunk for the whole Church and what ought to be given by the Priest to other communicants c. of this do you in private make a propitiatory Sacrifice before God Here also Luther might have expounded to Satan the sense of the Church and so have expected his Reply viz. The Church stiling the Sacrifice of the Altar propitiatorium only in the application of the sole satisfactory Sacrifice of our Lord offered on the Cross As also there were Sacrifices under the Law truly and properly stiled Propitiatory yet only so with relation to our Lord 's made at his death on the Cross O abominatio super omnem abominationem O abomination of abominations § 40. n. 6. 5. Mens sententia Christi est ut diximus ut Sacramentum distribuatur Ecclesiae communicantibus ad erigendam firmandam ipsorum fidem in quovis agone variarum tentationum peccati diaboli c. ad subinde renovandum praedicandum beneficium Christi Tu autem ex hoc fecisti proprium opus quod tuum sit quod tu facias sine aliis quod possis impartiri gratis vel pro pecunia aliis The mind and intention of Christ was as I said that this Sacrament should be given to the whole Church even all those that should communicate to raise and strengthen their faith in every agony of the various temptations of sin of the Devil c. thereby to renovate and set forth this benefit of Christ But you have made it your own work in that you celebrate alone without any others there present whether gratis or for money Spoken-to before the Church repels none denies the Sacrament to none worthy at any time sells it to none If Luther did the Church must not answer for his guilt What follows next is a Recapitulation designed as it were only to fasten and rivet these truths better into Luther's mind in which he was afterward to instruct the world and the matter of it replied to before Hic forsan dices etiamsi aliis in Ecclesia non porrigam sacramentum tamen ipse sumo ipse mihi porrigo Et multi in coetu etiam Sacramentum aut etiam Baptisma accipâ—unt qui tamen increduli sunt tamen ibi est verus Baptismus verum Sacramentum quare tunc in mea Missa non esset verum Sacramentum Sed hoc non est simile saith Satan quia in Baptismo sunt ut minimum duae personae baptizans baptizandus saepe multi alii de Ecclesia Et Baptizantis officium ejusmodi est quod aliis de Ecclesia quid communicat ut membris non aliis subtrahens sibi soli sumit sicut tu facis in Missa Et omnia alia quae ibi geruntur tum opus ipsum fit secundum jussum modum institutionis Christi tua autem Missa contra institutionem Christi ' Here perhaps you will say in defence that it is verum Sacramentum a true Sacrament and verum corpus Christi true Body of Christ tho the Consecrator doth not rightly administer it or is incredulous and hath no right faith although I do not administer this Sacrament to others in the Church yet I my self take it I give it also to my self There are many also in the Church receive this Sacrament as that also of Baptism which yet do not believe nevertheless it is true Baptism and a true Sacrament why then in my private Masses may there not be a true Sacrament But the case is not the same saith the Devil because in Baptism there are two persons at the least the baptizer and the baptized and often others also of the Church And the office of the baptizer is such that he communicates something to others of the Church not takes any thing from them to himself as you do in the Mass And all other things that belong to that Sacrament even the whole action is according to the command and manner of Christ's institution but your Mass is contrary to the Institution of Christ § 40. n. 7. 2. Quare non docetis quod quis possit baptizare seipsum c. Quare rejicitis Confirmationem si quis more vestro confirmaret seipsum Quare non est Absolutio siquis absolveret seipsum Quod si nunc nullum ex Sacramentis vestris aliquis ipse pro seipso facere potest aut tractare quì fit ut tibi soli hoc sacrum sacrificium facere velis c Scio saith Satan quilibet Minister aliis porrigens etiam pro se sumit sed ipse non consecrat sacramentum pro se sed sumit cum aliis Ecclesia Why then do you not teach that any one may baptize himself c. Why do you deny Confirmation to be good if according to your practice in the Eucharist any one should confirm himself Why not Absolution valid if any one should absolve himself But now if no one can consecrate or celebrate any of the other Sacraments for himself how comes it to pass that you offer sacrifice for and by your self alone I know saith the Devil that every Priest communicating others receives also himself but he consecrates not the Sacrament only for himself but receives it together with others and the Church First here if Satan proves any thing by his instances it is this that if no man may baptize or absolve or confirm therefore neither may he communicate himself But all Sacraments must not be made in every thing alike 2ly Neither in the Sacrament of the Eucharist doth any Priest consecrate or offer only for himself nor take this Sacrament only to or for himself if others be present and prepared to communicate with him but yet 1. he may give it to himself as well as to others and 2. again to himself when not to others if none offer themselves to
receive it with him For himself hath a share therein and benefit therefrom as well as others nor doth their foregoing this benefit infer or necessitate his In his angustiis saith Luther in hoc agone §. 〈◊〉 n. â— contra Diabolum volebam retundere hostem armis quibus assuetus eram sub Pâ—patu objiciâ—bamque intentionem fidem Ecclesia scil Quod Missas privatas in 〈◊〉 intentione Ecclesiae celebrassem Etiamsiego inquam non recte eâ—â—didi aut sensi tamen hoc recte credidit Ecclesia Verum Satan e contrae Age inquit prome ubi scriptum est Quod homo impius incredulus possit assistere Altari Christi consecrare conficere in fide Ecclesiae c. ubi jussit aut praecepit hoc Deus Si nunc verbum Dei non habes sed homines hoc docuerunt sine verbo tunc tota Doctrina haec est mendacium Intentio Ecclesiae non est contra clara verba intentionem Christi Ergo saith Satan non consecrasti sed solum panem vinum ut Ethnici obtulisti In these streights in this agony saith Luther as I was contending with the Devil I thought to have vanquished this great enemy with those weapons I was wont to make use of whilst a Papist I urged therefore to him the Intentention and Faith of the Church viz. That in virtue of the Church's Faith and Intention I had celebrated private Masses If I did not said I rightly believe and intend yet the Church always rightly believes But the Devil on the contrary said Shew me if you can in Scripture where it is written that a wicked faithless man may assist at Christ's Altar and consecrate and make the Sacraments in virtue of the Church's faith c. where hath God commanded or enjoyned any such thing If now you have not the word of God for it but men have traditionally taught you this without God's word then this whole doctrine is a Lye The Intention of the Church if the true Church cannot be contrary to the plain words and intention of Christ Therefore saith Satan you did not consecrate but only offer as Heathens might do the naked bread and wine There is more such like stuff Here for what the Devil would perswade Luther that Nullus impius aut incredulus potest consecrare c. no impious or unbelieving person can consecrate c. it hath bin an opinion always exploded by the Church and affirmed that Gratiae gratis datae ' extraordinary gifts and graces are communicable to wicked persons and the Augustane Confession made before Luther writ this book Art 8. granteth Licere uti Sacramentis quae per malos administrantur That it is lawful to communicate of those Sacraments which are administred by evil men quoting Matt. 23.2 3. Sedent Scribae Pharisaei in Cathedra Moysi c. ' In the chair of Moses have sate the Scribes and Pharisees c. And Sacramenta Verbum propter ordinationem mandatum Christi esse efficacia etiamsi per malos exhibeantur ' the Sacraments and Word of God are efficacious altho by evil men dispensed As for any intention of the Church it is only to confer the Sacrament according to what it believes to be the Ordination and Institution of our Lord. And that its intention and faith is contrary to the Word of God and Institution of Christ is a thing said here by Satan but not proved to Luther nor ought he to have yeilded the matter till a further evidence of it nor ought he to prefer Satan's or his own sense of Scripture before the Church's nor to account his sense clearer where so many against him think another so Mean-while here again we see from whom the first Reformer learnt such language Vbi scriptum est ubi jussit aut prâ—cepit Deus Where is it written where hath God commanded or enjoyn'd it And to plead Verbum Dei against the Church i.e. their own sense thereof against the Church's for what the word 's of Scripture be both are agreed and this with an addition of clara verba Scripturae ' plain words of Scripture on their side when a thousand men to one think the contrary when as no words of Scripture how clear soever are interpretable so as to contradict any other Scripture and the Clarum Verbum ' plain Text must comprehend not one sentence affirming what we would have but the whole word of God as no where gain-saying it And then who so fit to judge of the whole as the Church § 40. n. 9. This Encounter of Satan discovering as he imagined so much new Truth to him and so many of his former Errors but with this ill design as he imagined the intending thereby to cast him into despair for no man can think Satan to treat with him on any other termes than to deceive and do him mischief only his frauds are very various and we may fancy he proposeth one when he doth another put him as he saith into a great sweat and anguish of spirit as hath bin related before § 32. According therefore to this suspicion of his but quite mistaken in Satan's design after the relation of this Colloquy in his Book de Privata Missa he goes on thus Hic respondebunt mihi sanctissimi Patres An ignoras Diabolum esse mendacem ' Here the Holy Fathers the Popish Bishops will answer me Who doth not know that the Devil 's a Lyar To which he answers Verum quidem hoc est quod mendax sit sed ejus mendacia non sunt simplicis artificii sed longe callidiora instructiora ad fallendâ—m Ille sic adoritur ut apprehendat aliquam solidam veritatem quâ— negart non potest atque eam adeo callide versute urget acuit adeo speciose fucat suum mendacium ut fallat vel cautissimos Vti cogitatio illa quae Judae cor percâ—ssit vera erat Tradidi fanguinem innocentem hoc Judas negare non poterat Sed hoc erat Mendacium Ergo est desperandum de gratia Dei Non mentitur Satan quando accusat aut urget magnitudinem peccati c. sed ibi mentitur Satan quando ultra urget ut desperem de Gratia In summa saith he nos ab ipsorum privatis Missis ab unctione Episcoporum liberati sumus Viderint ipsi quomodo sua Pergama defendant It is true that the Devil 's a Lyar but then his Lies are not of the common make but far more subtle and abler to deceive He so accosts as to gain some solid and undeniable truth on his side and that he so craftily and acutely urges and so speciously colours over his lies as almost to deceive even the most cautious As when Judas's heart smote him that Thought of his was true I have betrayed the just blood this Judas could not deny but that was a Lie I must therefore despair of the grace of God The Devil doth not lie when
persecuting the Church of God and its former truth as the Jews in persecuting our Lord and his Doctrine thought he did God good service and therefore the Devil great disservice and that he really took God for his friend and the Devil for his enemy as they also did of whom nevertheless our Lord declared that they were the Devil's Children and he their Father and that they did the works of this their Father and spake his words Jo. 8.41 44. But neither do I apprehend this gross misperswasion of his to have excused him any more than theirs did since he wanted not sufficient testimony and evidence on every side especially from the voice of the whole Church Catholick that he was deceived and the merciful God without his own first shutting his eyes and hardening his heart would not have given him up to such a blindness and strong delusion § 47 And therefâ—re was a more dangerous instrument of his Mean-while a great advantage this is to Satan and therefore he labours it much when they that do his business do not know so much For such persons do it much more zealously resolutely and without all remorse whilst they fancy themselves Saints and Martyrs and not them but their adversaries the instruments of the Devil whereas he acts but timorously whose Conscience mean-while trembles and is continually questioning his endeavours and recalling him from his work And the Devil well sees that Hypocrites and dissemblers tho these are a higher sort of his servants yet do not do his business half so well For in some thing or other these flag at length and detect themselves at least they will hardly be Martyrs for him As therefore this evil spirit in other things emulates and strives to resemble the Good so in this that as the Holy Ghost inspires into God's Ministers a very great boldness Act. 4.29 31. and confidence and full perswasion in delivering of divine truths and undergoing any sufferings in testimony thereof even so this evil spirit instils also a strange plerophory of blindness and delusive credulity into his Ministers in the believing and teaching a lye not to be discerned from the other many times even when it comes to laying down of lives Which we may be certain of as often as we see truth being but one some dye at Smithfield by fire and others at Tiburne by suspension with an externally appearing equal resolution and courage for two contradictories one therefore dying for a lye And this is the more remarkable in that even in defence of Atheism some doubtless strongly deceived by the Devil have sacrificed their life as that desperate person Vaninus in France meerly out of love to this doctrine as a truth for he who held no God looked for no future reward of his Martyrdom nor feared any future punishment for his disavowing such Atheism and so saving of his life And this strange confidence Luther himself meeting with and admiring in some Protestant sects that opposed him readily acknowledged it in them a bewitchment of the evil spirit yet in himself he as also his followers took this confidence for a signal operation of the good § 48 To this end also the Devil is glad to maintain several virtues in his servants tho this in other respects much against his will so to make their bad wares salable and some small stock of good his instruments commonly have which he leaves undefaced and diligently mixeth with that evil which he hath planted in them so to make this the more current and all easily swallowed down together by the imprudent and credulous For all men avoid those in whom appears no good and the wolves that raven most put on sheeps-cloathing Even Satan to set off himself he is so ugly a creature is forced tho he hates such a habit partly to dress himself like a good Angel who if he should always wear horns and cloven feet he could get few or none to follow his colours Had Luther bin a much worse man than he was he had done less mischief and Satan less service and had this Fiend handled him so roughly at his death as some tell us perhaps his Reformation by the world's being frighted thereat would have bin strangled and deserted in its birth whereas now the shew of some Christian virtues lest in him his inveighing every where against Satan as his sworn enemy his protestation of all sincerity and conscientiousness in his discourses and dealing his confidence or as he calls it certainty that his doctrine came from above his justly blaming as also did the Catholick Doctors several corruptions of manners in the Church c. drew many aster him unawares into the same nets of the Tempter and propagated his errors to posterity § 49 And that there wanted not specious pretences for several things in his Reformation Very speciously therefore I grant this man began to rail at the Pharisaical humour of many Religious and perhaps some such Religious there were who relied on the purity and merits of their own works and holiness against whom he preached Christ's Merits and our Justification in remission of our sins Speciously afterward he preached and writ against Indulgences and perhaps rightly as to several abuses wherein they were by some misunderstood and practised and this perhaps done by him not out of any emulation or envy of some benefit thereof accruing to another Religious order the Dominicans but out of conscience tho this his action free from envy or avarice might be stained with some tickling of vain-glory fed by the popular applause that followed him So at the first he did not cast off all obedience to his Superiours or intended it as himself often professeth nor yet intended at the first a Reformation of the Church's doctrines in so many points as he invaded afterward but some amendment in manners rather and afterward when time and company had emboldened him to do this yet he still supported such fact with this pious intention that he did it for defending the truth and that he only disobeyed his other Superiours to obey God the Supreme Neither is it likely that he ever intended by his preaching down he Evangelical Counsels of perfection the three vows of Religion Sacramental Confession Penances c. to introduce such a licentiousness of life as he saw afterwards followed upon it nor by his throwing off the yoke of authority to lay the open for so many Sects as he saw crowded in suddenly after it besides his own Such might be the Devil's designs from the first but not Luther's and had Satan pulled off his Mask and discovered to Luther at the beginning all the evil he meant to make of him or introduce by him doubtless this man would have startled and recoiled and this subtle enemies plots are sooften spoiled and frustrated as they are fully discovered § 50 Nor some personal qualities that tender'd him acceptable to his sect And as I esteem Luther from the beginning