3. I would desire any Papists living to tell me why the Text doth not as much oblige him to believe that The Cup is the New Testament substantially without a figure as that The Bread is his Body For the Text as expresly saith one as the other Luk. 22.20 This Cup is the new Testament in my Blood Yet I suppose they will be content to say that by The New Testament is meant the Sacrament or Seal of the New Testament 4. Why will not these blind wretches believe the Holy Ghost who calls it Bread at the eating after the consecration 1 Cor. 11.26 27 28. three times together and tells us that the use of it is to remember and shew the Lords death till he come I might here adde to this in the next place their worshiping oâ— Saints especially of the Virgin Mary with prayers to her as the Queen of Heaven to forgive their sins and to command her Son to forgive them with abundance more of such impious idolatrous or sacrilegious expressions as might make the ears of a sober Christian even to tingle But these things have been so oft told them and are so visible in their Offices and other writings that I shall pass them over As also their worshiping of Images and publike using them to that end in their Churches Though most of their Laity that I have met with say that they use them but for a remembrance of the Saints and do not worship them and that 's bad enough in such cases yet their learned Schoolmen and Doctors tell us another tale as is too visible in many of their writings Arg. 10. That Doctrine which teacheth men to turn the most of Gods worship into meer unreasonable ceremonies and vain formalities of mans dev ising is not a safe way to salvation But such is the doctrine of Popery Therefore c The Major is certain For 1. God hath taken down the ceremonial Law which he himself had made and therefore will not give leave to man to set up another in its stead and to burden his Church with unncessary things 2. It is contrary to the freedom and spiritual state of the Gospel Church The Apostle bids us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free And Christ saith that God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and Truth for such worshipers the Father seeketh And he telleth the formal ceremonious Pharisees that they worshipped God in vain teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men Mat. 15.6 7 8 9. Joh. 4.23 24. Gal. 5.1 As for the Minor it were tedious to recite but half the Romish ceremonies and formalities with which â—hey both delude and burden poor sinners For the word of God in a tongue which they understand they must hear a sound of a strange language which they understand not Instead of singing praises with the heart as David and with the understanding as Paul requireth they sing over prayers and Scriptures and other things in uncouth notes and in the Latine tongue which the people understand not The Eucharist or Lords Supper is also celebrated in Latine and the prayers and praises adjoyned and the Cup taken from the people and all turned into a meer shew by elevation of the host adoration of it gaping while the Priest doth pop the Bread into their mouthes Prayers also are used in Latine so that the substance of publike worship is thus made a very Picture or unreasonable service Yea they teach them to pray partly in Latine in private and partly with vain repetitions multiplying over the name Jesu nine times together and rehearsing over their canting shreds and numbering their prayers on their beads to keep tale and observing such and such hours and praying to Saints to one Saint for this and another for that giving the elogies and prayers and praises to the Virgin Mary that are due to God alone Sacraments they multiply even Marriage which in the Clergy is a deadly sin and the avoiding it by the Laity is a work of supererogation yet must it be a Sacrament The Rules of their several Monastical orders were tedious to recite Touch not taste not handle not such meats must not be eaten on such a day such orders must use such meats and forbear such other Orders forbear other meats some must be thus shorn shaven clothed and some thus Much of their Devotion consisteth in being sprinkled with Holy Water anointed with Chrysme creeping to the Altar striking 〈◊〉 the breast making and wearing the Cross setting it up and worshiping it in high wayes and Church-yards worshiping Crucifixes and bowing before the Images of God the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove and of the Saints travelling to certain Images and shrines in Pilgrimage offering to them especially to our Lady at some famous places compassing the Church so oft formal penances observing multitudes of Holy-dayes for the Saints hearing so many Masses saying such or such words carrying Palms taking ashes carrying banners following the Cross and host in processions and worshiping it bearing candles In Baptisme salting crossing spathing exorcizing washing hands Also baptizing bels Ceremonious consecrations saying Dirges and Masses for departed souls forswearing marriage renouncing propriety pardons and indulgencies from the Pope with abundance of the like delusory carnal formalities in which much of the Popish devotion doth consist And how can any unprejudiced man that is but possessed with the Spirit of God and truely knoweth what it is to worship him imagine that God is pleased with such histrionical gandes and childish things I confess the reading of their very books of devotion their offices to our Lady and others the like which are stuffed with such superstitious and unreasonable passages seems enough to me to turn the heart of a sober man against their way For who can think that the Holy and Blessed God will be delighted in their vain bablings and childish cantings and affected ropetitions of words and saying and hearing we know not what would any wise man regard such expressions of love or honor If your friend or your child should express his Love and respects to you by mimick gestures and gambals and making strange faces or repeating over your name nine times in a breath or ridiculous cantings complements and actings like a Stage Player would you applaud or delight in such expressions of love and honor as these Or would you not rather say as the Philistine King of David when he spit and scraped on the Wall Have I need of mad men It is sure a carnal unreasonable doctrine that leadeth men to such carnal unreasonable services of that God who will be served reasonably in spirit and in truth They that have but an Image or shadow of Faith and Grace and can expect no more of Glory are like enough to be well pleased with these Images and meer shadows of Gods worship But its like to be otherwise with him that hath a spirit of
3 4. And is your Doctrine like this Isay bids To the Law and the Testimony Is 8.20 And the Bereans are commended for searching the Scriptures daily to see whether the things were so that were taught them even by Apostles And will you forbid this and burn men for to promote their salvation Did not Paul write his Epistles to the Laity as well as to the Clergy You must strip me of the grace of God and reduce my mind to a state of darkness before I can ever entertain these principles of darkness For light and darkness will not have communion If by Arguments you would perswade me so plainly against the life of nature as that I am bound to blind or kill my self in order to my good there 's somewhat within me that would confute them besides reason And why should not the Life of Grace also be a principle of self-preservation As for your Reason that men must let alone the Scripture and hearken to their Teachers for fear of heresies it will never take with me till I can believe you to be less suspected guides then Christ and his Apostles and till I can believe that a Scholar may not learn of his Book his Teacher both without any contradiction And then for your devotions it is not all the Arguments in the world that would ever reconcile me to them while I have that Law in any prevailing measure written in my heart that teacheth me to worship God in Spirit and in truth What man of Spiritual experience can choose but distaste your way of worship that doth but read over one of your offices and Lady's Psalters and see the affected repetition of words and the ludicrous kind of devotions which you teach the people more like to charms then serious prayers to God! especially if he also observe the huge number of ceremonies which the very body of your worship is composed of As there is somewhat in nature that hindereth a man from delighting to eat chaffe or feeding upon meer air so is there somewhat in the new nature of a Christian that is against this trifling and jesting with God Another thing that hath encreased my distaste of your wayes is the common ungodliness of your followers I have endeavored as well as I could to be acquainted with them where I came and I have known but very few of them but have been either Whoremongers or Swearers or Drunkards or Gamesters or sensual livers nor did I ever meet with one to this day to my best remembrance that manifested a spiritual frame of heart or had any delight to speak of the workings of God upon the soul and the sweet communications of the love of Christ or could give any savory account of any such spiritual workings in them but all their Religion was to stick to the Romish Church and go on in their ceremonious forms of worship abstaining from this meat or that and rioting and pampering their flesh on Holidayes c. If I had known this to be the case onely of the common people in Italy or Spain or France I should not have wondered for I know that most of the people do take up their Religion but upon carnal accounts and accordingly will use it But to find it thus in England where your number is small and you pretend to hold your Religion in so much self-denyal the state being against you and therefore your party should be the purest zelots and shew the face of your doctrine in its greatest glory this makes me judge of the tree by the fruites And the observing of this hath made me admire that ever you can make the holiness of your Church the matter of so great ostentation as you do Yea that such men as H.P. de Cressy can have the face to pretend that your admirable holiness in comparison of ours was the means of their conversion to you Unhappy man with whom did he converse while he seemed a Protestant or where did he live But this was not his fate alone but of divers of his strain When they are carnal Protestants abhorring the power of the Religion which they profess and avoiding and reproaching the practicers of their own Religion and so have no communion with them nor experience of their holiness it is a righteous thing with God to leave them to so much blindness as to run from England to Rome for holiness and that because they abhorred purity they should be so blinded as not to discern the beauty of it and yet to dote on the name and coate of it which may be put on in the morning and off at night And indeed this hath somewhat increased my aversness to observe that by how much the more godly and conscionable any are of our profession the more they are against yours and that so few of this sort are turned to you that I yet know not certainly of one that ever seemed a Godly person And the common ignorant sort of people that know not what a Church is nor what Religion is and that live in sensuality and wickedness are the favourablest to your wayes yea so forward to promote them that many of them would quickly be yours if the times were but changed to you and these are the people that I have known become your proselites When we have lost our labor upon them and left them in their wickedness and they that were filthy are filthy still then some of them turn Papists and this forsooth in admiration of the holiness of your Church When I confess for some of them I have not been sorry to hear that they were turned to you for I thought it may be the liking they have to you might make them hearken more to your reproofs then to ours and possibly you might perswade them from Whoredoms and Drunkenness and Swearing and Lying when we were out of hope But when I perceived that they fled to you for an indulgence in their sin because some of these are but venial sins with you and they have a palliate ceremonial cure at hand to befool them I then acknowledged the justice of God against them I am none of those that think that there is none among you shall be saved I have read that in some of your Writers that perswadeth me it came from a sanctified heart I am ready to acknowledge and honor the Spirit of Christ wherever I can discern it But I must profess that I was never yet so happy as to converse with a Papist that manifested an experienced gracious heavenly mind though I am truely willing to make the best of them And that your Church should be as the sink or channel to receive the excrements and filth of ours is no great argument of its holiness in my eyes And if a few that are less sensual turn to you it is commonly as far as I can discern the Tenants or servants of some of your way that are led by worldly respects and they are such
Christ Jesus and their Religion teacheth and engageth them so to walk therefore there is no condemnation to them that do so and they may with the same Apostle Rom. 8.33 34. Challenge all the Papists in the world It is God that justifieth who shall condemne us Paul telleth Timothy that the holy Scriptures are able to make him wise to salvation 2 Tim. 3.15 therefore they may make us also wise to salvation And he addeth that All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works vers 16 17. It were endless to recite all that proveth the salvation of them that believe and obey the holy Scriptures But this all true Protestants do I shall therefore leave this taske and next hear what the Papists can say to the contrary and what they are able to produce to prove that we are not in a safe way to salvation Obj. 1. There is but one safe way to Heaven The Protestant Religion is not that one way Therefore not a safe way The Minor is proved thus That Religion which the Church hath owned from the Apostles dayes till now is that one way The Protestant Religion is not that which the Church hath so owned therefore it is not that one Religion The Minor is proved by parts 1. As to Doctrine 2. as to Discipline 3. as to worship 1. The Church ever since the Apostles dayes hath maintained the Doctrines of 1. Free-will to good or evil 2. of Predestination upon foreseen faith 3. of mans merits 4. of Justification by Inherent Grace 5. against the certain Perseverance of all the Justified and consequently against their certainty of salvation 6. Vowed Chastity and Monastical Life In Discipline the Church ever held 1. The Popes Supremacy and Universal Jurisdiction 2. The Government by Bishops over Presbyters 3. Ordination by them and not without them 4. Pennance and Confession of sin 3. In matter of Worship the Church hath still used 1. Chrysme to the Baptized 2. Imposition of hands in confirmation 3. The sacrifice of the Altar 4. The Cross 5. Holy dayes 6. Fasting dayes All which the Protestants have cast off Therefore they are not of the same Religion Answ 1. To the Major Proposition of the main Argument I answer The word safe referreth to some Danger that we are safe from The way may be called safe therefore either in respect of sin or damnation Also this way may be called one in respect of the Essentials of Religion or else in respect of some inferior truths and duties that are not of absolute necessity to salvation And so I say that there is but one Religion as to the Essential and absolutely necessary points in which a man can be safe from Damnation And there is but one Religion as comprehending all the Integral parts in which a man can be safe from sin But yet that Religion which in the Essentials and Absolutely necessary points is but one may yet consist with errors in lower and lesser things in the minds of those that hold it and yet be a safe way to salvation though not so safe as to freemen from all sin And consequently there may be differences among true Christians that shall be saved though there be nothing but perfect Harmony in the entire Doctrine of Christian Religion as delivered from Christ and his Spirit Because no man holds that Doctrine entirely and perfectly without any error or ignorance and therefore there will be much difference among those that shall be saved To the Major of the Pro-syllogisme I answer Implicitely and in Generals the Church hath owned the perfect truth in all ages because it hath Believed that all that God saith is true and that the Scripture is his word But explicitely and particularly the Church hath not held all the truth of Religion in any one age since the Apostles For every man on earth hath been Ignorant and the most knowing men erroneous in some things seeing we are all imperfect and here know but in part And so one particular Church might erre in one thing and another in another thing as the differences about Easter Rebaptizing the Millennium Infants Communicating c. shew they did And of the same Church one Member might erre in one thing and another in another thing it being as certain that no two men on the earth are in all things of the same minde as that none on earth are perfect in knowledge To the Minor I answer that the Religion called Protestant is the same in all points absolutely necessary to salvation which the Church hath still owned And in other inferior points the Churches having not been all or alwayes of one minde some ages were more pure and others more corrupt The Protestant Religion is neerer to that of the purer times then the Papists is It is the same in the Essentials it is the neerest it in the Integrals it is more remote from latter corruptions introduced in times more remote from the Apostolical purity To the particular instances of our differences from the former Churches I answer particularly 1. For Free will to God if you mean a natural freedome which is the wills self-determining Power so the Protestants maintain it as well as the Fathers If you mean a moral freedom from ill-inclining habits which is properly a right-disposition so the Fathers maintained it not Obj. Let Scultetus in Medulla Patruâ— and others of your own Writers be judge who still number this inter naevos Patrum Answ Scultetus and Calvin and others might mistake the Fathers sence and think that they spoke of moral Freedom when they spoke but of natural which is inseparable from the will And its like that they did so seeing the Fathers maintained Original sin which is that pravity of humane nature which is clean contrary to moral Free-will 2. And if the Fathers were for a Free-will in a moral-Ethical sence so is one part of the Protestants as much as they were And if they were in the right so are those Protestants If in the wrong then the other part of the Protestants are in this in the right 3. This is a point that men may differ in as much as the Fathers did from us and yet be in a safe way to salvation 4. The Dominicans and the Jesuites differ about it as much as we and the Fathers yea they cannot yet agree what natural free-will is 2. For Predestination upon foreseen faith 1. There is no Declaration of the Churches minde in those times about it but what is found in the wrigtings of particular Doctors 2. We confess that men are Elected to Glory and Justification from guilt upon foreseen faith But we say withall that they are Elected to that faith and that God did foresee it as a thing which he intended to give and not as a thing which corrupted unregenerate
the Scripture lying down and rising up and our eldest people even to the lest breath must not read them unless they can learn the tongues which they were first written in The Jewes had the Septuagints Translation or that so called when the Hebrew grew strange to them which the Apostles used in their ordinary citations and they heard the Gospel preached in the Syriack which was then their vulgar tongue But we may not read the same in our Vulgar tongue by the Papists consent Moses Joshua Josiah Nehemiah Read the Scriptures to all the people Exod 24.7 Josh 8.34 35. 2 King 23.1 2 3. Neh. 8.3.8.18 9 3 13.1 And it was their custome to read Moses and the Prophets to the people every Sabbath day Act. 13.27 15.21 2 Cor. 3.15 Luk 4.16 And Christ useth to reprehend their strangeness to Scripture passages as if they had not read them with such words as these Have ye not read c and Have ye never read c Mat 12.3.5 19.4 21.26 22.21 Mark 12.10.26 Luk 6.3 Luk. 10.26 And Moses commandeth Israel the Priests Levites and all the Elders thus Deut. 31.11 12 13. When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose thou shalt read this Law before all Israel in their hearing Gather the people together men and women and children and the stranger that is within thy gates that they may hear and that they may learn and fear the Lord your God and observe to do all the words of this Law and thaâ— their children which have not known any thing may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long aâ— ye live in the Land c. It was therefore in a known tongue that it must be read And when the people understood not the old Hebrew tongue in which the Law was written by reason of the change of their speech in the captivity Nehemiah caused them to understand the Reading Neh. 8.8 No doubt by expressing it in the language which they understood And yet the Papists forbâ—d the unlearned that have most need of teachings the use of the holy Scriptures in a known tongue and make it the mother of all Heresies How impiously against God and how cruelly against men is this committed Must the God of heaven send down his Spirit to dictate an illuminating Doctrine to his Prophets and Apostles for the world must he give them a perfect Law by which Truth and Heresie must be discerned Must he send his own Son to preach the Gospel and cause his instruments to write it in a language best known to those that they conversed with or to the world that was to be converted by it And must this Doctrine now be made the mother of Heresies and kept from the eyes of the people that should learn it What must the onely rule that condemneth Heresies be made the cause of them Must the light which God hath given the world be blamed for all the Darkness of mens errors Or must men be kept from the light for fear least it lead them into Darkness This is the Popish Piety and Charity In stead of helping to Illuminate the dark world as all preachers of the Gospel should do Act. 26.17 10. they â—ust have all the unlearned to put out their eyes â—d be led by their guides and trust their souls with them for fear lest if they have any eyes in their heads and any light to walk by they should stumble or erre through the imperfection of their sight And yet the Papists who so much pretend to unity are various and changeable in this high point of their abomination as well as in other things For when they once see that they cannot keep the Scriptures from the people because the Protestants Translations are among them then they will permit them to read their own Translations And upon this account the Rhemists translated the New Testament into English when they saw they could not wholly suppress and hide that light And on this account it is that our Papists in England and some other parts where the Protestants abound among them are permitted by their Priests with some warnings of the needlessness and the danger of it to read the Scripture in their Country tongue When as to a Papist in Spaine or Italy it is no less a crime then to merit the Rack or Strappado of the Inquisition and its strange if they be not burnt for it at a stake So that I have met with some seduced Papists in England so ignorant of their course abroad and so gulled by the lies of their companions or Priests that they would not believe that they do any where forbid the vulgar to read the Scripture in their own tongue but were confidently perswaded that it was our slander of them so that these poor people believe that the Sun is not set in Spaine at midnight because it shines at noon in England Let them read but Joh. Arboreus Theosoph l. 8. c. 9. Andradius Defens Concil Trident. l. 4. Petrus Lizetus Dialog de sacris libris in vulg Floq non evertendis Hosius Dialog de Communion c. Petrus sutor de Translatione Bibliae Bellarm. de verbo Dei l. 2. c. 15. 16. Salmeron in 1 Cor. Disp 30. Bellarmine himself mentioneth the Index librorum prohibit of Pope Pius 4. Reg. 4. which forbiddeth the reading of the Scripture in the vulgar tongue except only to those that the ordinary shall think will receive good and not harm by it and so shall have a licence from him in writing and they pronounce that the common permission of the Scriptures thus doth more harm then good The same Index was after encreased and approved by Pope Sixtus 5. and Clemens 8. And how few they are that their Ordinaries will grant Licences to for the reading of Scripture is too well known by common experience The Kings of Spaine forbid all Translations of the Bible into the vulgar tongues and Alphonsus a Castro commendeth them for it and many a one hath been burnt to ashes for selling keeping or reading such Bibles in Spaine Italy and Savoy And Bellarmine mentioneth the Sess 22. cap. 8 and Can. 9. of the Council of Trent forbidding both the Common reading of such Bibles and also the publike use of them in the Churches in both which we must have them onely in Hebrew Greek and Latine Bellarm. ubi supr If these be not notorious enemies of the Light who are David faith Psal 119. That the word was a Lanterne to his feet and a Light to his Paths Isaiah sends us to the Law and to the testimony saying that if they speak not according to these it is because there is no light in them Isa 8.20 And the Phpists say as Arboreus ubi supra that the reading the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue is the Rise or Root of all Heresies And so the Sun must be taken out of the firmament as
being the fountain of all darkness or at least the cause of mens wandrings Onely where they cannot help it or as Stapleton saith where Heresies are most common there they will permit or connive at it for their own ends For Necessity hath no Law I conclude therefore and confidently conclude that Popery is not a safe way to heaven because it doth 1. both vilifie Gods Scriptures as an insufficient Rule and but part of his word And 2. presumeth to alter its most express institutions as the Cup in the Lords Supper And 3. expresly contradict it in forbidding the Prayers of the Church to be in a known tongue 4. And forbid the publike reading of Scripture in a known tongue 5 And forbid the translating of Scripture and the reading of such translations even by any private man unless he have the Ordinaries Licence which he may get in those Countries where there is no remedy The Kingdome of the Devil is called in Scripture the Kingdom of darkness and Christs Kingdom is called a Kingdom of light and when ever God converteth a sinner he translateth him from the Power of Darkness into his marvellous light even into the Kingdom of his dear Son Act. 26.18 Col. 1.13 1 Pet. 2.9 And God is the father of lights Jam. 1.17 And Satan is the Prince of the powers of darkness Luk 22 53. Rev 16.10 And Christ hath told us that he that walketh in darkness stumbleth and knoweth not whither he goeth Joh. 12.35 46. And that every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved but he that doth truâ—â— cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God Joh. 3.21 The Papists therefore give us reason to think they have not the truth were it but in this enmity which they bear unto the Light Arg. 9. That doctrine which teacheth men to worship the creature with Divine worship is no safe way to salvation But Popery teacheth men to worship the creature with Divine worship Therefore it is no safe way to salvation The Major will not be denyed by Papists The Minor I prove by one instance onely at this time and that is their worshiping of the consecrated Host or Bread in their Mass and at other times He that worshipeth the consecrated Bread with Divine worâ—hip doth worship the creature with Divine worship But the Papists worship the consecrated Bread with Divine worship therefore They deny the Major and tell us that it is no longer Bread but the Body of Christ But that they worship that thing which we call Bread and they call Christs Body with Divine worship they do not deny Onely some would excuse them from the guilt of Idolatry which is a worshiping the creature instead of the Creator by this because they think it is Christ that they worship and so interpretatively it is he in deed and the worship right But if they will think that to be Christ which is not Christ and then worship it that will not excuse them from being some kind of Idolaters What if they will think a Ranter or Quaker to be Christ who call themselves Christ are they therefore excusable if they worship them Then why might not the old Pagan Idolaters be justified or thus excused seeing they thought that the Sun and Moon had been Gods And when they worshiped an Image they thought that some Deity had affixed this special presence to that Image What if an Egyptian thought that an Oxe was God or that a Deity did dwell in him were they therefore no Idolaters And then how hainously God taketh the sin of Idolatry the Scripture fully witnesseth That which we have to do therefore is onely to enquire whether indeed it be bread or Christs body a creature or the Creator which they worship Concerning which there is so much said by Doctor Featly against Fisher and by Peter Martyr against Smith and elswhere and by Jewel Foxe and abundance more that if people would read it I should think it vain to say any more I shall onely annex â—hese Reasons very briefly which come first to my thoughts to prove that the Bread is not turned into the very body of Christ but remaineth Bread still 1. If the Bread were Christs real Body then Christ had two real bodies for he had one sitting at the table which delivered the Bread and if the Bread were another he had two or else the body that Christ sate and lived with was not a whole body but a part But Christ had but one body and that was entire 2. It would follow also that Christ had a living and a dead body a sensible and insensible body both at once 3. It would follow that the Apostles did tear Christ true flesh and draw out his blood as well as the Jews did 4. Yea and that they began to the Jews and did it before them And therefore why should the Jews act and theirs be so much differenced 5. It will follow that either Christ had one body torne by the Jews and another by the Disciples or else that one part of his body onely was crucified and not the whole for the other part was eaten and drunk by the Disciples before 6. Also either Christ had one body that did Rise again and another that never rose or else it was but one part of Christs body that rose from the dead for the other part was eaten and drunke before 7. The like may be said of his ascension Then it is not Christs whole body that ascended up into heaven for part of it was eaten before by the Disciples and digested by them 8. It will follow that Christs glorified body is corruptible and may be digested by a mans stomacke and turned into dung For so is that which is eaten 9. It will follow also that Christs body may become an integral part of our very natural bodyes and so his body is become sinful as being a natural part of a sinner for the Bread and Wine do nourish us and turn into our substance 10. Yea it followeth that Christ doth thus turn into the substance of every child of the Devil that eateth the consecrated Bread and drinketh the Wine For they certainly nourish him and turn into his substance A most horrid consequent For what communion hath Christ with Belial 11. Nay which is in some respect more horrid and abominable to imagine it will follow that the Glorified body of Christ may turn into the substance of a mouse or a Dog for if they eat it the bread will certainly nourish them and become their substance 12. It will follow that either Christ hath an insensible body or else men hurt him by eating him in the Eucharist 13. It followeth that Christ hath as many thousand bodies as there be consecrated hosts or else that by continuation of parts it is every where and filleth all the world which the Papists disavow 14. It followeth
written by Laertius than the Lives of the Saints are by Christians and Suetonius did far more incorruptly and more entirely set forth the affairs of the Romane Caesars then Catholikes have set forth I say not the affairs of Emperors but of Martyrs Virgins and confessors For they But ours do for the most part either follow their own affections or else of set purpose forge so many things that indeed I am not onely ashamed of them but also aweary of them For I know that these have brought to the Church of Christ small profit but much disprofit I spare mens names because It is certain that they who write Church History feignedly and deceitfully cannot be good and sincere men and that their whole Narration is invented either for lucre or for error whereof one is filthy and the other pernicious The complaint of Ludovicus is most just of some feigned Histories in the Church He doth indeed prudently and gravely reprove them that take it to be a matter of piety to forge lyes for Religion A thing that is very pernicious and no whit necessary For we are wont not to believe a Lyar even when he tells truth They therefore who by false and lying writings would stir up the minds of mortal men to worship the Saints these seem to me to have done nothing else then to make men deny belief to truths because of falshoods To what purpose is it to pretend the name of History to fictions and fables As if the holy men of God did need our Lyes But while some do too much indulge their own affections and write those things which the writers mind and not the Truth doth dictate they make us such Saints sometime as the Saints themselves would not be if they could Can any man believe that Saint Francis was used to take the Lice on him again which he had shak't off him The Writer thought this was part of the mans holiness but so do not I who know that the holy man was pleased with poverty but not with filthyness And how ridiculous is this that the Divel raging on a time against our father Dominicke was constrained by this Saint to hold the candle so long in his hands till it did not onely trouble him but incredibly pain him Such examples cannot be numbred but in these few most of the rest may be understood which have darkened the histories of the most famous Saints They do therefore exceedingly wrong the Church of Christ who think they do not well set forth the excellent deeds of the Saints unless they adorn them with feigned Revelations and Miracles Wherein the impudency of men hath neither spared the Holy Virgin nor the Lord Christ Of late years when I was at the Council of Trent I heard by some that Aloysius Lippomannus was healing this disease by writing a history of the Lives of the Saints in a constant and grave speech But I could never yet see this nor any other which I could allow of all those that have come into my hands So far for Melch. Canus And do their own most Learned and Judicious Writers cry out of Lyes and Histories so much more false then the Heathens and impudent forgeries and say that they never saw any of these Histories which they could allow of and yet must we needs make these the Foundation of our Faith instead of the sealed Word of God What a Religion have the Papists that is built on such a foundation Yea of the reports of some of the late Writers that were next before Popery I will add a few more words of Canus ib. li. 11. pag. 337. Cicero thought Demosthenes nodded somtime and Horace thought so of Homer himself For though they were excellent yet but men And the same perhaps may I say justly and truly of Beda and Gregory One of them in his History of the English the other in his Dialogues do write certain Miracles talk't of and believed by the vulgar which the criticks of this age will judge to be uncertain I should have more approved those Histories if their authors had according to the aforesaid rule to severity of judgement joyned more care in their choice And how he lets fly at the lyes of Antonius and Valvacen The next page shews And page 338.339 how he censures Eusebius himself But I must forbear more such citations lest I weary the Reader It is now long since Doctor John White told them of their Cajetans words who saith It cannot be known infallibly that the Miracles upon which the Church groundeth the Canonization of Saints are true And their Antoninus Florent saith of the visions of Bernard and Brigit about the Virgin Maries conception They are fantastick visions and mens dreams And their Claudius Espeucaeus saith No stable is so full of dung as the Legends are full of fables Yea very fictions are in their portesses And Gerson All these the Church receives and permiteth them to be read not as certainly true but more attending to what might be in pious recogitation then to what indeed was done And Doctor White then made a challenge to them that we will admit of all those Miracles which are reported by such men as some of their own Writers do openly Note for Lyars Which challenge the Popish Replyer had no mind it seems to take up But though it belong to the Romanists to prove their Miracles which prove their Infallibility without Scripture and not to us to prove the Negative yet I shall try to shame their confidence by a few pertinent Questions when it shall appear how little they have to say in answer to them Q. 1. And first I desire to know of them whether the Miracles that prove their infallibility without Scripture are wrought by the Present Church or by the Church of former ages onely If by the present why cannot we see them Why are we still sent to Saint Brigit or Saint Francis or Saint Somebody that is long ago dead and gone We thought once we had had one neer us here I mean the Boy of Bilson who did wondrous things in favor of the Papists but in the Issue by the industry of Bishop Morton he was proved to be a counterfeit and confessed himself trained up by the Papists for the cheat But if it onely the Generations that are dead and gone that wrought Miracles then I would further aske 1. Doth it not seem then that your Church is Apostate in that it hath lost the gift of Miracles which you suppose so necessary And how will the Gifts of your predecessors prove your present infallibility any more then the Gifts of the predecessors of the Greek Bishops will prove their infallibility that now are 2. If past Miracles may serve without present then what need any more than the old Miracles of the Apostles And then why are not all the Apostles successors infallible as well as the Pope Seeing all the Apostles had the gift of Miracles