word to trust them any more in their quoting or citing of the fathers But lest we should thinke that this was but a slippe of his by chance that hee was not his craftes-master in this kinde of dealing he hath plaide vs the very like trick againe with this same father pa. 18. where he alleadgeth the fourth chapter of the said Irenaeus third booke to iustify their traditions not warranted by the written word For in the beginning of the saide chapter not fiue lines before the wordes cited by him hee speaking of the scriptures written by the Apostles Euāgelists he saith that they into that rich treasury most fully haue brought all things that belōg to truth so that euery one that will may frō thence take the drink of life And that which he speaketh in the words alleaged by him of following of tradition it is spoken only by way of supposition to shew what course had bene best for the Church whē any questiō should haue arisen if they had not left vs scriptures For his words are these if the Apostles had not left vs scriptures must we not haue followed the order of tradition which they gaue to them to whom they committed churches In which case which is not our case nowe seeing they haue left vs scripture we grant we should haue beene in the deciding of all controuersies that could haue arisen ouerruled by that which they deliuered by word of mouth to such and therefore that being the case no better or readier way for the ending of controuersies should there haue been then to haue recourse to the most ancient Churches wherin they were conuersant and so by their tradition to haue learned the certainty therein But thus by way of supposition Irenaeus speaking of their tradition in the case supposed by him certaine it is that by their tradition he vnderstādeth that soūd form of doctrin which they deliuered by their preaching teaching which thē would should haue been the same forasmuch as they spoke wrot by one spirit that now they haue left vs in writing And therefore euē then the Romish Church should haue been as far to seeke as she is now for hauing any warrant from thence for those things that she holdeth either contrary or besides the word written And that by tradition he meaneth here no other thing it is euident for in the first chapter of that booke he saith plainely Quod tum praeconiauerunt postea per Dei voluntatem nobis tradiderunt in scripturis columnam fundamētum fidei futurum that is that which first they preached after by the will of god they deliuered vnto vs in the scriptures to be the piller and ground of faith And in the third chapter of that book hauing before spoken of the Apostolicke tradition he after sheweth what he meant thereby namely this that god the maker of heauen and earth c as he is described in the olde testament the Apostles haue taught to be the father of our Lord Iesus Christ contrary to the phantasticall franticke dreame of Valentinian so plainely shewing that they that would euen by the scriptures themselues might learne what the Apostolick traditiō was Now what is this for the authorishing the vnwritē traditiōs of the Romish church which are not ōly al beside the scriptures but whereof the most are contrary thereūto But this gentle reader is the right trick of all the crue of these Romanists thus by the ambiguity of words out of the fathers to seek to colour their absurd opinions so er thou be a ware to deceaue thee if thou take not heede As for example to perswade a mā to like of their beggerly vnwritten traditiōs whatsoeuer any father speaketh of traditiō though it be neuer so plaine in the author himselfe that thereby he meaneth nothing lesse then such traditions as theirs yet that must be confidently brought in as fit most pregnant for their purpose Likwise whatsoeuer any father hath said of any sacramētall chāge of the outward elements for that therein their name vse estimation are chāged though the same father in a thousād other places shew that his iudgemēt is that there is no change at all there in substance yet that must be quoted as a flat place for Popish trāsubstantiation And euen so if they find in a father speaking of the Eucharist any mention of a sacrifice as though there were no kind of sacrifice but that which they dream to bee there that must be vrged as a strong place to proue their blasphemous sacrifice for the quick the dead And this iugling with the fathers and cosening of their poore simple readers vse they in al their cōtrouersies But at this time thou must pardō this preface writer this fault because herein he doth but study to bee like him before whose book he hath set this his preface For chapter the fifth he himselfe most grosly committeth this same fault in the detection whereof I haue more at large discouered this lewde dealing of theirs In the meane time let vs not forget that Irenaeus hath taught vs what that church is who those pastours be what those traditiōs are that we must obey be ruled by namely onely that Church that hath the scriptures for the piller groūd of her faith lib. 3. cap. 1. those pastours that succeede the Apostles in truth of doctrine li. 4. cap. 43. those traditiōs which haue good warrant from the scriptures themselues lib. 3. cap. 3. whereof it must needes follow that all the places reasons quoted by him either out of the scriptures or fathers to binde vs to yeeld obedience to their churches ordinances their prelates cōmandements to the points warranted onely by their traditions their Church hauing another foundation of her faith then the worde written namely alwaies their popes will as it hath the commādemēts of their prelates traditions being not only beside but also often most grosly contrary to that word of God writtē as I shal shew in sundry places er I haue done with Albine in Irenaeus iudgemēt ar but so many abusings and corruptings of their holy good meanings And yet thus hauing to no purpose bestowed a great deale of idle paines as one that had said inough to proue that the authority of all the learned fathers the cōmon consēt of all Christiā regions prescriptiō of time were al ful fast of his side he lustily braggeth p. 22. that if their be any weight in any or al these together that his side hath the true gospell the true sence thereof That their Religion is the very Christian Religion their order of ceremonies the right order and that their fasting and praying is according to the scriptures and that therefore their church is the lawfull and true spouse of Christ from which who so seperates himselfe is in state of damnation This thus only said thereupō by and by as though there were no
that by the Apostolique tradition he vnderstandeth this same doctrin of God the father which before they wrote the Apostles deliuered vnto the church by liuely voice afterward as it appeareth they set down in writing Is this thē honest dealing in you to make your Reader beleeue that he meant of vnwriten doctrine such as the is for which you we striue seeing he telleth you himselfe that by the Apostolique tradition of the church you are to vnderstād this doctrine of God the father most plainely plentifully writen and set downe in the scriptures You might haue learned of S. Paul 2. Thes 2.15 that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tradition may as wel be referred to expresse doctrine in scripture as that which is deliuered by word of mouth where the Apostle as then very litle of the new testamēt being writen and as then therefore the whole Apostolicke doctrine therein not being expressed saith Hold fast brethrē the documēts deliuered you whither by word or by our Epistle But you are the lesse to be blamed the more to be borne withall for this your wilful thus abusing your reader because the making or marring of your church and Religion stādeth vpon vnwriten verities or rather forgeries which you call the Apostolicke or the holy churches traditions For there are few or none of those points of Religiō wherein we differ from you and striue with you about but your owne great champions haue confessed haue their ground from hence and not from the scriptures As any man that will take the paines to reade them may see in Peter Soto against Brentius in the 5. cap. of Canisius catechisme in the 5. booke 100. c. of Lindans panoply where they reckon vp almost all the points in controuersie betwixt them vs in Religion and when they haue done plainely cōfesse the ground thereof to be but tradition And therefore to countenance this onely bulwarke of your church Religion at least with those that either for lacke of leasure or learning cānot examine your quotations it is not your fault here alone but the cōmon fault of you all where you finde any mention in fathers of tradition though it be neuer so euident that thereby they meane nothing beside that which also hath warrant from the word writen to alleadge that place streight to countenance your vnwritē traditiōs To preuēt you therfore hereafter of thus abusing the simple I would wish thē all others to mark how flatly against your vnwritē vnwarāted traditiōs by the writē word the fathers with one consent haue writē for the absolute sufficiēcy of the scriptures Besides that which you heard out of Irenaeus Tertulliā to this purpose Irenaeus saieth further in his fifth book we must run to the Church be brought vp in her bosō nourished with the scriptures of god And Tert against Hermog writeth Let Hermogenes shew that it is writen if it be not writē let him fear that wo that is threatned or appointed to the adders or takers awaie As for Origen we haue heard him tel vs before that our senses and declarations without the witnesse of the scriptures haue no credit in his 1. Hom. vpon Ierem. And great and worthy Athanasius saieth The holy scriptures giuen by diuine inspiration are sufficient to shew the trueth against Idol Hillarie saieth it is wel that we are content with those things that are writen in his third booke of the Trinity Cyrill vpon Iohn in his 12. booke and 68. cap. graunteth indeede that all things that Christ did are not writen but hee saieth those things are writen which the writers thought sufficient both for maners and doctrine Chrysostome writing vpon the 2. to Timothie Homil. 9. saieth If there be anie thing needefull either to learne or to bee ignorant of we shall learne it in the Scriptures and in the commentary vpon Matth. commonly also fathered vpon Chrysostome wee read these golden words They that be in Christianity let them flee to the Scriptures because they can haue no other proofe of Christianity but by the Scriptures To this end read also Chrysostome vpon the 2 to the Thes Hom. 3. Basil also very sharpely writeth that it is a most euident argument of infidelity and a most certaine signe of pride if any man either doe reiect any thing of that which is writen or bring any thing not writen seeing the Lord saieth My sheepe heare my voice and they follow not the voice of a strāger in his treatise of true and godly faith Where also he noteth that Paul Galat. 3. by an example taken from men most vehemently forbiddeth that any thing be put out of the scriptures of God or which God forbid saith he be added thereunto And therefore he in Moral Reg. 26. saieth further Whatsoeuer we say or doe it must be confirmed by the testimony of the Scriptures Where likewise in his 80 rule he gathereth that seeing faith commeth by hearing and hearing by the word of God without doubt whatsoeuer is without the holy scripture seeing it is not of faith must needes be sinne and therefore he addeth in that rule let vs stand to the arbitriment of the scriptures and with whom doctrine is founde consonant thereunto let the sentence of all trueth bee adiudged of their sides Hierome vpon Agge cap. 1. saieth those thinges which of their owne heades they deuise as though they came by Apostolique tradition without the authority and testimonie of the holy Scripture the sword of God striketh who also vpon Math. cap. 23. saieth that which hath not authority frō the scriptures as easily is despised as approued And contra Heluidium he saieth we beleeue it because we reade it and we beleeue it not because we reade it not August against Cresconins the Grammarian in his 2. booke writeth That there is an Ecclesiasticall canon ordained whereunto belong the bookes of the Prophets and Apostles by which bookes we iudge of all other writings both of the faithfull and of the Infidels out of whom already wee haue heard diuerse plaine testimonies to this purpose especially that against Petilian in his 3. booke and 6. cap. set downe in the ende of the confutation of the 3. chap Damascen is as plaine as any of these in his 1 booke of right faith cap. 1. Cuncta quae tradit a sunt c. All thinges saieth hee which are deliuered vs by the Prophets Apostles and Euangelists we embrace wee acknowledge reuerence beyond those seeking no further For all things concerning faith and maners he confesseth are plainelie conteined in the scriptures de doct Christ lib. 2. cap. 9. Infinite such places might be cited out of the ancient fathers for they are full of them whereby it sufficiently appeareth that this was the vniforme and generall iudgement and opinion of them of the sufficiency of the scriptures If therefore in deede and trueth you made any reckoning of their generall consēt as often times you will
extraordinarily as he seeth need thereof is and may be such effectuall seede to beget childrē vnto God and so holesome foode to feede thē yea euen vntil they grow to a full age perfectiō in Christ Iesus that though their teachers cānot shew for the defence of their calling who alwaies successiuely in person and place haue gone before them yet euen this trueth of their doctrine doeth proue them and their people to be Apostolique Churches whereas though they could doe the other without this it were nothing And because my aduersary seemeth in this point otherwise to make great reckoning of the testimony of Irenaeus Tertullian and Augustine I will stande to their iudgement in this whither to succeede the Apostles in doctrine be not sufficient without the other locall and personall demonstrable succession and not this without that Irenaeus in his fourth booke and forty three Chapter teacheth vs onely to obey those Elders in the Church which from the Apostles with the succession of their Bishopricks haue receiued Charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum patris that is the certaine gift of trueth according to the pleasure of the father for as for all other whatsoeuer they pretend for he excepteth nothing he there immediatly sheweth that absistunt a principali successione that is they are gone from the principall succession and therefore must be suspected And Tertullian in the very same place de praescriptionibus haereticorum quoted by Albine after in his 9. Chapter immediatly after the words there cited by him wherein he calleth for personall succession hath added these Cōfingant tale aliquid haeretici c. but let heretiques deuise some such thing for after blasphemy what is not lawfull for them saieth hee but though they doe faine some such thing yet it shall nothing preuaile thē For their doctrine compared with the Apostolique doctrine by the diuersity cōtrariety thereof wil pronoūce that it hath neither Apostle nor Apostolique mā to be the authour therof For saith he as the Apostles taught not amōgst themselues contrary things so neither did Apostolique men teach contrary things to those that the Apostles taught After this sort therefore let them be prouoked by those Churches which though they cannot produce either Apostle or Apostolique man to bee the founder thereof in that they were long after planted as dayly there bee tamen in eâdem fide conspirantes non minùs Apostolicae deputantur pro consanguinitate doctrinae yet they agreeing with thē in one faith are no lesse to be reputed Apostolicke Churches then they that were planted by the Apostles What can be plainer then this to shewe that though our Churches could not satisfie his request in pleading the former succession that yet if they can shewe this that they agree with the Apostles in doctrine that they therefore are far rather Apostolicke then they that can produce the former without this And though Augustine in his 165. epistle and also in his fourth Chapter against the Manichees epistle which they call their foundation remembred by Albine cap. 6. doe there seeme to make great reckoning of personall succession yet when he had shewed of what force that and some other reasons were with him he preferres trueth indeede warranted by the scriptures before them all Wherefore what I haue saied concerning the vanitie of their brag of personall and locall succession either to iustifie theirs or to disgrace our Church or ministrie is sufficientlie proued But all this labour will Albine say I might haue spared for he spake not simplie of succession but expressely of right succession of Bishops pastours and to shew what he ment thereby he expresly added the continuance of one Catholicke faith deriued from the Apostles to our daies without the interruption of it vniuersally at anie time Moreouer I confesse that sundry times after so forcible was the trueth in this point with him that in wordes he confesseth that personall and locall succession without continuance in this trueth is not the thing that he vrgeth and yet for all this this that I haue saied of this point is not needlesse For besides that fewe of his opinion will bee brought to confesse thus much this both in others and in himselfe in sundrie Chapters following maie be obserued that when this confession is made by anie of thē it is wroong frō them much against their wils for their shew of proofes run wholy for the magnifying of personall successiō to be the marke whereby true Churches and the ministers thereof maie vndoubtedly be discerned Againe if in this he spake as hee thinkes why doeth he make so much adoe about the personall and visible succession of Bishops and pastours and neuer ioines this issue with vs to trie out soundly and throughly whither they or we haue this Catholicke and Apostolicke trueth For herein onely lieth all the controuersie betwixt them and vs and this determined the question betwixt vs were quite ended let them once therefore but proue indeed that they are in possession of this soūd trueth and that alwaies downe from the Apostles they haue continued therein if we ioyne not streight with them and repent vs hartely of our departure from them accursed be we Yea if we cannot proue by cōparing their doctrine with that which wee are most sure the Apostles taught to be both diuerse from that and contrary vnto it vnderstanding by their doctrine as wee doe that which is proper to them and wherein we are against them let vs for euer leese our credit and cause Now for the decyding and determining of this great maine cōtrouersie wee appeale to the canonical scriptures which we knowe are most fit and sufficiēt iudges herein whereunto vnles they will deserue the name of lucifugae that is of shunners of the light which for the like cause Tertullian gaue the heretiques of his time de resurrect carnis they will be contented to bring their doctrine as to the touchstone Indeede in Tertullian and Iraeneus time the heretiques as it appeares in their workes for the triall of their opinions fled from this touchstone and when they were vrged herewith they behaued themselues the likest these our aduersaries that euer I saw For Iraeneus in his third booke and second Chapter testifieth thus of them cùm ex Scripturis arguuntur in accusationem conuertuntur ipsarum quasi non rectè habeant neque sint ex authoritate quia variè sunt dictae quia non possit ex his inueniri veritas ab his qui nesciunt traditionem that is when they are reproued by the scriptures then they are turned streight into an accusation of them as though they were not right nor were of authority both because they are so set downe as that variably or diuersly they may be taken and because by them the trueth cannot be found out by those that are ignoraunt of tradition This notwithstanding it appeareth both there and elsewhere that he calleth them to this triall
suffering their Croniclers to mention them or else in causing them to deface them with strange name and false slaunders maketh it very hard yea if impossible no marueile you hauing the euidences whereby we should doe it for the most part a long time in your owne keeping to vse at your owne pleasure for vs to name from time to time the places and persons that haue alwaies succeeded one another for the continuance of our faith and Church But to returne againe to the consideration of this place of the Canticles further I saie as I saied before that you erre in alleadging this or any other place of the Scripture to proue that the Church of Christ may safely account those flockes in possession of the trueth and therefore to bee followed and those sheepheardes true sheepheardes and therefore meete alwaies to bee consented vnto that lineally downe from Christ can deduce their personall succession For so as I haue shewed in the first Chapter and it is not denyed of your selues sundry heretiques in their times haue done and can doe still If therefore you say you meane still that flocke and those sheepheardes that together with their visible personall succession haue alwaies beene in possession of the true ancient faith I answere first you begge still the thing in question in supposing that to haue beene alwaies ioyned with your flockes and sheepheards which we say and are able to proue they fell from many hundreth yeares ago Secondly I tell you once againe and now this time for all that you shall neuer bee able to proue but that both that personall succession may bee separated from trueth and also trueth from it and that therefore it is neither a certaine meanes to knowe the trueth nor the Church of Christ by Thirdly for your collection out of this place for the iustifying of your Church before ours because as you say from time to time for this thousand and fiue hundreth yeares you can shew the descent and continuance of yours and we cannot of ours for one hundreth yeares no not beyonde the yeare one thousand fiue hundreth and seuenteene we affirme that both in the one and in the other herein you write vntruely For first if your Church as it is now either in respect of the doctrine or gouernement thereof bee compared with the ancient Roman Church in the Apostles times or for many hundreth yeares after there is such diuersitie betwixt the one and the other as that the one beeing founde the chast spouse of Christ the other must needes bee proued to bee the very whoar of Babylon The simplicity of the ministerie that then was is turned amongst you into a pompous Lordly and more then Princely prelacy And then the Church was fedde with the pure worde of God conteyned in the Scriptures and so ledde thereby perfectly to vnderstand the will of God and with you as carefullie as may bee that is kept from her and in steede thereof shee is fedde with the dreames inuentions and traditions of men Then she was taught to account the name of Christ the onelie name whereby commeth saluation Act. 4. and therefore that in him all thinges were prepared Math. 22. and now with you besides him Saintes Angels your owne merites and the merites of others satisfaction in this life by your selues and after by others with a number of baser things must ioyne with him in the office of intercession betwixt vs and God and in the most glorious worke of our saluation as though hee either could not or would not go perfectly through with the worke of our saluation in himselfe and by himselfe but had so begunne it as that the accomplishing and perfecting thereof were left to these vaine and foolish by-meanes Then her faithfull doctours and teachers taught her that Christ in saying Hoc est corpus meum this is my body meant that it was a signe figure of his body as you may reade in Augustine against Adimantus the Maniche cap. 12. and in Tertull. against Marcion cap. 4. and in infinite places elsewhere in the ancient fathers and now contrary to nature yea to the verie nature of a sacrament contrary to the analogie of faith and good manners yours teach that those wordes being vttered by your Priestes thereupon followeth such a transubstantiation of the bread into his bodie that whosoeuer receiueth the outward parte of that sacrament receiueth in by his mouth the naturall bodie of Christ If thus I were disposed to go a long as farre as I might and to leade the reader to a full view of the difference betwixt the Romish Church that nowe is and that which hath beene I should euen therewith make a great booke But further of these differences I haue noted as you may reade Chapter 19. 20. and else where in this booke And Doctor Fulke against Stapletons Fortresse hath noted out of Bede and other authours of good credit 50. differences betwixt the church of the English Saxons in the time of Augustine the monke who was 600. yeares after Christ at the least and the Popish church that now is and infinite be the differences then betwixt the Church before in her puerer times and the Popish Synagogue now And therefore whatsoeuer you bragge neither you nor all your fellowes shall euer be able to proue indeede that your personall succession hath beene ioyned with the continuance of one and selfesame doctrine of Christ vnto these daies And to come to the other point therein I saie you write vntruely also For so far of is it that we graunt Luther to haue beene the first that preached the Gospell that wee now embrace and that wee cannot shewe by whom and where it was preached and receaued before that there is nothing more common with vs in answering this your obiection of newnes then to tell you that so farre of is it that it is newe indeede that it is the very ancient Religion and Gospell taught both in the olde testament and newe and therefore though it grieue you wee tell you that the ancient Patriarches and Prophets Christ and his Apostles taught the verie same and no other and all the ancient doctours and fathers as farre forth as they were able to iustify that which they taught by the Scriptures were sheepheardes of our church and teachers of our Religion Indeede we confesse that as Hilkiah the Priest in Iosiahs time 2. King 22. found the booke of God and was so a meanes to bring those thinges to light that by the wicked proceedings of Manasses Amon and others had for a certaine season lien hid So Luther in these late daies was a singuler instrument of God to reuiue and bring to light diuerse pointes of Christian faith which your Antichristian Synagogue had long laboured to smother and hide from the eies of the Church And yet hereupon it no more followeth that he was the first that preached our Religion then vpon the former it followed that Hilkiah was then first the
Catholicâ teneor that is is to bee preferred before all those thinges whereby otherwise I am held in the Catholicke Church The third place likewise which you alleadge here out of Augustine as you haue quoted it serueth onely to bewray either your grosse ignorance or negligence For I finde he wrote 2. bookes against the aduersarie of the lawe and the Prophets but none in all his tomes can I finde fathered vpon him writen as you say against the aduersarie of the olde and new lawe and if you meant the former there being two bookes of that title and euery one consisting of many Chapters why speake you thereof as though he had writen but one and name not the Chapter when you tell vs where to finde the place you shall be more particulerly answered thereunto In the meane time you see in Augustines iudgement in the two other places that the trueth taught in the canonical scriptures is to be preferred before all other motiues to keepe a man in the true Catholique Church contrarie whereunto I am sure hee neither teacheth where you meane nor any where else You should therefore in his opinion farre better bestowe your time then you doe if you would bestow it in prouing by the scriptures that you your Church were stable in this trueth especially seeing trueth it selfe euen here hath enforced you to confesse that that stablenes is atteined vnto by the knowledge and intelligence of the scriptures But you adde that these scriptures theÌ„ must be vnderstoode according to the traditions of the church and the succession of the Apostles and Bishops If by the church you did vnderstande as you should the true and pure church of Christ and by her traditions and Bishops such as were sound that is such as are truely iustifiable by the canonicall scriptures as the ancient fathers Irenaeus Tertullian Augustine with others of those and former times were woont to vnderstaÌ„d them as I haue shewed before when to stop the mouthes of heretiques they did appeale to theÌ„ then wee would most willingly ioyne with you that issue by the scriptures so vnderstoode to trie whether you or we haue attained to the stablenes of trueth But vnderstaÌ„ding therby as you doe your Romish church for these last 500. or 600. yeares her traditions Bishops we say and sure we are we are able to proue it that so far of is it that the scriptures are to be vnderstoode according to theÌ„ that there is no readier way to misunderstand them and to make them to haue a mutable and flexible sence now one way now another then to make them they being so contrary as they be to the ancient sound traditions of Christs church which alwaies were consonant if not the very same to that is taught in the word writen the Bishops you meane being likewise so different from them that were in the primatiue church and ofteÌ„ also so varying amoÌ„gst themselues as they are in the interpreting of them to be the rules of right vnderstanding of theÌ„ Finally if you had any forhead or conscience you would be ashamed so to abuse your poore simple reader as you do in going about to make him beleeue that because Augustine could or did say that the church had continued in it froÌ„ the Apostles times through the succession of Bishops to his that therefore hee saied it had so to ours there being aboue 1000. yeares difference The VII Chapter YOV doe studie as much as you can to reiecte our succession and not without cause a Succession of persons without succession also in trueth neuer was esteemed knowing that this onelie doeth suffice to ouerthrowe all the heresies of those new reformed Gospellers Caluin as the most appareÌ„t doeth seeke to proue that our reason is of no force because that the Greekes haue had euer succession of pastours and yet wee doe not holde them as Catholickes But if the Reader doe well note that that wee haue alreadie saied hee shall finde the answere vnto this obiection I meane because that the Greekes haue not had succession a Holde you to this you may giue ouer your brags of succession for shame and continuance of doctrine called vnitie of faith by the Apostles the which ought euer to bee ioyned to the continuance of the Pastours to shew the true recognisaunce of the Catholicke Religion There is none that doe studie and reade of those matters but that doe knowe the vnconstant faith of the Greekes as touching the proceeding of the holie Ghost the which errour they had abiured at the last councell of Florence and yet notwithstanding they did turne to it againe besides diuerse other light things to speake moderately b You haue as many thinges of importance and more too gainesaiâ—d by your forefathers which are not approued by their ancieâ—t fathers S. Iohn Chrysostome S. Ciril S Basil Athanatius nor yet by our aduersaries at this preseÌ„t time The which errours I haue no neede to set forth in this booke for my intent is but to speake of that that pricks vs at hand because of ill neighbourhood Some doe alleadge vnto vs the c We neuer alleage this alone but together with the false doctrine and vnlawfull vocation of your Bishops and Pastours negligence of our pastours and their ill liues for the which cause they saie that the mentioned succession cannot take place But this argument is of no force For although that the carelesse liues of some Bishops and ecclesiasticall persons haue beene so great so hurtfull vnto the bloud of our sauiour Christ I meane to the soules bought with it yet notwithstanding that d Yet thus for the principall point you are glad to fly from your great prelats to your poore priests the church hath not lost the succession continuance of one doctrine as touching the administration of the sacramentes by those that were deputed by the Bishops e Indeede this kind of diuision is altogether practised in your Romish Church by your Cardinals and great prelats If one should see a Prelate doing nothing and his lieutenant doing all which of those two would you take to bee Bishop they haue both deuided their charges the one receiueth the profit the other taketh all the paine If they be both content what losse do you feele he that hath anie interest let him valewe the damadge And although that the negligence of the Bishop bee not excusable f And yet nothing more coÌ„mon wi h you then wilful continuance yea by your Popes good leaue in this sin before God with the diligence of the deputie nor his conscience cleare yet this ought to suffice that though his faults be through negligence or through euill liuing g True but such doctrine you shal neuer proue yours yet that ought not to perturbe the assurance of our doctrine the which we haue taught vs by the word of God interpreted by the true doctours that haue beene
these more certaine rules helps to finde out the true sence first that the true Grāmaticall sence of the words and speech vsed by the holy ghost bee soundly and rightly vnderstoode by sound knowledge of Grammer Rhetoricke for the natiue signification of the words and vse of the phrase whereunto much helpeth conference of translation with translation of all transtations if neede be with the originall tongues Secondly that diligent consideration be had of the circumstances of the text in hand as namely what is the matter scope thereof vpon what occasion it was vttered who vttered it to whom where when Thirdly that it be taken in such a sence as will agree best with these circumstances and stand well with all other places of scripture And lastly that no sence be admitted but that which will stand with the sound proportion and summe of Christian faith and good maners taught vs plainely elsewhere in the scriptures By these rules we doubt not but to iustifie approue that to be the true sence of the scriptures which we take them in either for the confirmation of the trueth which we holde or for the confutation of the errours which you defend And such rules they are as the ancient fathers in defending the ancient Catholique faith against heretiques haue alwaies vsed and no other as appeareth in their workes And such they are as Augustine in his bookes of Christiā doctrine doeth prescribe as most necessary in this case to be followed as no mā can or ought to make any exception against And yet such they are as would anone discouer the ridiculous vanity of your interpretatiōs in any controuersie betwixt vs and you For example let vs try here by your interpretation of Hoc est corpus meū which to be soūd you will liue and die in By what grammer or by helpe of what tongue or translation shall the word Est is be all one with transubstantiatur in is transubstantiated into Sure I am in no language nor in anie Dictionarie shall you euer finde the verbe Substātiue takē in that sense Secondly the matter in hand when those words were vttered was a sacrament Christ spake them to his Apostles at his last supper to the ende to institute a sacrament to continue a duetifull remembrance of his death vntill his second comming What reason is there then to the contrarie but that this speech should be taken as the like speech alwaies els hath beene and yet is in other Sacramentes Where Est is neuer taken coupling the signe and the thing signed togither whereof a Sacrament consisteth as you doe here for It is turned into but for signifieth which standeth also well with the nature of a Sacrament whereas yours ouerthroweth the nature thereof in so annihilating or transubstantiating of the signe that you leaue no signe to beare any analogie of the thing resembled which is the ground of such Sacramentall phrases Thirdly your sence agreeth not with the rest of the scriptures not onely in that in the whole bodie of the Scriptures you cannot finde Est Is placed as it is here betwixt two thinges of diuerse kindes as breade and body be taken in your sence and yet in such propositious you finde it vsually taken for it signifieth or representeth but also in that the scripture for all that speech calleth it bread still euen whiles it is in eating 1. Corin. 10. 11. cap. and expoundeth the eating thereof to bee a communion or partaking with or of the body of Christ and that spirituall not by corporall cōiunction 1. Cor. 10. Lastly your interpretation for the bringing in establishing of a corporall reall eating of Christ with the mouth of the bodie which is a thing neuer taught vs in the word but such a kinde of feeding on him as you your selues confesse Iudas and such may atteine vnto and be neuer the better shaketh yea subuerteth al those articles that concerne Christs true manhoode making him to haue euen for that needles presence sake a body without any of the essential and inseparable properties of a body yea at one selfesame time to haue a body visible sensible and locall in heauen yet inuisible insensible and without dimentions of place in earth Besides it is against good maners which forbiddeth eating of mans flesh and drinking of his bloud either openly or secretly couered vnder or in another thing And truely Auerroes had some reason of all men in the world to thinke such Christians as you the most sauage and foolish that first would fal downe worship a peece of bread for your God whē you haue so done eate him vp and deuour him Howsoeuer you please your selues in this interpretation and in your imagination grounded thereupon I am fully perswaded that this your multitude of images and idols are two of the principall causes whereby you haue hardened the hearts both of the Turkes and Iewes against Christiā Religion And as I haue read some of them haue to some of your fellowes being in hand to perswade them to turne frō their Religion to yours yeelded these two reasons why they thought yours worse then their owne and consequently as sufficient cause why they would not yeelde to yours Now if I should but barely recite a number of other your interpretations and collections of the scripture which yet with you go for very sound and Catholique interpretations collections I am sure it were sufficient to make euery reader thereof that hath anie witte or discrecion left him to thinke that there were neuer heretiques in the world that haue more fondly vainely interpreted the scriptures then you For example let the reader marke these for a tast God made two great lights the sunne the moone that is the Pope the Emperour therefore as many degrees as the moone is inferiour to the sonne is the Emperour inferiour to the Pope Innocēt de Maioritate obediēt Glossa Ibid. Peter saied he had two swords that is the tēporall spirituall sword therfore the Pope hath both powers Cornelius the Bishop of Bitonto in the councell of Trent blusheth not to apply to the Pope these words The Pope the light is come vnto the world men loue darknes more then light Euery one the euill doeth hateth the light commeth not to the light least his deedes be reproued Yea Paulus Aemilius in his 7. booke testifieth that the Pope suffred the Legates of Cicilia being prostrate before him to say vnto him Qui tollis peccata mundi Thou which takest away the sins of the world haue mercy vpon vs Thou which takest away the sins of the world graūt vs peace thus blasphemously applying that to the Pope which belongeth to Christ But you will say these were but the popes flatterers that made these expositiōs applications What then they were made vttered wtout checke yea to the liking of the Pope And a picture once
surest way of declaring the scriptures to expoūd one scripture by another in his 3. booke of Christian doctrine cap. 26. and in those bookes writen of Christian doctrine many moe very profitable Which way Chrys thought so sure a way that he saieth flatly The holy scriptures expound thēselues and suffer not the Reader to erre in his 12. Homil vpon Gen And yet for all this to this triall will not you of the Church of Rome be brought neither for the triall of your interpretations nor yet for determining of this question whither you haue the spirit of trueth or no. Christ and his Apostles were contented to put themselues for triall of their doings to this but your Popes thinke scorne to looke so lowe yea rather they will haue all questions wherein they are principall parties themselues tryed by themselues and you and they crie out that this is not the readiest way to ende such questions But who is so madde as to thinke that you can finde out a better way then Christ and his Apostles vsed You will send vs say some of you for the triall of these matters vnto the doctours and councels and yet when it commeth to the point vnles they and their sayings please you yee reiect them also And you cannot denie but that oftentimes also it is farre more disputable and doubtfull what was their meaning then what is the meaning of the Scripture and you know also that it is an vsuall thing with them to sende vs backe againe to the Scriptures for triall of their writings as it appeareth in Augustines 19. Epist to Hirom and in his 111. Epist to Fortunatian And therefore indeede say you what you will this is the safest surest and readiest way of triall of this and all other matters in question betwixt vs to bring all to the touchstone of the scriptures I would to God therfore that once you would giue ouer al other bie and indirect trials and come onely to this for then it would quickely appeare euen to the simple whither you or wee were rather to be followed For all this we ioyne with you in the later ende of your twenty three Chapter in warning men to take heede that they doe not rashly beleeue follow euery one that will pretend that they haue the scriptures on their side But whereas you write that the heresies which you will after speake of that were condēned by the Catholique church were as well more largely confirmed by scriptures thē we can thereby confirme our Religiō therein first you most vntruely report that of vs as we doubt not but to make it euident vnto the world if you would once come to any indifferent trial with vs secondly I must admonish the reader that these ancient heresies indeed were condemned by the Catholique Church but that that catholique Church was not yours nor as yours now is For the differences be infinite betwixt yours the Church thē by reason whereof there is as great difference betwixt the Church then and yours now in effect as there is betwixt ours now and yours In your recitall of the heretiques abusing the scriptures diuers things slipt from you also worthy the noting namely these that you could not content your selfe with shewing vs how they did abuse the Scriptures in wrong alleaging them but that as though your fingers itched to shew that you had as good skill therein as they you still intermingle with theirs your owne cunning in shewing how other places might be abused in like maner neither confuting in the ende their collections nor your owne how dangerous soeuer Another tricke you haue in noting the trueths impugned by them and the maner how they went to worke though neuer so vntruly yet cōfidently to set downe that the things which we impugne in you were holden by the Church in equall degree of trueth and reuerence with them that they set themselues then against and that they cried out against traditions of men and cried onely for the writen word as we doe wheras in trueth few or none of the things we condemne in you were hatched then and the contrary before hath appeared out of Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. that it was their fashion to flie from the Scriptures and to accuse them as you doe and to vrge traditions that they also vsed to vrge other such like grounds for their heresies as you doe as I haue shewed cap. 3. The last is that for the most part you charge them with what you list not shewing vs where you read or finde ground for these things wherewith you charge them belike least in turning to the places examining you proofes we should to your discredit haue occasion thereby to discry in you either some malice errour ignorance or some negligence at the least For example how proue you that which you write cap. 22. that the Arrians alleadged as many or more places then the Catholicks Or that the same Church that condemned the Adamits hath condemned vs Hus and his schollers condemning them But to passe on from these things to your conclusion vpon these premisses and to that which you infer thereupon in your 26 Chapter I graunt you by that which you haue writen in the former chapters it may be seene that one ill disposed maie soone alleage scripture in a corrupt sence but what is this to proue that which you vndertooke cap. 22. that is that the holie scriptures which we alleage do not iustifie our doings If you would haue proued this indeed you should haue proued that we alleage the scriptures in a wrong sence as these did that you haue talkt on but that was to heauie a peece of worke for you therfore you thought good not once to meddle with it But yet as though either you had proued it or else that it could not but wtout proofe be graūted you you boldly affirme as these hereticks that you haue talkt of haue perished their heresies so shall we our followers if we repent not Wherunto I answere first that so repentance maie be takē that it is most true that not onely we our followers but you yours also al men else must repent or else we al you and al other shal perish but taking it as you doe for repēting of our religiō of alleaging of the scriptures which we doe for the maintenāce of it against you you haue saied nothing at al as yet to make vs once to thinke that we haue any need at al so or therof to repēt Secōdly I saie that in thus saying you haue shewed your malice boldnes more then any thing else for you haue therin vttered nothing but a blind prophets dreāe and fansie which no man of any wisedome or discretion wil make any reckoning of It is wel yet that the euidēce of the trueth hath enforced you here to confesse that it maie be seene in al the ancient ecclesiastical writers that the doctours fully
fathers as you herein take it for granted on your side For in trueth you haue none of these on your sides but the onely grounds of your religion are your owne priuate and singular interpretations traditions of men without warrant either from the Scriptures indeed soundly vnderstood or from generall Councels or ancient fathers that are worthy to bee of credit in Gods Church For as we haue made appeare in infinite discourses against you al these are farre more strong on our side then with you And therfore you rather are the fooles that seeme wiser theÌ„ all these in your owne conceit and so labour to draw vs from the ancient catholique faith and Christs true Church by your corrupt glosses allegations of these by your vaine vncertaine traditions of mortal men Wherof let the reader take for a tast these few proofes amoÌ„gst infinite others vsed by vs. The Scripture with vs teacheth iustification freely by faith in Christ without workes Rom. 3.24.25 Ephes 2.8.9 and you condeÌ„ne theÌ„ as heretiques that teach so The scriptures with vs teach that Christs offering himselfe once for al hath made perfect all them that are sanctified Heb. 10.14 and you coÌ„trarily teach that they must be perfected by the iteration of his sacrifice in your masse by a number of other things done by themselues and others for them The Scriptures with vs teach that Christ is ascended into heauen Coloss 3.1 Act. 1.9 c. and that the heauens must containe him vntill the restitution of al things Act. 3.21 and you contrarily wil haue him as oft as you consecrate to come downe to hide himselfe vnder the formes of bread and wine The scriptures with vs say concerning the cup in the Sacrament to all Christians rightly prepared Drinke yee all of this Matth. 26.22 and you say it is heresie to holde that the lay people must drinke thereof To proceed a little further the same Scripture in the 2. Commandement Exod. 20.4 forbiddeth as we doe both the making and worshipping of Images to represent God the father the sonne or the holy Ghost withal and you allow both these The scriptures prefer as we doe the speaking of fiue words in the Church that may bee vnderstoode before ten thousand in a tongue not vnderstoode 1. Cor. 14.19 and your Church as it appeareth in hauing all your seruice in lat in preferreth fiue words spoken there iâ— an vnknowen tongue before ten thousand spoken in the vulgar tongue of the people to their edification Lastly the Scriptures as we doe account mariage honourable among al men in al estates and the mariage bed vndefiled Heb. 13.4 insomuch that they aduouch the forbidding of it though vnder pretence of holines to bee a doctrine of Deuils 1. Tim. 4.1.2.3 yet you condemne it in your priestes as a filthie life In like maner is there a plaine contrariety betwixt your religion and the decrees of ancient and general councels In my answere to your 17. Chapter I haue shewed you already that the ancient famous first general Councel of Nice in the 6. Canon thereof is directly against that preheminence that now you giue to the Bishop of Rome ouer all Churches There also you haue heard the councell of Gangra pronounce you accursed for your doctrine against the mariage of ministers I haue also shewed you before that the 6. generall councell holden at Constantinople in the 36. Decree hath flatly determined against the principall article of your religion your Popes supremacy in determining that the Bishop there should haue equal priuiledges with your Pope or Bishop of Rome The councels also of Constance and Basil against your receiued opinion now preferred the authority of a generall Councel before the authority of your Pope And certaine it is that in the time of Charles the great there was a councel called at Franckeforde whereat the Bishops of France Germany Italie were assembled about the year as Regin writeth in his 2 booke 794 where the making and worshipping of Images allowed of by the false Synode of the Greekes as he tearmeth it was condemned And Hickmaâ—e Archbishop of Rheames writing against another bishop of that 〈◊〉 Chap. 20. somewhat about these times calleth this a general couÌ„cel called by the wil coÌ„maÌ„demeÌ„t of the Pope Emperor Charles witnesseth that not onely there the false Synode of the Greeks that made for Images was confuted reiected but also a great booke made thereof then sent to Rome As for fathers and ancieÌ„t doctors I haue plentifully shewed to be against you already for the sufficiency authority of the Scriptures Chap. 3. 5. against your real presence Chap. 11. against your doctrine of IustificatioÌ„ other points of your religion Chap. 16. And it were as easie a matter to shew theÌ„ so to be against you with vs in almost al the rest of the pointes in controuersie betwixt vs. At least this most confidently I doe aduouch that for 600. yeares you shall neuer proue them al nor halfe to be on your side in the third part of the questions betwixt you and vs and therfore you doe but too shamefully deceiue the simple people in this case with a shew bragge of that with you are of al other furthest froÌ„ The XXX Chapter OVr Sauiour Christ did approue his vocation after another sort then you doe yours a But in another place you know he saieth that the word that he had spokâ—n should iudge them at the last day Iohn 12. Search saieth * Ioh. 5. he the scriptures for they heare witnes of me he doeth not say that they are Iudges as you say for you wil haue none other arbitrator but the word of God You know that they are two different thinges to beare witnes and to be a Iudge and yet the scriptures of the old Testament doe coÌ„taine not only the verity of the doctrine of our Sauiour Christ but therewithal the very sufficient probation of his person to teach vs the true word of God to ouerthrowe destroy the whole kingdome of Sathan as it is plainely seene by those that list to looke vpon the oracles of the olde patriarches Prophets It is writeÌ„ in the third of Gen. that God saied vnto the womaÌ„ that her seede should breake downe the serpeÌ„ts head And likewise in the saied * Gen. cap. 12.15.19.22 24. booke there is mentioÌ„ made of this diuine seede of Abraham in the 15. 53. Chapters of Esay in the 2. Psalme Dauid doeth talke of it And in like maner Daniel Moses AaroÌ„ withal the rest of the prophets in their sacrifices haue very perfectly painted the coÌ„ming passioÌ„ of our Sauiour Moses left writeÌ„ in the prophecy of Iacob that the Messias should come when the roial scepter and the administration of it should be taken from the line of Iuda Daniel was not content to say as the rest that he should come b There
shew your selfe to bee not onely one that dare write any thing how grosse a lie soeuer it be but as malitious in your iudgement as euer was any First you set downe not onely that the Anabaptists condemne thē that die in Luther Caluins religion to hell which is likely inough because they were franticke heretiques haue denied the foundation but also the Lutherans and Caluinists will doe giue that iudgement one of another and yet I am sure you are not able truely to say that euer any of Caluins iudgement saied or wrote so Secondly though your owne iudgement be short yet so it is set downe that you shew that you beleeue that all the three sorts go thither And such care compassion your catholique heart had of it whē you had done that you iest at it accounting your selues fooles if you should stay their passage thither For if we were al gone for company you thinke you should be at quiet you say hel would be so full that the deuil would long for no more companie Is this your popish diuinity to make sport at the damnation of men And hold you this for a principle that it is folly to stay men from running togither to hel Indeed it may be For I haue read that it is a rule amongst you that if your Pope lead headlong with him multitudes by heapes to hell yet no man may be so hardie as to say vnto him why doest thou so Distinct 40. Cap. Si Papa But howsoeuer you account this diuinity certaine I am you wil finde it that in no two things more the deuils shew themselues deuils then in these In laughing and reioicing in the damnation of the soules of men and in letting them go freely for company to hell without stoppage as many as will Truely truely God must take from you this profane and deuilish spirit of yours and giue you grace to repent of it or els you may be sure how many soeuer die and go to hel before you hell wil long for you and you shal finde place and roome inough there I warrant you The XXXII Chapter THere is a certaine minister of the Lutherans called a What will not a passionate aduersary say to disgrace them that he writes against If like testimonies of men of your Religion writing yet in some points one against another wil be admitted it is an easy matter thus to discredit your whole faction Heshusius the which within these three yeares hath made a booke against Caluin Peter Boquin Theodore de Beza Gulielmus Elcimalcius he saieth amongst other things that Carolstadius Zuenfeldius Caluin Beza doe shew well the vncertainty of their faith by the diuersities of opinions that there is amongst thē the which fault saieth he doeth proceede of this that they haue forsaken the true sence of the scripture to follow the opinions of their owne heades b And yet in truth lyeth therein himselfe And in that very booke the saied authour doeth giue the lie to Caluin because that in that hee wrote against the aboue named Westphal hee saieth that Martin Luther and his adherents did acknowledge him as their brother the which thing he maintaines to be false c Greater more disagreement◠there are amōgst you papists and therefore these conclusions presse you rather then vs. Thus seeing yee agree togither like dogs and cattes that all these sects haue confirmed their false doctrine with the shedding of their owne bloud it is best to conclude as we haue saied before that it is not the paine nor the tormēt that doeth make the righteous martyr except we should saie that diuerse contrary messengers are sent from one master the which is notoriously false for that good king frō whom the trueth doeth come indeede hath so good a memory that he doeth neuer send contrary messengers but rather his faithfull seruāts doe all with one voice and one accord honour him as the father of our sauiour Iesus Christ The XXXII Chapter HEre againe as in the former Chapter you labour to discredit Caluin Beza and others onely with the testimony of Heshusius an vtter enemy of theirs about the quarrel of the cōtrouersie of the Sacrament whom heat of contention and a desire therefore to disgrace his aduersaries rather then iust cause led thus to write For what reason had he there to ioyne Zuenfeldius with Caluin and Beza with whom they helde no more communion and fellowshippe then hee himselfe and Corolstadius who was a doctour in Wittenberge in Luthers time and an associate to him in disputatiō against Ecchius he might with more reason haue ioyned with Luther himselfe and his partners then with these And howsoeuer the intemperate heate of contention emboldened Heshusius to giue Caluin the lie most certaine yet it is that Melancthon a great frende of Luthers whom Heshusius cannot deny was an adherent of Luther accounted of Caluin as of a good brother For in an Epistle which he wrote to him he calleth him Charissim◠fratrem most deare brother it is the 187. Epistle in the booke of Caluins Epistles And I am perswaded that what Caluin wrote he was able to iustify in this behalfe how rudely soeuer angry Heshusius gaue him the lie This obiection of our disagreement hath beene oft enough vrged and answered alreadie It seemeth that you haue great penurie of arguments against vs when this must come in thus often especially seeing as I haue shewed greater contentions haue beene amongst your selues In which cases would you haue thought a mā should haue dealt wel with you if the bitter speeches of the one side had alwaies beene taken as sufficient argumentes to disgrace the other Or would you haue liked that thereupon a man should inferre as you doe that you agreed no better then dogges and cattes and that therefore you so differing amongst your selues came not both from one master God who vseth not to sende contrary messengers this had beene an harde conclusion against a number of you in the time of your schismes betwixt your Popes and Antipopes and in the times of the contentiōs of your Friers with your other Prelates and also amongst themselues whereof I haue put you in remembrance before Chapter twenty eight And yet if you will needes meate this measure vnto vs vpon occasion of this one controuersie about the maner of Christs reall presence you must bee contented that vpon moe and greater contentions amongst you wee sende you home as good measure againe As for your conclusion that it is not the paine but the cause that maketh a true martyr wee graunted it you at the first but where to make way to bring it in here againe you insinuate not onely that the Donatists Adamites Seruetus and the Anabaptistes of whom you haue spoken in your former Chapter haue died to confirme their false Religion which we graunt you but that these also that you spake of last Lutherans and Zuenfeldians haue
in b But that place you find not in this booke some other place but at this time we must treat of our vocation to answere him and his complices how and by what vertue we exercise our ministry c This I deny that you come to your calling in this sort for neither is there right succession amongst your Bishops and Pastours nor continuance in that trueth which yet you say only neuer proue We are called to this estate according to the ordinary way that is to say by the right succession of Bishops and Pastours and by the coÌ„tinuance of one Catholique faith deriued froÌ„ the Apostles to our daies without the interruption of it vniuersally d That trueth indeede hath alwaies coÌ„tinued and shall by the meanes of faithfull teachers but neither with you nor by meanes of your teachers is at all proued by there places Math. 5. Ephes 4. for in diuers places of the world it hath beene euer cleare and certaine manifestly shining like the light set on the table to giue light to all those of the house and not vnder the bushell to be shadowed with darkenes Saint Paul e Peruse the place you shal finde that though Paul reckon vp there those ministeries which should fully be sufficieÌ„t for the Church yet he once meÌ„tioneth not your gretest Prelacâ—es Howsoeuer therfore it may be as you hold they be necessary and most necessary for the pompe of your Church that so the better she might answere her patterne Apoc 17. yet thereby we may see Christs Church shall may grow to her perfection yet neuer bee acquaâ—nted with them after that he had recited by order the Ecclesiasticall Hierarchie I meane of the Apostles Prophets and EuaÌ„gelists he doeth declare at the last the cause why they were instituted being for the edification of the mistical body of Christ the which is the Catholique Church vntil saieth he that in the vnity of faith we go to meete him He taketh his similitude of many that come from diuerse waies and meete all in one way f Indeede hee plainely there teacheth thaâ— there shall bee alwaies to that ende teachers in he Church but hee saieth not that they shall so succeede one another either in person or place aâ— you would â—eene thereupon to builde For no such line of continuall locall or personall succession from his time to this day can be produced And thus hee meanes that the spiritual edification of the Church ordeined of Bishops Pastours and Doctours shall endure vntill that the Gospell be preached through all nations By the effect of the which Gospell both French Spanish English Greeke Persian Arabian Latines Barbares with many other nations which were too iediâ—â— to name haue met together hauing of great antiquity all one kinde of Catholicke faith by the Apostles and their successours for euer As the some of God before he suffred did attaine arriue to the perfectioÌ„ of his age euen so his misticall body of the Church shall continue in this world vntill it be perfect in his members and that the number of the chosen be accomplished And euen as a materiall building caÌ„not be perfectly atchieued without g We see and heare of many great goodly buildings in the ende perfited in building whereof there haue beene many and sometimes long intermission continuance of workemen and masons euen so the spirituall building of the Church cannot be atchieued without the succession of Biâ—â—ops and Pastours preaching or causing the word of God to be preached which is the very spiritual building the which hath beene euer common and visible in the Church according to the prophecie of Esay h Sap. â—1 say you wel hit the place is in Esay 62. Sap. 61 â—ho meaning to declare the care that God taketh as touching the preâ—eruation of his Church hee did say as it were representing the state of Hierusalem I haue established and ordeyned i But few such haue beene in your time of succession these many yeares watchmen vpon he walles the which shall neuer holde their peace neither day â—or night These watchmen are those that haue annouÌ„ced to vs our salâ—ation They are the trumpets of Iesus Christ which neuer haue left their â—ounding in the true Church of God from the Apostles time vnto this â—resent day AN ANSWERE TO MASTER IOHN de Albines discourse against heresies called and accounted by his frendes A notable discourse to that purpose made by Thomas Sparke Pastour of Blechley in the countie of Buck. .1591 Chapter first CALVIN we esteeme and account of as of a rare singular minister of Christ his writings as they well deserue wee thinke reuerently of and you haue tried them to be of great force power to shake the very grounds and pillars of your Babilonical building but our Patriarch we neither account nor cal him though you in your third word take it and therefore set it downe for graunted that we doe It seemeth you thinke scorne that hee should charge your Priesthoode not to bee of God and so to cal you to an accouÌ„t of your vocatioÌ„ Indeede I caÌ„not blame you that it grieueth you that that should be called into question seeing it is a thing you haue bragged on so long haue gained by at the hands of the blind ignoraÌ„t both al the credit wealth you haue especially seing also that what words soeuer you vse to countenance the matter yet you shall neuer be able to iustifie it Howbeit as though not onely you were able to answere Caluin to the full in this point but also as though there were either some great impiety or vanity at the least in his words you recite them twise admonishing your Reader that they are his wordes Be it that they be so what haue you saied either to argue the least folly in theÌ„ or to iustifie your vocation in such sort as therein he proueth you must or els it cannot be of God First you woulde proue Caluin in these wordes to offer you wrong in that out of the 5 to the Hebr. he gathereth that vnlesse you can proue God to be the authour of your vocatioÌ„ it cannot be of God because the Ciuill law prescribeth that one should proue his right of possession before he demaunde it and that he should restore the spoile before the suit proceede But who seeth not that that which he alleadgeth out of the 5 to the Hebr. doth more iustifie his demauÌ„de that either you must shew that god is the authour of your Priesthoode or els confesse that you are not called of God then anie thing that you haue noted out of the Ciuil law can proue that he offereth you any wrong in calling for this at your hands Because you are an Archdeacon it should seeme that you would faine that men should thinke to the ende you may be iudged the fitter man to execute your office that you haue some skill in the
And so doeth Tertullian de resurrectione carnis Cap. 3. saying Auferantur ab haereticis quae cum aethnicis sapiunt vt de scripturis solis suas quaestiones fistant stare non possunt that is let those things be taken from heretiques which they holde with the heathen that onely by the scriptures they may determine their questions and they cannot stand And nothing was more vsuall and familier with Augustine against the heretiques of his time then to call them for the triall of the question both whither he or they were of the true Church also whither of them had the trueth to this way of triall by the scriptures And therefore de vnitate ecclesiae Nolo humanis documentis sed diuinis oraculis ecclesiam demonstrare I will not make demonstration of the Church by the writings of men but by the diuine oracles saieth he Cap 3. again there also he further addeth pressing the heretiques with whom hee had there to doe sunt libri dominici quoruÌ„ authoritati vtrique consentimus ibi quaeramus ecclesiam ibi discutiamus causaÌ„ nostraÌ„ that is there are certaine bookes of the Lord vnto the authority whereof we both consent there let vs seeke the Church there let vs discusse our cause To the like effect he writeth in the 2 Chapter of that booke and elswhere very often Vnles therfore they wil once bee contented to come to this trial of the controuersies betwixt theÌ„ vs we must needs tel theÌ„ that they are not desirous in earnest euer to haue it appeare which of vs haue the better cause but as men who know in their owne coÌ„science that their cause is bad they labour to maintaine the credit thereof as long as they can by cunning shifts delaies But yet let them assure themselues as long as they shun this trial how cuÌ„ningly colourably soeuer though simple fooles already besotted with superstition bewitched with popish enchantments vpon their bare worde stought bragges that it is nothing but the ancient catholicke faith that they teach may sometimes beleeue theÌ„ that yet withal those that haue any wisdoÌ„ at al by this means they leese quite both the credit of theÌ„selues their cause For faith being as it is not a wauering vncertaine conceyt opinioÌ„ of the thing beleeued but a most certain sure infallible perswasion of the trueth thereof how can any be assured that the doctrine that he beleeues is such as he may soundly firmely rest vpon for vndoubted trueth without euident grouÌ„d thereof out of the writeÌ„ word of the Lord in the canonical scriptures For theÌ„ce onely Peter dare warraÌ„t the sincere milke which caÌ„not deceiue the childreÌ„ of god to be fetched 1. Pet. 2 2. therefore that he would haue theÌ„ to desire as new borne babes doe milk that they may grow vp therby And as for the writings traditioÌ„s of meÌ„ beside hath not doth not experieÌ„ce daily teach that they may not nor caÌ„not chalenge the preeminence prerogatiue alwaies to be free from errour And euery one that is a ChristiaÌ„ hath learned that this prerogatiue al the writers of the canonical scripture had in the writing thereof therein not to haue erred at al. Who therfore caÌ„ be so simple vnles the Lord in his iustice hath blinded him because hee would not see the trueth shyning about him that he should receiue that for the sound catholicke faith that he heares not first froÌ„ point to point proued vnto him so to bee out of this vndoubted certaine word of God the canonical scriptures what shew or colour of proofe soeuer otherwise be made thereof And this Iohn de Albine could not but conceiue yet neuer once going about in this his discourse thus to couÌ„tenaÌ„ce his cause religioÌ„ but as one loth to be brought to this trial he laboureth most earnestly to discourage al meÌ„ froÌ„ appealing vnto it yet almost in euery leafe braggeth and boasteth that both his Church his doctrine and al are souÌ„d catholick Wherin howsoeuer he pleased himselfe in that his vaine any indiffereÌ„t maÌ„ may see he hath rather bewraied the weaknes of his owne cause theÌ„ any way whatsoeuer he haue saied otherwise impaired the credit of ours But how vainly hee hath swet euen to the tyring of himselfe his reader about this point in many chapters That by the scriptures controuersies are not in the church to be tried determined wheÌ„ I come vnto that place I shal god willing shew more fully In the meane time Iohn de Albine to turne my speech to you I hauing thus examined your answere to our demand how you come to your prelacies and offices and hauing found the weaknes and vntruethes thereof such as that your calling or coÌ„ming thereunto can claime no more credit thereby theÌ„ the calling coÌ„ming to their offices amongst the ArriaÌ„s Greekes whoÌ„ you count heretiques and scismatiques caÌ„ doe because they caÌ„ could say as much and that as truly for theirs as you haue here said for yours let vs now proceed to the examinatioÌ„ of the places of scripture in this Chapter quoted by you vrged as you thought stroÌ„gly to your purpose By the Mat. 5. Ye are the light of the world c. by christ spokeÌ„ properly to his Apostles you would seem to proue that therfore right successioÌ„ of Bishops pastors in the Apostolique truth in al ages in diuers partes of the world hath ben euer cleare shining like a light set on a table by that Eph. 4. Esa 62. with your book quoteth Sap. 61. very wisely you would infer that not oÌ„ly alwaies vntil Christs body coÌ„e to ful perfectioÌ„ there should be doctors pastors in the Church to teach the truth which is the most that by those places caÌ„ be proued but also that they and their coÌ„gregatioÌ„s haue euer ben known visible therby doubtles meaning so visible as the rest of your side doe wheÌ„ to this end they alleage these or the like places as that froÌ„ time to time in al ages meÌ„ may be able to naÌ„e theÌ„ and their places WheruÌ„to I answere that you stretch these places and the words therin further theÌ„ their natiue sence wil bear For the first of these is properly to be vnderstood of Christs Apostles onely who in respect of their ministery other graces of the spirit that should be powred bestowed vpoÌ„ theÌ„ to beutifie streÌ„gtheÌ„ their extraordinary ministery withall are there by Christ compâ—â—â—â—â— the light of the world to a lighted candle set vpon a candlesticke not put vnder a bushell lightning all in the house and to a city 〈◊〉 on a hil which could not bee bid all which afterward they in the â—â—ecution of their Apostleship and holy conuersation proued to be â—â—â—tles truely and iustly giuen them This was no prophesie as yoâ— would make it that their should be vntill the second comming 〈◊〉 Christ a visible and
Catholiques that withstood the Arrians in the sight of this Emperour had but a poore visibility to bragge of Yea Piggius your owne man confesseth Hierar lib. 1. cap. 6. that their poison had defiled not a part but almost the whole world in so much that almost al the Bishops not only of the east but also of the West by one meanes or other were blinded and no small time continued this heresie and this is certaine that they bragged then as much of visible succession of the name of the Church and vniuersality as euer since you haue done calling the true Christians Homousians as you doe now Lutherans Zwinglians as appeareth in the writings of those that wrote against them You may see therefore that these weapons or staies are coÌ„mon to you with blasphemous and condemned heretiques These places of Scripture and experiments therefore caused August vpon the 10. Psalm 78. Epist to compare the Church vnto the Moone which besides the monethly waynings suffereth oftentimes ecclipsies And surely vnles we be too too wilfull al these things togither may make vs out of doubt that the Church of God both before Christ since hath ofteÌ„ failed to cary any such outward visible shew in theeies of the world that it is so easie a matter to make at al times demonstration of her Pastours teachers who they were and where they taught as you our aduersaries would beare the world in hand it is And therefore for answere to this Chapter to any reasonable man this is sufficieÌ„t The II. Chapter SAint a Thus you are falne from prouing that you are come to your places by the ordinary calling of such as haue ri htly succeeded one another both in person office trueth of doctrine which is the thing you should haue proued to shew that there hath alway bene and must be a successioÌ„ of Pastours to continue settle meÌ„ in the truth which is another point For though this were grauÌ„ted you yet you haue not therby wun the other Paul followeth this discourse in the fourth Chapter vnto the EphesiaÌ„s where as he doeth declare vnto vs the fruit that doeth proceed of this successioÌ„ of Pastours and of the perseueraÌ„ce of the reasonable sheepe in one kinde of spirituall doctrine called the vnity of faith For he sayeth that God established this order to that ende that wee should not bee like light children a The more is your sinne that haue suffered yourselues to be caried away froÌ„ the truth by the enticements of Antichrist caried away with euery blast of false doctrine through the subtilitie of men their crafty words full of deceit In these wordes you doe see how the Apostle doeth declare vnto vs the counsaile the intentioÌ„ of the holy Ghost b If you had beene constant in this faith wee and you had beene all of one minde and vnles we can â—ustifie our faith to bee euen so grounded as you say we will forsake it and ioine with you but if we caÌ„ then you are to forsake yours to ioine with vs if you will answere the intention of the holie Ghost I meane that we should be constaÌ„t in our faith the which is grouÌ„ded vpoÌ„ the word of God interpreted declared vnto vs by the Doctours Pastors that successiuely haue continued in one kinde of faith Catholick religion froÌ„ the first time that it was preached with out turning with euerie winde but rather that we ought to stand firme stable Here is to be noted that wheÌ„ the Apostle doeth tel how he hath left vs pastors doctors to warne vs of the subtletie of false teachers he doth vse a certaine greeke word very apt for this purpose the which hath in English the signification of the c I would not you had forgot this note for it doeth liuely paint out your doctours which by this their skil in cogging and cosening doe make the scriptures to haue a flexible sence alwaies sutable to the practise of your Romish Church how variable so euer that be playing or cogging at dise And euen as he that hath no great skill if he plaie with such a one he wil soone lose his money because the other caÌ„ cast what he will EueÌ„ so if a simple maÌ„ being vnlearned doe chaÌ„ce to talke with such a one as caÌ„ cog or to speake plainelie falsly interprete the Scriptures he may soone be deceaued as we see it daily happeÌ„ to many that play away put in hazard the rest of al their spiritual inheritaÌ„ce I meane the faith which hath bene left to theÌ„ by their fathers froÌ„ age to age since Christs time Thus haue the Arrians the Nestorians diuers other heretikes deceiued manie a man as I will shewe more at large hereafter The II. Chapter IN this second chapter you obserue further out of the 4 to the Ephe. before alleadged that God established a ministery in his Church that we should not be like childreÌ„ caried away with euery blast of vain doctrine thorow the subtlety of meÌ„ their crafty words full of deceit whereupoÌ„ you inferre that thereby God hath taught vs to be constaÌ„t in our faith grouÌ„ded vpoÌ„ the word of God interpreted declared vnto vs by the doctors pastors that successiuely haue coÌ„tinued froÌ„ the beginning in the same Who of vs euer either wrote spoke or thought otherwise But herein is your subtlety that you take this stil for grauÌ„ted which indeed is the maine question betwixt vs and for determinatioÌ„ wherof on your side you haue as yet saied nothing that the faith and religion which your Synagogue is in possessioÌ„ of is that faith which you speake of which we constantly deny affirming the faith religion which we professe to be that indeede wherein the Apostle would haue vs constant and setled and which hath alwaies coÌ„tinued in the Church and hath bene taught and iustified out of the word writen by the true pastors thereof in one place or other froÌ„ time to time And therfore herein you haue saied nothing but the we vnderstanding it of our faith and religion maketh as much for vs as for you We grauÌ„t you also that false teachers and wrong interpreters of the Scriptures worthily there may haue their subtlety expressed by a word importing cogging or cosening but then still we adde that your teachers a long time haue bene the meÌ„ that haue vsed and yet doe vse that cogging tricke Which if it would please you once by the souÌ„d rules of interpreting the scriptures to let your interpretations and ours be examined we doubt not but to make most manifest vnto all men quickly The III. Chapter THe place that I haue quoted of the Apostle doth shew how daÌ„gerous a thing it is to fal into the hands of such Coggers of the scriptures likewise how certaine a thing it is a Such interpretation of the doctour we will most willingly follow and if you should you would
Catholique faith Catholique Bishops succeeding one another When as indeede and trueth it is as impossible for you to proue that you haue any iust right to anie of these as it was for those heretiques But howsoeuer you make some beleeue you haue all these yet I say vnto you with Saint August De vnitate Ecclesiae against the Epistle of Petilian chap. 10. That euen Catholique Bishops are not to bee consented vnto if that anie where they be deceiued in thinking anie thing contrarie to the Canonicall Scriptures And therefore when all commeth to all and when otherwise you haue runne your selues out of breath in conclusion will you will you by these Canonicall Scriptures must it bee determined whither you haue anie right to anie of these or no. For if you appeale from them as indeede you doe to the Church and fathers they will sende you backe againe for the triall whither that which they speake bee true or no onelie to the Scriptures as it maie appeare vnto you not onelie by this one place which I haue cyted out of Augustine alreadie but also by a number such like places both to bee founde in him else where and also in others For you maie reade in the first booke and seuenth Chapter of Theodoret that when Constantine sawe great controuersies in the Church in the Nicene councell and perceaued that euerie seuerall companie bragged of the trueth and so also of the Church and fathers to bee on their side to ende all those controuersies he saied Ex diuinitus inspiratis oraculis quaeramus solutionem eorum quae proponuntur that is out of the oracles that are come by diuine inspiration thereby meaning the Canonicall Scriptures let vs seeke the determination of those thinges that are propounded and so they did And as Constantine the Emperour was of this minde so it appeareth that Athanasius was of the same For to Serap hee saieth Solum exsacris literis condiscas meaning that the holie Ghost is God sufficiunt enim documenta quae in illis reperias Thou maiest learne it onelie out of the holie Scriptures for the documents or lessons which thou maiest finde in them are sufficient And Origen vpon the 16. to the Romanes in his tenth booke agreeing herein with these saieth that onely by the holie Scriptures the difference of trueth from errour in the examination thereof is to bee discerned And yet more plainely the same Origen in his first Homilie vpon Ieremie writeth of necessitie wee must call for the testimonie of the Scriptures for our senses and declarations without them as witnesses haue no credit Well therefore saied Augustine de naturâ gratiâ cap. 61. Onelie to the holy Scriptures doe I owe my consent without refusall And therefore franckely hee telleth Hierome in his nineteenth Epistle that hee had learned to yeelde that honour onely to the Canonicall Scriptures to thinke that the authours thereof therein neuer erred Where he plainly sheweth vs by his example how we should reade his writings or the writings of any other father namely beleeuing that which they wrote no further then we see it by scripture confirmed or by probable argument not dissenting from the trueth And the like he teacheth yet more plainelie in his 111. 112. Epistles to Fortunatus and Paulinus in the proeme of the third booke of the Trinity Wherefore with the same Augustine I confidently say and write whither of Christ or of his Church or of any thing that appertaineth to our faith and life I will not say wee that are not to bee compared with him that saied though wee but as hee addeth though an Angell from Heauen shall preach any thing besides that yee haue receaued marke hee saieth not contrarie but besides in the legall and Euangelicall scriptures let him be accursed in his third booke against Petilian cap. 6. Yea your owne Vincentius in the very place quoted by you denyeth not but taketh it for graunted that the scriptures of themselues alone are sufficient for all things yea and more then sufficient Whereupon it is euident that Vincentius by the rule line and true sence of the Catholique Church that there he speaketh of vnderstandeth onely such a sence or line as agreeth best with the scriptures themselues and the right rules of the interpreting of them wherof more afterwards In the meane time howsoeuer Vincentius his meaning was Augustine an ancienter father more famous somewhat then he speaking of the rule of faith that alwaies in interpreting of the scriptures men must haue an eie vnto and be ruled by saith that it is euen that which is taught in plainer places of the scripture de doctrinâ Christia lib 3. cap. 2. de trini lib. 1. cap. 2. 4. Yea in the same Augustine de doct Christ lib. 2. cap. 6. distrinc 37. c. Relatum we may reade noted out of ClemeÌ„t that the church is not to receaue any fence for the true seÌ„ce of the scriptures which caÌ„not be proued so to be out of the scriptures theÌ„selues And therefore all interpretation of scripture newe or ancient deliuered by the fathers in former time or receiued of their children of this later age must and ought according to this rule and line bee iudged catholique or not The IIII. Chapter Cant. 1. WHose discourse doeth make me remeÌ„ber the complaint that the soule doeth make vnto her Spouse Iesus Christ beeing both represented by Salomon and his legitimate spouse I pray thee saith she O my deare frend tell mee in what place thou doest lie and rest at noâ—â— daies for I would be very glad and desirous to follow the flockes of thy felowes The which is as much to say as if she meant thus I see many shepheardes in these mountaines which haue great abundance of sheepe I see those of the Roman Church I see Donatistes I see Nouatians or to speake of our time I see one flocke follow Luther another follow a The Caluenists Zuinglians and Sacramentaries are commonly amongst you taken for one yet here that the variety of opinions may seeme the greater you reckon them vp as three distinct sorts Zuinglius another follow Caluin another the Anabaptists another the SacrameÌ„taries so forth diuers others of whoÌ„ wheÌ„ I demauÌ„d particulerly Whose is this flocke they do al answer me It is of Christ euery 〈◊〉 saieth this is the catholicke Church euery one doeth say that he is his fellow that is to say as touching the guiding of his flocke Now it is not possible that they doe al teach the trueth considering how they varie among theÌ„selues therefore I doe desire thee to tell me where thou doest rest thy selfe at noone daies That is as much to say teach me which is the true Catholicke Church which doeth celebrate the true misterie of the Crosse which is the place where thou wast nailed at noone daies beeing nailed both handes and feete Heare now the answere of Iesus Christ If thou doest not know the place
according to the successioÌ„ of those Bishops vnto whoÌ„ only the Apostles coÌ„mitted the custody of the Church throughout the world the which saith he is come to vs. This saied Irenaeus doeth write in his third booke and second Chapter that he and his fellowes did withstand the Valentinians and the Marcionistes which were great heretiques by the traditions of the Apostles d A cursed glosse for it corrupteth the text for the tradition that he speaketh of had good warrant in the writeÌ„ word that is to say the doctrine not writen but receaued from age to age of the Apostles and so continued till their time He saith likewise vnto the Traditions which are of the Apostles and that by successioÌ„ of pastours haue beene vsed in the Church we doe persuade and prouoke those that speake against Traditions Hee writes as much more in the third Chapter of the saied booke Forasmuch saith he as it were to tedious to set forth in one booke the Successours of al the Churches and to tel theÌ„ one by one we doâ—â—â—â—â— throw those that for vaine glory doe seek to gather disciples togither touching them contrary to that that doeth appertaine vnto the traditions of the Apostles the which we doe shew to theÌ„ by the saied Traditions and by the faith that hath beene taught and is come to vs by succession of the Bishops of the great and ancient Church of Rome the which was founded by the two glorious Martirs and Apostles Saint Peter Saint Paul These are his words in his third booke aduersus haereses a The third you should say the fifth Chapter And at the beginning of the saied Chapter he saieth thus All these that will vnderstand the trueth may presently regard the traditions of the Apostles which are manifest throughout the world and wee cannot count the number of those that haue bene instituted and ordeined Bishops in the Church and their Successours till our daies which haue neither knowen nor taught any thing like vnto the fables and tales that these doe preach vnto vs. b If you say so you say it without cause and vntruely Not without cause we may now a daies say the like of the Lutherans Caluinistes other sects of our time After this he doeth set forth all the Popes of Rome c If the Popes euer since had beene like these you and wee should not haue needed to striue as we doe from Saint Peter vnto Eleutherius which was Pope in his time And he did affirme that that number did suffice to proue that the doctrine of Marcian and Valentinian was false very hurtfull because that it was vnknown or at the least not receiued or approued by the Church being vnder the gouernance of any of thâ—se Popes Then with greater reason ought prescription to take place against d True but such you shall neuer proue ours to bee a new doctrine which hath beene vnknowen this 1500. yeares or at the least if any body sought to publish it he was condemned as a false perâ—itious hereticke The V. Chapter YOu must remember that Vincentius liued 1000 yeares ago by your own coÌ„fessioÌ„ that therfore he speaketh of their time and of the Catholique Church and ancient faith that then was Whereof if you vnderstand him we say as he saied and are more willing to ioine and holde communion with that Church of Christ that he speaketh of then you but then his saying maketh directly against you For neither your Church nor faith was in his dayes We grauÌ„t you also that Irenaeus did vrge succession of persons to stop the mouthes of the heretiques as you shew in this Chapter out of him but withal then you must not forget that he liued not long after the Apostles times when as yet they whose Succession he alleadged continued in the sincerity of the Apostolique doctrine from which long ago your Roman Church as it is now hath fallen by antichristian apostacy For that hee calleth the principall succession and those bishops onely he teacheth are to be obeyed who togither with the succession of their Bishoprickes haue receiued the gift of trueth as I noted vnto you out of his fourth booke 43 Chapter in my answere to your first Chapter But Irenaeus no where prescribeth that his example of vrging hereticks to see their folly by Succession for a perpetuall rule to followe neither therein doeth he prophecy that for 1000 yeares after further those successiue lines of Bishops or any other would continue so in possession of the trueth of doctrine as that safely alwaies they might be ioyned vnto For he was not ignorant what was prophecied concerning the comming of Antichrist 2 Thess 2. and Reuel 17. and that Paul tolde to the Pastors of Ephesus Act. 20. that after his departure there would arise vp euen amongst themselues grieuous wolues not sparing the flock which must needs import that howsoeuer in his time he thought sometimes of succession of bishops that continued in the trueth that yet it was farre from his meaning to prophecy that so it would be alwaies You reason therefore in this point as one that to proue the stewes at Rome now to be pure virgins should alleadge for proofe thereof that they were so when they were yong children For euen like difference and ods there is betwixt the Church of Rome now and her bishops and pastours and that that was in the daies times that you and the authours that you alleage speake of For whereas vnto these times the Church of Rome her bishops pastours stoode and continued in the trueth since not only many of the bishops of Rome themselues whom you hold are freest furthest of of al other from erring as I haue shewed already most plainly fell into heresie but also al your Romish doctrine which we now count cal papistical was diuised found out since those times and is also not only beside but contrary to the doctrine then taught receiued by the ancient Church of Rome her pastours as ere I haue done with you I hope at least in great part sufficieÌ„tly to proue It should seeme therfore that either you in thus reasoning are very childish your selfe or els you thinke you haue to deale but with babes and fooles in that because Irenaeus that florished within two hundred yeares after Christ when the Church was yet pure and vndefiled in comparison of the tymes that followed could and did vrge Succession of persons ioined with succession of trueth therefore you may that liue 1500. yeares after Christ and more You must first proue that succession of trueth is vnseparable from personall succession that euer since and now also the Bishops pastours whose personall succession you bragge of haue continued in the trueth as well as they did whose names he reciteth Whereof neither shall either you or any of you be able to proue as long as the world standeth Fye therefore for shame that you
neuer hauing proued either of these nor yet being able to doe it you should cōclude that your prescription against our doctrine which you call newe at your pleasure though indeede it be most ancient witnesse the olde testament and the newe much rather ought to take place then his in his time against heretiques that then taught diuerse basphemous heresies directly against the scriptures You say our Religion hath beene vnknowen this 1500. yeares or at least if any body sought to publish it he was condemned as a false pernitious heretique But you doe but say thus you proue it not nor euer shall For it was both heard and knowen many 100. yeares before yours was hatched and if euery one were so condemned that taught it then was Christ and his Apostles so condemned For vnlesse by scriptures we can proue ours to be the same that theirs was wee aske no fauour at your hands And as long as we can doe so the more we and our predecessours haue beene condemned by you the more we knowe we haue beene blessed of God Now whereas you say in this Chapter further that Irenaeus did withstand heretiques by the traditions of the Apostles adding your glosse that is to say by doctrine not writen but deliuered from hand to hand and so receiued from age to age frō the Apostles to that time therein through the ambiguity of the word Tradition craftsly you seeke to deceiue your simple reader and indeede you giue a glosse that corrupteeh the text For let that place of Irenaeus in his third booke and second Chapter be perused and that also which followeth in the third Chapter of the same booke though either you or the Printer mistaking it send vs to the fifth Chapter where the wordes are not which you cite and most euidently it shall bee proued that though Irenaeus haue there the words by you cited yet by the traditiōs of the Apostles which he speaketh of there he meaneth no doctrine nor points of doctrine as you doe vsually by that word contrary or besides that which was also taught in the word writen For the question was of God the father of our Lord Iesus Christ which Valētinian Marcion denied against whō he there sheweth that he fought first with the scriptures wherewith when they were vrged he saith they are turned streight into an accusation of the scriptures as though they were not right had not authority might diuersly be takē saying further that trueth could not be found of them by those that are ignorant of traditiō For the trueth was not deliuered by them but by liuely voice that therefore Paul saied we speake wisedome amongst them that are perfect not the wisedōe of this world And this wisdome to euery one of them saieth he is that which he himselfe hath deuised Of which heretiques their wordes yours when you are called to the touchstone of the scriptures are so like vndoubtedly you haue learned to plead against the scriptures for your vnwritten traditions Now when thus he had shewed how the heretiques in his time shunned triall by the scriptures and appealed to tradition he goeth on and sheweth that when he was contented to come to the traditiō of the Apostles kept obserued in the church downe from the Apostles to those times by succession of pastours then they resisted tradition also saying that they were wiser then either those pastours or the Apostles themselues and so indeede neither by the scriptures nor yet by making demonstration vnto them that the same doctrine taught in the scripture was also deliuered by liuely voice first by the Apostles and so receiued from age to age and continued in by those pastors of whose successiō he speaketh could stop their mouthes And thus any mā of meane capacity may perceiue that in these places Irenaeus his drift only is to shew the heretiques that the doctrine which he taught concerning God the father of our Lord Iesus Christ first was warranted by the Apostles writings and then also taught by them by liuely voice and so deliuered and continued from hand to hand amongst the faithfull pastours succeeding one another euen vnto that time And that he calleth this the tradition of the Apostles and not as you falsly expound him doctrine vnwriten beside or contrary to that which is writen as the Popish traditions you striue for bee if you had beene disposed you might haue learned in the 1. Chapter of the same booke where he saieth That which first they preached after by the wil of god tradiderunt nobis they deliuered vs in writing to be the foundation and piller of our faith And indeede it is an vsuall thing with the fathers of the primitiue Church often by the tradition of the Apostles to vnderstand the very same doctrine which is conteined in their writings Herein therefore so likewise in all other points in controuersy betwixt vs it is a cōmon tricke with you papists to vrge the fathers wordes quite contrary to their true meaning But because you first and namely bring in Irenaeus for your vnwriten traditions which is the window indeede that you would haue faine left open vnto you for then thereby you hope you may thrust in and vpon the Church what you list and so countenance thereby your Antichristian doctrine when all other shifts faile let vs see whither this cannot yet further be made manifest out of him He as Eusebius reporteth Hist Eccles lib. 4. cap. 14. saied that Polycarpe taught that one and sole trueth which he had learned of the Apostles quae Ecclesia tradit which the Church deliuereth forth Where of necessity by those things which the Church deliuereth by tradition that he there speaketh of you may not vnderstand any other but those which haue warrant from the word writen and in no case those things that are besides that or cōtrary thereunto for then hee would not haue called that which Polycarpe preached the one and sole trueth for questionles those things are true that are conteined in the scriptures And this clearely appeareth if you marke the wordes as they are in Irenaeus himselfe in his 5. booke 20. cap. that Eusebius hath relation vnto which are these Polycarpe did mention or teach those thinges which he had heard of the Apostles that is all things agreeable to the scriptures Againe the same Irenaeus in his 3. booke and 3. cap. which is one of the Chapters by you before alleadged saieth that vnder Clement the Church of Rome wrought to the Corinthians shewing them quam traditionem what tradition of late they had receiued of the Apostles that is to say that God the father almighty and so forth as is expressed in Moyses is the father of our Lord Iesus Christ And that he is so taught to bee of the Churches saieth hee they that will learne may by the Scriptures and so they may vnderstand the Apostolique tradition of the Church Where it is most cleare that he telleth vs himselfe
pretend you would yeelde vnto them in this point and so spare much labour that you bestowe to get credit to your traditions vnwriten Which if you would once be brought vnto we should quickly by the sole and sufficient authority of the scriptures haue a faire hand of you Which you espying whatsoeuer otherwise you would seeme to account of the fathers to bleare the eies of the simple in this they shall keepe their iudgement to themselues for you like it not So that this and such your like dealing with them caused one once to tell you that the fathers are vnto you as counters in the handes of him that casteth an account according to whose will and pleasure sometimes one and the selfesame counter standeth for an ob that stoode immediately before for a pound or more So with you when it pleaseth you an ancient fathers testimony is of great weight and when it pleaseth you againe 20. of their testimonies are nothing Howbeit I hope the indifferent reader by these testimonies doeth will perceiue that you wonderfully seeke to abuse Gods people when yet you would perswade them at anie time that the ancient fathers are fauourers and patrons of your vnwriten traditions And I trust this may serue to make it sufficiently appeare that in the iudgement of these ancient fathers your Andradius may be ashamed to write as he hath scripto suo aedito tempore Tridentini coÌ„cilii That the greatest part of Catholicke Religion is left vnto the traditions of the church not writen and that your Lyndan was extreame mad or very drunke when he wrote It is most extreame madnes to thinke that the whole and entire body of Euangelicall doctrine is to be searched out of the Apostolique letters writen with inke out of the litle booke of the new testament Panopl lib. 1. cap. 22. But thus to make vnwriten traditions sometime equall sometime superiour in authority to the canonical scripture that vpoÌ„ this ground that al trueth is not sufficieÌ„tly taught therein you haue learned of the Encratites Manichees and of the Montanists Valentinians and others as it appeares in them that wrote against them And yet O good God what a stir now of late this Andradius Lyndan other such your great champions haue made what cost they haue bestowed to drawe men from that estimation that these fathers had of the authority and sufficiencie of the canonicall scriptures in making large treatises and discourses to shew that the authority therof depends of the testimony and authority of the church that they are not sufficient no not halfe sufficient for the direction of the church either for Religion or conuersation and that they are obscure hard to be vnderstoode all vpon this occasion that will they nil they they are driuen to perceaue that their opinions wherein we differ from them cannot any longer bee defended by the scriptures for al their sophistrie cunning and that therefore they see they must maintaine the credit of theÌ„ by the authority of the church her vnwriten traditions which they may say to be what they lift or that else they must be driuen to throw vs the bucklers and to run out of the field But you doe fouly deceiue your selues if you thinke in this great light that men espy not that this is a shamefull shift and which argueth that your cause is euen giuing vp the ghost that you caÌ„ hold out no longer vnles it be by preferring the authority of the church the wife before Christ the husband by giuing her your commission to sit as iudge ouer her husbands word to adde there unto and take therefrom how what seemeth good vnto her And your fault herein is the more intollerable because by the church you vnderstand alwaies your popish Synagogue that now is For euen children may see that you are very farre driuen when there is no other remedy but you must thus open your mouthes and prepare your pens to disgrace his writen word which all meÌ„ know to be his word indeed without question for the gracing countenancing in this sort of that which though you call his worde you are neuer able to proue to be so And for this who seeth not that we may iustly say of you as Tertull Apolog. 5. saied of the heathen in his time Apud vos de humano arbitratu pensitatur diuinitas nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit homo iaÌ„ Deo propitius esse debebit that is with you the godhead is esteemed of as man shall thinke good vnles God please man he shall not be God man now must be good to God Howsoeuer you are ashamed thus grosly with these prophane pagans to speake yet it is euident in that you still say write that the writen word of God is inferiour in authority to the church hath the canonical credit from thence that the sence thereof is must be whatsoeuer your Bishop of Rome for the time being doeth define determine so to be relying stil vpon vnwriten traditions bearing men in hand that they are as well the word of God as the canonical scriptures as you doe al meÌ„ whoÌ„ your enchantmeÌ„ts haue not bewitched made blind may see that in effect you are as grosse as they of whom these words were truely writen This once we knowe to be his word which wee finde set downe in the Canonicall scriptures we are sure this was writen by the direction of Gods Spirit for the information of the Church And we cannot be ignorant but that this Spirit of God foresawe what dangerous heretiques there would bee which if they were not preuented by leauing the word of God fully in writing vnder the pretence of vnwriten traditions would bring in damnable heresies And therefore seeing it is euident vnto vs that he in these writings begaÌ„ to leaue instruction vnto vs to settle vs in the certaine trueth we know he could go thorow with it because he is God the fountain authour of all wisedome trueth are sure that he was willing because he perfectly loued the church by Christs promise by the ministry of the Apostles was to leade it into al trueth we must needes thinke it flat blasphemy to think that the writeÌ„ word of God is any way vnsufficieÌ„t for the full direction of the Church in all matters And therefore howsoeuer you please your Sects in this deuise of yours in feighting thus for the traditions of the Church thinke not to the contrarie but any man of meane iudgement will discrie both your vâ—â—â—tie and impiety therein by making this reason in his owne minde vnto himselfe The spirit of God in the writers of the Scriptures sawe it good and necessary to leaue the worde of God for the full direction of the Church in all matters writen by that is done and writen it is cleare hee tooke it in hand and to take it in hand
you would make it But be it though you only say both proue neither of theÌ„ against theÌ„ that they held it in the worst sence now stil that also as you say in certaine other smaller things they hold otherwise then was held by Chrysostom Cyrill Basil Athanasius yet I say will staÌ„d vnto it that as daÌ„gerous heresies mo in nuÌ„ber be held of your own coÌ„pany against the truth of Christs person office theÌ„ they hold in all in far more greater points of weight are you gone froÌ„ the ancient fathers that haue beene in the latin church wtin the first 600. yeares theÌ„ they haue done froÌ„ theirs And therefore in the meane time whiles you will ioyne this issue with vs vntil you haue disproued this my assertioÌ„ by the same reason you reiect their succession will we perseuere in reiecting yours Now whereas you secondly imagine that we labour to weakeÌ„ ouerthrow the force of your argument taken from succession by laiâ—ng out the lewde liues negligence in doing of their duties in many of those pastours Bishops of whose succession you boast true it is that prouoked by your too too great brags of your personall succession by your immoderate railing against some of our pastours and ministers whom yet you cannot staine but with false and maliciously deuised tales sometimes some of vs haue beene occasioned to cast your owne dunge into your faces And we being able as wee are euen out of your owne stories so iustly to lay such a number of most notorious thinges to the charge of verie many of your greatest Prelates and the matter being notorious that fewe or none of your Popes and Archprelates euer take it vpon them by preaching to feede Gods people which is the principall duety of a Bishop we thinke still that that which we say and obiect against you in this behalfe may iustly cause you to be ashamed of such fathers so to cease both your bragge of succeeding them your railing against vs. To disproue the force of this our allegation you dispute the matter as though we went about to proue that the succession of trueth hath ceased in the Church because we thus obiect against the persons of many of your predecessours whereas we most constantly holde beleeue that it hath alwaies continued and that though you grow ten times worse then any that hath beene before you it shall stil vnto the worldes ende But withall we tell you it hath beene continued by others and not by those wicked and negligent pastours and predecessours of yours that we speake against For as their liues were deuilish so was their doctrine Antichristian as yours their childrens is Too too foolish therefore is it that you write that wee doe no lesse offende God in laying forth the liues of sundry of your Popes thinking thereby to ouerthrow the succession of the catholique Ecclesiasticall faith then if one should go about to ouerthrow the promise of Christ to the Patriarches because of the bad liues of diuerse of their successours For we holde that the Succession of the Catholique faith hath continued and will to verify that promise of Christ Matthew 16. though neuer so many of your popes go to the deuil Neither did we euer in laying forth their most filthy liues thinke thereby to ouerthrow the Succession of faith for we neuer tooke them to haue any society or coniunction with it since they became such But you still according to your old woont taking it for giuen which shal neuer be offred you that their personall succession and the catholique trueth went alwaies togither which we doe most earnestly deny imagined that wee could not speake against the one but that therein also we sought to ouerthrow the other when as we are perswaded that of al other persons vnder heauen your Popes for this long time haue beene Sathans most forcible meanes to ouerthrow both the Apostolique trueth and Catholique Church Wherefore you see you might wel haue spared your paynes in the greatest part of this Chapter and so let any that hath witte iudge whither it be not great folly for any man to be so simple as to seeke to be the childe of such fathers as neither had honestie nor any soundnesse of religion as many of your Popes for any thing that you haue yet saied to the contrary haue beene whose children yet how bad soeuer you would haue men to be The VIII Chapter VPon Moises Chaire there sitteth sayeth our Sauiour Christ who not the godliest meÌ„ of the world but the Scribes Pharises doe that they saie but not that that they doe But if our new Gospellers had beene in those daies they would haue tolde Christ that his commandement was not to be obserued because the liues of Anna and Caiphas were not correspondent vnto those of Moises Aaron for the first came to the vocation of priesthood being called of God but the last attained to it by the vocation of their a As many of yours doe or by worse means or else your owne frends bely theÌ„ purses and yet notwithstanding rather then our Sauiour would breake this harmonie of the misticall bodie of the Church he was not onely content to permit that Caiphas should execute his office although hee was vnworthy as one that came to it by Simonie but rather he did confirme his pontificat with the gift of the Spirit of Prophesying with the which he was b That is grosse blasphemy as fullie inspired as euer was Dauid Esay or any of the rest and all to teach vs that that I haue alreadie saied I meane that the Ecclesiastical order the administration of the Sacraments doe not consist in the good or euill liues of the pastours but onelie of God and of his word interpreted by them As touching that that appertaineth to our health God hath no regard to the life of the magistrate temporal or ecclesiasticall for he can aswell serue him with an euill person to doe good to the common wealth as of a good as the godlie prophesies of the wicked Balaam doe well witnesse Num. 24. And here is to be noted that when we talke of the succession of Bishops and of the doctrine continuing in the Church we doe not meane onely to talke of the c Indeede you doe wisely to call for helpe of others for otherwise the necke of your successioÌ„ hath often bene shamefully broken Popes but of all the Bishops and other hauing Ecclesiastical charges not onelie at Rome but thorow al other places where the true preaching and right administration of the Sacraments be vsed And therefore you doe pretend in vaine to proue that the aboue mentioned succession hath beene interrupted by the discention of Popes Antipopes and by the Ciuil warres that haue bene at Rome in times past For although that the Sea of Rome was vacant for a time the Chaires of Bishops in France Spaine England and
your doctrine herein then he doth And you know that he lyued 400. yeares after Christ and more In lyke sort your doctrine of iustyficatiō in part by mans owne merits and satisfactions howsoeuer of ancient tyme the scribes and pharises troubled the Apostolicke Churches with the lyke doctrine yet was it a doctrine abhorred of the Church of Christ as blasphemous against the omnisufficient merits satisfaction of Christ Iesus our Lord sauiour ours of iustification freely and fully soly and wholy by fayth onely in Christ allowed and receiued as sound trueth and doctrine in that poynt not onely in the Apostles tymes as it appears Ro. 3. Gal. 2. 5. but also for many 100. years after euen vnto very late dayes For proofe wherof let any man read Origē vpon the 3. 6. of the Romās Ambrose vpon the 3 of the Romās also Hierom in his booke against the Pelagiās vpon the 4 to the Romās vpon the first and 2. to the Gala. Aug. de fide operibus ca. 22. vpon the 88 Psa and in his 22 Chap. of his Manuell and Hilary in his 8 Canon vpon Mathew See also Basils 51. hom de humilitate Paulinus 58. Epistle to Saint August amongst Augustines Epistles Chrysostome vpon the third to the Romans Theodoret vpon the same Chapter Gregory Nazianzens twenty two oration and Ruffinus his exposition of the Creed you shal not onely finde al these fathers in al these places as flatly to teach free ful iustificatiō saluatiō to cōe by faith in Christ alone wtout our works at al cōcurring as any helping cause therunto as any of vs now doe but also further I can doe assure you that who so wil vouchsafe to take the paines to read Bernards 23 61 and 62 Sermons of the Canticles his Sermon the 15 of the Psalme Qui habitat and his seuenty seuen Epistle he shal finde that he though he were aboue 1100 years after Christ was of the same minde For in these places he plainly confesses that he for his saluation rested onely vpon the merits of Christ and not vpon his owne at all counting mans merite to bee nothing else but to trust onely in Christ and in Gods mercy withall plainly testifiyng that he hoped to haue his solâ fide by faith onely in Christ Iesus Yea your owne Thomas Aquine confessed with vs that we are iustified by fayth instrumentally and that no vertue inherent in vs can be of the forme or essence of our iustificatiō Rom. 4 Ephesians 2 and in sundry other places of his commentaries vpon Pauls Epistles And Sadolet vpon the Epistle to the Romans acknowledged doubtles forced therunto by the power of this trueth that Abraham attulit tantùm fidem non sua opera that Abraham brought onely faith not his owne works againe he saieth quātum quisque affert de suâ iustitiâ tantum detrahit de diuinâ beneficentiâ that is how much in this respect a man bringeth of his owne righteousnesse so much he pulleth from Gods bountifulnesse How far likewise the strength of this trueth conquered your great Champion Piggius with griefe Ruard Tapper and others of your side haue noted writē against him for it For in the controuersie of iustificatiō fol. 61. he in playn tearms with vs cōfesses si formaliter propriè loquamur nec fide nec charitate nostrâ iustificamur'sed vnâ Dei in Christo iustitiâ vnâ Christi nobis cōmunicatâ iustitia that is if we speak formally properly we are iustified neither by faith nor by our charity but by the only righteousnes of God in Christ by the onely righteousnes of Christ cōmunicated vnto vs. And hauing with vs before in the controuersie proued confessed fol. 46. y al men euen the most righteous if they should be iudged of God or esteemed according to their own righteousnes by merit and desert they were to be accursed and condemned not onely for the imperfection of our best righteousnes but also for playne vnrighteousnes to be foūd in the best he proceeds concluds fol. 47. that our righteousnes hope of saluatiō with God cōsisteth in the free forgiuenes of our sins in Christ in that the perfect righteousnes of Christ is imputed vnto vs hauing cōmuniō with him And to make his meaning more plain that he meaneth not by the righteousnes of God or Christ any inherēt righteousnes of ours wrought in vs that beleeue by the spirit of Christ as our late Iesuites doe but the righteousnes that was is inherent in Christ he saieth that the righteousnes of Christ wherof he would be vnderstood in this case to speak is his obediēce whereby he fulfilled his fathers wil in al things and he expounds or declares the nature of the faith wherof the Apostle speaketh Rom. 3. saying We are iustified freely by his grace by the redemptiō that is in Christ Iesus whō he hath appointed to be our attonement maker by his bloud to bee fiduciā cōfidentiā in sanguine eius fol. 48. to be a trust and confidence in his bloud thereby alone to be saued so stil aduouching fol. 49. his onely righteousnes imputed vnto vs to be the whereby we shal stand be accoūted righteous before God and him therefore to be vnicū solidū the alone soūd foūdatiō of our saluation To conclude therefore this poynt I say with Iunilius Aphricanus who liued Anno. 440. lib. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 si quis in Christū crediderit remissis peccatis potest per solam fidem seruari that is if any beleeue in Christ his sinnes being forgiuen him he may by fayth alone be saued and with Augustine vpon the 31. Psalm si vis esse alienus a gratia iacta merita tua if thou wilt be voide of grace thē boast of thy merits Your doctrine of auricular confessiō of praying to Saints for the dead I haue at large in my answere to your thirty seuen Chapter shewed to be but new doctrines and of far later stampe then you pretend and in like maner elsewhere I haue shewed diuers other points of your religion to be in this aunswere of mine And I thinke you are not ignoraunt that that worthy bishop bishop Iewel here in England bishop of Salisbury hath most cōfidently protested that for 600. years after Christ you haue no sound groūd for 25. articles whereof the most of them are about your masse whereof you glory most which protestation or chalenge of his he hath hitherto defended sufficiently against all your obiections to the contrary And therefore whatsoeuer you bragge to the contrary so much of your religion as we count it popish for is and will proue when you haue done what you can but as the tares Math. 13 that were by Sathan subtly and secretly sowen in the Lords field long after the good seed was sowen And yet we labouring onely according to our callinges and that knowledge that God hath giuen vs
our ReligioÌ„ to be the true ancient Catholicke faith taught by the Apostles and euer since continued in Christes true Church namely first for that by the Canonicall scriptures we can proue it to be the same that they preached seeing it caÌ„not be denied but their preaching and writing agreed and secondly because our Religion in all points agreeth with the ancient groundes of the Catechisme the ten coÌ„mandemeÌ„ts the articles of the faith the Lords praier c. And for these causes indeede we most confidently say and aduouch that you doe vs extreame wrong the trueth soundnes of these two reasons notwithstanding either to call our Church or ReligioÌ„ new or thus to call for miracles to confirme it now as though it had neuer beene confirmed thereby before But in all this with you we say nothing to the purpose yet with the indifferent Reader I hope it is to good and great purpose seeing hereby we labour to proue that our church and Religion is not new and but of 40. yeares continuance as here most vntruly you charge it but olde ancient because it agreeth in euery point with the principles of the ancient Christian Catechisme All you say to confute this argument of ours is that we haue learned our Catechisme of you otherwise we should not or could not haue come by it Whereunto I answere that if wee had had no better Catechisers then you we had yet beene but badly Catechised and this further you may be sure of your credit was by your long and manifold lewd dealing so crackt with vs if we had not found these parts of the Catechisme either flatly expressed or sufficiently confirmed and grounded in the Canonicall scriptures vpon your credit we had not receiued them besides as I haue plentifully shewed in the 4. Chapter we haue had in all ages from Christ downe to our owne very manie of our owne Religion that haue continued and from hand to hand deliuered vnto vs these partes of the Catechisme more soundly and faithfully then you haue done so that if you had neuer beene we should farre better and sooner haue learned these things But in the most wise prouidence of God these were in some sort also continued amongst you that so you might be the more without excuse in that notwithstanding the light that migh haue shined vnto you thereby you yet chused rather to walke in grosse and palpable darknesse then in the light thereof And therefore sathan the Prince of darknesse in your Synagogues through the helpe of his vicar generall your Pope and his Chaplaines neuer ceased vntill by one blinde and hellish perswasion or other whatsoeuer Paul had taught to the contrarie 1 Corint 14. he brought to passe not onely that all your Lyturgie and seruice should bee in Latin and rather lying legends permitted to be read in the Churches publickly in the mother tongue then the Scriptures of God but also that these portions of the Catechisme should either not bee learned at all or else onely in the Latin and vnknowen tongue which he knew was all one in effect Otherwise then thus by your good wils how little soeuer we had vnderstoode the latin tongue wee should not nor could not bee suffered to learne them and therefore this learning being altogether wtout edification neither is there any cause why you should brag that we haue learned our Catechismes of you nor why we should accouÌ„t our selues any thing in your debte for the same Further to make it yet more appeare how little beholden we are to you for teaching vs the Catechisme let vs but a little consider euen your most diligent Catechising of men in these three partes thereof here named by you the ten commandements the creede and the Lordes prayer First concerning the ten commandements in steede of one God which there we are commanded to haue you in teaching vs to worshippe Saints Angels your breaden God and your Pope as you doe haue taught vs to worship so many more Gods then one and secondly that your images and idols might staÌ„d to the enritching of your cleargy with the idolatrous offrings vnto theÌ„ it was and is a common trick with you in setting down the commandements in your Catechismes and elsewhere to leaue the second commandement quite out which is directly both against the making and worshipping of them and yet least you should of euery one be spied in finding them but 9. you deuide the tenth into two And as for the other 2. coÌ„mandements of the first table by your ordinary most coÌ„mon practise the people were taught whatsoeuer is there to the coÌ„trary that it very well becommeth them of your schoole vsually to sweare by a number of things that are no Gods and to season all their common talke with oathes of all sortes and to turne the day which should bee kept holy to the Lorde to a daie of the greatest vanitie and impiety of al the daies of the weeke And to proceede to the second table neuer did the Iewes more make the 5. commandement of none effect for loue of their Corban then you haue done to maintaine your infinit orders of monks friers nuns in all contempt and neglect of duety to their pareÌ„ts if once you could entise them into those cloisters How pretious soeuer bloud be yet so small a matter hath it bene with you that your Synagogue is drunke with the bloud of Gods saints and euery varlet is not only easily dispensed withall with you but also often much commended if hee can though neuer so traiterously embrue his haÌ„ds for the furtherance of your kingdome in the bloud of subiect or Prince brother or of whoÌ„ soeuer else And as for adulterie or fornication yea for sinnes against nature not to be named your great Catechisers neuer haue seemed to make reckoning of in that notwithstanding they know that these haue followed in such infinite measure vpon their inforced single life in euerie corner that the stench thereof hath long ago reached vp vnto heauen to pul downe Gods fearce vengeance against you yet rather then they would let go this tricke of hypocrisie they are contented that this â—ench increase stil Your infinite and open sacriledges in building founding your cloisters and Prelacies in spâ—â—â—ing the seuerall parishes of their ordinarie maintenance for their ministers other your innumerable vnsatiable pillings polings of Gods Church your decree and practise in not keeping any faith with those whom you couÌ„t heretiques and your ordinary doctrine that bare concupiscence â—s no sinne shew what Catechisers you are for the rest And whereas in the creede we be taught indeede to beleeue onely in the Trinitie in that you vsually teach vs to trust yea in the matter of saluation to a number of things besides and to praie vnto saints and Angels it being plainly taught vs in the word that beside God there is not sauiour Esa 43. and that Christs name is the onely name of
pulled downe and they cast out and those that did offer sacrifice vnto theÌ„ grieuously punished then saieth he the iustice is not certaine through the pâ—ssion or for hauing suffered death but the death and passion is glorious when it is for the sustaining of the true faith And therefore saieth he our sauiour because he would not haue the simple deceiued vnder this colour of trueth he did not onely say blessed are those that suffer but hee added for iustice But this can in no wise be attributed vnto those heretiques that suffer to seperate the vnion and concorde of the Catholique church c In that booke it appears these Donatists did indeed complaine and yet brag of their persecutioÌ„s but thus much I finde not there testified against them or of theÌ„ In his booke de haeresibus ad quod vult Deum he writeth to this effect of them And in his booke de vnitate Ecclesiae contra Epistolam Petiliani he doeth write that the Donatists which were a sect of heretiques that raigned in his time to confirme their doctrine they did not attende that others should put them to death but they did cast them selues downe from high places others did burne themselues in the fire to be honoured after their death as Martyrs and that is more they did threaten men if they would not kill them d He writes in that epistle no such thing you had the worst lucke in quoting of your testimonies that euer had aâ—y for 3. for one you cite wrâ—ng S. Cyprian in like maner doeth write in the first booke of his Epistles in the first Epistle that though an heretique suffer death for Christ that doeth not confirme him as a Martyr but that his death is the very punishment of his errourâ— and that he cannot go to heauen which is the mansion of the humble for seeing that he doeth seperate himselfe froÌ„ the house of peace which is the church yee know well of what church he doeth speake that he cannot be receaued into heaueÌ„ c. All those that haue writen the histories of the BohemiaÌ„s doe say that in the time of e Zischâ— was a famouâ— souldier captain but minister he was none one Zischa a martial minister of the heresie of the Heborits or Hussites there were a certaine sect of heretiques called Adamites like vnto the olde heresie of the Nicholaites for they did saie as these doe that mens wiues should bee common and they vvent all naked euery one taking the woman hee liked best whom hee did carie vnto their minister and before him hee did saie the holie ghost doeth inspire me to lie with this person then the saied reuerent father did giue him his blessing saying Increase and multiplie and so they went awaie This aboue named Zischa although hee had done a number of wicked deedes yet hee determined to abolish and take awaie this sect f And therefore popish traytours that are executed amongst vâ— for high treason though they seeme to take their death neuer so patiently we lawfully couÌ„â— call tâ—aitours though you â—anonize them for Saints and so he caused two women to be burnt for this abhomination the which two notwithstanding the torment of the fire did sing and giue thankes to God for that it had pleased him to permit them to die for so holy so iust a quarrell Did not Michael Seruet who was once master Caluins dearling rather desire to suffer at Geneua then he would confesse that Christ was God and yet notwithstanding his great patience or to saie the trueth diuilish obstinacy cannot be sufficient to make him a Martyr nor to perswade you to beleeue his doctrine g What need all these seing none of vs euer stande vpon the bare sufferings of meÌ„ no more then you you should yet haue named the places where these things are writen and not thus haue sent vs to seeke we cannot tell where There is a certaine minister of the Lutherans called Ioachim Westphall who in a worke of his doeth mocke at Caluin who did vaunt that within these fiue years aboue an hundred had suffered death to sustaine the Gospell of Geneua and he doeth answere him at large prouing that the sect and doctrine of the saied place ought not to bee approued for the multitude of false martyrs for the Anabaptists whoÌ„ he doeth iustly coÌ„deÌ„ne haue had of their sect a great many more for in lesse theÌ„ three years there haue suffered a great number more then euer there did suffer of Caluinists in fifteene And to conclude this matter the saied Westphal doeth say that the deuill hath his Martyrs euen as well as God with whom like a good sergeant he doeth march giuing the vauÌ„tward vnto the martyrs of the Caluinists that haue suffered at Geneua h The more to blame are they if they should say so but though heat of contentioÌ„ caused Westphalê° to write so bitterly I thinke very few will ioyne with him in this iudgemeÌ„t sure I am they whom you cal Caluinists doe not iudge so of them because of that 1. Co. â— v. 15 So that if one demaund of the Lutherans whither go those that die in the Religion of Caluin of Beza or of the Anabaptists they saie to the Diuell And if one demande of the Caluinists in like maner whither go the Anabaptists and the Lutherans they saie likewise to the Diuell And who would put the like question to the Anabaptists I am assured they would saie at the others to the Diuell For my part I beleeue you I assure you all three i This argueth a most diuelish and profane spirit in the writer And seeing that yee agree so well that one serue for an others harbenger we were very fooles if wee should stay your passage but let you go all to the Diuell for company for I thinke if you were all gone our debates would cease and hell would be so full that the deuill would long for no more The XXXI Chapter YOu neede not to tell vs that Augustine and Chrysostome haue taught that it is not the death but the cause that maketh a martyr For we know that to be a most certaine trueth and the generall doctrine of all good writers both olde and new and therefore you might haue spared your paines bestowed in the proofe of this And therefore most willingly wee acknowledge as Christ hath taught vs that onely they are blessed martyrs that suffer for righteousnes sake Mat. 5. and none to be martyrs howe patientlie soeuer they seeme to suffer their deathes that by for an il cause either in life or doctrine And yet we are not ignorant that many haue died in lewde and for lewd opinions who yet haue seemed to die willingly and cherefully and therefore wee deny not but that it may be true that some such wicked women of that beastlie heresie of the Adamites were put to death in Zischaes time in Bohemia died as you write and
they left in writtng by the ordinance of God to confute such heretiques as you are The XXXVII Chapter AT last it seemeth by your paines taken in this Chapter you be thought your selfe that forasmuch as hitherto onelie in bare and naked wordes you had vaunted and bragged your Religion to be the ancient Religion that it was needefull for you euē for shame before you made a full end of your booke to yeeld vs some reasons and grounds or at least some shew colour of your so lewd and bold boasting And therefore here now at last to that ende you haue mustered the bare names of a few ancient fathers very prouidently leauing your Readers to the examining of your quotations amōgst whom not one of an hundreth you knew either for lacke of skill or will leasure or bookes could and would turne to the places in the authours themselues You thought belike your credit to bee such that they must needes beleeue that you cite thē truely and faithfully and that because you so roundly haue huddled them togither that therefore also out of all question they spake and wrotefully for you in the points you alleadge them for What smal cause there is either for you to looke thus to bee trusted or for any to yeelde you such credit herein wee shall see anone when wee come to the examining of your quotations In the meane time what ment you by this thus onely when all commeth to al to countenance these 4 points your Ceremonies in baptisme confession before the sacrament praiers to the Saints departed and praier for the dead Are these the greatest matters of your religion in question Or doeth it especially depend vpon these 4 and the coūtenancing of these Or was your prouision ready for no more that but once in all your booke you seeming to set downe the authorities whereupon you ground your religion you would take the paines to go no further then to these 4 points Indeed in your next Chapter you excuse your selfe and say that you would haue gone likewise on to confirme the rest but for being tedious to your reader Truely he is much beholden to you for your discreet kindnes towards him that haue not spared to be tedious vnto him in al the rest of your book in troubling of him with such a number of proud brags of the antiquity and catholikenes of al your religion as you haue and with many needles and friuolous long discourses besides and now when you came to the point indeed which of all other was most materiall and wherein both for his satisfaction and your owne credit it stood you vpon most to enlarge your selfe then thus to shift him of with as good as nothing bearing him yet in hand that but for his ease you both could and would haue saied inough This is a common tricke amongst you thus to cozen and abuse your simple readers to weary them with things needles and then to slip ouer with some such shift as this matters most needful Wel concerning that which either you haue saied here for these 4 points or that which after you pretend if you had list you could haue easily saied for the rest this I would haue the reader diligently to note and marke that but for two places vainely alleaged to proue your confession that you neither haue alleaged any testimony of scripture at all for the proofe of these nor yet that you so much as say after you could or would for the rest Which argueth that euen in your owne conscience the best ground and countenance that your popish religion hath either in these points or in the rest is but from earth and not from heauen from men and not from the holy ghost For if you had beene able with any good colour to haue coūtenāced either these points or any of the rest out of Gods owne booke and writen word the reader may think that neither your zeale to your religion nor yet your boasting spirit which hitherto hath shewed it selfe ouerflowing in you either would or could haue suffered you thus much to the preiudice your whole cause cleane to haue forgotten so much as once to go about it But to say the trueth seeing it is confessed by your betters not onely that this but the most of all the rest of the points of your Religiō which we striue with you for are grounded but vpon tradition as I haue shewed out of Soto against Brentius Canisius fift Chapter of his Catechisme and Lyndans 100. Chapter of the fifth booke of his panoply before you are the honester man and the more a great deale to be liked for your thus secretly confessing the same with them Now yet by this the Reader may plainely vnderstand what hath indeede beene the reason why in all your booke hitherto you haue laboured so much as you haue to grace and countenance tradition and the exposition of the doctours and withall haue spent so much time in diswading the appealing to the Scriptures for the ending of the controuersies betwixt vs. You were wise enough it seemeth to see where your strength lay and from whēce would rise your bane and therefore who can blame you for leaning as you doe altogither to the one and shunning the other But then in reason yet you should call your Religion no more diuinity but humanity no more Theologie but patrologie and plainely confesse indeede from whence you haue all your figge leaues rags and clouts to couer your shame and nakednes Truely these you haue whatsoeuer in this respect you pretend not from the right and sound Apostolique tradition which alwaies was either expressed in Scripture or at least cōsonant vnto it nor from the ancient holy fathers rightly vnderstood and when they taught as it was of themselues acknowledged to be their duties with sound warrant from the scriptures as I haue sundry times shewed already but onely from forged or corrupt tradition and from the fathers either misunderstood or erring as men So that vnwriten verities or rather forgeries sentences of fathers mistaken or their verie errours whereof they would haue beene ashamed if they had had the meanes to helpe them to see them that you haue are the groundes pillers and bewties of your church and Religion And this we are alwaies ready to iustifie against you before the whole world by sound and inuincible proofe out of the vn doubted word of God interpreted according to the same rules of interpreting it that the holy and ancient fathers themselues haue followed in confuting all heretiques in their times by and which they haue likewise commended to others alwaies to be obserued and out of the vndoubted writings of the ancientest and best fathers them selues Wee are therefore verie well content to liue and die in that Church and Religion which we are sure we are able thus to iustifie and we enuy not you but rather heartely lament and pittie you that yours hath no better grounde then it hath But to
doe wee haue assurance as long as wee aske according to his vvill the first of Iohn and the fift because he is mercifull and true and faithfull in all his promises And therefore we thinke it is a sure way to run to him and to trust to him in all our needes and necessities If we would haue an aduocate either of mediation or intercession vnto him wee haue one for all euen Iesus our Lord and sauiour For as Paul first teacheth vs ther is but one God so likewise in the same verse he assureth vs there is but one mediatour betweene God mā which is the mā Christ Iesus 1. Tim. 2. and Iohn ioyning with him in his first epistle second Chapter pointeth him only vnto vs to be our aduocate with the father And he being the 1 fountaine of al grace mercy the 2 authour and finisher of our faith 3 the dore of the sheepfold 4 the way truth life his 5 name being the onely name wherby commeth saluation 6 and he being he but by whom he himselfe hath tolde vs none cōmeth vnto the father 1 Iohn 1. vers 14. Colos 1.19 2 Heb. 12.2 3 Iohn 10.7 4 Iohn 14. vers 6. 5 Act. 4 12. 6 Iohn 14.6 especially seeing he hath allured all that are heauy loaden and weary to come vnto him Mat. 11.28 he being of that property that we know he is not to break a brokē reed nor to quēch the smoking flax Esa 42. ve 3. and yet able perfectly to saue those that come vnto God by him seeing he euer liueth to make intercession for them He. 7.25 We know and are sure we should doe him the greatest wrong that may be considering also that he hath vpon his word assured vs that whatsoeuer we aske the father in his nāe beleeuing we shal obteine it Mat. 21 22. and Iohn 14.13 If wee should leaue him at all one so able and willing euery way to serue our turn alone to run vnto any Saint or Angel of his And therfore as we dare make our praiers to none but vnto God so dare we vse no other mediatour or aduocate vnto him but onely Iesus Christ our Lord and sauiour We are sure it sauoureth strongly of lack of faith in vs in him if not of flat Antichristian blasphemie once but to imagine that any be Saint or she Saint in heauē or Angell wil be readier to take compassion of vs or that we may be bolder to vse any of their intercessiōs to God thē his For in al things he became like vnto vs his brethren that he might be merciful and a faithfull high Priest in things concerning God that he might make reconciliatiō for the sinnes of the people for in that he suffered and was tempted he is able to succour them that are tēpted Heb. 2.17.18 For we haue not a high Priest which cannot bee touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all things in like sort tempted yet without sinne let vs therefore go boldely vnto the throne of grace that wee may receaue mercy and finde grace through him in time of neede Heb. 4.15.16 And let vs take heede in this case whiles we follow your example in leauing him and running to Saints to pray for vs we commit not the two euills that the prophet Ieremy chargeth the people of Israel withal Ier. 2.12 13. that is forsake the liuing fountaine a foūtaine of liuing waters to dig vnto our selues pits euen broken pits that will hold no water For as thē he saieth in respect of these two faults O yee heauens be astonied at this bee affraide confounded saieth the Lord so worthily may we say in respect of this your folly and double sinne in this point For though to lessen somewhat your sinne herein you would seeme to plead onely for praying vnto the Saints in paradise to helpe you with their prayers that nothing indeede can help you For not onely for these reasons is euen that abhominable and vnlawful but certaine it is that you in your practise as I haue shewed at large in my answere to your publishers preface most grossely and Antichristianly pray vnto the Saints themselues thorough their merits to procure you the thinges you sue for Yea you are gone so farre that according to the multitude of your necessities the varietie of occupations and the distinctions of regions and cuntries you haue appointed the Saints to their seuerall offices and limits therein imitating the idolatrous heathē who imagining that there were many Gods thought it good to know euery one of their offices that accordingly they might vse them as August de ciuitate Dei lib. 4. 22. noteth And especially as touching the blessed Virgin Mary vnder pretence of your loue and deuotion towards her you haue so forgot your duety Religion towards her son that all the titles proper to her sonne you haue inuested her withall calling her Mediatris Saluatris gate of heauen queene of heauen and your only hope refuge yea you haue not stucke calling vpon her to cry vnto her saying commaund thy sonne vse the right of a mother so shewe thy selfe to haue the authority of a mother And yet if you would confesse the trueth in this point you both should and would acknowledge that you haue learned thus to honour her the other Saints neither of scripture nor of any ancient father but of cursed condēned heretiques whatsoeuer either you here or any of your fellows else where pretend to the contrary For Epiphanius writing first against certaine heretiques called Antidicomarionites lib. 3. Tom. 2. haeres 78. and next against others called Colliridians haeres 79. of the same booke and come he sheweth how that these heretiques exceeded euen as you doe in offering vnto Mary and in honouring and worshipping of her against whom he there at large inueieth bitterly as against most vile idolaters for the same telling them that so to doe was vngodly and wicked and strange frō the preaching of the holy ghost yea altogether a worke of the Deuill and a doctrine of the vncleane spirit for Mary was no God neither was she giuen vs saieth he to be adored though she were a most excellent honourable Virgin but saieth he to forewarnemen of which kinde of too much admiring her Christ saied vnto her woman what haue I to doe with thee And a little after in the latter place he saieth Neque Elias adorandus c. that is neither is Elias to be adored or prayed vnto though he liue nor Iohn nor Tecla nor any other Saint For the olde errour shall not ouerrule vs that we leaue the liuing God and worship those things that are made by him For they worshipped and adored the creature praeter creatorem besides the creator they became fooles Rom. 1. For if an Angell will not be adored how much more will not she that was borne of Anna. And therefore in the ende concludeth Mariam nemo
true word of god since the Apostles time there hath bene h I would meÌ„ would could read theÌ„ as you wish for theÌ„ I am sure they shuld find theÌ„ to be far more with vs theÌ„ with you neuer a Christian doctour in the Church for they haue all taught the contrary to your forged gospell as euery man may see that will take the paine but to looke in their workes or to read those places that are quoted by me and diuers others that haue confuted your heresies many a hundred years agone by their authorities Let them then that haue any eies beholde the hazard that yee runne into and so many others throughout the world which followe your opinion i EueÌ„ thus do you with vs If one should come to accuse an other of falsehoode and that before hee bee assured of this matter wherewith hee did seeke to atteinte the defendaunt would not one thinke his matter verie great or his knowledge verie small to run headlong into the danger of that crime which if he could not proue he should be condemned for himselfe What then shall become of you O most simple sheepe which seeke with fained arguments to condemne not one or two k These are but words feare theÌ„ not but seeing the man had nothing else he thought good belike to haue enough of them and those swelling enough but all the Christians and Catholiques that haue beene in this world since the passion of Christ the which haue refused and reproued your doctrine as hereticall haue taught vs this that we hold at this day But now to answere vnto that that was mentioned a little before that which a nuÌ„ber of your flocke haue told me when I haue conferred with theÌ„ which is that l We doe not hold that ignoraâ—ce wil excuse any that dye out of the true faith of Christ and therefore it is likely you tell but a tale the errour of our predecessours was not imputed vnto theÌ„ forasmuch as these good simple people went to worke after the grossest sort thinking to doe well and that as then they did not vnderstand well the trueth which is now brought to light through your gospell I say that in this yee are deceaued more then halfe the valewe of your Religion m You would seeme then belike that your simâ—le and ignoraÌ„t papistâ— haue all beene great and profound claâ— kes for before some of them died they had forgotten more theÌ„ euer you haue learned for all that that you knowe you haue learned it of their bookes or stollen it to saie the trueth interpreting both their workes the scriptures contrary to the trueth of their meaning And although it were so that they had al erred your coloured excuse of simplicity could auaile them nothing for the word of God would accuse them If n I am glad to heare you cite this testimony to pâ—oue that ignorance of the gospell shall not excuse any but why plead you then sometime that ignorance is the mother of deuotion the Gospel saith * 2. Corinth 4. S. Paul had bene hidden it hath beene hiddeÌ„ to those that haue perished the spirits of the which the God of this world hath blinded theÌ„ if that those vnto whom the trueth hath beene hidden haue perished wherefore doeth your excuse serue theÌ„ This being true as it is most like I meane that they haue not erred nor that you onely shal be saued they all condemned To my iudgement our auncestours with al their simplicitie did neuer erre so much as your disciples doe to follow such masters o This brag hath beene vsed so often without proofe that now it is stole and lothsome as condemne that faith that the Catholique church hath taught mainteined these 1500. yeares to mainteine those heresies that haue bene buried in hell many an hundred year agone now are called vp againe by Martin Luther Caluin his fellowes The XXXVIII Chapter THe vanity of the brag wherwith you begin againe this Chapter by that which I haue saied in answering of the former hath appeared I hope sufficieÌ„tly already but whensoeuer it shall please you or any for you to thinke that it will not bee tedious for the Reader to bring vs forth this number of Doctours confessours martyrs that you here boast of and to make it appeare indeede by their owne words or other good euidence that they were liuing dying so on your side as you here pretend I doubt not but one of vs or other will easily make it euident vnto the world that you are far greater in words and shew then you are in deedes and trueth You would haue your reader beleeue that onely to auoide tediousnes to him you haue forborne by their testimonies liuing and dying here to confirme all the rest of your doctrine and all that you doe vse at this day but alas your owne conscience telleth you that indeed not onely the tediousnes of it to your selfe but the impossibility of it altogither drew you to be glad to vse this prety shift piece of cuÌ„ning to salue your credit your causes with him CoÌ„sidering therfore what already hath beene answered to the fathers quoted by you in the former Chapter in whose euidence for those matters belike you durst be boldest what otherwise vpon sundry other occasions in answering of your booke I haue set downe out of theÌ„ directly to proue the contrary to this that you say you could proue out of theÌ„ your question with vpon the supposall of your brag here to be but a trueth you haue inferred put forth whither these doctours confessours martyrs that you talke of be in heauen or hel is childish friuolous needles For you know well enough that there is neuer a doctour confessour or Martyr of any credit and worthie so to be accounted for the Catholique Religion they taught and dyed in but though in some of them we doe not deny there might be found some inclinations towards some things now held by you that yet we holde that forasmuch as not onely they held with vs the foundation and other principall points of Christian Religion wherein you are contrary both vnto them vs but that also the Lord in his mercy towards them kept theÌ„ in the rest froÌ„ the grossenes impiety that you are therein fallen into since that they were and are ours and not yours And therefore we comfortably assure our selues that they holding the foundation and other principall points as they did though they as men builded thereupon some wood hay stubble yet the Lord souÌ„d the meanes by the fire of his spirit and affliction so to descrie the same vnto them to coÌ„sume al that vnsutable building in them ere they went hence that we neede not thorow any such scrupulositie of conscience as you imagine feare to giue our iudgement or opinion of them For wee feare not their being in hell for
defy detest theÌ„ their frantick opinions as much as any and of all men we haue beene the forwardest in writing against them And therefore they doe vs the more wrong when at any time they aggrauate this obiection against vs by charging vs to haue such amongst vs whom thus we shunne and mislike aswell as they Thus much therfore let suffice for answere to this fourth signe and now let vs proceede to the next The next is not to obey but resist the Prelates of the Church which hee would proue so to bee by Pauls saying 2. Tim. 3. like as Iannes and â—ambres resisted Moses so doe these resist the trueth being men of corrupt mindes reprobates in faith of which fault when the learned protestant can proue them guilty and vs cleare he promiseth to recant It seemeth the man in alleadging this text did trust his memory too much for twise he hath writen MaÌ„bres for IaÌ„bres but if that were all his fault here it were a small matter But here againe according to his old woont he must haue it freely giueÌ„ and granted him for he bringeth nothing at all to proue it that their Bishops and Prelates are all such as Moses Paul was that is faithfull in teaching only Gods people the truth For vnles this be yeelded him it neither may be granted him that he rightly applieth his text nor this signe against vs. But he knoweth well enough and so doe all the packe of theÌ„ that we are so far from being so prodigall in our gifts vnto them that we hold their prelates bishops Priests to be very IaÌ„nes Iambres in resisting our Bishops and ministers in teaching the same truth that they haue learned of Moses Paul and that therefore we thinke no better of them then of men of corrupt mindes reprobate in the faith For which cause we are sure we both may and ought to disobey them and resist them as we doe For so we finde that Esay Hieremy Amos Michaiah Christ and his Apostles in their times refused to obey and resisted the false doctrine of the false Prophets and high Priests that theÌ„ were What a vanity is it therefore in this man to trouble his reader with such colde and poore stuffe as this is And truely hee hath no better happe in the last then in any of the former For setting it downe that ficklenesse and slipperinesse of errours and heresies is a signe and sure token to bewray the authors thereof and that the catholique faith or trueth is likewise to be knowen by the constant stability thereof he saieth that which we grant to be very true as willingly as he or any of his side Insomuch that coÌ„monly it is one of the principall reasons that we vse to proue their opinions that we striue against them for to be errours or heresies theÌ„selues for now holding them so obstinatly as they doe heretiques for that we are able to shew how by stealing and soft paces stily they began first to creepe in and so went on froÌ„ worse to worse vntill to vse his owne tearme they came ad prosuÌ„dum maloruÌ„ that is euen to the depth of all euill that they are now growen vnto therein Who so readeth my answere to Albines publishers preface and the 37. Chapter of my answere to Albine himselfe shall finde that in a good sort of their opinions I haue shewed this But to proue this that it is the property of heretiques to be fickle and mouing and so soone to perish passe away he alleadgeth S. Peter saying that lying masters doe bring vpoÌ„ theÌ„selues swift daÌ„nation their destruction sleepeth not which he spake of gods iudgements yâ— vndoubtedly should ouertake such meÌ„ not as he vnderstandeth him to shew that their opinions alwaies should soone passe away and vanish In the former sence it is alwaies fouÌ„d true that S. Peter writeth either here or els where or both but take it in the later sence then Peter shall often be found to haue prophecied of such vntruly For who knoweth not that the grosse errours of Turcism are of very long continuance that the errour of the Aethiopians for circumcision is far more ancients and that yet it continueth And must not of necessity the errours and heresies of Antichrist be of very long continuance seeing Paul as we haue heard confesseth that the mystery of that iniquity beganne to worken in his time aboue 1500. years ago and that it should not quite be abolished before Christs second comming who then should yet by the brightnesse of his comming abolish it 2. Thess 2 The trueth of whose prophecy in that place is the very true ground of the antiquity vniuersality and continuance of the popish and Antichristian Religion So that howsoeuer it hath fallen out in some heresies that they haue in Gods most wise prouidence euen quickely brought themselues to an ende by their ficklenes moouing yet it appeareth in that place the sinne of not beleeuing the trueth so notably taught and confirmed by Christ and his Apostles in the iust iudgement of God by Antichristianity is so seuerely to be punished that therewith euen from the Apostles daies to the ende of the worlde they that commit that sinne shall bee in danger to bee deluded and seduced most dangerously Which I say and sure I am I can proue it hath beene and yet is most notoriously verifyed by popery to the wonderfull hurt and destruction of soules Howbeit this man would faine apply this signe vnto vs for that amongst vs as it pleaseth him to write here in England for the loue we beare to the doctrine of the Zwinglians Oecolampadians and Caluinists the Lutherans haue takeÌ„ their iust ouerthrow and for that now here Precisians and Puritans as he saith through the affection of the common people and so winking at them by some magestrates haue brought the Zwinglians and Caluinists to be ready to yeeld vp the ghost and to tilt vp their heeles But these are but vaine words and proue not his purpose For all these howsoeuer in other matters of lesser moment they too much disagree yet as I haue saied before and as it is notoriously knowen for the principall articles of religion coÌ„cerning faith or maners they are in constant vnity holding the same all of them that they haue learned in these points out of the Canonical scriptures as the harmony of their confessions extant to the world in print make it euident As for the seuerall and priuate opinions of Luther and his too earnest followers which we now mislike we haue likewise alwaies misliked and therefore in that respect they haue no other ouerthrow amongst vs then they alwaies since we first heard of them haue had and howsoeuer in these points we rather prefer Zuinglius and Caluins iudgement then theirs yet certaine it is that we build not our faith of them nor of them or by them delight we to be called we protest and professe our selues