to shew the visibilitie of the Church by persons in all ages Then you demand of me where the Church was which S. Paul called the house of God and pillar of truth and thus you prescribe mee my weapons and teach mee how to fight Touching the visibilitie of the Church it is not to be confined within the narrow compasse of an Epistle and therefore I will answer you and your Jesuites challenge at large in place convenient and as touching your demand where the Church was which is called the pillar of truth I answer in briefe not in Rome but in Ephesus for otherwise it might seeme incongruous that the Apostle should exhort Timothy to walke circumspectly in the Church of God because the Church of Rome was the pillar and firmament of truth And therefore the Turke may better alledge this place to prove Mah mets religion being now subject to his power than you to justifie the Romish religion because Ephesus was the pillar of truth You proceed and by way of prevention you tell me the controversie is not so much of the doctrine as of the persons and then you conclude simply in the very same page The question is not of the doctrine but of the persons Oportet esse memorem I will but let you see your contradiction I quarrell it not onely I pray you tell mee in the words of sobernesse and truth did ever any wise man except your selfe undertake to prove the true Church by the visibilitie of the persons May not Jewes and Heretiques by the same reason claime a true Church because they had visible persons in all ages But say you this hath beene the way which the holy Fathers have taken either in proving the Catholique faith or disproving of heresies and for your Assertion you cite Tertullian Irenaeus Cyprian Optatus and Augustine give me leave to examine your Authors for as yet you have produced but one ancient Father and him you have falsified in the Frontispice of your booke Touching your first Author Tertull. prescript c. 32. lib. 3. Car. advers Marcion Tertullian in the first place cited by you hee demonstrates two wayes how to discerne the Church first by shewing some Apostle or Apostolicall person to have founded it next by the conformity of the doctrine to the Apostles and in his third book against Marcion which is your second citation hee hath nothing at all for your purpose Touching your second Author Iren. l. 3. c. 1 2 3. l. 4. c. 43 45 46. Irenaeus hee is expressely against you for in the first chapter and third booke cited by you he saith By the will of God they have delivered the Gospel to bee the pillar and foundation of truth In the second hee saith that when Heretiques are convinced by the Scriptures they fall to accuse them as if they were not right or of authoritie and that they are ambiguous and doubtfull In the third hee proveth the truth of the Church by the conformitie of doctrine to the Apostles not by the visibilitie as you pretend In his fourth booke cited by you he shewes that bare succession is no note of the Church and in his 45. chapter which you quote there is nothing that maketh for your question And lastly in the 46. chapter he proveth that the New Testament is as severe against fornication as the Old or rather more and this may touch the free-hold of that Church which dispenseth with Stewes but of the point in question he speakes nothing at all Touching your third Author S. Cyprian Cypr. Ep. 52. 76. in the 52. Epistle cited by you he perswades Antonianus rather to adhere to Cornelius than Novatianus and in his 76. Epistle alledged by you hee shewes that Novatianus succeeding none in that See was ordained by himselfe and therefore could bee no true Bishop but as touching the controversie in question Ne gry quidem Touching your fourth Author Optatus Optat. advers Parmen lib. 2. he handleth not the question neither maketh any thing at all for you Lastly August Psal 2. part Don. Ep. 165. de Utilit credendi c. 7. touching S. Austin you cite the second Psalme and there is nothing handled of the question you cite likewise his 165. Epistle wherein hee declares a succession of Bishops from the Apostles time to Anastasius Si ordo Episcoporum succedentium considerandus est Ep. 165. p. 751. Preculdubio ab Ecclesiâ Catholicâ sumendum exordium De Utilit credendi c. 7. Idem contr Cresc l. 1. c. 33. If saith he an orderly succession of Bishops is to be considered Yea but S. Austin say you particularly proves the question where he tels his friend Honoratus he must begin his enquirie from the Catholique Church Hee that told the Manichees wee must take our Exordium from the Church told the Donatists likewise wee must resort to that Church for the resolution of our faith which the sacred Scriptures undoubtedly demonstrate to be the true Church for in them saith he we have knowne Christ Idem Ep. 166. in them wee have knowne the Church If you can derive your succession in person and doctrine from Christ and his Apostles we will answer you as sometimes S. Austin answered Petilian the Donatist Idem contr l. Petil. l. 2. c. 85. Whether of us be Schismatiques we or you aske you not mee I will not aske you let Christ bee asked that hee may shew us his owne Church After these severall passages you returne againe to your first Author Tertullian Tertull. prescript c. 19. and with him you conclude where it shall appeare that there is the truth of Christian discipline and faith there shall bee the truth of Scriptures and Expositions And from hence you inferre that we are first to seeke the persons that professe the faith that is the Church Whereas in truth his testimony doth rather prove the persons by the doctrine than the doctrine by the persons and this is most agreeable to his owne Assertion in the third chapter Idem c. 3. Ex personis probamus fidem an ex fide personas As if hee should say wee plainly prove the persons by the doctrine not the doctrine by the persons Now put on your Spectacles and take a review of your Authors The first maketh nothing for you the second is expressely against you the third speakes not to the point in question the fourth and fifth handle the question but not at all to your advantage or our prejudice and thus you have produced foureteene severall places out of the ancient Fathers in one page and all either impertinently or falsly or directly against your selfe by which the Reader may conjecture what is like to bee the issue of your whole worke who have so grossely falsified so many authorities in your Epistle and before the entrance into the body of your booke From your lame proofes of the Churches authoritie you proceed to the justification of your maimed commandements
was discovered and herein the Author the time and place was observed and knowne to all but in the Church of Rome it was otherwise there was first an Apostacie a falling away from the truth which was first caused by an error secretly stolne into the Church and therefore it is sometimes called a mystery of iniquity because mystically covertly secretly hee shall winde his abominations into the Church of God and accordingly the Apostle gives Timothy to understand that in the last times some shall depart from the faith 1 Tim. 4.1 giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of Devils and such as speake falshood in Hypocrisie which place plainely shewes saith a learned Divine that Antichrist himselfe shall not professedly renounce Christ Mr. Bedel against Wadsworth p. 40. and his Baptisme that his kingdome is a revolt not from the outward profession but inward sinceritie and power of the Gospel And therefore all doe not understand Apostacie a forsaking of Christ and Christianity Not all no not the same Apostle where hee useth the same word Apostacie to the Thessalonians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 2 Thess 2.3 Let no man deceive you by any meanes for that day shall not come except there come an Apostacie a falling away first Hee speakes of the departing from the orthodox Faith not from Christianitie Not all no not your Rhemists in their Annotations upon this place Rhem. Annot. in 2 Thess 2.3 For it is very like say they be it spoken under correction that Gods Church and all learned Catholikes that this great defection and revolt shall not be onely from the Roman Emperour but especially from the Roman Church and withall from most points of Christian Religion or as they interpret in their Margin from most Articles of the Christian faith Not all no not Campian your fellow Jesuite who termes Luther an Apostata for falling from your Church not from Christianity Not all no not your Decretals who terme a Monke for leaving his Order or a Clarke forsaking his habit an Apostata Not all no not Gregory the Great Greg. l. 6. Ep. 24. who called John Bishop of Constantinople an Apostata for assuming the title of universall Bishop Lastly Not all no not your Councell of Basil where 900. condemned and deposed your Pope Eugenius for a Symonist Concil Basil sess 34. a forsworn man a man incorrigible a Schismaticke an Apostata a man fallen from the faith and a wilfull Hereticke I say therefore not all nor any of these did understand an Apostacie to be a forsaking of the name of Christ and Christianity and therefore I hope you will confesse that your assertion is neither Catholike nor universall When therfore we lay Apostacie to your Church we doe not charge you with a totall falling from Christian Religion like that of Julian the Apostata with an obstinate pertinacie in denying the principles of the faith necessarie to salvation or a renouncing your Baptisme and consequently the name of Christianitie Wee charge you not with Apostacie in such a fearefull and horrible sense unlesse you will assume it to your selves Lyra in 2. Thess 2. but wee thinke with Lyra that as there was an Apostacie or revolt of many Kingdomes from the Roman Empire and of many Churches from the Communion of the Roman Church so there hath beene an Apostacie from the Catholike saith in the midst of the Church not for that all at any time did forsake the true Faith but for that many fell from the sinceritie of the Faith After your definition of Apostacie you proceed in this manner How then can we be Apostatas in no wise certainely but if wee erre wee erre as heretikes and if wee be heretikes you confesse you must assigne the persons time and place I have cleared you from the hainous title of Apostata in your owne sense but not in ours D. Potter p. 19. 60. yet let me tell you with griefe and pitty be it spoken your profane and wicked application of the Apostles Creed as you pretend in jests is a fearefull signe of falling from Christ and Christianitie it selfe and therfore although I may free your Church in generall of that name and in that sense yet it behoves you to acquit your selfe in that particular But this by way of friendly admonition If we erre say you wee erre as heretikes I shall easily condescend unto you in that For the errors in the Roman Church caused an Apostacie at first and was mysticall and secret now after long practise and usage in the Church is become an heresie and so wee may truely assent unto you that you erre as heretikes And although I am not bound upon this acknowledgment forthwith to assign you the Authors of your heresies because they came in by degrees and at severall times privily and insensibly yet because you are so inquisitive after you predecessors Ecclefia sua definitione non facit talem assertionem esse haeresin cum etiamsi ipsa non desnivisset esset haeresis sed id efficit Ecclesia ut nobis persuam censuram pateat illud esse heresin Alph. à Castr l. 1. c. 8. D. Potter sect 4. p. 101. 97. if you will have but patience I will draw your pedigree in the next Section In the meane time let me tell you it is another errour in you to say They come to have the name of heresie onely by the condemnation of the Church For the Church condemnes them because they are heresies contrariwise they are not heresies because the Church condemnes them The Doctrines of Arrius Macedonius Nestorius Eutyches Eunomius and Dioscurus were themselves hereticall even before they were solemnly condemned in the foure generall Councels but woe to us and all the reformed Churches if this Tenet were true and Catholike for then are wee condemned already But I pray what if your Pope whom you Jesuites now make the onely Church admit I say your Pope were an Heretike such as was your Pope Eugenius or your John the 23. or Pope Vigilius or Pope Honorius were they able to judge of heresies in others that were tainted with them themselves or must their definitive sentence in Cathedra stand for a Law Si autem Papa erraret praecipien â—o vitia vel prohibendo virtutes c. Bell. de Pont. l. 4. c. 5. Sand. de visibili Monarch l. 7. An. 1541. p. mihi 595. and make that heresie which is no heresie Indeed your Cardinall sayes The Pope hath power to make that no sinne which is sinne and accordingly he hath placed that Tenet amongst the Heretikes and by the same Law he makes that to be heresie which is no heresie Your learned Sanders tells us it is heresie to translate the Scriptures into the vulgar Tongue and accordingly he hath placed that Tenet amongst the Heretikes Your Chancellor of Paris and Director of the Councell of Constance tells us it is heresie to communicate in both kindes and accordingly
viz. in leaving out the second and altering the fourth in your Breviaries and Psalters You say you print them in your Bibles and therefore they are not absolutely left out as long as they are elsewhere Mute quod scimus It is true the words are contained in your Bibles But Dic quod rogamus why doe you not publish Gods commandements as hee wrote them Admit that in your Catechismes you should set downe this forme of Baptisme I baptize thee in the name of the Father and leave out the Sonne and the Holy Ghost would it be sufficient to say it is not absolutely left out because it is contained in the Bible Shew mee the man amongst your Papalins that dare alter a Kings command or a Popes Breve and will your Church attempt more against the Precepts of God than against a Popes Bull or a Kings Proclamation But the truth is and you know it too well if the second precept were expressely set downe in your Psalters the common people would be too busie in expostulating the cause why Image-worship should be commanded by the Church and yet condemned by Gods word Yea but it is part of the first commandement say you or otherwise it is ceremoniall Let it bee one or other since God thought it needfull to be added how dare you leave it out Deut. 4.2 It was the voice of God himselfe You shall not adde unto the word which I command neither shall you diminish ought from it that you may keepe the commandement of the Lord your God Againe how is it a part of the first if it be ceremoniall when the first is agreed on all hands to be naturall morall The truth is it is not ceremoniall but morall and plainly distinct from the former for the first forbids the true worship of any false god the second forbids any false worship of the true God and howsoever Peresius and Catharinus and you for company would have gladly the Law against Images to be positive and ceremoniall and so to cease at the comming of Christ yet your owne Bellarmine disavowes it with a Non probatur Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. c. 7. This opinion is not allowed of us both for the reasons made against the Jewes and for that Irenaeus Tertullian S. Cyprian and S. Austin doe all teach that the commandements excepting the Sabbath are a Law wholly naturall and morall After your Apologie for your maimed commandements you grow so virulent as if the poyson of Aspes were under your lips you crie out I notoriously falsifie some Authors and impertinently alledge others you charge me with execrable perjurie you say I am a framer of lies and I offend in all kinde of falshood and lastly you conclude the booke to bee none of mine but some Ministers because you heare it from some that I scarce skill of ordinarie Latine I professe for my learning I cannot boast of it I doe willingly assume that saying of Origen Gratias ago Deo quod ignorantiam meam non ignoro Orig. 1 Cor. 1.27 Psal 82. I am not ignorant of my ignorance but let me tell you as in Gods cause I seeke no praise so I feare no reproach for God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise nay more out of the mouth of babes sucklings he hath ordained strength to still the enemie and the avenger And howsoever seemingly you condemne mee for ignorance yet I am verily perswaded that if I were more ignorant than you make mee you would love me the more for your Church commends Ignorance for the mother of Devotion and the rather because your owne Clemangis tels us Nich. Clemang c. 6. before the dayes of reformation Many Priests who had cure of soules were sent to their flocks not from their studies or from the schoole but from the plough and they understood as much Latine as Arabick nay they could not read and that which was shamefull they could not distinguish an Alpha from a Beta Neither can it be denied that many Popes have dispensed with ignorant men who per saltum without any learning have leaped into a Bishopricke Pope Paul the third created Robertus Venantius Arch-Bishop of Armach for two speciall qualities Tum quod Missam bellè canere tum quia cursu Veredario in equo vehi peritè diceretur Gentil Exam. Concil Trid. l. 2. sess 1. p. 33. the one because hee could sing Masse sweetly the other because he could ride a Post horse skilfully And in the latter ages it was so usuall to admit any Ignoramus's into a Bishoprick that when our King Edward the third sollicited Pope Clement the sixth to create Thomas Hartfield Bishop of Durham notwithstanding the Cardinals cried out he was a Lay-man and an Ideot the Pope replyed If the King of England had entreated for his Asse Si Rex Angliae pro asino suo supplicâsset votum suum hac vice obtinuisset Walsing citat apud Antig. Brit. in vita foh Uffordi And Godwin in his Catal. of Bishops p. 526. Eras Encom Mor. Heb. 7.3 he should have obtained it at that time To come neerer to the times Julius the third made the keeper of his monkey a Masse-priest and I presume he had small store of Latine The Friar who would prove from the words of Christ An non decem facti sunt mundi that God made ten worlds had scrace skill of ordinarie Latine And lastly hee was Sr. John Lack-Latine who would prove that Melchisedeck offered salt with bread and wine because he read in the text Rex Salem which is the King of peace I speake not this by way of recrimination but to let you know how well you and your fellowes are read in the two titles of the Law De maledicis De Clerico promoto per saltum Take therefore from me what learning you will distraine it and impound it at your pleasure I will never trouble you with Replevin onely I say with S. Austin Seeke others of more learning but beware of them that presume of learning And whereas you conceive a Minister made my booke and I beare the name onely for to countenance the worke If I had received help from some in this kinde you need not blame me for it for it is ordinarie with your men to have whole Colledges joyne their helping hand in defence of your cause But in answer to your supposall and to vindicate our Ministers from those great aspersions of ignorance of corruption of obstinacie of perjurie laid unto their charge as Authors of the worke I witnesse a true confession before God who knowes I lye not a Minister was so farre from making my booke Via Tuta Via Devia that I neither had help from Clergy-man nor Lay-man for composing or making either of my bookes Let it suffice for me to have said the truth which although it appeare never so simple yet it is able to remove a mountaine of learning if
there be in mee I say not any talent but onely a mite of a talent my prayer unto God is ever was it may be bestowed wholly to the honour of his truth and the benefit of his Church And whereas you charge mee with obstinacie and malice which say you is the true cause of all my errours let mee tell you if I were in an errour you have not the patience to shew it me but by bitternesse and railing Your learning haply may worke miracles in the eares of the unlearned that cannot judge but it cannot turne darknesse into light nor errour into truth And although your bitternesse might justly occasion that malice of which you accuse me yet it is so farre from my thoughts that I pitie you and in requitall of your paines I pray for you and that which S. Paul said of the Israelites Rom. 10.1 I wish to the Romanists and members of your Church Brethren my hearts desire and prayer to God is that they may be saved But say you these were not your first fruits for you translated and published Bertram an obscure Author with a preface of your owne and thereby gave sufficient triall of your ignorance and corruption whereof you were convinced by O.E. but never cleered your selfe of so foule a taxe It is true that some ten yeeres since I caused Bertram to be reprinted and published with a preface before it and it is as true that hee being a Romish Priest taught our doctrine of the Eucharist above eight hundred yeeres since and therefore by way of prevention you terme him an obscure Author though he were famous in his time As touching the foule taxe of ignorance and corruption in false translating it wherewith you charge mee you are much mistaken for I never translated it but onely reprinted the old translation this both hee and you might have seene in the Frontispice of the booke in these words Translated and imprinted in the English tongue Anno Dom. 1549. and now the third time published so that the Translation into English was made before I was borne Againe in the end of my preface you shall finde these words Pittie it were but this lamp should receive a new light by reprinting him which the iniquitie of the time had almost extinquished Now I pray Sir what cause was there of any answer to your namelesse Author or rather what cause was there of his and your bitternesse in charging mee with false translating with ignorance and corruption I professe I am not ignorant that your men are guiltie of many such false accusations ad faciendum populum to make your Proselytes beleeve that all our bookes are full of lyes of whom I may truly say as S. Austin sometimes spake of the Donatists When they cannot by slie and wily cosenage creep like Aspes with open professed violence they rage like Lions Lastly you say that an Answer to my booke hath hitherto beene deferred because no man of learning would thinke it worth his paines to make any Let mee tell you I have received three printed answers to Via tuta besides two written copies from namelesse Authors the first was from a Merchant and that is called Via verè tuta the second from a Priest and that is called A paire of Spectacles to see the way the third is from a Clerk and that is termed A Whetstone of Reproofe The first printed Author is termed Mr. John Heigham whose Treatise savours too much of blasphemie and ribaldrie the second is Mr. John Floyd whose worke is full of bitternesse and subtiltie the third is Tom Tell troth for so he termes himselfe whose pamphlet is fraught with all childishnesse and impertinencie Now if none of these were men of learning as you confesse because no learned man would take the paines to answer it what may I thinke of your wisdome which hath returned an answer full of railing accusations such as the Angell of God would not have brought against the Devill himselfe I say in regard your bitter lines are rather a libell without a name than a Christian and moderate confutation I might well have declined a replication to it and have told you with S. Jerome Your bitternesse deserves rather an answer with scorn Magis indignationem scribentis quam studium Hieron advers Vigil than a refutation in earnest But when I considered it was the fruit of your religion and common practice of your Church that for want of matter you commonly fall upon the person I resolved with my selfe to call you to a sober reckoning that the truth of God might appeare and that by your owne bitternesse you might better discerne the character of a bad cause and an evill spirit For a conclusion take but a short view of your bitter reproaches you term me a blind Guide a Ministeriall Knight you say my booke is a Labyrinth of errours you crie out my sirname hath the two first letters of a lye you say the title of Sir will be left for me you condemne me of execrable perjurie you affirme I am a framer of lyes and abound in all kind of falshood you tell me I scarce understand Latine and it is conceived a Minister made my booke you charge me with obstinacie with malice with corruption with ignorance with false translating you proclaime the fearefull judgements of God upon me for perverting soules and as if I were past all grace you say I am not capable of any good advice yet at last as if you would make mee some amends for all your accusation you conclude I forbeare to say any more resting howsoever your well-wishing friend Surely you have said enough and you doe well to forbeare to say more for I thinke the words of your Epistle are so sufficiently dipt in lye and gall that they will serve for your whole worke but I pardon you and shall returne you no other answer than the Arch-Angell gave to Satan Jude vers 9. The Lord rebuke you onely let me tell you I cannot thinke you a well-wishing friend whose heart and tongue is full of cursing and bitternesse for I may truly say of you as Cato sometimes said of Lentulus Dicam falli eos qui negant os habere Seneca They are much deceived that deny you to have a mouth and a foule one too In the meane time you must remember that for your idle and vaine words you must give accompt to God and for your fifteene severall falsifications you must give an accompt to your Reader And thus by way of Traverse and deniall to all other things impertinently alledged I answer No to your railing I answer nothing AN ANSWER TO HIS PREFACE to the Reader Good Christian Reader FIrst thou shalt observe that the author of the Spectacles chiefe aime is either by shifts and cavils to outface the truth or by Sophistrie and bitter words to darken it one while hee cries downe my booke and slights it in such a scornefull manner as if
true though the things there spoken be not understood in a proper sense but in a metaphoricall sense onely Nay more your Jesuite Suare Suarez Tom. 3. disp 46. confesseth that this Cardinall in his Commentary upon this Article doth affirme that those words of Christ This is my body doe not of themselves sufficiently prove Transubstantiation without the authoritie of the Church and therefore by the command of Pope Pius the fifth that part of his Commentary is sponged out of the Romish Edition Thus one while you correct your Authors another while you purge them for delivering the truth in our behalfe Look upon your Cardinall Bellarmine although he will not allow that sense which the Lutherans give Bell. de Euch. l. 2. c. 19. yet hee granteth that those words This is my body may imply either such a reall change of the bread as the Catholiques hold or such a figurative change as the Calvinists hold And although hee would seeme to prove that the words of Scripture are so plaine that they may compell a refractorie man to beleeve them yet having well weighed the reasons and allegations of other Schoole-men Bell. de Euch. l. 3. c. 23. at last concludes It may justly be doubted whether the text be cleere enough to inforce it seeing men sharp and learned such as Scotus was have thought the contrary How therefore your Church should ground a point of faith upon a doubtfull opinion or on such words as by the testimonies of your best learned Divines may receive a double construction I leave it to be judged But farther in proofe of Pope Pius Creed I could urge Sr. Humfrey say you with the 39. Articles appointed by the authoritie of the Church of England to be uniformely taught by all Ministers which they are to sweare unto which Articles though they be indeed new coyned as the foundation of a new Church yet Sr. Humfrey being his mothers Champion will not I suppose yeeld her or her doctrine to bee new Thus you It is true as you say there are 39. Articles appointed by our Church to bee uniformely taught by all Ministers and it is as true that they are published and received with unitie and consent which your men acknowledge for a proper marke of the true Church And withall let me adde this one thing for your observation and indeed it is a thing remarkable whereas all your Trent Articles have beene questioned and confuted by Chemnitius Chamierus Gentilletus and other Protestant writers yet there was never any Papist could goe farther than to tell us as you doe I could urge you with the novelty of the 39. Articles I say never as yet did any Romanist attempt much lesse was able to confute and overthrow our Articles which stand like a house built upon a rocke immoveable and cannot be shaken Let me tell you further your comparisons betwixt our Articles and yours doe not hold for all your Articles are fundamentall points to your Trent beleevers and the deniall of any of them makes them heretiques and damned persons as your Popes Bull expressely declareth Bulla Pii quarti On the other side some of our Articles concerne the discipline of the Church and are not essentiall to salvation others concerne the ancient and latter heresies wherein we teach the negative and those are not properly Articles of faith which we beleeve but points of doctrine which wee condemne and beleeve not And that you may know our Articles are not new nor newly coyned by our men if you will put on your spectacles you shall finde that most of our prime Articles are taught and received by your owne Church as well as ours and therefore I hope you will confesse they are not coyned and built upon the foundation of a new Church Briefly touching our 39. Articles The first sort are in the Affirmative both ours and yours and all those are uniformely received by both Churches The second sort are ours onely which we affirme and you deny and those are very few in number and are evidently deduced from the Scripture The third sort are yours which we deny and you affirme and for that cause you terme our religion negative and those remaine for you to make good Joyne therefore those negative Articles which are wholly yours to those positive Articles which you hold with us and you shall easily discerne if the denomination followeth the greater part those Articles may most properly bee termed Articles of your faith for I dare confidently avow that of the 39. Articles there are above 35. yours that is either such which you hold with us which are at least twentie or such wherein the affirmative is yours and not ours which are at least fifteene take therefore your owne libertie either confute ours or make good your owne herbam porrigemus and I will give you the bucklers You proceed and upon a false supposall that our Church hath created new Articles you proclaime in the name of your owne Church these words We teach that for Articles of faith the Church can make none as she cannot write a Canonicall booke of Scripture Thus you When Diogenes saw a supposed Bastard casting stones in a presse of much people he gave the boy this caveat Take heed lest thou hit thy father This is like to bee your case for by this Tenet you will wound the Church your Mother and amongst others you will surely hit your holy Father the Pope It appeares first that you endevoured to shew that your Church hath created no new Articles of faith but for want of solid proofes you begin to faint and thinke it the safest way to turne Protestant in this point and say the Church can create none but I wonder how you dare pronounce in the name of the Church we teach whereas in truth your Church teacheth it not This is therefore but a cunning device of yours to dazle the eyes of the ignorant with your false glasses and to make them beleeve it is the generall Tenet of your Church and then you thinke they will conclude according to your Assertion Ergo The Church hath created none when as your saying makes more strongly against you if either your Articles prove new or the Pope and his Agents professe the contrarie Mr. Heigham who first answered my Book Mr. Heigham in his answer called Via verè tuta pag. 199. 200. was a member of your Church and he cries aluod that the Church hath power to decree and promulgate new articles of faith But your third Replyer Tom Tell-troth in his Whetstone of Reproofe thought it the wisest way to decline the question for hee knew well when you were both at odds and taught flat contrarie doctrine each to other the Whetstone of necessitie would belong to one of his fellow writers But to let passe such differences amongst your selves bee it spoken to your comfort Friar Walden about two hundred yeares agoe affirmed the same that you doe Waldens
doct Fidei Tom. 1. l. 2. Art 2. c. 22. p. 203. viz. that the Church could not create a new article of faith How can any such article saith he framed after many yeares be catholique and universall when as it was unknowne to our fore-fathers for foureteen hundred yeares before It was not beleeved because not heard of when the Apostle tels us faith commeth by hearing Such an article therefore although it be of faith yet it cannot be catholique and this hee proves directly from Fathers and Councels And whereas you affirme that your Church can no more make an article of faith than shee can make a Canonicall Booke of Scripture Canus loc Theol. l. 2. c. 7. p. 38. Canus your Bishop of Canaries will joyne with you That the Church of the faithfull now living cannot write a Canonicall Booke of Scripture and hee gives the reason for it There are not now any new revelations to be expected ither from the Pope or from a Councell or from the universall Church and from hence it will follow of consequence by your owne Logick Therefore the Church can create no new article of faith Thus farre I have waded in your behalfe that you may the better justifie your owne Assertion for you wil find your Church is like a house divided against it selfe and therefore cannot stand long I say that Quere which was made in Waldens dayes was resolved above two hundred yeares before by your profound Schoole-man Thomas Aquinas in your Churches behalfe that the Pope had power Condere articulos fidei to create new articles of faith to remove therefore these fig-leaves with which you would cover the naked truth This learned Doctour well understood that there were many new articles of religion crept into the Church in his dayes he knew well that albeit he were the prime Schoole man of his time yet with all his sophistrie hee could not make them comply with the ancient Catholique faith and thereupon he thought it the surest way to give the Pope an absolute and independant power over faith and religion and accordingly resolved Ad solam authoritatem summi Pontificis pertinet nova Editio Symboli sicut alia omnia quae pertinent ad totam Ecclesiam Thom. 2.2 q. 1. Art 10. It belongs onely to the authoritie of the Soveraigne Pope to make a new Edition of the Creed and all things else that concerne the universall Church Then he concludes the question and gives this reason for it The publishing of a new Creed belongs to his power who hath authoritie finally to determine matters of faith and this saith he belongs unto the Pope Upon which passages Andradius a chiefe pillar of your Trent Councell confesseth that the Bishops of Rome Romanos Pontifices multa definiendo quae anteà latitabant Symbolum Fidei augere consuevisse Andrad Def. Concil Trid. lib. 2. in defining many things which had beene formerly hidden have been accustomed to increase their Creed Now what thinke you of your Aquinas position and your Andradius confession I hope you perceive that your learned Schoole-men are of another opinion And that you may know that your Church doth not approve your pretended Tenet for Catholique doctrine hearken and consider what your holy Father the Pope declareth touching this question and then consider in what case you stand Pope Leo the tenth sent out his Bull against Luther and amongst other articles Certum est in manu Ecclesiae aut Papae prorsus non esse statuere articulos fidei Tom. 4. Conc. Par. 2. in Bulla Leon. 10. in fine Lateran Conc. novissimi p. 135. he chargeth him in particular with this that Luther should say It is certaine that it is no way in the power of the Church or Pope to ordaine articles of faith This you see is Luthers Tenet and this is yours Now what exception think you might the Pope take at this your Assertion Behold for this and the like Tenets he thundereth Anathema against him hee declareth this with the rest of his Articles to be a pestiferous pernicious scandalous and seducing errour to well-minded men he protesteth it was contrarie to all charitie contrarie to the reverence of the holy Church and mysteries of faith and in conclusion condemnes all his Articles as hereticall Inhibentes in virtute sanctae obedientiae ac sub majoris excommunicationis latae sententiae Ibid. p. 136. forbids them to be received by vertue of holy obedience and under paine of the graund Excommunication You have heard the sentence of your Lord Paramount and by it you may know your owne doome If you hold with Luther you are in danger of Excommunication and stand as a condemned heretique by his Holinesse with the Lutherans If you forsake your hold you have lost your faith And thus you have a wolfe by the eares you stand in danger whether you hold him or let him goe I wonder that you having taken so long a time to answer so poore a Work and having many Assistants for the composing of it they and you could be all ignorant of the Popes infallible Bull. Your Cardinall Bellarmine Quasi Ecclesia posterioris temporis aut deserit esse Ecclesia aut facultatem non habeat explicandi declarandi constituendi etiam jubendi quae ad fidem mores Christianos pertinent Bell. in Barcl who in these latter times hath laboured more than any other to uphold your new Articles of faith yet in obedience to the Pope and saving all advantages to his cause when in the question of deposing Kings he failed of antiquitie and proofe out of Scriptures and Fathers at last returnes this peremptorie answer As if the Church of these latter times had ceased to be a Church or had not power to explaine and declare yea to ordaine and command those things which appertaine to faith and Christian manners and that you may know that you and your Co-adjutors stand single in opinion against the Pope and his Cardinals your Jesuite Salmeron will shew you Doctrina fidei admittit additionem in essentialibus Salm. Tom. 13. Disp 6. Par. 3. §. Est ergo Idem Disp 8. that it stands with great reason to make additions in essentiall points of faith and hee gives this answer for it Because nature is not capable of all truths at one time and from this and the like reasons he concludes therefore there may be new traditions concerning faith and manners though they were never created or declared by the Apostles Thus you see the unitie amongst your selves and howsoever these positions may seeme strange to you and others of your opinions yet your Schoolmen and Lawyers have played the Popes Midwives yea Pope Leo the tenth hath put to his helping hand to deliver your Pope Pius the fourth of that issue I meane those new borne Articles of which your Church hath so long time before travailed Briefly let mee tell you your Articles are detected by your owne men
to be grandement suspicious of new coynage and if for no other cause yet for this alone they give a just occasion and jealousie when such poore shifts and evasions are devised by your Pope and his adherent to make them good for it is a true saying of a renowned Bishop and it is the faith of all reformed Catholiques B. Morton Grand Impost cap. 2. sect 2. He can onely make an article of faith who can create a soule and after make a Gospel to save that soule and then give unto that soule the gift of faith to beleeve that Gospel I proceed to your doctrine That is onely to bee called a new faith say you which is cleane of another kind that is differing or disagreeing from that was taught before Thus you I will not take advantage of your first Assertion that your faith is grounded upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles which you can never prove but wil joyne issue with you upon your last Assumpsit That is only to be called a new faith which is cleane of another kind and is different disagreeing from what was taught before but such are many of the Articles of Pope Pius the fourth extracted from the Councell of Trent as shall appeare by proofes at large in their proper places In the meane time let me tell you your Church teacheth not onely Novê but Nova not onely Praeter but Contra even besides and contrarie to that which she first received from the ancient Church so that howsoever you seeke to darken truth by faire and specious pretences yet in truth your Trent Additions are forraine to the faith as neither principles nor conclusions of it And that you may know and acknowledge with us that your Trent faith is differing and disagreeing from what was taught before I pray call to mind your owne confessions touching these particular Articles of your Roman Church Your doctrine touching Lay-peoples communicating under one kind namely in bread onely is an Article of the Roman faith and now generally taught and practised in the Roman Church but this practice by your owne confession is different and disagreeing from what was taught before for you say pag. 253. touching the Authors which you bring for proofe That it was the common practice of the Church for the Laytie to communicate in both kinds I allow of their authoritie Your Prayer and Service in an unknown tongue as it is now used in the Roman Church by your owne confession is different and disagreeing from what was taught before for say you pag. 270. It is true that Prayer and Service in the vulgar tongue was used in the first and best ages according to the precept of the Apostles and practice of the Fathers In the beginning it was so Your doctrine of Transubstantiation which at this day is generally received de substantia fidei for an Article of Faith yet by your owne confession is different and disagreeing from what was taught before for say you pag. 167. Transubstantiation might well be said not to have beene de substantia fidei in the Primitive Church as Yribarne speaketh because it had not beene so plainly delivered nor determined in any Councell till Gregorie the seventh his time and this was above a thousand yeares after Christ Your private or solitarie Masse wherein the Priests doe daily communicate without the people is by your own confession different and disagreeing from what was taught before and practised for say you pag. 191. They say speaking of divers Authors it was the practice of the Primitive Church to communicate everie day with the Priest I grant it These points of controversie which are so eagerly pursued by your men against the members of our Church the strength and force of truth hath extorted from you and therefore I may truly conclude Exore tuo from your owne confession that your Trent faith is new because it is different and disagreeing from what was taught before You that have taken an oath to maintaine the Papacie and are so ready to teach others you I say have either violated your oath or at leastwise have forgot your old lesson Oportet esse memorem c. for verily it behoves him that speakes lyes and contradictions to have a good memorie But it seemes you did conceive the Reader might easily passe by many such contradictions being in severall passages and farre distant pages For otherwise it would seeme strange that you which so bitterly inveigh against our reformed religion should confesse the antiquitie of our Articles and the noveltie of your owne with flat contradictions to your owne Assertions I will say to you therefore as sometimes St. Hierome spake in his Epistle to Pamachius and Oceanus Hieronym ad Pamach Oceanum Tom. 2. Thou who art a maintainer of new doctrine whatsoever thou he I pray thee spare the Romane eares spare the faith that is commanded by the Apostles mouth why goest thou about now after foure hundred yeares I may say foureteen hundred yeares to teach us that faith which we before never knew why bringest thou forth that thing that Peter and Paul never uttered Evermore untill this day the Christiam world hath beene without this doctrine To pursue the rest of your Allegations The Church of England say you admitteth of divers Books of the New Testament for Canonicall whereof there was doubt of three or foure hundred yeares to gether in the Church of God as the Epistle to the Hebrewes the second Epistle of St. Peter the Epistle of St. Jude the Apocalyps of St. John and some others which were after admitted for Canonicall 〈◊〉 I would know of him whether upon the admittance of them there were any change of faith in the Church or whether ever those books have received any change in themselves Thus you It seemes you begin to feare that your Trent faith would be discovered to be different and disagreeing from what was taught before and thereupon you would seemingly illustrate the antiquitie of your new Articles by the authoritie of the ancient Books of Canonicall Scripture But I pray where doe you find that the Books of the New Testament as namely the Epistle to the Hebrewes the Epistle of St. Peter and St. Jude and the Apocalyps were not received for three or foure hundred yeares for Canonicall It is true there was some doubt who were the right Authors of those Books but their divine authoritie was ever generally approved by all Christian Churches and allowed for Canonicall The Epistle to the Hebrewes was therefore doubted of by some because the difference diversity of the stile made them think it not to be St. Pauls and by others because the Author of it seemed to them to favour the error of the Novatian heretikes in denying the reconciliation of such as fall after Baptisme The second Epistle of St. Peter which you speake of some doubted of because of the diversitie of the style The Epistle of St. Jude was doubted
this is inviolably to be observed You see then that howsoever your Pius Pope gave a dispensation for the reading of the Scriptures yet Pope Clement his Successor declared that license to be void and of none effect and that which concludes your Assertion for an untruth it was by him decreed to bee kept without any dispensation or violation Inviolatè servandum Thus touching the sacred Bible you have severall Translations upon severall paines to be received and both different each from other in many hundred places you have ranked the sacred Bible amongst the Bookes prohibited and lastly you seemingly grant a license for the Ignorant to reade the Scripture and by another decree you abridge that license so granted I proceed from the forbidding of Scriptures to your purging and falsifying of the ancient Fathers As for Fathers say you it is most grossely false which the Knight after the ordinary Ministeriall tune stands canting that we blot out and raze them at our pleasures What is it then that these men would have What is it they can carpe at Nothing but that they themselves are stung in that hereby they are kept either from publishing their owne wicked workes or corrupting the Fathers at their pleasure and to wipe away this blemish from themselves would lay it upon us Thus you It seemes you have beene well acquainted with Rogues and sturdy Beggers who have taught you the Terme of Canting a word proper for such kinde of people but whereas you say it is grossely false that you blot and raze the Fathers and that therein we seeke to wipe away the blemish from our selves and lay it upon you for the better manifestation of the truth first looke I pray upon the place where the corrupted Fathers were printed see by whom they were licensed then heare your owne men witnessing their owne confession of purging them and lastly peruse the places which I shall produce razed and corrupted and then tell me if the Mysterie of Iniquity doth not closely worke in your Roman Church and that the ancient Fathers are grossely falsified and notoriously corrupted by your owne men even in the principall points of Doctrine controverted betwixt us First then wee must observe that corruptions and abuse of ancient Fathers may be of three sorts either by foisting into the Editions bastard Treatises and intitling them to the Fathers or by falsifying their undoubted Treatises by additions detractions or mutations or lastly by alledging passages and places out of them which are not extant in their workes and of all these three kindes your men are guilty Expurgari emaculari curâsti omnium CatholicoruÌ„ scriptoruÌ„ praecipuè veterum Patrum scripta Sixt. Senens in Ep. Pio 5. as it shall appeare by instances in their severall Ages for the first 800. yeares First concerning the purging of Fathers your Sixtus Senensis in his Epistle dedicated to Pope Pius the fifth amongst his many and famous deeds recounts this for one of the greatest That he caused the writings of all Catholike Authours but especially those of the ancient Fathers to bee purged And Greâ—zerus your Jesuit proclaimes it by way of justification Gretz l. 2. c. 10 If it be lawfull to suppresse or inhibite whole Bookes as namely Tertullian and Origen then it is lawfull likewise to suppresse a greater or lesser part of one by cutting out razing blotting out or by omitting the same simply for the benefit of the Reader And Possevine your Jesuit tells us Adistos enim quoque purgatio pertinet Possev l. 1. Bib. lioth select c. 12. that Manuscript Books are also to be purged as well as printed which shewes your good intention to the ancient Writers I may adde to these that you doe not onely purge and corrupt the Fathers as shall appeare in matter of fact in severall Ages but you forge Bastard Epistles in the names of ancient Bishops and you thrust counterfeits into the Chayre of the true and Catholike Doctors Peter Warbeck is taken for Richard Duke of Yorke and obscure Authors as namely Dorotheus Hormisda Hermes Hypolitus Martialis and other counterfeits for famous Writers and all to supply your defects of doctrine in the Orthodox Fathers Severinus Binius hath published certaine decretall Epistles in the names of Clemens Anacletus Evaristus Sixtus and many others to the number of thirty one all Bishops of Rome Insomuch as their Epistles are cited by Bellarmine by Peresius by Coccius by Baronius by your Rhemists for severall proofes of your Trent Doctrine Gratian saith Grat. Dist 20. Decretales they are of equall Authority with Councels nay more he labours to prove out of St. Austin Distinct 19. in Canonicis that those decretall Epistles were reckoned by him amongst the Canonicall Scriptures and yet by the severall Confessions of your learned Writers are adjudged to be all counterfeit and without doubt their leaden-stile their deepe silence of Antiquity concerning them the Scriptures alledged by them after St. Hieroms Translation being long before his time doe easily convince them of falshood Antoninus Contius the Kings Professor of Law in the Universitie of Bruges tells us that he brought many reasons in his Preface An. 1570. and notes upon your Canon Law which was printed at Antwerp by which hee proved and shewed manifestly that the Epistles of the Popes Silvester An. 314. who were before Silvester were all false and counterfeit The Preface with the reasons alledged against it is now razed and purged and Plantin the Printer gives this answer for it Raynold Hart. Cap. 8. Divis 3. p. 451. The Censor who was to oversee the printed Bookes would not suffer it to passe and what became of it he remembred not nor knew how to procure it Thus your men are not onely ashamed to publish their Bastard Epistles and equall them to the Word of God in behalfe of your new doctrine but you censure also and purge your owne men for condemning such lying inventions Whether to forge a false deed or to raze a true one be the greater fault it is not greatly materiall for your owne men are guilty of both And lastly when neither purging nor falsifying will serve the turne which you have practised in Bookes set out the first 800. yeares you bring a Prohibition against all Authors Priests and Professors in the bosome of your owne Church which testifie the truth of our doctrine and injoyne them silence by your Index Expurgatorius by cutting out their tongues and refining them with a new impression and this hath beene your ordinarie practice for the last 800. yeares I will give you instances in both and so I come to the second Age. In the second Age Ignatius Bishop of Antioch witnesseth the antiquity of our Doctrine he shews that our Communion in both kindes was practised in his dayes There is one Bread saith he broken for all and one Cup distributed to all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat Ep.
of the ancient Eusebius neither could he say truly that the Colein was translated by a Catholike for indeed it is the property of an Here-ticke to falsifie and corrupt the Text. And thus you have done in your Colein Edition where you have altered the sense in that manner Eusebius Emissenus Bishop of Emesa in Syria is forged by Gratian for the doctrine of Transubstantiation Grat. Dist 2. de Consecrat Quia corpus fol. Mihi 432. his words are these Christ the invisible Priest turned the visible creature into the substance of his body and bloud with his word and secret power saying Take eate this is my Body whereas there are no such words to be found in all his Works The Councell of Laodicea is falsified in favour of your Iâ—vocation of Angels The words of the Originall are these a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Conc. Laod. Can. 35. Bin. Tom. 1. p. 245. Christians ought not to forsake the Church of God and depart aside and invocate Angels and make meetings which are things forbidden If any man therefore be found to give himselfe to this privie Idolatrie let him be accursed Now in the same Councell published by James Merlyn and Fryer Crab by transmutation of a letter you are taught a lesson contrary to sense and reason saying b Quod non oporteat EcclesiaÌ„ Dei relinquere abire at que angelos nominare congregationes facere Merlin Tom. 1. Concil edit Col. An. 1530. f. 68. Crab. edit An. 1538. Colon. fol. 226. Verit as non quaerit Angulos It is not lawfull for Christians to forsake the Church of God and goe and nominate or invocate Angels or corners and make meetings and thus Angeli are become Anguli Angels are become Angles or Corners as if truth did seeke Corners when so faire an Evidence is brought against Invocation of Angels St. Basil the great Archbishop of Caesarea was forged by Pope Adrian the first at the second Councell of Nice for the worship of Images his words are these c Pro quo siguras ImaginuÌ„ eorum honoro adoro veneror specialitèr hoc enim traditum est à Sanctis Apostolis necest prohibendum acideò in omâ—ibus Ecclesiis nostris eorum designamus Historias Citat ab Adriano in Synod Nic. 2. Act. 2. p. Mihi 504. For which cause I honor and openly adore the figures of the Images speaking of the Apostles Prophets and Martyrs and this being delivered us by the Apostles is not prohibited but in all Churches we set forth their Histories This Authority was cited by Pope Adrian in the name of Basil the Great in his Epistles when as in all his Epistles of which are extant 180. there are no such words to be found St. Hierome is likewise forged for the same doctrine and by the same Pope the words in the Epistle are these Sicut permisit Deus ador are omnem gentem manufacta c. Citatur ibid. Ep. Adr. p. Mihi 506. As God gave leave to the Gentiles to worship things made with hands and to the Jewes to worship the carved workes and two golden Cherubins which Moses made so hath he given to us Christians the crosse and permitted us to paint and reverence the Images of Gods workes and so to procure him to like of our labour These words you fee are cited by your owne Pope at a generall Councell as you pretend for a point of your Romish faith and yet there are no such words nor the meaning of of them to be found in either of those Fathers and without doubt there was great scarcity of true ancient Fathers to bee found at that time to prove your adoration of Images when your Pope was driven to shifts and forgeries especially when your owne Polydore tells you Polyd. de ReruÌ„ Invent. that the worship of Images not onely Basil but almost all the ancient holy Fathers condemned for feare of Idolatrie as S. Hierome himselfe witnesseth This puts me in mind of Erasmus complaint that the same measure was afforded to Basil Eras in Praefat. lib. de Spirit Sanct. Bas which hee had otherwise observed in Athanasius Chrysostome Hierome that in the middle of Treatises many things were stuffed and forced in by others in the name of the Fathers St. Ambrose Bishop of Millaine is falsified and corrupted Franciscus Junius as an eye witnesse Junius Praefat. in Ind. Expurg Belg. tells us that at Leyden in the yeare 1559. being familiarly acquainted with Ludovicus Saurius Corrector of the Printing house and going to visit him hee found him revising of St. Ambrose workes which then Frelonius was printing after some conference had betwixt them Ludovicus shewed him some printed leaves partly cancelled and partly razed saying this is the first Impression which wee printed most faithfully according to the best Copies but two Franciscan Fryers by command have blotted out those passages and caused this alteration to my great losse and astonishment It may be the discoverie of it by Junius might stay their further printing of it or else might be an occasion to call it in after the printing for otherwise if that Impression may be had it were worthy the examination Bolseus dicit se in manibus Secretarii hâ—c testimonium vidisse inspexisse In disp de Antichristo in Apend Nu. 49. 53. Laurent Rever Rom. Eccl. p. 190. Non habent Petri haereditatem qui Petri sedem non habent Grat de Paenit Dist 1. c. Potest fieri But for a proofe of this falsified Ambrose Lessius the Jesuit tells us that Bolseck doth confesse he saw the Copie in the hands of a Secretary howsoever their later Editions are sufficient proofe of your manifold falsifications But I will speak of Impressions onely that have been within my view First to prove your succession in doctrine in your owne Church Gratian tells us from St. Ambrose They have not the succession of Peter who have not the Chayre of Peter and thus he hath changed Fidem into Sedem Faith into Chaire This forgery in time may creepe into the Body of Ambrose but as yet the words of Ambrose are agreeable to our doctrine that is a Non habent Petri haereditatem qui Petri fidem non habent Ambr. de Paenit c. 6. Tom. 1. p. 156. Basil apud Joh. Frob. An. 1527. Ambr. de Sacr. l. 4. c. 5. Tom. 4. p. 393. Basilâ—ut supra they have not the succession of Peter which want the faith of Peter These be the words of true and ancient Ambrose hereby declaring unto us and them that they may have the See of Peter and yet want the faith of Peter Againe in his Booke of the Sacrament St. Ambrose saith b Fac nobis haÌ„c oblationem ascriptam c. quod fit in figuram corports sanguinis Jesu Christi Amb. Colon. Agripp An. 1616 Tom. 4. p. 173. Make this Oblation to be a reasonable acceptable one quod est
hands who doe not onely raze and falsifie Evidences touching the greatest mysteries of Salvation who I say not onely doe the same but have pleasure in them that doe them Thus much touching the razing and corrupting of the Fathers for the first 800. yeares Now I proceed to your Index Expurgatorius your purging and blotting out the moderne Authours for the last 800. yeares Forasmuch say you as concerneth the late Catholike Authors of this last age for this our Index of which is al the difficultie beginneth but from the yeere 1515. whatsoever needeth correction is to bee amended or blotted out yet for others going before that time it is expresly said that nothing may be changed unlesse some manifest errors through the fraud of Heretikes or carelesnesse of the Printer bee crept in Thus you From your corrupting the ancient Councels and Fathers which I have showne wee are at last come to the correcting of moderne Authors and as I have led you through an Hospitall of maimed Souldiers so now I will send you to the house of correction where I will leave you without Baile or Maine-prize till you have cleared your selfe and your associates for wounding and cutting out the tongues of your owne Authors in speaking truth against the corruptions of the Church But your correcting Index say you began but from the yeare 1515. P. 24. 144. and nothing is changed of Catholike Authors before that time I assure you I have not heard as yet one sentence nay scarce one word of truth fall from your pen wherein you dissent from us and this your assertion will prove as true as the rest Yea but fay you it is expresly declared by the Church that nothing may be changed and if this be true as true it is indeed the lesse credit is to be given you or your Church-men who make decrees and breake them at their pleasure for it shall appeare that your Index doth extend it selfe to the time of the Apostles and howsoever you pretend to purge the Fathers onely in the Index and Table of their Bookes yet I say some you have purged in the Text it selfe others you have corrected in the Index in the expresse words delivered in the bodie of those Bookes And as touching your Assertion that you purge the latter writers onely from the yeare 1515. and not beyond that time this is most false and you had said more truly if you had confessed that for 1515. yeares together your Church spared no Authours ancient or moderne if they speake not Placentia agreeable to your Popes faith and doctrine For the better manifestation of this truth looke first upon your Correctorium for so Lucas Brugensis termes it your worke of correction upon the Bible and tell me if you have not altered by your Popes command above three thousand severall places in the Scripture even in your vulgar Translation which you call St. Hieromes and although you dare not lay a Deleatur upon the sacred word of God yet upon the Commandements upon the Lords Prayer upon severall places of Scripture as I have shewed there is a Deletur a leaving out and a detracting from it Looke upon your Index Expurgatorius printed at Madrid by Cardinall Quiroga and tell me if you have not purged certain places in the Index of the Bible which are ipsissima verba the very words to a letter in the Textit selfe as for instance a Justificamur fide in Christum Galat. 2.16 We are justified by faith in Christ b Justitia nostra Christus 1. Cor. 1.30 Christ is our Righteousnesse c Fide purificantur corda Act. 15.9 By faith our hearts are purified d Justus coram Deo nemo Psal 143.2 No man is righteous before God e Uxorē habeat unusquisque 1 Cor. 7.2 Let every man have his wife c. All these passages I say are the very word of God in the Body of the Scriptures and yet they are commanded f Ind. Hisp Madr. f. mihi 15. B. tanquā propositiones suspectae for so are the words of your Index as if they were things questionable to bee blotted out Againe when your glosses or marginall notes agree not to your doctrine you cause your Index Expurgatorius to lay hold on them as for instance in the 26. of Leviticus we reade in your owne Translation You shall not make to your selves an Idoll or thing graven Deleatur illud Sculptilia prohibet fieri Idem fol. 7. when the glosse in the Margent saith God forbiddeth graven Images Let that passage say you be strucken out And whereas Samuel saith Prepare your hearts unto the Lord and serve him onely Ibid. fol. 8. b. the glosse upon the Text which is the same in substance viz. wee must serve God onely you command to be blotted out These and the like places relating to the Scriptures being contrary to your Trent doctrine you have excluded from your late printed Bibles in the places aforesaid as being too obvious to the eye of every Reader Ind. Hisp Madrid p. 6. 7. f. 138. Mihi 62. Crakenthorp adv Spal p. 66. Bell. de verbo Dei l. 4. c. 11. c. Ind. Madrid fol. 62. a. Deleantur ex Textu illa verba Sed ubi non habuerit Dei timorem in seipsis nec Jesum per fidem incolam c. Ibid. Eam verò solūmodò naturam quae increata est colere venerari didicimus Ant. Meliss serm 1. Bell. descript Eccl. p. mihi 184. Looke upon the Fathers and tell mee if your Index Expurgatorius doth not correct both St. Chrysostome and Austin and Hilarie and Hierome in their Index touching the prime points of controversie betwixt us Nay more St. Austin saith Vives is purged ten or twelve lines in the body of his workes St. Chrysostome in his 49. Homily is purged 70. lines by Bellarmines confession other places are razed out of him and other Fathers as I have shewed before Looke upon St. Cyrill Bishop of Alexandria who was living above 1200. yeares agoe and tell me if your Inquisitors have not commanded a Deleatur upon his words in the very Text it selfe Looke before his time upon Gregory Nyssen and tell me if through the sides of Antonius Abbas who was living by Bellarmines accompt neare 900. yeares agoe you doe not wound that ancient Father in the body of his workes in commanding this golden sentence to bee blotted out Ind. Belg. p. 270. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nissen in Orat. 4. Tom. 2. Edit Graeco-lat p. 146. We have learned to worship and adore that nature onely which is uncreated * Parsōs warn-word to Sir Fran. Hastings wast-word Enc. 2. c. 9 p. 69. your F. Parsons takes great paines to little purpose to excuse it one while he tells us that the sentence is not to bee found in Gregory Nissen which is most false another while he confesseth that they cannot stand to give a particular reason
Papacie formerly prevailed yet it is more than evident by the Testimonies and Records of your owne men that we had not two Churches before Luther but that we had alwayes Testes Veritatis witnesses of Gods truth and our owne Religion in all Ages in the bosome of the Roman Church I proceed to particulars in this last age Anno 1500. Cardinall Cajetan is purged in severall and maine points of doctrine being different from your owne Church Touching the ground of Transubstantiation he denies that the words of Scripture This is my body are availeable to prove it of themselves and thereupon your Jesuit Suarez complaineth Ex Catholicis c. a Ex Catholicis solus Cajetanus in Commentario hujus Articuli qui jussu Pii 5. in Romana editione expunctus est docuit seclusâ Ecclesiae authoritateverba illa Hoc est corpus meum ad veritatem hanc confirmādam nonsufficere Suarez Tom 3. Disp 46. Sect. 3. quaest 75. Art 1. p. 515. Impress Mog An. 1509. Amongst the Catholikes Cajetan onely teacheth that the words This is my Body bee not sufficient without the authoritie of the Church to confirme the truth of it And therefore by the command of Pope Pius the 5. this passage is blotted out in the Roman Edition Touching justification by faith onely whereas hee saith b Absque exceptione aliqua cōditionis sexus qualiatis c. dicitur omni credenti sola fides exigitur ad salutem Cajet Ep. Paulï c. Parisus 1571. fol. 4. Ind. lib. prohibit p. 876. without any exception of person of any Sexe or quality or condition It is said of every Beleever faith alone is required to salvation your Index commands those latter words to bee blotted out Lastly in speaking of the Crosse and the like he saith These are altogether unlawfull and not to be embraced because they are part of an ill worship you cause these words to be strucken out and in lieu of them you subjoyne these words following which are flat contrary c Idem p. 805. These are altogether lawfull and are to be embraced because they are part of the divine worship and the better to colour these miserable shifts and falsifications you give this Caveat to the Reader Idem ibid. p. 805. Be warie if you finde any such Doctrine for it is to bee feared the Heretikes have suggested it Alphonsus à Castro wrote a large Booke against Heresies Anno 1500. and in particular he charged Luther with many Yet in his first Booke and fourth Chapter hee attributeth the same title of Heretike to the Pope and shewes the Pope as Pope is subject to Heresie but behold the record stands published against Luther but is wholly razed touching the Pope Quod autem alii dicunt eum quierraverit in fide obstinatè jam non esse Papam ac per hoc affirmant Papam non posse esse haereticum in reseria verbis velle jocari Ad hunc enim modum quis posset citra impudentiam asserere nullum fidelem posse in fide errare nam cum haereticus fuerit jam desinit esse fidelis Non enim dubitamus an haereticum esse Papam esse coire in unum possint sed id quaerimus an hominem qui aliàs in fide errare potuisset dignitas Pontificalis efficiat à fide indeviabilem Non enim credo aliquem esse adeo impudentem Papae assentatorem ut ei tribuere hoc velit ut nec errare aut in interpretatione sacrarum literarum hallucinari possit Nam cùm constet plures eorum adeo illiteratos esse ut Grammaticam penitus ignorent quî fit ut sacras literas interpretari possent Alph. à Cast advers haer l. 1. c. 4. p. mihi 6. b. Coloniae excudebat Melchior Nouesianus Anno 1543. The words in my Edition are these Whereas some say that he which erreth wilfully in the faith is now no longer Pope and thereupon concludes the Pope cannot be an Heretike they seeme in a sad matter to dally with words For saith he wee make no doubt whether the Pope and an Heretike may agree in one person but this is our question whether a man that otherwise might have erred in the Faith by vertue of the Papall dignity be made such as he cannot erre For I doe not beleeve that there is any so impudent a flatterer of the Pope that will give him this preheminence to say that he can neither be deceived nor misse in the expounding of the Scriptures for seeing it is well knowne that many Popes be so utterly void of learning that they know not the Principles of their Grammer how may it be that they should be able to expound the Scriptures These words I have cited at large out of my Edition 1543. for if you looke into Alphonsus printed within these last threescore yeares I beleeve you will finde them razed in this particular without an Index Expurgatorius which plainly shewes that as the Pope was and may be an Heretike so likewise falsifying of Records is a proper marke of Heretikes Johannes Ferus a Frier Minorite An. 1500. Usher p. 162. and prime Preacher at Mentz in Germany is purged and falsified in many points of controversie which he held with us Touching the power of Priesthood in remitting of sinnes it was the doctrine of Ferus a Non quòd homo propriè remittat peccatum sed quòd ostendat ac certificet à Deo remissum Neque enim aliud est absolutio quam ab homine accipit quà m si dicat En fili certifico te tibiremissa esse peccata annuncio tibi te habere propitium Deum quaecunque Christus in Baptismo Evangelio nobis promisir tibi nunc per me annunciat promittir Fer. Comment in Matth. l. 2. c. 9. Mogunt An 1559. Lugdun apud Johannem à S. Paulo An. 1609. Contr. Man did not properly remit sinne but did declare and certifie that it was remitted by God so that the absolution received from man is nothing else than if hee should say Behold my sonne I certifie thee that thy sinnes are forgiven thee I pronounce unto thee that thou hast God favourable unto thee and whatsoever Christ in Baptisme and in his Gospell hath promised unto us hee doth now declare and promise unto thee by me Of this thou shalt have me to be a witnesse goe in peace and in quiet of conscience This declarative power of remitting sinnes was Ferus doctrine this is ours But behold the case is altered for in Ferus printed at Lyons 1609. all those words are razed out and on the contrary saith that b Sacerdos enim Dei minister verè remittit peccata ac certificat à Deo remissa fol. mihi 160. b. In Matth. l. 2. c. 9. the Priest doth truely remit sinnes and as the Minister of God doth also certifie that they are remitted of God Touching our justification by faith onely the true Ferus
Merchant God saith he will have nothing to lay to this mans charge at the dreadfull day of Judgement His meaning it may be is God can charge him with nothing because this man knew nothing This doctrine of Obedience doth well agree with Cardinall Bellarmines exposition upon that place of Job Bell. de Justif l. 1. c. 7. The Oxen did plow and labour and the Asses fed by them By the Oxen saith hee are meant the learned Doctors of the Church by the Asses are meant the ignorant people which out of simple beliefe rest satisfied with the understanding of their Superiors And accordingly your Cardinall Casanus perswades his Proselytes to relye upon the Church without further inquirie of the truth Cusan exercit l. 2. l. 6. For saith he Obedience without reason is a full and perfect obedience that is when thou obeyest without enquiring of reason as a horse is obedient to his Master He that shall make a question in your Church whether the Pope can erre must resigne up his understanding with this beliefe Bellar. de Pont. l. 4. c. 5. If the Pope should so farre forth erre as to command vices and forbid vertues the Church were bound to beleeve that vices are good and vertues are evill unlesse she will sinne against her owne conscience This is Bellarmines lesson and that must bee your Faith Nay more Cardinall Tollet will assure you that if one beleeve his Bishop Toll de Instruct sacerd l. 4. c. 3. although it be contrary to the faith yet in beleeving that falshood hee shall performe an act meritorious I understand you are a Jesuite and therefore I doe not much wonder that you so much insist upon the justification of an implicite faith for you had it from your founder and are injoyned to make it good by your owne Order There is a little Pamphlet entituled Regulae Societatis Jesu which your selves have caused to be printed at Lyons in which Ignatius Loyala the Spanish Souldier and Patron of your Sect Anticotton or a refutation of Cottons letter to the Queene Regent p. 24. printed at Lyons by Jaques Roussin Anno. 1607. hath laid downe these rules to your Societie Entertaine the command of your Superiour in the same sort as if it were the voice of Christ Againe Hold this undoubtedly that all which a Superiour commands is no other than the commandement of God himselfe and as in beleeving those things which the Catholike faith proposeth you are presently carried with all the strength of your consent so for the performance of all those things which your Superiour commands you must be carried with a certaine blinde impetuosity of will desirous to obey without further inquiring why or wherefore And lest that such command might seeme sometimes unjust and absurd he commands your Jesuits so to captivate their understanding that they sift not the commands of their Superiours but that they may follow the example of Abraham who prepared even to sacrifice his sonne at the commandement of God and of Abbot John who watered a drie log of wood a whole yeare together to none other purpose but to exercise his obedience and another time put himselfe to thrusting downe of a great Rocke which many men together were not able to move not that hee held them things either usuall or possible but onely that hee would not disobey the command of his Superiour This is that blind obedience and implicite faith which wee laugh at and this is the ridiculous Doctrine which your Rhemists teach He saith enough Rbem Annot. in Luc. 12.11 and defendeth himselfe sufficiently who answereth he is a Catholike man and that his Church can give a reason of all the things which they demand of him But we have not so learned Christ wee are ready alwayes according to the Apostles instruction 1 Pet. 3.15 to give an answer to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us And for the better fulfilling of the Law and the Prophets wee testifie with Moses Secret things belong to the Lord our God Deut. 29.29 but the things revealed belong to us and our children that we may doe all the words of the Law We say therefore particular knowledge is to be joyned with the assent of faith for no man can assent to that which hee never heard and therefore I thinke no man of understanding with a blind obedience and implicite faith will resigne up his eie-sight and looke through such spectacles as you have tempered for them For without doubt it was the constant and uniforme Doctrine of the ancient Church that howsoever faith apprehends mysteries not to bee inquired into yet the proposition and doctrine of all the Articles of Faith were distinctly taught and conceived by all and thereupon Theodoret who was then living gives us to understand that in his dayes You might see every where the points of our Faith to bee held and knowne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Theod. Graec. Serm. 5. not onely to them who are Masters in the Church and Teachers of the people but even of Coblers Smiths and Weavers and all kinde of Artificers of all sorts of women and all these you may finde saith he discoursing of the Trinitie and the creation of all things CHAP. II. The summe of his Answer to my first Section THe Church of Rome not without cause bitter against the Reformed Churches because they are Heretikes Theodoret is impertinently alledged Bellarmine is falsified The Catholike Church cannot be depraved because of her promises And this setting aside your reproches and impertinencies is the substance of your second Chapter in answer to my first Section The Reply First you say in your Title The Church of Rome not bitter against Heretikes It is true the Church of Rome is not bitter against Heretikes as you understand them for Protestants for they are no Heretikes but if the termes of Luthers whelpes Hell-hounds of Zwinglius damned persons and worse than Infidels if such termes I say be Catholike complements which your fellow Jesuits have given us I shall freely confesse your Charitie is mistaken But say you the word Heretike which is the worst of all hath ever gone with such as have held new particular doctrines 1 John 2. and such St. John calleth Antichrists Surely you have my assent and wishes with you that is that the name of Heretike may alwayes goe as it hath gone with such as teach new and Antichristian doctrine But let me tell you this description of yours is a perfect Character of the Roman Church and I verily beleeve that if all the pictures and patternes of a Papist were lost in the world they might all againe be recovered and a Papist painted to the life in the description of such an Heretike as you here define Looke upon the particular doctrines of private Masse your halfe Communion your Prayer in an unknowne Tongue and tell me if these be not new why
by way of conclusion what hee would have called Heresie Ibid. This would I rather call Heresie saith he to accompt mens writings among the Scriptures of God and so doe they that thinke it a wicked matter to dissent from the writings of man no lesse than it were the judgements of God Now that your men are guilty of such Heresies in the highest degree appeares by his owne confession Ibid. l. 1. c. 2. p. 14. for he complaines of Gratian who did insert the Popes decretall Epistles amongst the holy Scriptures as if they were of equall authoritie with them and he speakes as an eare witnesse of others who in their publicke Sermons have declared that whosoever shall dissent from the opinion of St. Thomas is to be censured for an Hereticke O fortes verbi Dei Praecones O powerfull Preachers of the word of God saith he or rather I may truly say of St. Thomas doctrine l. 1. c. 7. for by this meanes it will come to passe that blessed Bonaventure must be censured of heresie Ibid. p. mihi 31. for he crosseth St. Thomas and blessed Anselme must be suspected of Heresie because contrary to Thomas opinion he thinketh him not a lover of our blessed Virgin who refuseth to celebrate the Feast of her Conception As this Author wrote a tract against Hereticks so likewise he professeth that the head of the Roman Church as well as the members are subject to that capitall accusation whereof you accuse the Reformers and particularly he doth instance from Platina in Pope Liberius for an Arrian Hereticke and Pope Anastasius for a favourer of the Nestorian Heretickes and withall hee resolves the question which without all question is so to bee resolved that the Pope which you make one of the infallible Rules of your Faith may become an Hereticke You shall doe well therefore to forbeare your name Catholicke till you can free your Pope and his adherents from the markes of Heretickes In the meane time I might more justly retort your owne words cum faenore into your owne bosome and say We Reformed Catholickes not onely stile but prove J. R. and the Romanists to be rightly stiled by the common name of Heretickes I proceed to the rest of your accusations Theodoret say you is wholly impertinent Bellarmine his meaning is abused and his words corrupted First touching Theodoret his proofe notwithstanding your exception stands good for if the agreement of both parties in the Nicene Councell in his judgement ought to have allayed the heate of contention in the Church of Antioch I might well conclude much more that the three Creeds and the first foure Generall Councels wherein both sides agree ought to have abated the edge of your sharpe and bitter Invectives against our Church And as for abusing of Bellarmine I assure you it was farre from my thoughts and you cannot be ignorant that the inference according to true meaning standeth thus If Protestants beleeve and hold all things necessarie for all Christians then are they not to be accompted damned persons and worse than Infidels But they beleeve the Apostles Creed they teach the ten Commandements and administer some few Sacraments which in your Cardinals opinion are those things which are simply necessarie for all to know and beleeve and to this argument you answere nothing but you quarrell about words When I translate nonnulla a few Sacraments you say I falsifie Bellarmine for the word few is not there and yet you know well that by nonnulla hee doth not meane omnia Nonnulla is a diminutive terme signifying not none that is some be they never so fevv and therefore those which he meaneth are but few The word utilia is in the same place of Bellarmine and as for other words added or left out they alter not the sense nor are wee bound precisely to the words but to the sense in translating a passage out of any Author But say you what man ever tooke Babylon for a true Church If by Babylon you understand literally the ancient Citie of Chaldea or that famous City in Aegypt once called by the name of Memphis and now of Cair you know well that it is not my meaning so to take it for you confesse that I otherwise expresse my selfe but that a particular Church as namely your Church of Rome which was sometimes a sound that is a right-beleeving Church may afterwards fall into Heresie and become spirituall and mysticall Babylon this is not onely my assertion but your Romanists and fellow Jesuites in the Church of Rome Ribera your fellow Jesuite of Salamanca in Spaine tells us by way of prevention If Rome shall commit the same things hereafter which she committed in the time of John she shall be called Babylon againe as it was in the case of Hierusalem which of a faithfull City once became afterwards a Harlot And according to the Prophesie of St. John he protesteth in this manner We know this truth so perspicuously by the words of the Revelation Ut ne stultissimus quidem negare possit that the veriest foole cannot deny the same Then he concludes Riberae Comment in Apoc. 14. v. 8. in c. 14. num 31. n. 32. Since Babylon shall be the shop of all Idolatrie and of all impieties therefore it cannot be doubted but that this shall be the condition of Rome hereafter I will come nearer to you Your Monke Sigebert about 500. yeares agoe interpreting the words of St. Peter The Church at Babylon salutes you delivereth this doctrine Sigeb Ep. p. mihi 188. in l. Goldasti Replic Hitherto Peter by Babylon did signifie Rome because Rome at that time was confounded with Idolatrie and all uncleannesse but my griefe doth now interpret unto mee that Peter by a Propheticke spirit by the Church of Babylon foresaw the confusion of dissention with which the Church of Rome at this day is rent in pieces Honorius Bishop of Anthun in France speaking of the fall of the Church of Rome not long after the same time cryes out to the members of his Church Honor. Angust in Dial. de Praedest l. arbit Turne to the Citizens of Babylon and see what they are behold the buildings of that damned Citie consider the principall persons there and thou shalt finde the See of the Beast Thus you see the first Babylonian tels what he feared would come to passe in the Church of Rome hereafter but these two later proclaimed openly that Rome was become Babylon many hundred yeares since and for their loud cries their tongues are now cut out by the command of your Inquisitors How undeservedly were these men punished and forbidden to speake the truth let the Reader judge but that which is observable you raze the Records which testifie for us you forbid them to speake if it make against your Church and then you demand of us What man ever tooke Babylon for Rome I will give you one witnesse more who is ancient and
Religion This you confesse is true in your Councell but to these you answer nothing Concil Trid. Sess 22. Can. 9. You might have added to these abuses both Superstition and Idolatry in the Masse for your Councell confesseth them both and I thinke it toucheth your errors in Doctrine But have you reformed all or any of these things Is your superstitious number of Masses and lights in the Church abated Are your lascivious and wanton songs set to the Organs and mingled with other Church musicke redressed Is your covetousnesse in Priests with their Superstition and Idolatry in the Masse abolished Mirae mirae entis Res. Juvenal These corruptions are things and things as you call them and such as I wonder your Councell was not ashamed to confesse much more to tolerate or rather to practice in the daily sacrifice of your Masse I hasten to the Reformation in doctrine but you tell me it is a Lye the Councell never intended it I instance in private Masse Latin Service c. You answer it is most false for the doctrine is the same still and ever was I perceive your passion makes you much forget your selfe for your doctrine I confesse which is commonly received is the same now that was decreed in the Councell of Trent but that it was ever the same as now it is all the Colledge of Cardinals and Jesuits cannot prove Looke upon your owne confession in those two particular instances Your private Masse where the Priest communicates alone is not the same now as it was heretofore For say you it was the practise of the Primitive Church for the people to communicate every day with the Priest Spectacl pag. 191. Your Prayer in an unknowne tongue is not the same now as it was heretofore for say you Prayer and Service in the vulgar Tongue was used in the first and best Ages Pag. 271. and now the vulgar is become the Latin unknown tongue Take heed therefore of these confessions for by such palpable contradictions you may lose your Proselytes and bring the Lye upon your selfe Againe you confesse that the Councell wisheth that the standers by did communicate not onely spiritually Pag. 53. but also sacramentally and doth not your Church in this wish a reformation in doctrine Doth it not in this preferre the practice of the reformed Churches before their owne and in a manner confesse an error in the allowed practice of the Roman Church Your Councell commands Pastors that have care of soules to expound that to the people which is delivered in the Masse in an unknowne tongue and doe not those that require the Priests to expound it to the people shew likewise that without such exposition the people are little better for the Masse and that the Church intended the people should understand it What is this else but to joyne hands with the Protestants and to acknowledge a reformation needfull in your Church for requiring Service to bee celebrated in a knowne tongue that the people may understand it But that I may make good my assertion and that the Reader may know I have said nothing but the truth in affirming the Councell of Trent did make decrees for Reformation for doctrine as well as manners looke upon the second Session and tell me if they did not professe a reall intention in both Concil Trid. Sess 2. the words of the Session are these Whereas it is the speciall care and intention of the Councell that the darkenesle of Heresie being expelled which so many yeares hath covered the earth the light and parity of the Catholicke truth may shine through the helpe of Christ which is the true light and that those things which need reformation may be reformed the Synod exhorteth all Catholikes assembled or to be assembled and especially those who are skilful in the sacred Scriptures that with continuall meditation they may diligently consider with themselves how these things may bee effected that they may condemne those things which are to be condemned and approve those things which are to be approved that the whole world with one mouth and confession of one and the same faith may glorifie God the Faiher and our Lord Jesus Christ Take a review of the words of your Councell First Praecipua cura intentio ut propulsatis errorum tenebris quae per tot annos operiarunt terram the chiefe care to dispell the darkenesse of errour which covered the earth which words cannot be meant of the Protestant doctrine For our light is pretended by you to be lately come in and but in a part or corner of the world Secondly peritiam habeant sacrarum literarum ut sedulâ meditatione secum ipsi cogitent c. ut probare probanda damnare damnanda queant There needed not this diligence and skill in Scriptures for Luthers Religion for they were condemned before by the Pope Thirdly Nullus debeat c. obstinatis disceptationibus contendere which should not be about Lutheran points but about doctrines of their owne Fourthly in the third Section de extirpandis haeresibus c. which say they is adversus spirituales nequitias in caelestibus which heavenly places are meant by their owne Church not by Luthers as is most evident For they would never acknowledge our Churches heavenly places Now I pray what thinke you of your Councels Decrees Will not they extend to a Reformation in doctrine or will you say that Heresies in manners crept into the Church and the most learned in the Scriptures were chiefly to be imployed for reforming them that thereby there might be one Faith of Papists and Protestants through the Christian world De extirpandis haeresibus moribus reformandis quorum causa praecipue est congregata Sess 3. Looke upon the third Session and there likewise you shall finde a Decree for rooting out of Heresies in doctrine aswell as rectifying of manners and the discipline of the Church and for both those causes saith your Decree the Councell was principally called It is a most evident truth then howsoever you redouble the lie upon me that the Councell did intend a Reformation in doctrine for otherwise to what end should the Pope summon all Christian Bishops out of all Nations even at that time when the Protestants were in number infinite and had discovered and proclaimed the errors of the Roman Church Besides to what purpose were those disputes and oppositions in the Councell against particular points of Doctrine if they had not beene adjudged erroneous and needed a reformation But herein the Reader shall easily discerne the policie of your Church At the first calling of the Councell when these first Sessions were made the number of Bishops were but few about 40. but after the faction of the Popes creatures in multitude prevailed all hope of reformation was abandoned And thereupon the Bishops of Apulia publikely declared that the Trent Fathers were nothing else but the Popes creatures and his bondslaves See
advers Valent. c. 3. and in thrusting himselfe into dark and blinde holes Such is the nature of false teachers they seeke nothing more saith the same Author than to hide that which they preach Idem c. 1. if yet they may be said to preach that they hide But good Physicians say you use to enquire of the causes effects and circumstances Pag. 73. for upon these circumstances dependeth the knowledge whether it be a disease or no. It is most true that Physicians will enquire of the causes of the disease but will they deny the Patient to be sicke or refuse to minister Physicke to him unlesse he tell them precisely how or when he first tooke his disease or infection For this is our case and the point in question touching a reformation Neither doth the knowledge of the disease of the body depend upon the circumstances of time place and person I thinke you never read such Aphorismes either in Gallen or Hyppocrates neither doth your knowledge of errors and heresie in your Church depend on the circumstances of time place and persons For some Authors at the same time and in the same place might have broached truth when another set his heresie abroach as namely Saint Austin precisely in the time and place delivered the Orthodox Doctrine of grace when and where Pelagius spread his heresie From your Rules of Physicke you returne to the Rules of Divinity and tell us from Saint Austin that * Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi authoritate Apostolicâ traditū rectissimè creditur De Baptis contr Donat. l. 5. c 24. in initio Tom. 7. p. mihi 433. whatsoever the Catholike Church doth generally beleeve or practise so as there can be no time assigned when it began it is to be taken for an Apostolicall tradition This place of Austin you neither quoted in your Answer neither have you recited his words faithfully for hee speakes not of assigning the time when the Doctrine begins but whatsoever the universall Church doth hold not being ordained by Councels but hath beene ever held that is most rightly beleeved for an Apostolicall tradition This is his Tenet and this is ours but you have put in the word Catholike in your sense for universall you have added generall beleefe and practise you have thrust in these words so as no time can be assigned when it began and you have omitted the principall verb that hath been ever held which makes me suspect you omitted the citing of this place lest your fraud should be descried But I pardon you let us heare the rest P. 73. But such say you are all those things which you are pleased to call errors If this were as easily proved as spoken you should not neede to put us to the search of times and Authors for the first Founder of your Faith For if your Popish Doctrines were alwayes held by the universall Church and not ordained by Councels we should not need to looke into your Councell of Lateran for your Doctrine of Transubstantiation nor into your Councell of Constance for Communion in both kindes nor into your Councell of Florence for your seven Sacraments nor into your second Councell of Nice for your worship of Images for these and many such traditions were first ordained by Councels and were not the generall beliefe and practice of the Church Againe if the universall Church had alwayes held your Doctrines from the Apostles times why doe you your selfe confesse that your prayer in an unknowne tongue Pag. praecedenti your private Masse your halfe Communion were taught otherwise in the primitive Churches Nay if they be Apostolicall how comes it that they are flat contrary to the Doctrine of the Apostles And thus much of your two rules of Physicke and Divinity let us he are the rest of your authorities Tertullian say you hath this Rule for discerning heresie from truth Tertul. praescrip 31. p. mihi 78. That which goeth before is truth and that which commeth after is errour This Rule is most true but these words you cite by the halves for hee saith expresly Id autem extraneum falsum quod sit posterius immissum Id Dominicum verum quod sit prius traditum That was first delivered which was true and came from the God of truth and this was the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles for that which commeth after saith he is sarre different where hee shewes likewise in these words following that after Christs time and in the dayes of the Apostles there might be heresies Ut aliquem ex Apostolicis viris qui tamen cum illis persever averint habent authorem Ibid. for the mystery of iniquitie began then to worke and therefore hee will not have it enough to derive a Doctrine from a man which lived with the Apostles unlesse it can be proved that he continued with them and the reason as I conceive was given by Nicephorus After the sacred company of the Apostles was come to an end Niceph. l. 3. c. 16. and that their generation was wholly spent which had heard with their eares the heavenly wisdome of the Sonne of God then that conspiracie of detestable errour through the deceipt of such as delivered strange Doctrine tooke rooting and because that none of the Apostles survived they published boldly with all might possible the doctrine of falshood and impugned the manifest and knowne truth But wee plead say you prescription from the beginning It is not sufficient to plead it you must prove it The Mahometists at this day assume the name of Saracens as your men doe the name of Catholikes as if they came from Sara the free woman Abrahams true and lawfull wife when in truth they tooke their first beginning from Agar the bond-woman neither can there be any prescription against the ancient Records and Evidences of the Word written by Christ and his Apostles Indeed you have found a right and easie way to claime a prescription from the time of the Apostles for you have razed many prime Evidences of the Fathers for the first 800. yeeres which make for our Doctrine and you have proscribed many learned Authors and their Records as I have shewed before for the last 800. yeeres which testified against your errors And now I come to your Churches apostacie or falling from the truth which occasioned these errors Apostacie say you is a defection or forsaking of the Name of Christ and profession of Christianity as all men understand it I shewed in this Section that in the primitive Church when any heresie did arise that indangered the foundation such as was the heresie of the Arrians of the Pelagians and the like the Authors were observed the times were knowne the place was pointed at and forthwith letters of Premonition were sent to all the sound members of the Catholike Church by which publike advertisement the steale-steale-truth
Feasts Images are otherwise now used than they were in the beginning I produced likewise Polydore Virgil Erasmus Scotus Agrippa Cassander Gregorie de Valentia in severall points against your new doctrine now let us heare your severall answers to them Touching Ferus he is a Frier say you in your Bookes but not in ours save onely in the Roman Index of forbidden Bookes Touching Polydore he saith as the Knight telleth us and as much as any Heretike can say but it booteth not for his Booke is forbidden Touching Erasmus he is no Authour for us to answer he is branded in the Roman Index Touching Scotus you neither condemne him nor answer him he tells you plainly that Transubstantiation was not received for a point of Faith till the Councell of Lateran above 1200. yeares after Christ but of this passage Ne gry quidem And yet you might have answered with Bellarmine this opinion of his is no way to be allowed or with Gregorie de Valentia for this saying he ought to be corrected As touching Agrippa and Cassander you will not vouchsafe them an answere but reject them inter damnatos authores as men to be cast out of your Synagogue Lastly touching Gregorie de Valentia you sav his authoritie doth make against the Knight why else should he corrupt and mangle it But whether I or you have corrupted it let the Reader judge my words were these The Communion in one kind when it got first footing in the Church minimè constat it doth not appeare saith Greg de Valentia Youto prove my corruption cite the words in this manner When that custome began in some Churches it appeareth not but that there hath been some use of one kind ever from the beginning I shewed before so Valentia and thus you But in truth this is none of Valentia's own period but one of your owne making who cunningly joyne the latter words which follow in Valentia 4. or 5. lines after to the former with a But which is none of Valentia's the former part of the period is notably mangled by you For thus it stands When that custome began in some Churches Augustana Confessio it appeares not as is acknowledged by the Augustane Confession Now in that Confession the words are these The custome of both kindes remained long in the Church neither doth it appeare when or by what Author it was changed so that he plainly speaketh of the Church in general sheweth the corruption here pretended by M. Floyd to be but a cavill viz. That Valentia saith this not of the Church in generall but of some particular Churches Thus either you blot prohibit all Authors that make forus although they be members of your own Church or else you vouch safethem no answer or else you quarrell without any just occasion offred and this wil prove an easie way for the weakest scholar in your Church to answer all that can be produced against your faith and doctrine Now as the Reader hath heard your answer in the generall so let him see your exceptions to the particulars For whereas I said with St. Paul Forbidding of marriage is a doctrine of Devils you answer as if you were angrie with St. Paul that he hath been answered more often than the Knight hath fingers and toes and it seems for that reason you will vouch safe him no answer at all This puts me in minde of the saying of Ludovicus Vives amember of your owne Church who assures us Lud. Vives de Civ Dei l. 13. c. 24. If St. Paul were living in these dayes he would be held either a mad man or an heretike And since you will not resolve me of St. Pauls meaning in that place I will appeale to St. Bernard an Abbot who was restrained from marriage by the law of your Church who speaking of that restraint gives us the true sense and exposition of St. Paul in these words All heresies have an heretike for their founder the Maniches had Manes Bernard in Cant. Serm. 66. the Sabellians had Sabellicus the Arrians had Arrius c. so that we know the Authors of those plagues but by what name will you terme the Author of those that forbid marriage Surely it is not of man or by man and far be it from the spirit-of God but it is foretold by the Apostle St. Paul to be the fraud doctrine of devils But marriage fay you is not a thing evil in it selfe but because it lesse agreeth with the holinesse which is required for the exercise of Priestly function I pray then what thinke you of a concubine Doth companie with her better agree for exercise of your sunction than with a wife Sure I am this is the doctrine of your Church nay more your Pope Siricius would inferre by authoritie of Scripture that martiage is unholy in it selfe for he cites the Text for it They that live in the flesh cannot please God Qui in carne sunt Deoplacere non possunt Now I pray you what difference is there betwixt the ancient heretikes and the members of your Church The Montanists the Tatiani the Eucratitae did not prohibite marriage to all no more than you doe but onely to their perfecti as being a disparagement to their perfect estate or as you interpret not agreeing to the holines of Priesthood Again whereas I proved out of Polydore that the marriage of Priests was not altogether forbidden till the time of Gregorie the 7. that is to say above a thousand yeares after Christ you answer that which Polydore cites is most evidently false as appeareth particularly by a Canon of the first Councell of Nice and the second Councell of Carthage Now if Polydore were mistaken it concernes not me for I cited him truly and he is a member of your Church but the truth is you are much mistaken touching those two Councels Sozom. l. 1. c. 22. For the Councell of Nice saith Sozomen commended Paphnutius judgement and touching this matter of mariage made to decree an all but left it to each mans owne will without any force of necessity And the Councell of Carthage forbiddeth not marriage in Priests but commandeth abstinence from marriage rites for a certaine time as St. Paul doth that they may more freely give themselves to prayer and the offices of their sacred function Which plainly shewes that both Priests were married in those dayes and consequently that those two Councels make flatly against you But Marius say you cannot find the beginning of this prohibition Polydore findeth it and yet both make for the Knights purpose And without doubt they doe for they contradict not one the other Polydore speaketh of publike absolute and reall prohibition Marius of the first condemning it in any Priest and these confessions may well stand together CHAP. VII The summe of his Answer to Sect. 7. 1. That the imputations of ancient Haeresies are false 2. That Succession besides Antiquity importeth continuance and perpetuity
without intermission 3. That Protestants have no shaddow of succession in person or doctrine 4. That Papists have a most cleare personall succession being able to shew 200. and odde Popes succeeding the other in place and office 5. That personall succession is a firme argument of succession in faith IT is my promise in my seventh Section to shew a descent of both Religions as namely that the Romish faith was derived from antient Haeretiks and the Protestant faith was drawne downe from Christ and his Apostles But say you It is one thing to prove a thing to have beene anciently taught another to have beene successively taught It is true Antiquity and Succession differ neither did I undertake to prove that those Haeretikes or your Church had a perpetuall succession in person and doctrine but for the truths sake I have acknowledged the antiquity of your Trent faith although descended from ancient Haeretikes and I made the first instance in Latin Service and prayer in a strange tongue brought in by Pope Vitolian as is witnessed by Wolphius but you cry out It is a most strange absurdity to averre fuch a knowne falsehood upon no other authority pag. 87. then a professed Haeretike And is he an Haeretike that speaketh the truth of your Religion What say you to your prime Champion Mr. Harding He saith expresly About nine hundred yeares past it is certaine the people in some Countries had their service in an unknowne tongue Iuel in his 3. Article Divis 1. as it shall be proved of our owne Country of England Now observe the difference Wolphius said the Latin Service came in after Christ about the yeare 666. Mr. Harding who wrote these 67. yeares since as appeares by Bishop Iuels Epistle tells us it came in 900. yeares past compute Wolphius 666. with Mr. Hardings time of 967. and you shall finde that they agree about one and the same time and therefore it was neither absurd nor false which Wolphius uttered Neither doe you disprove the reason of Wolphius but you make a quâ—ere upon his assertion During his 600. and odd yeares what other Lyturgies were there in the Latin Church but Latin And I may aswell say what were there in the Greeke Church but Greeke But this demand maketh against your Service in an unknowne tongue not against Wolphius who affirmeth not that the Latin Service was not in the Latin Church before the yeare 666. but that the Pope obtruded it upon all Churches even there where the Latin was not understood as in England saith Mr. Harding and elsewhere For Origen tells us before that time Orig contrd Celsum lib. 8. the Greekes call upon God in the Greeke tongue and the Latins in the Latin tongue and all severall Nations pray unto God and praise him in their owne natur all and mother tongues for he that is the Lord of all tongues heareth men praying in all tongues none otherwise then if it were one voice pronounced by divers tongues for God that ruleth the whole world is not as some one man that hath gotten the Greeke or Latin and knoweth none-other The ancient Primitive Churches therefore taught the Doctrine in a knowne tongue agreeable to the profession at this day But the truth is A. 30.666 A. 1.666 T. 300.666 E. 5.666 I. 10.666 N. 50.666 O. 70.666 M. 200.666 Sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nomen sexcentinum sexagiata sex numeruÌ„ habens valde verisimile est quonlam verissimum nomen hobet vocabulum Latini enim sunt qui nunc regnaÌ„t sed non in hoc nos gloriabimur Irenae l 5. cap 25. p mihi 355. the Latin Service and the name of the Latin Church is one of the most essentiall markes of the Roman Hierarchie And I know not whether it were by conjecture or by inspiration that Irenaeus above foureteene hundred yeares agoe in the word Lateinos found out the name of Antichrist and the number of 666. The name Lateinos saith he conteining the number of six hundred sixty six is very likely because the truest kingdome hath that name for they are the Latines that now raigne but saith he we will not glory in this You proceede to the Haeretikes Ossem and you say first I am notably mistaken in placing them towards the Apostles time and withall you have read the Chapter there twice over and the second time more attentively then the first and yet you find not any such word so cited by mee First Trajan Anno 100. Bel. de script Eccles pag. mihi this Sect continued till Trajans time not an hundred yeares after the Apostles and therefore it was no errour in me to place them towards the Apostles time and if you please to peruse the place a third time with your Spectacles you shall find these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiph heres 19 Nemo quaerat interpretationem sed solum in oratione haec dicat and there hee repeats a Prayer which if you peruse the Greeke text is more expresse Let no man inquire after the meaning only in his Prayer Let him say such words viz. such Hebrew words which Epiphanius there setteth downe Are not these Heretikes thinke you neere kinne to them who say Heare Latine Masse and say after the Priest it mattereth not whether you understand what hee saith or not From Epiphanius you flie to Saint Ambrose and there you make a great complaint that I put in words of my owne in the same Character with Saint Ambrose which are none of his as namely There were certaine Iewes amongst the Graecians Ambr. in 1 Cor. 14. as namely the Corinthians who did celebrate the Divine Service and Sacraments which the common people understood not I confesse ingenuously it is an errour in the print and I shall willingly alter the letter but not the words at the next impression But I confidently professe it is agreeable to the true sense and meaning of the Author and the strength of the argument is not in the words but in the sense and therfore I may truly answer you with S. Austine What folly is it to contend about words Aug. Ep. 174. when there is the certainty of the thing it selfe It cannot be denied that Ambrose taxeth the Hebrewes who amongst the Corinthians in Tractatibus oblationibus used sometimes the Syriack and sometimes the Hebrew tongue which without doubt the Greeks understood not And therefore in his Commentarie on this place hee gives the Hebrew to understand If you meet together to edifie the Church Ambr. in 1 Cor. 14. those things must be delivered which the hearers understand for to what purpose or profit is it that any one speake a tongue which hee himselfe onely understands and whereof hee that heareth can reape no fruit And a little after The Apostle saith I had rather speake five words in the Church according to the Law that I may edifie others than any long and large discourse in obscuritie Againe by
amongst them Iren. lib. 1. cap. 24. And so doth Irenaeus also witnesse they all restraining and adjudging it to be Heresie and Idolatrie to cense and bow to the Image even of Paul or Christs But doe you not find a difference say you betweene their adoring the creature of wood and colour in place of the creature and our adoring the Creator represented by the creature If there be any difference in the manner of the Pagan worship and yours it is in this That the Christians who know God and set up an Image unto him offend rather than the Gentiles who know him not and if to worship a creature which is the worke of Gods hands be flat Idolatrie how inexcusable is it to worship the worke of mens hands and the shadowes of Creatures represented by art and applied by mans vaine conceit to resemble the Creatour And in this respect Saint Austine preferred the Pagans and Heathens before the Manichees which were Christians For the Pagans worship things that be Pagani colunt ca quae sunt etc. Aug. contià Faust l. 20. c. 5. though they be not to be worshipped but you saith hee worship those things that be not at all but are fained by the vanitie of your deceitfull fables and tales It is true as you say the Heathen did worship the Creatures of wood in place of the Creator Gentes Ugnum adorant quia Dei Imagmem putant Ambr. in Psal 118. Serm. 10. but the reason is given by Saint Ambrose because they thinke it to be the Image of God And doe not you the like when you worship the picture of Christ in wood or any other metall I most firmly avouch that the Images of Christ and the Mother of God and other Saints are to be worshipped Bulla Pij 4 Act. 9. because it is the picture of Christ Those that worshipped the golden Calfe knew wherof it was made neither could there be such a Calfe amongst them to thinke it was a true God Tertullian up braideth the Pagans That in their owne consciences they knew well enough that the Gods which they worshipped were but men that it was to be proved in what places they were borne where they had lived Tert. Apolog. cap. 10. Provocamus ad conscientiam vestram c. and left a remembrance of their workes where they were buried and may not the like be proved by many of your Saints which you worship in your Church If the Pagans had adored their Images for God there had beene some difference betwixt you but they could answer the Christians as Celsus the Philosopher did Origen Orig. contrà Celsum l. 7. If the Christians deny things made of wood stone brasse or gold to be God wee grant it for otherwise it were a ridiculous opinion for who but a starke foole did ever account them for gods But in conclusion they joyne hands with you These say you are the services unto the gods or else certaine resemblances of the gods I will come neerer unto you It is the voice of the Heathen man in Clemens Clem. Recognit ad Iacob lib. 5. We worship the Images which we may see in the honor of that God which cannot be seen You may reade the like excuse of a Heathen man in Saint Austine I worship neither the Image nor the devill but by a Corporall figure Aug. in Psal 113. Concion 2. I behold the signe of that which I ought to worship Now change but the name of Pagan into Papist and these sayings will fully agree with your men and therefore if it be flat Idolatry in them that know not God the greater sinne lyeth at your Churches doore who joyne with Pagans and Idolaters which otherwise professe to know him and worship him as hee ought to be worshipped in spirit and truth The difference onely betwixt you and them is this They worshipped the Images of the heathen Philosophers aswelas of Iesus and you say that you worship Images of Christ and not of the Gentiles And herein your later error is greater than the first for if you had told a Carpocratian Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours wife because God hath forbidden it Clemens saith hee would have replied as you doe By thy Neighbour is understood the Neighbour of the Gentiles Clem. Strom. l. 3. And thus they excuse their disordered Lust and you to decline your Idolatrous worship savour of one and the same spirit and therefore to use part of your owne words This doctrine is too grosse for so subtile a Iesuit as you are To conclude you would know how our Doctrine against Images doth succeed the second Commandement Here you quarrell about the word Succeed when I say no such thing but that it is derived and thus you fight with a Paper-man of your owne making And lastly you say the word Image is not in the Scripture when as your vulgar Translation in Exodus is Sculptile and yours in Deuteronomie Sculpta similitudo both which signifie A graven Image or the likenesse of any thing Take for a Conclusion that friendly admonition which Origen sometimes gave to Celsus the Pagan Communis sensus cogitare nos cogit c. Orig contra Celsum l. 3. Common sense doth will men to thinke that God is not delighted with honour of Images made by men to represent his likenesse or any signification of him yea who saith hee that hath his right wits will not laugh at him who after those excellent and Philosophicall disputations concerning God or the gods doth looke to Images Ibid. l. 7. and either offereth prayers unto them or by the contemplation thereof as of some visible signe goeth about to lift up his mind to the cogitation of God thereby to be understood And thus much may serve touching your Patrons and first founders of Images From your Images you proceed to your Communion in one kind which I shewed was derived from the Manichees c. You to excuse the matter say That before there were Manichees in the world the blessed Sacrament was administred sometimes in one kind sometimes in both You say so but you say nothing to prove it and your ipse dixit will hardly carry it against a cloud of witnesses For confirmation of what I said that in this point of Doctrine you succeed the Heretikes hearken to Leo Bishop of Rome Leo Serm. 4. de Quadrages The Manichees to cover their infidelitie venture to be present at our mysteries and so carry themselves in receiving of the Sacraments for their more safety that they take the body of Christ with an unworthy mouth but in any wise they shunne to drinke the blood of our Redemption which I would have your devoutnesse speaking to the people learne for by this sacrilegious simulation they may be noted by the Godly that they may be chased away by the Priestly power Leo you see speaketh of the Manichees by name and those Lay-men also and calleth the forbearing
calling upon Angels These saith hee be the inchantments of the Devils though he be an Angell Chrys in 1. Cor. Homil. 1. though an Archangell though they be Cherubins endure it not For neither will those powers themselves admit it but reject it when they see their Lord dishonored I have favoured thee saith he and have said call upon me and dost thou dishonour him with calling upon others This agrees with the doctrine of Theodoret shewing Theod. in Coloss 3. that the Synod of Laodicea following that rule made a Law that they should not pray unto Angels nor forsake our Lord Iesus Christ and accordingly they decreed it with a curse Christians ought not to forsake the Church of God and depart aside Concil Lao. dic Can. 35. Anno 364. and invocate Angels and make meetings which are things forbidden If any man therefore be found to give himselfe to this priuie Idolatry let him be accursed Merlin Edit 1530. fol. 68. Crab Edit 1538. fol. 216. This Canon makes so plainely against your Church doctrine that both Merlin and Crabbe as I have shewed have turned the word Angelos into Angulos and so by transposition of a letter say we must not leave the Church of God and have recourse to Angles or corners Heiron Epist ad Riparium And St. Heirom at the same time opposed Vigilantius and professeth of himselfe and the Catholike Christians of his time Wee doe not adore or worship the Reliques of Martyrs no nor the Sunne nor Moone nor Angels nor Archangels nor Cherubins nor Se raphins nor any name that is named in this world or in the world to come lest we should serve the creature rather then the Creator who is blessed for ever You see then by these few observations that you are righth descended from the Haeretikes in this point and accordingly you have swerved with them from the Catholike faith by excesse Wherefore I will conclude this Invocation with that memorable passage of St. Austin August lib. Confess 10. c. 42. Whom should I finde that might reconcile me unto thee should I have gone unto the Angels with what prayer with what Sacraments Many endeavouring to returne unto thee and not being able to doe it by themselves as I heare have tried these things and have fallen into the desire of curious visions and were accounted worthy of illusions From your Angell-like or Angelicall predecessors you proceede to the Cathari or Puritans These were Novations say you who out of pride and selfe conceits as if they were more cleane and holy did condemne Catholikes And doe not your Cloister Monkes so conceive of themselves who beleeve they doe more then God commanded and that they can supererrogate and doe they not condemne the Reformed Catholikes as the Novatians did To come neerer to you is not the proud generation of Merit-mongers derived from the Catharists Epiph. haeres 59. But saith Epiphanius whilst these men call themselves Puritans by this very ground they prove themselves to be impure for whosoever pronounceth himselfe to be pure doth therein absolutely condemne himselfe to be impure Againe touching your Predecessors who for bad Marriage I cited out of Epiphanius and St. Austin the Haeretikes Tatiani and the Manichees But say you That they did disallow it especially in Priests I doe not finde it in Epiphanius It is true neither did I cite him for it but I cited Saint Austin in the Margent which you wittingly omitted Aug. ep 74. Yet both Authors declare the Haeretikes to bee founders of your doctrine Continentiam viro hic praedicat nuptias autem scortationem corruptionem putat Epiph. haeres 46. 47. p. mihi 93.95 Auditores eorum ex carnibus vescuntur si voluerint uxores habent quorum nihil faciunt qui vocantur electi Aug. ep 74. Qui cum uxore exercent carnale commercium in carne sunt Deo placere non pessunt sancti esse non possunt Dist 82. cap. Proposuisti Epiphanius shewes that the Tatiani had two proper markes of your Church for their first Leader Tatianus accounted of Marriage as whoredome and corruption and forbad the eating of meates St. Austin likewise tells us that the Manichees did permit their hearers to eate flesh to use husbandry and to marry wives but those which were called Elect did use none of those things Now if those Elect were not the hearers they must needs be their Teachers and consequently their Priests And thus you have two forts of Haeretikes to defend your Monasticke life the one viz. the Tatiani who agree with Pope Innocent saying They which live in the flesh cannot please God neither can they be holy The other viz. the Manichees who permit Marriage to all but to their Priests Lastly touching the Collyridian Haeretikes so called from the Collyrides or cakes which certaine women used to offer to the blessed Virgin I say againe they were your first Leaders and particularly for this reason which you alledge to excuse your selves Because they did exceede the measure of honor due to our blessed Lady Pag. 99. And as touching the Antidico-Marianitae with which haeresie you charge us they were such who out of malice to the blessed Virgin being puffed up with pride or envy saith Epiphanius would possesse men Epiph. haeres 78 p. mihi 244. that after the birth of our Saviour Ioseph knew Marie which never Protestant to my knowledge ever taught or thought Therefore by way of prevention you put this as a scandall upon our Church to excuse your owne But the truth is we ascribe honour of preheminence unto that glorious person before all other vessells of blessednesse we proclaime it with the Angel Gabriel that she was highly favoured and blessed among women Luke 1.28 but withall we testifie with Epiphanius Christ said unto her woman what have I to doe with thee my hower is not yet come lest any man should thinke our Lady was of greater excellency Epiph. l. 3. haeres 79. contr Collyridianos he called her woman as it were prophecying of the kinds and sects of haeresies that were to come into the world lest any man having too great an opinion of that Holy Saint should fall into this haeresie and into the dotage of the same And as touching her perpetuall virginity that golden saying of St. Hierome against Helvidius we unfainedly professe and testifie with heart and voice Hleron contrà Helvidium That God was borne of a Virgin we beleeve because we reade it That Mary had Matrimoniall company with her husband after her delivery we doe not beleeve because we reade it not And to make good my assertion that you tread in the steps of those haeretikes which did exceede the measure of honor due unto our Lady first looke upon Epiphanius who opposeth this haeresie he tells us Although Mary be beautifull Epiph. l. 3. haeres 79. and holy and honourable yet is shee not to be
before he was yet borne dreamed that shee was delivered of a whelpe with a firebrand in his mouth with which he set the whole world on fire and your learned Doctors have interpreted this dreame that Dominick should be that dogge that should vomit out the fire which should consume the Haeretikes your infallible Pope likewise tells us that he saw in his sleepe the Church of St. John Lateran to totter and ready to fall Ibid. p. 562. and that St. Dominick supported it and held it up with his shoulders signifying thereby that he and those of his order should doe great good to the Catholike faith And howsoever these reports may passe for dreames yet this dog behaved himselfe so worthily in the persecution of those Christians that from that time forward the Monkes of his Order have bin alwayes imployed in the Inquisition Histor Wald. c. 2. But herein we may admire the great mercy and goodnesse of God unto this separate Church that notwithstanding this grievous persecution it was recorded by George Morell at that time a Pastor amongst the Waldenses that there were then remaining according to common report above eight hundred thousand persons that made profession of the same faith And thus breefely I have given you one company of men in former times distinct from yours If we looke beyond those times the Greeke Church was likewise separate from yours above eight hundred yeares agoe and differed in the points of Transubstantiation of Purgatory of private Masse of Prayer in an unknowne tongue of Marriage of Priests of the Communion in both kindes and the Popes Supremacy I say in all these they separated from your Church and this Church if you require Antiquity is before Rome in time if Vniversality she hath larger bounds and multitudes of people most of the Patriarchs seven universall Councels the Greeke tongue wherein the New Testament was written inso much as your Bishop of Bitonto was not ashamed publikely to professe It is our Mother Graecia Concil Trid. Episc Bitont unto whom the Latin Church is beholding for all that ever she hath And as touching the procession of the Holy Ghost which your men say they deny and therefore charge their Church with a knowne haeresie it may seeme rather that this is an aspersion laid upon them then any just exception Concil Florent Sess 35. For at the Councell of Florence about 200. yeares sithence your Pope Eugenius answered the Graeoians that he was well satisfied by them touching the procession of the Holy Ghost and that you may know they agreed with us in the principall points of our doctrine the Greeke Patriarch congratulates with the reformed Churches in this manner We give thanks to God the Author of all grace Patr. resp 2. in init resp 1. pag 148. and we rejoyce with many others but especially in this that in many things your doctrine is agreeable to our Church For a conclusion the Muscovites Armenians Aegyptians Aethiopians and divers other countries and Nations all members of the Greeke Church taught our doctrine from the Apostles time to ours This is so true an evidence in our behalfe that Bellarmine Bellarm. de ver Dei l. 2.6 ult in fine as it were in disdain of the Churches makes this answer We are no more moved with the examples of Muscovites Armenians Egyptians and Aethiopians then with the examples of Lutherans or Anabaptists and Calvinists for they are either Haeretikes or Schismatikes So that all Churches be they never so Catholike and Ancient if they subscribe not to the now Roman faith are either Schismaticall or Haereticall Thus I have briefely shewed you two sorts of Christians who were distinct from you and yet lived in the Communion of the Catholike Church I shewed you others also which lived and died in the bosome of the Roman Church but as farre different in opinion from your now professed Faith as those that went out from you The first sort separated themselves from your Church and Doctrine the latter continued in communion with you but separated themselves from the errors of prevayling faction in your Church the one sort you persecuted unto death for the other you cut out their tongues for speaking truth But you are not of it say you since the time you have begun to be against it And this you would inferre from Tertullian That us out of the mild fat and profitable Olive Tertull. de praescrip c. 36. the sower bastard Olive groweth so have errors fructified out of the true Church but became wild by untruth and lying degenerating from the graine of truth and so not yours and this doth fully answer the matter say you Surely if you compare the true and fruitfull Olive to your selves and us unto the bastard and wild Olive the matter as you say will be easily answered but this is to beg the point in question neither indeede can it be granted to you without a sinne against the Holy Ghost For the Spirit of God hath spoken it in particular to the Roman Church that Thou wert cut out of the Olive tree which is wild by nature Rom. 11.24 and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good Olive tree Now if the haeresies and errors which are compared to the wild Olive have sprung out of that good Olive tree into which you were first grafted or if the wild Olive is now returned to its owne nature I will say to you as sometimes Diogenes said to the Philosopher A me incipias erit verus sillogismus let the wild Olive be applied to your Church as it ought to be and the comparison will redound upon your selves and returne into your owne bosome From the Communion with your Church you question the Antiquity and Vniversality of those points wherein you differ from us and you would have me shew the deniall of them to have beene antiently and universally taught Pag. 121. Your demand to the first is unreasonable For it is sufficient for us that we professe that Faith which was once given to the Saints besides those new Articles which you thrust upon the Church are wholly yours and the proofe lies on your part to make good as being properly your owne on the other side to shew the deniall of them to have bin anciently taught is unsensible for the explicite deniall of them could not be taught till such Articles were offered and obtruded to us but the implicite deniall we prove by the positive doctrines of the Ancient Fathers which is incompatible with your new additions and corruptions From the Doctrine in generall you descend into the particulars and you say one of our Sacraments is an empty piece of Bread and a sup of wine Pag. 123. Hannibal of Carthage Cicero de Oratore lib. 2. when he heard Phormio the Orator talke pleasantly a long while together being afterwards demanded what he thought of his Eloquence made answer in this homely sort Multos se vidisse
deliros senes sed qui magis quà m Phormio deliraret vidisse neminem I will leave the application to your selfe and the interpretation to the Reader because you say I cannot translate Latin Some truth or modesty I should gladly heare from you but this is such an impudent Calumny as Bellarmine himselfe would have beene ashamed to have heard it fall from the Pen of any learned Papalin heare therefore what your owne men confesse of Calvin and others and what we professe in the name of our Church Your F. Kellison saith of Calvin Kellis Surney lib. 4. cap. 5. p. mihi 229. That if hee did meane as hee speaketh hee would not dispute with him but would shake hands with him as with a Catholike And then hee repeats Calvins words I say that in the Mysterie of the Supper by the signe of Bread and Wine is Christ truly delivered yea and his Body and his Blood And a little before those words hee giveth the reason Because saith he Christs words This is my Body are so plaine that unlesse a man will call God a deceiver hee can never be so bold as to say that hee setteth before us an emptie Signe This is likewise Bellarmines confession of him Bell de Euch. lib. 1. cap. 1. Non ergo vacuum inane signum It is no vaine and empty signe Thus you see your fellowes and you agree like Harpe and Harrow you say it is an empty peece of Bread they answer in Calvins behalfe and ours that it is not an empty signe Idem ibid. c. 8. Nay saith Bellarmine both Calvin and Oecolampadius and Peter Martyr doe teach the Bread is called Christs Body figuratively as being a signe or figure of his body but they adde withall it is no bare and empty figure but such as doth truely convey unto them the things signified thereby Bilson in the difference betwixt Subjection and Christistian Rebellion Part. 4. p. mihi 779. for which truthes sake Christ said not this Bread is a figure of my body but it is my body To give you an instance in some of our Church God forbid saith our learned Bilson wee should deny that the flesh and blood of Christ are truly present and truly received of the Faithfull at the Lords Table It is the Doctrine that wee teach others and wherewith wee comfort our selves Wee never doubted but the Truth was present with the Signe and the Spirit with the Sacrament as Cyprian saith Wee knew there could not follow an operation if there were not a presence before Neither doe I thinke you are ignorant of this but that you have inured your selfe to falsities and reproaches For it is apparently true that the question in these dayes is not of the truth of the presence but of the manner that is whether it be to the Teeth and the Belly or Soule and Faith of the Receiver And therupon our learned and Reverend B. Andrews returned his Answer to Bellarmine Wee beleeve the presence Wee beleeve B. Andrew ad Bell. Apol. Resp c. 1. p. mihi 11. I say the presence as well as you concerning the manner of the presence we doe not unadvisedly define nay more wee doe not scrupulously inquire no more than wee doe in Baptisme how the blood of Christ cleanseth us From the Sacraments you procceed to our two and twentie Bookes of Canonicall Scripture and indeed wee allow but two and twentie But will any Catholike say you allow this to have been Catholike Doctrine Yes without doubt Scil. Orig. in Exposit Psal 1. many good Catholikes did follow the Hebrew Canon of the Iewes which saith Origen compriseth but two and twentie bookes of the old Testament according to the number of the letters among them Melito Bellar. de verbo Dei l. 1. c. 20. Bishop of Sardis was a Catholike and saith Bellarmine hee did follow the Hebrew Canon of the Iewes Hilary Hilar. in Prolog in Psal explanat Bishop of Poictiers was a Catholike and he told us The old Testament was contained in two and twentie bookes according to the number of the Hebrew letters St. Cyril Cyril Catechis 4. Bishop of Hierusalem was a Catholike and hee gave us the like Lesson Peruse the two and twentie books of the old Testament but meddle not with the Apochrypha Athanasius Anthanas in Synops Bishop of Alexandria was a Catholike and affirmes that the Christians had a definite number of books comprehended in the Canon which were two and twentie equall to the number of the Hebrew letters Ruffinus was a Catholike Bellar. de verbo Dei l. 1. c. 20. and Bellarmine confesseth hee did follow the Hebrew Canon which conteined our two and twentie books Gregory Nazianzen was a Catholike Naz. Carm. Iamb ad Seleucum Iamb 3. and hee shewed to Seleucus a Catalogue of the Canonicall bookes and hee cites the bookes in order from Genesis to Malachie the last of the Prophets and leaveth out all the Apochrypha The Fathers of the Councell of Laodicea were Catholikes Concil Laod. cap. 59. and in the 59th Canon they allow onely those two and twenty bookes for Canonicall which wee receive There are others whom you terme Catholikes as namely Damascene Hugo de Sancto Victore Lyranus Hugo Cardinalis Tostatus Waldensis Driedo and Cajetan all which differ from your Tenet of the Apochryphall bookes which are canonized by your Trent Councell such agreement is there amongst your best learned touching the greatest point of your Beleefe and yet forsooth your Church cannot be depraved But here is one thing say you which giveth mee much cause of wonder which is that you talke of Traditions as distinct from Scripture I ever tooke you to be so fallen out with them that you made the deniall of them a fundament all point of your Religion that you would not indure the word Tradition but alwaies translated or rather falsified it into Ordinances Thus you It is a true saying of the Heathen Orator Cicero Hee who once goeth beyond the bounds of Modestie had need to be lustily impudent I protest I onely termed your Additions Traditions and you question our Church for false translating of the word And cannot wee indure the word Traditions Doe not we allow of all the Apostolicall Traditions which agree unto the Scriptures Nay more doe wee not translate the word Traditions in the Scripture when the Text will beare it according to the Greeke originall Looke upon the fifteenth of Matthew Matth. 15. v. 2 3 6. and in three severall verses 2 3 6. wee use the word Tradition Looke upon the seventh of Marke Marke 7. v. 3 8 9 13. and in foure severall places of that chapter you shall find likewise wee translate Traditions Looke upon Saint Paul to the Colossians Galatians and upon Saint Peter Colos 2.8 Galat. 1.14 1. pet 1.18 and in all these in the Translation joyned with your Rhemish Testament you shall find the word Traditions How
Iesuit who holdeth both may by his beliefe merit their holy sacrament of Penance for egregiously abusing Hugo de Sancto Victore and S. Ierome and his reader by making a Sacrament of a metaphor and out of them arguing thus wooddenly against the Knight Hugo hath a particular chapter wherein hee calleth Penance as wee doe with S. Ierome the second boord after shipwracke Ergo Penance is a Sacrament of the new Law doth he not deserve for concluding so absurdly to have the character of his owne sacrament indelebly imprinted upon his flesh To the thirteenth The Knight alledgeth not Bellarmine nor Hugo nor Peter Lombard nor Bonaventure nor Hallensis nor Altisiodorensis nor Suarez himselfe as if they expresly and in direct tearmes denied Extreame Unction to bee a sacrament this they doe not neither as things stood with some of them might doe safely the Roman Church having defined the contrarie Yet so great is the force of truth that what in words they affirme they consequently deny and thus much Suarez ingenuously confesseth some Suar. tom disp 39 sect 2. nonnulli negârunt hoci sacramentum fuisse à Christo institutum ex quo planè sequebatur non esse verum sacramentum saith hee have denied that this Sacrament was instituted by Christ whence it followeth by plaine consequence that it is no true Sacrament Yea but saith Flood if those Schoole-men had lived in this age they would have said that Christ did institute it Whereunto I answer that all Iudgements proceed ex allegatis probatis not allegandis probandis upon things alledged and proved not upon things to be alledged and proved in future times neither is it likely that they would have altered their opinion upon notice of the Trent decision for if the Church of France and divers other Romish Catholiques as they tearme them submit not at this day to all the Decrees of that Councell much lesse may it bee thought that those ancient and acute schoole Divines who bare the greatest sway in their times would have suffered themselves to baffled by the pretence of a pettie Councell charging her canons with nothing but paper-shot every Sacrament of the New Testament is supported with two pillars institution by Christ and a promise of justifying grace annexed to the due receivers thereof set downe in Scripture the former pillar the ancient Schoolemen take from Extreame Unction the later Bellarmine and Cajetan how then can it stand The Iesuit answereth upon a third pillar unwritten tradition But this I have proved before to be a weak and rotten one and to speake the truth it serveth Papists as pons Asinorum did the ancient Logicians to which they fly for shelter when all other helpe faileth them Albeit they bragge much of Scripture yet upon examination of particulars it will appeare that their new Trent Creed consisting of twelve supernumerarie Articles hath no foundation at all in Scripture and therefore they are forced for their support to fly to verbum Dei non scriptum an unwritten word of God which I would faine know of them how they prove to be Gods word Whether by Scripture or by unwritten tradition by Scripture they cannot say for it implies a flat contradiction that verbum non scriptum should be scriptum that unwritten traditions should be found in or founded on Scripture if they say they prove it to bee Gods word by tradition then they prove idem per idem the same thing by it selfe and build their faith upon a sillie sophisme called petitio prÃncipij the begging the maine point in question To the fourteenth In the allegation of Cardinal Bessario the Iesuit chargeth the Knight with ambiguous translation P. 225. and so placing the words that they may have a double sence the one to deceive the simple and the other to excuse himselfe against the objections of the learned and for this he pronounceth a woe against him vae peccatori terraâ— ingredienti duabus vijs Woe to the sinner going on the earth two wayes But the truth is as Pentheus after he was distracted imagined duplices se ostendere Phoebos Oresles apud Euripidem Electram sororem appellat Furiam quòd eam ne fureret in lectlo constringeret that hee saw two Sunnes when yet there was but one in the skie so the Iesuit in a fit of frantick malice imagined the Knight to goe two wayes whereas hee goeth but one and that a faire and streight way for he setteth the Latine words of the Cardinall without any adition or detraction in the margent haec duo sola sacramenta in Evangelijs manifestè tradita legimus and hee translateth them faithfully wee reade that these two Sacraments only were delivered us plainly in Scriptures hee rendereth not the words we reade plainly in Scriptures that there were two only Sacraments delivered unto us which had beene a misplacing of Bessarions words and mis-interpretation of his meaning bu wee reade that these two only were plainly delivered in the Gospell there is no more ambiguitie in the translation then in the originall which though it denieth not that other Sacraments may bee delivered in the Gospell yet it affirmeth that these two only are plainly delivered there and consequently that these two only are de fide matter of faith and upon paine of damnation to be beleeved for as I proved before out of S. Austine and S. Chrysostome all things that concerne faith and manners and are necessarie to salvation are plainly delivered in holy Scriptures To the fifteenth Some Papistsas Flood confesseth denie the foure inferiour Orders to be Sacraments P. 234. and Soto denieth the superiour what a confusion is here in your sacrament of order If the ordination of Bishops be not truly and properly a Sacrament as Dominicus Soto acknowledgeth neither is the ordination of Priests a Sacrament for what can be alledged more for the one then the other and if the ordination of Priests be no sacrament much lesse Deacons or subdeacons or Acolytes or Exorcists Whether there be the same character imprinted in the ordination of Bishops and Priests it is not materiall to our present question for if it be the same then it followeth according to the doctrine of the Schooles that they are one and the selfe-same Sacrament if a diverse character bee imptinted by the one and by the other then are they two distinct Sacraments If they are the same Sacraments then Soto denying the one consequently denieth the other to bee a Sacrament if they are distinct Sacraments then there are eight Sacraments Yea but saith the Iesuit Whither there bee a new character in a Bishop or the same extended is no matter of faith and therefore wee are not to dispute with you of it but keepe you off at the staffes end or rather out of doores when you are once admitted into the Catholique Church wee may admit you to speake of a Schoole-point or else not Wee know well that yee are loath that
we should heare of your differences among your selves but the fire of contention cannot bee kept within the walls of your Schooles quis enim celaverit ignem Lumine qui semper proditur ipse suo it breaketh out and if ye looke not to it it will set on fire the whole fabrick of your Romish Babel Meane while the Iesuit giveth us great incouragement to desire to bee admitted into the Roman Church because then forsooth wee shall have leave to tread the endlesse mazes of scholasticall disputes To the sixteenth If Soto come short Durand commeth home to the point in question for hee affirmeth that which is alledged by the Knight and confessed by the Iesuit that Matrimonie is not a Sacrament univocally if not univocally not truly and properly but equivocally or analogically Yea but saith the Iesuit all acknowledge it for anerror in Durand hee saith all but hee names none Surely the Divines of the reformed Church acknowledge it for no error in Durand but defend it for a truth and for such Romish Divines that adhere to the Councell of Trent they are but a faction in the Church nor is their authoritie more to be urged against the Doctours of the reformed Churches then the authoritie of the Doctours of the reformed Churches against them which yet if any should produce against any of the Articles of their new Creed they would not vouchsafe them so much as a looke For the definition of the Church in the Councel of Florence which the Iesuit toucheth upon it is of little or no authoritie because that Councell was not general nor called by lawfull authoritie but by the schismaticall Pope Eugenius the fourth who was deposed by a generall Councell held at Basil To the seventeenth Because the Iesuit is forbidden by the Popes law to tast of the fruits of Matrimonie at which it seemes his mouth waters hee is content to let the tree fall to the ground for want of support To Cardinal Cajetan who gave a strong push at it by denying that it can be proved to bee a Sacrament Out of the words of S. Paul Ephesians the fift hee answereth nothing but with ifs if it be not proved out of that place it may be out of others if out of no other yet out of tradition to his ifs I returne fies fie for shame that they should bind all their followers under paine of a heavie curse to beleeve this Sacrament of Matrimonie and yet know not where to ground this their beliefe upon Scripture or tradition If it may be proved to bee a sacrament out of S. Paul Ephes 5. their most learned Cardinal Cajetan is out if it may not be proved out of those words Cardinal Bellarmine and almost all Papists that wrote since Cajetan are in an errour The Iesuit holdeth a Wolfe by the eare hee dares neither hold with Cajetan nor against him but puts the matter off with an iff If it cannot be proved to bee a Sacrament out of that passage as Cajetan affirmeth yet it may bee out of other texts What texts why doth he not name them it is a signe hee feareth his coyne is counterfeit that hee dare not bring it to the test If that place which seemeth to make most for his Romish tenet make nothing at all as the acute Schooleman and most learned Cardinal Cajetan confesseth there is no likelihood that other texts which have lesse appearance will stand them in any stead and therefore for his last refuge he flyeth to unwritten traditions as the old Dunces as I noted before ad pontem asinorum To the eighteenth Canus puts a strong sharpe weapon in our hands to wound your Trent doctrine concerning Matrimonie Canus loc Theol l. 8. c. 5. in materiâ formâ hujus Sacramenti viz. Matrimonij statuendâ adeò sunt inconstantes varij aà eò incerti ambigui ut ineptus juturus sit quis in tantâ illorum varietate discrepantiâ rem aliquam certam constantem exploratam conetur afferre but withall forbiddeth us to strike with it as the Iesuit Flood telleth us as if we were at his beck and might not use our weapons as wee list But let him know though he be so foolish as to give advantage wee will not bee so childish as to leave it If that bee true which he writeth that the Divines of Rome write so uncertainly of the matter and forme of Matrimonie that it were folly in any to goe about to reconcile these differences and determine any thing certaine in the point we will inferre upon him that it is likewise folly to define Matrimonie to be a Sacrament for if the matter and forme of Matrimonie bee so unknowne as hee saith the genus of it must needs be unknowne For the genus as Porphyrie teacheth is taken from the matter L. de praedicab c. de genere and answereth thereunto as the difference is taken from the forme If the genus be uncertaine how can it bee an article of faith that matrimonium is species sacramenti The whole nature of a thing consisteth of matter and forme which if it bee unknowne the specificall essence is unknowne and if the specificall essence be unknowne how can it be ranked in his predicament under its proper genus What Papist soever therefore defineth Matrimonie and putteth it under a Sacrament as the proper genus Canus putteth the foole upon him take it off when you can To the nineteenth Vasquez giveth the Iesuits cause not so light a blow as hee imagineth in saying that where S. Austine calleth Matrimonie a sacrament hee taketh the word Sacrament in a large sense and not in the strict and proper for if S. Austine bee so to be understood he held not Matrimonie a sacrament properly so called but in a large sence onely and if that were his judgement we have a great advantage of our Adversaries in the cause for S. Austine carrieth a great stroake not only because hee is held the acutest of all the ancient Fathers and father of all the Schoolemen but especially because the Pope in the Canon law professeth Augustinum sequimur in disputationibus Wee follow for the most part saith Pope Gelasius S. Ierome in the interpretation of Scripture S. Gregorie in matter of moralitie but S. Austine in point of controversie Yea but saith Flood this is but Vasquez his private and singular opinion concerning S. Austine Neither doth the Knight otherwayes urge it then as the singular opinion of a singularly learned Iesuit enforced by evidence of truth to give over their chiefest hold of antiquitie in this point the authoritie of S. Austine Well be it so saith Flood Vasquez is so farre for you yet we have an Oliver for a Rowland Bellarmine for Vasquez for this opinion of Vasquez is contradicted by other Catholique Divines and by Bellarmine in particular Where is then the unitie our Adversaries so much bragge of two of the greatest Champions of the Pope Vasquez and
integritie of corporall refection and the example of Christ it were more convenient to have the Communion under both kindes the Knight hearkeneth to him but where hee lispeth in the language of Ashdod saying that in consideration of the reverence due to this Sacrament it is ill and inconvenient to communicate in both kindes the Knight had reason to turne a deafe eare to him for it is cosin germane to blasphemie to say that is ill and inconvenient which Christ and his Apostles and the whole Church in all places for more then a thousand yeares practised the Knight might well say to Tapperus in the words of him in the Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will be sober with you but I will not runne madde with you To the twelfth For the statute made in the dayes of that Phoenix of his age King Edward the sixt the meaning is unlesse among the people there bee some that either by a naturall antipathie to wine or other infirmitie cannot receive the Sacraments in both kindes it is ordained that it be delivered to every one in both kindes cessante ferreâ necessitate obtinet haec aurea regula that all receive the whole Sacrament in which the Statute and the articles of Religion published first in the reigne of this blessed Prince fully accord For so wee reade Article the thirtieth both parts of the Lords Sacrament by Christs ordinance and command ought to bee ministred to all Christian people alike To the thirteenth That every article of faith ought to have sufficient proofe out of Scripture is proved by innumerable testimonies of antiquitie produced by Philip Morney in his Preface to his booke De Eucharistia Bilson of Supremacie part the fourth Abbot against Bishop chapter the seventh and Laurentius de disp Theolog Neither doth S. Ierome any way contradict them or us for wee beleeve that the consent of the whole Christian Church is an infallible argument of truth Albeit wee teach that any particular Church as namely the Roman or the French or the Dutch or the Greeke Church may erre yet we denie that the catholique Church universally hath ever erred or can erre in matter of faith necessarie to salvation and further I adde for conclusion that as the words of S. Ierome alledged by the Iesuit make nothing against us so if they bee applied to our present subject they make most strongly against him being propounded after this manner Although the authoritie of holy Scripture were wanting for the Communion in both kindes which is not so yet the consent of the whole world on this side testified by their uniforme practise confessed by Papists themselves ought to have the force of a divine Precept and so there would bee an end not only of this Section as the Iesuit speaketh but of this whole Controversie Concerning Prayer in an unknowne tongue Spectacles Sect. 6. a pag. 259. usque ad 283. THe Knight falsly chargeth the Councell of Trent with approving prayer in the vulgar tongue for though the Councell saith that the Masse containeth great instruction yet it doth not say that it ought to bee in the vulgar tongue nay contrarily it pronounceth an anathema against any whosoever shall say that the Masse ought to bee celebrated in the vulgar tongue It hath beene the generall practise and custome in the Church of God of having the Masse and the publike office in Latine all over the Latine and Westerne Church both in Italie Spaine France Germanie England Africa and all other places and so likewise in Greeke in the Graecian or Easterne Church though it were as large in extent and had as much varietie of languages in it as the Latine Church hath Vniformitie which is fit to be used in such things and unitie of the Catholique Church is excellently declared and also much maintained by this unitie of language in the Church office The use of vulgar tongues in the Masse or Church office would cause not only great confusion but breed an infinite number of errours by many severall translations The use of vulgar language in such things would breed a great contempt of sacred things with prophanenesse and irreligiositie besides the danger of heresie which commeth no way sooner then by misunderstanding of holy Scripture The place of Scripture alledged by the Knight concerning announcing our Lords death is not understood by words but by deeds as is most plaine by the circumstances The text of S. Paul where he asketh how hee that understandeth not the prayers shall say Amen is not of the publike prayers of the Church which no man can doubt of either for the truth or goodnesse and therefore he may confidently say Amen to them but of private prayers made by private and Laye men extempore in an unknowne tongue Haymo requireth not that all that are present at Divine service should understand but only that he that supplieth the place of the idiot or Laye-man in answering for the people should bee so farre able to understand as to answer Amen at the end of every prayer Iustinian the Emperour is ordinarily taxed for taking too much upon him in Ecclesiasticall matters yet all that hee saith may bee well maintained without prejudice to the present practise of the Roman Church for in the Decree alledged by the Knight hee requireth nothing more but that Bishops and Priests should pronounce distinctly and clearely that which according to the custome of the Easterne Church was to bee spoken aloud The Canon law capite quoniam in plerisque requireth only that where divers Nations are mingled that the Bishop of the Citie should substitute one in his roome to celebrate the divine Office and administer the Sacraments according to their ownerites and language for indeed it is a matter of necessitie in administration of some Sacraments to use the vulgar language as in Mariage and Penance but not so of other things Lyra Belithus Gretzer Harding Cassander and the rest of the Authours quoted by the Knight say indeed that in the beginning Prayers were in the vulgar tongue but the reason was because those three holy languages Hebrew Greeke and Latine dedicated on the crosse of Christ were then most vulgar none of them speake a word of any Precept There is no precept in the Scripture commanding prayers in a knowne tongue or forbidding in an unknowne whose authority or example can you bring for your selfe in this matter name him if you can It was more needfull in the Primitive Church that the people should understand because they were to answer the Priest which now is not so as Bellarmine noteth because that belongs only to the Clarke That the Knight contradicteth himselfe in one place saying That the alteration of the Church service was occasioned by certaine Shepheards who in the dayes of Honorius having learned the words of Consecration by heart pronounced them over their Bread and Wine in the fields and thereby Transubstantiated them into flesh and bloud and for this prophane abuse were strucken
Supper without the words shew forth or as he speaketh announce the death of our Lord for Bread is broken and Wine poured out at common meales yet our Lords death is not thereby declared both must concurre mysterious rites and sacred formes of words lively to present Christs death The Knights argument therefore standeth firme The Sacraments ought so to bee celebrated that by them the Lords death might bee shewed forth but it cannot be shewed forth unlesse the Evangelicall storie and especially the words of the Institution be pronounced in a language that may be understood For to speake Latine to the people that understand it not is surdo narrare fabulam to tell a tale to a deafe man or to set a beautifull picture before him that is blind or in the Knights phrase to speake to a wall at which notwithstanding the Iesuit ridiculously carpeth saying I never heard before that it was all one to speake Latine and to speake to a wall were hee according to our English proverbe as wise as a wall hee could not but understand what was the Knights meaning to wit that to speake Latine prayers and exhortations as Papists doe at their Masse to those who understand them not is no better then to speake to so many walls when the Apostle touching upon the same string the Knight doth 1 Cor. 14.9 tearmeth the uttering words in an unknowne tongue as speaking into the ayre This Iesuit in the spirit of Lucian might in like manner have jeared at the Apostle saying I never heard that to speake in an unknowne tongue bee it Greeke Latine or Hebrew is to speake to the ayre The meaning of both phrases to speake to a wall and to speake into the ayre is all one to lose a mans breath to speake idlely and unprofitably or to no end and purpose when no man is the better for it as the Iesuit afterwards confesseth saying The other reason from the Apostle is that those which heare a prayer in a strange language are nothing the better for it nor can say Amen unto it What then can the common people bee the better for hearing popish Mattens or even-song which are chaunted in Latine a language which they understand not To the seventh Admit the Apostle in that place spake not of publike prayers but rather of private extemporarie devotion yet the reasons he there useth against prayer in an unknowne tongue are as forcible against publike as private ptayers For if wee may not pray without understanding or speake into the ayre in our private devotions much lesse in our publike But the truth is the Apostle speaketh evidently of publike prayers and all the parts thereof first of petitions v. 15. secondly of giving of thanks v. 17. thirdly of prophecying and interpreting of Scriptutes v. 4. fourthly of singing Psalmes v. 15. and all this when the whole Church bee come together in one place v. 23. Moreover he speaketh of prayers made in the Church v. 19. of the edification of others v. 12.26 and of blessings also wherein the people are to joyne with the Priest v. 16. and what can such prayers benedictions hymnes and thankes-givings bee other then parte of the publike Liturgie in the Church in those dayes Yea but saith the Iesuit hee cannot speake of the publike prayers of the Church which no man can doubt either for the truth or goodnesse of them and therefore hee may confidently say Amen to them though they bee uttered in an unknowne tongue I answer that the Apostle here speaketh not of confidently saying Amen but understandingly saying it which no man can doe who is utterly ignorant of the tongue in which the Priest prayeth Hos de verb Dei I beleeve what the Church beleeveth the Church beleeveth what I beleeve And howsoever none of the coliers implicite circnlar faith can make any doubt of the truth or goodnesse of the prayers said in the Masse yet those whose eyes are not put out with the Romish coale dust may very well doubt of them first they may well doubt whether the Church of Rome which appointeth them may not erre as other Churches have done especially considering what the Apostle speaketh expresly of that Church Rom. 11.22 Vid. Bull. praefix breviar Rom. Melcbior loc theol l. 11. c. 5. nec enim animus est meri omnes historias quae passim in ecclcsiâ loctitantur Claudius Espen in 2. ad Tim. c. 4. digres 2. nostri quantum me pigeant falsa in ecclesia Dei cantica canentes quantae nugae canore mihi audibiles in uno hymno praeter ineptitudinem sententiarum mendacia ad minus 24. reperi Petrus Pictau ep 31. conqueritur inepta ac falsa in laudem Sancti Mauri super aquas currentis afficta that if shee continued not in her goodnesse shee should be cut off Secondly hee may doubt whether all those corruptions and abuses which the Fathers in the Councell of Trent complaine to have crept into their Masse are reformed Thirdly he may doubt whether the Priests booke may not bee some-where false printed Lastly he may doubt whether the Priest alwayes reades true surely that Priest who baptized a child in nomine patria filia spiritua sancta and another who read in the Doxologie glia pni flo spui sco scutrat in primpo scla sclorum Amen said Masse by rote and could not have skill of brachygraphy nor well spell Latine and can no man then doubt of the truth and goodnesse of any of the prayers that are said by your Masse-priests To the eighth The shaft which the Knight draweth out of Haymo his quiver flieth home For first he expresly teacheth that S. Paul speaketh of publike prayers 1 Cor. 14. and among other reasons used by the Apostle against the conceiving of prayers in an unknowne tongue hee insisteth upon that v. 16. when thou shalt blesse with the spirit how shall hee that occupieth the Roome of the unlearned say Amen at the giving of thankes seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest adding if one knoweth that onely tongue wherein hee was borne and bred if such an one stand by thee whilest thou dost solemnly celebrate the mysterie of the Masse or make a Sermon or give a blessing how shall hee say Amen at thy blessing when hee knoweth not what thou sayest for asmuch as hee understanding none but his mothers tengue hee cannot tell what thou speakest in that strange and barbarous tongue Hereunto the Iesuit answereth that if wee take Haymo altogether wee shall find hee doth not require that all that are by shall understand but that hee that supplieth the place of the idiot or laye-man in answering for the people shall understand An answer befitting an idiot indeed for doth not S. Paul 1 Cor. 14.16 and after him Haymo speake indefinitly of any that occupie the place of the unlearned or standeth by at Service or Sermon in an unknowne tongue or is it lesse absurd for any
Service they thought to be fittest and most agreeable to Gods commandement If wee had nothing but their practise for us it alone would prove the visibilitie of our Church in this maine point wherein wee stand at a bay with the Roman Church but the truth is though the Iesuit would bee loath to heare it his owne witnesses Cassander Belithus Waldensis and Aquinas speake home to the point even of a Precept the words of Cassander are the Canonicall prayers and especially the words of Consecration of the body and blood of our Lord the Ancients did so read that all the people might understand it and say Amen according to the precept intimated by the Apostle 1 Cor. 14. 16. The words of Belithus are that in the Primitive Church it was forbidden that any should speake with tongues unlesse there were some to interpret for what saith hee should speaking availe without understanding Waldensis saith more then that in the Apostles time the giving of thankes was in a knowne tongue he confirmeth the practise with a reason saying There was reason it should bee so because in those times not only the Priests but the people also were wont to answer Amen Aquinas goeth a step farther that it was madnesse in the Primitive Church for a man to have prayed in an unknowne tongue because then the people were rude and ignorant in Ecclesiasticall rites Now if the Iesuit thinke that it was not prohibited in the Apostles time to doe any madde act in time of divine Service he himselfe is bound for the Anticyrae Now for that the Iesuit addeth for the imbellishing of his former answer that none of the vulgar languages but the three learned to wit the Hebrew Greeke and Latine were Dedicated on the crosse of Christ and consequently that they being the best and perfectest of all languages were fittest for divine Service to be said in them it is more plausible then substantiall For though I grant that every devout soule so affecteth the person of our Lord and Saviour that shee loveth the very ground hee trod upon and honoureth those languages above all other in which his titles were proclaimed for the greater advancement of his kingdome yet the reason holdeth not in our present case For though a golden key bee simply better then a key of iron yet a key of iron which will open to us a casket of most pretious Iewells is better for that use then a key of gold which will not open the lock Admit the originall languages of Greeke and Hebrew are simply perfecter and better then any other which are derivatives from them yet the Mother-tongue or vulgar language is better and fitter for the congregation in time of divine Service because it answereth the wards of their understanding and openeth to their capacity the Divine mysteries then celebrated which the learned languages cannot doe As for Pilats writing over the Crosse it is certaine he had no end therein to honour the three Languages with this title but to dishonour our Saviour thereby and put a scorne upon him and therefore that inscription in the three languages was rather a pollution then a Dedication of those tongues If Pilats action herein bee of any force it maketh rather against then for our Adversaries For Pilat therefore commanded the title to be written in those three languages that it might be understood of all or the greater part of those that then were at Ierusalem By which reason people of divers languages ought to have their mysteries for so the Iesuit calleth this title celebrated in their owne severall langurges Praef. in psal his maximè tribus linguis sacramentum voluntatis Dei beati regni expectatio praedicatur ex eoque illud Pilati fuit ut in his tribus linguis regem Iudaeorum Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum esse praescriberet S. Hilarie who is alledged by Baylie the Iesuit for the consecration of these tongues neither saith that these tongues were consecrated by that inscription not that Christs kingdome is to be proclaimed in them only His words are in these three languages especially the mysterie of Gods will and the expectation of his blessed kingdome is preached and hence it was that Pilat wrote our Lord Iesus Christ King of the Iewes in those three tongues This testimonie cutteth the throate of our Adversaries for the adverbe maximè or chiefly implieth that the mysteries of Christs kingdome were to be preached in other tongues though in these especially because these were then and are some of them at this day most generally knowne and understood Inc. 15 Marc. Deus voluit ut causa mortis Christi varijs linguis scriberetur quo ab omnibus intelligeretur Et Hieron ib. hae tres linguae in crucis titulo conjunctae ut omnis lingua commemoraret perfidiam Iudaeorum Baron tom 10 Anno Chris 880. ep 147. liter as Slavonicas à Constantino philosopho repertas quibus Deo laudes debitas resonent jure laudamus ut in cadem lingua Christi Dei nostri praeconia opera enarrentur jubemus neque enim trilus tantùm linguis sed omnibus Dominum laudare authoritate sacrâ monemur quae praecepit dicens laudate Dominum omnes gentes nec sanè fidei vel doctrinae allquid obstat five missas in eadem Slavonica lingua canere sive sacrum evangelium vel lectiones divinas N. V. Testamenti benè translatas interpretatas legere out alia horarum officia psallere quoniam qui fecit tres linguas principales Hebraeam scilicet Graecaem Latinam ipse creavit alias omnes ad laudem gloriam suam Lyra and S. Ierome harpe upon this string God would have saith Lyra that the cause of Christs death should bee written in divers tongues that every tongue might declare the trecherie of the Iewes and which marreth all the Iesuits musick the Popes Diapason soundeth out the same note for so wee reade in Bope Iohns Epistle to the King of Moravia we commend the Slavonian letters found out by Constantine the Philosopher whereby those of that countrey set forth the due prayses of God and we command that the preaching and workes of Christ our God bee declared in them for we are admonished by the Divine authoritie which commandeth saying Prayse the Lord all yee Gentiles to prayse the Lord not in three tongues only but in all for hee who made the three principall languages Hebrew Greeke and Latine hee created also all other for his glorie To the twelfth To this insolent interrogation of the Iesuit wee answer that in generall prayer in an unknowne tongue is commanded in all those texts of Scripture which require us to come neere unto God and pray unto him with our heart For by the heart the understanding as well as the will and affections are meants as appeareth by that prayer of Solomon Da mihi cor intelligens in particular and expresse words it is commanded in the 1
that shining with theright faith and vertuous workes we may attaine to the kingdome of heaven To the ninth Were the grave authours the Iesuit speaketh of authenticall and these stories gospell yet the Adversarie would gaine nothing thereby nor we lose For we are none of the Iconomachi that bid battell to Images and knock them downe wheresoever they find them with battle-axes Forbeare the representation of the invisible Deity and blessed Trinitie and remove all scandall from the people and perill of idolatrie and let the images and pictures of Christ and his Saints stand where they doe for memorie historie and beautifying and adorning the walls and windowes Wee dislike it not as the Iesuit may reade in our bookes and see in our Churches and houses But the truth is neither are the stories of credit nor the authours of them of that account as the Iesuit would have them Comment in 2 Timoth. Of some of them wee may truly say as Espencaeus doth of Nicephorus that they are in these relations si non mendaces saltem audaces if not altogether fabulous yet very audacious for the image sent to King Abgarus it is of no more credit then the letter sent with it which the Romish Church as all other Christians hold to bee Apochrypha were it Canonicall it should make a part of the New Testament And for the second we cannot but wipe our eyes in bewayling their folly who beleeve that Christ by wiping his face as hee was carrying his Crosse should imprint his image in his handkerchiefe Yea but these images are confirmed by wonderfull miracles wrought by them I answer first out of Biel upon the canon of the Masse Dist in prophano cultu Diabolus plurimùm delectatur quantum valet cooperatur ac assistit apparentibus miraculis Cic. in Ver. act 6. multa prodigia vim ejus numenque declarant Strab. l. 8. Geograph Espenc loc sup cit daemonum spectris mulierum somnijs parum verecundè utchantur Edwin Sands discourse of his Travels Apolog Herodoti per R. Stev that the Divell is much delighted in prophane worship such is your worship of images and helpeth it forward as much as hee can by seeming miracles next that this was the heathens plea for their worshipping of images for Tully speaking of the image of Ceres in Sicily saith many wonders doe shew the divine vertue thereof and the Graecians as Strabo writeth used to set upin tables the diseases cured by Aesculapius in Epidaurius as the Papists at this day doe the diseases cured by the image of the blessed Virgin in Lauretto Thirdly that learned Papists finde much fault with the seventh generall Councell for founding the worshipping of images upon the delusion of Divels and old wives tales and dreames Lastly most of the Popish legendary stories in this kind may easily be proved to bee no miracles of God nor wrought by sorcerie or enchantment through the power of Satan but to be meere impostures wrought by their Priests who are the greatest juglers in the world in this kind To the tenth S. Austine maketh great account of this speech of Varro for hee twice maketh mention of it in this fourth booke First chapter the ninth L. 4. De civit Dei c. 9. Varroni simulacra ita displicuerunt ut cum tantae civitatis perversâ consuetudine premeretur nequaquam tamen dicere scribere dubitaret quòd hi qui populis instituerunt simulacra metum dempserunt errorem addiderunt Varro was so farre out of love with images that though hee were pressed with the perverse custome of so great a City as Rome was yet hee made no bones both to say and write that they who first brought in Images both tooke away religious feare of God and added errour to boote and in his thirtie one chapter he hath this memorable observation the Romans worshipped their gods more then a 170. yeares without images and if they had done so still saith hee the gods had beene more chastly or purely worshipped by them Yea but the Iesuit with a wet finger turneth over these passages as if nothing were said by S. Austine or Varro to the prejudice of their images shrines or Altars for S. Austine by Simulacrum meaneth not animage but an Idoll not the representation of the true but a resemblance of false and feigned deities The distinction of image and idoll I have before refelled nothing remaines for the refutation of this answer of the Iesuit but that I shew out of S. Austine De fide Symb. c. 7. nec id ipsum quod sedêre pater dicitur flexis po litibus fiert purandumest tale simulacrum Deo nefas est Christianoin Templo â—â— locare that by Simulacrum hee meaneth any image even of the true God And not to trouble the reader with many instances those words of his in his Treatise of faith and the Creed clearely convince the Iesuit Wee must not think saith he that God the Father who is said to sit sitteth in heaven-with bowed knees as a man sitteth in a chaire such a simulacrum or image it is not lawfull to set up in the Temple of Christians had the Iesuit but perused the chapter pointed to by the Knight to which he professeth to give a direct answer hee would have given himselfe the lye and checked his former interpretation of S. Austines words for immediatly after the former period the Father addeth that Varro in proofe of his assertion alledgeth the custome of the Iewish nation Hujus sententiae suae testem adhibet gentem Iudaeam Vnum Deum à quo mundum crederet gubernari sine simulacre colendum censuit and a little after he saith that Varro thought that God by whom hee beleeved the world was governed ought to be worshipped without an image by which words it is evident that by simulacra hee meant not only the images of false gods which alone the Iesuit calls Idolls but also of the true God For the Iewes whose custome hee bringeth in for himselfe abhorred all Images or Pictures even of the true God and Varro himselfe by that Governour of the world whom hee would have to bee worshipped without an image meant the true God as S. Austine himselfe testifieth of him Howsoever the title which hee there giveth him of anima mundi or soule of the world soundeth harshin a Christian eare yet S. Austine alloweth of Varro his assertion or opinion as comming neerer to the truth then other of the heathen Phiosophers in that hee taught but one God and him to bee not materiall or corporeall but of a spirituall and invisible substance and therefore not to bee drawne with pensill or counterfeited with colours without errour or impietie To the eleventh Eusebius relateth the storie of Veronica her statue dedicated to the memorie of Christs miraculous cure wrought upon her with approbation there of as being a lasting monument and standing testimonie of her gratitude to
the bad Popes To the thirteenth The Knight after Alfonsus quoted Antoninus Cajetan and Bellarmine to prove the noveltie of Indulgences and that there is no ground for them in Scriptures or the writings of the ancient Fathers to whom the Iesuit answereth not a word and here the second time hee is Gravelled in this Section To Alfonsus hee seemeth to say something but upon due examination as good as nothing first hee falsifieth his words saying page 334. that Alfonsus confesseth the use of Indulgences to be most ancient and of many hundred yeares standing whereas his words are not that the use of Indulgences was most ancient but that it was said by some to be most ancient among the Romanes Apud Romanos vetustissimus praedicatur illarum usus this praedicatur is of no more credit than Plinie his fertur or Solinus his aiunt For notwithstanding this report Alfonsus resolves in that very place It seemes that the use of Indulgences came but lately into the Church Secondly the Iesuit forceth a wrong Inference from Alfonsus his words For albeit hee affirmeth that Indulgences are not to be contemned because they have beene in use in the Church for some hundreds of yeares yet hee condemneth not a man for an Haeretique that shall deny them but any one that shall contemne the Church or despise her autority his words are Quoniam ecclesiâ Catholicâ tantae est authoritatis ut qui illam contemnat Haereticus meritò censeatur we say the same also Matth. 18.17 and the Scripture beareth us out in it tell the Church and if he refuse to heare the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen or a Publican but what if Alphonsus out of feare blowes hot and cold with one breath what 's that to us He lived and died a professed Papist and therefore what he writeth against Protestants is little to be set by but what he writeth against the Church of Rome whom he had a minde to defend in all things and whose feed advocate he was must be thougt to be drawne from him by evidence of truth howsoever let it be noted that Alphonsus calleth not him an Haereticke who denieth Indulgences as the Knight doth Vid. Rain Thes Romana ecclefia nec est Catholica nec sanum membrum Catholicae ecclesie but who contemneth the Catholike Church which neither the Knight nor any Protestant doth we deny not much lesse doe we contemne the authority of the Catholike Church But we deny that the Roman Church is the Catholike or a sound member thereof To the fourteenth Our Ministers doe not like Flood and other Iesuits bring muddy stuffe in their sermons out of Petrus de Voragine and the like fabulous Authors but what they produce in this kinde against the Pope for his base sale of Indulgences and making merchandize of his ghostly power they proove out of good Authors grave Historians Canonists and Schoolemen such as are the author of the lives of Popes and the booke called Taxa camerae Apostolicae Centum granamina together with Wescelius Croningensis Guicciardine Henricus de Gandavo Altisiodorensis If Altisiodorensis words are not plaine enough Summ l. 4. d. relap Dicunt quidam quod relaxatio non valeat quantum ecclesia permittit sed facit ut excitentur fideles ad dandum et decipit eos ecclesia some say that the Popes Indulgence prevailes not so much as the Church promiseth but that thereby men are stirred up to give more freely and that therein the Church deceaveth them what say they to that note in Taxa camerae Apostolicae Nota diligenter quod hujusmodi gratiae non consceduÌ„tur pauperibus quia non sunt nec possunt consolari Matth. par in Hen. 3. Romanorum loculos impregnare note diligently that such favours to wit Indulgences are not graunted to poorâ— folke because they have not wherewithall they cannot be comforted or that pregnant phrase of Matthew Paris that Christs blood alone though it be all sufficient to save soules yet the same without saintly satisfaction applied by the Pope is not sufficient to impregnate his holinesse Coffers If the Iesuit smell not in thâ—se sentences the fat steame of the Popes Kitchin he hath no nose To the fifteenth It is well the Iesuit termeth the drinking of a health to Almighty God a tale and by his quoting no authouâ— or it sheweth that it was a signal lye of his owne inventing when he was betweene hawke and buzzard Never any but himselfe who can blush at nothing affirmed any such thing of any Protestant that ever came to that height of impiety and prophannes as to drinke a health to his Maker Historia Ital. l. 13. Leo nullo temporum et locorum habito delectu per universam orbem amplissima privilegia quibus non modo vinis delictorum veniam consequendi sed defunctorum animus ejus ignis in quo delicta expiari dicuntur paenis eximendi facultatem pollicebatur promulgavit quae quia pecuniae tantum a mortalibus extorquendae gratia concedi notum erat a questoribus huiâ— negotio praefectis impudenter administrabantur magnam plerisque locis indignationem offensionemque concitarant presertim in Germania ubi a multis ex ejus ministris hujusmodi mortuos penis liberandi facultas parvo pretio vendi vel in canponum tabernis aleae subiici cernebantur but Luitprandus and Polonus telleth us of one Iohn the twelfth a Pope of Rome and consequently no Protestant who made so bold with Almighty God as to give Orders in a Stable and so familiar with the Divell as to drinke a health to him As for the Knights prophane jeast as he calleth it it is no jeast but a serious testimony out of a grave historian convincing the Popes agents of Atheisme and prophannes and the Popes themselves of sordid covetousnesse his words are Leo published large privileges through the whole world without any distinction of times and places by which he promised not onely pardon to the living but also power to deliver soules of the dead out of Purgatory paines which because it was knowne that they were granted onely to fill the Popes coffers and because his farmers carried themselves lewdly in the sale of them great offence was taken at them especeally in Germanie where such Indulgences were set at a low price and seene to be staked in Tavernes and Ale-houses at games of Tables To the sixteenth The Trent Synod was not a Councell but a Conventicle wholly swayed by the Italian faction wherein not the flower of the Catholique Church for learning but the bran of the Romish boulted by the Pope was gathered together Let Andreas Dudithius the Bishop of Quinque eccles Ep. ad Maximil who was present at this Councell speake his minde of it the matter came to that passe through the wickednesse of those hungry Bishops that hung upon the Popes sleeve and were created on the suddaine by the Pope for
to which we owe absolute consent and beliefe Vid. August supr cit without any question or contradiction To the two and twentieth Saint Austine defends no point of Faith against Heretikes either onely or chiefly by the Tradition and practise of the Catholike Church but either onely or chiefly by the Scriptures For example in his booke of Baptisme against the Donatists after hee had debated the point by Scriptures hee mentioneth the custome of the Church and relateth Stephanus his proceeding against such as went about to overthrow the ancient custome of the Catholike Church in that point But hee no where grounds his Doctrine upon that custome though hee doth well approve of it as wee doe Againe in his booke against Maximinus and his 174 Epist to Pascentius hee confirmeth the faith of the Trinity by the written Word against those Heretikes his words Ep. 175 Haec siplacet audire quemadmodum è Scripturis sacris asserantur to the same Pascentius are Here thou maist heare if thou wilt how these points of our Faith are maintained by Scripture So farre is hee from founding those or any other points of faith only or chiefly upon unwritten Traditions What the Iesuit alleageth out of his tenth booke De Genes ad literam cap. 23. Consuetudo matris Ecclesiae in baptizandis parvulis nequaquam spernendus est neque ullo modo superflua deputanda no whit advantageth his cause for there Saint Austine saith no more but The custome of the Church in baptizing Infants is no way to be despised or to be accounted superfluous Wee all say the same and condemne the Pelagians of old and Anabaptists of late who deny Baptisme to be administred to children or any way derogate from the necessitie of that Sacrament The Iesuit saith hee will say nothing of Prayer for the dead yet hee quoteth Saint Austine de curâ pro mortuis as if in that booke hee taught Prayer for the dead and grounded it upon unwritten Tradition Whereas in that booke hee neither maintaineth Prayer for the dead nor maketh mention of any unwritten Tradition for it but on the contrarie solidly out of Scriptures proveth Esaias Propheta dicit Abraham nos nescivit et Israel non cognovit nos si tanti patriarchae quid erga populum ex his procreatur ageretur ignoraverunt quomodo mortui vivorum rebus atque actibus cog noscendis adjuvandisque miscentur et paulo post ibi ergo sunt spiritus defunctorum ubi non vident quecunque aguntur aut eveniunt in istâ vitâ hominibus Ep. 118. Si quid hocum sic faciendum divinae Scripturae praescribat authoritas non est dubitandum quin ita facere debeamus similiter si quid per orbem tota frequentat Ecclesia that the Saints departed have no knowledge of our affaires upon earth the Prophet Esay saith Abraham knoweth us not and Israel is ignorant of us If so great Patriarchs knew not what befell their posteritie after their death how can it be defended that the dead intermeddle with the actions or affaires of the living to helpe them onward or so much as to take notice of them A little after he concludes flat upon the Negative The Spirits therefore of the dead there remaine where they knowe not what befalleth to men in this life To what end therefore should wee call upon them in our troubles and distresse here Neither hath this Father any thing in his 118 Epistle for the Iesuit or against us for there hee speaketh of Ecclesiasticall Rites and Customes as appeares in the very title of that Epistle not of Doctrines of Faith and yet even in these hee giveth a preheminence to the Scriptures If saith hee the authoritie of divine Scripture prescribe any Rite or Custome to be kept there is no question to be made of such a Rite or Custome and in like manner if the whole Church throughout the world constantly useth such a Rite or Custome The Iesuites next allegation out of this Fathers booke De unitate Eccles cap. 22. falleth short of his marke hee saith there that Christ beareth witnesse to his Church that it should be Catholike that is spread over the face of the Earth and not to be confined to any certaine place as the Province of Affrica Wee say the same and adde that the bounds of it are no more the territories of the Bishop of Rome than the Provinces of Affrica Wee grant that Whosoever refuseth to follow the practise of the Church to wit the Catholike or universall Church resisteth or goeth against our Saviour who promised by his spirit to leade her into all truth and to be with her to the end of the World Which promise may yet stand good and firme though any particular Church erre in Faith or manners as did the Churches of Asia planted by the Apostles themselves and the Church of Rome doth at this day Cont. lit Petil. l. 3. c. 6. Now because that testimonie of Saint Austine wherewith the Knight concludes almost every Section If wee or an Angell from heaven preach unto you any thing whether it be of Christ or of his Church or any thing which concerneth Faith or manners besides that which you have received in the Legall and Evangelicall Scriptures let him be accursed is as a beame in all Papists eyes therefore they use all possible meanes to take it out but all in vaine for the words of the Apostle on which Saint Paul commenteth are not as the Iesuit would have them If any man preach unto you Contra against but if any preach unto you Praeter besides Ep. ad Galat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neque enim inquit si contraria solum predicaverint intulit anathema esto sed si evangelizaverint preter id quod ipsi evangelisavimus hoc est si plusculum quidpiam adjecerent as Saint Chrysostome and Theophylact accutely observe The Apostle saith not if Chrysostome rightly understand him if they should preach any thing contrary but if they shall in their preaching adde any thing be it never so little besides that which wee have preached unto you let him be accursed And Theophylact is altogether as plaine as Chrysostome in his Glosse upon the words The Apostle inferreth not if any man preach contrarie to that yee have received but if any preach besides that which wee have preached unto you that is if they shall presume to adde any thing though never so little let them be accursed Neither doth Saint Austine in his tractate upon Saint Iohn upon which Bellarmine and after him Flood so much beare themselves any whit contradict the former interpretations of Saint Chrysostome and Theophylact. For his words in that place carry this sense The Apostle saith not if any man preach more unto you than you have already received that is perfectly conceived and apprehended for then hee should goe against himselfe who saith that hee desired to come to the Thessalonians to supply
of either to the notable preiudice of faith and the salvation of soules I reply first that for five of the seven as was discussed at large Section the fourth the Iesuit is so farre from any certainty that indeede he can bring no probability that there be any such Sacraments in the Catholike Church and for the other two which we acknowledge to be Sacraments properly so called he cannot be certaine that they are ever effectually administred in his Church according to their owne Tenents who suspend the efficacy of them upon the Priests intention Nay farther he cannot be certaine that they have any Church at all amongst them for there can be no Church as they teach without a visible succession of lawfull Pastours whereof hee cannot be certaine sith no man knoweth whether the Bishops who ordained their Priests or the Archbishop who ordained their Bishops or the Pope who consecrated their Archbishops intended that which your Church intendeth and if there failed an intention in any of all these or in him who baptized or ordained their first Pope since the Bishops of Rome began to be Popes hee hath no certainty according to his owne grounds of any Priesthood or Christianitie in his Church To the seventh I never heard before that it could be good or any way profitable surdo fabulum narrare to tell a Tale in the care of a deafe man Where doe the Scriptures or ancient Fathers give any approbation to such senslesse devotion can a man call upon him with faith or any hope of obtaining his suit whom hee conceiveth to be out of his hearing Yea but Gabriel Biel speaketh not doubtfully but certainly of Invocation though hee seeme to doubt of the manner how Saints in heaven know our necessities on earth Biel indeed lispeth somewhat that way but hee speaketh not plaine hee saith Invocantur sancti not sancti sant invocandi hee speaketh confidently and certainly of the practise of the Romane Church out not of the truth of this point of the Romish Faith that Saints ought to be called upon for that hee taught In Can. Missae Dist 31. videri probabile that It may seeme probable that God revealeth to Saints all those suits which men present unto them consequently holdeth that it may seeme also probable that the living may pray unto them But what is this his probabile or Peter Lumbards not incredibile to build an Article of Faith upon Yea but Peter Lumbard though hee make some doubt whether the Saints heare our Prayers as they proceed from us they being in Heaven and wee in Earth they being but in one place Sicut enim Angelis ita etiam sanctis qui Deo assistant petitiones nostrae innotescunt in verbo Dei quod contemplantur and those that call upon them in a million of places distant farre one from the other yet Hee maketh no doubt of their knowing and seeing our Prayers in the Word of God as the Angels doe I answer that this imaginarie Glasse of the Schoolemen wherein they conceive that the Saints and Angels see all things by the contemplation of God in whom are all things hath beene long agoe battered in pieces For if because they see God they must needs see all things that are in him and know all that hee knoweth it would hereupon insue that the Saints knowledge should be infinite as Gods is that they should know the day and houre when Christ shall come to judgement contrary to the expresse words of our Saviour Marke 13.32 that they should know the secrets of all hearts which the Scripture ascribeth as a singular prerogative to God To avoid these Rockes if our Adversaries will confine the knowledge of the Saints or Angels to such things onely as God shall be pleased to reveale unto them they beg then the point in question which they ought to prove viz. That God will reveale to every Saint what every man on earth prayeth to him for To the eighth First the Iesuit in this answer flatly contradicteth Cajetan whom hee undertaketh to defend for if the Church groundeth not the canonization of Saints upon the report of miracles voyced on them Cajetans Argument in that place is weak and of no force Secondly for the authoritie of the See Apostolike and the infallibility of the Popes judgement they are as uncertaine or more then that such persons canonized by the Pope are Saints L. 3. ep 3. nec quisquam sibi quod soli filio tribuit pater vindicare se putet ut ad areum pargandam c. 1 Kings 8.39 Saint Cyprian in his time severely censured those who arrogated to themselves that which the Father hath given to the Sonne onely to wit in the floore of the Church to take the fanne in his hand and sever the Wheat from the Chaffe If God onely knoweth the hearts of all the children of men either the Pope must be God as the Canonists blasphemously called him or hee cannot infallibly know who are true Saints and sincerely beleeve and love God As for Saint Austines complaint that many were worshipped by men on earth that are tormented by the devill in hell they are indefinitely spoken and not restrained to Donatists or any other Heretikes yet were it so wee may see in those Donatists a perfect picture of Papists For what Donatus did in Affrica that doth the Pope in Europe hee canonizeth those of his faction for Saints And as the Donatists gave the honour of Martyrs to those who justly suffered death for Robberies and Murders so doe the Papists crowne the heads of Murderers and Traitours with the garland of Martyrdome witnesse Becket Campian Oldcorne and Garnet whereof the first standeth in the Kalender of Romish Saints the later in the Register of Jesuiticall Martyrs Neither can the Iesuit so easily fillip off the testimonie of Cassander as if hee taxed the ignorant for making a Saint of a Thiefe Cassan consult art 2. and no way touched upon the Pope or your Church for hee layeth not the blame upon the people as the Iesuit here doth but saith simply that Saint Martin found a place honoured in the name of a holy Martyr to be the sepulcher of a wicked Robber Secondly 't is well knowne that the people cry not up at first a Saint or Martyr after his death but the Priests who voyce miracles upon them and keepe their Shrines and Reliques and by shewing them to the people make no lesse gaine than Demetrius and his fellow Crafts-men did of their silver Shrines of Diana To the ninth As hee that plucks the stickes out of the Chimney one by one at last puts out the fire so the Knight by loosening or quite removing the fuell of Purgatorie fire consequently extinguisheth it If all the parts and circumstances of the Doctrine of Popish Purgatory are doubtfull and uncertaine the whole certainly can be no Article of Faith but the Antecedent the Knight proves out of Bellarmine Dominicus a Soto Fisher
of Baruch and the second booke of the Macchabees and the booke of Nehemiah which the present Romane Church receiveth for Canonicall Secondly Gelasius with his Roman Councell freely give their censure of all Theologicall bookes then extant but they clip not the tongues of any Authors nor burne their bookes If the Romish Inquisitors had done no more if they had let the Records and Evidences remaine and onely censured them at their pleasure wee would not so much have blamed them for using the freedome of their judgements wee would only freely have censured their Censures Lips Epist Critica nostra non effugêre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and left all to the judicious and intelligent Readers judgement An errour in Criticisme is pardonable but the making away of the evidence of Truth Advers Gentes l. 3. Intercipere scripta publicatam velle submergere lectionem non est Deos defendere sed veritatis testificationem timere and defacing authenticall Records is a damnable practise and an undoubted Argument both of an evill conscience and a desperate cause as Arnobius layeth the Law to the Gentiles To the third Gelasius his testimonie of the Romane Church whereof hee was then Bishop can be of no great moment It seemeth at that time the Church of Rome wanted good neighbours that the Pope was faine to blazon his owne armes and guild his owne Diocese not thinking of the old Proverbe Laus propria sordet in ore Howbeit wee grant in Gelasius his time the Romane Church had not many spots and wrinkles for then shee was young in comparison now she is old and decrepit and all full of wrinkles and after the manner of crooked old age boweth downe to wit to rood-lofts Images and Pictures But neither then nor now hath shee any power to forbid the use of any Books through the whole Church but onely within her owne jurisdiction To the fourth This Plaister is a great deale too narrow for the Sore of the Romane Church to which the Iesuit applieth it For it is not their admonitions to the Children of their owne Church which we here complaine of but their cutting out of the tongues of learned Authors when they witnesse the truth not the censuring their own Writers but the mangling of some of them and utterly abolishing others Vnder colour of taking away Rats-bane out of the way they take away Sugar from their Children and which is worse debarre them from the sincere Milke of the Word I meane the Scriptures in the vulgar language Yet were there Rats-bane in some of the Writers with whom the Inquisitours have to deale they should have onely given notice thereof or prescribed some Antidote against it considering that Physitians and Apothecaries and Housholders also make good use of Rats-bane sometimes To the fift The Iesuit doth well not to undertake justifying of the Inquisition which hee well knoweth hee is not able onely here and there hee nibleth at some Author or other that hath falne into their hands as Bertram in this place whom the Knight long agoe rescued and gave unto him the wings of the Presse to flie abroad whereby hee hath received no disgrace but many thankes from all that love the Truth in sinceritie For the translation thereof which the Iesuit imputeth to the Knight as a great disparagement to him the truth is the Knight translated not Bertram but published the translation of another by re-printing it and gracing it with a learned and elegant Preface of his owne Which I marvell not that the Iesuit kicketh at because hee and his fellow Iesuits are sore Galled with it When the Iesuit shall prove any falsification in the translated Copie or any errour inserted into it hee shall receive a further answer Till then let the brand remaine upon the Romane Index for damning the originall and upon the Iesuit for defaming the true translated Copie of so learned and orthodox a Writer as Bertram was To the sixt In citing the Councell of Laodicea and detecting the Inquisitours foule dealing with it by turning Angels into Angles to gaine a starting hole for their Idolatrie the Iesuit by recrimination objecteth to the Knight errour in Chronology and corruption of the Councell To the first I answer that the Primate of Armath and other learned Antiquaries have set this Councell about the yeare mentioned by the Knight your Binius ingeniously confesseth quo anno celebratum fuit incertum est It is uncertaine in what yeare of our Lord this Councell was held hee saith it was celebrated before the Councell of Nice but hee brings no proofe of it If wee should grant him that this Councell were elder by 40 or 50 yeares than the Knight accounteth it it would be more for our advantage and against him sith Councels the more ancient they are caeteris paribus the more authority they carrie with them To the second I answer that the translation which the Knight followed agreeth verbatim with the originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which words two of the Romish Translators set in Columnes one against the other by Binius render as followeth The first thus Quod non oporteat Christianos relictâ dei ecclesiâ abire Angelos nominare The other thus Quod non oporteat ecclesiam dei relinquere atque Angelos nominare That is that Christians ought not to leave the Church of God and goe their wayes and name Angels that is mention them in our Prayers or take their names in our lips as the Psalmist speaketh of Idoll-worshippers Psal 16.4 Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer nor take their name in my lips And thus Theodoret in his Comment upon the second Chapter of St. Paul to the Colossians vers 18. alleageth the Canon of this Councell Because saith hee they commanded men to worship Angels Saint Paul enjoyneth on the contrarie that they should send up Thanksgiving to God the Father by him that is Christ and not by the Angels The Synod of Laodicea also following this rule of the Apostle and desiring to heale that old disease made a Law that they should not pray unto Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here the Iesuit hath both the Canon and the Report the Canon of the ancient Councell held at Laodicea thundring against their Invocation of Angels and the learned and ancient Father Theodoret his Report of it To the seventh Those men whom the Iesuit nameth were not Fathers of our Religion but Brethren onely of our profession neither was their motive for the change of their Religion carnall love as the Iesuit like impure Nero judging others by himselfe conceiveth but a voyce from Heaven saying unto them goe out of Babylon my people Apoc. 18.4 lest you partake of her Plagues It is true those instruments of Gods glory were married as the Apostles St. Peter and St. Phillip and many of the chiefe Bishops and Pastours in the Primitive Church were of whom it may be said as Sozomen spake of