peerelesse that we may hope for new artes new manners new worldes to preuent articall hyperboreall harmes and to winne goods by the sonnes of Arcturus whom perhaps they can guide by their learning and answere the question in Iobs booke cap. 38. v. 32. against the Moone in sending her to God her creator to complaine of the Sun for keeping the light from her at his certaine times against innocent Adam by geuing him both natures of male and female in Paradise before Eue was made and telling of his ingendring with the beasts of the field against Noa the Preacher of righteousnes by reporting of the Crowes ielosie toward him to let passe many such impudent fictions vnreasonable impieties senselesse things But the Iewes credit is little worth with Christians and themselues are weried and tyred with looking so long for a new Messias whereas they had the right lambe of God among them and most horribly slaughtered him without all pitie or mercie euen according to the spirituall visions and diuine predictions of the Prophets that euery scripture might be fulfilled and no iote of Gods word passe vnaccomplished Act. c. 4. v. 28. The first comming of this lambe in humilitie is as certainly past as his second comming in maiesty glory is not farre of God grant we be found ready at the great comming of the great bridegrome with the fiue wise virgins that were so well prouided with oyle in their lamps Math. c. 25. v. 7 10. As I haue lightly passed ouer the light and vaine Iewes so I hope I may also do with the Turks considering that the very name of Iew and Turke are alike odious among good Christians The Alcoran and Mahomets whole heape of learning is not vnknowne to some students where Mahomet is made a greater and a mightier prophet then Christ because he had a greater body and was girded with a sword where the lambe of the diuell or rather that woolfe of hell is preferred before the lambe of God because the beast wrought more wonders then Iesus where God is said to be but one onely single God in person without any wife and therefore without any sonne or daughter or any such issue because God is not able in his extraordinary power to beget a body without ordinary means where diuers notable histories and speciall parts of the bible are fabulously deliuered strangly corrupted because otherwise they serue not his purpose where the finger of the diuell hath incountred the finger of God and the spirit of Belzebub opposed it selfe against the spirit of Christ This horrible abhominable booke although it be read of some men yet I trust there is not any christian that maketh any better account thereof then it deserueth though Leo Nardus gather out of it a certaine Confirmation of our gospell in his tollerable vnnecessary deuise being in truth the very booke of the diuell vnder pretense of worshipping the one only true God whereas no man cōmeth to the father but he whom the sonne leadeth and guideth as many texts of scripture might be alleaged to that purpose Iohn c. 14. v. 6. Math. c. 11. v. 27. c. In this booke Sergius a false monke and a Nestorian heretike had his hand therein thinking to go beyond all Antichrists in oppugning and defacing the diuinity of Christ Sabel l. 6. Enne 8. but I hope there shal not greatly neede any long confutation in this place either of Mahometists or of Nestorians or of any like hereticks that denied the deity of Christ they haue bene materially and throughly confuted by the best diuines of al ages from time to time euē since the primitiue church to this day and these Sergianks and Alcoranks cannot endure long but they shall be stopped vp as wels without water and they are carried about with a whirlewinde and tempest and to them the blacke darkenesse is reserued for euer 2. Pet. c. 2. v. 17. God be praised this poison hath not greatly at any time infected this church of Englād or any special mēbers therof but hath alwaies bin reckoned among the most venimous scismes the most horrible apostasies the most abhominable heresies of other erroneous churches and little better account may iustly be made of Scaliger that suttle maister of late yeares suttle as a spinners web full of cunning and simply good for nothing and therefore hated of right wisdome which the heathen miscalled Pallas as the morall physitian Petrarke writeth l. 1. dial 7. who eyther in the pride of his name Iulius Caesar or of his wit or militarship accounteth the ministers of holy things in al countries and places like those Mahometicall impostors which deceiued the king of Moluccae with their Manucodiata a bird of paradise for dreaming and fayning many matters thereby to lead the people into vaine hope and maintaine their opinions or sects Exercit. 228.5 And little better account hath bene made of Iosephus the writer of the Iudaicall historie and himselfe a Iewish priest who reporteth of Iesus but as of another good wise man or a good prophet at the most because he could say no more then he knew or would not seeme to be wiser then his countrymen from whom both the turkish and all other vngratious violent doctrines had their beginning l. 18. c. 4. antiq Some other places of christendome haue bene more touched and plagued with these corrupt inuentions of Iudaisme Nestorianisme Mahometisme such like execrable apostasies and heresies robbing Christ of his diuinity and themselues of their saluation in denying him to be the lambe of God I pray God wee may euer continue cleare in the vniuersities and cities which are to be the nurseries of true doctrine and seminaries of true religion the tree of apostasie and heresie must not onely be hewen downe but plucked vp by the very rootes and burned in vnquenchable fire Math. c. 3. v. 10. Certaine ancient fathers in the primitiue Church were troubled with confuting the wicked ruffianly apostata Iulian Carion saith l. 3. who desperately opposed himselfe with might and maine with haue among yee my maisters the Nazarites during that short florish of his empire which vanished like a mist euen as Athanasius had prophesied of him against the holy one in Israel the blessed lambe of God and not onely fought against Christ with the tyrannicall armes of a bloudy Emperour but also with the sophisticall weapons of a broken rhetorician euer ready aswel to martyr the zealous confessor with the one as to confute the most zealous doctor with the other But himself in the end was striken with an arrow wonderfully as Achab was cōstrayned to crie out in a horrible and wofull agonie Vicisti galilaee ô galilean thou hast gotten the victory ô Christ I must needes confesse my selfe ouercome and so he gaue vp the blacke ghost Theod. l. 3. c. 25. and certaine fragments of his glorious and blasphemous stile are yet extant sufficiently confuted aswell by many learned christians as by that
3. aduersus gentes and I hope some of the rest as it may please God to worke may reape some good therby as I hartily pray to God they may S. Iohn saith behold the lambe of God and so I still and still say and so must al good christians and euery good christian euer and euer say and not onely say with the mouth but euer and euer thinke euen with the very hart euen in the very bowels of al christian affection and zeale behold the lambe of God that was before the world was that was mistically and as it were in a holy reuerend vaile or shadow prefigured in Moses law that was in aboundance of diuine spirit liuely and zealously foretold by the Prophets that was certainely and effectually preached by the Apostles that is assuredly and infallibly described by the Euangelists that in the whole word of God in the law and the gospell in the old and new Testament euer hath and is and euer shall be preached from generation to generation as the onely true lambe of God as the onely true sauiour of the world as our onely true mediator and redeemer euen Iesus the righteous true God and true man by whom from whom and in whom only we haue whatsoeuer good wee haue otherwise without him remayning in the most wretched most wofull and desperate state of vtter damnation both of body and soule Therfore we that beleeue the law of God and the Prophets of God the gospell of Christ the Apostles of Christ the creation of the world and the saluatiō of the world as God forbid but we should all beleeue as it becommeth the people of God and all good christians to beleeue we that beleeue the Canonical scriptures and desire to be members of the Catholicke church whereof Christ is the head must faithfully and vnfainedly acknowledge this lambe of God to be very God himself to be the promised Messias and onely Iesus to be the onely sonne of God that taketh away the sinne of the world Wee often repeat our Beliefe of the creation of the world by God the Father of the saluation of the world by God the sonne euen the lamb of God of the sanctification of the world by God the holy-ghost one true euerlasting and onely wise God who raigneth in all and aboue all for euer and euer this we often say and should alwaies think as we are in al christian zeale and with all perfect hatred to abhorre those that say or think the contrary Alas a thousand errors and heresies and blasphemies and idolatries and impieties haue ouerflowen the world and wickednes hath stretched out a long arme on euery side from the East to the West throughout the world and round about the world yet Christ still hath numbred his elect the great Shepheard knoweth his sheepe there wanteth not a visible or inuisible congregation of the faithful to make vp Christes militant Church there are many true Christian souldiers euer ready to fight vnder the Ensigne ancient of the lambe of God that neuer bowed the knee to Baal that neuer committed any heathenish or prophane idolatrie that neuer were defiled or corrupted with the filthines of the whore of Babylon that neuer either deuoted themselues to false gods or denied the true liuing God or said in their hearts with the vngodly and godlesse foole there is no God that crie dayly and howerly and euer sincerely and faithfully Behold the lambe of God ô Lord Iesus come quickly thy will be done in earth as it is in heauen thou art God and there is none other God but thou a iust and a sauing God as the Prophet Esay saith c. 45. v. 21. O let vs all cry thus let vs all set our selues against all that write or say or think otherwise Students reade many things euen of God and of Christ and otherwhiles against God and his Christ as for God his Christ here they must folow the direction of a godly iudgement here true christianity must ouerrule false paganisme and desperate atheisme here the spirite of God must confute and confound the spirite of the deuill the spirite of Antichrist the spirite of false Prophets the spirite of deceitfull heretikes the spirite of worldly hypocrites the spirite of blasphemous and impious villaines that care neither for God nor the deuill that measure all by present profite or pleasure without any regard of posteritie and either acknowledge no God or els make thē their gods that feed their owne humor most or most aduaunce their wicked purposes Without this directiō of Gods spirite and without this godly discretion and Christian iudgement to discerne betweene the trueth of God the falshode of the deuill alas how soone may students most of all other be misled and seduced by many wryters of much account among them who had no sence or feeling of this lamb of God or any such christian doctrine but in the aboundance of their owne carnall humor and in their grosse worldly sense tooke vpon them to iudge of all matters as well spirituall as corporall by the only direction of their natural reason or rather fantasticall conceite which otherwhile carried them headlong into all error and blasphemie I will passe ouer those old Atheists Diagoras Protagoras Democritus Philosophers Aristippus and Epicurus Courtiers the 288 sectes of heathenish schollers which S. Augustine mentioneth out of Varro l. 19 de Ciuitate Dei many of the heathen Poets both Greeke and Latin and such like whose godlesse and vnchast opinions are too common among the common sort of Students I would to God Aristotles sensuall naturall philosophie in his 3. bookes de anima of the immortalitie of the soule which that small abstract of Athenagoras doeth sufficiently ouerthrowe to omitte Aeneas and other of greater labour herein and his morall philosophie of mans perfect felicitie l. 1. c. 10. Ethec l. 10. c. 6 7. were not sometime for vaine disputations sake or I wot not how more hotlie mainteined with leaue and liking then were conuenient in our christian scholes and companies seeing such other matters of lesse importance haue with the same Schoolistes been so earnestly and egerly disalowed but if Cassianus be iudged of his angry children they wil out vith their penkniues by and by and haue their peniworths of him that was once ouer them yoong vnskilfull physicians count bodies sometimes past hope that haue as much life in them as themselues with all their inspectiues the wild hart would not haue arrested the sheepe of debt if the woolfe his enemie had not bene iudge hee that maketh an error and the report thereof both one cannot recite it against another but he shall therein be against himselfe one eare and one tale can neuer doe the iudge honesty and how can he determine which knoweth not the controuersie which heareth but one part which maketh suspition a proofe he is extreemely partiall that winketh at a filthy life and will not abide a homely word as if
of God for greater is he that is in you then he that is in the world they are of the world and therefore speake they of the world and the world heareth them we are of God hee that knoweth God heareth vs he that is not of God heareth vs not hereby know we the spirit of veritie the spirit of errour thus much S. Iohn in that place O let vs still and still more and more eschue abandon this spirit of error this spirit of the world this spirit of Antichrist and euer imbrace and acknowledge the spirit of truth the spirit of God the spirit of Christ O let vs for the loue of God for the loue of Christ for the loue of our owne soules euermore seeke the lambe of God follow the lambe of God behold and imbrace the lambe of God looke for the health of our bodies the saluation of our soules the safegard of both not in or from or by any other but only in and from and by the only lambe of God repose our whole beliefe trust and felicity in the lambe of God that taketh away the sin of the world that redeemeth saueth vs wretched and wicked sinners of the world that with his owne precious bloud hath paid the great ransome for the release of our miserable bondage and captiuity vnder the yoke of sinne and hath suffered that great insufferable passion due to vs sinners to bring vs vnto heauen vnto God vnto himselfe sitting on the right hand of the father in all maiestie power and glorie for euer and euer Thus you haue a short confutation of those vngratious worldlings that either with wilfull or no better then beastly violence or with witlesse desperate blasphemy or with fond and obstinate self-loue haue proued themselues the most indiscreet rulers the most vnskilfull writers the most vile and vngodly sinfull men that euer were called men or euer liued in the world I meane first those vngodly antichristian hellish Aristotelists Auerroists Plinians call them in word as they were in deed men of more subtilty then surety which denying the immortalitie of the soule accounting it no better then heat and breath mouing and remouing the body only haue ignorantly and preiudicially denied the finall cause of Christs sorrowfull humiliation and glorious resurrection which saued our soules from damnatiō and death in the nethermost noisome deadly pit the lake of torment the prison of misery and all thraldome world without end and defending the eternity of the world iudging it without beginning and without ending which vndoubtedly was fashioned finished in six daies as we surely proue by the Genesis of Moses the wonderfull prophet of God the wisest lawmaker in Israël the mightiest captaine of armes by the Hexaëmerons of diuers both Greeke and Latin doctors and fathers by our Apostolicke beleefe most stedfastly builded on God the father almightie maker of heauen and earth the sea and all that is in them at whose last comming the earth shall melt away like wax and the heauens shal be folded vp like a garment haue defaced with all their might the maiestie of Christs ascension and denied the eternitie of his last dreadfull iudgement both which wee reuerence and magnifie with all godly loue and Christian zeale hauing visiblie and faithfully seen the one with the Apostles eyes and vnfaynedly looking for the other with liuely heartes with spirituall hunger and thirst with desire to leaue this mad and drunken world to liue infinitely raigne with him in euerlasting life Then I meane those hypocriticall Pharisies those impious Iewes and Iewish confederats succeeding the heathenish infidels and pagans in course and time of yeares but farre before them in all wickednes sinne in euery notorious iniquitie and enormitie that did treacherously and sophistically seeke to vndermine Christ and to take him in his words that in the gall of bitternes and bond of impietie mocked and spitte at him and most grieuously and vniustly disgraced him in spite of heauen and earth of angels and men euen as God had appointed in his secrete ordinance and wonderfull prouidence before the foundation of the world was layd that in the pride and rage of Iudaisme in the height of anger and depth of malice whipped him like an outcast the sonne of God crowned him with thorns like a mad bedlem the innocent lambe of God nay led and perced and wounded him to death like a hurtfull beast the triumphant king of angels and men mightie Sauiour of the world But they soone felt the heauy intollerable hande of God for these so Iewish and diuelish abhominations and when their brasen faces would not blush nor their iron heartes relent the very stones of the temple were riuen asunder the faire vaile was rent in twaine frō the top to the bottom those sensles stones were more soft and pensiue then the Iewes the dead carcases were more tenderly and mercifully affected toward Christ crucified at his one and last exclamation in one hower then the elders of Iury were in all their life time which heard many heauenly admonitions diuers happy promisses sundry blessings and cursings yet liued and died in their gainesayings being at last themselues as stones and carcasses reiected throwne out and troden vpon hauing their children and cities vtterly destroyed and their land layd wast and those mockings and spittings that thorny crowne and vineger and gall those nayles and that speare and that crosse and all the rods and crosses that were laid vpon Christ haue euer since bene laide vpon them being esteemed the most odious abiects of all men the very roges and runnegates of the earth against whom all men haue set themselues euen as they oppose and set themselues against all men like Ismaëites and Edomites more vile in Gods eyes then dunge and clay on the ground and all good and godly Christians are inuincibly confirmed in Christian faith by the shamefull ouerthrow of those Iewish and christians which is come to passe according to the gospell of Iesus Christ for his kingdomes sake and our endlesse comfort and instruction to him therefore be prayse for euer Then I meane the Turkes and turkish religion or rather hereticall superstition that in steed of noble prophets on our side hath but one fugitiue monke but the same one false monke on their part to defend it against our so many learned and constant professours that hath no history for his defence and in that respect condemneth historians that could neuer get any sober and learned orator to maintaine his cause and therfore disaloweth the graces and power of rhetorick that cannot be defended by disputation and therefore forbiddeth all disputations that is forced against his owne will law to prefer Christ before Mahomet our mercifull king before his bloudie captaine for honest and honorable birth for vertuous and wonderfull acts for blessed and heauenly translation himselfe being borne basely and liuing vitiously and dying of lewd causes more like a ruffian
Ignatius Ambrosius and other haue truly iudged the one almost in euery epistle the other in his pastorals for the diuine court of cōscience ruleth al courts whatsoeuer and wheresoeuer into the lowest places offices with the lowest prouision of externall goods for their diuine and politicke seruice done to God and their prince to God their countrie to God and the whole earth herein I cōmend all christians to truth to charitie to faith which bid al true charitable faithfull christians to obey their guydes submit thēselues to those which haue charge of their soules Heb. c. 13. v. 17. must the greatest seruice be least regarded and recōpensed God be mercifull to vs what a wilfull world liue we in shall the seruice of all seruices euen Gods owne diuine seruice be least considered and rewarded whereby al other seruices and masteries are holden vp Then farewell all vertue which shoulde bee Lady and Queen ouer all then God help godlines that ordereth all vertues and is of highest orders then let Porphyrius saying of Britanie reuiue againe That it is a fertile Prouince of Tyrants nay but must the greatest seruice amōg the greatest be smally respected and simply honoured which helpeth men of all diseases and hurts more then all Lawyers and Physitians the precepts thereof being better remedies against diseases and pouertie either in preuenting them best by temperance or ouercomming them by patience as it may appeare to them that reade the Scripture ouer but halfe so often as Alphonsus Arragonius did Then let in all dissolution and neglect of iustice then Britannia shal be Romania not as Gildas meant of Rome which conquered vs in Caesars time and after that kept vs long vnder yoke Ecce quà m malum iniucundum non habitare in vnum but as Romania is taken this day for a part of Turkie which if wee that professe the Gospell had the grace to agree in our selues might goe hang it selfe for any hurt it could doe vs then your our Eirenarchy will be anarchy thē shal those paddock lordings rule al with their line reuel that haue in their charity christianity so vnruly and irregularly in their policie their humanitie so trayterously peruersly opposed and set themselues against the power and honor of the lambe in heauen of the almighty lambe which is Lord ouer all and within all ruling for euer in that they are aduersaries to the reuerence and fatherhoode of his kingly prophets and messengers and lawyers his visible angels and priestes and saints created and ruled by his most happy and blessed worde Which name of priestes or elders by their reformatiue sullen misorder and their terrible graue Lord of misrule is nowe halfe reckoned with some harebraines a name in reproach so the best names of fathers and brothers and other will shortly likewise be in contempt if this correcting corrupting Mart. indure long as he that hath but halfe an eye may plainly see how it is alredy crept in with these markers and marrers by disobedient thoughts hath bred more equalitie in mens mindes then was wont to be in my short remembrance or ought now to be in our experience vnlesse you would haue in your time and in your successors a monarchie turned into a democratie a king into a subiect a better into a worse contrarie to Christes owne rule in his Gospell The seruant is not aboue his master Matth. c. 10. v. 24. for all the fire burneth not at the first or second blast but riseth and spreddeth by little and little and so clymeth vp to the top and can hereafter turne equalities vpon their temporall Lordes and tenants as it appeareth already by some they cal Brownists or Downists and Downings or such men of plucking downe both great and little hils by the same texts which they wrest vpon spirituall lords and their curates which texts belong vniuersallie to all christians as the Lordes prayer and other textes doe being spoken likewise at first to the Apostles and that people only But perhaps I am in a wrong confutation seeing these reformers are of so sober and maydenly discreete aduised behauiour what say you aduised discreete when you might say as truely the most wise that euer liued vnder the sunne and the puritie it selfe of mortall sapientials for Salomon himselfe euer counted hetherto the wisest of men was not it seemeth by them of halfe so wise a spirite as these frugall dainty mote-spyers be in these points wherein both of them shew forth their loue and zeale toward Gods church I beseech you weigh them both together and so you shall finde the trueth by triall Salomons loue is loued of all good men in buylding and bewtifying Gods temple most gloriously because it is louely in it selfe and louing vnto all 3. Kings cap. 6. v. 2.2.3 cap. 7. vers 15. Reformers loue is the cleauing of yuie to the tree to rotte it or to the wall for snayles and vermin to creepe vp aloft by it their loue is of the ape the fonde olde ape that with imbracing too closely killed his young one when he did all for apish loue their loue is of the kisse of that hellish ape that antichristian Iudas it is falshoode in felowship we finde it so it is no kinde of good loue or zeale toward God or man which breaketh down his holy places with axes and hammers which cryeth downe with them downe with them euen to the grounde and are hereupon called enemies and blasphemers of God and his honour Psal 74. and maketh the Turke and the deuill to laugh at Christians God graunt this diuision cause not the increase of Mahomets kingdome as the faction of Ieroboam was cause of Nabucodonosers victories ouer Israel Salomon hath so entirely and feruently loued the church that in reading him any man woulde thinke he could scarcely imagine or tel how to expresse his affection sufficiently and significantly inough to his contentation that he euer thought he neuer did good inough or said good inough to Christes spouse and Church Reformers Solymans or halfe Turkes haue so sheerely and purely loued the Church Christes sister and spouse which that king so magnifieth and extolleth in his diuine caution or heauenly hymne by most harty exclamations and most sweete comparisons that they cannot tell which way to abase her prelates too much or inough to impouerish her estate and make it like themselues rather then Christ who is Lord ouer all things and hath all power in heauen and earth taking Luke for no body c. 22. v. 30. and naked trueth in a scogginly and ruffianly sense not as it is meant of plainnesse and perspicuitie they cannot affoorde her any honour and grace by whose doctrine all other powers are honorable and gracious otherwise remaining in their old heathenish slipperie estate with catch that catch may as Brennius once said they crie out for spritish zeale and without spirituall skill they call enuious detraction religious purgation